From left to right we have:
David Langford, O.D. of VisionHealth EyeCare in North Logan, UT
Jared Walker, O.D. of Drs. Gary and Jared Walker in Twin Falls, ID
Nathan Kohler, O.D. of Parkway Eyecare in Shelley, ID
Ben Marske, O.D. of Eye Center of Northern Colorado in Fort Collins, CO
David Graf, O.D. of Valley Vision Clinic in Richfield, UT
Nate Munson, a (buddy) of mine that I roped into doing it.

There is actually an interesting story behind the routine. I was told its genesis was at BYU. Then I read that someone created it in Heber, UT first. My involvement begins when a guy named David Fuhriman brought it from BYU up to Beaverton-Hillsboro, OR and taught it to me, Nate, a guy named Mark, and others. We performed it at a church talent show in the fall of 1999. Then I ported it over to the Opto-Rock talent show in April 2000. We were still short a guy, so I asked Nate (the guy who gets tossed) to help us out.

Well, everyone at Opto-Rock loved the (as David Fuhriman called it) “fusion of music and dance,” so they asked us to do it again for the incoming first year optometry students during a part of their orientation in August 2000.

Meanwhile, Mark apparently got a group together to do it again at a church talent show after I left because here is the link to another performance he was part of on the same stage where I first learned the way of The Goatherders.

If you look on YouTube, there are tons of performances of guys doing the whole Goatherders routine in various iterations. It’s kind of like the telephone game where it gets changed along the way.

If you want to win your next talent show, I suggest doing this routine. Here’s a cheat sheet to help you remember your next move in rehearsal:

Bye Bye Bye (It may look like we were out of sync, but it was all planned.)
Groove on
Taking it all off!!
Leap Frog
YMCA
The Bobs
Step-Kick
Horseback
Fall and Pickup
3 Man weave
Headbonks
Spinning Kicks
Oompa Loompas
Hand stands
Hoky Freestyle
Jumping Jacks
Opera
Launch!
Ultimate Freestyle
Peek-a-Boos
Rockettes
Pick-up
Summersaults, Cartwheel, Flip
Pyramid
Drop
Go Crazy
Oompa Loompa thank you

Oh, by the way, I know some of you react to me typing “The Goatherders” like nails on a chalkboard. We all know it’s supposed to be “The Goatherds,” but think of The Goatherders as a brand name. I think someone needs to start a FaceBook page for any and all alumni of Goatherders performers.

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Make sure you watch past the closing credits for a bonus.

In case you are wondering, I wrote the script in Celtx, filmed with my 9 year old Sony Digital8 camcorder (hence the not-so-great sound), and edited it with Corel Video Studio X2.

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I saw this newspaper clipping tucked in one of his books. It appears to be from the AOA News December 1969. My how things have changed in the last 40 years. Interesting also is how phaco was a new technology.

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Walmart practices grew 10% during 2008, on average, as Sam’s Club practices grew 6%.

Growth also varied depending on years at location.

I’ll be interested to see what 2009 stats will say. Anecdotally, my business was up 8% in 2008 while so far for 2009 I currently forecast it to be down over 8% (so back to 2007 levels). So when you think about it, 2009 could see me be down 16-18% from where I wanted to be.

Thanks Obama. That was such a great idea to spend our way out of a recession and have the government take over several private sector industries. Idiot.

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Here’s what clinches it for me:

Furthermore, despite the marketing hype, ePrescribe “provides absolutely no cost or time savings for pharmacies or pharmacists,” since any errors in typing or if a doctor wants to change anything on the refill will cost the pharmacy another 30 cents…
[Doctor Grumpy]…also reports numerous problems about the amount of time it takes to send a prescription over the internet.

So, the only ones getting rich are the vendors. Imagine that. Thank you government for mandating a completely unnecessary and economically burdensome idea that someday we’ll all have to ePrescribe. Idiots.

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Our overall average income as a profession of $93.8K seems kind of low compared to our overall average optometry school debt of $112-132K for 2007 averaged for all schools by ASCO.

BTW, the Wolfram Alpha isn’t a search engine, it’s a knowledge engine. Words mean things, you know. From what I can tell, it looks like a new way to get answers for math class and looking up stocks and stuff.

Hey, they list the chemical formula for BAK and Travatan. It’s fun to play.

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