I thought this was worth the post.
Via: Online MBA Programs
Poison Ivy Sucks
poison ivy plant
Ever get poison ivy? Sucks, doesn’t it?! I remember being able to roll around in the stuff as a kid and never having to worry about it. As I got older I started to get it worse and worse until eventually I would have to visit a doctor to be able to rid myself of the devil’s evil weed and it’s curse. Corticosteroids anyone? Did you know that sensitivity to urushiol, the clear liquid compound found within the sap of the plant, can develop at any time and it is the most common allergery in the U.S. affecting 50% of all people. Now it really sucks, doesn’t it?
My latest outbreak stemming from contact with poison ivy (toxicodendron radicans) occurred as a result of traipsing about the woods hiking. I suppose if you are going to traipse about in the woods it’s inevitable that you eventually come across the villainous vine. This time I was determined to not have to go to a doctor in order to relieve myself of it. Not only does this cost money directly but time off from work to go is of no benefit to me. This time I wanted to beat poison ivy and its urushiol-filled sap on my own terms (and preferably over-the-counter).
poison ivy in bush form
Before you can beat urushiol you need to know your enemy, and this shit is nasty! Urushiol (pronounced: oo-roo she-ol) is an oily organic allergen found in posion ivy, oak and sumac that causes a rash (contact dermatitis) upon getting it on your skin. Urushiol is so potent that can produce outbreak in hundreds of people with as little as the amount on the head of a pin. WHAT?! It’s true! Because of this potency it is absolutely crucial you get the oil off your skin as soon after exposure as possible, preferably within 15 minutes as this is the amount of time the urushiol needs to bind to the proteins in your skin. If washed off within this window you stand a very good chance of avoiding a reaction. Sweating or not rinsing your skin well enough will only result in the urushiol being spread across your skin, so be sure to irrigate excessively. After the urushiol binds to your skin it cannot be washed off or transferred to other parts of your body and you’re pretty much screwed. Trust me, I know.
the rash on my right arm
Once the urushiol sets you can expect to see a reaction in about 24 to 36 hours, but this is just for us pros; newbs can take as long as 7 to 10 days to see their first reaction. Remember how I said as a kid I could roll around in poison ivy all day and not get it? This is because you sensitize to urushiol the more you are exposed to it. Instead of building a tolerance, you build an in-tolerance to it, meaning you get easier and quicker with every new exposure. Fun stuff, huh? Oh but wait, we haven’t gotten to the really fun stuff yet! Once you get your reaction you can expect to see it start with a severe itching of the skin, or course, which is then followed by red inflammation and blistering of the skin. And if you are lucky enough to get a really good dose? Yay! Oozing sores for you! Oh yeah, this will work wonders for your social life.
poison ivy vines
A common myth about poison ivy is that it can spread from these oozing sores. Not true. Remember the part where I said that when urushiol binds to the skin it cannot be removed or transferred? Well, that is very much true. I know, I know; you’ve got poison ivy, it’s oozing and seeping all over the place, you’re miserable, you’re suffering, you’re dealing with it then seemingly out of nowhere new blisters appear in places they hadn’t been before. Sure, it seems like it has spread, but the reality of the situation is that these are areas of your skin that either are less sensitive to the urushiol or they simply didn’t get as high a dose of it so it took longer to develop. Of course it could also be caused by new exposure from clothing, shoes, tools, fur of pets or other objects that still have the urushiol oils on them. This is why it is so important to not only cleanse your skin but any items or clothing that may have come into contact with the poison ivy as a result of you being where you were. This is probably going to totally bum you out, but urushiol oil can actually retain its potency for up to 5 years. 5 YEARS?! Yep, 5 years. This includes dead plants, so don’t go thinking that just because you chopped it, hacked it or torn it out of the ground that it’s hamless… Oh, no! That stuff will still get you so be very careful about ever touching it or anything that has come in contact with it.
