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.

Toddlerisms II: Texts From My Wife

The favorite parts of my workdays are when the Shieldmaiden randomly sends excerpts from her day.  This tradition started during my time in Atlanta, and has continued on since.


While in Atlanta:  

Someone was very emphatic that she wanted her Dada after I wiped her nose this morning.


Your oldest just tried to wipe my nose with a napkin she found.


She said, "Oh no," when I asked if she could wipe her face.


Me:  Can you say [Lump]?"

[Dot]:  Baby.

Me:  [Lump].

[Dot]:  Baby.


Everybody is asking about you.




After the move:

Thank you for leaving a roll of toilet paper in [Lump]'s reach.  She had fun.


[Dot] is buckling her animals in car seats.


According to [Dot], the clouds are dirty.


Me:  When we see Ms. Nancy & she says "Hi" to you, can you say "Hi," back?

[Dot]:  Hi ba.



After complaining about my crazy day:

Are your coworkers running around pantless & throwing food?  Because that's what mine are doing.


After saying, "I'm a leaf on the wind.  Watch me soar."

I'm a bigger leaf...

Spants IV: Spermite

Top Secret Government Lab Inside Northern Rockies

General from S III:  Spanthopper enters.

Scientist:  “Sir!”

General:  “How is the research coming?”

Scientist:  “Your idea was brilliant.  With the addition of the termite DNA, they can now burrow through two feet of reinforced concrete!”

General:  “What have you made their enclosures of then?”

Scientist:  “Sixty centimeters of reinforced concrete.”

General:  “Something about this seems a bit off, but carry on.”

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Oh yes, oh yes, it's that time of year again!  For those of you just joining us, ever since the wild response to Spants by the half-dozen people that read it, your humble author has made it a Halloween tradition to follow up the original campy humor with even more hackneyed, cliched and generally atrocious sequels.

For the previous installments:

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

This year's installment is brought to you by a decent beer and a crappy scotch.

Seriously, it's bottled Ginger piss.

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Spants IV:  Spermite


Logging Camp

Hippies:  "Save the trees!  Save the trees!"

Foreman:  "Look, Constable, I'm not trying to cause you trouble here, but the tree spiking is starting to endanger my men."

Constable:  "Tree spiking?  Geez, even Greenpeace doesn't do that crap anymore."

Hippies:  "No More Warming!  No More Warming!"

Constable:  "Have you tried pointing out to them that there's been no Global Warming for 19 years now?"

Foreman:  "Do you really think it would work?"


Top Secret Government Lab

Klaxon blares.  Soldier runs down hallway, turns and fires before being dragged off camera by Large Mysterious Unseen Entity.

Soldier:  "AAAAAAHHHH!!!"

Completely unrealistic amount of blood sprays from off-camera.

Computerized voice:  "There are now 5 minutes until failsafe detonation."

Scientist:  "We only have 5 minutes before this place blows!  Oh, if we'd only checked our unit conversion chart!  I feel like NASA!"

General:  "Don't worry!  I have a helicopter!"

Scientist:  "As Chief Scientist, I demand you save me, even at the cost of abandoning my entire team of underlings!"

General:  "I have waves of expendable soldiers to put between it and us.  We just have to get to the chopper!"


Logging Camp the following day

Constable:  "Look, I know those protesters have done all sorts of crazy things to your equipment before, but it doesn't make much sense that they would chop trees down to prevent you from chopping trees down.  Plus, I'm not sure how it would be possible for them to pull this off."

Foreman:  "Look, they're a bunch of hippies:  I never expect them to make sense.  All I know is that last night there were trees here, and this morning, nothing but piles of sawdust."

Constable:  "Look, I'll come here tonight to help you patrol.  But you get to try to get the mayor to sign off on the overtime."


Logging camp (nighttime)

Constable:  "I hope you appreciate this.  I'm supposed to be having dinner with Court Recorder."

Foreman:  "To discuss the future of your completely Platonic friendship?"

Constable:  "I assume so, yes."

Foreman:  "You are just about dense, aren't you?"

Constable:  "Why the hell did I agree to this?  There is nobody out here.  I'm going home, now."

Foreman:  "You can't.  You are contractually obligated for an entire shift.  Plus, I think I heard something over there."

Spermite crashes out of tree line.  Foreman and Constable turn and fire to no avail.

Foreman:  "To the Jeep!  To the Jeep!"

Suddenly, a helicopter appears with General, Scientist and a squad of soldiers.  In the gory-yet-completely-predictable battle that follows, the helicopter is destroyed and Foreman is killed along with the soldiers and pilots.


