Spants V: Spants at Sea

Wow, am I behind in blogging. Seriously, I thought The Lawdog was bad.

If this year's installation of Spants seems more moronic than normal, that's because it's brought to you by NyQuil, a triple-digit fever, and a head too full of snot to work on Organic I, which is what I've been spending all my spare time on.

For those of you just joining the B-SciFi fun, the preceding chapters can be found here:

http://fromacj7.blogspot.com/2011/11/spants.html

http://fromacj7.blogspot.com/2012/10/sproach.html

http://fromacj7.blogspot.com/2013/10/spants-iii-spanthopper.html

http://fromacj7.blogspot.com/2014/10/spants-iv-spermite.html

Interior of helicopter

Aide: “I still don't see why we have to do this now.”

Senator: “You tracked the numbers yourself. They lead here.”

Aide: “I understand, but was there a pressing reason we had to investigate with a Category 4 hurricane rolling in?”

Senator: “They leveled an entire town in my district two years ago to cover up what they were doing.  There was no way I was going to let them sanitize this site before I got a chance to see it.  Something fishy is going on, and I'm going to find out.”

Camera pans back to show helicopter approaching abandoned oil rig with heavy clouds in distance.

Spants V:  Spants at Sea

General: “Welcome, Senator.”

Senator: “We, General, I'm certainly glad to see you didn't try to hide that this is a defense installation.”

General: “Oh, we made no particular secret of who owns this platform.”

Aide: “As demonstrated by the fact that I only had to spend 18 months going through 16 holding companies? Or that only 5 hard drives crashed the day after they were subpoenaed?”

General: “Exactly! Everybody knows that when we really want to hide something, no hard drive is safe!”

 

Night time. Zodiac approaching rig.

Hippie dude: “Why are we doing this, again?”

Hippie chick: “It's been 5 years since Deepwater Horizon, and those corporate villains have yet to remove their earth-raping drills from the Gulf.”

Hippie dude: “Yeah, I get that, but have you considered that monkey-wrenching them might damage some of the safety measures keeping that from happening again?”

Hippie chick: *flat glare*

Hippie dude: “Just sayin'.”

 

Conference room

Senator: “So let me get this straight: first you funded a scientist's research into making cross-species of spiders and ants, then lost control of them, had to obliterate a town to contain them, poured a quarter billion into discrediting all the witnesses, then moved your research to an underground installation where you bred a creature specifically designed to bore through underground installations, lost control of it, and burned 25,000 acres of forest destroying the evidence?”

Scientist: “Whatever. We lose a hundred times that much forest to fires caused by the Ag and Interior Departments' restrictive logging policies every year.”

Senator: “That's as may be, but that's from simple incompetence.”

Aide: “Wasn't storing a concrete-boring giant termite in a concrete bunker simple incompetence?”

Senator: “I see why you didn't feel the need to confiscate our recording devices: no one would believe this level of stupidity anyway.”

 

Hippies tie zodiac to pylon.

Hippie dude: “Fine, but it's been nearly 10 years since any oil shipments have originated from this rig. Why don't we attack an active one?”

Hippie chick: “Look, the Senator's helicopter landed on this one. No one will say why he's coming out here, but it stands to reason they're planning on restarting it. This could be our chance to make sure it's never turned back on.”

 

Conference room

General: “Our experiences in the Midwest led us to search for a new containment plan. With this at-sea facility, we have found a fool-proof way to contain the creatures this time.”

Senator: “'Experiences'? Wouldn't 'debacles' be a better word?”

Scientist: “With the disastrous Spermite program, we shifted our focus from a single hard-to-kill creature back to a swarm approach. We currently have approximately 10,000 creatures on board this rig.

Senator: “That's a lot of individuals to keep up with. Please tell me you have some sort of contingency plan if some escape.”

Scientist: “Of course. We altered their metabolism.”

Aide: “I swear, if you say 'lysine-deficient', I will beat you down.”

Scientist: “Of course not. We're not barbarians. We simply added DNA from mosquitoes to make their only usable food source human blood.”

