The first piece.

Well the stupid has started. This is one of the two grips. Save for the grips and the hinge bit that connects them together...everything else I need to print two of.

My brother-in-law did me a solid and printed the display stand base as that was literally the only piece that doesn't fit in my printer.

I feel like getting stupid.

Let me explain...and to explain I have to go back a few weeks.

A few weeks ago I acquired an Elegoo Mars 3D resin printer. It didn't go well. I had one successful print out of the whole damn lot of tries...and that was a Kodama from Princess Mononoke which is looks like a lumpy potato with limbs.

So I started looking around for help. None was forthcoming. Looked around and looked around and finally found that someone had a bad FEP film (the film at the bottom of the tank that the UV light shows through to expose and cure the resin) and they were failing as a result.

"Gee!" I think. "Maybe that's my problem?" and I go and order a replacement film. Nope...that wasn't it.

Now having failure after failure after failure is frustrating. It's even more frustrating when you try many things and none of them makes the situation better. IF there was improvement...then it would be one thing. But no improvement, nothing to indicate that I'm doing ANYTHING right...I wanted to mail the fucker back to Amazon and buy some more D&D dice or something.

Then I found groups on Facebook. The Beginner's Group wanted to ask me a question to prove that I'm really a person. "How many seeds are there on a strawberry?"

How.
The.
Fuck.
Should.
I.
Know?

I wasn't in a good mindset at the time so I answered the question with "Fuck off you elitist prick!" Naturally I did not get into the group. But with my mindset...I really didn't want to. A reasonable question might have been something related to the 3D printing. Things like "What do you want to print with your printer?" or "What's the most complicated thing you've printed so far?" or something like that.

Nope. Fucking seeds on a fucking fruit. And don't tell me that there are no seeds on a strawberry...I know that what looks like a seed is actually the achenes (ovaries) of the fruit and in a way are mini fruits on their own. But at the time I was pissed at my god knows how many failures in a row, madder than hell at the fact that no one else seemed to have the same sort of failure I did and infuriated at the lack of help available to me.

So I found another group that had a more reasonable question. "What do you want to print with your printer?" I didn't even make my first post when I saw someone posting that they've been having problems with the software. That the most current version of Chitubox (1.6.5) is twitchy and causes problems WITH PRINTING.

So I thought back. I installed what came with the printer which was 1.6.1 and the instant it showed me that there were updates...I closed the program, uninstalled the 1.6.1, and downloaded and installed 1.6.5.

Turns out that 1.6.5 doesn't have the settings profile for the Elegoo Mars and that you need to either have imported the settings from the previous version...or put them in manually.

I put in the settings for my printer that were listed in the booklet...but that was maybe 10 settings out of dozens more that the book didn't mention.

So armed with that bit of info...I removed everything and got and installed 1.6.3 which was the last version that everyone liked. Fuck me if the first print I tried worked. I then introduced myself and said how grateful I was for the help. They offered me even more advice. Photon Validator which is software that checks Chitubox's homework and corrects mistakes. Second print was even better.

Prints since then have been awesome. A few failures, but that's to be expected. The majority have been good prints.

So in thinking about what I want to try printing next...I browsed through the things I downloaded to see what I felt froggy enough to try to pull off. And I found it.

This is stupid crazy and I'm going to go for it.

Rey's Dark Side Lightsaber.

The parts list is insane and so must I be for even wanting to consider it.

But know what? Fuck it. I'm going to give it a try. And since this is so crazy a build, I'm going to blog the shit out of the process.

Wish me luck.

It’s been a while, I know...

...but recently I feel the need to go back to a place that it mine and mine alone. A place where I don’t have to worry about the rules that society feels the need to apply because someone is outraged at something that some members of my race/faith/gender/sexuality/political beliefs has done.

I’m tired of being called a rapist just because I have the same sort of genitalia that rapists have. I’m tired of being called mysogynstic (sp?) because I’m male and that some males look at women as only sexual objects. I’m tired of being told that I’m “Mansplaining” just because I feel that it’s as unfair for women to post “All Men...” memes as they feel that it would be if I were to post “All Women...” ones. I’m tired of thinking “Why do women have anything to do with men if we’re all cancerous polyps on the anus of humanity.

I’m sick and fucking tired of it.

So I’ve deactivated Facebook. I would delete the account if it wasn’t for the fact that I still need Messenger to talk with my friends. But until it stops being the septic tank that it’s become, I’m avoiding (Anti) Social Media for a while and am going to stick to my blog again.

