Beth's Contradictory Brain

Interesting

Someone actually put into business a similar idea to mine about pimping out Ramen dog.

More License Plates

There was a theme this week...

L8 K8

IMLATE2

LATEAGN

Now why in the hell would you want the whole world to know you're someone who can't be on time? Is it an excuse for stupid driving?

And of course - these weren't on men driver cars.

Strange to me

Back a long time ago, in my church going days, not long after college, I decided I'd like to be an English teacher. So, I went back to school and got my certification. But that's neither here nor there. What surprised me was that I was usually the lone conservative/christian in my classes.

See, I thought that the education field would be full of christians - people wanting to influence the younger folks, steer them in the right direction.

I was very wrong. I found that educators are almost all liberals. (Well, maybe not all the kindergarten teachers - but you never know.) And while some of them might be christians as well as liberals - their paradigm was still much different than mine.

When I decided to go into any health care related job over ten years later, I kinda expected it, too, would be a fairly liberal field.

Again, I was wrong. I found all the conservative christians.

And maybe I wouldn't find it strange that christians are so prevelant in healthcare, if they were the kind that believed in real miracles still happening and their goal was to heal the sick and raise the dead like Jesus.

(This is one of those posts where I'll probably end up offending everybody.)

I'm just not sure what it is about these two fields of work that attract such strong opposites - and to my way of thinking - the wrong type for each field.

For me, it was my conservative/christian beliefs that led me to both fields. Although, oddly enough, my least favorite coworker isn't the bad apple/useless one - it's the one who's the most annoyingly christian.

Cool Car Commercial

I'm waiting for Nerdstar to be in town so we can do a couple of test drives - but after doing lots of comparisons of new cars online, the car at the top of my list is an indigo blue toyota corolla.

Finding this commercial online is fun.

God knows, I'm not gay enough to drive a subaru :-)

Short

and to the point...

I miss my girl. A lot.

I'm tired.

My boss is useless.

The weather is nice - but I miss rainy days.

It's helpful when you show up for a urine test - to actually be able to pee.

I've been watching all 3 seasons of Deadwood. I miss that show. A lot.

I think I'm ready for a new car.

I'm tired of almost all of my furniture.

Two of my coworkers are pretty useless, too.

I like my hair short.

Did I mention I miss my girl? A lot!

Life in DC

I’ve been trying to compose a post about life here in DC so far.

Expensive. The cost of living here is crazy – mostly in things like rent and houses. Gas and groceries are a little higher. And it’s not worth the $$. I don’t find life here exceptional enough to justify paying this much money to live here.

Conservative. I kinda knew DC had a reputation for being conservative. It really is. Even the younger people seem rather conservative. It’s definitely a place where money wins. But the people are friendly enough.

No Identity. For being a large area, and you know, the capital of the country – I never get a sense of city identity. In most major cities the people who live there are all about their hometown. Not so much here. I’m not sure why that is.

Patience. It requires a lot of patience to do anything in this area - between traffic, and parking, and walking and dealing with idiots.

Diversity. I still love the diversity of people around here. Although that’s a lot of what contributes to the traffic headaches – people new to this country and probably learning to drive on real roads for the first time.

Mercedes. I’ve never seen so many in my life. They also tend to be driven by that same new to the country population.

Weather. The weather is still the best part of living here so far.

Placebo Effect

Researchers think they've found the part of the brain that makes it work.

More stuff on cars

This morning in traffic I saw a car with personalized plates that read "SPHNKTR"... Seriously?? It was a cute little car with a 20 something chick driving. Around the license plate was some sparkly pink licesnse plate frame.

Then at work there's a car that has a bumper sticker that reads "Abortion: Women deserve better" And while I don't disagree with the sentiment - isn't really the babies that deserve better?

On Being Afraid

One of the more interesting aspects of my job is over the coarse of the day seeing all the many ways being afraid makes people act.

I've never been afraid of needles or shots or having my blood drawn. Fortunately, I do tend to be empathetic. Still, sometimes it's hard for me to understand just how afraid some people are to have their blood drawn.

