The Dark Side of the Cookie

Dr. Horrible!!

2008-07-19T01:47:00.002-05:00

I gave blood today!

2008-06-11T23:49:00.002-05:00

And I got a sticker, a nifty lapel pin and a T-Shirt to prove it! Boy, they go all out for these donation drives. They even included a free lunch with vegetable soup, chips, cookies, applesauce, ice cream and various thirst quenchers. My husband and I took the kids with us so as to "set a good example". His idea - not mine. They were pretty good, for the most part, and the people involved genuinely didn't seem to mind, some even thinking it was really a good idea. The pre-donate questions take awhile. They have to stick your finger to test your blood first, now. I don't think they did that the last time I donated ten years ago. The point was to check the levels of my copper sulfate or something or another. The first test, where my blood is supposed to clot into a ball and fall through this vial of blue liquid, I failed. Apparantly, mine rose instead of dropping. So, she squeezed the little pinprick in my finger to get more blood and ran it through a machine. They needed it to be 38 and I came out with 39. Whatever works.
After finishing all the little questions and such, they ushered me to a reclining chair and stuck me with a bigass needle. "Squeeze the ball for five seconds and release for three. Continue this throughout your donation." Yay. It took 5:03 for me to fill their little bag full of my blood. It took my husband 7:02. Apparently, I squirt faster. (heh heh, I said squirt.)

Seriously though, folks. If you've never donated, you really should think about it. When my girls were in the hospital after a very, very early birth, they had to have heart surgery. Both of them. They needed transfusions, too. Granted, the preemie donation bag is about the size of a bottle of nail polish, but still. I'm very grateful that it was available for them.

Here are some facts to consider:

According to the National Blood Data Resource Center, U.S. institutions collected more than 15 million units of whole blood and red cells in 2001, the most recent year for which data are available. Blood centers collected 93% of the donated units, while hospitals collected 7%. These donations were made by approximately eight million volunteer blood donors. The American Red Cross collects almost half of these donations across the U.S.

According to the most recent data from the National Blood Data Resource Center, U.S. hospitals transfused nearly 14 million units of whole blood and red blood cells to 4.9 million patients in 2001 - that's an average of 38,000 units of blood needed on any given day. Whole blood can be separated into its components red blood cells, plasma, platelets, and cryoprecipitate. The total number of units of all of these components transfused in 2001 was 29 million. And the volume of blood transfused is increasing at the rate of 6% per year. In emergency conditions such as war or disaster, the need for blood may change.

Under normal circumstances, every two seconds someone in America will need a blood transfusion. Blood transfusions are used for trauma victims - due to accidents and burns - heart surgery, organ transplants, women with complications during childbirth, newborns and premature babies, and patients receiving treatment for leukemia, cancer or other diseases, such as sickle cell disease and thalassemia.

Blood has a limited shelf life. The different components of blood can last from 5 days to a year or more.

Platelets must be used within 5 days of donation.
Red blood cells may be stored under refrigeration for a maximum of 42 days. Frozen red blood cells can last up to 10 years, but because of the high cost involved, only a small portion of the blood supply can be frozen.
Plasma is generally frozen and must be used within one year.

Because blood is perishable, new donations are needed every day.

Donating blood is a safe process. Needles and bags used to collect blood are used only once and then discarded, making spread of infection to the donor not possible.

Regulations in the United States allow people to donate whole blood once every 56 days. The waiting period between donations can be different for other blood components. For example, donating only platelets in a process called apheresis requires only a 3 day wait before a person can give again. Donating two units of red blood cells through a similar process doubles the waiting period to 112 days.

The whole process takes about an hour. It starts with registration, a health history and a mini-physical. Then comes the actual donation, which usually takes less than 10-12 minutes. Afterward, you will be asked to spend a few minutes in the "canteen" where you can have a light refreshment before returning to your normal activities.

A blood donation equals approximately one pint of blood. The average adult body has 10-12 pints. The vast majority of people will not feel any different because of the donation. A very small percentage may experience temporary dizziness, but some rest and fluids will help you feel better quickly. Your body will replace the lost fluid within 24 hours.