Senator: “And that's not barbaric?”

Scientist: “Look, I understand your concerns, and I admit it sounds a little unorthodox, but trust me, even if the were to escape their enclosures, the entire staff on board would be insufficient to sustain all the colonies.”

Senator: “So you're saying that even if they escaped, they would just suck us all dry and then starve before they could get to the mainland.”

Scientist: “Well, actually, we used a Camponotus species and wired their metabolism to their natural autothysis reaction.”

Senator: “Layman's terms?”

Scientist: “If they do not feed within 24 hours, they explode. Obviously with considerably more force than your average carpenter ant.”

Aide: “Okay, that's actually pretty smart. Even so, let's say we agree that there is no way for the spants to escape on their own this time, but do you have any contingency plans for unauthorized entry?”

General: “Please. As far as anybody knows, this is an abandoned oil rig that hasn't seen use in a decade. Who on earth would be dumb enough to come poking around here?”

 

Lab

Hippie dude: “This doesn't look like any kind of oil-drilling equipment I've ever seen.”

Hippie chick: “It's probably some sort of new experimental oil-processing equipment.”

Hippie dude: “I don't know, it looks like bunches of bugs to me. Weird ones, though. I thought insects were supposed to have six legs. And not be as big as a dachshund.”

Hippie chick: “What? They're experimenting on poor helpless bugs? Does their corporate depravity know no bounds?” *picks up fire ax from wall* “I'll show them!”

 

Conference room.

General: “Senator, we do what we must to protect our country.”

Senator: “I still fail to see how these are a truly usable weapon. It seems like they would likely just wreak havoc indiscriminately on anything that moves.”

General: “You know Russia's developing these thing right now! Or China! Rogue nations, even! If they're going to have them, we have to!”

Senator: “I came out here because I was convinced that you guys could not possibly have wasted that much money on the Baltimore balloons, the ocean-based X-band radar, the F-35, and every other pointless DARPA experiment. I was convinced you could not possibly be that incompetent, and therefore had to be funneling that money elsewhere, only to find out you've dumped it into an even more counter-productive weapon system than I could have possibly conceived! And your excuse is, because you think other countries are doing it? Is there no limit to government stupidity?”

Aide: “Do you really want an answer to that?”

General: “Look, first you're going to have to get people to believe this place even exists. I have a better suggestion. How about we all just go to our quarters to ride this storm out and in the morning...”

*Klaxon blares*

General: “What the hell?”

Senator: “What's going on?”

Scientist: “We have a breach in the lab.”

General: “Pull it up on video!”

Screen comes to life just in time to see spant latch onto Hippie dude's face, then explode skull.

 

Control room

Hippie chick: “What about the self-destruct sequence? Government labs always have a self-destruct sequence!

Scientist: “There is a small tactical nuclear weapon in the base of the rig, but for some reason I cannot initiate the countdown. It looks like our access has been blocked by...General.”

Senator: “Why would he do that?”

Scientist: “Better question is how? The access codes were changed 30 minutes ago, but it's been over an hour since we lost contact with General's team.”

Aide: “Wait. You said you used a Camponotus species to make these ants?”

Scientist: “Yes. Why?”

Aide: “Well, some species of that genus are hosts for O. unilateralis, right?”

Scientist: “Aw, crap.”

Senator: “What?”

*Screen flickers to life, showing General half-encased in web with skull opened.  Close up of eyes which are totally green.*

General: “Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, also known as the 'zombie fungus'. Though I personally have come to see our relationship as far more of a symbiotic than a parasitological one.”

Scientist: “Can't you see what they're doing to you? You have to fight them! Turn on the failsafe!”

General: “And destroy my life's work? I tell you, these creatures are our only defense against whatever crazy weapons them Reds are coming up with right now! You'll never stop us. Never!!!!”

Aide, firing sidearm into screen: “Well, we're boned.”

Senator: “Maybe not.  It will be three days before anything but the zodiac can get away from here.  You said they would all self-destruct after 24 hours, right?"

