Green Room - Week 29 - Day 1

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

Today is just one of those "blah" days for me.

Not sure if it's the weather (it's been cold, by our standards, but today is actually warmer than it has been) or just things being overcast... the "winter blahs" maybe. Maybe just having one more former co-worker's funeral last night sent things over the mental edge...

Or just plain having an "off" day.

So give me some good news. Or at least something to help snap me out of this funk.

***

Important links of the day:
Results from last night: http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/807585.html
New Topic: http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/807797.html
New Work Room: http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/808175.html
New Home Game/Killing Floor: http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/808357.html

and because people have been asking about it: (which I suppose is a good thing) http://www.patreon.com/user?u=70027

and our Amazon store (I've added a bunch of new titles from Idol and Idol-related authors) http://astore.amazon.com/li0cd-20

Comments

Just repeating what I said earlier in "Results"...

[adoptedwriter.livejournal.com]

Morning Everyone,

FIRST!

Thank you all as well for the many votes of confidence both this year and previous seasons and exhibits. I did last longer than ever before and make Top 50. Yay! I know my writing has improved plus all the socializing and networking is amazing. Thanks, guys for being a large part of my support team as my hub and I have muddled through the leukemia journey. This weekend marks his last treatment session! Yay! By Sunday we're on the other side of this thing!
Being out of the Main Comp doesn't mean I'll be writing any less. I have Holiday Time coming plus some books on my to-read list which fellow adoptee colleagues have written. I plan to read their memoirs and write up reviews for them. Good karma for my own book and book-in-the-works, don'tcha know.

Yes, I have a little book-ito in the oven. My memoir is gonna have a little sibling! LOL. My entry, "Goodbye, Dad" from two weeks ago is the opener to that! I'm about 15K words into book two...no title yet. It'll be about adopted life as an adult.
With less Idol time, I can be a better LJ in general friend. I also plan to get involved w the adoption support group that formed this year about an hour from my house. Yay for social life!
Feel free to friend me here n on FB....hope ya like kitty pix!
AW

Re: Just repeating what I said earlier in "Results"...

[halfshellvenus.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on the impending bookito! I hope it's as successful as the first. :D

Re: Just repeating what I said earlier in "Results"...

[tsuki-no-bara.livejournal.com]

good news about your husband! and good luck with the bookito! (which is such a cute name, by the way.)

Re: Just repeating what I said earlier in "Results"...

[bleodswean.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking of you and your husband. I will miss your upbeat entries - home game! And best of luck with the wee book.

Re: Just repeating what I said earlier in "Results"...

[eternal-ot.livejournal.com]

Good to hear about all the good things happening in your life..esp that the leukemia journey comes to an end..:)..Cheers! Yippie! Best wishes always..<3

[roina-arwen.livejournal.com]

Good news: it's Friday!! We went to a Comedy Mania last night featuring Henry Cho, Sinbad, and Bill Engvall, plus a bluegrass band, magician, and there was also a fundraising aspect for a group called Samaritan's Feet that helps provide new shoes to children in about 75 countries around the world. It was very fun!! Between pledges and some auction items they raised over $35,000 last I heard.

[adoptedwriter.livejournal.com]

That's a hugs success....and if is been there I'd need a box if adult diapers, I'd be laughing so hard! "Here's your sign...."

AW

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's the combination. Our weather is also too cold for me, and a good friend died on Tuesday. I've been down all week.

[theun4givables.livejournal.com]

Good news:

Bob has been accepted into the Delaware Autism Program, and will be changing schools come January. :)

It's a full day program, smaller classroom, and he'll still be integrated with neurotypical children to help model expected behavior.

I'm hoping the change will be one that help spur his development even further. :)

[medleymisty.livejournal.com]

Yay that's awesome! :)

[theun4givables.livejournal.com]

It is! I kind of expected it, and hearing that it's a full day is a load off my shoulders, because that gives me more "childfree" time to recover from work -- or to even change my hours at work/open up my availability, some.

He's made a lot of progress in the past few months with his current program, so I'm hoping we'll continue to see such strides with the new school, too. :)

[medleymisty.livejournal.com]

Woot! *hugs you a lot*

[halfshellvenus.livejournal.com]

This is great news for you both!

[theun4givables.livejournal.com]

It is. :) I'm just glad that we all feel that DAP will be better suited for Bob. I'm sure there's another IEP meeting in our future, too. I have more paperwork to fill out, sigh. Speaking of which, though, I have to remember where I put it... (Ev wants me to scan a copy for her and email it to her.)

[tsuki-no-bara.livejournal.com]

yay! good news indeed! i hope he does really well there.

[theun4givables.livejournal.com]

We're going to expect some backslides because this will be such a huge disruption in routine, for him, but the school itself sounds like it's very structured, which will help him a lot. :)

All in all, I'm just glad he's receiving services and all the help/support he can get. <3

[gratefuladdict.livejournal.com]

Great news!! :)

[theun4givables.livejournal.com]

I knowwww. :D

[dmousey.livejournal.com]

:0) :0) :0) <3 <3 <3. \m/ Alrighty then!

[theun4givables.livejournal.com]

Of course, this means trudging through the rest of November and December with his current staff, but this helps us both out a lot, in the end. :) His current staff is going to miss him hardcore, though. <3

[dmousey.livejournal.com]

And who wouldn't miss the little buddy? Two months is not long at all, especially with the holdays.

<3

[theun4givables.livejournal.com]

It's just going to feel like forever, because I'm trying to go to shift school and write a book and Ev's schedule is all fucking screwed up because it's nearing crunch time for her job. I think she did nothing but work the past 72 hours, she was so out of it at Bob's placement meeting, today.

She already mentioned that we might have to switch weekends again -- hopefully we won't have to, because Bob has no school all of next week so I will be slowly going insane if she can't take him next weekend.

[eternal-ot.livejournal.com]

Sounds cool..:) Good to hear that.

[theun4givables.livejournal.com]

It was a bit of a weight off my shoulders. :) He needs a bit more specialized support than his current staff can give him -- though they are all wonderful women who adore Bob. :) I just hope he adjusts to the change well. Autistic kids and disruptions in routine do not mix. xD

[halfshellvenus.livejournal.com]

My "blah" is that I've been working late hours and weekends on something the last 3 weeks that threatened to blow up completely on Tuesday, and then was resolved late yesterday.

My brain is just fried. :(

[eternal-ot.livejournal.com]

Aww..:/*Hugs*

[beeker121.livejournal.com]

Yesterday was a super-grumpy day for me and I couldn't seem to shake it and I was home after work and exercising and looking at the computer -

and the power went out. With a pop and sizzle noise outside my window. The outage covered about half a block but included all of my apartment building. All the neighbors met outside to chat, one family volunteered to call PG&E and another to call the landlord. I went inside and lit candles (and am relieved I know where the flashlights are by touch) and read until my hubby came home. We went out for dinner - kind of had to since it's an electric stove and we didn't want to open the fridge - then came back home to candlelight and headlamps and reading and total quiet.

Also, helpful that the power came back on at 4am so I could go ahead and work from home today.

I'm not wishing a power outage on anyone, but somehow it turned out to be the reset button I needed.

[bleodswean.livejournal.com]

What a great spin on one of the more inconvenient modern inconveniences. We lose power for weeks at a time up here and The Old Man still won't be a whole house generator....grrr....I hate camping in the house.

[beeker121.livejournal.com]

For one evening, the power being out became a rather delightful break - for weeks at a time I would not be okay. I think camping is fun because after a few days you stop camping, the contrast is part of the joy.

[lrig-rorrim.livejournal.com]

Here, Gary, have a ridiculous cat diving into boxes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uDuls5TyNE

[anyonesghost.livejournal.com]

Maru is totally my hero.

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

+1

[dmousey.livejournal.com]

He is awesomeness! The fat fluffybutt!

Something else to enjoy! :0)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKvNqe8cKU4

[reckless-blues.livejournal.com]

Good news: we're doing our final lab practical exam in microbio (i.e. we get handed a tube full of unknowns and a fully stocked BL2 laboratory and are left alone to isolate and identify all the pathogens) and I came up with a way to plate everything so that I could identify it all next lab day without having to incubate anything else, just mostly run oxidase/catalse tests on stuff with the same morphology on that medium. So I might get a day off in a week when everybody else is finishing up their practicals!

I'm an extremely lazy person.

(Actually, if I get K. pneumoniae or E. aerogenes on my eosin methylene blue and haven't managed to identify either some other way, I'll have to plate it out on blood agar since E. aerogenes won't grow on that medium, but I'm hoping I don't have to.)

Anyway, this is the most fun I've had all year.

EDIT: WAIT I could just do a wet mount and check for motility. SUCK IT ENTEROBACTERIACEAE

[beeker121.livejournal.com]

I can mostly follow along with the things you're talking about, or at least enough to get that you have likely found a useful shortcut to what could otherwise be a whole lot of detailed work. But mostly what I'm taking from it is that I want a t-shirt that says - SUCK IT ENTEROBACTERIACEAE just because.

[reckless-blues.livejournal.com]

If I really do manage to make it out of the lab in one piece on Tuesday, I might just have them printed.

EDIT: Version for liberal arts majors, since this stuff is really interesting:

My final lab exam in microbiology is I got a little tube with a bunch of pathogens in it and now I have to figure out what all of them are. I'm going to make them grow on Petri dishes with different stuff in them for them to digest (like soy or blood, and sometimes it's got dyes and salts and other more complicated stuff in there to change colors or inhibit something or basically just do stuff to differentiate further). The pathogens in it that can grow on that medium could grow in distinctive colors like bright yellow or white, or in colonies that look wrinkled, for instance. If two or more happen to look the same way, I can test for certain enzymes and stuff in a way that'll take me like two seconds - for one test I just have to put a doot of it on a thing and see if it turns purple in under thirty seconds, basically - so that I don't have to go put them on different Petri dishes to see which one I've got, which would mean I'd have to wait days to see my results. I picked my dishes so that all the stuff that looks the same when it grows on a given medium can be distinguished from one another with a thirty second doot test, or some other really quick thing. (The pool of pathogens is only as large as the stuff we've worked with this semester, so I don't have too much to narrow down.)

But if I get K. pneumoniae or E. aerogenes, which look the same on a dish with eosin and methylene blue dyes in it (sort of a blobby brown-purple), and which are both in the Enterobacteriaceae family so they both produce the same enzymes, digest most of the same stuff, and look the same if stained on a microscope slide in certain ways, the only way I can check which one I have is to see which one grows on a Petri dish with blood as the nutritional medium (and then have to wait several days like I don't want to). Unless I make a wet mount, which is basically a drop of the pathogen on a microscope slide with a little bowl in it, so it's still alive and I can see the way it swims around. E. aerogenes has true motility (can move with strength and purpose), K. pneumoniae does not (kind of flails around).

(Oh, and the obvious benefit of the wet mount over the blood agar is with the wet mount I'll be able to see if I have both.)

Re:

[beeker121.livejournal.com]

It is really interesting, and I followed all of that quite clearly. You have a talent for explaining these things to us liberal arts folks, thank you.

Re:

[rattsu.livejournal.com]

Also, blood agar smells ridiculously disgusting!

*cue microbiology nostalgia*

Re:

[reckless-blues.livejournal.com]

They should probably add "do not huff the agar" to those little lab safety sheets we get at the beginning of the year.

Though, I kinda like that incubator smell.

[rattsu.livejournal.com]

Fuck you Gary!

And I mean this in the nicest, nicest way possible. You're thing about throwing the Gauntlet has not left my brain, and since I have written about almost anything else in the competition so far there's only one thing left.

That I would never write about. And now I can't stop thinking about it.

This... this is why I came back to this competition.

[rattsu.livejournal.com]

And I have not had tea and my English have left the building and I apologize for my you're/your.

You guys would be terrified to see my prose before it's cleaned up.