"How will I have money if I have a husband?"

A question that fell out of my daughter's mouth this evening. I laughed my ass off, the hubby was less than amused. For whatever reason, it seems as though the kid thinks husbands are an expense. Odd, she isn't old enough to really understand the concept of numbers higher than $20 and she has no clue what either of her parents make salary wise. Even if she did know the dollar amounts I seriously doubt she'd know how to compare the two numbers. And why does she think having a husband is expensive? That's not even something she'd learn in a roundabout manner on the Disney Channel or something.

Don't get me wrong, husbands are expensive but don't you think wives are more expensive? I have an entire craft room full of $$ stuff and the hubby just has a closet in the computer room with paintball crap. I mean it's expensive paintball crap but the kid doesn't know that. Again, she couldn't wrap her little mind around that large a $ value. You don't want to know how much we've invested in paintball stuff over the years, it's terrifying really. Five figures maybe? Yeah, it's a fun game. Fun and expensive. That closet is probably worth more than the entire craft room including that insanely expensive sewing machine. We both played and of course I had to have my own set of stuff equal in quality to his. See, wives = more expensive.

I'm still at a loss though, were would she get this idea that if she had a husband she wouldn't have any money? Opposite of the old days where a woman's job in life was to find a man to support her. Good thing too because nowadays if you had to depend on a man to support you we'd all be SOL. See what the bra burners of the 60's and 70's freed us up for? Now we get to do all the things we had to do before and work full time. Great job ladies, thanks! At least the kid understands real life, ugly as it may be. Her daddy told her that she'd grow up, go to college, earn her own money and then someday, if she wanted to, she'd get married and they'd both be earning money. Lets hope so. I know a lot of slacker guys out there that just suck money off of the chick they are with. Maybe she'll be smart and decide to use guys for whatever entertainment they are worth and leave them at their house. See where my priorities are?

How could you not name them?

Want more milk from cow? Get to know her

I love CNN, they always have these odd ball articles that have very little pertinence to 99.999% of their readers. And yet I continue to read them, which is probably why they are still publishing them. So I must not be the only freak out there that thinks this useless info is interesting huh?

Don't ask me why this one caught my eye. We're city folk, at one time our subdivision was a ranch, they even still own a small strip against the freeway. Cattle and horses are still kept on it (for tax purposes of course) and every time we see them through the scrub and trees the kid moos. Sometime I'll pull over and take pictures but since it's the entrance to a large subdivision filled with richie soccer moms I haven't yet. Those woman are insane psycho drivers. Someday though I'll get the chance, the kid really wants a picture plus she's never been up close to a cow before. Yeah yeah, we're city folk, we gleefully find bovines entertaining. Because we don't have to touch them...

As for the title of the post, these scientists (and I'm using the term generously here) decided to find out if the cows that got more individualized attention (i.e. a name) produced more milk. Freakin A people it's a herd animal, of course it is happier when it gets warm fuzzy lovins from everyone around it. It does not take a rocket scientist (or a student from Newcastle University) to figure this one out. Man they got published for this study! Granted it was in an academic journal called Anthrozoos that I'm sure everybody is subscribed to. Right? Ya'll got your monthly publication of this one early. Right? Ya well still. I'm not so sure if this 'study' warrants a published article but hey, if I can 'publish' my words on the internet every day then I suspect there's an audience for everything now isn't there?

Anyway, who owns something live warm and fuzzy that they tend to one on one everyday and doesn't name it? Hell we always named our instruments at work. Temperamental PMS-ing beotches that they were we named them female names. I had one job that had columns (tubes with stuff in them). One that was bigger than average (6' tall 1' in diameter)we always referred to as Bertha. And she was a glass column filled with wee glass beads. We worked with her like twice a year and she still had a name.

Do you think I'd name a cow if I owned one? Hell do you think I'd name 50 cows if I owned 50? If I hooked them up to suction twice a day yes I think I would. Would I talk to her and call her that name? Hell I talk to my instrument at work all the time. Make it big, noisy, warm, fuzzy, and brown eyed and I might give it a middle and last name too. Tell me do you think that's a girl thing? Are all these dairy farm cows being milked by men only? Must be because I really can not imagine working with the same cows day after day for 365 and not having some sort of name for each of them. Be it Fuzzy or Brownie or Betsy each one would have a name on my watch. Now if they were meat cattle bound for the slaughter house there probably wouldn't be as much one on one interaction going on so I may not be as personable with them but I'd betcha I'd still have funky names for them. Not that they'd produce more meat if I did name them but really, do we need more milk? Is there a shortage? The dairy farmers don't earn squat anyway so I don't think 284 liters a year is going to make a dent in the profits. As I understand it it's the pasteurizers that make any sort of money off of milk but it's just not a real money making business.

That wasn't my point though. Would you name your cows that you worked with every day? Even if it were say, 50 cows? Not because they produced more milk mind you but just because you have a propensity to name animals that you spend time with.

I think I may be a wee bit spoiled sometimes

My hubby would say all the time but that's on the home front. I'm actually talking about work today. You know, the one I've been complaining about? Well they did do me right on a few different levels. Let me start with my direct bosses, the 2 lab managers Gina and Joseph. They both rock. Really they are great people that work hard for their lab workers, of which I am lumped into. In a bastard red headed step child kind of way since they have no idea how to run a mass spec, much less what the hell I am doing. But that's ok, I love them still and I don't expect them to pick up my slack anyway. Not that I have any slack seeing as how this lab is still not air conditioned. But they are working on that!

