Ultrasounds

Random musing on ultrasounds:

One of the following is the evil chest-busting eponymous character from the classic 1979 horror film Alien.  The other is the newest American Pedde en route.

Not easy to tell, right?  I mean the one has fang looking things, but then, the one on the left does, too.  When you take a closer look, things get even more difficult.

Even geometric analysis proves inconclusive:

Which leads me to the only possible conclusion:  Ridley Scott developed the look of the alien while examining an ultrasound of a child.

I just wanted spaghetti...

So I’m in the parking lot of the mart-that-must-not-be-named (always a good way to start a story). It being a bright day, I have my newer glasses on, since they have a magnetic clip on shade.

The shades were in my left slash pocket. This only adds to the humor, because while looking for them, I slid my hand into my right rear pocket.

Normally, I carry my Kershaw Leek toward the center, where accidental depression of the flipper will only open it as far as the seam. Unfortunately, on this particular day, I had slip it to the outside to avoid scratching a chair at home.  The result was that instead of finding my sunglasses, I found the open blade of my knife. This knife is carried strictly for emergency use, and as such has a brand new blade. Among other things I learned that day is Kershaw makes a good blade. I did not feel a thing until it hit muscle.

I quickly withdrew my hand, and found a 2 cm laceration more or less parallel to my fingernail, and approximately 0.5 cm below it. It was—quite predictably—gushing blood.

I immediately clamped pressure on the finger, picked up the groceries, and hurried to the car. Once there, I realized that I should probably check the extent to see if it would require stitches.

For the record, I no longer faint at the sight of blood. I do not faint at the sight of fat and muscle tissue. I spent an entire day in surgery with a gyno-onco-surgeon, including watching a TAHSO, aka field dressing a woman.

I do, apparently, have a problem with seeing my own fat and muscle tissue.

Having established that medical attention would, in fact, be required, I called the beloved to ask for a pick-up. While on the phone, I began to feel a bit woozy, and decided it was best to just sit down. Soon after, I decided it might be best to lie down.

At this point, things started to go a bit sideways.

When a bloody person is laying on the ground in the local aforementioned mart's parking lot, people notice. At least in the South. I have no idea what they do in New York. A passing woman, saw me laying on the ground and asked if I was okay. I hung up with the beloved and replied, “Yeah, I’m fine…well, maybe not…actually, probably not.”

When I awoke, the first thing I saw was a blue sky with several fluffy clouds. The second thing I saw was the nice woman…on a phone. I looked to the other end of the car and saw a man…on a phone. I surmised quickly that they weren’t talking to each other. Apparently, when you seize in the said mart's parking lot, people do more than just ask if you’re okay. Again, assuming you’re not in New York.

Around this time, a guy in a gray tee walked down the aisle with an armload of groceries. Seeing a bloody person on the ground two spaces away, he dropped off his groceries in his truck and pulled out a large black bag. Upon his approach, I noted that his gray tee had “Volunteer Fire Department” written on it. The EMT slapped an ABD pad on my finger and told me to hold pressure.

A young woman arrived, and announced loudly that she was CPR qualified and asked if anyone needed help. This while the efficient off duty EMT is examining me with a huge bag of obviously medical equipment open next to him. Being rather coherent for having just come to, I was able to note that chest compressions would not help me and that on a ten point scale where 1 is Rosie O’Donnell and 10 is Keira Knightley the beloved, this rather chipper young lady was about one to one-and-a-half integers too low for me to thoroughly enjoy conscious mouth-to-mouth.

At this time, I began to have some hope that we could keep this quiet. I was hoping the EMT could call in, cancel the emergency call-out and I could just wait for the beloved to arrive.

No such luck.

By the end of it, I had a large fire and rescue truck, an ambulance, and two patrol cars on the scene. The two medics in the ambulance, a cop in each car, the off-duty EMT, and four firefighters were on the scene. When the beloved called back to ask where I was parked, I replied, “Follow the flashing lights.”

After I turned down the offer to drive me to the hospital, the ambulance driver handed me a clipboard with a refusal of care form. My hand swathed in bandages and covered in blood, I gave him an exasperated look and replied, “You’re kidding me, right?” The beloved came to the rescue with her fully functional appendages.

In the distance I could hear one of the firefighters ask the off-duty EMT how bad the cut was. His response: “Oh, it’s a good one.” That made me feel better.

After returning the perishable food to the store, the beloved drove her injured husband to First Assist Urgent Care. There, I found out that iodine stings when it gets to subcutaneous levels, and that the end of your finger tip is the worst place to have lidocaine injected. Something about having to put a needle under your fingernail.

Then, it was back to the mart to get the beef and garlic bread. By then, it was 2100. Which leads me to the greatest insult of the evening: after all that, I had to go to bed without getting my spaghetti.

Oil

Typically speaking, I avoid political discussions here.  Yesterday, however, I spent half a day's wages filling up The Flying Dodgeman.  Then, while reading the news, I come across this interesting fact:

The US exports more oil that it imports.

Which raises the following question:

WHY THE CRAP DO WE IMPORT ANY?!?!?!?!

Why don't we just use what we have and tell the rest of OPEC to go to a very hot place.  Given the number of them in deserts, they should make the transition quite well.

I've thought about it and cannot come up with a single way that fact can be true without meaning that we produce more than enough for our own use.  So here's my plan:

1)  Restart all bituminous and lignite coal mining operations.  Yes, both of those are crappy coals compared to anthracite, but they contain higher amount of volatiles that can be converted to coal oil, using mechanisms and plants that are already in place.  This will have the added benefit of putting whole towns back into financial stability, taking strain off the government's social expenditures.

2)  Build more coal oil plants near the lignite and bituminous mines.  The technology has been around since the 70's (per my organic chemistry professor who helped develop it).  A little more interest might make it more efficient.

3)  Convert, based on location, coal burning power stations to coal oil.  Leave the ones near anthracitic coal mines as coal burners, since anthracite produces fewer emissions.  The ones near the lower grade mines can burn oil, which will burn cleaner than the coal it comes from.  This will result in less crude needing to be converted to fuel power stations, and it can be dumped into the general fuel supply.

4)  Stop importing oil.  I will vote for Cthulhu himself if he would stand up in a campaign speech and say that. Preferably followed by a big middle finger.  Or tentacle.  As I remember it, Lovecraft was awfully vague on anatomy.  With an apparent bigger supply than demand, we can set our own price for crude and drop our gas prices to a buck-seventy-five.  This is of course a sad statement from one who grew up with sub-one-dollar gas.

5)  Keep making ethanol, just make it from non-cash crops.  If it's got sugar, it can be fermented.  I have a butt-load of kudzu that's free for the taking.  There's sugar everywhere for the fermentation and distillation.  Come to think of it, I may start doing that myself.

6)  Tap every landfill for flammable gas.  There's a butt-load produced every day that gets wasted.  And methane is clean-burning.

7)  Tap every McDonalds and Burger King in the country.  How much grease is produced in this countries fast food industry?  Clean it up and dump it in oil-burning power plants.  So the local power plant smells like fries?  At least it increases the gas supply.

8)  Take all the surplus we had (keeping in mind that we apparently already have one) and replenish our strategic supplies.  Or continue exporting and charge the rest of the world $100 a barrel like they've been doing.  Or even better, under-cut them and drive the prices down for the whole flippin' world.  Pay down the national debt.  Or cut my taxes.

My oil plan.

The dot's head

So, I'm a little behind the beloved posting about this, but I'm a father, and that gives me certain procrastination privileges.

The dot tested positive for the c.1084+3 G>A mutation on her FGFR2 gene.  According to the report, this particular FGFR2 mutation has been described in patients with Pfeiffer's syndrome.  At this point, I will give the beloved's advice to not Google image search Pfeiffer's syndrome lest one have nightmares about fish-shaped babies.

Interestingly enough, my father, through whom I inherited my mutation, was described as having Crouzon's syndrome, which is another syndrome associated with FGFR2 mutation.  At this point things get technical.

By definition, a syndrome is a collection of symptoms.  The five syndromes associated with FGFR2 mutations are the aforementioned Pfeiffer's and Crouzon's along with Apert's, Antley-Bixler and Jackson-Weiss.  As my father was part of the first generation to have craniosynostosis surgery, there was no specific mutations associated with the syndrome yet, and the diagnosis was based solely on the symptoms.  The same was true for the diagnosis given my brother and myself.

Today, there has been much more genetic research done on the mutations associated with those five syndromes, however there has not been enough to guarantee a causal association.  The key phrase in the report is "has been described in."

Since there is a lack of several characteristics associated with Pfeiffer's (mostly malformations in the peripheral appendages) and a lack of severity, there is a chance that the description given will be Crouzon's.

At any rate, there will be surgery, probably in the not-too-distant future.  Just because life with one baby and another inbound wasn't exciting enough.

Failure to communicate

The two contenders met, with all their troops, on the field of Camlan to negotiate. Both sides were fully armed and desperately suspicious that the other side was going to try some ruse or stratagem. The negotiations were going along smoothly until one of the knights was stung by an asp and drew his sword to kill the reptile. The others saw the sword being drawn and immediately fell upon each other. A tremendous slaughter ensued. The chronicle . . . is quite specific about the point that the slaughter was excessive chiefly because the battle took place without preparations and premeditation.
-Herman Kahn, On Thermonuclear War (as quoted by Tom Clancy, The Sum of All Fears)


It has long been apparent that a large percentage of horrible incidents could be avoided by clear and honest communication.  Many stories have been told that demonstrate this principle in poignant and thought provoking ways.

Tucker and Dale isn't one of them.

For those of you who enjoy dark comedies, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil is a must-see.  Take the standard characters from every college slasher flick, drop them in the woods with two hillbillies and watch the two sides slug it out.  Sort of.

Basic premise:

**The following might possibly be construed as spoilers, but only of the first 15 minutes.**

Tucker and Dale go to their recently purchased, fixer-upper lakeside cabin in the Appalachians.  Their paths cross with a group of college students, including one, Allison, which Dale immediately develops a crush on, but then scares away by introducing himself while holding an over-sized sickle.  Tucker and Dale retire to their cabin, and the kids set up camp at the same lake.

The two groups paths once again cross when Tucker and Dale go fishing that night, and the college kids decide to go skinny dipping.  Being the quintessential nice guy, Dale averts his eyes upon seeing Allison undressing and tells Tucker to do the same.  This is arguably the root mistake of the film, as Allison hears them arguing and turns, slipping on the rock and falling into the water.  When Tucker and Dale rescue the unconscious Allison, her friends, who have obviously watched too many slasher flicks, assume that she's been captured.  Egged on by their de facto leader, they subsequently declare war upon the hillbillies.  If only Dale had just enjoyed the show, lives would have been saved.

For the record, I would have also averted my eyes...at some point...eventually...maybe.

Dude, it's Katrina Bowden!

**End things that might be considered spoilers**

The ensuing mass confusion leads to a classic slasher film, with the constant background question, "Isn't someone going to ask, 'Does this make sense'?"

Thankfully, no one does--mostly due to the fact that the one character who might spends most of the movie concussed--, otherwise we would miss a really, really witty movie full of horrible tactics (you charge that one with a ballpoint pen), comically cliche deaths (because every movie with a wood-chipper since Fargo  involves red spray), and even more Katrina Bowden.

5 stars, possibly more.