This is my space and here I can say what I want.

And yes Rob, I’m still keeping my rule and not blocking you should you decide to troll my page with your snarky comments. Everyone else has already called me scum...you couldn’t Say anything worse or make me feel any lower than I do now. So have fun!

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!?!

Chris Sevier, a lawyer in Nashville, TN, is suing Apple for letting him view pornography and causing the end of his marriage.

A fellow member of the Fratching.com web forum (Andara Bledin) summarized the 50-page indictment. And since most don't want to read the whole damn thing I'm posting her summary.

Introduction:

1) Apple is awesome but should think of the children and make all their devices set to safe mode by default and the require that buyers get a code directly from Apple to disable that feature. 

2) Apple should totally do this to avoid a class action suit against them, 'cause they're totally at fault.

3) If they do this, he'll drop the suit.

4) They're in violation of a TN code for which it's clear that they are not in violation because they didn't knowingly allow a minor view porn.

5) Buyers shouldn't have to be responsible for their actions. 

6) Porn is evil and illegal.

7) This isn't in violation of the First Amendment because we all know that porn is "harmful" and all of Apples female employees would support the decision because they're all "mothers, wives, and future spouses." 

8) Parents shouldn't have to take any action at all to protect their kids: Apple should be doing it for them. Without a filter, it's a gateway to harm.

9 Anyone who doesn't agree is "a demonstration" which "proves the necessity for safeguards to protect our hearts." 

10) Apple is to blame because they didn't warn him that there's porn on the Internet. And if it weren't for his Apple product, there's no way he would ever have found porn.

11) Flag-waving histrionics with the first word being "PATRIOTISM" and going on to talk about our "Judeo-Christian values", but says they should make this change because of "science." Because porn is "reprogramming" our outlook on sex with "extreme prejudice."

12) Grandfather died of emphysema because cigarettes weren't marketed as bad, and porn is just like cigarettes, we just don't know it yet.

13) Apple knows there's porn on the internet and sells their product with a browser installed, so it's their fault that he found porn, because he didn't now that there's porn on the internet.

14) He wants Apple to filter all the porn so that until you get a code from Apple, you can't accidentally see any of it while using their products. 

15) Definitions of 'minor' and 'pornography' as relates to the suit.

16) Apple knows that because of porn on the Internet, there's sex trafficking. It didn't happen before porn on the Internet made it happen.

17) Late night infomercials on sex enhancement drugs is all the fault of pornography and Apple knows this. Apple knows that these infomercials are because porn has made it so that red-blooded males can't get off with real women because access to porn broke their boners. Which never happened before there was porn on the Internet.

18) Apple knows there's porn and should have filters in place by default. For the sake of men, families, and communities. 

19) Apple shipping a device that isn't filtered is like a gun maker shipping a loaded weapon.

20) "ALL OF APPLES FEMALE EMPLOYEES SUPPORT THE PLAINTIFF'S DEMAND." No, he didn't actually ask any of them, but he just knows they will. Oh, and Apple is actually the cause of sexual addiction. The porn makers aren't at fault at all.

21) Apple is supporting crime. 

22) Apple has "a duty" to protect women and children who are victims of sex trafficking because you can see porn on the Internet with their devices.

23) Porn makes regular sex boring and causes people to seek out deviate sex, and this is Apple's fault.

24) Apple not putting filters on their devices is like the US government not doing more to prevent "911."

25) Apple should be proactive in protecting our children because nobody should expect their parents to do it themselves. And the 50's were so much better than today. 

26) Deviants who want to be able to view porn will have to be educated by Apple that removing the filter could damage their delicate psyches and they'd have to sign a waiver that they know this. 

27) Porn is dangerous so doesn't deserve any First Amendment protection and nobody like the ACLU should have any problem with my demanding that it be filtered out by default because that's like supporting drug dealers. And if anybody doesn't agree, then they are "opponents of common sense and are very obviously haunted by their own guilt-ridden conscienses in so far as they want to promote a counterproductive agenda of self-absorption and misery, making others feel as lost, distorted, and confused to calculable sanity as they are in self-justifying effort to excuse their personal blindness."

28) Apple should get together with the FBI to kill Backpage.com because people use it to do stuff that is bad because it isn't as sanitized as Craigslist.

29) Filtering the Internet is easy, so Apple should take care of it because people are ignorant and weak.

