Going to be an uncle

Rod and Kristin announced last weeked that they are expecting! Congrats guys!

still clueless

I just watched last night’s Daily Show which had an interview with Howard Dean. Not that I’m defending the GOP, but it was an illustration of how much the DNC still just doesn’t “get it”. Ever since the end of the election, I’ve heard Democrats talk about how they are a truer representation of the morals and ideals of the greater American citizenry. I thought that after a while they would come to question whether their platform is really as in-line with the population as they thought. Apparently not. Dean repeated the party line again last night, saying that the Republican’s don’t represent the true ideals of the citizens and that the Democrats are the ones holding the true moral compass of the nation.
Not that I agree or disagree necessarily (yes… still on the fence), but the nation overwhelmingly voted to ban gay marraige (even in places like Michigan, where it was not legal to begin with.) Not by a small, but by huge margins. Yet the DNC has an apparent total disconnect with reality, and continues trying to sail the sinking ship, pretending that they’re not already standing in hip-deep in the water.
Get it together, guys. Or prepare for the one-party system. You know… where a single party controls the Executive, Legislature, and Judicial branches. Err… nevermind.

cell block seizures

Last night we transported the worst seizure faker I’ve ever seen. She was in the county jail, which was suspect to begin with, since the most common get-out-of-jail medical excuse is a faked seizure. As soon as we walked in to the cell, we both knew that it was an act. A new employee once asked me how I knew if it was a real seizure or not. I told her that real seizures make your skin crawl when you see them. They’re just… creepy. Fake ones are as not spooky as seeing someone shiver. Of course, gut feeling only gets you so far and is not very effective as a CYA tool, so there were a few diagnostic tests to be done.
The first was the ammonia capsule. That sucker is pungent! Harmless, but pungent. She immediately pushed it away with her supposedly seizing hands and turned her head the other way. That’s an action of a conscious person in control of their extremeties. Next was the fact that she was follow our movements with her eyes, which were focussed and alert. One last thing to do… get her on our cot. Someone who is dead weight and not in control of their muscles is entirely different to move than someone who is even partially awake. Conscious people help you move them, unconsciously. They support their head and arms, they keep their legs in a comfortable position, and they just don’t feel like heavy jello. When I swung her non-shaking legs off the bench onto the floor, I could feel her helping (not to mention that her arms were still shaking but not her legs.) Another thing about people having seizures is that they don’t usually follow commands, even if they want to. We grabbed her under each arm, told her to put her feet down and stand up, and lo and behold, she could stand, turn, and sit down on the cot. An IV, O2, and monitor later (CYA, remember) we were off to the hospital, and she kept “seizing” all the way there.
Got out of jail? Yup. In shackles and deputy escort.
Going back? Yup. After a catheter, blood draw, and a whoppin ambulance bill paid by you and me. We’re such nice people.

thinking about thinking about what I’m doing

Sometimes when I’m really tired, my thoughts go off on some strange tangents. This morning during the first hospital transfer of the day, I watched someone throw some trash out of a car window. Nothing unusual, unfortunately, but I started wondering what people think when they casually dump their crap in someone else’s yard. (It’s sort of surprising that I hadn’t thought of this any of the many times that I’ve picked up trash in my ditch.)
I think I realized that it’s not what that person is thinking, it’s that they aren’t thinking about it at all. I suppose I’ve always taken it for granted that people actually consider the cause-and-effect, consequences, and motivations for the actions that they take. Strangely, it was almost a shock to realize that many people were simply never told, “Tell me why you did that” or “Think about what you’ve done” when they were children. I’d happily admit that I tend to overthink my own actions and reactions, but I’ve completely lost track of the number of times that this has kept me from getting in some bad situations, or of the number of times that it’s given me the clarity of thought to resolve or diffuse one.
So the question is, why was this realization shocking at all? Probably because it seems so natural to actually consider these things constantly during daily life. All animals have the capacity to react to their stimuli in their environment, but it is a uniquely human trait to plan, prepare, and act… to use our intellect to step forward in time to find the solution before a problem presents itself. It is the rejection of these things and surrender to simple instincts and reaction that manifests itself as patterns of behavior that I find myself most frustrated with… in others and in myself. I notice it most when driving, but also in the way that people treat each other, the lack of respect for teachers, leaders, and protectors, theft and vandalism for entertainment, and the blatant spiraling abuse of the medical, social, legal, and emergency service systems.
So where does that leave those of us who can’t allow ourselves to fall in with the common apathetic mindset? It certainly seems like the trend is only accelerating, so in essence this is a changing environment to which we must adapt. Refusing to adapt seems like fighting a losing battle, but adapting means conforming and then what’s the point?

bending rock

Given the subject, you’d think that this was going to be a geology entry. In fact, it’s sheetrock/wallboard/gypsum/drywall that I’ve been bending. I originally thought that we were going to have to create a joint in the drywall where the rafters in the kitchen are cut at an angle. John told me about the soak-and-warp method, which I had heard about before in passing (and which I should have known intuitively, given that I’ve accidentally accomplished the same thing with all of the lumber standing upright in the garage). I trimmed the edges of the joists with the recipro-saw after (mostly) carefully measuring a level straight edge from the top of the wall. Turns out that this works better that holding a circular saw over one’s head while trying to cut the same angle. I actually developed a feel for how to use the recipro to “shave” away thin slices of the lumber. I laid out the cut pieces of drywall on the floor, elevated on one side to the amount that I needed each one to rise, drew a line across it where the angle break was, wiped it repeatedly with a wet rag and then let it sit overnight with weights on it to help it deform. It wasn’t until the third piece that I figured out that I could lay soaked towels along the angle break line and that they would hold much more water in the right spot and allow the drywall to absorb it steadily over time, removing the need for me to re-wet it every 30 minutes for several hours.
This method worked remarkably well, and we only had to go back and re-trim one of the pieces. So now the drywall is finally off the floor… now to cut a new access hole, fill the old one, and put down new flooring!

patio computing and comcast-proof dns

So EJ clued me in to a nifty firmware upgrade for my WRT54G Linksys router that will allow, amongst other things, an adjustment in the output power from 28mW (the factory default) up to 256mW. I figured 128mW would be a good compromise, since my wireless signal didn’t quite reach to the patio, but I didn’t want to up the power so much that I started generating interference with other wireless items in the house. This worked pretty well, giving me just enough signal outside to be able to sit at the table under the umbrella (thanks Rod and Kristin!) and “go to work”.
One of the other nifty things about the firmware is that it has feature that will update dns tables hosted on zoneedit.com (a free dns provider) whenever my cablemodem’s IP changes (like when I lose power, comcast is down, or when I trip over the network cable.) Ironically, while I’m changing my dns over to zoneedit, lookups for jeffab.org are failing since ZE hasn’t yet initialized my service. Ah well… what do you want for free?