Posts from — September 2005

Yep… broken clavicle. Right side.

Poor thing. She has an appointment with an orthopedist tomorrow afternoon. That doctor will then decide whether it needs to be bound up or anything.

So, last night around 1:45 or so, Ashley decided it was a good time to come in our room and, it appears, dance on the edge of the bed. I’m not sure what happened. I was asleep. I rolled over, and felt my self hit something. That something went falling to the floor.. BAM. It was a really loud thud. On hard wood flooring. Ashley cried.

I picked her up and held her for a while until she calmed down. I asked her where it hurt (she pointed to her left cheekbone), and checked it out to make sure she wasn’t seriously injured. After she calmed down I tucked her back in her bed, admonished her to stay in her own bed, and all was well.

Until just before six, as I was on my way out the door. She began crying in her bed. I went in, and she said her neck hurt. She was still half asleep, and I could barely understand what she was saying through her crying. I thought she had dreamed something bit her neck. I held her for a few minutes and calmed her down and tucked her down again. Off to work I went.

At about quarter after 8 or so, my phone rang. I answered. It was Megan. One of Ashley’s clavicles (or collarbone) looked different from the other, was swolen and purpleish. And she couldn’t manage to walk, and it hurt badly. I told Megan to call the doctor, and see if they could look at her, or if we should take her to the hospital. About half an hour later Megan called again, and the doctor could see her at 10:30. Ashley seemed to be getting a little better… she was all dressed and walking around and playing nicely. She still couldn’t sit up (from lying down) by herself, and couldn’t really lift her arm up. She was being treated, though, like a princess.

So. That’s where I am now. Waiting for Megan to call again.

My blog got a hit from this search. Thought it might be helpful.

Those of you interested, you can read about Gaines’ plight here

When are we ever going to get another Strong Bad Email???

I’m having withdrawals over here!

More on the biology front… this time personal history/experience.

When I was in 8th grade, and Smith Middle School in Arizona, I had a Life Science class. I enjoyed the class. Mr. Ward was my teacher. At this point I was already quite taken with the natural sciences, and biology in particular.

One day we went out to the tall grass that grew by a drainage ditch running near the school and collected grasshopper specimens. Some of them were really big… two or three inches long. Most were about an inch. So, we put them in plastic cages and brought them back to the classroom for observation.

As I was watching mine, it began to scrath its head. I called out to the class (which was not awkward of misbehaving, since everyone was up and around, looking at each others’ grasshoppers) to see what was happening. Only a couple of friends came to look at my curious grasshopper. It’s front legs were literally on the top of its head, scratching. Or, I thought it was scratching. I wouldn’t have guessed what happened next…

Out of the spot where the grasshopper was scratching, a worm of some sort burst out. Turns out the grasshopper was not scratching it’s head, but rubbing it in pain. The worm (I call it a worm, but I think it was probably some sort of larva) was white, and nearly the length and width of the grasshopper. It must have filled nearly all the insides of that grasshopper. The worm crawled out of the grasshopper, wiggled around in a few circles on the bottom of my cage, and, not finding anything interesting, proceeded to crawl back into the grasshopper, through the gaping hole that was left in its head.

My friends and I, of course, were screaming with excitement during these events.

So this morning I was listening to the podcast of This Week in Science. The first half of the show is mostly science news of the week. One of the news stories they covered was about some Chimpanzee teeth that were found.

The theory goes something like this, they said… chimpanzees have settled down in forests, but the ancestor-that-became-man moved out and settles in the plains area. And that difference in environment is what lead to us being evolved.

But, some teeth were found in a plains area. Three teeth that have been determined to be chimp teeth.

Now, aside from all the other wackiness, this discovery supposedly reveals to us that contrary to the common theory, chimps and would-be men both lived in the plains lands. Because three chimp teeth were found there. There’s no other way these three isolated teeth could have gotten there. No. Chimps and pre-man lived together on the plains.

Ah… such good science!

Several issues back… the issue after the dead coyote one, actually… there was a letter to the editor printed about a man whose daughter had a My Little Pony doll named Cotton Candy that she pretended was stuck on a barbed wire fence.

If you didn’t notice, that man is from Lynchburg, VA. He happens to be a friend of mine.

Tonight me and the girlos went to the library. One of the books we came home with is called Weird Friends: Unlikely Allies in the Animal Kingdom. It is one stone in the building up of biology nerds. I am quite successful thus far, actually.

Anecdote: Just today the girls were playing outside before dinner. They both came dashing to the back door, crying “Daddy! Daddy! Look at this! It’s really neat!” I went to see what they were excited about. It was a Cicada… dying on the sidewalk. Because it was dying, it was just sitting there, moving it’s legs every now and then, but not really doing much else. They loved it. I picked it up and showed them it from all angles. Then put it down again. Then they started poking at it, and jumping and screaming, “I touched it! It tickled!”

As you might guess, it is about various mutualistic symbiotic relationships between animals. Symbiosis is when two different species have some sort of relationship or interaction with one another. Mutualism is a type of symbiosis where both organisms benefit from the relationship. Parasitism is also a symbiotic realationship, only one organism benefits, and the other is harmed. Commensilism, if you’re curious, is where one organism/species benefits, and the other is neither benefitted nor harmed. So, anyhow… this little book, from what I’ve looked at so far, is all mutualistic relationships. Well… the primary organisms in the relationship anyhow. Things are rarely so simple as to only involve two species/organisms, and even this kids’ book typically has three or four species in each relationship web.

But… after I read about one of these relationships (the forest mouse and beetles… which also included,secondarily, mites and other biting insects), I said to Geneva, “That’s called symbiosis. Can you say that word?” She answered, “Symbysis. Like Ashley!”

Get it? By Sis?

This is, perhaps, the best single frame of a comic strip ever…

go here for the full strip.

Just now, I was tucking in the girls, and we prayed, and I was pulling their blankets up, and I asked them both to forgive me for my bad attitude I had had earlier in the evening. And my bad temper… They had been disrepectful towards Megan, and I got angry with them. So I asked them to forgive me. And then I had a conversation that went sort of like this…
Geneva:Did you disobey God?
Me: Yes, I did.
Geneva: I disobey God sometimes
Me: What happens when you disobey God?
G: I get a spankin’
M: And then what happens?
G: I am forgiven.
M: That’s right. Why are you forgiven?
G: Because God loves me.
M: Why does God love you?
G: Because niceness.
M: What is it that makes God nice to us?
G: Jesus.
M: That’s right! What did Jesus do?
G: He died for our sins and rose from the dead!

There was a bit more to it than that, but I don’t remember every detail. And, also, Ashley was interjecting answers here and there, which were along the same lines as G’s answers, and I remember even less. But, I thought it was a great little discussion.

Check arrived on Saturday.

Yesssssssssssssss!

Yesterday evening I searched for the lyrics to that Gorillaz song Feel Good, Inc. I’ve never heard the song, and heard some people talking about it. So I listened to the sample on iTunes and then looked up the lyrics. I put the name of the band the name of the song and then the word ‘lyrics’. A site came up, and it showed me the lyrics. I browsed them, then closed the window.

And it tried to put a virus on my computer! Punk website! It was some kind of worm… I don’t remember the exact name. I had my antivirus software running, so it stopped it right on the spot. But still.

Who would have thought that a site as simple as a lyric website would put viruses on people’s computers. That’s how so many people get infected, though.

Anyhow… moral of the story: Keep your antivirus software up to date!