gafizal

How D&D prepared me to a home owner... or Geeks and Darwin

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 17:08:49 GMT

As a paramedic I’ve encountered many patients who complain of being SOB
( that stands for short of breath, now be nice!) after having cleaned their bathrooms or kitchens. Usually the wheezing etc can be attributed to the fact that these folks never took chemistry or played Dungeons & Dragons. Anyone who’s done both will be much safer than the average bear when pursuing home repairs/ upkeep.

Why you ask?

First let us consider the case above, the issue is that Ammonia NH3, and Bleach NaOCl combine in the following reaction:

2(parts)NaOCl + 2NH3 --> 2NaONH3 + Cl2

Wow, you say, that looks like a test I took once, but so what? And what does D&D have to do with any of this?

Answer: Cl2 is Chlorine gas…

Reply: Yeah, so what?

Answer: chlorine gas is the breath weapon of GREEN DRAGONS in the AD&D 1st edition, thus the D&D/ Science geeks among us know to avoid such breath attacks!

AD&D players will do well in many areas if the remember their dragons:

BLUE Dragon breath weapon: lightening ( shut off the main household power before re-wiring)
WHITE Dragon breath weapon: Cone of cold ( insulate your den)
RED Dragon breath weapon: Fire ( smoke detectors are your friends)
BLACK Dragon breath weapon: Acid ( Dispose of batteries safely and be careful if you jump a car!)

Next safety update: Sprites in your kitchen… a fairy surprising morning!

Writer's Block: Titular Heroes

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 13:07:03 GMT

Kurt Vonnegut's books have great titles, like Breakfast of Champions and Slaughterhouse Five. If your life was a novel, what would the title be?

View 501 Answers

The frosted window

It's academic....

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:41:35 GMT

    I've not been around because I've been busy. I passed a certified procurement coordinator test which was a big relief as increases marketability and status within my industry, and I've accrued enough points in my final class to obtain an associate of arts in nothing in particular (non terminal degree no major).
    So now, since it’s what I do, I made a plan about the future. Perhaps this is a weakness, I’m bad at being in the now. At any rate, I’m going to finish nursing school so that I’ll be able to feel that I can always eat, have health care and a place to live pretty much no matter what, but unless I’m doing critical care transport I can’t see myself really loving work as a nurse.
    What do I want to be when I grow up? Trees and big water make me happy, or at last peaceful, but forest rangers can barely eat. In my current role I love the autonomy and that I’m paid, in large part, to think. I want to be paid to think in all future jobs. While I might teach EMS at some point that isn’t a full time thing unless you get into administration which means clerical work which I loathe. There is also the question of what schooling I’ll need for the future and how to get it. A good friend once observed that I’m happier when taking classes, and this is true, but only if I care about the content.
    So my master plan….
Finish the RN, seek an undergrad certificate from CSU in Bioethics, use that cert as my electives for a BA in philosophy. Why bioethics and philosophy? I care about how people should act, individual rights, patients, and medicine. That’s a too-short summary I know, but anyone who’s met me can figure out that it’s a good fit, the bigger question why PHIL.
    I spend a lot of time railing and whining about things which don’t matter, and I think that in part it’s because I don’t see them clearly. You can go to a lawyer and say, “This guy is evil, that one is unfair, this is wrong…” and the lawyer will look at this disorganized mess being spewed and define the actual issue at hand. I want to be clear on the origins, border/limits, context of issues before me. I think practicing such thought will bring me some measure of peace if only because I’ll look at what is, which is usually smaller that what isn’t. Also there are my issues with death, which I’ve made quite a career of, and thinking about he meaning of life might be a good thing, but for me it is much more the former issue of clear thought.

