I has a generation!

I'm not Gen X. I'm not a baby boomer.

I'm Generation Jones.

Makes sense to me.

* Note: Yes, the technical 'end date' for Jones is '65. But a) some demographic studies argue '67 or '68 and I think that's more accurate. b) Most of my classmates were born 65-67, and I contend that you get raised based on what grade you're in, not what age you are, when you're a 'different' age than most of your classmates. c) I can tell you that even when we were in high school, we knew that starting about two grades after me, people were -different-. Significantly different attitudes, actions, paradigms. Had we thought more deeply about it, we would indeed have said that they were far more cynical than we were. Therefore, my experience was that Generation X started, at least where I grew up, with people who graduated high school in about '87. I would argue that Generation Jones consists of those who graduated high school between about '74 through '85 or '86.

High Tech, meet Pop Culture

This is too fun.

First of all, we get what may be really-for-true confirmation of water on Mars, which is a spiffy thing.

But how it got announced to the world is even more fun:

NASA's Phoenix has a Twitter page.

So the announcement of water wasn't through some formal press release, or a guy in a NASA suit standing awkwardly in front of a microphone.

It was the rover itself, saying, "Are you ready to celebrate? Well, get ready: We have ICE!!!!! Yes, ICE, *WATER ICE* on Mars! w00t!!! Best day ever!!" to 20,000+ people on Twitter.

(Obviously, it would have been "Best. Day. Evah." if they didn't have to be careful how many characters they send, due to the 140 character limit on Twitter. :) )

Now that's amusing!

(See also http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/06/the-real-value.html and http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/06/mars-phoenix-tw.html for more)

So Tired Of Rain

Last summer, we had a drought, and I really really missed storms.

ENOUGH ALREADY! We've made up for the lack and THEN SOME!!!

But... it's not been too bad in Indy. However, a friend of mine in Columbus, about 40 miles south, had quite a different experience:

http://members.aol.com/timster132/flood/2008indianaflood01.html

Really makes you grateful for what you have...

18 hours without power, whee!

But given the storms that ripped through here last night, and that ours is back up when IPL says some people won't have power until Tuesday, I guess I can't complain. No damage here: a few large tree limbs down, but not -on- anything. Just a long dark night was all...

Meme: One Word

Subject: One word....

You can only type ONE Word!

Not as easy as you might think. Now copy or forward, change the answers to suit you and pass it on. It's really hard to only use one word answers. You can only type one word.

1. Where is your cell phone? charger
2. Where is your significant other? universe
3. Your hair color? variable
4. Your mother? wounded
5. Your father? lonely
6. Your favorite thing? possibility
7. Your dream last night? unremembered
8. Your dream/goal? growth
9. Your favorite job? inspiring
10. The room you're in? bedroom
11. Your hobby? teaching
12. Your fear? stagnation
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? centered
14. Your favorite place to relax? nature
15. What you're not? rigid
16. Muffins? chocolate
17. Top of your wish list? peace
18. Where you grew up? Brazil
19. What were you doing before you sat at your computer? resting
20. What are you wearing? clothing
21. Last thing you watched on TV? producers
when? 10:00
22. Describe your pet. dead
23. What kind of car do you drive? olds
24. Your life right now? hopeful
25. What is your mood today? renewed
26. Missing someone? sometimes

27. Do you have any regrets in life? some

28. Your favorite store? goodwill
29. Something you're not wearing? bra (woot! :) )
30. Your summer? freedom
31. Love someone? many

32. Your favorite color? green
33. When is the last time you laughed? Today
34. Last time you cried? past
35. Who will resend this? unknown

Happy April Fools Day!

Google has done their usual amusing 'adjustments' today, I see.

Actually, I found the whole list of 'em on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google's_hoaxes

I think TiSP was the best of them all. :)

What a night...

I have spent way too much time with doctors this winter with my kids. I don't think I remembered to blog that my daughter fractured her middle finger in January. Was in a splint for 6 weeks (and couldn't play the viola all that time!), but all is well with her now.

Well, tonight I just got home from the ER. My son has not been able to hold down food since Monday, and has been off school all week. So tonight I took him to the urgent care center ('cause regular doctor office hours suck when you're a working single parent). Urgent care doctor found tenderness in the lower right abdominal quadrant. Said it was still quite possible that it was a virus... but given the location of the worst tenderness, appendicitis was enough of a possibility that he wanted me to take him in to the ER to get checked. Tonight.

So I went home and got my daughter, 'cause she doesn't like being at home alone at night (understandably).

And we were there until 1 freaking 30 am. To find that, of course (but thank heavens) it was NOT appendicitis.

Fun things from the evening: My son's veins SUCK. They couldn't get the IV in the left hand. Couldn't get it in the right. Finally got a blood draw out of the right, but then the vein moved and they couldn't keep that in. Eventually they called someone with mucho experience who could find veins that are a) buried too deep in b) way too thick skin (inherits from his father) and c) tried to slide around when finally found. And finally got it in. This in a kid who has the (what at least I've found is a) typical guy response to needles. At least he didn't faint.

Then, he couldn't give them a urine sample for ages, 'cause, well, he hasn't been holding stuff down, so as much as I've tried to keep him hydrated, he probably wasn't very much so, and, he has 'bashful bladder' when he tries to do things like that anyway. FINALLY got that part taken care of.

Then got the CT scan, after two hours of waiting (apparently, it takes that long for whatever fun concoction they make you drink to get through your system. Plus, they were very, very busy there tonight).

Found after all that that that it -wasn't- appendicitis, or at least, the CT scan looked normal and the white blood cell count was normal... they did warn me to keep an eye on him 'cause apparently appendicitis doesn't always present 'by the book'. Got a script for an anti nauseant (suppository. They asked if *I* was going to insert them. He's 14 1/2 and 5'10". Heck no I'm not going to; he can poke on his own butt!!! :) )

Then they took the IV (well, the heparin lock) out, to his great delight, and I left the room so he could change... and heard a 'MOM!!!' through the door. And rushed back in... and found that where they had taken the IV out was bleeding. A LOT.

So I grabbed paper towels, elevated, applied pressure, and yelled for my daughter to grab a nurse RIGHT NOW.

The nurses got there, put on gloves, and added more pressure (since I'd grabbed it originally, at least I was the one with the blood all over my hands - and when it's my kid, it's NOT a biohazard, unlike what the nurses would have had to deal with) and then it finally stopped, and was fine. Assuming it was just a last-minute gift of the ol' heparin.

So now I'm finally home, and the load of laundry that desperately needed to be done is now done, and I am going to BED.

What a night.

The Training Chyk is Happy...

The Training Chyk found a full set of FREE templates to create web-based courses, at http://www.fastrak-consulting.co.uk/tactix/fastools.htm

Can I code Javascript from scratch? No. Well, I'm sure I -could- but the learning-to-development time would be far higher than anyone wants to pay me for.

Can I *modify* existing code? Yeah, THAT I can do.

This toolkit has everything already set up, testing, certificate, everything. I can't believe someone's giving this away for free. This is too awesome.

(Ok, so it doesn't take too much to make me happy. So sue me. :) )

I have permanent employment!

No more consulting - I'm now... well, the job title is "business analyst", but I'll be doing a LOT of stuff... for DKI Services Inc. I'm VERY excited about this opportunity. My new boss is also a good friend of mine, the company is solid and I like their attitude, and I'm going to be BUSY... creating CBTs, technical documentation, marketing documentation, doing a bit of tech support, and perhaps even doing some product management and marketing. No more 'what do I do when this project ends' moments. Benefits. And a real challenge in a position that is being tailored to my specific skill set. The only drawback is that it is a tiny bit of a pay cut from my consulting positions, or at least most of them... but that should be made up for by the fact that I won't be docked for time off, since I'll be salaried. (Amazing, when you're a consultant, how an hour here and there of 'picking the kids up' adds up to a hole in your paycheck. And we won't even talk about what holiday weeks are like, especially the two-day holidays...)

So this is a great career opportunity for me and I'm really, really excited!

One hit wonder quizzes

Yes, I got 100% on BOTH of them. This indicates (1) they were too easy, or (2) they used one-hits that are Way Too Old. :)

One-Hit One-Ders Score: 100% (10 out of 10)

1-hit one-ders part 2 Score: 100% (10 out of 10)

Ah, an explanation for the electric car question...

This article in Salon:

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/01/22/plug_in_hybrids/index.html

...explains the difference between a regular hybrid, a plug-in hybrid, and an all-electric. I guess, not having paid too much attention to hybrids (I'd love one, but when you're on a used-car-only budget, you don't get that option), I had assumed they already -were- plug-ins. Which was why the previous article confused me so much.

The one argument I have with the article - the writer says that a 40-mile-per-day capacity really isn't needed; most people drive less than that. Do I really commute that much farther than the average person? My drive is somewhere between 17 - 20 miles one way. So I easily do more than 40 miles a day, especially once you add a grocery store trip, or picking a kid up from school or a friend's house, or any of the other million errands that seem to come up every week...

Well...

I don't FEEL 40. :)

That is all. :)


PS - Thank you to all who sent me cards and well-wishes!

And for the California gang, since I know you'll get this if I post it here - a) really, I will email soon. I just can't get to personal email from work again (they block all the good sites, darnit) and, as you can see from the ungodly hour of this post, it's hard for me to find time that a kid isn't using the computer. :) And B) I am, honestly, not avoiding a certain member of my family. I just suck at writing letters. Shame he doesn't have email. :) I will get one out soon. Just... you remember what it's like to have kids this age, right? Someone's ALWAYS going somewhere. I am Mom Taxi Extraordinaire.