hot water can bring itch relief
So now that you’re a itchy, burning, gooey mess what do you do? How in the hell can you expect to find any relief? Well, it should go without saying that a severe case (you be the judge) will require expert medical consultation. If you are highly allergic – you can tell because your rash will develop in 4 to 6 hours! – you should also seek medical attention. For those of you who aren’t highly allergic and are willing to suffer all on your own there are a number of over-the-counter options available which include, but aren’t limited to Zanfel, Tecnu, Ivy Dry, Burt’s Bees, Ivarest, Lanacane, Calamine lotion… the list goes on and on. What you need to keep in mind is some of these products are used to cleanse the urushiol from the skin immediately after exposure while others are designed to treat the itch from the rash after exposure. Itching is caused by histimine being released in the skin cells, which is why a good histimine-blocker, or antihistamine, such as Benadryl can help bring some relief. Another method of itch relief involves the use of hot water. Hot water has the same effect as an antihistamine because heat causes the cells to release their histimine, which causes severe itch at first but then subsides as all the histimine gets released. Use water as hot as you can stand on the back of your hand and either soak or run water on your skin until the itch dissipates. Histamine released in this manner takes your cells several hours to regenerate which can bring you anywhere from 4 to 8 hours of much-needed relief. I can attest to the hot water method and it’s great right before bed to ensure a better night (itch-free!) sleep. All that remains at this point is to dry up any open sores and blisters. Some people turn to the many commercial products available. I prefer good ole isopropyl alchohol. Sure, it stings like hell, but it gets in there and helps dry things up to speed up the healing process.
Time will tell how long it will take for the creeping crud to go away, but most reports indicate anywhere from one to several weeks. I’m hoping I fall in the closer to one area! As of this writing I am on day four and it seems like the oozing has tapered off and the drying process has already started. This is a good thing!
My New Addiction
I was recently introduced to the world of geocaching. My wife had heard about it on the interwebs and figured it might be something that would interest me because it combines my love of technology with my love of the outdoors. She couldn’t have been more right!
For those of you not in the know, who are cleverly called muggles by the geocaching world, I believe this description from the governing website geocaching.com puts it quite succinctly:
Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online. Geocaching is enjoyed by people from all age groups, with a strong sense of community and support for the environment.
To date I have successfully found 9 caches and I am quite surprised by how infectious the sport is. There definitely seems to be a great community out there and it’s fun to hit an area where there might be muggles about and you have to watch how you go about things so as not to tip them off as to what you might be doing in a given area and risk the cache being discovered by non-players and vandalized or disposed of. You can even seed your own treasures out into the world for others to find and sit back and enjoy seeing your goods move to different towns, states or even countries!
Geocaching.com has some great info for people looking to get into and and if you enjoy spending time outdoors in any way I would encourage you to do so. Not only is it fun, but very inexpensive to enjoy. Your only real expenses are a GPS unit and gas to get around. My young boys, ages 5 and 7, are really excited about the sport and often ask if we can go out caching. Looks like we have a new family hobby!
If you decide to get into it, look me up on geocaching.com and feel free to send me a friend request referencing this post. Who knows, maybe I’ll see you out there someday!
I want a Twitter badge
Today I feel like I earned some sort of Twitter badge for taking a 361-character Facebook status and paring it down to an acceptable 140-character twitter post. This makes it my biggest attempt at tweet conversion ever!
Wee:<pets cat> Me:Wash ur hands! W:<washes, pets cat> M:WHAT R U DOING?! Wash again! W:<wash, goes for cat > M:Stop touching the cat & eat!
Wee: <gets up from eating at table, touches cat>
Me: What are you doing?! Now go wash your hands and finish eating.
Wee: <washes hands>
Me: Did you wash your hands?
Wee: Yep. <touches cat>
Me: WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! Now go wash your hands again!
Wee: <washes hands>
Me: Now go back to eating.
Wee: <goes for cat again>
Me: Stop touching the cat! Just go eat!
Best retention letter I’ve ever gotten
I’m sitting here on the laptop after work doing all my usual internet undertakings, like Twitter and Facebook, when something catches my attention in Gmail.