So when it was realized that I needed to have a lab built they gave me a catalog and said order up! So I did, one thing I do know how to do is spend other people's money. In the previous labs I worked in we had a never ending cash flow because the names I worked for were big names in a wee little posh snobby industry. Actually the biggest name, everybody bowed to the name of John Yates III, he is the man to be in mass spec. I had no idea when I answered the ad in the paper. Hell I was working for him for 2 years before I knew it. Somebody at a conference was amazed that's who I worked for, I just knew him as the boss who was never there.

Consequently when I ordered all the stuff I needed for my little mini me lab I ordered all the stuff I was used to. Hey I knew it worked well and it was important that I had stuff that worked and worked right. One of these products was different sized adjustable Eppendorf pipettors (liquid measurement dispensers). They're like $350 a piece and I need like 5 or 6. The lab proper had pipettes they used on occasion but I had to have my own set that wasn't used by anybody else. Mass spec is neurotically anti social, you can't share anything because I can see every level of contamination and I need measurements to be precise. No dropping of my pipettes by some other lab slacker. The pipettes they have in the lab proper are not the same as mine. I don't know what kind they are but they look nothing like mine and work differently. They don't need the precision I do so this does not surprise me. All right am I sounding high maintenance yet? Yeah, it's a mass spectrometrist thing. When I worked in a group I always wanted to have t-shirts made that said "Does not play well with others" because under no circumstances would we share anything of ours. You couldn't even walk past our instruments because they were modified so that the fronts carried and open live electrical charge. It'd shock the living crap out of you. Nice huh?

So today I needed an experiment run to make sure that I didn't have user error going on. I had to have my boss Joseph do my dilutions and see if his looked like mine after running them on my instrument. Oh this was going to be fun and I knew it. The problem with becoming a lab manager is that you end up not doing much lab work and mostly meetings and paperwork. Yuck, I like my lab work, it's comfort food and it makes me happy. So I set up Joseph in my lab, locking the door behind us. Only 3 keys exist and 2 owners of said keys were in the room, the 3rd was out of the building. Perfect, he would be left alone to do lab work which is rare in and of itself. He's the go to man in the building so he's never left alone.

He was in my lab for maybe 15 minutes and he comes back out and pulls up a chair next to me. He needs help. It was so cute! He hasn't done serial dilutions in like 6 years and let me tell you, they are a pain until you wrap your mathematical brain around them. I'm going to go on the assumption that ya'll have no idea what I'm talking about so here:
Say you have a solution of juice and you want to dilute it down.
100% juice to 50% juice, you just take out half and add water right?
Now lets say you want to have
100% juice
50% juice
25% juice
10% juice
5% juice
1% juice
0.1% juice
0.01% juice
See how that makes it more confusing? For the 100 to 50 to 25 you can just go half to half to half. For 100 to 10 to 1 and the 50 to 5 you have to do 1:10 serial dilutions.
Did I lose ya? It's ok, I lost Joseph too, that's why he had to come to me and be pointed in the right direction.

Here's the even funnier part. He came out later when he was done and was like "WOW, those pipettors...."
And I said "Liked them did you?"
And he oohed and aaawwed over them. I said they were like the Cadillac of pipettes and he said no, more like the Lamborghini. Apparently he's never used ones like them before. Positive displacement baby, it's a whole other kinda feeling....
High maintenance much? Yeah that's me baby.

For those of you nice enough to ask...

We have not found Sarah the snake yet. Day before yesterday I picked the kid up from after school care and she had this piece of paper in her hand, a flier she had draw in crayon. She had someone (lord only knows who) look up her address so she could make up a lost snake flier. It had our phone number and address on it and the snake drawn in pink. It was sooo cute! I'll take a picture of it for you guys (it's still in the back seat of my car). I explained to her that the snake was in the house, not outside, so putting up posters won't help. She was disappointed that it wouldn't work but happy that the snake is still in the house. No I am not sure it's still in the house but I am pretty sure. If not then she's dead, it was like 30 out last night, too cold for a domesticated snake! So we continue to look and leave heat like computers on and the cage, it's left open just in case. I refroze the mouse, that didn't work. Maybe in another week when she's hungry...

I was tagged, 25 random things about me

25 random things
Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

For those on Facebook here are the instructions...
To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app. then click publish.)

1) OK and I'm going to use this one as the first, I like doing these things but I hate tagging the other people. If you read through all of this random crap about me and find yourself coming up with your own answers consider yourself tagged. How's that for fair?

2) I must use Mozilla Firefox as my internet browser. I can't function with IE, it pisses me off.

3) I must have a minimum of 3 tabs open in specific order, gmail first, P Dub second, and my blog third. I'll have a 4th open to look at other sites but the first 3 must be the same.

4) I think I'm a wee bit OCD. My husband is sure I am more than a wee bit and that it's genetic and I passed it on to my child. I think he's right but I don't tell him that.

5) I try not to tell my hubby he's right, it keeps him on his toes.

6) I watch all my (very few) tv shows on the DVR, watching them real time takes too long and I just don't have that kind of free time.

7) The hubby and I have dessert after the kid goes to bed because she's only allowed to have dessert on weekends and we don't want to watch her pout and listen to her bitch, it ruins the dessert.

8) I have several guilty loves that I don't partake of when the hubby is around, most are redneck related (I like country music now and I find CMT terribly amusing, shhh don't tell). Hey I'm trying to eb a loving wife and not inflict it on him!