The subtle people just turn their heads so they can't see what I'm doing.

Men and women do react a little differently, but not necessarily a lot differently.

Sometimes the person who's the biggest jerk before and during the draw changes completely once I'm done and are so relieved it's over and I didn't hurt them they sometimes leave literally blessing me. I'm learning to be very patient and not get pissy with those kind of people.

Sometimes I just have to remind the person to keep breathing so they don't pass out. And in my experience, men have passed out about ten times as much as women. Usually young men.

And the worst people we generally deal with are parents who's kids have to have their blood drawn from a vein instead of a heel stick. These are parents I'd bet all my money are afraid of having their own blood drawn. Add to that the stress of having a sick kid - AND a sick kid who has to have their blood drawn - and it's not always a pretty picture. Generally we'll have one phleb hold the kid's arm still and one phleb do the actual draw - because parents usually are terrible at holding their kid still enough. Kids are really, really strong - and they hate nothing more than being held still/down.

Anyway. Fear has strange and sometimes strong affects on personality.

Weird

Out of the 50 or so cars that I walk past or see on a regular basis in our apartment complex; one has personalized plates that say Azra and another says Akhtar.

Doing google searches, I found this for Azra this for Akhtar.

Fan plates? Something else? I have no idea. There are many people from different countries living in our complex - but I still can't guess.

Oh, and another says Liger1.

Capitalism is Winning

From Larry Kuldow - one of my all time favorite people on CNBC.

The big theme in today’s Dow crossing the 14,000 threshold for the first time is one of unprecedented global economic growth and a worldwide stock market boom.

That’s called global prosperity.

My own personal stocks aren't up as much as I'd like them to be, or the ones I've bought for The Kid. But the 401K I've been letting sit since I quit my job back in Austin about four years ago has almost doubled.

If you're not maxing out your 401K at your job - of if your job doesn't offer one - I'd say the best thing you can do is open up a Roth IRA with a company like Sharebuilder and invest in some Vanguard Mutual Funds. Their fee is only $25 a year and you have complete control over what you invest in.

Don't think investing is too hard or complicated - jump in while the water's warm.

Bleh

I miss my girl - and not just because I have to walk the dog and figure out my own dinner.

Dork that she is, she left home without her cell phone. And there's no internet service in the barrack room she's in. So I'm not exactly sure when or how we'll talk. I could FedX her the phone, but I'm not sure she's going to be gone long enough to bother. Plus, the 6 hour time difference is just off enough to mess up calling times.

Bleh!

Not a bad day

Nerdstar's getting ready to leave me again - thanks to the Army. She really thought she'd get out of it, but she's got orders to go to Hawaii for eleven days and flies out early tomorrow morning. I know, it sounds like it'd be nice - but it's just not good timing and neither of us wants her to be gone that long.

So after work today we decided to head to Anthony Bourdain's DC restaurant Les Halles. It was a good choice!! There's a metro stop right near there, so we took the train over. There were some slight delays due to "scheduled track maintenance", but even that didn't diminish the joy of a good meal.

We'd hoped good food would be in abundant supply in this area, but we're having a hard time finding it. We find average food a lot, but not really good food.

Les Halles was fun, too. Our waiter was a good smelling, cute older French man with a fantastic accent. I actually just had a hamburger and fries - but I'd heard Anthony brag about his fries on his travel episode in Vegas. They are good fries! Nerdstar had the cold soup, the 5 veggie plate with a small portion of steak, then we had dessert - creme brule for me and bananas flambe for her, and french press coffee. Yummy!!

Then we wandered over to a big Barnes and Nobles and bought a few books.

We'd read Kitchen Confidential a few years back, so we got The Nasty Bits and A Cook's Tour.

I also got a book about the Johnstown Flood.

Crashing Through - a book about a blind man who is made to be able to see again.

And I got another book by Paul Theroux, Riding The Iron Rooster, about his train travels through China. While Nerdstar was in Iraq I read his Dark Star Safari and really, really enjoyed it.

8 Things Meme tag...

Kate tagged me with this "8 Things About Me" thing.

