Did they tell you to go pound it? 
Howdy Y’all! I survived the record audit. I got attaboys for the progress I’ve made in cleanin’ ‘em up in my whole two weeks on the job and I got some great suggestions on prioritizin’ what needs to get finished. So, not too shabby. 
Thanks to the wonders of the freezer and the microwave, we had beast stew for dindin. Freezer to microwave to table in under ten minutes. It’s magic!
Nuts appropriate/inappropriate appendages crossed re your surgery tomorrow. You’ll dance ballet in no time!
shortdrum yay on gettin’ the skool stuff all figured out.
pearl sorry for the loss of your friend.
MOOOOOOM chikin pot pie is kinda like soup. There’s a million ways to make it and it usually comes out good. Mine always does. Except once. Cheese does not belong in a pot pie I learned that time.
“in”, no. “on” for the last 5 minutes, definitely.
swampy, my pot pie was more like soup than I care to admit - I needed to thicken the broth a bit more. But it was yum, and I’ve got leftovers for lunch tomorrow, so there’s that!
And, I’ve finished my scrapsafghan!! I’m pleased with the result, plus it used up a bunch of scraps, huzzah! Guess I need to start another one.
Lots of good wishes for your surgery, Nuts.
Sounds like you came up with a good plan, shortdrum. Hope the headaches vanish soon.
Great science fair discussion. I’m always happy to hear it when the people who worked hard and got reasonable results do well. I can imagine it would be fun to get to talk to the contestants. Also, did your participation in the one science fair have an influence on what you’re studying, congo?
Oooh, pretty afghan, FCM.
Yet another long day. Not horribly stressful, but I’m in a perpetual pattern of too much to do, too little time. And that gets old. I’ve been getting more than average done lately, but still…
Devoured some quesadillas. Need to have some veggies and fruit.
Off to figure out what else I’m doing next. Maybe a walk?
Hugs.
GT
MOOOOOOM you may find it a little thicker tomorrow. I like my pot pie to be a little soupy and it’s always thicker the next day. Marie Callender ain’t got nuttin’ on us!
On that note I think I shall go lie upon the bed and watch some teevee until beddy bye time.
Nitey Nite Y’all!
Almost forgot: I am reading Swamplandia! I can’t wait for the part where swampy and OYKW show up. 
So about 2 hrs ago my work truck caught on fire. I managed to put it out after moderate damage to the live truck wiring, and I lost most of my foul weather gear. Saved 98% of the gear and the truck as a whole. Still at work will update much later.
Hey, if I couldn’t see the humor in the situation, I’d be in waaaaay more trouble.
Dad drinks too much. He thinks we don’t notice, because he drinks when he’s alone. Trouble is, he also puts the bottles in the recycling can, so it’s really not that hard to keep track of how many bottles of wine he puts away in a week (3-5). So, yesterday morning, when I passed the can, I glanced and saw . . . the bottle of rum I got last December to make rumballs with. It was something like 80 proof, and I got drunk off the fumes. Last I saw, it was still 4/5ths full, which means Dad drank at least a pint and a half in a few days.
What was my instant response when I saw the bottle? “But, why is the rum gone?!”
As for tutoring, I hold CA teaching credentials in Art (K12), English (4-12), and General Science (4-8). Therefore, I tutor math.
I know. I actually tutor whatever my employers hand me, but most of my students are elementary or middle school, and most of them are struggling in math more than they are reading. I have completely relearned all my multiplication tables, learned a new way to do long multiplication (called lattice multiplication), understand that fractions are just another way of writing a division problem, and am re-learning all the Algebra I lost years ago.
But, please, don’t get me started on the stupidity of CA state teaching standards requiring that eighth graders be taught two years of Algebra crammed into one year.
Ok, your tutoring credentials thing is funny. My best friend’s husband has his BS in computer engineering and his MS (MA?) in ESL and something else special, don’t remember. So, he teaches science. I think it’s Earth or Life science.