Small victory... ISP

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 13:26:58 GMT

For years I was a loyal Earthlink customer. I’ve been paying 39.95/ month for 1.5 Mbps DSL for some time. I recently checked with Earthlink to find out if I could upgrade the speed. I live literally right next door to a central office. I was told that the line was the limiting factor and contact At&T. I did so and was told that the line could handle 6 Mbps just fine. I asked if their deal with Earthlink meant the latter couldn’t offer 6/ sec. I was told no such restriction exists. I called Eathlink back and was told that the line limitation was old info and that I could 6 for the price I was already paying. While would have liked Earthlink to mention this before I asked about I was content, and willing to wait the, “ Up to 72 business hours” for a seamless upgrade. Then it didn’t happen. I called again and was told the work order had an error. Asked if Earthlink had tried to resolve the error prior to this call. They were unclear on that. Then I was told that the upgrade would entail 3 days to disconnect my service and up to 5 more to reconnect it at the faster rate. I’m taking online classes, and my work involves a lot of internet use. I can’t be down for more than a single planned day. I called Earthlink back to ask why it would take so long to hook things back up, and was told that that 1.5 was the best they could do.
I called AT&T. 2 days later after a seamless upgrade I was able to enjoy a real speed of about 5/sec per http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/
(personal info not required just click a city server)
I’m to pay $35/month. For the next couple months I‘ll pay 10 to keep the Earthlink emails active.
By the by, everyone at AT&T seemed to know what they were talking about and transferred me to appropriate staff. Everyone at Earthlink seemed disorganized and confused. The latter also seemed to be in a call center in India.

clarification of expression clearly required....

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:31:03 GMT

the expression in question is, " I've got my finger on the pulse of the industry." this is often used by people who wish to be, " Bleeding edge" I love it when medicine is co-opted into standard parlance.
Here's the thing.... the expression uses "Finger" not "thumb" , " Why?" you ask.....

because.... if you take a pulse with your thumb you will feel your own pulse, you idiot!

Seems I am....

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 22:34:11 GMT

You are The Magician

Skill, wisdom, adaptation. Craft, cunning, depending on dignity.

Eleoquent and charismatic both verbally and in writing,
you are clever, witty, inventive and persuasive.

The Magician is the male power of creation, creation by willpower and desire. In that ancient sense, it is the ability to make things so just by speaking them aloud. Reflecting this is the fact that the Magician is represented by Mercury. He represents the gift of tongues, a smooth talker, a salesman. Also clever with the slight of hand and a medicine man - either a real doctor or someone trying to sell you snake oil.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

A wonderful evening

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 12:04:09 GMT

To " " yuki_onna
:
"As I mentioned before, this weekend I'll be reading with zakbar at Suspect Thoughts Books at 4903 Clarke Ave in Cleveland."

Well sjseibert and I went and let me tell you, both authors were great, though of very different styles, nor is the atmosphere at this gleaming gem of a book shop to be missed. Want community, acceptance, and warmth? Then go to this shop!
yuki_onna makes you work, makes you climb along behind her, but oh the view once you reach a summit, and how many mountains there are in each range she paints! I almost don't want to be able to understand how she thinks, as that might take some of the fun out of her works. It isn't how I think, but is really, really like that. I like putting on her prismatic, astral glasses and catching feeling my breath catch. This is art folks. This is what agriculture made possible...hurray for farmers....

zakbar, despite redeeming one's faith in Youngstown, OH, doesn't make you work. He lets you slide in and recline in sometimes plush, sometimes utilitarian cushions. There is something simple and clean in his writing, and while I listened to a short story of his my mind popped with clear images. I bought his book, without any more urging than that.

After that we went to the Greenville Inn in Chagrin Falls. There, despite a loud and zany band, we met up with a friend of mine from critical care class, who is considering buying a double-wide trainer. I must admit this concept of low cost owner occupied housing seems as romantic to me as buying a motorcycle and taking a now cliché road trip to "discover America." The thing is one could get both autonomy and mobility, the latter due to a lack of economic constraints. I will keep my house, this is a buyers’ market anyway, but in 10 years who knows?

In search of Good Scotch

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 16:28:29 GMT

Tevanian's 2nd best assassin, Dr. Jonathan Hemlock liked to spend his time with his pictures, and glass of Laphroaig. I’m also fond of single malt Isle scotch. My favorite so far is Caol Ila 18 yr, and I’d avoid Ardberg 10 yr, it’s just what it could be.