I received a notice from a website (an internet-based game actually) that they would like me to come back and play because it had been so long since I had last logged in. The site was free, always had been, and there was no soliciting for micro-transactions as is popular in today’s internet-based game economies. No, this site just offered some of their own merchandise for sale, but there was no obligation to spend any money. Can you imagine, an online free game with no ads or subscription fees? Crazy!
The game is Kingdom of Loathing and it’s a browser-based multi-player RPG. It started back in 2003 and I played for a few years, actually. The game features all hand-drawn stick figures for graphics and is heavily text-based using parody, puns, off-beat humor and references to pop culture. You fight monsters, fulfill quests and gain meat, the world’s form of currency, all through turn-based decision-making. There is an available, but not mandatory, player-vs-player component to KoL as well as a fully functioning in-game ecomony and clan system.
One thing that always amazed me about KoL was the depth some of the core components, such as the marketplace, could get into. They become almost meta-games to the actual game and bring many wonderful layers to the KoL experience. The writing also stands out because it is full of humor, is very witty and the pop culture references are clever and nostalgic for people of all ages.
Obviously, I am going to go back. I was fortunate enough to have obtained a Mr. Accessory (without paying for it!) which means my account will never be deleted no matter how long I am absent. This is good because I have acended a couple of times (it’s a game thing), have tons of meat (which equates to millions) and have lots of loot in my clan, of which I am the leader! If you happen to check it out then hit me up – name: SiN wYrM clan: Clan of the Wyrm
Here is a copy of the retention letter I recieved:
from The Kingdom of Loathing <noreply@kingdomofloathing.com>
to date subject mailed-by Dear SiN wYrM,
Okay, I’m not good at this kind of thing, but I feel like I have to give it a try. So, here goes:
I was hanging out the other night, listening to some old mp3s, and I was just overcome with memories of when we used to hang out all the time. Remember? You were an intrepid, fearless adventurer, and I was the free-to-play, fun-and-funny online role-playing game that won your heart. Do you still remember those good times? I can’t stop thinking about them.
I mean, I know things got kind of messed up at the end, and believe me, I’m sorry. If I could take any of that back, I totally would. And I know people grow and change, and you’re not the same person you were then, but hey — I’ve changed, too! I thought and thought about how to win you back. I figured I’d make you a mix CD, but I couldn’t decide what “our song” was. So I just concentrated on becoming a better game for you, and here’s what I came up with:
Remember how much fun you used to have with your clan? Alternately, remember how you never joined a clan because you didn’t see the point? Either way, clans now have clan dungeons, group zones where your whole clan can work together. Crawl through sewers to Hobopolis, a vast underground vagrant vacation vista! Slide into the slime tube, and stir-fry sassy slimes!
I know I wasn’t the prettiest game when we were together, so I had some work done. Almost every interface got an interface-lift. You can even manage most of your inventory via chat commands! I also came up with a way for you to automate some of the things you don’t love about the game, so you can spend more time with the parts you do love.
Not only that, but there are way more animated .gifs than there were before. Don’t worry; I haven’t lost that low-fi edginess you love, but I’m a lot easier to play with now.
You can also have a custom title now, just in case you didn’t feel like I appreciated what made you unique as an individual.
I should also say
Haiku Dungeon’s been revamped.
See what I did there?
Maybe you quit because you got sick of always adventuring above the water. I admit that seems unlikely, but I fixed that, too — there are a bunch of underwater zones with new food, equipment, mechanics, and challenges.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, trust me. I’m still the silly, clever, deceptively-complex game you fell in love with, only with about 95% more awesome.
So, I’m just sayin’, if you can find it in your heart to give me another chance, I won’t disappoint you.
If you don’t drop by, I promise I won’t bother you again. I just really felt like we deserved one more try.
Love,
The Kingdom of Loathing.
You can see from the letter what kind of tongue-in-cheek style the writers employ and the types of things you do in the game. Now that I have finished this post I am going to go log in right now!
What are you waiting for? An adventurer is you!