9) I do not understand some things Texans love, ground beef in mexican food rather than shredded or carne asada? Fools...

10) I have barely any friends in San Antonio, I don't know if that's because I am always busy or I am just not that friendly.

11) Almost all of my friends are the ones I made prior to the age of 18. And as much as I adore all of my friends (including the ones I've met as an adult) I'm ok with that fact.

12) If I find a blog I enjoy (and this is my fav way of entertaining myself) I will eventually find myself criticizing the writer, their way of life, their writing style, I don't know why. If I look at it from afar it's a very holier than thou habit. I try to stop myself, I at least acknowledge it but I don't always succeed.

13) The only blog stopped reading because of my holier than thou attitude was Laurel K. Hamilton's. I can handle reading her books still (despite their 80's fashion sense) but her blog? No, she's got issues bigger than mine. That, my friends, is saying something.

14) I love my dogs but they also make me want to never ever own any animal again. Ever.

15) I let myself indulge. A lot. Not normally with food though which is probably why I'm not 500 lbs. Good thing too huh?

16) I wish I were less lazy about my appearance. I'd like to wear make up but I just do not want to put out the effort. Sad huh?

17) I'm a chemist. The longer I am a chemist the more I believe it's in my blood and working at the lab bench is like comfort food for me. I really really like being a chemist and it pisses me off that where I work now does not appreciate the fact that I am one and there are not a lot of us who do what I do.

18) I enjoy sarcasm, I don't think everyone else does so I've toned it down in my old age. Plus it doesn't always translate well over the net.

19) I fully and totally admit that I was wrong about Face Book (yeah you heard me Summer, you and Michael were right). FB rocks and once again, I've found another obsession. I needed another like I needed another hole in my head.

20) I posted this on my blog rather than on FB (where I was tagged) because my blog is familiar to me, like a comfy blankie. I like comfort, it's good. And if anyone on FB is looking hard enough they'll find this.

21) I worry about my parenting skills all the time. I'm fighting to break a nasty cycle my mother created and it's hard. On one hand it's not a good thing to constantly questions oneself but on the other hand how do you grow if you aren't always trying to do better?

22) I miss a lot of things about my home town but I don't think I'll ever move back. Primarily because I don't think it'd be the best thing for my daughter. San Diego schools are severely lacking. Someday real soon they won't have half the schools open that they do now. Oh and the skinny popular girl competition? 50 times worse in So Cal than anywhere else.

23) I have on line crushes (people I have seen pics of that are cute). And no it's not on some porn site, or some super model or famous person. Those are too generic and my tastes have always been different. Shh don't tell the hubby....

24) I want a swimming pool and I don't care if it lowers my property value. Realtors are full of shit, I know, I am one.

25) I went to 9 different colleges to get my 2 degrees and my realtors license.

Play time

No, really. I’ve spent 2 Sundays in a row hooping. 3 hours of hooping, each day. For those that participate in physical activity this might be one of those negligible things. I’m blogging about it, a good indicator that I am not one of those ‘physical’ kinda people. Not because I don’t want to be, really I’d love to be more active, but I am at another one of those times in life that life is just not amenable to giving me the time and opportunities that are congruent to exercise/anything physical. Now don’t tell me that I have to make the time, I know I have to make the time. And even better I do make the time, when I can. There’s just not enough of it to go around right now. Tell me was life always this complicated? I have stopped answering my cell phone because it’s just too tedious. Kind of a waste of a cell phone bill but at least the phone itself was free (thanks Jas!) and I do answer messages left on it. As long as I consider the person leaving the message worth my time. Hey I don’t have a lot of that floating around you know, it’s not free!

Regardless I found the phone was really just adding more complication to my already stupid busy life so I turned off the ringer. I recommend it to everyone, really. As for the internet, well that’s kind of my crack, I’m not giving it up. I know Doc, over at Doc’s Sunrise Rants, recently came back from a short vacation where she purposefully cut herself off from the internet and she thought it was fabulous. I can tell you I’ve done that before and I didn’t find it nearly as gratifying as I think she has found it to be. Maybe some addictions are just not that bad for you or just necessary for one’s sanity. Plus you know, I have all of maybe2 friends here in San Antonio and they are mothers and don’t have time for me either really. The internet is very often the only other sort of outside friend communication some of us get with those friends we have in other states. I wouldn’t get a chance to talk to any of my Cali friends if it weren’t for the internet. Yeah we could call but we don’t, it’s too much of a pain. See? Cell phones, bane of the modern day world. I only have 1 friend who stays in contact with me via phone. She doesn’t answer her cell phone normally either but we both depend on caller ID when it comes to each other. Call it an unspoken agreement between the two of us, she answers my calls, I answer hers. This is only an acceptable practice for those really near and dear to one’s heart. Everyone else can leave a message and I’ll get back to them if I feel the need. 90% of the time I don’t. I’ll call back the hubby (I try not to miss his calls but I still do) and maybe a few others. But if they have an email addy I’d rather do that , it’s all about on my own time…
So when I get 2 weekend days, even when it’s not on the same weekend, to do my own exercise thing it’s a rarity, not usually seen before kind of rarity. The kid did not go with me on the 18th, which is probably why I was able to stay for a whole 3 hours. It takes me 1.5 hours to drive up to Austin so I would like to be able to stay the whole time. Lately the kid has been getting bored by about 30 minutes in. So not worth the gas if that’s how long she’s going to last. This past Sunday she had a friend spend the night and so we had an extra child with us Sunday morning. No big, I told her that she could either a) ask said friend’s mom if friend could come along or b)ask her mom if she could stay at her house for the day. Either option would be good from me because it either means she’s more entertained at the park we were going to and would last longer or she wouldn’t be with me at all. Of course it didn’t work out that way though. Her friend had other commitments (I can’t believe how much parents with multiple can fill up their schedules with every club under the sun and not think it’s too much crap they’ve obligated their kids to do) and my kid wanted to go hooping. Fine ok, just realize child that we will be up there for 3 hours, suck it up and deal. When I got there I was amazed to see something like 20+ newbies hooping. We never have that many! There were almost that many the Sunday before too so it was really really nice to see that kind of turn out. It was my good fortune that there was another mom there that had her 2 daughters with her (ages 5 and 2 1/2 so a bit younger than my kid) that for whatever reason the dd decided were going to be her playmates for the session. So much so that after 3 hours and everyone and I mean everyone else had left we were still there. We decided it was time to leave not long after and my kid actually protested us leaving. Now this I could get used to. She was nice and tired when we drove home too, glued to her portable dvd player and quiet as a mouse. I like mice, they are cute and silent.