30) You kill a snake by cutting off its head and porn makers are just the body while device makers are the head. 

Parties:

31) A TN resident over 18.

32) Apple Inc, makers of the Mac computer and Safari browser, among others.

Jurisdiction:

33) It's a federal case because they're in different states and the suit is worth more than $75,000.00.

34) Why the case should have this jurisdiction.

35) More why the case should have this jurisdiction.

Facts:

36) He bought a Mac Book in TN to write music and access the Internet and is going to use this filing to advertise his band.

37) Without a Mac Book, he never ever would have been able to get on the Internet and see porn. 

38) Mac Books come with Safari already installed.

39) Without Apple making his computer not display porn, he couldn't help but seek out porn and become damaged from it.

40) Because he couldn't type Facebook correctly, he ended up on Fuckbook and a host of other sites that allowed him to see porn which overcame his ability to resist because he's a weak male.

41) Porn gave him "arousal addiction" which is bad for his life.

42) Porn made him prefer "cyber beauties" to his wife and she subsequently "abducted his son and disappeared" which is all Apple's fault for not selling their computer "on 'safe mode'."

43) Before buying a Macbook, he'd never seen a pornographic image in his entire life.

44) Before buying a Macbook, he'd never visited a strip club or sex shop in his entire life.

45) Viewing porn on the Internet with his Macbook made him depressed and unable to work.

46) Viewing porn has made it so that he has to have counseling.

47) If Apple can sell a computer with a browser on it, then it should be easy to sell a browser that blocks all porn.

48) It's totally reasonable to expect Apple to protect people from porn, because governments protect people from porn.

49) Nobody at the Apple store ever told him there was porn on the Internet, so all subsequent damage is their fault because cigarettes and alcohol have to have warning labels.

50) Apple knows there's porn on the Internet and what if he'd been a teen alone in a room? 

51) Men have hormones and can't possibly be expected to restrain themselves in the face of porn on the Internet.

52) People shouldn't have to be responsible for avoiding porn on their own.

53) 37% of all websites have porn on them, so Apple should protect us from porn.

54) Porn is just like alcohol.

55) Everybody should boycott Apple and everyone else who doesn't protect them from porn.

56) Things were better in the '50s before the Internet and the ACLU when we all prayed in schools and believed in God. 

57) The demand for filters is totally reasonable and Apple should do what he wants right away.

58) We have to protect women from becoming secret porn stars.

59) Males can't help themselves when it comes to porn, so Apple has to protect them.

60) Internet porn was so exciting that it was impossible for him to function in real life, and Apple should have protected him.

61) Porn made him aware that his wife wasn't as pretty or young as porn stars which is why his marriage failed, and it's Apple's fault that he realized this.

62) Apple knows that Internet porn is worse than print porn.

63) The court knows that sex criminals get started by looking at porn, so they should hold Apple responsible for not filtering the Internet.

64) Requiring filtering the Internet by default would totally help the "bricks' and mortar" porn industry, so they should support him.

65) Free Internet porn is bad for the economy because it's free. 

66) Apple needs to have filters to prevent "accidental arousal addiction." 

67) Porn leads to sex crimes, so not filtering the Internet puts the lives of innocents and law enforcement at risk.

68) It's all Apple's responsibility to not let those evil porn makers have access to innocent males who can't control their urges.

69) Because people can access porn in private because of the Internet, the world is a worse place and Apple should use a filter like governments use zoning laws to keep those places away from regular folks.

70) Use of the Apple product hurt him directly because it didn't protect him from Internet porn.

71) There is a nearly 3:1 ratio for porn movies to Hollywood films which proves porn is bad and it's Apple's fault he could view any of them.

72) Men are wired to love porn and too weak to resist it, so Apple should proactively protect them from it.

73) He doesn't smoke, do drugs, or drink too much. 

74) Porn is an internal addiction while drugs are an external addiction. 

75) He was a vet in a place that outlawed porn, and he doesn't want that to happen. He just wants to force Apple to protect everybody from it.

76) He doesn't want to legislate morality, but Apple has to protect men so they can enjoy the God-given gift that is marital sex.

77) Forcing Apple to have filters is the same as making MacDonald's tell people what was in the food they sold.

78) Apple should totally employ Philip Zimbardo to write up their notice. (he co-wrote a book that blames video games and porn for nerds)

79) It's impossible to really regulate porn sites, but the court can write laws so that Apple can do just that.

80) Apple should filter the internet to save marriages and society.