Thoughts on iPhone and Android
A friend recently made a Facebook post about iPhone 4 and how brilliant he feels Steve Jobs is for being such an innovator and delivering such wonderful products to the world. This lead to some conversation about Android being a new class of innovator that may threaten the Apple reign.
My friend said he felt like a lot of people think Android is a single phone as opposed to an operating system. For this reason, he felt, it is unfair and illogical to try and compare iPhone to Android. Still,
we decided to compare and contrast some of the features both platforms have to offer.
Me: The iPhone sports a greatly improved battery life that performs exponentially better and can provide up to 10 hours of Wi-fi usage or video playback, over 40 hours of audio playback. Too bad Apple didn’t include HDMI. Instead they made a bunch of composite and component add-on cables/docks you have to buy separately (and at a premium I’m sure!). If I could ever afford the plans for this crap I would have to throw my hat into the Android ring though. Apple makes some great stuff, but it will always be a fairly closed system and tech enthusiasts need to be able to tinker and play around with stuff.
Him: The Android platform runs at 720 and has a flash. Android phones can also video conference with different models with great success. Combine with the newest Snapdragon processors, and new Android phones will be amongst the fastest ever. Phones like the EVO even sport features such as an HDMI out port, something the iPhone does not have. The iPhone suffers from being limited to AT&T, which is another boon for Google’s OS. The Evo is very pretty sporting the front camera as well but the screen still can not compare to the iPhones retina display. Actual use of this phone in the field also states that battery life is down right awful, apparently android is a power hog. The Incredible also looks nice but I don’t think it has the front camera and the display is still no match for the iPhone. Also, none of these phones feel quite like an iPhone touch screen wise. I never like to use the word perfect but this is where apple has always had perfection since the birth of this product from feel to response, no other phone is quite like it. Evo and Incredible look nice but it’s going to take a lot more than a better camera and hdmi port to make me convert. iPhone hardware wins hands down.
Me: The retina display is sick! This 300+ ppi range is so unprecedented! A good art or photography magazine doesn’t even publish this good and a laser printer gets around 250 ppi. At 960×640 on 3.5″ screen those are some small-ass pixels! The screen itself is even less refractive than other manufacturers, so this helps sharpen the image even more. Hopefully the competition is causing Apple to pull out stuff like this, it will be good for the consumer in the long run because everyone will have to step it up and make their own innovations to be competitive.
Him: Now on to os, android is amazing and rightfully so while 4.0 for apple offers a bit more stability/structure. I’ve found a solution to this, one I think you’ll very much appreciate. Let me break it down: a 32gb 4th gen iPhone (best hardware to date) 16gb partition created, Android 2.2 os loaded, birth of 4g iPhone hybrid virtual machine. I love Linux so naturally I love the freedom of android but enjoy the structure of 4.0…checkmate peoples. Android 2.2 will be loaded onto my 3g platform this weekend for testing.
Me: Your references to iPhone and Android are spot on. I have always seen the iPhone as King Leonidas and Android as the Spartan Army. There is a lot to be said for a solitary, fierce, noble champion of exceptional skill but he can be taken down by a throng of warriors if they are strong, well-armed and organized. Google brings that. My understanding is you can load Android on a 1 or 2g iPhone or a 1g iTouch. Of course these need to be jailbroken. Both the 3g iPhone and 2g iTouch are being worked on, but do not have full solutions yet. What’s also funny is a jailbroken unit can already do some of the 4g features such as folders, backgrounds, multi-tasking… I loved those parts of Steve’s announcement because I was like “hey, I’ve already seen that!” ; ) Android 2.2, FTW!!!
.
So there you have it, we both decided that Apple has, hands down, the tightest and most efficient hardware but Google is really bringing something special to the market with their new operating system. In the end I think it the consumers who win big because choice and options really mean you can not only find what is right for you, but also have a selection in front of you that can encompass so much variety. Competition will indeed breed better design and better features and now we just need the telcos to get with the program and make all this cool stuff that much more affordable.
