Big, Long, Ugly Update

Haven't updated in forever and a lot has been going on. Well, I'm typing this at my cousin's house in Nebraska right now. That's wight wabbit, school has begun. I have my first class tonight. For those keeping track, no, I didn't normally have class Fridays, but this year, we have class Friday night from 6 to 10p and Sat. from 8 to 5, so lots more class time. Fridays are lecture and Saturdays are lab. We get to do everything from mass spec. to gas chromatography to DNA stuff. Very exciting. So this year is going to be more fun and much harder I'm sure. We also were broken into groups and we are an investigative team. The school owns a "crime house" and they will set up a crime that we are to investigate all year long and in July we go up in front of a mock grand jury to argue our case. Sounds fun, but taking a look at the syllabus, tons of time and papers involved. Yikes.

Need to find a decent lab coat and safety glasses so have been checking around for those. No, I didn't procrastinate, I just found out about it yesterday. Fortunately, I work in a lab and swiped stuff from there (with permission of course, hehe).

Garden is nearly done. My zucchini got attacked by a sweet little sumbitch called the squash bug. Look him up. Nasty little SOBs. I didn't know what they were and didn't kill them off when I first saw them, so they were allowed to propagate. I went through and hacked out a bunch of dead leaves and killed the larvae and adults that I could find, but I'm not sure it will recover. The tomatoes were looking awful, but still producing decent tomatoes, so I finally went in and got rid of all but 5 of the plants and really sheared off a vast majority of the leaves on the remaining five. They should still at least ripen what's on there now and that'll be the end of it. These fell victim to bacterial canker, which really sucks. Nothing I could've done to save them! And I have to be extra careful about planting next year. I was doing all this to start my fall garden, which will probably include radishes, vegetable squash, cucumbers and maybe some broccoli and cabbage. Definitely some lettuce mix stuff. I did all the research into varieties and time to mature and just need to order the seeds. I'll let you know how it goes!

I've recently been diagnosed with hyperthyroidism, most likely due to Grave's Disease. I won't go into brutal detail, but I see a specialist in Sept, so will keep everyone posted. It does appear to possibly be going into remission on its own, which would be wonderful to avoid lots of medication and/or killing off the thyroid. That's the preferred method of "treatment" in this country, but I think it's akin to saying "I have a hangnail on my big toe" and them saying, "well, let's cut the whole damn foot off." I've been researching the disease to my little ol' heart's content and am armed with tons of information and alternative treatments if it comes to that, but we're shooting for remission :)

My brother's is turning 40 next Sat. Wow. Old man! Hehe, that's all I'll say about that and everyone knows why, (secrets, secrets).

Paul's car project is coming along, although now he's complaining that it's "not loud enough for a drag car" so I'm sure pretty soon I'll be hearing thunderous gunning of the engine. If you're in anyway interested in cars, his blog is listed here for your enjoyment. He recently met up with some family in Iowa for a couple of days and got to see aunts/uncles/dad/sis/etc. They headed up to Wisconsin for some cheese curds, which he doesn't like. But he was nice enough to bring me back two bags. I don't remember if I like them or not, but they are waiting for me in the fridge to try out when I get home.

We're working on thinking about getting the bathroom remodeled. We will be paying someone else to do that though. It's the only bathroom in the house and we can't be without it for an extended period of time. I'm not big on the idea of using chamber pots for two weeks! Yeah, I would have a hard time roughing it, I know.

If anyone caught the news yesterday you know about the terrorist plot that the Brits foiled. Boy, nobody messes around in England. They rock. They had 20+ people arrested pretty quickly! Scary to think though that there's still people out there wanting to "make a statement" and that they were so close to accomplishing their goals. Twisted though they are. I don't know about anyone else, but as a child of the 80s, I think we were actually pretty lucky in having the Cold War. Beats this shit any day of the week. Like Lewis Black said in his recent HBO special (which was hilarious) how do you fight against a people that WANTS to die and have no problem killing innocent men, women and children to accomplish that? He thinks we need to show them we're just as psychotic and vote in a dead president. As in, vote in Reagan and prop him up to show the world WE ARE INSANE. There's something very comforting in that idea. Well, I'm not sure the word "comforting" is what I'm shooting for, but you get the idea.

Well, I think I'd better go and get some reading done. Yikes, homework first, class second. There is something so twisted with that.

Love,
B