81) This request doesn't place any burden on Apple and moreover isn't countered by the First Amendment.

82) Yes, this request really doesn't place any burden on Apple.

83) Any inability to exercise restraint is an addiction and it's Apple's fault he has one because they didn't protect him from porn on the Internet.

84) Device makers are enabling arousal addiction by not filtering the Internet.

85) His brain was "digitally rewired" by internet porn.

86) 13% of all searches are for porn, so obviously people need to think of the children and filter the Internet.

87) He mailed a letter to Apple threatening to file a lawsuit if they didn't filter the Internet. He gave them 10 days to respond.

Count One Fraudulent Misprepresentation

88) Everything that was said before.

89) Apple intentionally failed to warn him that there is porn on the Internet.

90) Because they didn't protect him from porn on the Internet, he was hurt by porn on the Internet.

91) Yes, he was hurt because Apple didn't protect him from porn on the Internet.

Count Two Products Liability

92) Apple made the device that could be used to view porn on the Internet, so they broke some TN laws, because porn on the Internet is dangerous.

93) Apple didn't filter the Internet on it's devices, and porn is dangerous, so they're at fault for any injuries from porn on the Internet.

94) Not warning about porn on the Internet or blocking it makes the devices dangerous or defective, which is a violation of TN laws.

95) Apple sold a device that could access Internet porn and failed to warn consumers that Internet porn is harmful.

96) Not having a filter makes a Macbook unsafe.

97) His being harmed by Internet porn is all Apple's fault.

Outrageous Conduct and Infliction of Emotional Distress

98) Everything said before.

99) Apple knew that he could accidentally find porn on the Internet.

100) Apple knew that the damage from Internet porn would be detrimental to his life.

101) It would be easy for Apple to filter the Internet and require people to unlock their devices if they wanted to see porn.

102) It's all Apple's fault he saw porn on the Internet.

103) Apple knew porn was bad and that he would be harmed if he found it and did nothing to stop it.

104) It's Apple's fault, so they have to do something about it.

Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress

105) Everything said before.

106) Apple was negligent for selling him something that would hurt him.

107) Apple was bad for providing a device that was dangerous without warning.

108) His addiction and subsequent health issues are all Apple's fault.

109) How badly Apple hurt him by allowing him to find porn on the Internet should be determined at trial.

110) Wherefore

1) He demands an immediate injunction to prevent any more dangerous Apple devices be sold without warnings and filters in place.

2) He demands that Apple donate to a handful of religious-based charities that protect people from sex-related crimes because it's their fault they happen because they allow people to find porn on the Internet.

3) He demands $75,010.00 for everything because it has to be over $75,000.00 to automatically be a federal case. Oh, and because it's Apple's fault he became addicted to porn on the Internet.


4) He demands that Apple issue a statement that Internet porn (oh, and video games, too) are bad for men all over the world. Because some guys from Stanford wrote a book that explained how his problems were totally not his own fault.

This is a classic case of Bat-Shit-Crazy here. 

IQ is meaningless.

Here's an article which explains how IQ is a meaningless metric that serves little more than to be a point for bragging. 

http://listverse.com/2013/05/19/8-reasons-the-iq-is-meaningless/

And it pretty much covers everything I could say on the matter. Save two anecdotes on my experiences with IQ.

MENSA

I was interested and so I took the Stanford-Binet test and scored a 146. The minimum on that particular test is 132. So I went and took the actual admissions test and was accepted. I was told where the next meeting was to be, was handed my intro package and was told that they were looking forward to seeing me there.

I got there after reading the info pack and was excited as all hell. 

Mensa's constitution lists three purposes: "to identify and to foster human intelligence for the benefit of humanity; to encourage research into the nature, characteristics, and uses of intelligence; and to provide a stimulating intellectual and social environment for its members".

 Gee! Sounds like fun doesn't it?

Except when I got there...it was a bunch of people who in my honest opinion couldn't pour piss out of a boot if you printed the instructions on the heel. They were talking about the most mundane things and nit picking them apart and finding all the things that were idiotic about them...

But when I asked "Well then what should the solution be?" they stated that it wasn't their problem and that they didn't care.

Mensa's constitution lists three purposes: "to identify and to foster human intelligence for the benefit of humanity; to encourage research into the nature, characteristics, and uses of intelligence; and to provide a stimulating intellectual and social environment for its members".