MIA, this just in..snake is lost in the house somewhere

I did tell you guys we have/had a pink snake right? Sarah the pink albino corn snake? I woke this morning and noticed the top to her cage was slightly open. The first thought that came to mind? Fuckity fuck fuck fuck. You'll pardon the French but I doubt many of you guys would have cleaner language when faced with the same situation. Really it's not the snake lose in the house thing that bothers me. It's the 'kid is not going to be happy' kind of reaction. That and I know just how impossible it is to find a 4 foot snake in 2200 sq ft of a 2 story home. Let's face it, it ain't gonna happen. If I'm really lucky she'll have made her way out somewhere/how and will die outside. Where I can't smell the carcass.

Yes we did a search (like I really thought we'd find her, sure) and I have kept the dogs downstairs (the snake cage is upstairs in the scrapbooking/game room at the top of the stairs) plus I turned my computer on in the office (room right next to the game room) so heat would be created in hopes of her going to that. The hubby has set out her feeding box, cut a small snake sized hole in the top, and put it in the game room next to her cage to try and bait her. Not likely to happen since we only feed her dead (previously frozen) mice and I don't see how a snake could find that enticing but it really didn't require a whole lot of work so it's worth a try. Plus like I said, the dogs are gated and regulated downstairs so it's not like they'll get to it.

Now I know there are a lot of people who are totally freaked out by snakes, like totally, and the thought of a live 4 ft albino pink snake roaming in their house would send them straight to the nearest hotel. Fortunately our household has no phobias and I'm sure the dogs would be pleased as punch if she were to visit one of them in their sleep. Damn that would suck, I don't even want to know what kind of carnage I'd find the next morning. Ew. Now if she ends up sleeping with one of us I just hope we notice so she isn't squished. Why do I think there's a possibility of this happening? Dude when my feet are cold they make a bee line for the warmest place, the hubby. If I were a totally cold blooded animal then I'd be ALL OVER the warm peeps in the house. Duh. So, oddly, I'm hoping she ends up in one of beds, better than finding her rotting somewhere in my house. Nope, no snake phobias here. Plus she's a nice snake, no snake is cuddly but she is personable and doesn't mind being held and handled by a squirming 7 yr old. Really, you can't ask for much more from a reptile.

So here's to hoping a snake crawls into bed with us sometime soon before she freezes of starves to death or feeds herself to one of the dogs. Or tries to get into the chinchilla cage and eat him. He'd kick her pink ass, spunky little thing that he is. Don't worry, his cage is in the dinette past the dogs downstairs and on the other side of the house.

The sound of a child singing...or drowning loudly ?

So as I sit and peruse the internet at my own leisure without some ass wipe uptight doctor over my shoulder thinking I'm less than productive I hear noise from upstairs. In the shower, I think it's the kid. I think it's the kid either singing horribly like a cat dying by someone ripping it's hair off with duct tape, slowly or she's drowning. Loudly. So the hubby is upstairs on his computer and I IM him (gchat, love it) this observation of mine. He goes and checks and yells down the stairs "The hot water ran out". See now normal people would know that after 45 minutes in the shower and the water gong cold that this would be a good indicator that said shower was over. Time's up!

Now you'll probably need a wee bit of back story for this because there's this thing that people have, genetic traits, that are inexplicable other than it must have come from your forefathers. Take for instance the blankie thing as a baby. I had a thing for this one type of blanket as a toddler and have kept them in my life. Always. It's a thermal acrylic blanket with satin edging, very common. I was a blankie carrier as a toddler (unlike some who stick with stuffed animals) and my mother always made fun of me about it. Not in a nice way either but she's a bitch, I think I've mentioned that before? Any way I eventually upgraded to a full size one as an adult and it stays on my bed. When the dd was little I bought her one for her bed and when it came time to got to preschool when she was 3 she wanted to take it with her so I had to cut it down into smaller pieces. Hence it's eventual name (given by the preschool teacher) 'Piece'. Now I don't know why she became attached to a piece of blanket the same material as the one I was attached to (yes, my mother makes fun of hers too, once a bitch always a bitch) but she did and if you ask me it's a genetic thing. Like finger suckers or pacifier babies, who knows why one person likes one and not the other. We tried our best to get her to take a pacifier (easier to ween) but she'd have none of it, she was thumb sucker. She was 5 before we were able to get her to stop. Bribery, it works for her. BTW, I was a finger sucker too.

