Snonna

While catching up on her blog (or is it this one...) I once again came across Nonna's obsession with the vile white crap that falls from the sky like manna but evil and not from heaven. Never mind the death and destruction it leaves in its wake, Nonna wants to play in it! I believe her and Niecey would get along quite well as the child loves snow (she will probably grow out of it living in the midwest). I decided Niecey was old enough to play outside by herself as long as she stayed in view of the window so I could supervise her from the warmth of my aunt's place over thanksgiving. She got her fix and stopped whining and I got to be the coolest auntie ever and stay warm, perfect!

And so, for Nonna, I put aside my hatred and "played" in the snow just for her:

Note my awesome not falling skillz! And in case anyone notices, no I am not wearing gloves, I do not get adequate circulation to my fingers to be able to really wear them. I am better off keeping my hands in my pockets with the exception of when I am cleaning/shoveling the snow I have a pair of gloves that have a mitten shell that work to a point and are better than leaving my hands completely exposed to the elements. I hope you all enjoyed my romp in the snow and those of you blessed with a warm climate free of the retched stuff appreciate how awesome you have it, if not I propose a switch, I live at your place and you can hang out in the frozen wasteland! I will admit that it can be pretty, here is an example:


I snapped this shot as I power-walked across campus to get to water aerobics, I was late and so went straight from work as the sun was setting. I couldn't help but stop to capture the bell thingy with the snow and sunset thing going on. It has a fancy name that I forget how to spell and it is a huge campus landmark, it makes noise every 15 minutes and a prof plays music on it at noon and I think sometimes later in the day as well, it is cool.

Setting the Lab on Fire

Given the title there might be some speculation as to what happened in said lab. Did Karen literally set the lab on fire or is she talking figuratively? Well folks my prospects for the figurative sense definitely don't do it for me. While I like the Dishwasher he is way too young for me and I think of him as a friend. I have discussed my loathing of the more my age male grad student before, if you're new I despise him and wish he would go back where he came from (Wisconsin, if it weren't for Loren messing up my stereotype that Wisconsinites suck I'd go into that... way to redeem your home state Loren!), and neither are my type anyway. Oh yeah, the prof's son works in the lab too, also not a candidate for doing the figurative setting the lab on fire thing* being not my type and seriously going after one of my committee member's kids would definitely raise some eyebrows if he were!

All of that to say that I literally set the lab on fire. And by I set the lab on fire I mean I set a fire in the lab. This is actually a somewhat common occurrence given that I use a glass spreader when I spread plate and have to ethanol flame it between uses, as somewhat shown in the crappy video I made in an earlier post about spread plating. Once in awhile while flaming the spreader a drop of burning ethanol (95%) can fall off the stick and land on the lab bench. The black bench top is designed to be fire retardant (or maybe fire-proof, not sure) and so this is not a problem. The drop normally burns until it has burned off the ethanol and then goes out, no need to panic or get excited, it is actually kind of cool to watch. This however was not the case the other night.

Side view

A few nights ago I was plating the last set of samples for the day and talking to Niecey on the phone. The little imp has discovered that if she hits the redial button on the phone that it will call my cell. This works the majority of the time since my family is somewhat anti-social and I am one of the few people who is called using that phone. While a little awkward I am capable of doing most lab work with the phone balanced between my shoulder and ear so I answered and chit chatted with her for a bit. I saw the drop of flaming ethanol drop like I've seen probably 100 times and watched as it went under the test tube rack that I put the used tubes in. At this point I paused to watch it until it burnt out and then started spreading the plate.

Top view

As I was finishing spreading the first of two plates I shifted my focus from the plate to the suddenly up in flames test tube rack! Niecey got to hear what Auntie Kee says when she gets startled with something of that nature, it involved many repetitions of the cuss word Forest Gump made a slogan out of. Thankfully for me she already knows that one and so I was not teaching her a new word, more the proper application of said word. I finished spreading the plate I was on while trying to hold the phone and blow on the rack in hopes that would put out the flames that were quickly growing and burning towards the tubes the rack was holding. Blowing on it did not help, thankfully I was able to finish spreading the plate quickly and then I grabbed the rack and took it to the sink where I doused it with water. The test tubes in it seemed to actually protect the part of the rack they were in, thank goodness! I did NOT need to have that part burn and the tubes to start falling down into the flames. It definitely could have been worse, no one got hurt and it wasn't even that much of a fire. It was a freak accident that will hopefully never happen to me again, especially since I now know that a small drop of ethanol that looks like it burnt out is enough to light up a rack!

