wow, that sucks

sometimes I think I'm quite strange. I've always been fascinated with serial killers and homicides and random deaths. I love watching investigation discovery and dr. g on discovery health (the show about autopsies). I'm sure a lot of people do. but I also have wikipedia-d "random deaths" and read fatality reports on the osha and msha websites. I thought I share a couple of those shitty ways to die, in case you're interested:

• in scales mound, IL, a fire department worker searching for a missing person was killed when his all-terrain vehicle (ATV) struck a deer and rolled over - how depressing it would be to be that missing person who is eventually found and knowing that the search for you killed a person.
• in mountain home, AR, a worker was installing new cell phone cables and antennas and fell 240 feet while descending the tower - that's a loooong way.
• in carmel, IN, a maintenance worker died when the lawn mower he was riding exploded - what an unexpected thing to happen.
• in gainsville, TX, a worker was running alongside a forklift to jump on, slipped, fell, and was run over by the forklift - definitely fun and games until someone gets hurt.
• in bethesda, MD, a worker was standing on a ladder with a chain saw to cut a tree trunk and the chain saw apparently struck the victim 's neck - makes me shiver to think about
• in chagrin falls, OH, a worker was trimming a lower branch on a tree when an upper branch worked loose and fell on him, striking his head - probably why they stress consequence thinking here at the mine.
  

reading these reports help me realize the importance of consequence thinking and ensure me that the strict safety policies they have where I work are implemented for a reason. you can find these weekly reports on the osha website. they also help show that people die everyday at every kind of job, disproving the idea that mines are the most dangerous.

mining isn't the most dangerous workplace, but the hazards that exist here are much larger. a couple of weeks ago, there was a fatality at the asarco ray mine, which is where I had my first internship. a mechanic parked his truck in front of a 240 ton haul truck that was also assumed to be parked. however, the haul trucked moved forward running over the half-ton pick-up, killing the mechanic and severely injuring the passenger. it is important to remember, at a mine, that there is a lot of large equipment and you should never assume they see you. you should also never park next to or near a haul truck for any reason. haul truck drivers may not even know they ran you over either. just to get an idea the power of a haul truck, here's the aftermath:

courtesy of msha.gov

scary reminder. but also a good lesson. sad something like this has to happen for policies to be implemented. rip mr. benavidez.

my solution

so I've been slightly paranoid about chris. the last thing I want is for him to have another seizure. I have a feeling that he finds his seizures embarrassing. I see it in his eyes when I visit him in the hospital. I can tell he doesn't want people to pity him. he doesn't want people to doubt his abilities because of his medical condition. he avoids the topic rather than openly talks about it. and I don't completely blame him. but I'm scared his seizures are inevitable. I'm scared they're always going to happen.

at least I was scared. I realized that I can't be scared of life and situations we're faced with. I can't be scared of conditions we're born with and have no control over. because maybe we do have some control over it. I said previously that the two things that were the same between this seizure and his last seizure were that he didn't sleep well the night before and he was really stressed out. so what if I do my best to ensure he gets a good night sleep? I can make sure he goes to bed a decent hour. and take pepper out in the middle of the night so his sleep isn't disturbed. I can make sure a fresh cup of coffee is prepared for him in the morning (once we figure out how to fix our coffee maker).

and I can do whatever I can to de-stress his life. starting operation: de-stress our lives. some ideas I've got so far: 

• go on walks with the pups in the evening
• go to the 'rents to swim at least 3x a week
• talk to him in the morning about random stuff
• ask him how his day was after work
• drive him everywhere (not my favorite)
• make dinner together
• watch movies and our favorite tv shows
• play silly wii games
• play with the dogs

hmm...that's really all I can think of so far. all I know is that I'm not going to surrender to his condition. I'm not going to let it control our lives. I'm gonna do something about it.

fashion friday on monday

because I was so busy the past few days and friday was a busy day at work trying to get things done I didn't before I left thursday I didn't get to do my second fashion friday. but no worries, this week I'll be ready with awesome stuff (?). but I did want to mention that a blog I read (moms are for everyone) is doing this fun thing called fashion week. she did one for the spring and I thought it was so fun and interesting to see everyone's styles outfits each day of the week that I wish I joined in. so I'm gonna make the effort to show what I've got for her summer fashion week.

it'll be kinda hard/boring to show what I wear each day (which is the point - click the picture above for the blog entry on how it works) since I wear polos, jeans, and steel toed boots every day for work. so I think I'm just going to come home, change into something cute, and talk chris into taking a picture for me. that's my goal at least. can't wait. :)

the results of stress and lack of communication

not only is it hard when your significant other doesn't find the need to discuss important issues or feelings with you, but it's so difficult when he doesn't confide in you when he's stressed out. this is my life. I've been getting used to the fact that chris won't talk to me about things or what he's thinking or feeling and such, but it hurts when something bothers him and he doesn't give me the opportunity to try to help him.

