Pride

After doing a little drinking and hanging out with a few friends and a few of their friends last night, I got to thinking about this. The details of why are too long, unimportant and personal to other people to disclose here. But, here is what I was thinking about.

It's funny how pride can, at the same time, lead us to the truth and keep us from excepting it. It helps us lose things and makes us unable to let them go. It can also help us earn things and make us too proud to take them when we have. It is great for motivating people, but, can make us go too far or not far enough in our actions.

Can you imagine a world, where, pride did not rule most of us? I wish I could.

Magenta

Really? Cuz, I got nothin.

I guess we'll go with the origin according to the always right, Wikipedia.

"The name magenta comes from the dye magenta, commonly called fuchsine, discovered shortly after the 1859 Battle of Magenta near Magenta, Italy."

Interesting enough?

I hope so. I can't waste much thought on magenta this weekend. I have to come up with 3-4 pages about a piece of wax that Descartes wrote about in two paragraphs in his second meditation.

Listen To The Past

This is really cool and kinda freaky. Some really smart people have figured out how to listen to the oldest known voice recording. You can also listen to it here. Click the link, then sound files referenced in the presentation.

When Good Words Go Bad

This is also known as Foot In Mouth Syndrome. It is very common among adult males of any age. It can strike at any time and there is, as yet, no known cure. Approximately 100% of men will suffer from this on at least a semi-regular basis. I have managed to turn it into an art form.

Let me set the scene up for you. We have a few long term care floors at work. The nurses generally work on the same floor everyday. This, of course, can change due to staffing shortages (or overages). I have a different relationship with everyone I work with. One of the nurses and I verbally spar, a lot. I found that it was a way to get her open up. She is very introverted. I wouldn't call her shy, just quiet. As most of you know, I don't do quiet very well. And, I prefer when others don't either. Anyway, this nurse does not normally work on one of the long term care floors.

When the resident finally succumbed to father times habitual harassment, it was at the beginning of the day shift and this nurse just happened to be one of the nurses who was working on the specific long term floor. Well, the family was notified. They came in to say their final farewells and contacted the funeral home of their choice.

When anyone dies, and the body transport arrives, it is my job to lead the transporters through the bowels of the complex to whatever room they need to get to. On the day in question, I was leading the man from the funeral home onto the floor where the deceased was. I happened to see lil' miss quiet sitting at the nurses station (not her normal nurses station). My comment to her, "My, (insert name here), aren't you the angel of death this morning."

On any other day this wouldn't be so bad. You see, working in an old folks home has gotten me used to death. It occurs, whether or not we want it to. And, as employees here, everyone seems a bit jaded by it. This day, however, was special. As I rounded the corner (that I was roughly 5 feet from when I made my statement), there right in front of me, was the whole family of the deceased. Grieving for their loss. I just hope they were so engrossed in their process that they didn't hear me. None of them made any indication that they had. Thank God.

Hopefully, Golden

I have been struggling to find a gold post, just like the rest of you did. Steph put an idea in my head. But, it was just not all that palatable for me. However funny posting about golden showers might actually have been, I just don't think I'm the right guy to make it work. We'll leave that one up to the late great Frank Zappa.

I was reading this article this morning. I just hope my accounting degree, when earned, will be the proverbial goose that laid the golden egg. I just want to be comfortable again, without having to work 80 hours a week and travel all the time. Although, one of my interests in the accounting field would be auditing. I hear there is a lot of travel involved with a lot of auditing jobs. Guess I'll find out in a few short years.

It's My Right

But who is right? I read this story this morning. At the risk of sounding harsh, WHAT THE FUCK, PEOPLE!? I don't consider myself to be bigoted, racist, sexist or any other 'ist. I don't begrudge the influx of Hispanics and Asians mentioned in the article anything they want. They are here and most of them are working harder and getting paid less than most Americans. But, they are in America. I would not expect to get great service in a Spanish speaking country or any Asian nation since I don't speak their language. We speak English. Those of us who don't should learn how. If I lived in a country that didn't as a rule speak English, I would expect that I would have to learn, say, Spanish or possibly Chinese, in order to better communicate with the native population.

Since when is it not buyer beware? Don't all private businesses reserve the right to refuse service? The owners of Geno's aren't even saying they would not serve you if you can't speak English. They are just asking that you order in our national language. And underneath that they are stating as businesses have done since before I was born, that they reserve the right to refuse service.

Seriously folks, having lived in that area, I can tell you that the "Commission on Human Relations" in Philly has a lot bigger problems than a language barrier at a cheese steak joint to contend with. That whole place is a mess of violence and corruption.

A Drag Show In Philosophy Class

Last term I challenged myself by taking an advanced concepts in accounting course, a statistics course and a marketing course (my one easy class). This term should be exactly the opposite. I am taking an 1100 level philosophy course, a 1000 level topics in music course (\m/ History of Rock and Roll \m/), and a 3000 level business course (my one hard class?).

Last night I had my first philosophy course. The professor was really fun. He was upbeat and kept the class involved all the way until the very end. I am not much of a philosopher. Ask me what something is, I will give you a straight answer. If you want proof, I will try to give you physical evidence. Philosophy is going to challenge my way of thinking.