Interior of Jeep as it races down trail

Constable:  "So let me get this straight, you crossed a spider, an ant, and a termite, then made it grow to 20 feet long, and now it's loose in the forest around my township?"

Scientist:  "That's about the size of it, yes."

Constable:  "Guess it's time to go to my cabin."

General:  “It’s a 20-foot-tall insect that drilled through two-foot thick walls and killed a platoon of soldiers escaping.  And you think your cabin walls can save us?”

Constable:  “Not the cabin walls, what’s on the cabin walls.”


Constable’s cabin

Constable (holding up a Milkor MGL):  “Is this big enough?”

Scientist:  “How can you have these at home?”

Constable:  “It’s not just my home.  It’s also the official offices of the Podunk Township Constabulary and Justice of the Peace.  I filed a 1033.  Don’t you read the news?  If a law enforcement department says it’s for the war on terror, DHS’ll give away anything!”

General:  “These are bigger guns than my men have!”

Constable:  “Well, maybe your men should have used the words ‘Sovereign Gun-Trafficking Tea Party Militia Extremists’ in their budget request like I did.”

General:  “Do you actually have those around here?”

Constable:  “Well, the barber hasn't taken down his 'Ron Paul 2012' window sign.”

Scientist:  “This is such a waste of government resources.”

Constable:  “Oh, bite me.  How much did the 20-foot bug trying to eat us cost?”

General:  “Doesn’t matter.  That 40mm grenade launcher may be cool and all, but it’s not going to be enough.  Ever since Small-Town Sheriff killed one of our Boss bugs with a LAW rocket, we’ve armored them to withstand a TOW missile.”

Constable:  “See, now, why would you go and do that?”

Scientist:  “Well, the plan was to surgically implant a small remote control failsafe explosive in the spermite’s brain before we tested it.”

Constable:  “Let me guess, it's not there.”

Scientist:  “Well, we kinda forgot that making it resistant to a TOW missile might make it difficult to find a drill bit that could bore a hole in it.”

Constable to General:  “Where do you find these people?”

General:  "Well, the pizza boxes worked so well for the TSA..."

Constable:  "I think I might know where we could get a bigger drill bit..."


Machine shop at logging site

Outside, Hippie camp is getting destroyed by Spermite.

Constable:  "Okay, so scratch the high-velocity drill bit idea."

Scientist:  "I didn't think it would work."

Constable:  "Oy!  Say something helpful or shut up."

Screams echo from Hippie camp.

Constable:  "That is really making it hard to think."

General:  "Don't worry.  I'm pretty sure the screaming's almost all over."

Scientist:  "The fact is, we have to come up with some way of getting an explosive inside the creature."

Bloody hippie corpse crashes through window and slides to a stop between Constable and General.  They look down, then up at each other.


Cliff top

Spermite approaches propped-up dead hippie.

Spermite:  "ROOOOOOAAARR!!!!!"

Spermite bites Hippie's body in half, the lower portion falling to the ground.

General:  "Dammit, Scientist!  I told you we should have crammed it down his throat instead!"

Constable runs forward and hurriedly digs through the guts until he finds the bomb, slinging Bruce-Campbell-amounts of gore in the process.

Constable waving bomb overhead:  "Here, Big Fella!  Here you go!"

Spermite:  “ROOOOOOAAARR!!!!!”

Constable runs toward spermite, then in one fluid motion baseball-slides under the creature, tosses the bomb into the air, turns into a roll as the spermite swallows the explosives, and dives off the cliff into the river below chased by the completely predictable fireball rolling across the ground as the spermite explodes.


Survivors gathered around crater

Court Recorder:  "I think you got it."

Constable:  "I'm just glad you decided to take a walk by the river bank tonight."

Scientist:  "Well, now what do we do?"

Constable putting arm around Court Recorder:  "Do what you want.  I'm going home."

Constable and Recorder walk off toward town.

General:  "You can't just leave!"

Constable over shoulder:  "Oh, piss off--I have dinner plans.

Recorder and Constable walk off as the sun rises.  General turns to walk dejectedly away.  Scientist turns, then bends down to swab goop from a bush before following.

Coming soon:  Spants V:  Spants at Sea.

New initials

Ethan Jesiah Pedde, KG7GPB, B.S., M.T.*, EMT-B.  Notice the first thing you get when you pass is the offer to sell you stuff.

*Once I get the paperwork filed, I will once again be MLS (ASCP) CM.  For those of you counting, yes, that will make my academic and professional initials longer than my actual name.