So what does this have to do with her dysfunctional shower habits? My dad, angel that the nutter butter is, has some odd foibles. He eats peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with out the bread. Just a spoon, 1 jar of pb and 1 jar of jelly, sometimes 2 if he's feeling adventurous. He's such a bachelor, totally incorrigible. Which is fine, he has piss poor taste in women so as long as he's single I'm not worried about him. When he starts talking about some lady friend I have to start grilling him. He has this shower thing, has since as far back as I can remember. When I was growing up I had to take my morning shower before him. Why? Because this is how his shower goes, he gets in and showers and then stays in. Until the hot water heater is drained. He then turns it off. And stays in the shower. He waits there, in the shower, cold and wet, until the hot water heater refills. No shit. Then starts the shower again. He only usually does this for one cycle. After the hot water heater has filled up again he won't empty it for a third time. I think it's only because he feels guilty about all the time he's wasted because lets face it, this waiting for 50 more gallons of water to heat up takes awhile.

So the kid, I think she gets it from him. Do I take long ass showers? Yes, yes I do. I can empty the tank but don't usually. Why? Because I get bored. Could I stay in longer? Oh yeah, no problem. I often take 2 showers a day. I must have my morning shower, must must must. I will often rinse off before going to bed too though because warm water feels nice. See? Genetic.

BTW, the kid is too much of a wuss to hang out until the water heats up again but I tell you what, once she gets older and toughens up I'll bet you she'll be playing that game.

So hey how's the weather out there?

I have been put on restriction at work and no longer have the ability to adoringly worship the internet during work hours. Now I just wander the halls looking for work to do. For some reason the doctor/founder of the office I work at thinks my being on the internet makes it so I don't work. Now that would be true if there were work for me to do. See you can't hire a chemist (you know, those people who use chemicals), buy a $500K dollar instrument (that said chemist puts chemicals into) and then expect them to get on it. When you have no fume hood (to prepare chemicals in), exhaust vent (for the chemicals placed into instrument to go out), chemical cabinet, or glassware to measure said chemicals. That didn't exist there. I was hired in May. I asked things like "Where is your glass ware? And Where are the chemicals stored?" Simple things like this. They didn't even have the permit to have glassware in their lab. WTF? What kind of lab doesn't have beakers? Graduated cylinders? Anyone? Hello Houston I think we have a problem. It took the bean counters several months to figure out that putting the instrument downstairs in a 2 story building (fume hood exhaust vents normally have to go out on the roof) and next door to the pediatric exam room was a bad idea of stellar proportions. They had the instrument exhausting out into the ceiling. So, you know, the chemicals went right out into the rooms surrounding it. Like the pediatric exam room next door. Doctors are so pompous, really horribly so. They could care less about how things get done, just that they get done and get done now. The audacity is killing me.

So they finally bit the bullet, commenced whining about how much money they were paying on the loan for this instrument and wanted to know why it wasn't making them money. I gave them the laundry list of their short comings and they said, for all intents and purposes, that they didn't care what was needed and to get it done and get it done now. So the bean counter (the not so pleasant person who is the middle man for getting anything done) gets an estimate for building me a new tiny lab upstairs (novel!) with a fume hood and an exhaust vent. Wow, progress! The instrument and I continue to sit around and cost them money (it's called putting the cart before the horse, something they obviously didn't teach in med school) until this past December when the room was completed. Yay! Oh except for this little thing called air conditioning. My a/c is still connected to the rest of the office (ie women sitting at desks calling and trying to get people to pay their bills) which is not good. Why? Because the bazillion dollar instrument needs a stable temp to run. Women sitting at desks crank up the heat because they are sitting and cold and my room gets to, oh 85 degrees by noon when it started at 69 degrees at 9am. Instrument no workie in SAUNA.

So now I kinda work. I run the instrument knowing that all the data is garbage and I can't get it calibrated to run actual patient samples. Meanwhile in the land of pompous asses I have several doctors, mainly the head honcho, complaining about how useless the mass spec is. Yup it's a big fat expensive paperweight that sits useless because overly enthusiastic "oh lets buy one right now!" doctors thought it'd be brilliant if they could get one and show it off and brag about it. Before finding out what it entailed. They blame me now, 8 months almost of downtime and it's my fault. For not being given the tools needed to do the job they hired me for. How many years in college and they are how smart? Yeah I don't think so. My faith in modern medicine right now is at an all time low. Mind you it wasn't all that high to begin with but what I see now scares the crap out of me. We have the ambulance at our office doors no less than 3 times a week. There are like 8 doctors that work in our office, we do everything in house. Thyroid biopsies, bone density testing, nutrition counseling/classes, all the lab work. You name it we do it. In house. Adding me to the scene basically rounded it out. The very few things we had to send out are all covered by me and my instrument. Once I can get the damn thing working.