 

Scientist:  "That assumes they haven't captured one of my colleagues and found a way around that particular block."

 

Senator:  "Okay, how about we make our own failsafe, then.  How much oil is left on this rig? Can we find a way to ignite it?”

Hippie chick: “No! Don't you realize how much greenhouse emissions that would cause?”

Scientist, Senator, Aide in unison: “Shut up!”

Aide: “Sorry, sir, but we would have to find some way to aerosolize it to have any hope of a sufficient...I've got it!”

General: “What?”

Aide: “The flare stack is still operational. We splice that into the A/C and fill this whole place up with enough natural gas to turn it into one big fuel air bomb.”

Senator: “Scientist! Where are the blueprints for this installation?”

Scientist: “I'm pulling them up now.”

Senator: “Okay, so Aide and I will go redirect the flare stack went into the HVAC ductwork. How are we going to ignite it?”

Scientist: “We have a fully operational chemistry lab. I'm sure I can put together something.”

Senator: “Good. We'll meet at the hippies' zodiac in one hour. Let's move!”

 

Scientist, Senator and Aide pile into zodiac, hotly pursued by spants.

Scientist:  "They overran the lab before I could finish the explosive!  Hippie chick's dead!"

Senator: “Well, now how are we going to set off the gas?

Aide *opening zodiac's emergency kit to reveal flare gun*: “Jackpot!”

Aide fires flare gun toward oil rig, igniting gas in spectacularly bad CGI fireball.

Aide: “Well, sir, I don't think we have to worry about defunding the project.”

Senator: “I suppose not, but somehow, I suspect we haven't seen the end of this.”

Scientist:  "Well, they'll have to find someone other than me to run it for them."

Senator:  "Good to know."

As Senator turns away, Scientist's eyes blink, turning green, then blink again, back to normal.
 

Coming next year: Spants VI: Slatterpillar. 

Postictal Asystole

n.  a way to make nurses jumpy.

A complete explanation is not currently available, but it would seem my adventure in Billings had some unexpected consequences.  One, a 5-mile hike in low humidity with wind and not packing any water can, quite predictably, result in dehydration.  Second, not having one's BID seizure medications during an unexpected overnight stay means two straight missed doses.

The first part caused me to wake up at 0230 with a spike through my chest.  I've known some pretty good pain in my life, including a few good double over chest pains, but this was my first one not brought on by strenuous aerobic exercise.  The last time I had pain like this was when I broke 1:15 for a 440 on the indoor track at TTU.

Having three kids and a SAHM wife, I felt that I should spring the money for the ER trip.  I am quite glad I did.

An ER nurse hooked me up to an EKG and started taking my history.  A second nurse set up to start an IV and draw labs.  I told the first nurse that if she had any pressing questions for me, she should ask before the IV start, because I was probably going to pass out.

The second nurse was just about done with the IV when I started feeling fuzzy.  Seriously, the needle was already out and she was just drawing the labs when I said the bed rail should probably be up.  As she was busy, I pulled it up myself.

When the world went from black to two nurses moving rather quickly, I realized I probably should have told them I would also seize when I passed out.  What came next, though, was a bit of a surprise.

Apparently, I get post ictal asystole.  For lay people, that means when I seize, my heart stops.  I never knew that, mostly because I never seized while hooked up to a heart monitor.  It's also not guaranteed that I have done so every time.  But for 7 seconds this morning, I had a flat line.  Much longer, and I would have been in the middle of a code blue.

But hey, my chest pain went away!

Then it came back.  Two nitroglycerin later, I had traded my chest pain for a headache.  My cardiac enzymes were normal, but I was told I would be on telemetry and if anything wonky happened or I had a recurrence of chest pain that wasn't relieved by a single nitro, I was getting another flight to Billings.

Well, crap on toast.

My follow-up cardiacs were at 0930-ish.  Per the PA, I drew my own labs, since I do not pass out when I have the needle.  Unfortunately, I had to stick southpaw since my left AC was taken with the IV.  I suck sticking lefty.  It took me 3 sticks and a little digging, throughout which I stayed fully alert, just going to show that needles truly do not bother me as long as it's in my hands.  This probably says something about me.

