biodork

Lol Oh yeah; and the sump pump that wasn't working? Looks like it might've just been having problems because the exterior portion of the exit pipe froze, which would've been an easy fix except after running a couple days the motor might've burned out, requiring a $200-350 replacement. When it rains, it pours.

Curse this house of mine. Today I was excited to finally replace my hot water heater, and after x-mas gifts from various folks was expecting to have all but around $90 covered. When the plumbers arrived they found the last installation was done shoddily, and new installation would require replacing a bit of the surrounding plumbing. Okay, no biggie. Then they checked the water pressure, and since it's around 100 psi vs the usual 30-60 they said I also needed a regulator valve and expansion tank to avoid problems dwn the line. (Explains why my TPR valve blew last year on a 5 1/2 yr old tank.) So now the total is $1316 instead of $661. Faaaaaaaack. :(

lol it does sound much more intimidating!

Yep -- my vague understanding is that it "hides" in your nervous system and can come back out of hiding as shingles. That's why it tends to follow a band / nerve where it reappears.

varicella zoster :)

They should give him a pigeon after his first trade has been completed.

Huh; I always figured it could happen to anyone who'd had the virus (at any age) vs. just the vaccine. Where's our resident virologist, Claude?

haha

Weird! I never remembered to look it up and see if it was "a thing", but apparently the answer is yes!

Oof, that sucks. I had them when I was 5 or 6 because my brother got it first and my parents made sure I did, too, much like this episode of South Park: http://www.hulu.com/watch/249863 Calamine lotion and Benadryl and/or Claritin / Zyrtec are your friends. :(

:( Hope that's a very temporary situation for you, man.

I have no idea how FedEx is still in business, because my experiences with them have been almost universally bad. Last month I'd ordered some perishable items that they just never bothered to pick up from the seller, so four days later I had to cancel the order and get a refund. Last Thursday I received an email notification of an order that was being shipped, and it took them three days to even pick up the shipment, then another 2 to actually have it leave their facility and get en route to me. The order was coming from MN, and was only delivered this morning (after I attempted to re-direct delivery to my home, which took me through an endless loop of futility on their FedEx Delivery Manager page and accomplished nothing). And this week, upon tracking a different order, I see that their "SmartPost" service is taking a package from western PA to central PA via OH and WV, so it'll take 5 days to deliver rather than the one day the USPS would've required. Effing retarded.

I have the free version of SwiftKey as well, and while I did love it once I got used to the motions, it has an extremely annoying habit of adding "Toynbee" as the first suggested word when I try to do "you're". No idea WTF a Toynbee is, though. I usually have better luck with the speak-to-text feature, but I don't use that in public since I don't want to be the weirdo talking to herself, lol.

Condolences to you both. It's one of the worst things to have to do. True. I wanted so badly for my dog to go on his own so I wouldn't have to make that call, but he just didn't have quality of life anymore. And I still second-guess the decision, even knowing it was the right one.

Bummer. Missed the last few games and was looking forward to this one. Guess it's back to binge-watching of Breaking Bad for me tonight.

Funny you mentioned the sea aging... heard about Jefferson's Ocean Bourbon recently (same idea) and very intrigued to taste, but very limited availabilty and high price point. http://www.bourbonblog.com/blog/2012/06/04/jeffersons-ocean-aged-bourbon-review/ Glen Thunder is from FLD, yes? You should submit your recipe to them; maybe you'll be featured in a future newsletter!

This might sound odd, but have you heard anything about pediatric massage therapy? My massage therapist has an autistic son (he's 4 or 5), and she received specific training as a CPMT from this organization: http://www.liddlekidz.com/autism-massage-training.html http://www.massagetoday.com/mpacms/mt/article.php?id=14431 Obviously she's too far for you, but maybe it's worth seeing if there is someone in your area who's certified in this as well? Best of luck to you and your family, GCOE. And good on all the others here who've offered their time and assistance; this community really is like none other.

Yowza -- glad to hear all were (relatively) unharmed. Take it easy this weekend and enjoy those muscle relaxers! Even though the snow wasn't too bad here, I had the rare option (which I exercised) to work from home today. And tomorrow evening my friend and I are finally going snowboarding for the first time this season, which should be excellent given the recent weather (even if it is crowded). Bring on the weekend!

Shane Doan given the all-clear to return; likely to play Saturday Good news for the Coyotes. That'll be a great morale-booster for the team to have him back in the lineup, even if his conditioning isn't quite full-strength.

I'd like to think it's a testament to my open-mindedness that I still gave the kitten to a woman whose command of written English was so poor that her emails made me grieve for English teachers everywhere. In person she sounded just fine, but every one of her wriiten messages contained a litany of abuses, including (but not limited to): - the almost complete lack of capitalization and punctuation, save the occasional apostrophe - use of "awe/awee" in place of "aww" - "your" instead of "you're" - "ima" for "I'm gonna"

That's great.

Really wanted to do this at my place since my water heater has been having trouble, but after doing some research it looked like I'd need a much larger / more expensive unit than was affordable because of my location. Being in NC you might be okay, but make sure you check the specs because the smaller ones can't keep up with demand when it's cold outside (heavily depends on difference in temp between in the incoming water and your desired setting of 120+F, influenced by flow rate). My complaint: I'm really tired of hearing the incessant inner (now outer) monologue of the old lady on the other half of my duplex. I feel bad that she's unwell, but good God I wish she would STFU so I didn't hear her complaining and talking to herself all morning when I'm getting ready for work and every night when I'm trying to sleep. Been going on for months now.

Old Fashioned with Bulleit Rye and fancy Amarena cherries. So good, it doesn't even need ice.

Lol thought I was hearing things when JR said that and no one corrected him!

Thai red curry with couscous. Turned out a good bit hotter than I intended, but thanks to the interwebs and tahini paste it's still edible.