Be A Bitch And Don’t Wave
New day, new category. Today I introduce you to Anger Management. This category, I am thinking, will be a commonly seen one here on my blog as many things in life seem to piss me off. It’s not always the big obvious things, a lot of times the smallest things I see and hear people do have a way of sticking in my craw. This being the case, the Anger Management feature of this site will be my place to bring these things to light and share them with you so you can avoid those same mistakes (at least in my presence!).
I have already stated that I believe common courtesy is dead and I also believe that something has happened in this world that has caused people to no longer care about or appreciate one another. You see it every day in just about every place. Don’t get me wrong, I am no saint, but I was taught manners and decency and strive to pass these kinds of values on to my own children. Sometimes a simple “thank you” can go a long way.
Today’s entry is a common occurrence that takes place daily at many an intersection on our roadways. I pulled up to a four-way intersection where all sides have their own stop sign and as I was doing so another motorist approached from a perpendicular side. She was a younger-looking woman, probably in her low to mid-twenties, and she arrived at the intersection just after I did. I came to a complete stop, had my turn signal on, and even though I had clearly reached the intersection first, I yielded my turn to her since I was not in any particular hurry and felt like doing something nice. Hey, I like doing stuff like that every now and then because I like to feel I’m tipping the karma scale in my favor.
Anyway, I waved her on and she went straight past me without even once looking at me or even waving. See what I mean about simple thank you’s? I’m not whining or being nit-picky, simply pointing out one of many examples of how common courtesy is dead. As a motorist, I always go out of my way to wave at someone who lets me go, turn or otherwise do something I may not have had the chance to do otherwise. It is a simple gesture that really does go a long way and let’s someone know you appreciate the simply act of generosity they have just exhibited.
Dwelling on it now, it really doesn’t bother me. I mean, this sort of thing happens all the time. At the time, though, it really chapped my ass because I was clearly at a complete stop at this intersection well before her and still yielded the right-of-way to her, which I thought was a fairly generous act (especially since most people are in such a damn hurry these days!). It seemed like she even went out of her way to not even look at me because she kept her head completely straight ahead as if ignoring me. You know, the old “I don’t see you so you must not be there” routine.
I would give her the benefit of the doubt and say she didn’t see me at all, but then how can you explain the fact that she went before me when I was at a complete stop while she still approached her stop sign? And just you shut you geniuses out there up, yes, I was located to the right of her so had the legal right-of-way. In the end, the simple effort of her raising her hand up at me in the simplest of gestures would have prevented this entire post from happening. Maybe I should thank her after all for providing me content!
Welcome To My Mind
This is a blog. More importantly, this is my blog. I have toyed with the idea of starting it for a long while and finally feel like I have the angle, motivation and technical experience to pull it off the way I have always envisioned in my head. I am no stranger to the internet or computers, I actually have developed and run several websites, but the “blog-o-sphere” is somewhere I have purposely stayed away from due to not really perceiving anything of value for me in it. Obviously this has changed because here I am and here you are.
I will not be attempting to self-censor nor am I interested in your feelings of offense. This blog is designed to be exactly like the subtitle indicates: pure, simple and raw. This is my head space at work and in order to get a full picture of my inner workings you must take the good with the bad. This is the only time I will mention it and from here on out anything goes; the thread of my life will take you vicariously along with me on this journey we call life. Sometimes it’s all flowers and puppies and ribbons, other times it is blood and mucus and empty darkness. This is what makes life interesting, not knowing what will happen next or where it will go!
That being said, here is the purpose of this blog: to better understand the human condition. I know, this seems so grand and altruistic, almost vainglorious, but it’s true. I see the world go by around me and, while I am able to see the good in things, I often dwell on the negative and why there needs to be so much of it. Common courtesy is dead. Love and appreciation are dwindling commodities. I have no sense of community and all of these things bother me. This is where you come in. Not only am I going to journal life and my experiences in it, but I am looking for feedback and insight into other people’s perceptions. Feel free to comment after any post or strike up a dialog, I am open to all of it. My goal is to understand life and the people in it better. Feel free to pop in and out of it or stay away altogether, either way you are helping achieve my goals and prove my points.
