Decontamination Training

From A:

Last week at work was a practical training course required to join the hospital decontamination team.  This team is made up of about 50 hospital employees who are trained to decontaminate victims of a hazardous material spill / explosion prior to administering medical care.

I was one of three new team members participating in the hands-on training course (I had taken the classroom portion of the team requirement previously).  The others training with me were nurses from the Emergency Department.

Decontamination basically consists of supplying "copious amounts of water" in order to wash off any sort of hazardous material.  Our job is to set up a high-powered 3 nozzle sprayer (called a trident) to the fire hydrant, as well as a single nozzle sprayer to wash off any materials not washed away by the trident.

 setting up and positioning the trident

practicing with the single sprayer nozzle

We also set up a large decontamination shower.  Once victims have gone through the trident and single nozzle sprayer, they enter the shower to finish washing off with soap and water.

On training day, Gainesville had a high of 94 degrees (not to mention what the heat index was) so wearing the hazmat suit was like exercising in a sauna.  Luckily, we were only wearing practice suits, which are much cooler than the real thing.

donning my sauna hazmat suit

In the photo above, I am adding the respirator supply battery.  The suit also has a voice amplifier, which picks up vibrations from your throat and sends it to a speaker so people can hear you talk to them.  It makes you sound like a robot, which is a little freaky.  All suited up in the real thing, I'll look something like this:

Hopefully our team will never be needed for a real event, but at least we know what to do just in case.

Wedding Scrapbook

From A:

Thanks to our wonderful Matron of Honor who started a wedding scrapbook for us, we now have one that's complete (minus two pictures that are on their way)!  It turned out great, and I'm so excited to show it off.

 Front of Scrapbook

The scrapbook came to us with the pre-wedding pages complete or nearly complete, including the engagement, the bridal shower, the bachelorette night, the rehearsal, and the rehearsal dinner.  Here are a couple of those pages (excuse the flash of my camera):

Bridal Shower

Rehearsal

The pages for the wedding and honeymoon had been partially laid out with some cute "scrapbook flair" but were awaiting photos.  Here are a few of those pages:

During the Ceremony

After the Ceremony

Toasts at the Reception

Honeymoon

Thanks again to our favorite scrapbooker who started such an awesome memento for us!

Welcome to my World

From A:

In response to a post by EarlyRunner, I've taken some photographs around my office to show a little of my daily life.  I wish I had a picture to include of the John McCain look-alike that I see nearly every morning on my way to work.  That will have to wait for another day.

So here it is... my office!  I'll begin with the most important part, the executive decision-maker.  This helps me to accomplish my goals each and every day:

But one dart board isn't enough.  I also have another one cleverly hidden behind my door (next to the king jellyfish on my marker board - my boss drew this).  To my knowledge, only one of my co-workers actually knows about this because she's lost to me in darts:

Next, my collection of random textbooks from undergrad and grad school:

My personal favorite, the spinning office supply organizer:

Here is the drawer of nerdiness!  This is where I keep two of my three calculators (I have a non-graphing, a graphing, and a financial calculator), an extra pair of glasses, and my regular and architectural rulers.  Also, plenty of post-it notes in a variety of colors to spice up my work day:

And finally, some fun facts about this drawer:

1. The Subway mint wrapper in the bottom left of the drawer is empty, but the package is factory sealed.  I got this at Subway about a year ago and keep it around to give to unsuspecting co-workers who ask for gum or a mint.
2. Next to the mint is my stash of weird coins.  Whenever I come across a foreign coin or one that's unique in some way, I save it for my dad's coin collection.
3. The little yellow guy at the top is a keyboard brush I got at a conference a few years ago.  He continues to come in very handy.
4. I admit it - I am hopelessly addicted to chap-stick.  I keep it in my desk, my purse, my bathroom, my make-up bag, my travel bag, and just about anywhere else I can think of.  But not my car - I tried that and had a melted chap-stick explosion all over one of my skirts back in 2005.  Is it weird that I remember when and where that occurred?

Tablescapes

From A:

J gets so annoyed by the "tablescapes" that Sandra Lee displays at the end of her Food Network show Semi-Homemade.

I agree that many of them are obnoxious.  I mean, how do you fit any food on a table that looks like this?

On the other hand, some of her more simplistic arrangements can be quite cute.

Inspired by the cuter, less obnoxious tablescapes, I've made my own.  We already owned everything except for the placemats and flowers, so I think it turned out being a resourceful new look for our table.

The color scheme made creating a floral arrangement challenging, but I'm satisfied with the outcome.  J didn't seem to be repulsed by the change, so I think it was a success overall.

A's New Look

From A:

It's that time of the year... new glasses!  After much deliberation since my optometrist's office has soooo many different options, these are the new eyeglass frames I chose:

They ended up being the same brand as my last pair of glasses because the size of Esprit frames seem to look better on my face than most others I've tried.

I also decided to get a pair of prescription sunglasses this year, which will be helpful for both driving and general fun in the sun.  I wasn't a fan of the sunglasses available (they all have HUGE lenses that look ridiculous on me) so I chose a regular eyeglass frame made by Nine West and had brown polarized lenses added.  Here is what they look like minus the polarized lenses:

Our Day Off

From A:

J and I both had yesterday off from work in observance of Independence Day.  We took a day trip to Orlando to visit J's friend Jeff and A's friend Colleen.  We had our camera but didn't take pictures, which we should have remembered to do, so I apologize for the lack of visual stimulation (other than online photos) on this post.

On our way to Orlando we stopped at the Lakeridge Winery.  We picked a good day to stop there because they were harvesting grapes!  This is something we've never seen on any of our trips to Lakeridge or in Napa Valley when we were there.  The winery has a big tractor that picks the grapes very, very quickly.  It basically goes along the rows and shakes the vines to make the grapes fall off.  The grapes are put into big square containers, weighed, and then dumped into the pressing machine which presses the grapes to extract the juice, separates out the leaves and vines, and sends the juice and pulp mixture to another tank for more pressing.

The grapes they were harvesting yesterday are hybrids used in their Blanc du Bois wine.  We sampled that particular wine, but neither of us were particularly fond of it.  It wasn't bad, it just wasn't among the numerous other varieties they make that are exceptionally good.

Our next destination on the trip was lunch with Jeff.  We went to First Watch which we had been to once before.  Although it was lunch, I couldn't resist ordering from their breakfast menu and had a wonderful omelet with turkey, feta cheese, spinach, and tomatoes.  J had a sandwich and tomato basil soup, which he has become a connoisseur of since he orders it just about anywhere that serves it.

Finally, we visited Colleen, her husband, and their precious 3 month old baby boy.  We got in some good baby playing / feeding / burping / changing time before we went out for an adults only dinner (ahh, the joy of grandparents willing to babysit for the evening).  Dinner was at Seasons 52 and was fantastic.  I had the tiger shrimp penne pasta and J had the wood-roasted pork tenderloin.  There was also an amazing dessert lineup to choose from, which basically looked like this:

How's that for a great day off?

Fireworks for the Fourth

From A:

Last night was the annual fireworks display on campus (except for last year when it was canceled due to massive university budget cuts).  But they were back last night, although we had forgotten about them and they started late due to rain.

We* had a great view of the fireworks from our condo:

*By "we" I mean J because I was already asleep by the time the fireworks started.  I heard them in my sleep, but thought they were thunder.  Oh well, maybe next year!

In other news, we ate the first tomato off our tomato plant!

It didn't look especially pretty when we cut into it, but I can assure you that it tasted fabulous!

We have two more tomatoes on the plant, so here's to hoping they grow and ripen before a squirrel or bird decides they look like a tasty treat.