Ice Age Preparedness: Improvision

On Saturday we got some snow, 1 or 2 inches. We had a slight thaw beforehand, which resulted in ice formation, not a fun combination. Truth be told if I had to choose I would actually prefer the snow and cold to a day of it being a little warmer. As much as I loathe the cold having a sheet of ice covering everything is worse. When it is really cold and snows the snow tends to be the light and fluffy kind (yes there are different kinds of snow, many), this makes it much easier to shovel. The drawback is that it blows, this can be a nuisance in town but in the farmland, which takes up the majority of the midwest, it can be deadly because there is nothing to break the wind and there are hundreds of acres of snow.

I had to go into work today, I was supposed to be doing a run but since my cultures did not all grow I had to start over and just inoculated today instead. I procrastinated all day like usual when I am not on a time schedule and so lost some opportunity to clean my car off while the sun was out and possibly could have helped. I love Oldsie's dark color for that very reason, when the paint is exposed the sun hits it and warms the interior, not a whole lot in the winter but sometimes enough to soften the ice. Kinda sucks in the summer but all cars get hot then and mine doesn't get a whole lot hotter than the light colored ones. But I digress, between us having that mini-thaw and the new snow and the sunny day water got in my car's door and froze. I decided to share with you all how one such as myself deals with such a problem in case the ice age becomes more widespread and permanent (plus my intelligence/competence is being questioned after my last couple posts):

The neighbor was totally staring at me, like he has never seen someone perch a digital camera on top of the adjacent car and record ones self complaining about how horribly cold it is and such. He missed my awesome car opening trick so you don't get to see him standing there in awe of my brilliance. I wonder if it were his car, probably not since he took the bus to Cub Foods and who in their right mind would go shopping on a Sunday night with the bus, Sunday has the most pitiful schedule!


Oh and one last tips, never leave your car door opener in your car, and coat drawstrings double as an extra holder for things like car door openers and spray bottles of alcohol. Also carrying a spray bottle of isopropanol to the pharmacy while dying of the plague so as not to spread said plague will result in pharmacy techs who already thought you were amusing falling in love with you and helping you plot against your doctor giving you even better service (my pharmacy has good service to begin with). I have not had to take out and swipe my ID since November. The only reason I have to wait is because I want my favorite tech and will do the hover thing until she is free. I get to see her tomorrow, though it will just be a stopping by to say hi most likely since this visit probably won't result in a script but a referral, unless there is a wrist drug that won't screw me up...

OK I'd best get to work on preparing for my visit with Doc tomorrow, I told my lovely nurse to try and make it so he is complacent but she is so a double agent! And by that I mean she has my real best interest at heart and so totally sides with him when I try to get sneaky talk him into stuff and she often successfully tries to be the voice of reason. But I am so going to be super compliant (kinda, define compliant...) and brag about how I didn't down a bag of candy to gain weight before the visit (because I ran out, though brag worthy is that I could have bought more but chose not to). I will probably post about the visit, either way do not worry since as I have said before, my issues suck but they definitely are not life threatening or anything like that. Either way it should be fun, I hate being sickly but I don't get out much and definitely enjoy getting to see Medical Team Karen, they are the best!

Microblogologist in the World of Weasels

A few months ago I came across a hilarious blog. Little did I know that not only would this blog entertain me and give me a fun source of blog fodder (the Flat WeaselMomma series), but it would lead to my becoming friends with the real WeaselMomma. And so being that she lives not too far from my parents' place and I was pretty sure she wasn't a serial killer* I suggested we have a playdate "for the kids". She must have decided I wasn't a serial killer* as well and her daughter Monkey Weasel decided it would be fun to have us crash her birthday dinner so Niecey and I jumped in the trusty oldsmobile and off we went.

A great time was had by all and the real WeaselMomma is an even better cook than the Flat one! Her family has the same tradition as mine and the birthday person gets to pick the meal so we had fried chicken, broccoli and noodles so ironically both forms of WeaselMomma made me chicken.

Her entire family was delightful and Niecey and I felt at home right away. I am so happy we were able to have our get together, we'll definitely have to do it again! Niecey wanted to write WeaselMomma a letter when we got home, she wrote the first part and then I took over:

Dear WeaselMomma,

i am niecey i am 5. I have a bear named big bear, he is my favorite bear. He loves me and I love him too and I have a monkey comforter and I like it, it is my favorite and I love it. And I have my own bed I like my own bed. I sleep downstairs and I go to kindergarten at school and I have friends that I like they are nice to me.

Niecey

I thought she wanted to write a thank you note but apparently not, lol. Guess I'll have to thank them myself. Thank you Weasels for being great hosts and making us feel like part of the family! And for all you jealous people who read WeaselMomma's blog and have never met her, she is even funnier in person and hanging out with her was like a living a great blog post. Her husband is hilarious as well and the two of them together...

