Bitch of a day... and it's a long ways from being over, heh. But first.... Left's talk about bugs. I'm starting to see more than a few Monarchs, making me think that they're starting their annual migration. Some day, I would like to go see their congregation in Mexico. Last Thursday, when Andy and I were working on the car, he took it for a test drive when we were done, and I sat down on the edge of the deck. A breeze came up, and I noticed a very ugly bug, looked somewhat like a brown cricket, that would only move when the wind was blowing leaf fragments around. I don't know if it was disguise or the herd instinct, but I thought it was a pretty cool idea for a bug... it looked a lot like a leaf fragment itself, and I'm amazed that I saw it. OK, back to today. First off, it was a pretty busy day, lots of inpatients and the normal schedule of outpatients, including a deep bone biopsy. I was assigned to the room today, and I'm always happy when I get to work with patients. Anyway, about 08:00, an engineer was hanging around 'cause we were having some problems, and his pager went off. Our secondary machine, the "Z", was having problems too, so he went over there. Shortly thereafter, that machine was declared dead, and we cancelled the biopsy for the second time. Yep, the poor patient had to be cancelled last week for entirely different reasons, but still... she wound up going over to the other hospital. Shortly after that was done, the main machine went down. Hard down. So, we were without any machines. After about a half-hour, they got the other machine running, and it stayed up all day. I've mentioned what a hassle that it, I'm sure. We lose one person, who has to stay in the main department to man the phones and copy films and run the paper requisitions back and forth and we lose another tech who has to run patients back and forth... and we're working with a slow, clumsy machine. So. Not fun, but we got all of the stuff done that *really* needed to be done. And the main machine will not be up until probably 03:00 in the morning. And... none of the evening/night people know how to run the "Z". And... I'm on call. So, here I sit, wondering if I can maybe get a nap in before having to spend the night at the hospital? I'm gonna try, and for that reason, I'm gonna postpone my wonderful critique of the Readers' Digest article until at least tomorrow, I hope that you don't mind. And I still don't have the network doing right, so I can't get the pix that I took this weekend, and what I think that I'll do about that is... procrastinate. I know that's hard to believe, heh. 23:07... I did get a nice nap, though, about two hours. I really didn't get a good nights sleep last night, so I really needed it. Heat. This is like the tenth day of over-the-century-mark temperatures here, and the heat index was 112°F when I got off work tonight. And it's still ninety degrees out. Karen and I bought some furniture for the living room this weekend, and that means major redecorating, I'm afraid. The furniture that we've had we bought in 1989, and it's seen some really hard use, and I can't remember when it was that I papered the living/dining area, I think it was '87 or so... it's due, past due, in fact. Still, not something that I'm looking forward to. Well, yeah, I'm looking forward to it being done, that's what I'm looking forward to. I'm also looking forward to building a TV-electronics cabinet. It'll be a trick without a workshop, but do-able nonetheless. I built some bookshelves before I was married, and then about ten years ago I built a TV cabinet using the same technic, one of my own design. The bookcase is five feet long with no back, and I used 3/4-inch pine for the shelves, and after 20 years of being laden with books, there's still no sag at all in the shelves. I'm kinda proud of that, I am. Anyway, we've got 3-5 weeks before it gets delivered, so we've gotta get moving on it. We certainly can't do any outside work.... And I'm looking forward to some cooler weather, too, but that's not gonna happen until Friday, when the high will only be 80. It'll be over a hundred again for the next three days. There have been some deaths now in KC from the heat, older ladies with no AC. Boring weather is *so* tiresome, especially when it's fatality-producing boring heat. I'm gonna see if I can maybe get some sleep now.
Just got back from my first trip to the hospital, did a quickie case then came home. It's not really worthwhile for me to stay there on a Monday night, there might be no more calls at all for me... yeah, I've got my fingers crossed on that one.