Angled Close Up

~~~~~Copy LiteralDan Section~~~~~
*While all this talk about doing a figurative setting the lab on fire thing may sound like a good plot for a porno I definitely wouldn't recommend it. Not based on experience mind you, that has so never happened, more from a I know most of what is worked on in the lab and can only imagine the rest. It would be a situation where you could walk away with a STD (aka STI and VD), diarrhea, and purple^ and green^ markings on your butt. If that floats your boat go for it, just don't let me know about it!
^PW, the male grad student, has been working with stains lately, specifically crystal violet and malachite green, he is a slob (one of the many reasons he is the object of my loathing). I have gotten dyed a few times, at first I was confused but quickly figured it out and just sigh and wish my boss would let me whack him with a newspaper like I keep asking her if I can but she keeps saying no...

Introducing the Greatest Musical Team Ever!

So I have mentioned my good friend Ian before a time or two, and there will be more mentions of him if I ever get around to editing and posting another spotlight on nutrition video I took awhile ago (there are several of those along with other vids rotting away on my hard drive). He is a music major and I have to admit that at first I was kinda skeptical about the whole music major thing since the arts tend to be glutted. Then I heard him sing, holy crap that boy is crazy talented! He doesn't just sing either, he writes music too. I LOVE this composition he wrote for class, it has its own tab on my firefox browser so I can play it whenever I want, and usually listen to it on a daily basis because it puts out happy vibes that make me smile:



Now for my credentials, I am a bored grad student who sometimes has a spark of creativity and can't sing. Ask Uncle Richard if you don't believe me, he is my concert buddy and so has actually heard the train wreck that is my singing. Or better yet ask Niecey, she tells me to stop when I sing along with the radio when taking her out and about (I admit I ham it up just to harass her). Most of my musical talent lies in my ability to play the radio. I am also able to play CDs and get the songs from them onto my computer and from there to my mp3 thingy (thanks to Pasha, knower of all things tech and saver of this non-techie's butt in tech situations over my head).

Today I have to work. Last night I was up literally all night long feeling miserable (GI issues, I am so not eating dinner tonight and having a third night in a row like this, if you read this Doc* I have a few tricks to try before calling you to discuss my terms of GI referral surrender, I am not going down without a fight! And one meal won't kill me, I have chocolate and ensure!), I decided to go in and inoculate for tomorrow's run earlier than normal and then come home and sleep a bit and then go back and finish my work. I was eating whatever that meal is that you eat when you go to bed for a few hours in the afternoon and wake up and eat cereal because you are from the north and the thought of eating anything heavier when you wake up makes you feel ill (not GI and GI issue related), and then heard the rain and sleet start to get really bad. I'd already seen the radar earlier and knew that this band was going to be nasty and last forever and go from freezing rain into snow. Can't remember if they were saying 1-2 inches of snow in the afternoon and another 1-2 tonight or if it was 1-2 total, either way it sucks. The only good thing about the snow part is that sometimes it combines with the ice in such a way to provide traction (until the university brushes it off the sidewalks leaving the extremely slick ice behind, you think they'd learn in 150 years!). So I see the horridness that is the weather in this region this time of year as I know since I have lived in the midwest all my life but still I am pissed, I HATE winter!

Then something triggers in my disoriented brain and I decide to rewrite "Deck the Halls" into a song describing the tip of the iceberg of my feelings about the weather, I don't think it is possible to adequately describe how loathsome and vile I find winter. I put it into a skype chat that is populated be my sister's friends that I have been adopted into and by and now consider the majority to be my friends as well. Ian saw this and ran with it, he changed it up a touch where I lacked in rhyming ability and I nearly fell off my chair at the ending I was laughing so hard. I've been harassing him to record my songs before, this one had the good fortune of him seeing it when he actually had everything set up and was recording another song. OK totally hilarious, literally as I typed that line he linked the song I was referring to which he had put on the uploading back burner to get our Deck the Halls collaboration up, it is amazing so check it out, especially if the song this post is about offends you, it will totally win you back over it is that good!

Disclaimer: The F-word is featured VERY heavily in this song, if you are offended by this do not listen (nor click the F-word link, which is one of my favorites), if you have children present or are at work you may want to consider waiting. Or you can use Auntie Cheryl's rule and tell them, "Never repeat the horrible things Auntie Cheryl (or Auntie Kee and Ian in this case) says!" so you can listen to what I am quite proud of (non-profane lyrics below):



Here are the lyrics minus the swearing:
Deck the trees with freezing rain.
'Tis the season to be lame.
Don we now our not gay like Ian's winter apparel**.
Troll the sidewalks for not slick patches.
See the blazing snow come after.
Strike the sidewalk and break our [butts]***.
Follow me in dreary weather.
While I say it's bad as ever.
Fast away the driveability passes.
[Heck] this sucks ye lads and lasses.****

And now, those of you who have not been driven away by my vulgarity (all of which is mine, Ian did not add any), I have to get ready to brave this storm so I can try to get to bed early so I can somehow get my butt to work at 10am (instead of 11am, ew!). Too bad the secret motivation blog members would probably kill me if I joined them since I am struggling to keep on and at times gain weight, seriously how could they not want to kill me when one of my goals would be "maintain/gain weight without resorting to eating own weight in chocolate" (and two of them have my address!). At risk of hate comments/mail I envy those who want to lose weight, I've actually been there and looking back it was so much better, much less painful.