Now, I've never done one of these tag/meme things, and I'm not sure I can come up with eight people to tag... but here goes my best effort.

Here are the rules:

The rules are simple… Each player lists 8 facts/habits about themselves. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning before those facts/habits are listed. At the end of the post, the player then tags 8 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

1: Habit - I have the same morning routine as I've always had. Shower, brush teeth, dry hair, get dressed. I can't brush my teeth first, or get dressed before drying my hair.

2: Thing - I've spent way too many hours of my life, usually at night - trying to understand things like infinity and find a way to convert the world to a moneyless system. (Infinity is still beyond my brain - no pun intended; and there's no way to go back to a moneyless system unless some serious nukes go off in more than one place around the world.)

3: Habit - I yell at the tv - mostly during news, but also provide running commentary for lots of shows, including commercials. I think the commentary is amusing, Nerdstar thinks the yelling is obnoxious.

4: Thing - I'm big on rules being followed - except when I think it's great for me to break them for my own convenience.

5: Habit - I say I don't like to argue with people, but I find myself in strong debates quite often. The reason I don't like to argue is because you'll never change someone's mind by arguing.

6: Thing - I'm mostly invisible out in public, people don't usually seem to notice me, and I get ran into a lot. This is mostly because I'd shaped like Whiney The Pooh. It makes watching people and listening to their conversations easier.

7: Habit - I speak for our pets, or as I like to think of it - translate for them. They all have their own "voice" and I hold both sides of the conversation. Ramen sounds a lot like Eeyore, but more gay. Silly is Queen Silly Butt thank you very much, and can usually hold her end of the conversation quite well.

8: Thing - Nerdstar and I have had a running joke from almost day one that she's really an alien from another planet. We've repeated this for so long and some part of my brain has come to believe it's really true. Trust me, it explains so much.

I came up with the things on my own, but Nerdstar had to help with the habits.

Tagged - Nerdstar, Holly, Doc, Jay and Deb - ok I didn't get 8, but if any of my dear readers want to play along - just let me know!

Ouch

Don't you hate when you're putting toothpaste on your tooth bursh - and you do it at just the wrong angle and the bristles fling a tiny speck of toothpaste right into your eye?

I do.

Blog Interview

Kate's been doing a series of cool, interesting blog interviews - you can read the one she did with me here.

Mobile Pods

Driving around today I heard one of those commercials for OnStar and got to thinking about one of my old ideas again.

I think we're at a point technologically where we could have vehicles that are completely programmable and self driving.

Imagine a vehicle - a kind of personal pod that can come in models for any # of people; one person, two person, six person, whatever, pods - that all you do is get in - type in your destination, and sit back and let it take you there. In the pod there is wi-fi, music, video, whatever you'd like for entertainment, or even just space to sleep until you arrive. These aren't train like vehicles, they're all little individual vehicles, but could be smaller than current cars.

I think we could use existing infrastructure - roads and highways and such - maybe just lay whatever it is that would direct the cars in the middle of the lanes. This way it wouldn't be like building a whole new rail system or anything.

I know the initial cost would be massive.

But...

just think what it would be worth to never have to pay for car insurance, or traffic tickets, or to sit it traffic, or have another crash or fatality due to vehicles.

It could be set up where people either own their pods, or there could be X number of pods per house or whatever, not individually owned, but everyone has a swipe card and you just pay a per mile fee.

Anyway. Yes, these are the kinds of ideas I've had all my life. This one's not exactly The Jeffersons, but I think it's feasible if we wanted it to be.

Pet Phlebotomy

Last Saturday Nerdstar was in charge of taking both cats to the vet because I had to work. she managed to get Little Man into the cage, but not Silly. Silly is both faster and smarter than Little Man.

So today we took Silly to the vet. She's about 10 so we decided to go ahead and have her blood work done just to make sure nothing is wrong.

I've never had blood work done with a pet before, so it was kinda neat to see. They ordered the same tests that are ordered on my people patients - a CMP (about 20 chemistry levels, like glucose, potassium, sodium and such), a CBC (your blood cell counts), and a T4 (tests your thyroid). The vein was on her back leg, and the tech had to move the needle a couple of times to get the blood to flow. They used a syringe which makes it easy to draw and then transfer to the two different tubes required.