Uhm...if we're not going to use our braininess for the benefit of humanity like it says in your constitution, then why in the name of Zeus's sweaty nutsack are we doing here?

I left shortly after the conversation started covering Star Trek. Not that I was being petty about anyone ripping into Star Trek, but when someone argues that Star Trek has no real point other than to be mindless entertainment for the masses, I'm going to make a counter point.

Those points being that:

1. Star Trek (and Scotty in particular) inspired people to become engineers, many of them going to Engineering-course-heavy colleges. Which is why Milwaukee School Of Engineering gave James Doohan an honorary degree.
2. Many of those engineers sit there and see the Star Trek fictional technology and do their damndest to make it a reality. The hypospray medicine injector became a reality when someone developed one for insulin. They sent a mock-up of it to the people in Star Trek TNG and they saw that it was only slightly bigger than the prop so they painted it and used it as an alien's injector. We discovered how to transport something. Granted it was only a single photon...but they fugging did it! We're currently sorting out how to warp space and by God if the mathematics are correct would allow us to someday travel faster than light. 

So I made these points and I was told that I was wrong. That Star Trek still was puerile and meaningless and that only degenerates like it. 

I got up, politely said that I had seen enough, walked out the door and never came back.

Now the anecdote that really proves the whole piss in a boot scenario. Don't drink anything from here on out. Your keyboard will thank you.

About a year after I was with some of my buddies in a diner enjoying some lunch and some...amusing conversations. Any of my friends know how strangely amusing our conversations can get. We happened to be next to a table with members of the local Mensa Chapter (not the same ones, I had moved to a different state at this time) and they noticed a problem that needed to be solved and had to be solved RIGHT NOW!

What was this Earth shattering problem that needed combined might of Mensa's greatest minds to sort out? Someone had filled the salt shaker with pepper and vice versa.

You may now facepalm.

So they put their heads together and came up with a plan involving the two confused shakers, a napkin, a straw, and a tea saucer. Sorry, I don't remember the details beyond that. But it was a convoluted plan worthy of Rube Goldberg.

They called the waitress over to show her that they were genetically superior to her and that they were capable of things that this poor diner waitress didn't have the mental capacity to dream of. 

Yes, they considered her that much of a troglodyte and said as much to themselves. 

Waitress came over and they explained the situation. The waitress replied "Oh, sorry hun." took the shakers and swapped the lids, put them down and toddled off. 

You see folks. The reason that the Mensa folks knew that the salt and pepper were in the wrong shakers? Because the caps were labeled with a big S and P. Someone had simply in their rush (this was a popular diner that made some damn tasty foods) put the wrong caps on. Mensa came up with a solution that was convoluted as all @#$% while the "dumb hash-slinger" came up with the real world, simple solution. 

So the article above describes how IQ is pointless and Those anecdotes were my addition to that. 

Rants on a glurge piece.

This is going around on Facebook and I have some issues with this.

A man of 32 years, was smoking, while smoking his cigarette, he puffed out some smoke into the air and said:'God, that's for you.'
He died at the age of 32 of LUNG CANCER in a horrible manner.

Now I have no problems with this. This is a cocky fuck that got to suffer the consequences of his own actions. God may or may not have had a hand in that, but in either case I've no problems. 

The man who built the Titanic
After the construction of Titanic, a reporter asked him how safe the Titanic would be.
With an ironic tone he said: 'Not even God can sink it'
The result: I think you all know what happened to the Titanic

So...We're saying that just because one person was an arrogant prick, God decided to sink the ship with a loss of over 1,500 people. People who may or may not have been as devout as they could have been...but I doubt that many of them sat there and flipped God the bird and made the same claim. I'm sure that most of them simply bought a ticket so they could come to America. 

Marilyn Monroe (Actress)
She was visited by Billy Graham during a presentation of a show.
He said the Spirit of God had sent him to preach to her.
After hearing what the Preacher had to say, she said:
'I don't need your Jesus'.
A week later, she was found dead in her apartment

After she had taken her own life as a result of drug overdose. Possibly from depression. So God smited a woman who was depressed because she told Billy Graham (who, and let's be fair to him, is a bit of an overzealous prick) what she thought of religion as he preaches it.

But on the same token will also allow Good Christians who have fallen through the cracks of priests who just don't give a fuck and don't get any help for their depression to die.

Huh.

Bon Scott (Singer)
The ex-vocalist of the AC/DC. On one of his 1979 songs he sang:
'Don't stop me; I'm going down all the way, down the highway to hell'.
On the 19th of February 1980, Bon Scott was found dead, he had been choked by his own vomit.