Went to the gym after 2 weeks of not going. Unfortunately my normal exercise-induced respite from headache didn’t happen this time but it’s still worth it because I feel so much better in the rest of my body after exercising and the pain at least stops while I’m there. I just need to keep reminding myself that I may feel like shit at home but I feel good at the gym so get off my lazy butt and go!
I’ve decided that doctor’s office scales are evil. The last time I went to the gym, their scale said I was 219.5. Today it said I was 217.4. Last Friday my doctor’s scale said I was 224. What the hell? Do they deliberately use scales that are inaccurate to give them more of an excuse to badger their patients about their weight? I know I’m fat, they don’t need to add on fictitious pounds.
I know the feeling. My doctor’s scales measure me at 7-9 pounds heavier than my last weigh-in at the gym. Stupid, mean scales.
I’m home now. Outside the house is an old beater Explorer with all my gear from my usual truck thrown inside. Everything I have that I can reasonably run through the washing machine is either in it or staged to go in order to rid myself of the smoke smell. It was a hell of a night.
Around 7:15pm I was driving my venerable old friend Unit 5, a 1999 GMC Suburban live truck on Rock Creek Parkway past the Kennedy Center in DC when I began to smell smoke. I turned on the cabin lights to see an alarming amount of smoke filling the cabin. I slammed on the brakes, threw it into park, hit the strobes and bailed out.
As I exited I saw flames behind the driver’s seat. I ran around back, pulled a little gear out then went up to the driver’s rear door (which accesses the live unit’s rack rear) and opened it. Apparently an electrical short had caught my winter parka and raincoat on fire. I pulled them out and with that most of the fuel of the fire was removed. I swatted the burning wires a few times with my left fist and the burning wires went out.
The DCFD arrived and put out my pile of flaming coats fusing themselves to the asphalt. US Park Police did a report then I drove the truck back to the shop. It will be fine, just needs the racks rewired, which will probably take about a week.
After that I was sent out in another truck to go finish the story I had originally been sent on. It occurred to me later that we had narrowly avoided disaster, as there had been talk of shifting me over to another more capable vehicle earlier in the evening. If so the truck would have shorted out in the garage, and may very well have seriously damaged other vehicles or even the station. After all the Suburban sports a 44 gallon perpetually filled fuel tank, and a lot of gear, and it would have become quite involved before anyone noticed or the sprinklers kicked in.
So now I’m home, coughing a bit from the smoke and generally feeling crappy. Probably shut down soon and try to get some rest. I hope tomorrow is a quieter day.
Seriously, gig, I don’t think you’re allowed to have that exciting of a day. There’s probably a fine or some community service or something.
(For the love of Og, don’t do that! And see your doctor/local health clinic about the cough. Smoke inhalation is nothing to screw around with.)
That’s how Mom’s back surgery went… she got sent to a doctor in the Big City Hospital (a very bad hospital, the king gets his yearly checkups there) after the ones in town had been unable to get any improvement for months, he saw her walk in, said “pinched nerve, surgery, where are you from, oh ok out of town, so let’s let you go home tonight and get a sleeping shirt and toiletries and you’ll go in at 10am, will you be driving her back sir or would you like us to send an ambulance?”
pre-codes a Mexican Wave for quick and complete recoveries
Now to read the rest…
ETA: pocket oliphant, I know it’s not the same as being with a tutor, but my email is in my profile if you want help with Chemistry.
Good morning! My eyes flew open at 5:07, partly from a rather nasty dream I was having, but mostly because my bladder insisted. Getting out of bed was interesting - idiot Taz was asleep across my left arm and it took a few seconds to figure out why I couldn’t disengage that limb from the covers. And naturally, by getting out of bed, I woke FCD, so our day began.
While he showered and dressed, I made his lunch, and once he was gone, I poured me a bowl of cereal. One part of me wants to go back to bed, but if I do, then I’ll be up late tonight and that’ll start another stupid messed up sleep cycle. So I’m up and semi functional. rah.