Freeeeeedddooommmmmm!!!!!

Perhaps it's the Scot part of my Scot-Irish/Canadian/Native American/German/Prussian/God-only-knows-what-else heritage.

Perhaps it's from watching Braveheart too many times.  Probably not, since I only watched it once, and found the beginning and the end depressing enough to bum me out for a week.

Perhaps it's living in a place called Glasgow, where the high school mascot is the Scottie and the police cars are painted tartan.

Perhaps it's a friend getting accepted to Edinburgh.

Perhaps it's because Amy Pond--arguably the hottest companion to the Doctor to date--is Scottish.

Perhaps it's from her saying "Good for them," when she finds out Scotland loaded up onto a different spaceship than England, which is probably her best line from the first season.

Or perhaps it's the rebellious streak inherent in all Americans.

At any rate, I am sitting here, in Glasgow, MT, throwing down whiskey from Glasgow, Scotland, in an attempt to drown my sorrows that it appears Scottish Independence is not going to happen.  Currently, it's 58%-42%, and I just don't see that changing.

So why do I support the break-up of a 300-year old country?  Because I agree with several outspoken no-ers that Scottish Independence could have lead to a "Balkanization of Europe."  Unlike those opposition campaigners, though, I think it would have been a good thing.

Currently, there are about a dozen major secessionist movements in Europe.  I support them all inasmuch as they remain peaceable.  An amicable Scottish departure from the UK would prove that people can withdraw without bloodshed.  And the fact is, Balkanization works.

A case study:  Yugoslavia.  After the First World War, the victors came together to redraw the map of Europe.  They decided to put about half a dozen different ethnic groups in the same country.  How well did this work out?  Well, for the next seventy-ish years, the ethnic groups tried to kill the ever-loving [redacted] out of each other.  They all wanted a country in which they had autonomy.  And since no one would recognize them as separate, they had to try to take power of their one country.

As one person noted, "The majority of life for many people is the quest to be the perpetrator instead of the victim."  The Yugoslavians lived this.  If the Croats won an election, it was a bad time to be a Serb; if the Serbs won, woe betide Bosnians; if the Bosnians won...well, you get the point.

Eventually, the groups all got their own countries.  And ever since, there's not been a whole lot of wholesale slaughter over there.  Sure, there's now six countries to remember for geography tests, but on the whole, I call thousands of people not dying a net win.

I'm pretty sure the Tutsis would have loved to get their own country around, say, 1994.  Sure Don Cheadle gave an awesome performance, but that was a bit too late to save almost a million people from getting their heads macheted off.

But what if one country decides to pick off one of the new smaller countries?

Next case study:  Kurdistan.  Wonderfully bland name for a country...that doesn't truly exist.  Instead, the Kurds are split among Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey.  The Kurds have long desired to secede from all four and make their own country.

Between 1986 and 1989, Saddam Hussein waged a war of genocide against Iraqi Kurds.  One of my former coworkers was sent in when the US decided to protect the Kurds.  And then they left.  And more Kurds got killed.  The fact is, if you punch out an abusive boyfriend, he just takes it out on his girlfriend when you aren't looking.  And as long as the guy does it in his own home, the world does not give three [redacted]s, two [redacted]s or a [redacted].  Unless there's cameras rolling, in which case, the world cares until the cameras leave.  Just ask the Tiananmen demonstrators.

Then, in 1990, Saddam went too far.  He stepped over a line, known as an international border.  Thirty-nine countries showed up (another two contributed guns and money...although probably not lawyers) to descend on him like the veritable Hammer of God.  Sure, the US sent 700,000 of the nearly a million troops, but that still leaves about 300,000 troops that others were willing to pony up to show that the world will not tolerate invasions.

Perhaps if the Kurds had had their own border, they wouldn't have been gassed.  Well, they probably would have, but the lesson learned from the 40 countries putting a stop to that would have saved some Kuwaiti lives.

I realize, of course, that some geographical locations have religious significance and will always be fought over.  I also realize that there are certain ideologies that will not be satisfied until the whole world subscribes to them.  But while Balkanization could never bring world peace, at least some places might cool down.

Beyond preventing bloodshed, a peaceful secession might also be good economically.  Besides the fact that you can now build a factory in Croatia without it getting blown to hell and gone, there may be other positive economic outcomes.

France.  The Amiens Goodyear plant closed because the managers could not make money with the French worker's work ethic and demands.  This, obviously, hurt the French economy.  But let's look at who the French economy includes.  There are currently two major separatist parties in France, the Basques and the Corsicans.  Obviously, the damage to the French economy by Goodyear and a whole bunch of other international corporations over the last few years has hurt them.