We'll get results probably Tuesday.

Happy Birthday America

All I can say is that I truly love this country.

I've driven through most of it - it's stunningly beautiful in so many different ways.

I love the diversity of people and ideas and lifestyles, and that everyone can find a place called "home" if they try.

I love capitalism and democracy and free speech.

I don't think I'd live anywhere else if you paid me to.

I pray we never lose our way.

Happy 4th of July

Heh

Personalized Plates

It seems that a lot of cars in this area have them. And while it's sometimes more entertaining to try to read them than to try to listen to morning radio in traffic - I'll never understand people who have personalized plates that no one other than them will ever know what they mean.

That said, one that did amuse me the other day - mostly because they got away with it - read

MOF AUX

Old MT

I'm running MT 3.16 with all of two plug ins - and old version of MT blacklist and no follow. Of course, the spam comments are getting out of control.

There's the beta version of MT 4 out, and even if I wanted to upgrade, I have no idea how.

Back when I started this blog I had some really wonderful chicks help me out. I guess I'm asking for some help in upgrading this here thing.

Should I even bother to upgrade?

Ratatouille

Went to see it this afternoon. I'm not sure Pixar will ever have a story as good as Toy Story, although Nemo and Monsters grew on me. I didn't enjoy Cars or the Incredibles much at all.

The story in Ratatouille was decent, and it was fun to watch. But what always amazes me about Pixar movies is how real they feel. There are so many times I totally forget it's not live characters I'm watching, or real objects.

The short film before the movie was fantastic as always.

Tired, Sore, Grumpy and Frustrated

That kinda sums me up lately, and it's not a lot of fun. My body has mostly adjusted to being on my feet all day, but then my left hip seems to have gotten slightly out of place like my right hip did back in KC. I've got a chiro appointment in the morning that will hopefully take care of it.

So far here in DC we haven't been too impressed with our various doctors. The dentist I went to the other day was the worst ever. I was just there for a cleaning and she was terribly rough and not even very thorough. She didn't use the waterpressure cleaning thingy.

Nerdstar had a dermatologist she went to that was ok, but not great. Then Friday I went to a different one to finally get my little skin cancer patches checked out. They're the unharmfull kind. Again, he didn't have a soft touch. He got things done, but I think it could have been a little less painfully. Plus, his schtik was getting you to tell him jokes, then he told me an off color version of one of the ones I knew. Icky.

Nerdstar's been going to the chiro I'm going to tomorrow and thinks he's pretty good. I know how simple it was for the one in KC to fix my right hip, so we'll see how he compares.

So that's the sore part.

Tired is just tired.

Grumpy and frustrated go together. The bad apple at work just seems to keep getting worse, and seems to keep getting away with all of it. And for lots of reasons it just frustrates the hell out of me every day. Part of it is the unfairness of the situation. Part of it is that her sucking really does make my day harder.

I had to work yesterday. Fine, we all work some Saturdays. (It's just 8 to noon.) I was happy that at least the bad apple wasn't going to be there. As of 8:05 I was the only worker there and there were about 12 patients already signed in. The guy who just works part time showed up about 8:10. Another new person got there about 8:10 - but couldn't log onto the computer. So at that point I'm asking where the woman who's worked there a long time is - and I'm told that bad apple is going to take her place. Bullshit. That meant that of the three of us there who know the computer system and everything else, I know the most - which is a lot, but not enough. To make it all worse, bad apple didn't even show up until after 9. I don't have any idea who approved the switch in people, but what a mess.

I keep trying to just hang in there and be patient and not say anything. Everyone knows the situation, including the boss, but so far things aren't changing very much. I know she won't be there for more than a few months, but I'd be much happier if she wasn't there more than a few more days.

And all of that means that by the time I'm home every day I'm tired and grumpy and out of patience. Which sucks for Nerdstar.

Mostly this weekend we've taken it easy and napped.