Bioterrorism Workshop at Minnesota Department of Health

As most of you know, I work in a hospital lab and have recently started training in microbiology there. This past Thursday, I was given the opportunity to go the Minnesota Department of Health Laboratory and learn about the major agents of bioterrorism. We had lectures and lab on such known organisms as anthrax (Bacillus anthrasis), and black plague (Yersinia pestis), as well as the lesser publicly known agents such as tularemia (Francisella tularensis), and glanders (Burkholderia mallei).

We had lectures on the history of bioterrorism. Without being called as such, the settlers of the New World could have possibly used germ warfare towards the Native Americans by giving them smallpox infested blankets. This is debated among historians, but it is certainly plausible.


In the lab portion, we looked at organisms that had the same biochemical properties as these bioterroristic agents and had to decide if we would send it the Department of Health Laboratories for furthur workup and confirmation. As hospital medical technologists, we are most likely the first ones to see these bugs as people are admitted to the hospital. In the anthrax attacks of September 2001, one of the reports was made by a microbiolist from a hospital. It was a good reminder to remember to look for the zebras in a pack of horses that we see every day.

As an added bonus, channel 5 just happened to be filming a segment on the likliness of bioterrorism and I happened to be in the segment, although breifly.

Here is a link to the story:
http://kstp.com/article/stories/S693623.shtml

Sick Day

I have officially gotten my first of what I hope is not a winter full of sick days. On Tuesday I had a pretty scratchy throat and on Wednesday it turned into a very sore throat. I still do not have the cold that typically goes along with the sore throat, but I am just waiting for it to rear it's ugly head. Since I wasn't feeling that bad physically, I just couldn't talk (a joyous day for Brian, might I add), I decided to get a bunch of stuff done in the afternoon because I was sick of lying in bed. First I decided to go through all of our paperwork and file it more efficiently.

As you can see, it got messier before it got better. It still isn't in perfect shape, but I am working on the rest tonight.

I got some more knitting done:

I also decided to get some storage for my craft room so I can unpack the boxes that belong in there. The two end pieces were pretty easy to put together, the middle one not so much. Brian did help me with these.

Overall a pretty productive day.

Voting and band-aids

I am glad to say that voting was not the cause of my 2 band aids on the same arm.....

Voting: The lines were long which I think is evidence of how important the election is. I was glad to see the turnout. The line for people registering was also respectable... yeah new voters (or people that have moved)!

Band aids: I can proudly say that I did not faint after getting a flu shot and a mantoux test in the same arm within 2 minutes of each other. Another milestone accomplished.

On my way home from voting, I decided to get my car washed. I suddenly remembered why I haven't done it for 2 years. If there would have been a picture of me, I probably would have looked like my youngest nephew at his first car wash, a bit scared. I had to drive in and then at a designated point put my car in nuetral and take my foot off of the brake. I couldn't see a darned thing for about 5 minutes.

As a treat after my very productive and brave day, I decided to get a mushroom and black olive pizza from Papa Murphy's take-n-bake and am going to have a beer!

A weeks worth of Activities....

I realize that I haven't posted in a while, so here are a few pictures documenting our week.

1.Guess the body part.......

This is my leg after I, yes I said I, slammed it in my car door.

2. Today we played in a volleyball tournament. We played 5 matches. We won all but the last one.

3. We raked all of our leaves. It looks much more fun to rake when there are children involved!

Tomorrow we get to clean out all of our gutters

4. Making eyeball cookie salad. Don't worry, the one in my mouth did not go in the salad.

5. Relaxing eating the leftover candy that the kids didn't collect!

That is our week in a nutshell.

Tonight I have to go to work at 11:15 pm. Thanks to daylight savings time, I have to be awake to repeat my 2am hour. This is the first time in my life that I dislike the "fall back" phenomenon. I will just have to get through it by thinking about all the energy that we save by having daylight savings time.

Brian's quote.......

As we make dinner tonight:

I informed Brian that the cornbread wouldn't be done at the same time as the Lemon Garlic Tilapia.

Brian: "I don't know why you insist on having these meals all timed out.... It's not like we're on Iron Chef or anything."

Things I've learned in the past week......

1. After you are done painting, clean up the mess immediately. Do NOT put the dirty painting supplies in the laundry sink and start the washer. One of the containers could, by chance, be blocking the drain. The end result is a soapy, paint tinted flood in the laundry room!

2. When cleaning the bathroom, it is a good idea to use the water from previous floor washings to reduce the water in the toilet....... but...... make sure you take the rag out of the bucket before you dump the water. The rag might just get sucked into the toilet. With any luck, the rag will pass right through to the sewer and not get stuck in any pipes.

3. Do not put BBQ sauce in the crockpot for 12 hours. Even if the last 4 are on warm.... it takes a week to get it clean.

4. Don't ask your husband if you have done anything else dumb in the last week..... he might just answer you!

Yes, it has been a very unlucky week. Nothing that could not be cleaned or fixed though :)

A fun weekend and sushi

This past weekend, my sister came to visit me, we had our monthly girls night, and I made sushi. It started on Saturday morning. I cleaned a bit as that had been lacking with the overtime that I have been putting in. Saturday late afternoon, my sister got to my house and we went to Stillwater to go on a boat ride. There were 7 of us girls in all and there was a wonderful buffet on the boat and we cruised on the river for a couple of hours. We then went to a local bar and had some wine.

The next day I made a new recipe, a vegetable frittata, went to church, primed the bathroom, and Stacy and I made sushi. This was my first time, but Stacy had made it before.

We cooked the rice and cut up the avacado, cucumber, crab meat, and smoked salmon. The local grocery store didn't have sushi grade fish and since it isn't recommended to just cut up a random hunk of fish, we stuck with smoked fish. At the state fair I had purchased this crazy guy's forms for sushi. They worked quite well. We made some heart and square shapes this time. He also gave me a crazy headband. I really don't know what it says.... It could say "I'm an idiot" for all I know. We then had a good time eating the sushi. Brian enjoyed it too. He didn't really like the large heart variety as well as the little square shaped ones. I would say I agree as I like my sushi bite sized.