Passage : Just for Fun

You Know You've Worked the Night Shift Too Long When. . .

Jeanne Johnston — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 14:05:00 GMT

Years ago, when my grandma was getting on in years and her housekeeping wasn't what it used to be, my mom drug me over there to spend the day really cleaning house for her. Actually, this may have been triggered by the infamous strawberries with baked...(read more)

Call Me WAHMmy

Jeanne Johnston — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:23:00 GMT

I remember back when my daughter was born, getting a card that gave me permission to let my regular work go to seed because there was a new baby in the house--not that I really care what anyone thinks of that dust bunny collection behind the toilet anyway,...(read more)

Happy Solstice!

Jeanne Johnston — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 18:14:00 GMT

I don't expect any sympathy from people who are probably sitting under two feet of snow whilst I'm fluctuating between 50s and 80s, but this is a time of year I find crucial for recentering myself and regrouping for the coming year. Forget New Year's resolutions, which are more often forgotten once the holiday fog lifts. Solstice is my counterpoint to spring cleaning, a watershed wherein I am often starting to drag psychically and need to set my sights on new goals, toss the flotsam and jetsam that I've accumulated (literally and emotionally), and start fresh. With the rebirth of the Sun and that extra minute or two of daylight every day, surely I will find that old drive and ambition, right?

My plan is to start with the physical. Since I work at night, I recently realized (one of those rare occasions I was up and about in the afternoon) that my house is starting to look like your stereotypically gothic movie set. In fact, I bemoaned the cobwebs dancing around the circumference of my beautiful stained glass lampshade to my son as I noticed them, and he shrugged it off with a "Vampire" (think Johnny Depp declaring "Pirate") like it's nothing out of the ordinary. Well, he's on his own now and it probably isn't. . . Further inspection showed crud under neglected toe kicks, grimy switchplates, and various collections of treasures the cat likes to stash away for future use (Q-tips, socks, jewelry, old Kleenex, and an assortment of bug and lizard carcasses from the lanai). A book junkie, I've got libraries in four rooms now--all dust magnets. Clearly, I'm overdue for a spring cleaning. I also like to periodically weed out superfluous junk, so whatever I'm sure the kids won't glom onto at some point will find its way to Goodwill or freecycle--not worth the misery of holding a yard sale, and karmically better to gift them anyway.

After the cleaning, I'll turn to myself and pamper and ponder. I could probably stand to indulge myself to a spa day, but my "frugal" gene means it will suffice to buy a nice conditioner, maybe a new scent, and spend an evening exfoliating, moisturizing, deforesting, and filing. Follow that with a day in the hammock with some introspective tunes, and I should be ready to dive back into the old routine again without feeling like it's sucking the soul out of me.

Fortunately, the kids are old enough that even they see no need to succumb to the crass commercialism of the holidays, so my problems haven't been compounded by those extraneous pressures for the past few years. I just need to stop my world, blow the stink off, and get back on the road with a full tank of gas.

And now, having just braved the dreaded WM (where I already see plastic champagne glasses and chocolate hearts) for an emergency cat litter run, I feel it's proper to close with an all-inclusive Happy Hallochristmakwanukaheastergiving! May you all likewise find a little zing as you head into the new year.

If You Build It, They Will Come ...

Jeanne Johnston — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 12:56:00 GMT

. . . at least, that's how it works if you're Kevin Costner. In my world, it's more accurately "if you take a vacation, they will ruin it." The "they" I refer to? Kids, of course!

My window of opportunity for time off appeared quickly, so at least I didn't have time to get too excited about it. First week, I had planned to take a couple days just to deflate. Otherwise, it wouldn't feel like much of a vacation, would it? A little background: My daughter has been hot and heavy with a boy across the country for months. Every week, I've been told they were socking away money, looking for apartments, and The Big Move was imminent--as in "next week," "next month." Never really came to fruition, so I guess I got immune to the threats.

