I’ve only donated blood once so far in my life. The other time I tried to, I was deferred since I’d been to a tropical country and I could have contracted malaria. Now that I’ve donated blood and found to have the universal donor type (O-Negative,) they want more of me!

I’m glad to help, really, but let me explain about what happened the first (and last) time I donated blood.

There was a blood drive at work on April 1st of this year. I’d never donated blood and I thought today would be a decent day to do it. I had ate well, was a bit nervous, but hey, I’d be saving a life.

I went upstairs before lunch and filled out the paperwork to donate blood. It had been a few years since I’d traveled to a malaria-ridden country so I was good on that front. I had enough iron in my blood and my blood pressure was perfect. Awesome!

They bring me to the back and sit me down. I asked the nurse if I could lay down since I sometimes get dizzy and I wanted to take precautions after I heard my boss’ story about donating blood. Everything was going well, I looked away when they pricked me since that is usually when I get nauseous about blood. I was there for a while and was almost forgotten about as the blood pumped from my vein into the bag hanging by the side. The machine beeped when it was full and they finally came over to take a look at me. I sat up slowly and for the most part felt fine.

I wandered over to the table by the entrance to partake in the apple juice and cookies. I was just polishing off the last sugar cookie when things began to go downhill. I suddenly became seriously nauseous and the world gradually became black and soon I found myself laying on my side exposing the innards of my stomach to the crowd. After I regained my facilities and rolled back over I drank some Coke and laid there for a while. My quick trip to donate blood was soon turning out to take much longer. I started to feel better and said I was good enough to go back to work. And I was… for about 2 hours. I ate lunch and generally felt fine.

In the mid-afternoon I started to feel real dizzy. I went to the restroom and the world started getting fuzzy again, like it did earlier, and like it does when I have low blood sugar. I ended up passing out in the bathroom a few times and the last time someone found me. They retrieved a nurse and a wheelchair from upstairs to embarrassingly carry me back to the nurse’s station.

They put me on a recliner and a laid bored by myself and they would come over once and a while to ask how I was doing. I told them I was “tingly” in my fingers and toes. Apparently this was a red flag for them (later, I learned it was not, I just felt that way because I was hyperventilating) and I had to be rushed to the emergency room.

I had never ridden in an Ambulance before. Adam is an EMT and I’ve been in an ambulance before, while parked. This was an entirely different experience. For one thing, I was strapped to a stretcher since they didn’t want to be held liable if I passed out and conked my head on the way out of the building. Overall the ambulance experience was a pleasant one. The techs were hilarious and took my mind off the impending emergency room visit and hospital bill.

Oh, didn’t I mention? It just so happened that I learned the day before that my health insurance was canceled due to some mess-up in the paperwork. I would spend the better part of April and May fighting with my insurance career and my past employer about my health benefits and payment for my hospital stay – but that’s another story!

I ended up staying at the hospital for the rest of the day until around 9 o’clock when they finally released me after a couple EKGs, blood tests and a tasty saline drip. Yum. I had to wait forever to go through these seemingly easy and quick tests since the emergency room was apparently very full that day. Lucky me!

Eventually the doctor came to tell me the test results and basically the gist was everything was inconclusive. I was just weak after donating blood and that happens to people sometimes. If I want to do it again, I should do it on a weekend and eat a big, fat

That got me thinking about myself and what I carry around. Until the end of last year or the beginning of this year I had the bad habit of not carrying a emergency roadside kit with me, especially considering the amount of trans-state traveling I do throughout the year, this was a disaster waiting to happen. I now carrying a roadside kit, albeit a very cheap one, which contains a set of jumper cables, a bunch of tools and wrench pieces, and flares. My car is small and the battery isn’t huge so I think the small jumper cables will be enough but I found earlier this year when a friend’s battery died that they were no match for her gigantic SUV (oh, the joys and benefits of having a super-compact car…! Have I mentioned enough about how much I love my car?)