Follow-up cardiacs were normal, so I was discharged at 1200.  The hospitalist doesn't think I really need follow-up, but I choose to err on the side of caution, so I will be following up with both my neurologist (who just told me I was free to not come back for two years), and possibly a cardiologist.

After all, I have three kids.

What to bring to your root canal

1)  A 3G tablet.

Not saying all this could have been avoided had I not been bored, but there is a slight chance that had I not thought, Gee, the dentist is only 1 hour away by foot and I have 2 before the appointment, the following mess may not have occurred.  I had Crime and Punishment, but I can only read about half an hour of that at a time.  Not wanting to get smooshed by a car, I asked around to see if there was a trail or something down the mountain.  There is.  Sadly, I didn't have...

2)  A map.

Had I had a physical map, perhaps I would have found out that the guy at the airport that assured me the hiking trail loops back around had no clue what he was talking about.  It does eventually get down the mountain, but the wrong side.  This might not have been a big deal, had I remembered...

3)  Rappelling gear.

Had I simply roped down the cliff instead of hiking 5 miles in the wrong direction, I would have come out a few blocks away.  Instead, I hiked about an hour the wrong direction.  This shouldn't have been a big deal, though, because I had a back-up plan.  If it looked like hoofing it wasn't going to work, I could call a cab from the trail.  Unfortunately, I didn't have...

4)  A phone book.

With one of those, I would have known that the woman at the airport had given me the wrong number for the cab company.  Instead of being able to call from the trail, I had to get to the bottom before I could call 20 minutes later, with only 50 minutes left until my appointment.  Bringing us to...

5)  Some semblance of an idea about taxis.

In Dallas, the Shieldmaiden and I waited all of about 5 minutes on our taxi.  In Billings, there are apparently 2 companies.  I called Yellow Cab.  Ten minutes of waiting later, I called them again for an ETA.  They told me it would be 40 minutes.  Around this time is when Dr. Stevens' office called to say they were running ahead of time, and could get me in whenever I showed up.  This is when I needed...

6)  A phone with a better connection.

In the middle of several dropped calls outside Boothill Inn, I finally managed to reach the right number for City Cab.  They told me they could get there in 20.  20 minutes later (now 10 minutes until my appointment) I called them back, at which point I found out that when I mentioned calling Yellow Cab to cancel, the City Cab dispatcher apparently heard me say to cancel her call.

At this point, I called to beg the dentist not to cancel my root canal.

The cab showed up, and I got in.  It was then that I found out one should always have...

7)  Cash.

Yeah, City Cab requires payment up front and hasn't yet invested in those smartphone attachments that read credit cards.  Really, City Cab?  They're like $40!

Luckily, Boothill Inn has an ATM.

I eventually got to my appointment...40 minutes late.  That would be 1530 for anyone keeping score.  In accordance with the trend for the day, the root canal took more than an hour and a half, because, oh, hey, my three-root molar has four...and is almost an inch long.  I got the impression that he wasn't sure if he'd have files long enough.

As a result, my 1.5 hour procedure went long, letting out roughly 20 minutes after last call for my flight.  Bringing me to the next item...

8)  An overnight bag.

So, at this point I found myself stuck in Billings.  With no mouth guard and given that the cause of the root canal was teeth grinding, one can imagine how I felt in the morning.  More importantly, it turned out, was my lack of epilepsy medications.

However, all was not lost, for while standing, puzzled, in the dentist's parking lot, said dentist walked out.  I mentioned I had missed my flight and had no clue what I was going to do.  He recommended to Boothill Inn.  Yes...that Boothill Inn.  He also told me I could wait for the cab in the lobby.  While I waited, the hygienist that assisted on my root canal came out and offered me a ride.  She also gave me their WiFi password for the day:  "rootcanal".

