a visit to the nurse

so growing up in midland where there are effectively no (as in zero) trees, i was convinced that i was not allergic to anything. besides peanuts. i had a rude wake up call when i moved to college station. i am having a ruder wake up call here in the s.a. metropolis. the deal here though is that claritin pretty much rules, except it didnt do anything for my eyes. my itchy red swollen eyes that i wanted to just rub and rub and then just wanted them to go away. so for 2 weeks i kept thinking, this shall pass. finally i had to cave in and go see one of the nurses at work in hopes that i could get some stronger medicine that would take care of my allergies.

sharon goes to the clinic.
sharon waits for 25 minutes.
eyes are itching and red. i think my coworkers probably believe i'm on crack.
nurse comes out and asks who was next, woman cuts in front of sharon and 3 others.
sharon waits more.
sharon finally gets to see nurse.
sharon explains itchy eyes.
nurse stares into sharon's eyes.
sharon is uncomfortable.
nurse wonders could it be pink eye.
sharon reiterates that, while possibly pink eye, most likely ALLERGIES. PLEASE GIVE MEDICATION.
nurse suggests to wash my hands often( i later read that this is one of the job functions of the nurses at work, to encourage healthy habits)
sharon stresses that she does wash hands, please give me medicine
nurse cannot prescribe medicine, please come back tomorrow and see the doctor, after all, 'if you've been putting up with this for 2weeks, 24 more hours wont hurt you'
sharon's eyes itch and remain red like someone on crack.

so i went back to the doctor today. she talked with me for about 5 minutes. was like hmm sounds like allergies. let me give you some medication. this is more like it. 15minutes later, thanks to our onsite pharmacy, i was connected with eye drops and allegra. surely the next few days should go better.

thaddeaus and pierre

so i had bought these fish. and a frog. a cute little water frog. he is an albino clawed water frog. didn't know there were albino frogs? join the club. but he's quite cute. his name is thaddeaus. i also bought a catfish (pierre) and a bala shark (mo) and a bright orange mali (bling). i love these fish and they are quite entertaining to watch and they have a nice little home here at the apartment with me.

then it happened. i was finalizing my snack preparations to be the snackmaster of thanskgiving and about to head down to c.s. i look over, and, thaddeaus is trying to shove pierre down his throat. never mind that pierred is about 2x larger than thaddeaus and there is no way he could fit. nevertheless, thaddeaus has shoved pierre's tail in his throat and is trying to shove him further in, meanwhille pierre's whiskers are shriveling up and pierre is breathing laboriously. i banged on the glass and yelled at thaddeaus to stop. horrified, i watched as he ignored me. i continued banging on the glass and finally he spit pierre out. but it was too late. pierre lasted a few hours more but then passed on. the next day thaddeaus attacked mo, my shark. MY SHARK. now i'm just down to bling. he eats so much i think thaddeaus is scared to take him on for fear of choking. or maybe he's just fattening him up, then getting ready to move in for the kill.

see, this stuff is real

Kiss fatal for girl, 15Sat, November 26, 2005
By CP


SAGUENAY, QUE. -- A 15-year-old girl with a peanut allergy has died after being kissed by her boyfriend, who had eaten peanut butter.
The girl died this week, a few days after being kissed.
The teenager, who lived in Saguenay, about 250 kilometres north of Quebec City, received a shot of adrenalin immediately after being kissed, but did not recover.

http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/News/National/2005/11/26/1324591-sun.html

the verdict

well i finally picked out a new car. thanks for all your input. yesterday i bought this car, its a 2001 chevy impala with just under 12k miles. its got a nice v6, 3.8L under the hood and a great interior. i hope to see you soon so we can cruise around together.

who knew?

so tonite i made a trip to walmart to check out the boardgames. it brought back many memories from my youth. games like dont break the ice, guess who, battleship, electronic battleship, clue, monopoly, chinese checkers...they bring back fond memories. i settled on purchasing chinese checkers and scrabble for our playing pleasure.

after a close game of chinese checkers, i proceeded to play the best game of scrabble i've ever played in my life. yes, it was incredible, and i have no shame in exulting in that fact. our agreed upon dictionary was of course the ever popular....dictionary.com though i personally think merriam webster (m-w.com) is superior. at any rate, i learned a new word: en.

Printing. A space equal to half the width of an em.

And what is an em you ask?

Printing. The width of a square or nearly square piece of type, used as a unit of measure for matter set in that size of type. Such a measure for 12-point type; a pica.

so there ya have it. ya learn something new every day. that was my learning.

for a co-worker today, another lesson was learned. while in the company store burning some time during lunch hour, we were smelling a candle. a really gross smelling candle labeled Christmas cookies/ biscuits de Noel. the lesson was not that biscuits is french word for cookies, but rather that noel (fyi) is french for Christmas. who knew? sometimes you give the lesson, sometimes you receive it, but discovering new stuff is pretty much the coolest thing ever.

pick a car any car round 2

acura rsx










honda accord

there's got to be a better way

i'm 'on call' this week in case any horrid disaster should befall the computer world. this adds to my array of technicalness one additional cell phone and one additional pager, leading to the ridiculousness that is the picture above. surely, there is a better way.

day light savings time. nice to get an extra hour. terrible to lose it again in the spring. is it worth the hassle? i prefer the morning darkness when i'm not awake as i'm driving to work in the first place over the sadness that comes with darkness at 6pm as i'm leaving work. is daylight savings time worth it? is arizona really got it more together than us? surely, there is a better way.

made a return as an alumni to texas a&m this past weekend. it was excellent to hang out with some family members. it was strange to sit on the alumni side. it was awkward to be informed that the seats i had purchased in the MSC were on sale because the owner was in the hospital from a heart attack he had suffered the previous evening. i thought additional alumni were going to go into a state of shock as the team was dismantled by....iowa state?!?! surely, there is a better way.