I realized that I have been doing some things right. I always carry a sleeping bag with me in the off chance I will have to do some dirty work underneath the car or, heaven forbid, if I need to sleep in the car for some reason. My car seats are reasonably comfortable (for me, some relatives and friends hate them) and if I’ve had to nap in the car I’ve done so successfully. Then again, I take after my father who is capable of nearly sleeping anywhere save for sleeping standing up.

The article did bring up something I haven’t thought about. I should probably keep an extra set of clothes and maybe even shoes, just in case I find my travels taking me someplace that I can’t get home to change or I messy them with bad weather or car trouble. I also don’t have a first aid kit which seems horribly overlooked considering how accident-prone I am.I’ve also been meaning to get a travel sized flashlight but have yet to stumble upon one. It also seems like it would be a good idea to keep some sort of energy or granola bar in the car since I’m hypoglycemic and I’m intolerable in that state.

Here’s a broken down list of things I usually keep in my car:

1. Sleeping bag
2. Roadside kit & Tire fixing tools
3. Portable dog crate
4. Reusable grocery bags
5. Napkins
6. Umbrella
7. iPod/iPhone charger/axillary connector kit.
8. Backseat cover for dog and dog harness
9. Things to donate/return
10. GPS

Here’s some things I should think about keeping in the car:

1. Extra set of clothes/shoes
2. Sweater
3. First Aid Kit
4. Energy or granola bars
5. Flashlight
6. Coupons

At my most current job I’m still stuck on Leopard and just began a project maintaining our installation of Redmine that requires PostgreSQL. We’re behind an iron-clad proxy server (which is a pain in itself) due to the nature of the company, but I was working from home that day and had the luxury of just disconnecting from the VPN and was able to use the one-click installer provided by EnterpriseDB which was a relatively painless procedure. I don’t remember it being so pleasant last year. I’m not sure if the one-click installer is new, I probably installed everything by source last time. In the hopes that within the next few months (I can only dream) I’ll get one of the new snazzy MacBook Pros they’re rolling out to the Online team, I can do it “properly” then and can afford to be lazy now.

I was quite impressed at the tools available in the installer that placed themselves in my /Applications directory by default such as pgAdmin III and a cute SQL Shell that automatically launches the psql command line tool. My only gripe with the one-click installer was that by default it installed postgres to the /Library/PostgreSQL/8.4 directory instead of /usr/local so previous postgres configurations in my extensive dotfiles were a little mucked up until I realized what I had done. Nothing a little bit of symlinking couldn’t fix, but it did drive me insane wondering why psql wasn’t in my $PATH.

Family at Brazilian BBQ

Last week we got back from a five day trip down to Aruba to relax and, more importantly, scout out possible wedding sites! When I say “we” I mean me, Adam, my sister Jennifer, my mother, and Adam’s mom and dad. It was a whole family affair! After all the walking around and scouting, at the end of the week I swore that if my dad had come along on this trip too I would have seriously been tempted to just elope right then and there!

We stayed at the Occidental that is an all-inclusive hotel. That gave us all our meals for free as well as access to a bunch of water sports. We were able to finally get some kayaking that I’ve been dying to do since I first did it on a river up in New Hampshire a few years ago on a camping trip the first summer I met Adam. He wasn’t able to do it with me that time because his Grandfather passed away right before we were scheduled to make the trip, so it was really nice to finally be able to kayak with him.

Jennifer also snagged us a couple hours of dedicated boat time Sunday morning at 9am which had to have been the most perfect time to do it. It was still quite cool before the sun began to soak the beach and because it was Sunday morning, the boats and water skiers weren’t in the port yet to cause wakes.

Adam, me and Jennifer on the boat

We rode on the boat from Palm Beach to the light house and passed the bed and breakfast we stayed at last February. I definitely prefer the calmer, non-touristy side of the island. The beach sand isn’t as “nice” and curated but I think that is what makes it special.

After breakfast, Adam and I ran away and rented a Jeep for a day to off-road to visit some of the places on the island that we missed the last time we were in Aruba. Our main objectives were the Natural Bridge (or what’s left of it,) the Arikok National Park, and Baby Beach. It would have been nice to go to the Natural Pools but you would have had to really go off road in that part of the park and our vehicle wasn’t up to the challenge.