How long you ask? Good question. This is not a regular piece of lab equipment. I work with lab techs and they run all the other instruments. They couldn't run mine to save their lives, I may be able to figure out theirs but I'd need a manual. They couldn't figure out mine with a manual. It's like the difference between a race car and an F-18 Hornet. A pilot could drive a race car. A race car driver might get hurt in the plane. Or at the very least bad shit would happen. Did I mention the doctors had no idea what the hell they were doing when they bought my mass spec? Yeah not a clue. They think it's just like a black box, you put the blood in and it spits out a number. That may be true of the other instruments but not this puppy, nooo way. You have to have a degree in chemistry and find yourself a job in this field (rare rare rare) and then you can figure out how to run these things. Deciphering the data that comes out? Figuring out how to extract out what you want from the sample? Entirely different story. Click on the link, read a sentence, then tell me what you think. No, really I'm totally serious here. Quiz to follow!

Intro to mass spec, interpretation (from U of A, chemistry dept)

Average time to get a method up and running? 1 year. Yeah that's right you heard me, one year. They want to know why I haven't been running their samples yet. Well maybe because I don't want them to be sued? The main lab that runs the Vitamin D samples (that's the first test they want me to start with) is Quest Diagnostics. Do you want to know what happened to them? Their method was off. They had to 'recall' tests and redo them for free because they discovered that their results were wrong for late 2006 and early 2007.
Quest Retesting
People were coming back with toxic levels of vitamin D in their blood because they were under the assumption that their levels were low and they needed supplementation. Needless to say I don not want to be the one making these kind of mistakes and killing people. Ya catching my drift here?

Until I am absolutely 100% sure my numbers are right I am not making one single report. I don't care how many pissed off pompous doctors want their money back out of this machine, they can kiss my ass.

In the meantime when I have downtime (because the instrument can take hours to run all my tests) I am not allowed to go onto the internet nor can I listen to my iPod. In the back of the lab where they stuck my desk. Know why? Because it looks unproductive. I have no other work to do, if I did I'd be doing it. Really I'd love nothing more than to be able to go in to work and do my job. Sounds simple doesn't it? Not when you're working with doctors, the epitome of incompetent. Never again will I go for a diagnosis and not second guess it. Nor will I ever work for an office full of the greedy self centered vain bastards. If I was offered another job today I'd leave just to see how they'd like it if they didn't have a mass spectrometrist to run their instrument. We're not a dime a dozen, there just aren't many of us out there. I should probably start looking huh?

So I was indoor all day today but I heard it was 78 degrees out and Friday will be 80 degrees. Maybe they will fire me and I can hang out in the sun and collect unemployment, yeah.....

Posting a Youtube video a la Summer

Trailboss asked and I felt like being creative so for all of you who feel too silly to ask (unlike myself who has no problem with publicly admitting my ignorance) here's my friend's tutorial with my sketchy screen shots of a Hoop tease we love by Dominique Immora, she's hot. Go forth to the end of this post and watch the video, it's lovely and don't worry it's burlesque, no nudity just pasties. Yeah don't watch it a work though...

Described by Summer (Ninja Nutrition) who you can't tell by her blog but is extremely computer proficient. Like very. I posted that I didn't know how and voila, I get this little descriptor from her. She rocks. I didn't correct the spelling because it ads to her charm....

1. go to youtube and view the video you want
2. on the right hand side, you'll see two piece of code on the side, one of them says 'embed'
3. click in there and copy it to your clipboard (ctrl + c, or right click and select copy) (sorrry but i don't know how uncomputerey you are)
4. go to your blog post window
5. paste the code into your blog post in the right part, where ever you want it to show

click preview to confirm how it looks

Alright and I'm going all fancy on ya'll and doing really bad screen shots

1. go to youtube and view the video you want





2. on the right hand side, you'll see two piece of code on the side, one of them says 'embed'




3. click in there and copy it to your clipboard (ctrl + c, or right click and select copy) (sorrry but i don't know how uncomputerey you are)


Alright I'm not going to be annoying and try to take pictures of me using a keyboard, I'm way too lazy for that. If you don't know how to copy some thing on the computer feel free to email me and I'll help you through it. I've taught at least 3 computer inept people the ctl+c trick, no lie. It's doable, just odd that some people still don't know how to do it yet.

4. go to your blog post window




gosh that looks really small but you get the idea right? And you get that I can not get a screen shot I like wither right? Right? Yeah computers, not my forte.



5. paste the code into your blog post in the right part, where ever you want it to show





This is the Dominique Immora video, ya'll get the luck of seeing my fav hoop tease as a bonus for surviving through my crappy screen shot tutorial. You can thank me later when you get over just how odd my taste is.....

For the sake of a little amusement...

I had posted a really funny Youtube video of a skit from the Man Show that is on Youtube. Apparently Viacom doesn't like this so instead you get a link! Sorry about that, copyright people are uptight these days. I guess if it's on Youtube it's still owned? Who knows, I'm glad I never was able to pass those stupid LSATs with a decent score...


Man Show Deer Hunting

Have fun, it's insanely funny!

Award and a thanks

I was given this one by Jamie at Have Inspiration will travel. A blog I've stalked for oh, I don't know how long. At least 3 switches from blogger to Wordpress and back again I think. Don't you hate it when the internet doesn't behave well? I have yet to have issues with blogger but I'm sure it's just a matter of time. I am waiting until they have an option to print out every blog post in order in book form. Instant scrapbook right?

Thanks so much Jamie!

Here are the rules for this one:

1. Put the logo on your blog or post.
2. Nominate at least 10 blogs which show great Attitude and/or Gratitude!
3. Link to your nominees within your post.
4. Let them know that they have received this award by commenting on their blog.
5. Share the love and link this post to the person from whom you received your award.