Thought experiment:  What if there was Basqueland and Corsica?  They could put in bids for Goodyear's business.  Goodyear wouldn't have to move as far, and there would be an influx in the economy of the winning nation.  Perhaps the competition might drive the French to rethink their policies in an attempt to get Goodyear, et al to stay.  Sure, California may not have put two and two together over worker's rights and business relocation, but I have no doubt the French are smarter than Californians.  Of course, I'm pretty sure I've cultured a fungus or two that were smarter than California's leadership.

There is also the fact that fragmented economies survive better.  Part of the problem late last decade was that the EU meant that Germany and other productive countries were on the hook for Greece and other unproductive countries' bills.  Had Greece been allowed to fail, the European recession would not have been as extreme.

Here's what I would like to see happen:  Scotland secedes, the UKIP would get a huge boost, possibly pulling the UK out of the EU.  With the first major political seat calling it quits, Germany would finally have its excuse to leave.  It's not like they haven't been looking for one for the last five years.  Once the first major economic seat left, there really wouldn't be any reason for any more countries to keep hauling around over-extended countries bad debt.  Meanwhile, other secessionist movements get a boost from Scotland's independence and Europe turns into a hundred interdependent yet independent economies.  No one has the clout to bring the rest down, and all have a shot at improving themselves.

And finally, on a personal note, while Cutty Sark may claim to be "the original easy-drinking Scotch," it's really pretty harsh.  I mean, Bushmills is smoother, and it's Irish.

Viral Nomenclature

"This is Dr. Scanlan.  He's a virologist, but he does a decent impersonation of a microbiologist."

With that, I was introduced to my professor for Clinical Parasitology and Virology, Clinical Mycology, and Clinical Bacteriology.

Now, the ASCP board exam is recognized internationally.  This means we had to learn every fungus, virus, parasite, and bacterium the world over.  Because how hard can that possibly be?

The fun part came during virology.  As our professor was a virologist, we may have exceeded the national average for depth of coverage.  Including vectors, transmission, treatment, morbidity and mortality,  we had to know the following aspects of each virus (how many can there possibly be, right?): envelope, structure, segmentation, sense, strands, and genetic material.

You try remembering that Rhabdovirus is a enveloped, helical, non-segmented, negative-sense, single-stranded, RNA virus while Bunyavirus is an enveloped, helical, segmented, negative-sense, single-stranded RNA virus.

After several days of beating my head against the wall, the night before the test, I came to the following realization:  all these are binary choices.  Being the nerd I am, I simply put them into a table:

	1	0
Envelope	Enveloped	Non-enveloped
Structure	Icosahedral	Helical
Segmentation	Segmented	Non-segmented
Sense	Positive-sense	Negative-sense
Strands	Double-stranded	Single-stranded
Material	DNA	RNA

From there, I punched it into a spreadsheet:

Virus	Aspect						Total
	Envelope	Structure	Segmentation	Sense	Strands	Material
Rhabdovirus	1	0	0	0	0	0	32
Rhinovirus	0	1	0	1	0	0	20
Bunyavirus	1	0	1	0	0	0	40
St. Louis Encephalitis Virus	1	1	0	1	0	0	52

Now, all I had to remember is the table and a single number for each virus.

Presumably, one might be able to add other non-binary attributes to this system, using an alphabetical prefix or suffix, i.e. affected systems (Respiratory =A, GI=B, Integumentary=C.) or mode of transmission (Droplet=A, Vector=B, etc.).  This would yield a result of CB43 for a theoretical enveloped, helical, segmented, negative-sense, double-stranded DNA virus causing boils and spread by a tick.

And if you think that I'm the only one who could possibly find this system useful, I would point out that the President of the APSU 2007-8 Medical Technology Class noticed me using my table the morning of the test and had the whole system and all the numbers memorized in under two hours.

So there it is, the Pedde Binary Virus Nomenclature system.  Free of charge for all APSU Med Tech students, however, I will cry foul if anyone publishes a paper on it without giving me a chance to co-author.

Immigration and Trains

When it comes to illegal immigration, one of the most absurd incarnations is La Bestia.  You pay $100 to ride on the top of a cargo train and hope not to get robbed, raped, or beat to death.  It's also known as "The Death Train."

Well, that sucks.

So let's take a quick look at the wonderful risk analysis that everyone uses, whether they acknowledge it or not.

The basic risk analysis graph usually shown is a basic X/Y, however, there is a Z that many people don't realize they are also using.  The usual drawing has the X axis as the severity of consequences and the Y axis is the likelihood that the event will occur.  There is also a Z axis of how much in resources will preparations cost.

Case in point, during the Cold War, it was judged a high enough probability and severity and low enough resource expenditure that fall-out shelters were deemed a good use of money.  Of course, the probability turned out to not be what was expected, but at the time...

Now another way to look at things by category is the classic balance, which we will use for our current analysis.  Since the consequences of the crimes mentioned in the article (robbery, rape, and murder) are the same no matter where you are, we will concentrate on the likelihoods.  As always, if you don't like my paintbrush drawings, then screw you.

The left side is the probability of it happening at home.  The right side is the probability that it will happen on the train.

If you stay home, the cartels will rob you.  If your daughter stays home, there is a very high probability that she will be kidnapped (at a very young age) for some drug lord to add to his harem.  Murder's pretty high, although we'll discount the number of draftees who are killed fighting for the cartels.

So, short of increasing the amount of robberies, rapes, and murders until it's safer to live in South America, perhaps we need to address the Z axis.  Currently, it looks a bit like this:

Where the left side is the resource expenditure to legally immigrate ($5000 and a couple years) and the right side is the $100 to hop La Bestia for a couple days.

Maybe we should change that.

A handful of Cartel members are standing at the station, waiting for La Bestia and shaking wannabe passengers down.  Suddenly, instead of a cargo train, a pair of modified MRAPs hooked back to back appear.  The front one has a minesweeping device.  Both have an extremely hacked-off machine gunner on top who has been riding without air conditioning for the last 50 miles.  Anyone toting a gun and gang colors is immediately shot.  The vehicles disgorge a dozen US infantrymen who are only slightly less cranky than the gunners, because while the A/C works, it's still pretty cramped.  They set up a perimeter and frisk people down before the train appears.

The train pulls up and opens it's doors.  The passengers one by one get fingerprinted, entering them into the system that they will be using for the next several days.  Once the car is full, the doors close. 

This is horribly inefficient, so after the train pulls off, a smaller train appears that offloads 4 regular MRAP's, 1 Bradley Engineering Squad vehicle, and a few pallets of materials.  They begin work on a small-but-hardened command post that will be used to pre-screen future passengers.  Once the immigration outpost is built, the ESV gets loaded back up on the next train.  The MRAP's stay because the cartels are gonna be pissed about losing their mule train, and because we have so many of the damn things we're giving them away to anyone who signs a 1033.  The troops will be rotated each time the train pulls in.

The train starts off and the passengers go through the next car, a medical screening car where they get quick tests for IV/Hep/TB/R&R/Polio/lice/scabies/everything-else-communicable by all those Navy Corpsman who seem to end up getting all the cool humanitarian details.  Those who pass get immunizations.  Those who flunk are treated/decontaminated/quarantined.

Those who pass (and any who flunk but complete treatment by the end of the ride) go to the next station, a handy legal office that helps them get their paperwork started (which would, of course, be streamlined).

Next up, they go to the education cars.  First, an English screening station.  Those who flunk go to a comfy car where they start English lessons.  If they pass, they get screened for trade training/education.  If they know a trade (verified by a quick test), they go off to a comfy car for the rest of the trip.  If they don't, off they go to the Career Fair car to watch a few ads from various companies to see what interests them.

Once they get to the border, people who know a trade meet representatives from firms that need them.  Those who chose a career field get met by representatives from firms who are willing to train them.  Those who can't speak English well enough to enter training go to dorms where they get a crash course in it.  Those who are still quarantined go off to quarantined dorms to finish treatment before going to the English center or career center.

My inspiration here is a NatGeo article on Matvei Mudrov the Siberian hospital train.  I mean, they put a hospital on a train, can we not put a screening station?

We're frikkin' America!

Our non-governmental charitable giving is $335 billion a year!  If it costs $10 million a day to run these trains, we'd still only be scratching the surface of what Americans are willing to give.  How much would this really cost to run?  Heck, Warren Buffett, you already have the trains!  Especially if you lose the fight to keep the Keystone from coming through my town.

The US Military sends medical people around the world to vaccinate goats!  It's to build goodwill with those countries, apparently.  Wouldn't vaccinating people be a better use of resources?  Wouldn't giving people an alternative to having to give their daughters birth control so they won't get pregnant when (not if) they get raped build more goodwill?

Plenty of people talk about immigration reform, but until something is done to change the resource expenditure disparity between legal and illegal immigration, it will continue to be more cost-effective to risk the violence of illegal immigration.