One of the questions that the instructor posed to us during class was:

WHAT IS A TABLE?

We all put in our two cents. The teacher called our answers "sincere" and "definite", as we described a table. Then, defined a table. Then, said something to the effect of, a table is whatever our society marks a table. All of these answers were "good" answers, but, not what he was looking for.

At one point during the discussion, he flipped a trash can over and said, "Is this a table?"

We all answered in the affirmative and stated our points. At which point the prof said, "No man, that table's not a table. It's a trashcan in drag."

I think I am going to enjoy the class even if I don't truly appreciate the material we will be covering and discussing.

AG (silver)

Did you know they use silver in treatment of wounds? I didn't either. Until I started working at a nursing home. Now I am constantly ordering products with silver in them. Here is an interesting bit from Wikipedia on why silver in used in medicine.

"Silver ions and silver compounds show a toxic effect on some bacteria, viruses, algae and fungi, typical for heavy metals like lead or mercury, but without the high toxicity to humans that is normally associated with them. Its germicidal effects kill many microbial organisms in vitro.

Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, wrote that silver had beneficial healing and anti-disease properties, and the Phoenicians used to store water, wine, and vinegar in silver bottles to prevent spoiling. In the early 1900s people would put silver dollars in milk bottles to prolong the milk's freshness. Its germicidal effects increase its value in utensils and as jewellery. The exact process of silver's germicidal effect is still not well understood, although theories exist. One of these is the oligodynamic effect, which explains the effect on microbial lifeforms but does not explain certain antiviral effects.

Silver compounds were used successfully to prevent infection in World War I before the advent of antibiotics. Silver nitrate solution was a standard of care but was largely replaced by silver sulfadiazine cream (SSD Cream)[3] which was generally the "standard of care" for the antibacterial and antibiotic treatment of serious burns until the late 1990s. Now, other options, such as silver-coated dressings (activated silver dressings), are used in addition to SSD cream and may present advantages such as pain reduction and capacity for treatment at home.

The widespread use of silver went out of fashion with the development of modern antibiotics. However, recently there has been renewed interest in silver as a broad-spectrum antimicrobial. In particular, silver is being used with alginate, a naturally occurring biopolymer derived from seaweed, in a range of products designed to prevent infections as part of wound management procedures, particularly applicable to burn victims. In 2007, AGC Flat Glass Europe introduced the first antibacterial glass to fight hospital-caught infection: it is covered with a thin layer of silver.[4] In addition, Samsung has introduced washing machines with a final rinse containing silver ions to provide several days of antibacterial protection in the clothes.[5] Kohler has introduced a line of toilet seats that have silver ions embedded to kill germs. A company called Thomson Research Associates has begun treating products with Ultra Fresh, an anti-microbial technology involving "proprietary nano-technology to produce the ultra-fine silver particles essential to ease of application and long-term protection."[6] The FDA has recently approved an endotracheal breathing tube with a fine coat of silver for use in mechanical ventilation, after studies found it reduced the risk of ventilator-associated pneumonia.[7]"

I thought that was pretty interesting. I order a lot of silver coated dressings, pastes, gels and powders for my wound care nurse on a weekly basis. Never really thought I'd want to know why, until I needed to type up a post about silver. Now, we all know.

Wow! Val Kilmer, Seriously?

So, I decided to do this with as many different pictures as I could find of myself, just to see what would happen. I was showing Steph the results and she said, "Val Kilmer, really?"

My response was, "No, Jim Morrison."

To which she retorted, "Well, he was really good in that movie."

Branta Canadensis (Brown)

I was having trouble coming up with a brown post. Then the answer was delivered to me. I was leaving work early on Wednesday to go study for a final. As I was leaving I was confronted by some Branta Canadensis. There they were, grazing in the field right beside the parking lot, honking and shitting and driving me into an a state of rage that I am not even sure my ex-wife was able to produce. I didn't realize it was that time of year already.

Seriously, the sight of those brownish winged devils makes my teeth hurt. I start to see red. All I want to do is take a golf club and perform a miraculous killing shot, a la Tripp Isenhour. It was horrible to read about what he did to that poor hawk. But if he suffers the same ill sentiments toward that bird as I do toward those wretched migrating shit machines, I guess I should not be alarmed at his actions. I would love nothing more than to see the whole flock lying on their sides with blood flowing freely from their nostrils, as they slowly fade into oblivion.

I know that as the weeks pass, at least one pair of these little waddling, honking harbringers of hell are going to nest on a retaining wall right beside our parking lot. While they are in residence here, I know that everyone that walks anywhere near where they are is going to get chased and honked and hissed at. We are all in for a few months of utter annoyance. People will go out of their way to avoid them and will still get attacked either by air or by a lumbering, waddling charge, just for walking to their cars. And we have no recourse because they are protected by the Federal Migratory Bird Act of 1918.

Really, what purpose do these birds serve? Can't I just kill a few? All I want to do is flay them alive, then start to roast them while they are still breathing. Just one. Is that too much to ask? I'll never ask again, if they would let me get just one of them. I 'm sure if they let me, I would lose a lot of my anger issues associated with this particular species. It's just like when I play hockey and hit someone. I got them back, so I don't feel the need to hurt them anymore. Perfectly, logical.