We spent most of the afternoon going down to the Natural Bridge and snapping pictures too close to the edge of the cliffs. We then took the Jeep to maximum potential and rode around off-road to visit a few places in the park. One of them was a beach with a deadly rip-tide. We got our feet wet and were entranced by the almost translucent crabs that were desperately trying to shovel sand out of their hole-homes. (Very cute by the way!)

We stopped by the caverns just before exiting the park and were able to walk all the way in due to the holes open to the outside to let sunlight in. It was deathly stuffy in there due to no air flow which had been keeping me relatively comfortable while walking around outside in the blazing sun.

To finish off the trip, we managed to twist around and find our way down to Baby Beach. The thing about Baby Beach is that it is incredibly still, and has an extremely gradual slope so you are able to walk all the way out to the edge of the cove and still have your head  above water. It was here were we took our second try at snorkeling. Last year I had a less than desirable experience snorkeling at the bed and breakfast due to the abnormally harsh waves and I basically froze and had a panic attack in the water thinking I was going to drown. Adam had to physically drag me back to shore. Suffice it to say, I was quite anxious about trying to snorkel again!

I’m very glad to report that I was able to get over my phobia of snorkeling and enjoy the colorful aquatic life that swam under the currents. I took it bit by bit and was able to putter around under the water without freaking out and impressed Adam when I was able to catch up with him after telling him to go ahead and enjoy without me while I went at my own pace.

We spent the rest of the afternoon wading in the water and decided that we should head back because our mothers were probably having fits wondering where on the island we were. On our ride back we enjoyed taking the top off the Jeep, listened to some local dance radio, and watched the sun slowly creep towards the horizon.

Adam and me at what's left of the natural bridge

Of course our main assignment was to find out where we wanted our wedding to take place. During the day we visited the different hotels along the coast at the high rise hotels and met with the wedding planners and directors to get more information on what they offer. We narrowed it down to the Marriot, Hyatt and Westin. On Saturday and Sunday evenings, my mom and me or Adam’s mom and me scouted the beaches to watch people get married and to check out how their receptions looked. I was pretty set on going with the Marriot until my mom and I caught a ceremony and saw that they had placed the ceremony right next to the water sports equipment hut. Now, maybe it’s just me, but that would be a pretty ridiculous and ugly photo backdrop. We also took note of the beach traffic from onlookers since Aruba’s beaches are all public and the noise from nearby restaurants. After taking everything into consideration, I definitely think the Westin is the way to go. We even had a chance to talk to the mother-of-the-bride the day of her daughter’s wedding and got the low-down on their take on the whole ordeal.

Now I must do the hard part and try to figure out what exactly I want at our wedding. The wedding planner gave me a check list to fill out of my “wishes” but I can’t even begin to think what it is I want! I was never a girl who dreamed from a young age about my wedding and planned everything down to the tiniest detail. I think I would be happy if someone else just decided it for me and just made it classy and to our personalities after talking to us for a bit.

I better figure out soon, otherwise I’m going to keep getting nagged by the respective families and settle on the final date!

I’ve been using Gmail for a number of years now, and the most irritating, hair-pulling experience is whenever I have to make changes to my filters. When I was in college, I used Pine in conjunction with Procmail and I was a happy little ducky for a long time. Then CCIS upgraded to Zimbra, and I thought, “Hey, I want to try that new stuff!” and got my email transitioned to the web client. Well, I couldn’t use my procmail settings anymore and while the filters weren’t as nicely set up and I had to deal with a lot more clicking than I wanted to, it was still fairly straight forward to get my mail directed to where I wanted it to go.

Now that I am graduated and have grown out of my college email address, the logical next step was to something like Gmail because hey, everyone™ uses that now, right?

Every time I have to make a change to one of my filters I have to take a deep breath and try my damnedest not to kill my screen in the process.