~~~~~Copy LiteralDan Section*****~~~~~
*My doctor knows about my blog and has the URL but most likely does not have time to actually read it, seriously he has to read doctor stuff to stay ahead of my broken self as well as take care of his other, probably much less ornery, patients many of which are athletes and he has to go to their stuff and make sure natural selection doesn't select against the more valuable ones (hasn't lost one yet, go Doc!). My little disclaimers are there in part because it amuses me to pretend he reads and in case he does because he does care and I don't want to worry him too much and in this one give him a heads up that most likely I will be seeing him in the next couple weeks. Him being awesome earned him that at great expense to myself since he is way sharper and quicker witted than I, even with me prepped and him not for what I am going to throw at him, so really I am giving him even more of an advantage. Though I do have a good one up my sleeve...
**The use of the word gay is not meant to be offensive in any way except to Uggs, Ian wears the same ones as his mommy (she totally is copying him). Ian and I both love gay people and I love making fun of his Uggs.
***The real lyrics use the more vulgar word for the posterior...
****Yeah, little stronger than heck and I suppose I'm borderline on sucks, when I was a kid it was considered a swear but I think that society has excepted that as being a bit rude but not an actual profanity.
*****I seem to have started something here, Nonna and Sibling have both started copying me copying LiteralDan. I get minion points for having underminions right Dan? Either way it totally cracks me up!

Christmas 2, Microblogologist 0

First off, merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate Christmas, to those of you that do not disregard the merriment if you so choose, you can definitely be merry if you want, whatever works for you and happy Hanukkah to my Jewish reader(s) and to Doc (if you read this Doc my present to you is I gained about 2 pounds in mostly healthy ways). That said Christmas is kicking my ass. Last Christmas I spent inside my car, outside my apartment, in the freezing cold weather we in the midwest all know and love *cough despise cough* before going to work for a few hours and then having company over in the form of a police officer and three firefighters. This Christmas so far does not seem like it is going to turn out much better. What you want me to go into excruciating detail? OK, for you my dear readers I will.

Round One: Christmas 2007 v Microblogologist

Last Christmas I was supposed to go see my family only they were sick. I was dating a guy who lived at home with his parents and his dad (who is awesome) has cancer and is immunocompromised. My goal in life at the time was to get to see boyfriend and not kill his father (who I adore). I also did not like the sounds of the diseased masses that was my family at the time, seriously ew. The year before I went to their place for thanksgiving and they decided to give me more than thanks, they gave me influenza, thanks family! After that I tended to avoid going home if they had some form of pestilence but especially with the immunocompromised in my life (besides bf's dad there was also my diabetic friend and her former premie son, aka my godson Buggy).

