Thinking in vain...

Seems appropriate since I am neck-deep in logos lately.

Bottle stops used five millennia ago in ancient Mesopotamia (today's Iraq), the birthplace of cities and writing, carried symbols that marked them out as the earliest evidence of branded goods.

A London based archaeologist believes that they were promotional logos, along the lines of those used by Microsoft and Nike.

Modern ad executives would be pleased to learn that such images have long been regarded as works of art by historians but he believes their use was much more practical.

I don't know about you... but quit messing with the protons. If there's even the slightest risk of destroying the universe, how about we not do it?!

More strife in Iraq. U.S. financial system in crisis. Rice prices soar.

None of these headlines will matter a bit, though, if two men pursuing a lawsuit in a court in Hawaii turn out to be right. They think a giant particle accelerator that will begin smashing protons together outside Geneva this summer might produce a black hole that will spell the end of the Earth - and maybe the universe.

While I'm sure maybe one day they'll be able to bite your arm off, much like the animal in my last post, they're so cute now! ;)

After being shot at twice, but apparently unhit, the croc dropped the arm. After seven hours of surgery, doctors successfully reattached the appendage, shown at bottom on a smiling Chang on April 12.

Via FFFFound

I took my mother to the neuropsychologist yesterday for her follow-up evaluation after her testing. Good news is that most of her skills are still average to above-average. However, because they assessed her at being highly above average (if that makes sense) in the 87% range before all her accidents, there are some marked differences. Most noticeably the fact that she's gotten like an ADD 12-year old, but luckily no dementia that can come with brain trauma.

We've been referred to a brain injury group here and they can help us start to "re-train" the way she does things. Next week is our adventure to the neurosurgeon. The MRI of her neck came back abnormal and all her PCP said was that it was bad.

In other news, it's my 5-year reunion this weekend. So I will most likely be harming my liver some.

Happy Friday. :)

Artist website.

That thing on my plate - the purple thing - is a red onion I roasted last night.

I just noticed it look like a slug.

Kinda feels like a slug.

I'm not hungry anymore.

At Belk last night...

I don't know what the captions say but these are great.... I have no idea what she made them with - it looks like Play-Doh.

Flickr user: Patifa.
(The photo stream has more...)

Every McDonald's within the listening area of a local radio station is giving away free breakfast and coffee to all first responders who come in in their uniforms.

And there's way too much argument going on about whether or not to light the damn star. BTW - they're turning it off. They turned it off for September 11th too.

I also don't think some people realize how much of their tax money it wastes to change the bulbs on that thing....

http://www.remembrance.vt.edu/

Go ahead, tell me that image isn't creepy. I love it though.

Artist's website here, but I think I found it on FFFFound. But I found a better website - We heart it, basically because I can have an account. :)

I forgot what blog I found We heart it on, but when I figure it out, I'll give you credit...

The client sent the ad back, designed, for me to tweak = If it looks like crap, not my fault.

Me feeling under the weather = I'll probably lose a couple of pounds.

My Mom being told to take it easy = I got to spend the whole weekend with her.

I still have my fingers crossed for all those people that I told I would. Hopefully your searches and new jobs are going great. :)

Now, it's my blog and I'm going to have a release. So if you're not interested just skip this. I'll see if I can find something more interesting to post later.

Monday morning started off with a phone call at about 6:00am. My mother's head and right arm were numb, the room was spinning and she felt like she was going to pass out. And she just wanted to let someone know in case something happened. I told her I was taking her to the ER. I then decided to call 9-1-1 instead just in case she did in fact pass out. The last thing I wanted was to be half way there and she need something that I can't give her – like CPR.

We got to the ER around 6:45. Around 7:30ish a resident came into talk to us and get all the information and past history. So we told them that she's had repeated head injuries for the last 3 years, she's had a spinal leak, that she's got a moderate to severe narrowing of the ephemeral nerve and everything else. All the while my mom is still having the waves of numbness. It's not until about 11 that the resident comes back, tells us that she's consulted with the attending and tells us my mother has an inner ear problem and they're going to give her medication for vertigo and send us home.

Oh hell no.

My mother has been a nurse for 40+ years, everyone in my family is practically in the medical field – my sister and I don't take someone to the ER because of vertigo. Yes, she was dizzy, but I'm pretty sure an inner ear problem doesn't cause your head and arm to go numb. Even if it did, with all the problems my mother has with her head and neck, that's the dumbest diagnosis. And we told them that. I also realize all the tests are normal - but not everything comes up on a CT Scan.

Also, I realize that you, as the attending ER physician, are very busy. I realize you have people coding and having problems that seem a lot more dire than my mother's... but if YOU SHUT UP for 5 seconds and stop talking over my mother like she's an idiot maybe you could actually listen to her tell you that what she's having is not vertigo.

We then told her that we weren't going anywhere until her PCP gave his opinion. So we got a "we're waiting on him to call us back." Then they left us there for 2 hours. We finally asked if he'd called back and the nurse tells us that he's coming. She said she didn't know why no one had thought to tell us. An hour after that the attending comes back and tells us the same thing and that she would have told us sooner but she was a little busy. Whatever.

Skip ahead to 6:00 that night and he finally gets there. Which is fine, he's seeing patients all day in his practice. He didn't get to the ER last time until around 6, we were figuring on that.

He tells us that it probably has to do with her cervical nerves and that he needs to get an MRI of her neck and nerve conduction tests. We can go home but she's not to do anything strenuous and to see him Tuesday.

Funnily enough, the nurse comes in like 15 minutes later and says our PCP is on his way. We're like he's already been here and gone. He was a little angry with them. And turns out that they kept the vertigo diagnosis and coded it like that even after he told us that wasn't the problem. Which we're also mad about because that messes with her medical records.

Anyways. She's taking it easy. She's got a cervical MRI and a Cerebral MRA tomorrow and hopefully we'll get the results back soon. Unfortunately, the doctor thinks that there are really only two options: a steroid injection into her spine - which is what gave her the spinal leak the last time or surgery. Neither of which may actually fix the problem or help with symptoms.

Worst part is she's horribly upset that she's being a burden to us and is terrified of both the surgery and the injection.

*sigh* So there.

Now back to work. Concentrating has been hard this week....

I've been informed that I'm too high strung and that I need to relax or I may give myself a stroke.


btw - I was a little worried about mercury poisoning yesterday...


***Title refers to Fred's shirt that I can't find anymore...

No April Fools Jokes here. (I always thought it had to do with the calendar as well, but maybe I was wrong... )

A coworker mentioned that today was only for people that weren't funny the other 364 days of the year... ha ha. Although I think mild pranks could be funny. I fell for another coworker's prank even though I was fully aware of what today was.

Any way, here are the Top 100 April Fool Hoaxes of all time... enjoy.

Via Rag and Bone.

*Title refers to the one and only time I tried to pull an April Fools Day joke on my mother...