he's been stressed at work. waay stressed. we work at the mine, which is starting production again, and he's in charge of short-range planning. short-range planning is the planning of day by day - deciding how many tons will be hauled each day and where it will be hauled to. (as opposed to long-range planning which is determining how many tons will be hauled/processed on a year by year basis.) here's the issues I find:

1. he just graduated from college - pretty much brand new
2. he's never done short-range planning before

so I had an idea that he's a little stressed out. but he never talks to me about his tasks at work and if they are stressing him out or anything. so I didn't know how bad it was.

because I'm sure I wasn't making it any easier. if I had known, I would try harder to not nag as much. if I had known I would have urged him to get more sleep. if I had known, maybe what happened thursday could have been avoided. of course, I'm not sure if I could ease his stress enough to prevent what happened, but I could have tried. I didn't even know it was bad so I didn't even try. that's what hurts the most. that I could have helped, but he didn't let me.

so thursday, chris had another epileptic seizure. I was working on some spreadsheets at the sx control room (not my normal office) when I got a call from chris's boss. last time chris had a seizure, it was over a year ago - before one of his field trips for class. this is the second seizure that I've experienced with him since we've been together (almost 5 years now). both times I was not directly with him. but the commonality between his previous seizure and this one that I found:

1. he didn't sleep well the night (and/or few nights) before
2. he's really stressed out

supposedly, he had another forecast report he needed to get out by the end of the day. I know he's been stressed about the forecast, because he's been working a lot on it. each version he's given, he's gotten a lot of crap for. the manager of the mine has been giving him a lot of crap for not putting out the "right" numbers. my department (not me, but my bosses) has been putting a lot of pressure on him to put out the forecast (since our forecast is based on the mine forecast). the president of the company has even contacted him telling him his disapproval of the forecast numbers. so I knew he had to be stressed. but he never talked to me about it. and when I tried to talk to him about it, he wouldn't say much. so I didn't try to ease his stress.

it's scary when I get a call about chris having a seizure. last time it was terrifying since it was the first time I was faced with his seizures. and last time, he face planted the cement so he busted up his lip and nose so there was blood everywhere which in all in combination caused me to have a panic attack when I saw him at the hospital. so I was scared it was going to be the same. and on top of it all, it happened at work. (thank god we work at the same place.) so I get the call at work, and of course word gets around fast and everyone who doesn't know yet wants to know why I'm crying and it just turns into this mess. luckily, at the time, I wasn't thinking about all that. I was just trying to figure out how to get to my car to get to the hospital.

my boss, sam, took me to the hospital and I was more than relieved to see chris in a stable state. in fact, he looked real good. he had a bump on his head from hitting it on his desk on the way down. and a scratch on his cheek from an unknown source. but there was no blood everywhere like last time. when I got there, he took my hand and cried a little, and then he went into a deep sleep. (which I guess is normal.) I guess the doctors did a catscan (I wouldn't of known since none of the doctors or nurses told me anything) and it came out clear.

I sat next to his bed for about three hours. the most excitement was the lady in the bed next to him who was suspected to have overdosed on some percocet. a couple of times she tried to escape (which I had to get the attention of the nurses to let them know they're patient was trying to escape because they were flirting with the male paramedics). and she kept saying weird things. after three hours or so, they released him and we went home. and I'm stuck with driving him everywhere for the next six months or so. but that's ok. my main concern is trying to get him to talk to me when he's stressed out.

annoyance of the day: the lady down the hall

the lady down the hall from me, on the other side of the building, talks to herself. not a little. not quietly to the point that you're not really sure if you caught her talking to herself or not. but loud. and a lot. I mean all day long she's talking to herself.

I've only discovered this last week. beforehand, I just assumed she was always on the phone. wrong. she's crazy. she'll have conversations with herself. and you constantly hear her cussing and asking questions and making random comments. she'll even walk through the hallway singing to herself. and she'll even talk in the bathroom!

seriously freeport - how did she get through your rigorous hiring process?

best buy = broke chris & alicia

my time at best buy should definitely be limited and monitored by a competent adult (which does not include chris). I can't seem to go through there without buying something. as a kid, I went to best buy to stock up on cd's - back when they had tons of cd's for $9.99 and $7.99 (including popular and new releases). and now that I'm older, I get to go to spend a lot of money for the big kahuna of electronics.

