Blood alcohol -vs- the breathalyzer

Last weekend, I was made aware of a court ruling that could have me visiting the courtroom a lot more in the upcoming months. It turns out that the breathalyzer is under fire due to the company that manufactures them. They apparently won't release the breathalyzer's computer software that the courts are requiring in certain cases. Here is a link to the Star Tribune article. To combat the potential of dismissed cases, local precincts are now opting to do urine or blood alcohol tests instead. Hmmm, I wonder who does the blood alcohols? Yep, you guessed it, lab personel. This past weekend, I worked my overnights and I drew 3 legal alcohol levels. My coworkers each drew 3 as well. That is 9 total. I don't mind doing them as I know I am helping the cases, but it takes officers off the street for an extended amount of time versus the breathalyzer and me away from the lab work I am doing for 20 minutes. The actual blood draw only lasts about 5 minutes but the paperwork for chain of custody takes an additional 15 minutes. More importantly what I don't want is another piece of mail like I got last week.

This is my subpoena, I am to appear in court for this case. There is still the chance that it will settle out of court, but they have to send it to me anyway. I have never received a subpoena before, but apparantly what they ultimatley ask is how I drew it. For instance, the ask about the expiration date of the kit, they ask whether I checked to make sure the required powder was in the collection tube, and whether or not I used an alcohol pad to disinfect the area. Simple questions, but a little nerve racking never the less. I guess I just have to think of my willingness to do whatever it takes to help revoke the drivers licenses of the guilty!

Fondue

We had Ardella over to our house last week as a thanks for watching our house while we were on vacation. We decided to fondue! Brian was in charge of the oil fondue and I was in charge of the cheese fondue and dessert. We dipped steak and shrimp in the oil. Brian also decided to try cheese curds in the oil, but they really didn't work too well.

In the cheese fondue we dipped potatoes, bread and cauliflower.... Well we really didn't dip them in the cheese as the fondue pot was a candle pot and didn't really keep it that warm. As you can see from the picture, it was a little gloppy. You might also be wondering why it is pink. Our recipe calls for a dry cherry liquor. We only had grenadine, so we get pink cheese! I think it is prettier than plain light yellow cheese anyway.

For dessert, we had chocolate covered strawberries. We didn't have another fondue pot, so I had dipped them earlier and placed them on a plate.


Here's to good food, good company, and good fun! Thanks Ardella for taking good care of our house!

Musings of a lazy Saturday.

After reading my title, I realize that it really wasn't a lazy Saturday per se. Just a Saturday in which we did not have a single plan. Those Saturdays don't come around very often, in fact the next one is September 19th. Anyway, back to my musings. I really wanted to call them random musings, but my dear husband advised me that since I was thinking about them, they really weren't random at all.... so here are my random musing in a very orderly fashion.

1. "Country lawn" -vs- "Town lawn": All of my life, until this past fall, the only reason to rake leaves was to jump in them. Now we seem to have taken on a whole new process to keep our lawn "acceptable". We raked in the fall, so that the leaves did not get matted down and kill our grass. We raked today to get the rest of the leaves, but also to remove some of the dead grass. I have also found out this week, that we should fertilize and put down an inhibitor of crab grass. What!?!? Shouldn't we let mother nature take over? I also like the look of dandelions. I don't think our neighbors would be very happy with a dandelion yard, but we need to find some environmentally safe fertilizers if we are going to use them. I don't want our rivers any greener than they already are. Ok... some of these thoughts may not have made sense, but how did our "farm lawn" always turn out OK?


2. Cleaning: I decided to go through our upstairs closets today. We had some things that really didn't belong there, as well as just overall clutter ( I know you are all thinking just wait until you have lived there for years). When I got done with the upstairs, I decided to go into my craft room, which I cannot seem to get organized. As I was picking up, I realized that I was "cleaning" some of the same items that I had already "cleaned" from upstairs. Why is it that when cleaning, I decided that getting the item into the correct room was good enough. I only ended up dealing with it twice!

3. Mini meatloaves: It has been about a week since I have cooked. Brian has decided that he can cook again for me and to my delight has been doing the cooking this week. For those of you that don't know, a while back I had complained too much and he decided I didn't get to enjoy his cooking any longer. Today, since I figured it was my turn to cook, I made mini meatloaves. They were quick and super cute.


Enough rambling for one day. Hope that you all had an enjoyable Saturday as I have!

Have you thanked your laboratory professionals this week?

I know teachers get a day in September to be appreciated, but did you know that lab employees get a whole week. Yes, that's right, I have spent the last week being wined and dined... well maybe not wined. We had lunch every day that was sponsored by one of the companies that service our instruments. We also had prize drawings in which items were donated by a variety of vendors; I won a frisbee and a little tin bucket with a cross stitching pattern in it.

We also raise money for our Sunshine Club during lab week. The Sunshine Club send flowers to employees when there is an event in their lives, i.e. birth, surgery. To raise money, each department puts together a basket full of goodies in which employees buy tickets in an attempt to win the basket. I was lucky enough to have my name drawn for the "baking basket". It was full of goodies..... if it only came with a skill set.....

Flip Flop Weather!

I am soooo excited to say... I broke out my flip flops today. I had forgotten how good it felt going to the gym and then to change into my flip flops to go home. Yipee for spring. One thing this picture reminds me.... I need some new flip flops :)

What really happened.....

Well, for the second time since we moved into our house in late July, I have flooded the laundry room. Somehow a kitchen rag was stuck in the sink that our washing machine empties into. Since the drain was blocked, the water had no place to go but the floor. As for the Listerine and other "treasures on the warming machine", I had just gotten back from Target an hour earlier and when the flood occurred, tried to get everything out of the bags and on the dryer. At least it wasn't paint tinted water like last time.

Can you make a story for these pictures?