I can't wait to see the pictures her hubby took, I didn't take many myself so have to wait to see if they turned out. I'm also looking forward to reading her post about our meeting. Oh and there will be a few more FWM posts, I have plans and pics for them but have not gotten around to writing them all up, they will have to wait until I get home.



~~~~~Copy LiteralDan Section~~~~~
*Unless we are both serial killers with very involved cover stories to try and lure our unsuspecting victims and our meeting was part of an evil serial killer alliance to make our stories even more believable.

Happy Halloween

Yes this is two days late, I was going to post this on Halloween but the virus that had started kicking my butt in the morning really started winning by about 9pm and I was in bed by 11pm (as opposed to 3am being early for me...). I was actually not sure if my sore throat was from a medicine I'm on and dryness of the air (in the past just the dryness would do me in) or if I had caught the bug one of my committee members* brought up to the lab** (not sure how many others, if any, got the plague, hopefully none!). I was careful not to breath on anyone, including the kids that came here, and did the whole hand washing and spraying myself with alcohol thing like a germaphobe touring the CDC. Thankfully I finished up my first rep*** before I got incapacitated and I am starting to feel better so I can begin getting the next rep preped and started soon.

I decorated a bit:


And I made a video, unfortunately it was not apparent on the little LCD screen that the lighting sucked and kinda ruined the video, though it does highlight certain aspects of my physique that are really not as impressive in real life ;). I already did like 5 takes of it to get one halfway decent, every time I started a group of kids would come or I would mess up or the stupid wings of my costume would catch on something (seriously I almost took myself out with one of the lamps, they hooked on EVERYTHING) so here is the best I could do:

Thank you so much for entering my contest Weasels, you did a great job! Here are the pictures from the Weasels, since you can't see them in the video and they are totally worth looking at (click to enlarge if you so desire):
Middle Weasel (11):

Monkey Weasel (8):

Smallest Weasel (4):


And here is testimate to how awesome the Weasels are. Being the oldest of three kids I am very much aware of how siblings can fight over ANYTHING, and so I offered to buy them a "Petri dish" version of one of the microbes, which is a few dollars more than a regular plush but contains three minitures. I figured this would be ideal so they could all win something and save Weaselmomma the headache... This is what she wrote me back:

The kids really had fun making all kinds of renditions(as you can tell). They found it as funny as I did. Don't bother with the petri dish. I am certain they they will have more fun tossing the big one around or cuddling a germ when they are sick. Plus it will make a better showpiece for them, kind of like a trophy to gross people out with. They are like that. Any gross thing will do with the exception of any STD's or head lice(they creep me out).

Seriously are you having an "awww" moment, I know I am. My mom bought just about everything in threes, often either color coded or initialed them (I had a lot of yellow toys) and we still drove her crazy fighting over stuff. As I recall head lice was one of the ones of my collection that Niecey declared creepy as well, and I totally get that she doesn't want me to give her kids syphilis nor gonorrhea, and it sounds so wrong talking about "giving" children such things, hehehe! I do plan to get Middle Sister herpes for Christmas though, love it!


