Refracted Neurons

As you may have guessed from the title, I'm about to arts-and-crafts at you.  So get out your glue gun and buckle up, things are about to get messy. Five Minute Dust Sprites Yes, Dust Sprites, in the style of Hayao Miyazaki!  So, let's get started.  Here's what you need: Black pom-poms  Googly eyes Star-shaped cake sprinkles Hot glue gun Sticky Label Pen Optional: Toothpicks Black permanent marker 1. Uh, well, glue the googly eyes to the pom-poms.  If you're me, this involves a lot of screaming as I accidentally glue googly eyes to my fingers. 2. Draw or print the label for the sprinkles. 3. Awwwwwwww! 4. If you want to give them arms and legs, color two toothpicks with permanent marker.  5. Snap that sucker in half. 6. More gluing.  More screaming.  Suffer for your art(s and crafts). 7.  Ta-da! For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm talking about these guy

I haven't mentioned the tombstone in a while, mainly because I'm really disappointed in myself.  I failed, epically.  Last time I went by the construction site, the stone was gone.  Yes, gone.  I'm about 95% certain that the property owner got sick of waiting for me to do something with it and threw it away.  5% of me thinks that the cemetery went and got it and that's why they never contacted me again.  Either way, my quest was a complete failure. And I thought I was good at things like this.  I mean, if video games had any application to real life, this was my kind of thing. One of my favorite video games is Legend of the Dragoon.   I only ever played this game through once, because it wasn't mine.  Heck, I've never even owned a Playstation.  Anyway, every time I mention this game to someone, I either get a glazed look or, "Are you sure it isn't 'Dragon'?" as a response. I am positive it's not "Dragon." It may have

A few weeks ago, I realized that I needed to brush up on what actually happens in trauma care, since one of my characters is a pediatric trauma doc.  I started browsing the library catalogue online, and this happened: Waaay too many books So now I'm trying to read all of them as fast as I possibly can.  I just finished Catherine Musemeche, MD's Hurt: The Inspiring, Untold Story of Trauma Care.   I learned some things that will be important to my story, but much more interesting are the things that have absolutely no bearing on what I'm working on. The first part of the book spends some time on car accidents and the early prevention efforts.  Really, everything started with Susan Baker , an epidemiologist, and my new hero.  Susan Baker studied car accidents to figure out the causes.  She tended to focus on external causes, believing that people would still continue to be people.  Instead of trying to change them, she thought that we should change vehicles, polic

I have been continuously checking to see if the tombstone is still there and if my note (in a shiny silver envelope) is still there.  Every time I go by, the construction site is deserted, with no signs of new work being done.  So you can imagine my surprise when I received a phone call out of the blue from SPD, of all people. Come to find out, the stone is not on private property, like we originally thought.  The developer had moved it just enough so that it was on county property.  Much as I suspected, no one wants this thing.  It's heavy and well, it's a tombstone. So they said I can take it to the cemetery. While I'm waiting for the cemetery to figure out their next steps, let's talk about other things. Water enchantment? I've been thinking a lot about the government in The Culling series lately, so I was trying to scratch down the basic beliefs of the three parties.  This is what I've come up with: Traditionalist party-hierarchical, believe