After pulling up to the Inn, she offered to wait to see if I could get a room, since there was a wrestling championship and lots of hotels were booked up.  Yes, they had one room, but it was $140.  Not about to pay that if I could avoid it, I asked if the hygenist would mind taking me over to my favorite cheap hotel by the hospital.  She obliged, nut we only got about a minute away when her phone rang.  The dentist had reserved that last room and covered half.  We turned around, I walked into the

So a shout out to Dr. Stevens and staff.  I got to the room, plopped down, and realized I did not have...

9)  A tablet with a webcam.

So for the second time in two years, I missed a night with the girls.  My Kindle does not have a webcam, so I couldn't even Skype.

The next morning, I hopped a shuttle to the airport 3 hours ahead of time (wasn't taking any chances).  Well, actually, it turned out to be three and a half hours early, because my flight was delayed.  Hour three was when I started contemplating grand theft airplane.  I hear Cessna 162's are pretty self-explanatory.  Fortunately, the plane showed up before I started looking for light planes with the keys left in them.

Finally, at 1230, I made it home.  The girls were waiting at the airport.  Lump ran out to meet me.  We drove home, I grabbed some food and a shower and went to work for the afternoon, convinced my adventure was over.

Yeah, not so much.

To be continued...

Texts from my wife II

[Dot] salted [Lump]'s head.


Your daughter just washed her sister's hair in Iodine.  And the carpet.  And their shirts.


Success!  Large quantity of pee made it in the toilet!  In other news, I'd advise not going in sock or bare feet inside for a while.


You know...They were trying to be helpful.  When you leave your scrubs laying 2ft from the laundry hamper, the girls "helped" me by putting your pants into the tub like I had their diapers.  In the tub that just drained bleach water.


[Lump] just gave [Squirt] a fist bump.


[Dot] said the corner of her sandwich was a rocking chair, and was rocking it back and forth.  I think she's developing an imagination.


Me to [Dot]:  "Crackers don't have legs.  You have to have legs to stand up."

[Dot] told me she was "listening to the block's belly" with my stethoscope.

Toddler + Puppy + Splenda = snowstorm in the kitchen.


With picture of half-dressed girls sitting together on blanket.  They are scooting across the floor singing "Row Your Boat."

With picture of [Lump] in collapsible storage container.  I told them to put all the toys in boxes.  Guess [Lump] thinks she's a toy.

[Lump] to me when I tried to straighten out her straw:  "No, don't touch!  You have hot coffee!"

And [Dot] calls Sunny Delight "Sunday juice."

[Dot]'s eyes crossing while she watched the syrup drip from her hair to her nose was pretty cute.

So the girls didn't like how [Squirt] looked.  So they colored his head & (covered) butt orange.

Your middle child is "washing dishes", wearing nothing, yelling, "Rock On!"

Negotiating with [Dot] that her vitamins are done "cooking" and if she doesn't eat them, they'll "burn."

[Dot] to me:  "I not child!  You child!  I parent!"

Discussing ages.  "[Dot]'s 3.  [Squirt]'s 0.  Mommy...*pause*...Mommy's not 3."

In an earlier post, I mentioned that part of our country's issue is that our state car is pathetic.  But this story is even worse.

During the question-and-answer session, when the association’s chairman asked Bush his favorite kind of car, Bush said he just bought a Ford Fusion. 

Here we have a presidential hopeful actually claiming to like driving a Ford Fusion.

Now, I get it, his answer is politically motivated.  He wants to get the UAW by throwing support behind a Detroit car.  He wants to get the environmentalists by pimping a green ride.  He wants to get the "common man" by riding a car with a baseline MSRP under $25,000.

I get it, I really do.  But here's the thing...so does everyone.  Jeb, buddy, your last name is "Bush":   you're not going to get the environmentalists to think you're green.  You are part of a (sadly) permanent ruling class:  you're not going to get the common man to think you're "one of the guys" by driving a POS car.   And the UAW, well, your brother started their bailout in '08 and we all saw how well that worked for his party.