last night our internet finally started working (it was installed on sunday) so we decided to go to the good ol' double b to get a wireless router. simple enough. chris wanted to be home in 40 minutes.  seemed doable. we went and quickly found a router and unfortunately had to walk past the tvs on the way out. we joked: let's take a quick look at tvs and see if we can make another poor financial decision.

back up now a bit to the history of our bad financial decision making. we're truly every salesperson's dream because we're complete suckers for anything and everything. case in point:

1. took a "free" trip to vegas - only had to listen to some timeshare presentation - left with a marriot timeshare in vegas
2. went to look at a small kia at a used dealership in tucson - left with a more expensive car
3. went out on day one with our realtor - saw maybe 4-5 houses - left with a contract to buy a house
4. when we bought our la-z-boy furniture, they provided a complimentary interior design service - ended up buying everything they suggested (minus one metal artwork piece), 2 rugs, 2 table lamps, 1 floor lamp, decorative pillows, end tables, coffee table, entertainment center

there's probably many more but those are the most recent. we're so bad that chris's dad put a $5,000 cap on us - anything over $5,000 had to go through him.

too bad everything we bought yesterday was under $5,000. we were looking at some pretty awesome LCD HD 60 inch tvs when the very nice salesperson came and asked if we needed anythihng. chris had a quick question about the difference between LED and LCD which turned into which is the best tv here in your opinion which escalated to a $4,500 payment. I'm a major sucker for a good sale and boy were they having one. we ended up getting the following:

• 55" samsung 3D LCD HD tv
• 4 3D glasses
• blu-ray 3D player
• receiver
• 5 surround sound speakers
• direct tv
• wireless router

the 3D tv, 3D glasses, & blu-ray player were the package deal that was less than the regular price of the 3D tv itself. the 3D glasses sell for $150 a piece! and the 3D blu-ray player is about $350. since chris was approved for a good amount best buy credit card, he wanted to get as much as he could then because it was 3 years 0% interest - that's why we got the speakers and receiver. since we bought a tv, we got a rebate for a $350 gift card for direct tv which is why we signed up for that. that and because I get NBATV and ESPN 3D! the picture - both 3D and 2D - are amazing and I liked the fact that I could still watch everything in 2D but had that bonus option of watching a movie or soccer game in 3D. needless to say, we probably won't be spending much else for a while. at least I hope.

so my lesson: don't go to best buy. ever. buy cd's on amazon and other electronics elsewhere. best buy = trouble.

fashion friday: mad men

I've always been fascinated with fashion. I strongly believe it's a freedom of speech - a way to express oneself. and I love seeing everyone's different fashion ideas and such. but at the same time, I feel I can't classify myself in a fashion "category." I'm not punk. I'm not preppy. I'm not tomboy. and I'm not vintage. I have all different kinds of clothing in my closet. it kind of disappoints me - almost every one I know has a style. and sometimes I feel lost when it comes to my style. it's hard for me to pick one style. it's hard for me to accept that I may look good in a particular style as well. but regardless, I love fashion. so I thought I'd share some of my favorite pickings and things I come across online or in life that interest me.

this week I browsed a couple of sites and saw some things that not only caught my eye but also have a mad men theme.

brought to you by modcloth

I think this dress is rightly named: sweet temptation. the bow and polka dots give it a sweet taste yet it kind of hints at some spiciness that awaits underneath. this would be something I'd wear if I was betty draper from mad men and had a studly husband like don draper. I could do dishes commando in this dress. no doubt.






while I'm the topic of mad men, this dress also reminds me of that show.

brought to you by unique-vintage

more specifically, the character joan holloway perfectly played by christina hendricks. I've only watched a few episodes of mad men but I found it very fascinating. and I'm pretty confident every woman has a girl crush on her. she exudes this confidence of a sex kitten while still keeping it (somewhat) classy. she is also shaped like a real woman. I envy her curves. it's way better than being a straight stick. and she has every curve possible and rather than hiding it, like more curvy women today (other than beyonce), she flaunts it. and not in a trashy way. in a classy, yet in your face, way. amazing. if I had curves like her's, I'd buy this adorable dress. that and if I was willing to spend $150 on a dress that I don't have enough occasions to wear it to.

although, if I had a office job, like a secretary or administer or something, I would want to wear something like that. or this below. if I felt like I could pull it off of course.

brought to you by unique vintage

I love the ruffles. it definitely adds character and flare to your typical business suit. too bad I don't have an office job though. although I sort of do, except I don't think steel toed shoes would look very appropriate with this outfit. and I have to wear pants for work. soo...maybe I should switch careers so I can wear cute outfits to work.

until next week - stay fashionably awesome!