Under the heading, “ LIFE is TOO DAMN short FOR BAD BOOZE” bellow please find a link to my favorite scotch review site, wine coinsures have nothing on us!

http://www.whisky-distilleries.info/DR_IsleOfIslay_EN.shtml

$$ well spent

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 11:38:56 GMT

I was at the store yesterday, buying dinner ingredients, and I bought a hyacinth plant, just starting to flower. I’m allergic to pollen, and most artificial scents, and so have never been into aromatherapy. However the flower seems quite a pick me up. The whole house now smells of spring, which I’m ready to welcome.

So you want to be a medic?!

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 18:15:43 GMT

So you think you want to be a medic {Graphic, but not bloody, true story I worte} names changed

Dead Kid
It's a crisp fall morning and I'm in the ER, where I've worked for three years, waiting for the ambulance to arrive with a child, found dead in its crib. I check the equipment and wait. I play through resuscitation algorithms, and feel nervous, but not overwhelmed, not like the first time. In this job, you learn by doing what scares you.
Suddenly, I'm 24 again and being bounced around in the jump-seat of a municipal ambulance, starring at the pristine, white sheet which covers the stretcher, my instructors in the front. The smooth ride they reserve for psych patients and old ladies with hip fractures seems forgotten as we thunder through the streets, sirens wailing, waking everyone we pass.
The cold fluorescent light above me flickers as I try to slow my breathing, the lump in my chest growing. Its a warm, spring night, which would normally imbue me with a sense of possibility and strength, but now, I feel small and ill-prepared for this call and this career. I'm four months into a 10-month course to become a paramedic, and I wonder if I can possibly learn enough in that time. We won't take the Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) course for another three months, and I wish I'd read ahead.
I try to focus on what I do know, it isn't much. What am I supposed to remember? I have little time to wonder as the siren cuts off and the rig lurches to a stop.
My teachers jump in the back, I unbuckle my seatbelt, as Tom grabs the Broslow bag, a blue bag with smaller bags inside, all filled to bursting with pediatric equipment, and each color-coded to fit children of various weights. The bag features a measuring tape which is used to determine the approximate weight of a child while also listing the appropriate drug dosages and airway tube sizes.
Sam barks, " You get the stuff, I'll run in and grab the kid," and he's gone, trotting toward a sprawling three story house, amid old trees in a well kept yard. He reaches the broad, inviting porch. It's three AM, but with the yellow street lights, and my pupils dilated from adrenaline it could be dusk. I pull the door shut obscuring my view.
I'm surprised they want to work the kid in the rig instead of the house, but it will become very clear why. Tom is unpacking the kit, setting the tape on the cot, getting bag valve masks of various sizes ready, he looks at me, " I'm gonna tube the kid and Sam will get the line, you'll do compressions, maybe push some drugs, okay ?" It isn't a question. "Sure" I whisper, having intended to sound confident.
I hear a click, and turn to see Sam coming in through the back door, a large man, clutching a small black toddler with a striped shirt. Sam lays him on his back on the stretcher, head toward Tom, feet toward the door. The child is impossibly still, his skin now ashen, and damp, his lips blue. As a Tom cuts his shirt off I see the cot is wet, Sam announces, " Drowned in a bucket, last seen 45 minutes ago" "Monitor!" Sam looks at me and I apply the EKG patches to the kid, looking expectantly at the screen. Asystole. Flat-line. Tom is already bagging. I see the kid's chest rise and fall with Tom's efforts, and I position my hand with a pointless gentleness. I start compressions. "Faster!" Sam looks up from the kid's arm to me. I increase the speed, though I have been counting silently, and know my rate was supposed to have been adequate. "No veins, I'm gonna' do an IO" Sam grabs the needle, reminiscent of a penny nail.
"Okay, hold CPR" Tom places the airway tube in the kid, then looks at the monitor, which hasn't changed, as Sam pushes the needle smoothly into the bone of the boy's right leg, I listen and confirm the correct placement of the airway tube in the trachea. Sam hooks up the IV fluid running it wide-open. I'm startled by banging on the ambulance door, but I keep up compressions. "Hang on!" yells Tom at our would be visitor. "Epi!" Sam is looking at me again, as the yellow nylon drug-bag is to my left, across the cot from him, he wants the adrenaline, and his hand smoothly takes over compressions as I seek the pre-filled syringe. I hand it him and he tosses it to the floor, shouting, "1:1000, not 1:10,000!" Tom reminds him I haven't taken PALS yet. Sam grabs the multi dose vial gruffly, and I return to doing compressions. I'm sure I've chosen the wrong career. It's been 4 minutes since we arrived, 2 since we started working him.