So I decided to wait it out and go home for new years instead. I was not thrilled with this, missed everyone and had worked my butt off to get my experiment done in time so I could have gone and all but I was trying to make the best of it. I had found a duck at the store for a good price and decided to make it for my meal, might as well celebrate with a nice meal. I baked the duck and I think made mashed potatoes and beans to go with it, some of my favorites. Right when my dinner was done the carbon monoxide detector decided that to inform me that I was going to die.

I opened the kitchen window (it was probably in the 20°F range, thanks Pasha for teaching me that alt 248 = °), turned on the stove vent thing, and muted the CO detector and sat down to eat. Unfortunately the stupid detector only stays muted for a short time before telling you that you are going to die some more in its own special ear splitting way. I think death may in fact be preferable to the horrid pain the alarm inflicts on my poor ears! I kept muting it for a bit but eventually got frustrated and moved me and my meal out into my car so I could at least eat it instead of having to get up every 30 seconds to hit the alarm. I called my BFF Pasha from the car because I knew it would make his Christmas to hear I was eating Christmas dinner in Oldsie, it did, Merry Christmas you bastard! (I swear we really are friends!)

I finished eating and the damn alarm was still going off so I decided to let the apartment air out some more and go get some work done, not like I had anything better to do. I went back in to get some stuff and open more windows and then abandoned ship. I went to work and enjoyed having the lab to myself and made up a bunch of dilution blanks, which I use to see how many bacteria are in a sample. I got back home around 1am and the damn alarm was STILL GOING OFF! The neighbor was outside smoking and told me that it was ok since he could sleep through it, I was soooo glad. What really ticked me off was the fact that the neighbors knew the alarm was going off but none of them checked on me, this is not the first time alarms have gone off in the building and they have ignored them. I check when I hear one, if it were in their apartment I would knock and see if they were ok if it went off for more than a few minutes, maybe it is a cultural thing... So I decide it is time to call the after hours number listed and get the ISUPD and they dispatched a cop and called the fire dept. They did not find any CO in my apartment and pulled the battery from the alarm. My guess is that there may have been CO produced by my oven that triggered it and then it got stuck on, could have been defective just as easily, wouldn't be the first time for either scenario in this neighborhood. Definitely a Christmas FAIL.

Christmas 1, Microblogologist 0

Round 2: Christmas 2008 v Microblogologist

As my regular readers know I contracted a plague (respiratory virus not bubonic) at the end of October when a professor decided to visit my lab and share the viral love. I quarantined myself for over 3 weeks and almost didn't go visit my family for thanksgiving but Doc checked me out and told me that I had a secondary infection and was no longer contagious and to get my butt out of here and go see my family. He didn't send me off without drugs of course, he is my drug lord after all. He sent me over to the drug dealers and they hooked me up with an antibiotic (highly debated) and these cool little cough suppressant pills. He tried to put me on two antibiotics but I protested and got it down to one, having a wacky GI tract to begin with I didn't want to beat the crap out of it with antibiotics. My Bubbie (grandma) basically called me an idiot for not listening to him and taking both, the woman who pretty much tells her friends I am a genius and going to cure cancer or something (highly unlikely), Mom also thinks I should have taken both. I currently think that I should have had both but perhaps staggered them, my GIT has been acting up a bit since I had the first round so who knows how bad it could be if I had two at the same time unbalancing the system. Remember, I do approve of antibiotic usage when it is needed.

So I took my meds and went for thanksgiving and had a blast. The antibiotics seemed to help but they did not knock it out completely, I am still sick. Thankfully I became a functional not contagious sick person so I was able to get back to work and worked my butt off since the day I got back so I could be done with the current experiment before Christmas. I did in fact finish it, not counting the ones I have to redo and we were supposed to leave the 23rd for Chicago (we as in Baby Sibling aka my babysitter aka The Unmarried Housewife), but I lost track of time and we weren't ready to go at a reasonable hour and I was starting to feel my sinuses building up pressure. The plan was to leave early today but I was feeling progressively sicker and my sinuses want me dead so that didn't happen. I am hoping that tomorrow I will feel better and be able to make the trip but either way I believe this round goes to Christmas.

