biodork

This is part of why I always open this thread... it's pretty much guaranteed to accomplish at least one of three things: a) Make me laugh with some of the sillier complaints. b) Give me a place to vent about some of my own (usually minor) complaints. c) Provide a reality check as to how much worse things could be and just how inconsequential most of my daily complaints are. I hate to say it's a bit easier on me since I've never met the girl, but it's tough on my stepmom and it's just sad in general. I hope she can find some enjoyment during whatever time she has left, and that she doesn't have to suffer. (And thanks all.)

My stepmom's 13 year old niece broke her leg last October, and when she went in to the hospital to have it fixed, they found out she had bone cancer. They did a titanium bone replacement for her entire femur and put her on chemo, and she's been in the hospital ever since. Now they've had to give up and amputate her leg because there wasn't enough to her hip bone for it to take, and the cancer has spread to her lungs. The doctors have told her family that she's not going to make it, but no one has told the girl yet. I've never met this little girl and don't know her personally, but it's so tragic to hear of a young person who will never have the chance to grow up. I seem to recall the son of another poster here (Bunomatic?) had a brush with cancer a while back, and I pray he's fully recovered and that you never have to go through what this girl's family is currently facing. Edit: And Arc, I hope your grandmother recovers and is able to go home before too long.

:angel:

Do my eyes deceive me?? If not, welcome the heck back, PA! And FWIW, we can probably thank Ted Black for RJ calling all the games... a huge part of his decision was the reversal of the Sabres schedule from the league-high 22 back-to-back games of the last two seasons to a league-low of 11 this coming year (CBA forthcoming, of course).

My boss is on vacation all next week, and he already left for the day today. Looks like I'll be outta here before 4pm. :thumbsup:

lol nice... I wish!! Thus far making do with closet air fresheners and some strong peppermint scented hand lotion.

This is minor compared to last week, but other than the usual overtiredness, it's all I've got: My coworker is a rather large (okay, morbidly obese) guy. He's a nice enough person, but he's got hygiene and gastrointestinal issues that are generally undesirable in a coworker of any size. He's constantly turning down the thermostat (even in the winter) because he gets overheated easily; meanwhile, I'm freezing my butt off. In an attempt to resolve the issue, I brought in a fan for him to use at his desk for self-cooling, as a previous coworker used to do. It finally seems to be helping with him leaving the thermostat alone, but it's having the unintended (and very undesirable) effect of circulating his BO around the lab. Yuck.

:clapping:

Jagr? Good Lord is that ever a hockey mullet!

Holy smokes man... it was bad enough the ex-wife was bipolar, but letting her new bf beat her own son??? I sincerely hope everything works out with this and you can keep him far, far away from that guy. You sound like a wonderful dad and he sounds very well-adjusted given all that's been going on the last year or so. Best of luck! Edit: Thanks again to all for the well-wishes on my dog. He's stabilized now with a new medication specifically made for canine congestive heart failure, and I'm hopeful that will keep him comfortable until it's his time to go (and that I won't have to make that call).

Good veterinarians. Saw the regular vet yesterday, and he recommended starting a new medication that is specifically for dogs with congestive heart failure. I read up on it yesterday evening, and the trial results were pretty impressive. I'm really hoping this will let us cut back his other meds (he's on 4!) and keep him comfortable for a while longer so he can go peacefully. Thanks for the kind words yesterday. On a lighter note: going to the Harrisburg Brewers Fest tomorrow afternoon, which should be a good time (nothing like Claude, though!), and the weather is supposed to be nice all weekend. :thumbsup:

I love South Park. For me: I don't think I have much time left with my dog, and although I will happily keep him going as long as he has quality of life, the vet bills are killing me. I had to take him to the emergency clinic last Friday night because he was gasping on the floor when I got home from work. Poor little guy had to be put on oxygen, got a few injections, and a few more meds. I thought I was going to have to take him back in on Sat. afternoon to be put down, but he started to turn it around and has now stabilized. Still, with this being the late stages of heart disease/heart failure, the clock is officially ticking. He's 17 and has had a good life, but I'll miss him terribly when he's gone.

Very cool! Thanks for sharing, man!