And speaking of which, better go sleep now -- have to be at the school at 7 Freaking 45 AM tomorrow for speech tourney...

Nothing like wiping the past from existence...

I am reading this article:

http://www.reuters.com/article/companyNewsAndPR/idUSN1442657520080114

It is talking about "bringing the first plug-in, all-electric cars to market."

Um.

GM already DID that. More than 10 years ago, with the EV1.

I know. I worked on the dang thing!

(Yes, I was only a secretary, before anyone gets excited. But I do know several of the patent-holders on it. Typed for many of them.)

Now, I know there was a lot of bullhockey surrounding taking the EV1 off the market. (Anyone besides me watch Who Killed the Electric Car? I had to see it... I actually knew a couple people who were in it, albeit briefly.)

But I didn't know that both GM and the media were now pretending it never existed...

You snus, you (maybe) -don't- lose...

While I have not been formally diagnosed, I suspect I have COPD. Got a cold this autumn with significant bronchial effects... and the bronchial effects have never quite gone away. Frustrating, since at my absolute worst I've smoked -maybe- 3/4 of a pack a day... but there it is. So it's more than obvious that it's time to quit smoking.

This should be easy. I have always resisted acknowledging the fact that I smoke at all. And for several years it was truly only 'social smoking'... I could go for months without a cigarette without noticing it. But over the last five or six years it's definitely progressed to true addiction. That said, I've always been neurotic about not smoking around any non-smokers (most especially my kids!!!), never smoking indoors or in any enclosed area, washing and brushing my teeth afterwards... So this seems like it shouldn't be as tough as it is for some people, right?

Mmm. Nice theory. Too bad it doesn't work in practice. :(

So there are all these NRT (Nicotine Replacement Therapy) products out, right? So I should use them, right?

Have you seen the PRICES of these things??? Makes me think no one is serious about wanting to help people stop smoking, because otherwise the NRTs wouldn't be four times as expensive as smoking. (Ok, they'd probably be cheaper for the several-packs-a-day folks, but they are NOT for me.) (And -how- does one smoke two or three packs a day anyway? I can't figure out where anyone would have enough -time- to smoke that much. But that's a different subject.)

In addition, NRT products are designed to deliver a constant low dose of nicotine. When you smoke, you get a much stronger hit. That's the other reason why NRTs have pretty poor success rates: they don't actually replace the experience you get with the original delivery system.

But then I ran across information about smokeless tobacco. Specifically, Swedish snus. Turns out, they're discreet, don't require spitting, don't have all the 'lower-class' connotations that "chew" has here. The Swedes have used them for years... and DRAMATICALLY reduced deaths from just about all smoking-related mortality. It appears that the risks and problems caused by nicotine itself is no more than the risk for any other stimulant (caffeine, for example). And that when you don't burn it, tobacco has perhaps some small risk factors, but not significantly more than just about anything else in this day and age... and again, dramatically less risk than smoking. Seems that almost all the awful parts of smoking are caused by the inhaled smoke. If you can take that out, but limit the nicotine withdrawal, you can get many, many, many more people to quit smoking than you do with other methods. (And yes, the ideal situation is that you quit completely. But hello... it's called an addiction for a -reason-. If it were easy to just quit, wouldn't most of us have done that by now?) And the snus deliver nicotine in a method much more similar to the pattern of delivery provided by a cigarette, which makes them more effective at controlling cravings.

There is a version of snus being test marketed in my area right now, that is not catching on at all, which makes me wonder if they'll pull it off the market.

And one of the reasons it's not catching on? In the US, you can't say that it's much less harmful than cigarettes... EVEN THOUGH IT IS!

On the tin of snus that I have here with me right now, it says "Warning: This product is not a safe alternative to cigarettes." Doesn't that make you think "well, I might as well smoke?" If that was all the data I had, I'd sure think that. But fortunately, I have the Internet. Yay Internet!

And the data I've found says something very different than that which is implied by that warning. If you want to wade through it yourself, take a look at this report by the UK Royal College of Physicians: http://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/pubs/contents/4fc74817-64c5-4105-951e-38239b09c5db.pdf as well as data found here: http://www.tobaccoharmreduction.org/index.htm. Or, for a shorter overview, try this NYT article: http://www.sallysatelmd.com/html/a-nytimes9UA.html

Is it totally safe? No, probably not. Is it notably, significantly, dramatically more safe than smoking cigarettes? Absolutely -- especially when viewed in relative terms. But heaven forbid we should be able to say this in this country. Oh, wait... there are large companies making a lot of money on NRT products, aren't there? Large companies that tend to spend a lot of political money? Gee, that couldn't have anything to do with effectively suppressing this data, could it? (And interestingly, the RCP data comes from a country where snus are banned. Cigarettes aren't banned. Other forms of chewing tobacco that are not nearly as safe are not banned. But snus are banned. Hmm...)