Oy now the hard part, delving out my nominations...

Ginger is the Watchword, a nutty group of friends from my hubby's old place of employment. Their blog is all over the place and will wildly entertain at random.

Barbed and Wired, a newer friend who is making her way back out of a relationship with a scientist (god bless those who even try to live with us, we're a real socially inept bunch)

Under the Stars and Dreaming, my sister from another mother. No really, she has so many things in common with me I almost pity her.


Trailboss, Lisa is my main woman. What I'd consider to be one of my oldest blog followers ever. She found me via my comments somewhere and followed me back because she thought my icon was a boxer (it's Corbie my frenchie but you can't see his ears. There are a lot of boxer lovers who comment on it. We boxer lovers are like a cult, we'll follow the boxer picture anywhere...)


Chocolate and Whine, the woman in LA who works at a hotel near Dizzyland, one of my fav spots in the world. She has a Starbucks located in said hotel, I'm jealous but I'd be poor poor poor if I had full day access so easy within reach so better her than me...


My Dogumentary, another doggy person. I don't know how I found her. Or maybe she found me, I dunno. She always always always posts pics of her dogs with every post, regardless of whether or not the post is about them. She's a better doggy mom than I am. I've left my little guy locked out in the yard and left for work before. Twice. I kid you not! I'm a bad doggy mom.


Ramblings of a not so sane mommy, let's not forget my Kim! She has given me an award before that I completely forgot to post. Because I was busy and more importantly, I suck. She is my inspiration for so many things. Plus when she finds cute scrapping things that I must either buy, utilize or just straight up copy she is johnny on the spot about sending it to me (thankfully, or I'd be soo left in the dust). Yup, she's my girl and we all need more friends like her!


There are other bloggers that I love but I won't burden them with my crazy delving of said award. I know, people should love getting them but you all do realize many of the blogs I read are not the warm and fuzzy kind? Yeah I'm a sarcasm loving girl like that. Plus I don't think bloggers that have over 10 gazillion hits a day need to get awards. I mean damn they know they are on it! I don't know what kind of counts Margaret and Helen got during the election time but those ladies were high up in the technorati listings! So 7 is what you all get, visit them if you haven't already!

Was there this much celebration

When Bush took office? NO? I am shocked. Wait, he's an ass wipe, of course they didn't celebrate his existence on this earth, much less his inauguration. So lets see who partied with Obama on this past Sunday.....

Beyonce, Bono and Bruce Springsteen, Mary J. Blige, Garth Brooks, Sheryl Crow, Renee Fleming, Josh Groban, Herbie Hancock, Heather Headley, John Legend, Jennifer Nettles, John Mellencamp, Usher Raymond IV, Shakira, James Taylor, will.i.am, and Stevie Wonder. Not musicians but supporters also took the stage, Jamie Foxx, Martin Luther King III, Queen Latifah and Denzel Washington. Ah Denzel, yum....

They are even doing a kid's version on Monday night. Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato and Bow Wow will be playing. Hell those names are more popular than most adult performers, what you wanna bet they are going to be slammed? They're going to need more security with those shows than the Pres himself.

Yeah this is going to be a good show, Obama has his work cut out for him but he won't be suffering form a lack of popularity from the US people!

Looking at the good and the bad, it's my life lately

I've been having some small tumultuous BS in the little things in my life lately and I need to step back and look about how important (or not) it is to me. But that stuff is so not interesting I am not going to waste more than these 2 sentences on it. No this morning I am inspired. By another blogger and it's a thing that I have been interested in the past so I had a wee little tiny bit of knowledge about it. BrownEyed Cowgirl had a post up about a few things, one of which was the quantity of money the BLM was spending to keep wild mustangs housed. Like I have read one article on CNN, I'm a city girl cut me some slack. I do what I can to keep abreast of all the shenanigans of our government. It's whacked. But it seems the going rate for housing a mustang is $38 a head per month to keep it for the life of the horse. I don't know if that's a accurate number but city mouse here, I can't very well call up my local rancher to confirm it.

It seems that keeping wild mustangs rather than cattle is more profitable. Now let's debate that a bit further and work through the long term ramifications. Lets also take into account the little things, like the value of Mustangs to present day life styles vs the value of cattle. You see where I'm going with this? The BLM numbers as they stand right now (per their website):

An estimated 33,000 wild horses and burros roam BLM-managed lands in 10 Western states, a population that exceeds by some 5,700 the number that can exist in balance with other public rangeland resources and uses.

Ooo that's not good. And why? I mean Mustangs are beautiful animals (I'm ignoring the burros here but bear with me) and symbols of our country blah blah blah, but really they are worth that kind of money and the removal of cattle? Because that's whats going on you know. Ranchers can earn way more for less effort by housing wild mustangs on their land than by running cattle. I can't say that I blame them. Hello in today's economy you need to do what you need to do to survive. Hell if I could plunk a few in my back yard I'd do it. The HOA would have a fit, if they noticed. But again, long term ramifications? What do you think the US will ween themselves on to less red meat? Like they have weened themselves of oil? Oh wait, we haven't. Again catching my drift here? I hate to play devil's advocate but damn it all if I haven't been right about all my dooms day predictions so far. Calling it a recession for over year now, took CNN almost a year to confirm my claim. I hate being right sometimes but if they make my beef impossible to afford I am so not going to be happy. And don't tell me I'm being overly dramatic or I'll have to pull a told ya so when it happens.