We’re promised a lot of rain today into this evening, but tomorrow, it’s supposed to hit 70 - the weirdness in the weather continues. My main plan for today involves making a beef stew-like substance. And maybe a load of laundry. I’ve already fed the cats - they finished off all their kibbles and Ziva was whining at me as if she hadn’t been fed in days, but I know better. She lets me pet her and I can feel substantial gut under her long, flowing locks. What a piglet!!!
**Tugig **- dang! Scary stuff - so, did you make the evening news??
Happy Leap Day!!!
Good Mornin’ Y’all! Up and caffienatin’. YAWN 'Tis 59 Amurrkin out with a predicted high of 80 and sunny. After a stormy predicted weekend this weekend high temps will fall back into the 60s next week. Or not. One never knows.
giggity dang! I forbid you to set yourself on fire. I have spoken. So mote it be. Plus, seriously, if you’re still coughin’ this mornin’ go get seen, ok?
I need more caffiene and rumbly tummy wants to be fed. Then, alas, irk purtification must commence. It’s the end of the month so I get to start tryin’ to figure out monthly report stuff. It’s a thrill a minute!
Happy Leap Day and Hump Day Y’all!
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There’s nothing quite like not falling asleep until after 5am when you have to get up at 6am.
Nava - I very likely will be PMing you between today and Sunday. I was going to go for tutoring today. Turns out though that we’re supposed to get heavy snow and ice starting right when my lab ends. I have a brand new scraper/brush and I have no idea where it is because we haven’t had any real accumulation since Halloween. I think I need to find that before I leave the house.
I did realize something yesterday while doing my homework. I read the instructions in the text for how to balance half redox equations. Then as I did them (many many of them), instead of just going through the steps, I started each step by writing what I was doing. So first I’d write the equation. Then I’d write “find all oxidation numbers” and I’d find them. Then, “balance atoms of element being oxidized/reduced”, etc. If the atoms were balanced, I’d write “balanced” instead of just skipping the step. After I had done all the half equations like this, it got into full redox equations and I realized that I knew exactly what to do without even looking at the instructions, even though the procedure is slightly different. I still wrote each step as I went but I started abbreviating it when I knew exactly what I was doing and why.
The thing that I realized is that I LIKE balancing redox equations and I hope we get one on the quiz this morning. Of course, my homework also is 4.5 pages long and I didn’t even finish them all.
Several years ago I was in a bookstore with my mother when she saw a copy of a book and said “oh, that’s a very important book, I’ll buy it!” “Mom, I’m reasonably sure you’ve already got it.” “I don’t think I do.” “You realize that when I say ‘reasonably sure’ it means I’d bet money, right?” “Well, I don’t think I have it!” We were on vacation. I remember the name of the book but not of its author; there are several books by the name and it’s not the most famous one. It’s an essay from a Catalan philosopher and, from my PoV, one of those books whose best usage is to prop up a table with a broken leg.
OK, so she buys it. We get home. I show her the other two copies of the same book. Different editions but yep, same one. She couldn’t even return the new copy to the bookstore, since said bookstore was several hundred kilometers away; instead, she gave it to a friend and the second-oldest copy to the library.
A few weeks back, Mom got this attack of cleansing - I am always happy when she gets an attack of cleansing, throwing things out is Good. Specially when the things thrown out include, for example, electric bills from 1985 to 2007. We’re looking at her books after bagging up a ton of old bills and I notice she’s got both a copy of That Essay and the writer’s Complete Works.
She insisted in giving the essay to me. “Mom, you realize it’s one of maybe half a dozen books, of the thousands in your house, that I haven’t read? OK, I haven’t read the encyclopedias cover to cover either. If I haven’t been able to slog through it in all these years, I’m not going to be picking it up now.” “But it’s a very important book!” “I’ll take it if you toss three others.” “… OK.”
So now I have this hardcover brick, about 1200 pages thick, which I can use to prop up a whole bookcase… and I’m reasonably sure that Mom hasn’t read it either, but, you know, it’s a Very Important Book!
How’s the back, Nuts? I hope the surgery went beautifully!
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