Christmas 1, Microblogologist 0

Final Score: Christmas 2, Microblogologist 0

How to Survive the Coming Ice Age

While some of you might believe in global warming there are those of us who know that in reality there is an ice age coming instead, for some of us it has already arrived (current temperature here Actual: 24°F Feels Like*: 18°F.) While there are some people who are excited about the coming death to us all the rest of us are doing all we can to survive until maybe someday Al Gore's predictions of a future utopia will come true and running our oldsmobiles when we can to try and do our part to bring this dream to life.

It has recently come to my attention that one of my favorite Floridian's will be traveling north from her tropical paradise into the land of ice and snow and needs the help of someone who has managed to survive 25 consecutive winters. With the help of Flat WeaselMomma we are answering this plea for help, not only for the obviously humanitarian reasons but also because McMommy's blog rocks and should she perish in the wasteland that is the North from October to April we would lose one of the greatest bloggers on the blogosphere. And so here is the official Microblogologist's Guide to Surviving a Northern Winter:

Start:
Step 1: Long underwear, I personally prefer the newer kinds that are more like leggings and do not have that old school square weave, they can be purchased at walmart for about $7. Unfortunately for me this year they seem to have decided medium is the new small and so my new ones are baggy.Step 2: Optional extra pair of long underwear, if it is really cold or your pants are not made of thick material a second pair of long underwear can save you from freezing to death.Step 3: Clothes.Step 4: The hoodie, this is a very versitle layer, it can work in chilly weather by itself, it can be worn indoors either zipped or unzipped based on the coldness of the establishment, and in this context it is a layer that doubles as a head cover since it seems that winter coats these days do not come with hoods without that tacky fake fur (no offense if you like that kind of thing). I make use of my hoodies pretty much year round since air conditioning is often cranked lower than my comfort zone (~70-85°F).Step 5: The ear/forhead band and boots. My beloved Aunt bought me a headband last winter, I used to scoff at them but now am 100% in love with them, they really help keep the ears warm but also for those of us who have ditched the bangs look it also helps keep the forhead comfy. Boots are somewhat optional if you are not going to come into contact with snow and there are a variety of different styles, I personally went for a cheap and simple black boots that match my coat and do not see the point of spending a lot of money on name brands that you can buy walmart version for a tenth the price. If either not wearing boots or it is very cold wearing two pairs of socks or getting special thick socks will help keep the toes from freezing off.Step 6: The winter coat. The key here is that you want a lot of insulation, make sure it has a decent amount of stuffing in all areas. Step 7: Scarves and hats. Scarves are often used as fashion accessories but more importantly they keep the face and neck warm as they were originally made to do. Hats of course help keep the head warm, a lot of body heat is lost through the head (at least that is what adults told me growing up). Step 8: Gloves/mittens. I never wear gloves, my hands are almost always cold due to a condition I have called Raynaud's Phenomenon**, all year round (it is a huge reason for my cold intolerance). Gloves seperate the fingers and actually cause them to get colder than they would be without the gloves, mittens are better for me but they are very clumsy, I usually ball my hands and keep them in my coat pockets. In normal individuals gloves or mittens can be highly beneficial.And there you have it, all you need to survive the winter and coming ice age. Keep warm!

~~~~~Copy Literal Dan Section~~~~~
*Here in the frozen tundra there is this phenomenon called "wind chill", this causes the perceived temperature to be lower than the actual temperature.
**Raynaud's causes the blood vessels to constrict, I have a pretty mild form but it is definitely not pleasant.

Cough Syrup Bender

For two weeks I have been symptomatic with a respiratory virus, as I have previously complained about. I saw a doctor, not MY doctor since it was a last minute squeeze me in on a Saturday appointment, to get a strep test. I was pretty sure it was viral but I wanted to make sure. I was right, both the rapid strep test and the culture based strep test came back negative. This was good in that I do not like being on antibiotics, I will go on them if I need them but it has to be for a very good reason. The bad part is that if it were bacterial I could have gone on an antibiotic and been better long before now.

After seeing not my doctor (and not my nurse), I went over to the pharmacy to discuss treatment options. I am on meds to help me digest my food safely, the main one does not play well with others and basically rules out my taking most over-the-counter meds. He told me I could ingest halls cough drops and recommended gargling salt water and/or spraying it up my nose. So I tried the cough drops, my normal at home treatment of sore throats and coughing, and for awhile they helped but after a few days I started feeling sick when I took them. Then I started to get better and the beginning of this week I told my boss I would very likely be going in and seeing her to discuss the experiment I finished and to plan the next round of it (I am going to repeat the experiment three times, this ensures that the data I collect are* good). Of course telling my boss I was on the mend caused a total relapse and I have been feeling worse lately than when I first came down with this plague.

Since the cough drops were not helping I decided to try the salt water gargle treatment, holy crap I am never ever doing that again! At first I wondered if I put too much salt in (I probably did), so I tried plain water and the result was the same, I am unable to gargle without choking/gagging. After staying up coughing two nights in a row I got desperate and sent my doctor a whiny e-mail asking him if there were any meds I could take. He e-mailed me back, normally he doesn't since he does not want to violate the stupid privacy rules but I begged him to since I knew I would not get the call from him or my nurse, I was so excited! He instructed me to go to the pharmacy and ask for the special cough syrup that contains codeine. Being the most compliant patient in the world I did.


My pharmacists predict that while on this stuff I will be rather knocked out. It was suggested that I likely should not drive by the student pharmacist they suckered into doing my drug counseling (I asked him what he did to piss them off), the pharmacist who tends to find me hilarious added that walking might not be a good idea either. They laughed when I brought up the fact that I have my doc's e-mail address AND a blog, both of which Doc knew when he told me to go on this stuff... This of course proves that my doc is the best doc ever, he is willing to risk my stoned e-mailing him to help me survive this plague! Unless of course he is working on rounding out his psych referral... I wonder how surprised he'll be that I actually picked the stuff up, I am not really into the idea of taking narcotics after watching my middle sister and a dear friend get addicted to them. Oh well, I will only be on it for a short time, if it does not help then Doc wants to see my sorry sickly self.

And so dear readers Flat WeaselMomma and I are going on a cough syrup bender** this weekend and hopefully I will be ready to join the real world soon!


Picture Disclaimer: These pictures are totally staged, though most likely it will look like this but with me in bed not in the living room. And no Fizz I will not be making a video of me "high" on the cough syrup, it would be the boringest video ever given than my voice is shot and I will just cough and go to sleep.