Oh and the better part of my ramblings, yes the horses themselves. See I can play both sides! Now BrownEyed Cowgirl has posted a few times in the past about horse breeding and I am saying that from the get go because what little I know on the subject comes from her. It goes hand and hand with the closing of the US slaughter houses, where badly bred horses were often dumped (doesn't take a horsey person in the know to figure that one out). With that method of disposal being eliminated and the economy crunch combination (horses are expensive!) there has been a market inundated with perfectly fine, trainable/already trained horses that aren't monetarily worth anything today. Not from their own short comings but ours. Yeah we suck and now we have to make everything else in our world pay the price. Regardless, this makes the wild mustang an even more useless product on the market. Or does it? I know (from reading other blogs) that horse breeding over the last few decades have been sub par and there are some serious problems in the breeding system as we are working it now. That's here say, don't hold me to that peeps! So who knows, keeping the mustangs around might be a good thing. Mother nature is good about weeding stuff out, humans, not so much.

What I love about the mustang thing though is a few interesting things they've been doing to get them adopted. Training primarily, and they have been doing some impressive training let me tell ya. I could never do even a fraction of this stuff on the dressage horses I played with. Of course I sucked so that couldn't have helped any.

2008 Extreme Mustang Makeover Winner Mark Lyon and Christian

I'd post the Youtube video right here if I had a clue how to do so but I suck so ya'll just get links, sorry! If anyone wants to shoot me an email and enlighten me on how to do it please feel free.

The other thing they are doing I really really love. Probably because my hubby is a corrections officer and recidivism is a bad word in our house. Nevada does their wild horse training using the Warm Springs Correctional Center inmates (adoption info here). I love it when the government programs get together and get productive, it's so...rare....

Nevada's Wild Horses, Part II: Life Skills

Now this is he second in a series of 4 videos. I was only able to find the first 2. Who knows, maybe I'm just blind, it would not surprise me.

Here's the first one if you're nosey like me:

Nevada's Wild Horses, Part I: The Gentling Process

In one of these videos the training guy in charge, Hank Curry, says that he's had 4 convicts go out into the real world and become horse trainers. Mind you this convict they have on the horse hadn't ever ridden a horse before and they get 4 months to break and train the horses gently, before putting them up for adoption. Now that is what I'm talking about. Not only are they producing a more maketable product for a government agency to earn money off of rather than just suck it off of the taxpayers. And the convicts! Don't tell me this doesn't help them become better fit to go back into the general populace. Some of these guys have never done anything productive in their whole lives. I can't even imagine what kind of emotional boost these horses give these men. A sense of purpose? An outlet for their minds? They have a real job with tangible results. Hell they get to get up and train with horses all day, 3 meals, a roof over their heads. I tell you what I think I'm going to Nevada and robbing a bank so I can get thrown in jail and get my own mustang. Since when is prison looking more like my ideal vacation?

So tell me what you think. And send me links to more info if you have them. Nosey minds like reading info on the net...

I need to do

I've been in a funk lately and no where has that been more obvious than here on my blog. I never run out of things to babble about. I can babble about nothing, I don't need an excuse to write. Normally. But obviously every person has their moment and now is mine. I don't like it. Not one bit. I think what I really need to do is do something. As in real life, some activity or I don't know, go verbally beat the crap out of somebody. That usually makes me feel better, it's a sort of old art form for me. It's been mopey around here too, I swear everyone I know is either depressed or more depressed than they already were. It's bad. I know most of it has to do with the economy and we are all feeling like we're stuck between a rock and a hard spot. Because we are. No denying it now Bush, on your way out. Butt head. Don't think for one minute that I'm not blaming it all on him. Everything. And no, I never voted for him. Not once. I don't even know if he did anything I liked while in office. We didn't even get the tax check everyone else did, we were too poor. WTF?

All the people I know right now, even the ones that were well off 6 months ago, are no where near well off now. The rest of us? Pretty bad too. Not even with the election of Obama can any of us see the light at the end of the tunnel. It's more like the black bottom of a pit. There's lot's of 'funks' going on here, lots of depression. Which is bad during the winter months, gads it's cold and dark this year. It makes people get sick easier too so the colds and viruses are running rampant this year. Have you noticed? I'm hoping our children escape relatively unscathed from this, the long term ramifications of the US becoming a 2nd world country are bad enough as it is. Dragging another generation through it would really suck. The Baby Boomers should not have to inflict any more of their piss poor wrath (choices? decisions?) on future generations. Time will tell though so we shall see.

In the mean time I'm trying to yank myself out of this funk, hope none of my immediate friends and family end up homeless, and continue to babble online. Oddly I feel motivated to scrap and craft again. I busted out my sewing machine last weekend and brawled with it for a bit. It's a lovely machine but I was trying to sew knits and lemme tell ya, they don't sew well. I also want to make my kid's Valentines cards for her class this year. Don't worry, I know they are just going to get thrown away. I'm doing it for the love of doing it, not that they'll keep the things. Silly holiday but the kids love it. I'd be happy if Halloween was the only holiday. It's fun, involves candy, is applicable to adults and kids, can be done both at night and during the day and doesn't exclude the single or married/coupled. It's the perfect holiday, we should shine all the rest.

We shall see if this helps me move past this emotional garbage I never had any patience for before. I certainly don't now even though it's stomping all over the world. I don't like it, so I am going to go out and try to 'do'. Something. Wish me luck!