So what does she do? Finds an apartment and makes plans to leave the nest immediately. As in less than a week. Forget the emotional trauma that entails--it meant we had the mind-boggling task of preparing her to leave the only home she's known here in the subtropics and land in soon-to-be-frigid Massachusetts. What Floridian in her right mind decides to introduce herself to the four seasons by plopping in the middle of winter? Sad enough she'd never even seen a proper hill before we went to Atlanta a year ago. Now, she's getting a real world education. This is a girl who whines about the cold when we dip down to 70. . . Ah, well--it's her karma now and I don't suppose they'll stay there forever. I don't even feel Florida is where we belong, even after 20-some years, so until I figure out where I DO belong, I shouldn't worry about calling the shots for anyone else. However, the main point of my rant is that this monopolized my first half of the vacation. Even doing her own laundry didn't spare me the lion's share of the work, and we ran around like the proverbial headless chickens--cleaning, sorting, locating boxes, and packing. I got to spend my Saturday driving her up to Tampa and letting her go through that gate--who knows, maybe for the last time.

Very sad business. . . until I got home and realized she'd left a mess in virtually every room of the house. It will probably take me weeks to pick away at it all, as I get the dubious honor of shipping her everything she left behind in dribs and drabs (starting with her computer, which was too heavy for carry-on and cost a cool $72 to ship!) I keep telling myself that this will be a good thing for both of us. She finally has to be an adult, get a job, pay her own bills, and (one hopes) set aside her WoW addiction for good (she claims it was merely the best way to stay connected with her man, and now they're in the same place, the game will probably become superfluous). I will also have to become an adult--or at least finally address the remaining post-divorce issues of self esteem and future relationships. Mommyhood, job, and studies have not left time for such things and I really need to hustle and face these demons, lest I turn around in 20 years and wonder why I did it alone. . .

So fine. I've survived this angst. The umbilical cord is stretchy and apparently does reach MA without undue pain or death, and hey--I still have a week of vacation!

Or not. At this point, my son takes over. He Who Is Never Ill announces he is not well. His foot is swollen and red and he's taking all the Chinese herbs his soon-to-be-doctor friend can throw at it. I have to go up there to step in. This is a guy who already lost a leg to necrotizing fasciitis and can't afford to fiddle-fart around. The foot looks bad to me, but he won't let me take him to the ER. Heck, he won't even let me wash that sink full of dishes because it's his mess in his (new) home and he's relishing the independence. Of course, as he's also just been laid off, he does not resist the offer of groceries or some Middle Eastern takeout. . . and when I finally leave (against my better judgment), he is promising that if the foot doesn't look better by morning, he will indeed go to the ER.

Natch, I get the call early. He's developed lymphangitic streaking up to his inguinal chain and his friend has taken him in. I get to spend the next week commuting an hour each way and keeping him company in the hospital. He gets his IV antibiotics, the redness recedes, the heat dissipates, the swelling relents, and they decide he can get a PIC line for outpatient antibiotics and go home.

In the midst of all this, of course, my vacation has vaporized, I'm living on maybe 3 hours of sleep each day because I'm still playing nursemaid, and I'm feeling more stressed than ever. I didn't even find time to read a book, finish my garden project, or even sleep in. Of course, my biggest plans for my vacation involved hitting my pharmacology course with a vengeance, and I ended up barely cracking a book. Here's hoping I can recover my stride and make up some ground now that I'm on the cusp of another weekend. I just need to find my own Shoeless Joe to inspire me on to complete my own Field of Dreams.

(OT: A shout-out to Jean R., who not only passed her CTR exam, but landed a job! Great inspiration!)

Beginnings and Endings

Jeanne Johnston — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 13:33:00 GMT

I'm not so sure the vacation is a success, except that I seem to be making up for being behind on my sleep. Maybe that's because it's still been a very stressful time. I'm still anxious for all the election hoo-hah to be over--and yet I jumped at the opportunity to stand in the sun all day to attend an Obama rally last Thursday. It was amazing in many ways, not the least of which was the demonstration of unity and power in our community. Whipped as I was at the end of the day, it was a much-needed infusion of optimism.

As today is The Day, I admonish everyone to get out and vote. Take your kids. Wear sunblock. Take plenty of water, if not a picnic basket (we voted over a week ago and missed those long lines, but standing in line with 12,000 people to see That One taught me something). Take the little old lady next door who can't drive herself. This election is making history and we should all claim our spot in it.