There was a time when presidents had cool cars.  FDR had a Packard 12, which may not have looked the manliest, but the whole V-12 engine makes up for that in spades.  JFK had a T-bird convertible <insert-morbid-joke-here>.  LBJ had an Amphicar, which also isn't that manly, but is pretty cool in a quirky way.  Reagan rocked a '52 M-38, a '62 CJ-6, and a '83 CJ-8 (Good year, '83).  Clinton had a '67 Mustang.

You want to get some respect and popularity with we little people?  Three options:

1)  Embrace your wealth.  Get something sporty that the common man would get if he won the lottery.  Get yourself a Maserati, or a McLaren F1, or if you want to be all budget-y, an Audi.

2)  If you must go American, get something with some testosterone.  Get a Wrangler or a maybe borrow a page from your fellow Republican Fred Thompson and campaign in a red pick-up.  If you must buy Ford, get an F-150.

3)  If you're willing to restore, go classic.  As I can personally attest, you can score a CJ in good shape for well under $5,000.  Or find an old Porsche 941 for about $10,000.  Either one screams taste and commitment.

In any case, consider this:  the last time a Republican presidential candidate tried to make a big deal over his USA-made common-man ride, it was Nixon and his '50 Oldsmobile 98...and we all know how that worked out.

Well, I wish I'd have known...

...that this was a valid objection around, say, May of 2013, when the city of Ludowici, GA, was asking how often I had "conjugal fellowship" with my wife.

This bit of levity is provided by Kevin Underhill author of loweringthebar.net, one of the funniest sites out there.

Happy New Year!

Note:  I started this post the day before New Year's Eve.  Unfortunately, I spent New Year's Eve and Day, and the following day with bubbly and a headache.  And by "bubbly," I mean Alka-Seltzer Cold and Flu, and by "headache," I mean one of the top five most painful sinus infections of my adult life.

First, on the global scale, things have never been brighter.

Second, this year's end finds our family in a far better place (figuratively and literally) than last.

For the literally part, we now have our own house where I get to do stuff like put in bathroom shelves and mount D rings to the basement ceiling to swing my kids from.  The initial drain issues have been clear for 6 months or so.  We are not dealing with a front door handle that is frozen, water that stinks, windows with drafts, or a [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] landlord telling us all of the above is "just Montana."  And in our good deed for the year, at least one other couple will not be putting up with that either.

This year also saw the (hopefully) end of the Dot's craniosynostosis adventure.

Since her surgery has resulted in an explosion of development, I shall let the Dot explain her year in her own words:

Get onna air-----plane!

[Dot] fly to Te---xas!

Doctor fix [Dot]'s head!

[Dot]'s head get doo-ty!

[Dot] get a ban--nage!

Fortunately, her scalp has remained closed for most of two months now, so we may have in fact come to the end.

The Squirt added his own amount of fun and terror to the start of our year:

 

Bye-Bye Mommy!  I'll be good!

 

But came through in style and was well enough to accompany his sister on another flight two months later:

Any odd behaviours can probably be blamed on too much upper atmospheric radiation and rarified oxygen at a young age.

Our other added critter to the count, Chaos, has been a welcome addition.  No home is complete without a dog.

 

Last, but certainly not least, the real hero of the year.  While people are constantly impressed by how much of a trooper the Dot is (and she is, no doubt), in my opinion, the Lump has been the one who has soldiered on.  Being unceremoniously dumped at an emergency baby-sitter's for 3 days while Mommy and Daddy dealt with the Squirt's untimely arrival; being left behind during the surgical trip (not that it was that traumatic, since she got Grandma all to herself for a week); a short-notice move and a new dog; getting shorted attention because her siblings take up all of it; she has approached it all with an unflappable stoicism that does her Daddy proud.

Way to go, little girl.

There are several things out-of-place keeping the year from being perfect.  Mainly Nikki and Theseia.  Hopefully both will be repaired and repatriated next year.  The only other thing I could wish for right now is my antenna tuner (hopefully here by the end of January).

Other than that, I'm putting this year down as one of the best we've had.  Here's hoping 2015 will be as good.