Sam is giving drugs as Tom bags, but the pounding outside is now accompanied by several loud voices. "Go calm them down, we've got this," it's Tom's best team-captain-encouraging look. I try to take a slow deep breath, but shudder instead, and move to the side door of the rig, Sam assuming my former post.
Outside it's bedlam for a few seconds, until I shout, "Hey!" the crowd of about 15 or 20 is mostly back men in their 30s, all wear expressions that make them look much older, yet, awkward, and anxious in their helplessness. They look at me now, wanting the news I can't provide. "Why are you guys just sitting there?" asks a tall man in a flannel shirt. "Yeah, you should get going to the hospital, you got no doctors here" interjects another, there is a general murmur of agreement. I feel the scene spinning out of control "Everything that can be done in a hospital they are doing right now in there, and the sooner it's done the better his chances are." An older, heavyset woman, steps forward and informs me that she is a retired nurse. I explain to her exactly what is being done, wondering if I'm breaking confidentiality laws in the process, and she calms the crowd for me. That is until the child's mother shows up. She's about 40, and morbidly obese, her braids flail wildly and she wails, hyperventilating, clinging to and pulling against several people in turn, then the ambulance door, before I jump in front of her and her broad shouldered husband restrains her. "You can ride up front, if you want. " I tell her, she seems not to hear me through her cascade of tears, as she yanks open the side door of the rig, hitting me with it. "Out now!" shouts Tom at the door as I rush in and get between her and her child. Her husband pulls her back out onto the tree lawn. "Time to go, you, in the back," Sam tells me about a couple minutes later, hopping out the back doors slamming them shut behind him, lest anyone jump in. By this time I have the mother in the front. Sam wrestles with the woman and threatens to leave her there if she can't calm down which takes about another minute. I push some Epi under Tom's supervision and give more compressions.
The ride to the hospital is fast, punctuated by Tom's radio report and the air-horn, but calmer than the ride to the house, as Sam doesn't want to dislodge the boy's airway tube. The ambulance backs up tossing me sideways, but Tom is prepared and starts throwing things onto the cot beside the dead boy. I hook the bag up to portable oxygen. The rig goes dark and quiet, The only sounds is the bag. Then light floods the compartment as Sam wrenches open the back door, and looking at Tom, grabs the cot lifting it and the boy, outside. We jump out and rejoin them. I do compressions as Tom bags and Sam pushes the cot into a brilliantly white room with a team of doctors and nurses, who, after receiving a crisp report from Tom, will work the boy for another 20 minutes, before he's pronounced dead.
Outside, after I restock the ambulance, Sam leans against the front bumper smoking his third cigarette. I feel I've failed, and should atone. I try to apologize, but I have a lump in my throat, and my breath is ragged. Sam takes a long pull on his cigarette, and says, " It was good call"
I explode!

"Good? How was that good? He's he's..." my voice trails off my jaw trembling too much to allow for speech.
"We got the line, and the tube, we gave the drugs, we did everything we were supposed to, which by the way," Sam stops and flicks away his cigarette "Is everything anyone could have done. He never had a chance, but we did our job." He seems fatherly now, not the disgusted drill sergeant of the call.
"Yeah well.." I look at the ground again, finding no solace in this words.
"Dead kid!" he's looking at me intently.
"What?" I ask as contempt wells up inside me.
"Dead kid, let me hear you say it," he says, a wolfish grin appearing on his tired face
I stutter as I mumble, "D-dead kid"
"Louder!" he's shouting
"Dead kid" I say feeling ashamed, and awkward, and close to tears.
"What is he?" Sam prods.
"Dead kid" my voice is raised now, and then I say it several more times, and I feel a little less heavy.
"Yeah, he's dead, and there will be more, and it doesn't get easy, but it won't be this hard again," he pauses "The next time won't be your first time," he says reassuringly, his face almost compassionate.
      I'm in my ER again as little girl is transferred from an EMS cot to our bed, and my friends and I act, for 37 minutes, as though there is hope. Then, we hold each other and cry.