1. You can’t logically order them. Every time you make a change, that filter goes to the top of the list. I have to do a text search to figure out which of my filters I need to edit.
2. You can’t do an OR on two different types of fields. For instance, I’d like it to search for something in the subject or if the email is from a certain address. Impossible to do!
3. You can’t do precedence. What is great about Procmail and even the mail filters in Zimbra, you can order filters to your heart’s content so you can check if it fits one filter and then nothing else is acted upon it. Gmail doesn’t have an indication to do this.
4. Impossible to edit complicated filters. This is my filter to label things as “Shopping” so that they get shuffled off into a separate folder with a “Shopping” label instead of cluttering up my inbox.

   Matches: from:(*@masterbeat.com |*@stores.gap.com  | *@koss.messages1.com | *@e.victoriassecret.com |  *@athletag.delivery.net | *@shop.sephora.com | *@piperlimeg.delivery.net  | penews@perfumeemporium.com | *@giltgroupe.com |  *@ideeli.com| thegoodguideteam@goodguide.com | BarnesandNobleEmail@email.bn.com  | creativememories@nwlmail.com | *@trans-em.jetblue.com  | email@photo.cvs.com | promo@e.newegg.com | *@es.shoebuy.com  | *@es.bagsbuy.com | *@stewleonards.com | *@zipzoomfly.com  | *@gapinc.delivery.net | *drugstore.com | cbnews7@cox.net  | *gap.delivery.net | petperks@petsmart-mail.com |  News@insideapple.apple.com | *@pragmaticbookshelf.com  | *@e.staples.com | *@bedbathandbeyond.com | email@extracare.cvs.com)
   Do  this: Apply label "Shopping"

   That is impossible to edit in a couple hundred pixels input form field.

I’m sure there are other things about the filters that piss me off but those are the top four. In my opinion, Gmail really needs to step it up quite a bit and I’m disappointed there really hasn’t been any major changes since Gmail Beta. Gmail has the opportunity to have some really awesome filtering capability that integrates well with the label and folder system but it is just too frustration right now to be really useful!

I really should have known better than to bring her outside. She’s notoriously bad in hot weather (who wouldn’t be in that much fur!), so much so that even on tame 70 degree days when we bring her to the dog park in White Plains, she’ll spend most of her time huddled by me under the cement bench in the shade.

I feel really bad for what happened next. We brought her home and hosed her off because she got a little messy and that helped with the heat. She spent the rest of the day in her cool, water soaked fur on the kitchen floor. When we left later for a drive-in up in Butler, I got a frantic text message from my sister stating “Izzie s*** all over the house.”

Wonderful.

It seemed that while we were enjoying the antics of the lively toys of Toy Story 3, my dog was leaving odorous presents around the house as my mom was falling asleep to the drone of prime-time television.

The situation didn’t get much better on Monday. We held off food as is usually suggested for vomiting and diarrhea and because she was starving, she sneaked into the drip pan left underneath the grill from the BBQ and promptly vomited a disgusting black ooze all over my mother’s kitchen floor.

Suffice it to say, we had to be careful with her. Once we got the vomiting under control, we were able to move her to a strictly boiled chicken and rice diet but that didn’t help much with what was coming out of her other end. I was finally able to take her to the Veterinarian and he tested her for Giardia (an intestinal parasite that can also be passed to humans) and said that otherwise she seemed okay but to keep her on chicken and rice and call him in a few days to tell him how she was doing.

Of course, Isabella didn’t complain about getting home-cooked meals every day. But, she still wasn’t and isn’t 100%. The Veterinarian confirmed that it wasn’t Giardia that was causing the problem so we most likely just had to wait it out. On Monday I trekked back to the Veterinarian because now he wants her on Prescription Diet/WD to help in the stool department. It’s been two weeks now since the original incident and only now is “everything” getting back to normal.

Feeling sick didn’t stop her from tearing up the bathroom waste bucket while I was gone, so I think she’ll be just fine.

Adam & Rachel at our Engagement Dinner

This is old news to some people, but on May 21, 2010 Adam asked me to marry him!

He surprised me with a day out at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens for a photo walk (on one of the hottest days of the year that far) but ended up forgetting his camera’s battery. We made due with my puny point-and-click and enjoyed each others company.