And on the other hand we have Rich Mullins who was a Christian singer who sang the praises of God and Jesus who was killed in 1997 at the age of 41 when a semi-trailer truck plowed into him killing him instantly. 

Campinas (IN 2005)
In Campinas , Brazil a group of friends, drunk, went to pick up a friend.....
The mother accompanied her to the car and was so worried about the drunkenness of her friends and she said to the daughter holding her hand, who was already seated in the car:
'My Daughter, Go With God And May He Protect You.'
She responded: 'Only If He (God) Travels In The Trunk, Cause Inside Here.....It's Already Full '
Hours later, news came by that they had been involved in a fatal accident, everyone had died, the car could not be recognized what type of car it had been, but surprisingly, the trunk was intact.
The police said there was no way the trunk could have remained intact. To their surprise, inside the trunk was a crate of eggs, none was broken 

And again God killed off everyone just because one person was mouthy?

 

Christine Hewitt (Jamaican Journalist & entertainer) said the Bible (Word of God) was the worst book ever written.
In June 2006 she was found burnt beyond recognition in her motor vehicle.

Is this the way that God REALLY works? Really? That he'll smite the fuck out of anyone near a person just because they say something that he doesn't like? That if I wanted to kill off a bunch of people I could stand in the middle of a group of people and say "The Lord is a rotten bastard" and he'll smite them? Sure I might get it as well, but thanks to God he'll make sure I take a shopping mall's worth of people with me?

Is this REALLY how God works?

Fuck I hope not otherwise we're all doomed.

A Comedy of Errors (or how to make Mongo say naughty words a lot of times)

So wife's surgery to get the knee replaced is coming up. Alas and alack so is Snowpocalypse. On the same day.

Plan "A" - Spend the night at my folks place as it is closer than Annapolis than we normally are. Also it's on a major road (interstate) and so should be a quicker commute.

Snow's coming and they're predicted to get 4-8 in the day with another 4 at night. Mothersmurfer!

Plan "B" - Stay at home since the snow line is above Annapolis and all we'll get is rain.

Snow line shifted its track south and now WE are expected to get the 8-12 inches of snow. Son of a...

Emergency Plan "C" - Borrow some money from folks to get a room at the Hackerman-Patz house across the street from the hospital assuming that if worse came to worse and we get the next ice age dumping on us we could bundle up and "Nanuk of the North" it across the glacier to the hospital. Sled dogs on Standby Alert.

Snowpocalypse turned out to be "No-pocalypse". Rain to the north of Annapolis, rain to the south, rain on top of us. A lot of it and thankfully it was not snow or we would have been buried. However since we could have stayed with Plan "A" or "B"...Gorramit!

Next we have the doctor calling in with our time for the appointment the next day. Wife's white blood cell count is elevated. Now since that blood work was two fragging weeks ago they pick NOW to tell us? Assholes.

So we are told to come in a half hour earlier to get a new cell count check done stat. We ask what time they want us in by and they tell us 6:40.

Next morning wife gets yelled at for being late. Now when someone calls to let us know when we're to be at the hospital and tells us to come in earlier and we ask "What time do *you* want us there by?" and they say 6:40am...one would assume that they want us there by 6:40am and not "The hospital wants you there by 6:40am but we want you in by 6:10am". Cocksuckers!

Blood work comes back and the count is down from two weeks ago but is still too high to do the surgery. Just barely over but they have the nurses pull the IV's and discharge her. FUCK WEASEL!

So we drive back to home and get an emergency visit to our Primary Doc. Ran down everything that could possibly cause the elevated cell counts. No cold, no sore throat, no rashes, no odd sounds in the lungs...ran down the checklist and nothing. Shit!

The only two things we can think of are wife picked up something from one of the kids (youngest was sick recently and was trying to barf up a lung from all the hacking and wheezing and the oldest was so distraught from her problems with her fiance kicking her out in the middle of the semester that her immune system tanked and she caught something) or it may have been from a friend who recently flew (pressurized cabin with god knows how many plague carriers). In either case she may have gotten the disease and fought it off without actually getting sick herself.

The only other thing may have been allergies.

So redo blood work to get a count below the threshold so they can re-schedule her, put her on antibiotics and claritin to keep the counts down and she has to crawl under a rock to avoid sick people and anything that could set off her immune system.

GAAAH!