Photo2Text and Other Stuff

2008-06-11T00:00:00.005-05:00

I know that this is likely fairly old for some of you people out there, but I was going through my bookmarks and found this site. I've always thought it was fun. Check it. Here's Me!

This - I just think is hilarious.

Skinny Dipping....

An elderly man in Louisiana had owned a large farm for several years. He had a large pond in the back. It was properly shaped for swimming, so he fixed it
up with picnic tables, horseshoe pitches, and some apple and peach trees.
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One evening the old farmer decided to go down to the pond, as he hadn't been there for a while, and looked it over. He grabbed a five-gallon bucket to bring
back some fruit.
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As he neared the pond, he heard voices shouting and laughing. When he came closer, he saw it was a bunch of young women skinny-dipping in his pond.
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He made the women aware of his presence and they all went to the deep end.
One of the women shouted to him, "We're not coming out until you leave!"
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The old man frowned, "I didn't come to watch you ladies swim naked or make you get out of the pond naked." Holding the bucket up he said, "I'm here to feed the alligator."
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Some old guys can think fast.

At the Lake

2008-06-09T17:42:00.003-05:00

Giggles Galore

2008-06-04T21:59:00.005-05:00

So I found this site through another blog that I read and I had to share. You can go upload a photo and have it transform it. It's not perfect, of course, but it's hilarious.

Go morph yourself!

And heeeeere's me!

Manga Az................ Modigiliani Az

Old Az ......................Afro-Caribean Az

Ape Az.......................Baby Az

East Asian Az

and um.....Man Az.......

and Original Az.

Pictures!

2008-06-04T20:57:00.004-05:00

Damnit Voivod. It's all your fault. Now I carry that damn camera with me everywhere and take pictures of things! And you know what? You're probably the only one that even appreciates them. :P
I was totally surprised that my camera even took these as well as it did. A little bit grainy but pretty damn good for a cheap-ass Wal-Mart camera, eh?

Kansas clouds for all of you that, ya know, aren't Kansans. Click for the full size picture.

Stuff! I promised someone STUFF!

2008-05-24T16:19:00.003-05:00

This first video is of my little munchkin cookin' supper. She just turned 8 and she loves to cook so we decided to buy everything she needed to make one of our favorite meals, Sour Cream Enchiladas. She did an awesome job! They were great. Sorry for me talking in the background, sounding like an idiot.

Then, here is a video that I took of the wind in the field across the way. We live on the edge of town and it was very very windy the other day. As I pulled up after work, I saw how the green field looked a lot like waves. I thought i'd share it - not only the kansas wind but the waves of green as well. Sorry for the crappy quality on this one. My recorder is super cheap Wally World special, but damn if it doesn't do everything, so I like it. Small enough to take with me everywhere I go, in my purse, in case something strikes my fancy. :)

I scream, you scream, we all......yeah.

2008-05-17T21:40:00.003-05:00

I swear that, generally speaking, those people that work in the fast food industry are idiots. Yes, there are lots of exceptions. Yes, I've worked fast food before. Yes, I was also an idiot.
But, just as Joe Pesci's rant goes, "They FUCK you in the drive-thru." (go ahead, name that movie.)

Every single time I go to Dairy Queen and order my German Chocolate Blizzard, it's different. Sometimes, they forget the nuts. On occasion, there's hardly any actual chocolate in it. Tonight, they put fuckin' brownies in it. I don't have anything against brownies - love them actually, but I didn't order a German Chocolate CAKE Blizzard. It's not bad, but it's not what I wanted. How damn difficult can it be to make it? Don't they have a recipe to make the damn things? I know that when I worked at McDonald's, they were very picky about the amount of things we put in the McFlurries.

And to make matters worse, they can never, ever mix it right. You know - all the good stuff is either stuck on top or bottom, with the opposite being nearly all plain ice cream. Tonight, there are a billion brownie chunks floating on top.

Ugh. It's just so annoying. A simple thing, yes, but still just dumb.

Edited Later: yeah, there's no fucking coconut in it either. *sigh*

How much is that birdie in the window?