Anyway, right now the snus are available to me here, and are indeed helping me quit - I've smoked 3 cigarettes today, and only have one left, and don't intend to buy any more when this is done. (I'll make no promises, but that's my intention.)

But I wonder how many people could be helped by knowing this, and who are turned off of these new smokeless products, because we're so busy pushing abstinence that we don't provide accurate data about safer alternatives.

Ah, the life of a consultant

Things have been very (VERY) slow at my work the last couple weeks. I was getting nervous. So, I threw some resumes out, and got an offer for a short-term contract starting January 2. Talked to my current work, and sure enough, they agreed there wasn't enough work here for a full-time writer (which makes me suspect that after the holidays I was going to get an unpleasant surprise. Well, not totally a surprise, because any time a consultant is twiddling her thumbs, she knows it's time to start looking...).

So, it's job-switch time again. But at least it's a pay increase, and will mean I won't pay to park downtown anymore. (That right there is a significant savings!)

At last! The mystery solved!

Ever get caught in one of those "mystery jams" on the freeway, where you come to a complete standstill for absolutely no reason? Well, this discounts my friend's theory that "traffic ghosts" stop cars. :)

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071219103102.htm

What is remembered, lives

We lost Dan Fogelberg this weekend.

http://www.danfogelberg.com/news.html

What a shame. I love his music, as well as his philosophy on the environment. And SO YOUNG. (Amazing how young 56 is to me now. Perspective, I guess...) (And guys, note the warning he gives on the above website about prostate cancer screenings...)

To quote from one of my favorite of his songs, "Ever On":

May the trail rise up to meet you
May your heart rejoice in song
May the skies be fair above you
As you journey ever on...

What is remembered, lives...

Observe the snow...

Ok, we only got about 4 inches (margin of error +/- 1 inch - I don't guestimate measurements well). But I guess I'm just not mentally prepared for snow until January. (Or perhaps I'm mentally preparing to move to Texas eventually. I will say, I used to claim that I would be miserable if I didn't live somewhere where I could experience all four seasons. But as I get older, I notice that I enjoy the experience of winter far less each year...)

Anyway, it seemed a good time to share a link from a Cecil Adams "Straight Dope" column that makes me laugh every time I read it:

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_297.html

"Observe the snow. It fornicates."

Checking the personality test again...

I did come out ENFP, but only by the skin of my teeth - my "E" preference is only 1%. That's about right. Sometimes I am energized by contact with other people, and sometimes I really, really need alone time. Pretty much every question about interacting with other people, I want to answer, "It depends." :)

But this description is so accurate it is almost frightening:
(from http://www.advisorteam.org/)
Idealists, as a temperament, are passionately concerned with personal growth and development. Idealists strive to discover who they are and how they can become their best possible self -- always this quest for self-knowledge and self-improvement drives their imagination. And they want to help others make the journey. Idealists are naturally drawn to working with people, and whether in education or counseling, in social services or personnel work, in journalism or the ministry, they are gifted at helping others find their way in life, often inspiring them to grow as individuals and to fulfill their potentials.

Idealists are sure that friendly cooperation is the best way for people to achieve their goals. Conflict and confrontation upset them because they seem to put up angry barriers between people. Idealists dream of creating harmonious, even caring personal relations, and they have a unique talent for helping people get along with each other and work together for the good of all. Such interpersonal harmony might be a romantic ideal, but then Idealists are incurable romantics who prefer to focus on what might be, rather than what is. The real, practical world is only a starting place for Idealists; they believe that life is filled with possibilities waiting to be realized, rich with meanings calling out to be understood. This idea of a mystical or spiritual dimension to life, the "not visible" or the "not yet" that can only be known through intuition or by a leap of faith, is far more important to Idealists than the world of material things.

Highly ethical in their actions, Idealists hold themselves to a strict standard of personal integrity. They must be true to themselves and to others, and they can be quite hard on themselves when they are dishonest, or when they are false or insincere. More often, however, Idealists are the very soul of kindness. Particularly in their personal relationships, Idealists are without question filled with love and good will. They believe in giving of themselves to help others; they cherish a few warm, sensitive friendships; they strive for a special rapport with their children; and in marriage they wish to find a "soulmate," someone with whom they can bond emotionally and spiritually, sharing their deepest feelings and their complex inner worlds.

Idealists are rare, making up between 20 and 25 percent of the population. But their ability to inspire people with their enthusiasm and their idealism has given them influence far beyond their numbers.

(another test is at http://www.humanmetrics.com)

Hmm. I see a purchase in my future...

Whoever designed this has definitely dealt with ADD themselves in the past:

http://www.addplanner.com/morning.html

What a great idea!