After an afternoon of walking and enjoying the flowers, he brought me to the cherry blossom trees and we sat down. If you know Adam, you know he’s a bit of a procrastinator (like me!) We watched a group of people set up for what looked like a wedding and I could tell he was attempting to try and tell me something.

Unfortunately for him, his hesitation was too long and an security guard approached us and asked us to leave the area because the garden was closing (presumably for the event under the cherry blossoms!)

In the scurry of things, he first attempted to sit me down on one of the benches near the trees and as he began to talk a large Hesidic family was making its way across the grass towards us, yelling at their unruly children in the process. Adam rolled his eyes and tried for a third time to find a quiet and appropriate sitting place.

Finally, we walked around for a moment and sat me down on a bench as he stood and reached into his camera bag to pull out a ring box and presented me with my ring. Of course I said yes, we hugged and everything was happy. We then rushed off to the dinner he had scheduled that we were no doubt now late for.

He then surprised me once again when we showed up at the restaurant in New York City, we met up with his father, mother and sister and then shortly the rest of my family all the way from Pittsburgh and my sister from Philadelphia! “Mazel Tovs!” all around. We enjoyed a quiet but talkative evening celebrating our engagement and talked about tentative plans for a wedding next year.

Right now we are in the thick of planning a destination wedding for next summer in Aruba and hope to make a trip with our parents in the next month to scout some places out! We will also be having a reception in Pittsburgh and most likely its counterpart in New York City for our friends and family who won’t be able to join us for our tropical ceremony.

Izzie 5 Weeks

My baby, Princess Isabella of Ascot, turns 2 today.

It’s hard to believe that we’ve been together for almost 2 years. Every day you look up to me to take care of you, feed you your favorite kibble, take you on long walks, and rub your belly and pat your head. There’s not much else you want from this world other than to feel loved and I’m here to give it!

Unfortunately, Izzie spent most of the day by herself because Adam and I had an engagement party to go to (or so we thought, we actually got the date wrong!) But when we got back, we fed her a special doggie version of a black and white cookie and her favorite treat, a tri-twisted bully stick.

She seemed to know it was a special day for her, every time she heard someone go by the apartment she would yell out, “It’s my birthday!” to anyone that would listen.

Say you want to delete a branch:

% git branch -D s-588-test-list-of-urls

BUT THEN YOUR REALIZE YOU DELETED THE WRONG ONE. And you had commits that were local and were not pushed to the main repository, this piece of information is very helpful.

Do a:

% git reflog

And you’ll get something like:

fbfdcea HEAD@{0}: checkout: moving from master to s-588-test-list-of-urls
fbfdcea HEAD@{1}: checkout: moving from b-702-slideshow-play-button-jquery to ma
c87935e HEAD@{2}: checkout: moving from s-588-test-list-of-urls to b-702-slidesh
eaeb971 HEAD@{3}: commit: Writing some looping code to pull urls from sitemap.xm
fe2d942 HEAD@{4}: commit: adding backgroundrb
fbfdcea HEAD@{5}: checkout: moving from master to s-588-test-list-of-urls
fbfdcea HEAD@{6}: checkout: moving from b-702-slideshow-play-button-jquery to ma
c87935e HEAD@{7}: commit: Change how the text buttons are colored
1d233b8 HEAD@{8}: checkout: moving from master to b-702-slideshow-play-button-jq
fbfdcea HEAD@{9}: checkout: moving from b-702-slideshow-play-button-jquery to ma
1d233b8 HEAD@{10}: commit: Slideshows work again with jQuery
f101f15 HEAD@{11}: checkout: moving from 0.8.0 to b-702-slideshow-play-button-jq
87a1769 HEAD@{12}: checkout: moving from b-702-slideshow-play-button-jquery to 0
f101f15 HEAD@{13}: commit: Playing with javascripts and styles

Pick out which revision you last remember you did on your branch and then do this (with a new branch):

% git checkout -b s-588-test-list-of-urls-redo HEAD@{3}

And then checkout the correct repository again:

% git checkout s-588-test-list-of-urls

And do a merge!

% git merge s-588-test-list-of-urls-redo

And breathe a sigh of relief because you saved yourself a panic attack.