~~~~~Copy LiteralDan Section~~~~~
*I used are instead of is because the word "data" is plural.
**I have been on narcotics before when I had my appendix out, they put me to sleep and make me stare at walls and nothing more. I am a very boring druggie, I was also a very boring drunk the one time I let myself get drunk (I was 23 and my mother is STILL scandalized by it and I wasn't even that drunk!). I am kinda proud of the fact that I am at my most amusing when I am stone cold sober =).

Worst Road Trip Ever

This post was inspired by Backpacking Dad. His family is taking a road trip and he asked his readers to share the story of their worst road trip. Technically it is a contest for a book but as there is no way I can compete against quite a few of the stories already posted this is more for amusement value than actually trying to win. Given my rambling nature and the fact that I have a picture that MUST accompany the story I decided it would be best to make a post out of it instead of leaving it as a comment. So enjoy, dear readers, the story of my most sucktacular road trip ever!

It was August of 2003, Niecey was born three weeks prior on July 30. I had finished up the summer class I had taken (summer classes are evil, 15 weeks condensed into 5) to make up for a class I had dropped during the regular semester. Classes started in a couple weeks for me and Middle Sister was kind of on maternity leave, and I had a week of vacation available. I suggested that it might be a nice/good idea to take Niecey to see Grandma, who turned 93 that year and wasn't in the best of health. Middle Sister agreed so we packed up Oldsie and hit the road, going from Chicago to Muncie, IN, which is about a 4 hour drive depending on traffic (I-294 is a bitch no matter what). The trip was uneventful, it took longer because we had to stop to feed and change Niecey a couple times but we got there safe and sound.
We had a very nice visit, stayed at our uncle's place since it is bigger and we didn't want the baby to wake up Grandma and such. Our uncle's crazy wife was in Croatia so we didn't have to worry about her. I got to spend some time with my beloved aunt, who lives with Grandma and takes care of her, they live across from my uncle. Niecey was a total sweetheart baby and her and Grandma spent some quality time napping together.

