It's been so long since the last time I phlogged, but every so often I just
stare at the terminal in my living room and think up ideas for things I want
to talk about. Of course, by the time I actually get around to phlogging, I've
forgotten all of that and just go forth with writing whatever comes to mind,
journaling into the open air of the internet's basement. Sometimes this ends
up with seemingly directioned manifestos, and other times it just ends up with
me mental health dumping into a text file. Which, to be fair, seems
appropriate for a journal.

One of my coworkers' last day is tomorrow. She took down all of the photos of
her grandkids (which, for clarification, she's not old -- she's in her
forties) yesterday, leaving a pretty barren desk. Today she spent three hours
showing me all of the maintenance tasks that she does (syncing various
applications, checking for mistakes in student data, etc), most of which I had
some idea already how to do. This is the second one of my coworkers who's
left, and it's still weird in a way, because it never quite feels like they're
going to be gone. They just stop showing up one day. They're still alive,
they're still living their life, you could always call or text them, but they
just aren't at your workplace. Similarly the intern whom I've become friends
with is leaving in another month and a half for college. It's not a new kind
of loss, I suppose, as everyone has experienced relationships going dormant
even when they don't end per se, but it's weird to think about it now in the
context of a workplace, which is still somewhat new to me. Everyone was the
same until they weren't. Everyone could be different within the period of a
two-week notice. It's hardly numbing when it's hardly noticed. It's weird.

I don't think I've produced anything particularly new lately of my own,
although I have been doing a lot. I've been trying to play all of the Sonic
the Hedgehog games since watching Sonic 2 in theaters with my friend Paul,
something which has slowed down significantly the more my micro-obsession with
that fades back down into mental storage. I beat Sonic 1, 2, CD, and Adventure
2, and I started Adventure (which I've beaten before, but it was a long time
ago). In fact I bought Sonic Adventure International (the Japanese release but
with all five translations included) for the Dreamcast because it was cheaper
and easier to find than Sonic Adventure NTSC-U, and I didn't want to accept
downscaling from some CDI version -- especially considering I had the Japanese
version already but just wanted to play it in English. When Sonic Origins
comes out next month I'm going to get it and replay the original games plus
play Sonic 3 and Knuckles. I *do* have Sonic 3 for the Genesis, but not
&Knuckles, and I figured hey if I'm going to spend forty bucks it might as
well be on Sonic Origins instead, at least for now.

Besides Sonic, I've also started exercising again as of this week, and I
bought a Hario pour-over coffee set similar to the one Dr. Pickard had at
Millsaps. Apparently it is a MISTAKE to make yourself coffee at 10pm on a work
night EVEN THOUGH that's the night you get the coffee pot and you're excited
about it. Not only will you not be able to sleep until 4pm, but if correlation
equals causation then your server room HVAC will fail, causing your UCS and
therefore phone system to fail, causing you to not be able to go home on the
day you are in absolute hell from the tiredness, the caffeine, and the
explosive toilet trips because you will be too busy throwing new phones at
people that were still a few weeks away from being ready to be newly deployed.
With all that said, I think I'm going to make the coffee at the latest 9pm
from now on instead, which will hopefully be far less of a mistake. Perhaps
next time will also not be on the night of a full moon (and lunar eclipse).
Even in the case that correlation does not equal causation, that will probably
be a wiser idea.

It's been about a month now since I fell through my glass shower door and cut
my arm open in a few places. It's healed nicely, thankfully, with (I think)
minimal (in an American sense) cost from the ER and Urgent Care visits. Not
going to sugar coat it and not afraid to admit it, I squatted down like I
normally do to water blast my ass with the shower head because that's what it
takes to part me manly buns (I have been questioned on this). When I did so,
I was unbalanced and started slowly falling backwards with my back toward the
tub faucet, and in an effort to catch myself, I ended up with my left elbow
slamming through the shower door and shattering the glass. After a good second
or so of shock, I pulled my arm through and stood up and started immediately
running water on it with the shower head and evaluated the damage. There were
two gaping, quarter sized holes above the elbow  where my skin was totally
parted and you could see the fat tissue underneath, which looked like one of
those mesh/netted stress balls except yellow. There was another long slit that
I didn't even realize was there until I got out of the shower and saw a
straight bloody line. After a minute I stopped washing the wound and grabbed
my towel and wrapped it around my arm as best I could and started immediately
looking for gauze and wrap. I called my mom and told her what happened and she
grabbed wound dressing from her house and came over to help. After spending 45
minutes at the Urgent Care waiting on the doctor to get there, she told me I'd
have to go to the Emergency Room because it looked like I had arterial
bleeding and needed internal sutures. I went there and waited three hours
before finally getting to see a doctor, and by that time I guess the wound had
clotted enough because when the doctor pulled off the bandage he said it was
oozing but it was fine to just stitch it up on the outside. He gave me eight
stitches on the holes and however many adhesive strips on the long cut. I
ended up having to take two rounds of sulfamethoxazole, but since then I got
the stitches removed and everything has healed pretty well. I think once it
fully heals you'll barely be able to see the scars, which is pretty nice. All
in all I'd rate the falling-through-a-shower-door-which-is-decades-older-
than-you-are experience a definite "I now have a shower curtain instead" out
of ten, and I am highly unlikely to recommend it to a friend, family member,
or coworker. Considering I was one wrong cut away from terrible things,
though, I must admit that my experience was not the worst it could have been.

Anyway, that is all the life update that I feel like writing out for now.
Thanks for reading! Until next time my friends! \(^o^)/
~jebug29