I waited too long to order more K-cups, so now I can't make coffee tomorrow morning (or this weekend). :( The other tech at work had his last day today, which is awesome because his laziness and half-assed work resulted in much frustration. Unfortunately, it also means I get to take over the more mundane maintenance tasks that were his responsibility, which is a time suck and bound to be annoying in the short term because his record-keeping left much to be desired. I was looking for an invoice yesterday in a binder where we keep purchasing info, and not only are they not in chronological order, they are hole-punched and inserted forwards, backwards, and upside-down. How effing lazy are you to not even put all the sheets in the same direction?? Ugh. Oh yeah, almost forgot: my A/C started having problems Monday evening, and fortunately it's fixed now, but it's yet another unexpected expense. The issue also lead to an unpleasant discovery of a different nature. I never go in the basement except to change the heat pump filter, which I had last done in early April. When I was there a few days ago during the A/C repair, I found not one, but two deflated and mostly unrecognizable piles of fur with feet. Apparently two bunnies somehow found their way into my basement and got trapped, which makes me feel awful since they would have died slowly of dehydration/starvation. Also feel bad for myself, having had the unenviable task of scraping them off the floor with a shovel to get them back out. I really need to figure out how they got in and fill that gap so it can't happen again. :(

Forgot to post the cookout fare from yesterday, but tasty times. To eat: coconut and lime burgers (http://allrecipes.com/recipe/crunchy-coconut-and-lime-burgers/detail.aspx?src=VD_Summary) ranch and onion burgers cheese franks grilled corn potato salad with green chile and cilantro salsa (http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Fingerling-Potato-Salad-with-Green-Chile-Cilantro-Salsa-103570) To drink: homemade red sangria And for dessert: fruit tart Mmmm.

LOL :clapping: How did I miss that one??? Hilarious (and I'm glad I'm not the only one who went there).

Congrats, man!

:lol: Edit: I give up on trying to bold that last sentence... html formatting confuses me.

Right there with ya, Weave. My neighbors (mostly their kids) are some ignorant MFers. After finally getting fed up of people treating my driveway as public property (in spite of many polite requests over the years to refrain from doing so), I decided to start parking at the end of my driveway, even though it is less convenient for me and my car is now getting crapped on regularly since it's under a power line. This seems to have helped, but I'm still finding cigarette butts and orther small trash on my property, which is irritating. On Sunday evening I spent about two hours weeding and mulching the flower bed that runs between my driveway and their property. Tuesday when I came home I saw that they (finally) cut their grass, but with the mower discharge facing my way such that the flower bed and about 2 feet of my driveway were covered in grass clippings. So pissed. I can see them not realizing right away, but seriously, all they had to do was mow that part going the direction so the discharge was on thir side. Bastards. And lol to the whole Gold Bond discussion... Thanks for the laugh, guys. ;)

That's kind of the impression I was getting, too. I just wanted to check since I can be overly practical at times (it already comes in a bottle... Why do I need to pour it into another bottle?). I feel bad she spent the money, and it's a nice-looking piece but I have a hard time seeing myself using it. :/

What say you regarding decanters? My mom sent me one as an early b-day present, and I'm trying to resist my initial knee-jerk response of "why the heck would I use this?" and figure out the pros/cons. I'm seeing mixed info online as far as whether (or how quickly) the liquor deteriorates after being decanted, and since it takes me a while to go through a bottle, that's a legitimate concern. Seems a bit silly to pour something out of its original bottle with all the label info into something unlabeled. Edit: I should add that the decanter is lead-free crystal (Ravenscroft).

While the last two weeks have been far too busy at work with nowhere near enough sleep, the last few days have had some definite signs of things looking up: -- After replacing both my router and my laptop battery, the home electronics issues are finally resolved. (As an added bonus, was able to find both items for a lot less $ than I feared.) -- One of my coworkers, who is a source of near constant frustration due to his laziness and sloppy work, has accepted a job elsewhere and is leaving in about two weeks. :D -- I get to leave work a little bit early today, and the weather is gorgeous here. -- My boss offered today that I should focus on my own work and he'll write my portion of an invited review article since the experiments are more important and I've been killing myself trying to get both done. I wanted to ask but didn't want to seem ungrateful for the opportunity, so I'm incredibly relieved that he suggested it. -- For the first time in a month or two, I won't need to come in to work this weekend. :thumbsup: Here's hoping my dog won't wake up at 7am Sat. and Sunday again so I can actually get some sleep!

The off-ramp from the highway to my house, which has been closed for almost two months, is finally reopening on Monday. I'm the first exit on the other side of a bridge, so none of the alternate routes were a minor detour (next bridge is several miles down the river, next exit off the same highway is 4 miles beyond mine, and the Northbound half of my exit (which remained open) had nowhere to turn around for another 2 miles down the road). Such a simple thing, but I can't wait.

Huh. And here I was thinking I was being sarcastic, lol.

A-freaking-men. :lol: