Endeavour Liftoff

I know some of you think my space posts are oddities among the rest. Oh well, it is one of my favorite topics.

The space shuttle has gone off on a new mission. I had been wondering why NASA seemed to only be using Atlantis and Discovery for missions of late. It turns out, and I discovered this while researching for a previous post, that Endeavour has been out for the last five years getting some nice upgrades. This makes it the most modern of the three remaining shuttles.

Here is an interesting Wikipedia about Endeavour.

Milo's City Cafe

I've been to Milo's for breakfast a couple times. They have excellent eggs benedict for a very reasonable price. So, since I couldn't think of any place to eat tonight that I haven't been to a thousand times, I decided it would be good to try for dinner.

I only knew I wanted salmon and potatoes. I was not disappointed. The salmon was baked and covered in a delicious creamy champagne sauce and served with garlic mashed potatoes and steamed in-husk peas and baby carrots. For $14.95 I couldn't complain, especially since that was just $3 more than I paid for macaroni and cheese at Jake's last night.

So from my excursion I have learned two things. 1) Jakes is overpriced, and 2) I spend way too much eating out. Though I sort of knew both those things already, I rarely spend that much on any meal. In this case, I don't regret it.

Lack Of Amusement

I went to see the Simpson's Movie. I almost completely failed to see the hilarity of it. All the best jokes were the ones they showed on TV which left nothing surprising. While I did find there to be a bit of value in it, I am actually just happy that I got in for free because my friend CR works at that theater. It would have been a disappointment to pay regular movie price.

Street Kids

Most of you can't escape knowing how bad Portland's street kid population is, especially within a ten to fifteen block radius of where I work.

Today was just another occurrence of hostility toward me for not giving them what they wanted. In this situation, a girl and her male companion asked JB and me if one of us had a cell phone she could borrow. Of course, we said no politely. Then she asked for fifteen cents. Again, we apologized. Then they muttered (with intent for us to overhear) some obscenities at us. They then proceeded across the street and bitched for an entire block about how we wouldn't give them fifteen cents before proceeding to ask every other passerby for use of a phone or money. And these two were among some of the less brazen.

I am all about personal freedoms. But do these people have the right to harass pedestrians? Is it our right to be able to walk down the sidewalk without being accosted, harassed, and even assaulted in some cases over change? Would vagrancy laws that prohibited panhandling in downtown be inhibiting any rights at all? The Constitution doesn't mention begging for money as a protected right.

One hardly need mention the major benefit of enacted vagrancy laws: increased desirability of downtown for renters and businesses which has a positive effect on the crappy economy.

Biopsied Finger Update

This morning I woke up and my finger hurt incredibly bad. I am guessing it was because of how tightly I wrapped it. Being the big baby that I am, I called my mom to find out the best course of action.

She asked me to look under the band aids at the wound. Unfortunately, they were basically glued together and I had to cut up the side to get a look. I have never experienced this reaction before: instantly upon seeing my sectioned finger, I became nauseated and light headed. I laid down. At that point in time, my mom advised me to go to the doctor.

Naive as I tend to be, I assumed it would be a quick in/out kind of thing. I wanted a doctor to just see it and tell me it would be fine, especially since I apparently cannot stomach the sight of it. It seems my finger will be fine, beginning to heal itself in a few days. The doctor put liquid skin on it and covered it with a band aid which serves two purposes: I cannot see the injury, and I am reminded that I'm injured (though, trust me, it would be impossible for me to forget that fact) and to be careful.

It was the other part of the visit that I hadn't thought about. I was two years overdue for a tetanus immunization. So yes, I got to have one of those today, too. My right hand, with my mangled index finger is almost useless for many tasks, and now my left arm is dead at the shoulder. If I remember correctly, when I had the tetanus shot at age 15, my arm hurt for two weeks. Sigh.

On Cutting One's Self By Accident

It was a beautiful night at my friends T&BB's place. We had just finished a fantastic dinner cooked by Chef TB. Unfortunately, in true la petite chou chou fashion, whilst demonstrating my understanding of how someone sheared the top of a champagne bottle clear off, and quite possibly influenced by the mixture of several different wines I was consuming, I managed to give myself quite a cut.

It isn't a sheer cut which could be stitched. No. I managed to hastily remove 6 or so layers of skin off the top of my right hand pointer finger. It was so sudden that it didn't even hurt when it happened. The pain didn't start until JB and TB wanted to inspect the wound. Once the water hit the cut, it started hurting pretty badly, and by that time, bleeding with equal ferocity.

Several wads of toilet paper later (note to self: ALWAYS keep band aids handy.), I had managed to clear my head enough to drive home. Once there, I turned my bathroom into a de facto emergency room. There, I put on some neosporin and 4 band aids. It was still bleeding when I got home so I want to make sure it is good for the night. The band aids are on so tight I can feel my pulse through my finger. This is going to make for a fun next couple days.

Mangled Insanity

There was a bridge collapse in Minneapolis-St. Paul this evening. Here is the article for those of you who may have not seen the reports.

Apparently, the bridge has been under construction for quite some time. It makes me think twice about crossing the Burnside Bridge, which has also been under construction off and on for literally years. The differences here are that Burnside is supported by concrete, while this other bridge was held by steel.

On another note, why is terrorism now always the first suspect in any case of disaster? If terrorists were going to strike, would they really go for a single bridge in Minnesota? Doubtful. They would probably want to do something on a much larger scale--- something that would affect the workings of a city on a much grander scale, such as blowing every bridge in town. (Not to give any prospective terrorists any ideas; I'm sure they've thought of that.)