I find myself wondering just how the promised measures to discourage offshoring will affect our fields. I suspect it's too late to undo because the big nationals are already so established outside the US and are raking in the big bucks. Lose the rest of their "high-priced" American MTs and that would probably offset any penalties they might pay. . . On the other hand, I do believe sanctions will help stem the bleeding in general, as well as many of the other specifics for revitalizing US-based business. With GM's profits down 45% and Ford's announcement they're down 30% on the heels of the massive (and misguided) bank bailout, it isn't looking good for the economy. Will MT wages fall even further? Will they still be able to treat us like peons because we're so desperate for income of any kind? I hate to speculate, but I'm starting to think the survivalists might have the right idea. . .

As if this wasn't enough, I've also had family angst to contend with. For months, my daughter has been threatening to move across the country to join her boyfriend and become an adult. Suddenly, their plans came to fruition and I had only a week to gird my loins for it. As excited as I am for her, it was bittersweet to send her through that security gate to a far-off place, knowing I will hardly see her again. My kids and I have been joined at the hip forever, and my baby's flown the nest. Luckily, I got home and found she had left a disaster in almost every room of the house, so that took the edge off my sorrow. Bad enough when I don't have energy to keep up with housework, but it will be easier when I don't have someone working at cross purposes. (My kitchen counter has been crumb-free for days, and I am astounded at how many bath towels I have, now that they're not all in a damp pile in her bedroom.)

Sad as I am, this signals adulthood for both of us. She will finally get a job, go to school, and pay her own bills. (I suspect the toilet paper expense alone will be an eye opener.) I will finally be free to focus on my post-divorce reclamation of my life, start treating myself to luxuries (for me, this could be something as extravagant as new underwear. . .), and hopefully, put the hammer down on my CTR coursework before it kills me. I'm reluctant to look further ahead than that, but in general, am expecting to have to deal with an internship, certification testing, new job, a move, and (goddess help me) maybe even two-person sex again in this lifetime.

LOL--only I would fritter away a vacation fretting about things. Here's hoping tomorrow I feel a burst of enthusiasm and am ready to hit the future head on.

Now--go vote!

Ode to the Night Shift

Jeanne Johnston — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 16:32:00 GMT

Blame it on that pot of caffeine-laden Scottish Blend or my inner child run amok, I'm giving my attention span a break today, only having to think in seventeen-syllable bites. As you can see, I'm still struggling with the concept of Zen. If I had mastered it, I suspect I could have done this in less than 12 senryu. (No, I think haiku has to be about nature.) Like limericks, these are contagious--surely, some of you lookie-lous can add better efforts!

Snort, snarf, slurp, mumble--
Please to swallow that gyro
Before you dictate

Not to be believed,
The things GI docs may find
On ER backup

Acute care MTs
Must know it all, but doctors
Make all the money!

Comic relief time--
No, it's not "dopplex Duplar"
I love ESLs

Like a bad yo-yo,
Mrs. Smith needs new hobby,
Not another pill.

Time's not money, right?
Surely, you don't mind idling
While I read this chart.

Meowr, time to play!
No time? How 'bout I chew this
Headset cord instead?

Setting speed record,
Bored intern's goals don't include
Being understood.

Four thirty a.m.
Nineteenth colonoscopy
Drool on my keyboard

My favorite mug
Earl Grey times six--no wonder
I'm awake 'til noon!

Glued to my keyboard,
I fear this MT's behind's
The size of Texas.

My work week over,
How to find normalcy when
I'm in graveyard mode?

Fruit Basket Upset

Jeanne Johnston — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 14:17:00 GMT

I've had a reminder this week of how rejuvenating change can be. After finally settling in comfortably on an account I'd grown to love (and hate, in the case of a handful of the worst dictators I seemed to be getting more and more), I'd gotten into a routine of virtual autopilot--bang out a report, run the spellcheck, skim for other errors, send it on its way, and then seize up momentarily to check the clock (ugh--HOW long until my shift is over?), pet someone (dog, cats, bird, kids--all demanding), listen to the end of a song, then the realization that time is money and I'm back to work. Knowing that these little 1- to 2-minute interludes really add up and I could probably increase my production if I could just cure the rubber-butt syndrome (or the mental equivalent) somehow doesn't make it easier to overcome. It is HARD to sit for eight hours solid and just transcribe. Once you're familiar with your account and your dictators, though, you become a monster and can churn out those lines effortlessly. On an especially bad night when I was sick and felt like I spent more than half my shift in the bathroom, I still exceeded my minimum by 20%. Imagine if I could stay on task--I could probably be one of those mythical MTs who routinely does twice the norm. I see people outlining ridiculously specific methods to keep the fingers on the keyboard, minimize distractions, and just WORK and I wonder how you could even do that routinely. If nothing else, this is where carpal tunnel syndrome is born!

Anyhoo, like a bolt from the blue, I got shuffled to yet another new account. Not a bad thing because the supervisor seems very upbeat and has a great reputation. The whole team has a different flavor. They communicate. They encourage each other. There's direct feedback. Before, we didn't even really know who our teammates were. As far as I could tell, I was walking the virtual hallways all by myself every night. However, now I'm back to square one and have to learn a whole new set of specs, quirks, and sound issues. I don't know the docs' names, so spend far too much time trying to figure out who's being referenced (why can't these people ever have EASY names?) and can't find enough samples of the motor mouths to piece together their spiels, and am having to build my own library to work it all out. All those expansions I made to zip through my usual dictators' routines are now out the window and I have to start from scratch. Alternately discouraging and encouraging, but at least I feel I'm heading in the right direction.

Overall, I'm noticing the change--whilst not so good for my pocketbook--has breathed new life into my world. Rising to a challenge has made my shift fly by. Now, instead of looking at that clock every few minutes and ticking off the hours left to work, I might look at it a couple times a night and think, "Yeow! Only HOW long until my shift is over?"

Here's hoping the universe doesn't throw too many more changes at me without my say-so. . . my plate's feeling a little overfull right now, like those old ladies at the buffet who take three times the food they can really eat and sneak the rest into a giant Ziploc in their handbag to take home for later. (Yes, it's 4 o'clock in Florida--do you know where your grandma is?) I am definitely a creature of habit and reluctant to step out of my comfort zone and take a plunge into something new, but once I'm forced, I generally find a shakeup to be a good thing. Not that I really needed another such challenge at this point in my life (yes, the pharmacology course is BO-RING), but I guess I'm getting acclimated to living with constant stress.

Lesson? It might be a good thing for all of us to regularly consider what works in our lives and what could stand a little change. You don't have to change careers or remake your entire life to inject a little change and excitement. If nothing else, I think in these days when no one can be assured of their future, an occasional shakeup might just keep your mind and emotions nimble enough to handle whatever life throws at you.

Zen

Jeanne Johnston — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 19:19:00 GMT

Even before my life became this hectic, I always aspired to be more Zen. . . if only for a day. Everything about me is cluttered--my home, my calendar, and as a result, even my head. Add the resulting inner dialogue and the ability to crank out maybe 1500 lines a night, and I can't even write a simple email without tripping on the autopilot and spewing a novel in short order. My only saving grace might be that I'm a laid-back introvert in real life and am happier as an observer. I'm opinionated, but I suspect the keyboard is the vehicle that enables me. Stream of consciousness can be dangerous, unleashed!

I admire my friends who are such masters of pithy witticisms, but they know that no matter how much I aspire to learn the art of The Quickie, it ain't gonna happen. Oh, I get close, but the obvious effort it takes is still good for a laugh. The same is obviously true of this blog business. For someone who was reluctant to agree to the gig, once I get a burr under my saddle, it's hard to pare the resulting rant to a manageable size. Anything over a couple paragraphs and my daughter starts groaning, "Wall of text. . ." so I'm aware of the limitations of my audience. You may not have the attention span of today's youth, but you undoubtedly have work, school, and families cluttering your own lives and probably need more Zen, too. Yet here we are, mesmerized by the intertoob.

Zen isn't likely to happen anywhere for me, sadly. Now that my kids are threatening independence, I am enjoying the feeling of letting material things go to help them start their own households, but it's a constant battle to resist filling those spaces with something new. My goal is to lighten my load so that it will be less painful to pull up stakes and get the heck out of Dodge once I finish my training and start looking for a job. I don't care where, particularly. I just know that FL really isn't my choice and I'm dying to bounce back to a land of four seasons, though probably not tundra conditions like I left behind in the Midwest. Surely, a willingness to relocate can only help me succeed more quickly, and why not reinvent everything in my life at once? I've still got some stink to blow off after the bad marriage and besides--change is rejuvenating!

I can't even manage the clutter I have without always collecting more. I should be studying (just one more unit test and I can study for my Terminology final!), but I'm writing, I'm looking at every dumb link my kids send me (YouTube is E-VIL), staring at food porn, and organizing my own recipes into Bento (the cool database app I discovered back in my Computers course). This month, I'm also sidetracked by the Olympics--and to be honest, I don't think I'm really all that interested in tandem diving or beach volleyball. . . yet I'm watching.

In an attempt to analyze myself and perhaps fine tune my shaky self discipline, I even found myself watching motivational lectures for two hours today. This stroke story makes for a fascinating look at the brain, though I'm not sure recognizing that I lateralize toward the wonderful (if sometimes flaky) right helps me figure out how to buckle down. In fact, pondering the differences just led me back to YouTube because I knew there was a cool video that illustrated the Alan Watts lecture on the same dichotomy.

Mine is a wiggly and very cluttered world, and this is as close as I get to a quickie for now. Guess I will aspire to my ideals of perfection later when a space opens up on the itinerary. Better yet, maybe I'll just let myself enjoy the trip.

Channeling Walter Mossberg

Jeanne Johnston — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 16:32:00 GMT

Still struggling to find a way to make my coursework doable on my Mac with the least contortions possible, I’ve spent the last week indulging my inner geek and trying on different software for size, and I have to say I’m enjoying it immensely.

My Computers In Healthcare course has presented more than a few challenges, not the least of which is that the text is written around things like Word 2003--absolutely ancient, in software terms. Granted, they mention frequently that students are not required to own M$ products and we can do the exercises using open source apps like OpenOffice (or any of its permutations--available for every platform out there). Now, last week I had slogged through all the chapters from Word to Access to Excel to Powerpoint, using my favorite of these, NeoOffice. This is basically a clone of OOo, except that it runs as its own application (OOo actually utilizes X11 and runs through UNIX, which can get a little tricky if you get confused by seeing that command line business.) It looks like the M$ Office applications. . . but as I discovered, there are occasional bugs in that a crucial button or function is missing here and there (hello, no one at OOo thought we might like to delete a record from a database?) I got through the exercises okay, but I knew it had been harder than it should have been.

I’m not sure why it took me until afterward to hit upon the idea of using the Mac counterparts I already had and simply saving them as Office-friendly formats. Rummaged around my hard drive and tried out my old iWork applications--which are so completely wonderful in comparison, it isn’t funny. Keynote versus Powerpoint is like comparing satellite HDTV to that 13” B&W set with rabbit ears that barely got four channels. It’s slick, it’s easy, it packs so much stuff in there that my mother (who didn’t do Ziploc bags until they came out with the ones with a zipper) could grope around it and look like a professional in the end. Likewise, Pages is Word to the nth degree--not just a WP app, but complete enough to do desktop publishing. Except. . . dang--Numbers is simply a spreadsheet app and I needed to be able to work with a relational database. It compares to Excel, but there was no way I could substitute that for Access. . .

So I flitted around the internet a bit and found the solution is Bento (lovers of Japanese cuisine will appreciate how cute and clever that name is), which is not just a database app from the makers of the old fave Filemaker Pro, but may be The Ultimate Database app. It syncs everything you’ve got into one place so your calendar, address book, iTunes library, iPhone/iPod, projects, event planning, and anything else you want to throw at it is in one cool spot. No fumbling around with formulas, queries, and awkward menus like I just learned in Excel--this is gorgeous, effortless, and powerful. Of course, I’m only able to vouch for that because I have no life and spent a morning watching all the tutorials. . . As I never got around to upgrading my OS from Tiger, I can’t even run the trial version yet. I had to throw some money at Apple and am awaiting my new Leopard installer this week so I can try it, but I have no doubt I’ll be paying to keep Bento around, even if I never use it for work.

In the meantime, however, how do I deal with this coursework? Well, much as I am loathe to install anything M$ on my computer, I decided just to bite the bullet and get the trial of Office 2008 and see if that didn’t make me see my homework in a little different light. Harumf--what a difference 5 years makes! It’s still a fairly ugly bunch of applications, but it’s nowhere near as basic as 2003. You can call up windows for tools, rather than just the mishmash of icons on the toolbar at the top of your window. You still have to run queries as a separate function, rather than filtering within the spreadsheet as you can do in the Mac apps (where you simply hold down a cell to bring up a menu), but it seems a little less clunky than what I’ve been working with. The jury is still out until I have time to go back and re-do all my exercises for comparison. In the end, however, I don’t see this as worth the price tag of over $300 because they chose not to include the most important part of the suite: Access! What the heck? In the end, it’s going to be cheaper to stick with my Mac apps and cough up another $70 for Bento, which I’ll use for everything IRL anyway, or continue plugging away with OpenOffice (FREE). Office 2008 without the database application is insane. I'm just glad I didn't buy the suite outright and then find it isn't complete!

I don’t know who decided that business applications needed to be ugly, boring, and soulless because keeping things cutting edge certainly makes the job easier to focus on, easier to impress people, and just more fun. If you're going to go utilitarian, it does make sense to use open source applications; I've encountered some pretty slick ones currently in use as ER and other hospital platforms, like Synapse EMR, which I believe was originally written by a doctor. The beauty of open source apps is that no one profits from their sale, only from providing support (ask Linux!), which means actual users can have a hand at developing products to maximize their usefulness, rather than software vendors who simply throw things together and make a fortune by endlessly correcting their problems. As a former accounting major, I do have a strange joy at plunking numbers into neat little boxes, but in the end, I really thrive on a 3D, Technicolor world. I don’t think I’m unique in that. Of course, in the end I’m going to wind up in a job that most likely will use the ugly, utilitarian, 2-dimensional applications because that’s what they do. I really have had a blast geeking out this week and playing with all the possibilities, though.

Hello, I'm a Mac

Jeanne Johnston — Fri, 30 May 2008 11:33:00 GMT

Let me preface this by admitting I'm a snob. My family has used nothing but Macs and never will buy anything else. Heck, we've even got an original Mac Classic that still works--if you don't mind its quaint 8 Mhz processor and 512 KB RAM. Yeah, it might as well be Pong in this day and age, given that you'd need a garage full of them just to hold a basic browser now.

Mac's GUI is what Windows has endeavored to copy--so badly--from the start. In attempting to pretend to be "different," they simply managed to turn things sideways, set things contrary to what seems logical, and despite the fact that every "upgrade" has only compounded the problems, managed to market their mishmash to the brown-shoed squares who made it the standard in the business world. Forget that Windows is continually duct-taping patches upon patches and is prone to crashes and conflicts. It's beige, it's business, and business isn't cool, right? They've even convinced people that Macs are too pricey--despite the fact that they actually have a longer working life. Now with Unix humming along behind the scenes of OS X, it's even more stable. Like the Dyson, the Mac is not just hip, cool, elegant, and kicks ***, it's the best man for the job. Heck, you don't even need to pay for special software to play with the suits because there are perfectly good open source counterparts to MS Office for FREE in Open Office in several incarnations. I can do cool graphics and spreadsheets. Heck, even the US Navy decided long ago that Apple servers were the solution and are on their way to embracing Mac as the standard. I don't know about you, but when you're talking about nuclear warheads and global crises that might come up, do you really want to have to worry about that Windows Blue Screen of Death?

So what has me up on my high horse? Well, it's partly the mortification I suffer when I have to go to work and use a peecee. I hate everything about that workstation, and it doesn't even use Vista. I'm sure it's partly because I "grew up" on a Mac, but everything out this is counterintuitive. Nothing works the way it should and nothing is simple. Things I should be able to customize, I can't. I've been spoiled. But no, what's really got me irked is that I'm six chapters into my new Computers in Healthcare text and though they give a shout out to Mac OS and Unix, it's allll about Windoze. I suppose I'll end up learning something about those boring spreadsheets in the end, but holy cow, this is not going to be one of those classes that makes me rabidly enthusiastic. It should, however, go very quickly. /whine

On other fronts, did anyone happen to notice it's MT Appreciation Week? Apparently, those of us who got the obligatory pat on the back should consider ourselves lucky because I don't see anyone kicking their heels up. Even the the biggest and busiest MT forum hasn't mentioned it this year. It's usually good, at least, for one of those threads where people commiserate about how little recognition they got. It's kind of a sad commentary when even the MTs don't notice the occasion.

Lastly, for those of you who are wondering, I can officially verify that the 70s were indeed the decade of fine sleeping. Aside from dropping a very large piece of lumber on my foot in an attempt to break it, I did indeed succeed in setting up the new waterbed. I'm a little disappointed that it's more deluxe than my old one (this is almost waveless), but I broke it in by going comatose for 14 hours straight and have had to fight my daughter for it for the last week. Best $25 I've spent all year.