~~~~~Photo Captions~~~~~
Picture 1: The test tubes I inoculated for V on halloween.
Pictures 2 and 3: My front door, I named the skeleton Ian after my scrawny guy friend who thinks he is fat, I swear he sounds like a teen girl with an eating disorder sometimes...
Picture 4: Oldsie decided to join the fun, though the next morning when I had my impromptu doc visit to prove if the plague I contracted is bacterial or viral it was a bit annoying having to clean it off while running late...
Video Disclaimer: I actually did not eat that much candy in one sitting, they were old wrappers from before, I just thought it would be hilarious to have that in the vid. So if you actually read this Doc I am so eating mostly healthy, except now that I am sickly not so much, but halls cough drops are 15 cal/drop and I have taken a ton of them since the pharmacist said it was ok and being green and "spearmint" they should count as healthy. Vegetables are green, and mint is a leaf and leaves are salad... Oh and tell your sub that I don't have mono, I might have miscommunicated and implied you diagnosed me with mono and was an antibiotic seeker (which is way worse than a drug seeker in my opinion). And just a warning, I am likely to harass you for not working that Saturday when I was dying of the plague...

~~~~~Copy LiteralDan Section~~~~~
*I have a group of 5 professors that I selected and they form what is called my program of study committee. They approved my program of study, which are the courses I needed to take to get my degree (finished taking them, yeah!), they will determine what I need to do and if I pass my prelims (scary written and oral exam to prove I learned my stuff), and in the end they will decide if I have earned my degree based on my written dissertation and my oral defense of it. They are there to both guide and judge me.
**Brought up to the lab as in he was sick, most of the bugs he brings to our lab are in environmental samples to be tested and do not get anyone sick, I like those ones a LOT better!
***Rep = Replication, it is best to run an experiment several times to make sure that the results are "the same" each time and your conclusions based on the data are valid. We intend to run three reps, which is a pretty standard number and I have no idea why it was chosen, some big wig scientist way back when probably liked it.

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.


-----Copy LiteralDan Section-----
*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?

Natural Selection

Dear Neighbor,

You do not know me, we "met" when natural selection almost used my oldsmobile to select against you. Not sure what you did to piss off the car in the left lane but I recognized what she/he was doing when they suddenly slowed down, I totally helped them out and sped up a bit to block your ass. I love to do such things to complete morons such as yourself, because I could tell right away that you are a complete moron. Let us explore the scenario. I was speeding, going about 40 in a 35 zone, which is about how I normally drive. The natives often will go 5-10 over the limit, I try to keep it down to more around 5 myself having Illinois plates (though them being firefighter memorial plates probably helps cancel the potential out-of-state plates disadvantage). The car in the left lane (ahead of mine) was probably going about 45 at first until you pissed them off, then they slowed significantly. You my dear defective neighbor were trying to get past me, which I did not notice at first since I was watching what was happening in front of me so that I could safely make my right turn into our neighborhood and not hit a pedestrian while doing so. I am willing to bet you would have cut me off had it not been for the left lane car you pissed off, I suspect by tailgating them. I was quite shocked that you did not try to squeeze between the small gap between my car and theirs, probably the brain cell that allowed you to get accepted into this university was working hard trying to convince you not to do something that suicidal, I wish you had more of them!

So you did not get ahead of me, you backed off and got behind me, tailgating me and coming close to wacking me as I had to stop because a pedestrian darted across right as I started to make the turn. I guess my right turn signal and being half way into the turn didn't register with her. This is a common occurance in this town and one you should have also anticipated and so given more space between our vehicles to allow for the sudden stops to avoid taking part in natural selection, but then your survival instincts have been in question from the start of this letter. So we made our turn and then you managed to show an even greater lack of intellegence coupled with what I consider blatant disregard to public safety.

Perhaps you have not noticed but there are these things called speed limits, the speed limit in our neighborhood is 15 mph. I go a bit faster than that but am always 100% focused, especially when the sun is still out, for children. Perhaps you have not noticed but this neighborhood is predominantly family housing, there are a lot of children running around, you know those small people who run around and don't always pay attention to where they are doing so. Maybe, Darwin forbid*, you have one or more of your own. Also something that seemed to escape your notice is that we were driving up a hill and the road is curved in that place and lined with huge pine trees, which coupled with the fact that Americans drive on the right side of the road makes you passing me on this stretch of asphalt a definite risk of getting into a head on collision with someone. It is not like this is a long road nor was I driving super slow, are you that desperate to get home 10 seconds sooner that you would risk your life to do so, because that is definitely what you did. And another huge factor that makes all of the above extra bad, you were on a midsized motorcycle (not harley).

Let me explain since it seems you don't get this. Buses are bigger than cars, cars are bigger than motorcycles, motorcycles are bigger than pedestrians. The reverse is generally true for manuverability. So you zipping around trying to pass everyone, tailgating, and not obeying the rules of the road (don't think I didn't notice your "rolling" stop) puts the pedestrians at risk and you at risk, not to mention the damage hitting you would do to my car. My order of concern in this situation is first to the pedestrians, then my car, and then you. The blatant stupidity of your actions shows you disregard not only your own safety but the safety of those around you and so the only reason I would avoid hitting you is the damage it would cause my car, you do not deserve to have a license (assuming you have one actually) nor a vehicle.

And to top it all off, just when I thought that you had finished demonstrating your severe lack of sense, you rode your motorcycle onto the sidewalk and I am going to figure you drove it to your building. The children generally are pretty good at not darting into the streets too badly but they are definitely not on the lookout on the sidewalks! Sidewalks are for pedestrians you asshole! I am going to guess that you park your bike on your porch to avoid paying the parking fee, which I will admit shows some intellegence, though seriously it would be put to better use in learning and following basic safety rules/laws. A more responsible approach to the sidewalk thing is to stay on the street until you are in front of your building and then do the motorcycle equivalent to walking your bike. Would it take you a little extra time and effort, yes, would it help prevent you running into a small child, I very much believe so. Oh and I am thinking when I go to renew my parking sticker that I will see if I can have a chat with the police about how to get your ass busted for the sidewalk stunt, because I know you do it whenever you use that bike and it would not be difficult to get on camera.

I sure hope you are an organ donor! Good thing they don't do brain transplants, though you could use one!!!!!

Karen



*I am not an athiest, saying Darwin was fitting and amusing, so no one is allowed to get offended.