The day we left was sunny and hot. There wasn't a cloud in that Hoosier sky. It takes about an hour to get from the farm in the middle of nowhere to Indianapolis. I had pretty much just gotten off I-465 W and onto I-65 N when I heard this horrible noise and my car started to lose velocity at an alarming rate. The asshole tailgating me blew its horn at me and narrowly avoided smashing into my rear. I was in the left lane and very quickly pulled Oldsie off into the medium, I am very grateful that I was not in an area that didn't have that patch of grass between the North and South bound lanes since I would have had nowhere to go and likely would have gotten that jerk's nose up my rear (I wonder if that phrase will turn up on google analytics).

Now my first thought, when I heard the noise and the car got hard to handle and slowed down rapidly was that I had blown a tire. When I maneuvered to a stop was when I noticed that my car wasn't running. The dash showed the engine temp as maxed out. I got out and walked around the car and all my tires were fine. I tried to turn the engine back on but nothing happened. A nice man stopped to see if he could help, there was nothing he could do but he was nice and waited with us. I was worried about Niecey since Oldsie is a dark car that doesn't have a/c and it was in the 80's and sunny, couldn't decide which was worse, having the sun beat down on her or have her in the shady oven that was my car. Even with the windows down it was hot and you could tell Niecey was not a comfortable baby, though she was so sweet and didn't really fuss too much. The Indiana state police arrived and called me a tow truck, they then let us put Niecey in the squad to cool off. They coordinated everything so that the car was going to a BP in Lebanon and took Middle Sister and Niecey there while I waited with another officer for the tow.
After awhile a mechanic came and informed me that one of my pistons had decided it wanted to be free and so blew a hole in my engine block, effectively destroying my engine*. Once I knew that there was no way that car was being driven out of there began the "fun" part of figuring how to get from Lebanon to Chicago. We were about 3 hours from home and 1-1.5 hours from the farms. We managed to get in touch with my uncle and parents and eventually the decision was made that my uncle would get us and meet Dad along the way so we didn't have to spend 3 more hours at the gas station. Everyone there was nice and all but loitering in a gas station for hours is not really my idea of a good time. Everyone praised Niecey for being such a good and quiet baby, which at that point in her life she generally was a good and quiet baby, but to me it was just one more thing to worry about. In my opinion she was being too quiet and I was worried that she has spent too much time in the heat and sun. But she ate and seemed content so I just kept an eye on her for signs of distress. Perhaps some of it was the fact that she had two adults with nothing better to do than to dote on Her Cuteness.

And so I returned to Chicago carless but thankfully everyone was safe and sound. And I did get this awesome picture from the experience:
Look how red my poor baby niecey was =(. We stripped her in hopes it would help prevent her overheating. And there is that damn broken oldsmobile in the top right hand corner.


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*For those of you who have a knack for details yes the Oldsie in this post is the same one that is sitting outside my apartment right now as seen in the second picture**. My uncle had my car towed to his machine shop and a buddy of his replaced the engine for me. I decided that ~$1100 to fix the car would be better than trying to buy a decent used car for the same amount. Also I hate car shopping with a passion and am somewhat distrustful of people having seen my parents buy crap cars over the years.
**Oldsie is not that long in the front and short in the back, it is the camera angle that makes it appear so. Oh and to possibly help solve a long standing argument between Baby Sibling and myself what color would you say Oldsie is?

Updates

Big Bear's old bow has safely arrived, Niecey Poo is very happy to have it back along with all the other stuff I sent. I think Graw opened it with her so there was no mysterious sugar high, lol.

In other news the super yeast appears to be working, I am working on getting Daddy to e-mail me the details so I can have the next installment of The Adventures of Super Yeast for you guys. I'm also begging for pictures, unfortunately there are none of the beginning steps, perhaps next time.

Also I have declared an ice age, it is 53 degrees outside, so much for global warming! This has been an unusually cold summer here, while it is nice not to roast in the heat I'd rather not freeze to death in August. Have I mentioned I don't like cold weather? Have I mentioned I don't like it getting below 65 as the low? Have I mentioned that it is quite common to see me in a winter coat in April (it did snow this April...)? Yeah, I am a bit of a baby about the cold, but in my defense I have a circulation thing and am somewhat allergic to the cold (I had no idea it was possible but it is). And yes I should totally move down south but pretty much everything I hold dear is up north so I'm kinda screwed. At least I have my electric blanket and comforter!