2008-05-08T22:23:00.005-05:00

I took the kids to school the other day, just like I do any other day. Came home afterwards and got ready for work. As i'm walking out to my car with an armload of stuff, I notice movement in the car. I kinda tiptoe up there to see what's there and see wings. The girls had left one window down about six inches and a Cardinal had somehow managed to find it's way into the car. It was frantically banging it's head against the glass trying to get out. I simply walked back into the house, grabbed my camera and came back out, hoping it was still there. Sure enough, it was. I got real close trying to get a picture, even tried a video but it was too crappy to share. I was close enough, though, to see that birds are fairly warm-blooded - moreso than i'd really thought - and that as this scared little bird was resting between bouts of panic, his breaths would leave little, tiny puffs of fog on the window. I wish i'd gotten that on video! I'd never really have thought a bird would be warm enough to fog up glass!

Without further ado, see the inside of my car with a special, frantic little bird on the window edge.

And because I had to unload the camera anyway, I wanted to share a video of my girls dancing, before they went out to their first father/daughter dance.

Go see!

2008-04-27T21:56:00.001-05:00

Fun Stuff!

What is neat is that, now that i'm a full time graphic designer, I can spot most of these so much easier now. It's funny that the "general public" doesn't spot some of the more....simple ones.

Moving is a pain in the ass.

2008-04-27T00:22:00.004-05:00

So, last Friday, we started moving. We've been living in a small, cramped, dirty apartment for the last 4.2599874158 years. It's a low-income place and carries with it all of the lovely little sterotypes that come with that description. A couple weeks ago, they found a dead girl in her apartment. They don't know if she killed herself or someone else did the job for her. We sometimes have fireworks going off in the parking lot for no good reason. VERY few of the parents actually watch their kids and if we were dumb enough to leave anything of OUR kids' outside, it was usually gone or broken by morning. Needless to say, we'd simply had enough. It had been enough for quite a while now, but only recently had we been making enough money to consider it worth the trouble of moving.
We found this place back in January. We had been watching it, thinking about it, for a long time and decided that we could finally do it. We put in our phone call for an application and waited. We filled out the paperwork and sent it back and waited some more. We got more paperwork, sent it back and guess what - we still waited. After a couple months of this, we learned that the owners of this collection of townhouses had decided to sell. We were told that they had been informed of our interest and would contact us. So we....waited. Again. Finally we spoke to someone and had to start paperwork all over because it hadn't been done right the first time. Eventually, after such a lengthy process that we had nearly given up, we found out that we got the place and we could pick up the keys on Thursday. This meant that we were able to give our current dwelling a whopping 5 days notice that we'd be out. Yeah - they were thrilled about that.
I can't tell you how much dirt and crap builds up in the corners of a house in a period of nearly 5 years. Granted, the girls were about 3 when we moved in and kids aren't very clean most of the time anyway. It took me a whole day just to clean the walls, floors, counters, etc, once we got all of our shit out.
In the midst of all of this, I asked my little girl to help me clean up the yard. I smoke and had a really bad habit of just tossing the butts all over the yard, knowing that they'd simply mingle with everyone else's. She agreed readily enough. After a few minutes of picking up trash and butts, she stops, looks up at me and says, "So, am I gonna get paid for this situation here?" I just about dropped my trash bucket, stared at her in disbelief for a moment and then burst out laughing like a madwoman. Her and her twin sister do this to me all the time, saying the strangest things. Just when you get used to them being 7, they pop out with something that makes you think they are 12 or some days, 23.
This place is soooo much nicer than our old place. The walls aren't that lovely smoker's yellow. The carpets aren't shit-brown. The countertops aren't stained and pockmarked from years of use. We don't have neighbors that smoke crack - that's probably the biggest plus. We had to make a certain amount of money to even get the place. Too much and we couldn't have it and too little and we had no chance. The townhouses are only ten years old, have updated appliances, large rooms, brand new heaters/ac's, two FULL bathrooms and three bedrooms. There is so much more light in this place. Which, would normally be a good thing, except for the fact that now I can see how old and dingy our washer/dryer and other furniture is. Luckily, we bought a brand new living room set just before we moved and have matching, beautiful, new furniture (for the first time ever) that no one else has put their stinky feet or ass on. And now I can dig out all of my decorations from storage and hang up family pictures, the hand carved mask collection, a couple paintings that I did and some of my kids' framed artwork. I finally have an adult's house and it only took me about 14 years!