Haven’t posted in a while, eh? Well get used to it. That’s kind of my routine. :P

I was quite busy with work for a while there. First, guarding patients and whatnot (talked about in my last post), I was doing shifts from 12 noon to midnight there, then I went straight out to the port for several shifts, which were 8pm to 4am (which I don’t mind, ‘cus I like the port, I can actually work on the computer there), then a day off, then back into the hospital for a patient from 8pm to 4am, and then things got a little fucked up.

I was supposed to go back to the hospital, for the same patient, at 8pm, so at 7:00pm I started getting ready and, on a whim, decided to call my supervisor to ask him about something (completely unrelated to the patient). Then I get informed that he needs me to do a 12 hour shift at 4am (when I would’ve been finishing the shift I was expecting to do, and going home to bed) because there’s been an outbreak of some kind of flu at the hospital. They want security to keep visitors out to try and contain the virus as best as possible. So, now, instead of doing my usual routine, where I get to sleep by 4am, I have to try and get as much sleep as possible, because eight hours later I’m going to need to stay up for 12 hours. And before anybody says anything, I’m not knocking my supervisor, he’s a good guy, so I’m sure if he had someone else he’d send them in for the shift, but I was pretty much the only person available.

So, I get some sleep, though not nearly enough, get in there at 4am, get informed by the guy I’m relieving that the virus is suspected to be a Norwalk-type virus, not necessarily deadly or anything, but really nasty. I’m told to basically refrain from touching things as much as possible or, if I do, to wash my hands after. This didn’t work really well seeing as the nearest washroom was like 50 feet away, and I have to sit in front of the door all day, so I was just using the alcoholic cleanser stuff that they have posted all over the place (although I found out later that the stuff doesn’t really help very much). The next day the shift changed, instead of having security on the door 24 hours, they switched to an 8am to 11pm schedule, which we split into a 7 and an 8 hour shift. So that day I worked the 8am to 3pm shift (another time change for me). Then that night at 12:30, just after midnight (so technically the next day) I was back at the port, for 12 hour shifts.

12:30am (or 00:30 hours), to 12:30pm, basically midnight to lunch. Very screwey, had my internal clock all messed up, but it was really the only way we could make things work, we’re a little *ahem* short staffed at the moment. Ah well, it didn’t last, only 3 days, and now I’ve got some time off. Though not necessarily because they don’t need me, but because as near as I can tell I’ve actually got that stupid bug that was going around the hospital and now I’m not allowed in there until 48 hours after the last time I exhibit symptoms (stomache pain, diarrhea and/or vomiting) of which I’ve only experienced two (yay no pukies!) and currently only experiencing one (… not the stomach pain). I almost enjoy it though, I put up with a bit of the “Hershey Squirts” as my friend would put it, and I get some time off work. If it goes on too long though it could be a problem, both financially and medically.

On a cleaner, less yucky topic, in my off hours I’ve been busy with the other family computer, or perhaps more appropriately the original family computer. It’s been set up in the livingroom for the past week or two but it still had a tonne of crap on it that we’d already migrated to the new computer and/or didn’t want anymore. A few days ago I finally got around to reformatting and reinstalling the OS on it and it’s now nice and clean, with only what Dad wants on there, which currently is Diablo II. It’s going to be interesting watching him get into this game, as it’s pretty well the first real computer game he’s played. It’s going to take him some getting used to.

On the topic of this site, while working the port shifts I have lots of time between patrols and visitors and whatnot to actually do stuff, so I’ve been doing some work on the whole wallpaper thing. If you keep an eye out for a “Wallpapers” link in the right sidebar, under the Home link (it’s not there yet), I should soon get a sort of beta version of the page working… Hopefully. I’ve also got a new page up there already that just acts as a full listing of all the registered users, and all the posts on this blog, and whatever else that ends up on the blog. Maybe the links…

Anyway, that’s enough for now, I’ve been working on this post for like 3 days off and on already, I think it’s about time I hit that Publish button.

So, if you’ve read this blog at all in the short time that it’s been up, you’ve probably noticed my comments (which will probably continue to appear sporadically, so be warned >:-) on a couple of Rob’s posts on this here blog. As you may be able to figure out by this post, Rob’s allowed me to make posts on his site (don’t ask me why, I thought it was crazy myself.) I don’t know what, if anything, I’ll be contributing here. I just figured I’d get the introductions out of the way in case I do decide to contribute something partially worthwhile. I’ll also take this opportunity to pimp my own crap while I’m here. My blog (I hate that term, but it’s slowly growing on me) is currently nearly featureless, but only because unlike Rob I didn’t cop out and get a hold of some cool blogging software. I try and write as much of the code as I can with my own two hands, but there are contributions from others such as Rob (muchos gracias, but you’re still a bastard, :-P) and those cool folks who take the time to comment on the PHP Documentation pages (speaking of documentation, RTFM.)

That’s all from me for now.

…Or at least, that’s what I’m told.

So… this patient I had to guard today, interesting. They (not plural, just gender neutral, must keep it as confidential as possible) were gone off their rocker (to put it politically incorrectly), and, after attacking another guard on duty, rambled on and on to me about how I was this evil devil, and they were “number 2 and God is number 1″, and at one point even claimed they were God. I can’t say I wasn’t egging them on though, we had a fairly long argument about how I couldn’t be a snake. Something like…

Patient: You’re just a snake in the grass, just a snake.
Me: I’m a snake, huh?
Pt: Yes, that’s right.
Me: Hmm.. snakes, don’t have arms, right?
Pt: No they don’t.
Me: And… they don’t have legs, right?
Pt: No, because God took them away, so they’d have to slither along on their belly. That’s all a snake can-
Me: Yeah, yeah, whatever. So, snakes don’t have arms or legs… *Hold up my arm and look at it* Well, this is an arm, right?
Pt: Yes it is.
Me: *Look at my legs* And those look like legs.
Pt: Yes, they are.
Me: And those are mine, my arms, my legs. So, if I have arms and legs, I can’t be a snake, correct?
Pt: No you are, you’re a snake.
Me: But a snake doesn’t have arms.
Pt: No they don’t.
Me: But I have arms.
Pt: Yes you do.
Me: So I can’t be a snake.
Pt: No you can’t.
Me: But you said I was a snake.
Pt: Yes, cus you are.
Me: You just said I wasn’t.
Pt: Oh but you are.
Me: So… I’m a snake with arms?
Pt: No, just a regular snake. Like a garter snake, or a boa constrictor.
Me: So, I’m just a regular snake.
Pt: Yep.
Me: A snake that doesn’t have arms or legs, right?
Pt: Yes that’s right.
Me: So, I don’t have arms?
Pt: No you don’t.
Me: *Hold up arm* So.. what’s this?
Pt: That’s an arm.
Me: But it doesn’t belong to me?
Pt: Oh yes it does.
Me: So I have arms?
Pt: Yes, you do.
Me: So I’m a snake with arms?

That’s enough of that, it pretty well degenerated into repetition at that point anyway, a lot of the arguments, or “conversations”, were like that. I mean obviously this person was not in their right mind, that’s the whole reason we had to guard them (that and the violence, which is probably a result of the loss of mental capacity), but they seem so coherent most of the time that it’s hard to kind of step back in the middle of the argument and think, “Right, they’re a head case, of course they’re so illogical.”

A couple other gems from our “conversations”…

(more…)

Bleh, working 12 hour shifts guarding someone that sleeps all day and night is easy work, but very boring.
And it definitely doesn’t help matters any when I get off at 8am but stay up til 10:30 doing nothing important on TEH INTARWEBZ…

So I’m going to sleep now.