anti-social troll

You know, sometimes it's nice to be holed up in my lab where the doors are locked 24/7.

I had gone to the office to turn in some paperwork. As I was leaving, I ran into the "slacker". She's a nice person, but I swear all she does most of the time is find people to talk to for a long while. Then go to breakfast with someone. Then lunch, coffee break, etc. The quiet rumor is she knows something about her boss to ensure she won't be fired (knowing her boss, it's possible).

Anyway, her main person to hang with is still on vacation. So she came to me to "talk" about budget issues - as if wanting my experience and knowledge to help her with her budget issue. That talk lasted a minute, then I was stuck for a half hour listening to everything else going on in her life.

Thankfully, my boss saw I was still stuck in the hallway, and approached me to talk about the paper. So she snuck away to go find someone else to waste time with.

Not that I want to be an anti-social troll all the time, but darn it, I'm stuck in data hell. It's only going to stick around until I start working on it. So go away and let me work on it.

(thanfully I can share my iTunes library with a password to entertain me while I"m stuck in data hell...)

Excel rantings

In this latest run of graph frenzy, there are a few things that really bug me about Excel.

First is when I created a graph template of how I want all data sets to look like. Even had the fonts and graph size set to how I want it to look. Load new data set, and I have to spend a few minutes resizing the graphs and resetting fonts. Trust me, it's much easier to just copy the one perfect graph. Then paste (repeatedly), and change the source data.

If there are error bars in the data, and that gets saved into the graph format you're screwed. The reason is because it can't figure out to refer to the next cell for the error bars. What it does is put the value in its place. Uh, no. Again, I'm learning to save the graph format, then add the error bars. I had to go back and put in the referenced value in a couple graphs because I had forgotten about that error bar thingie and it looked like there were no error bars because the original value was so small.....opps.

Then I ran into an annoying problem. I have a lot of data here. The lot of data needs to be looked at in several different ways. Which means, there's a butt load of graphs being generated. I would try and copy a "perfect" graph and paste so that I could just change the source data.

"No new fonts can be loaded onto this worksheet."

WTF? Someone suggested that even though this is office for OSX, to close the other worksheets if I didn't need them at that moment. Fine, a couple more pastes later, got the same thing.

Quit the program, reload the file (it's only 570KB). Could get a couple more pastes in before the error cropped up.

So I had to break down my massive data worksheet by each treatment. The reason I avoided this was because if some values have to be reanalyzed, and re-entered, they will have to be redone in FIVE worksheets now.

I couldn't handle it when I had to replace data in three worksheets without a major breakdown. And I even screwed up the third so I quit partway through and focused on two worksheets.

Speaking of which, I better take care of that third worksheet that I started to fix, then screwed up.

TV watching

Last night was interesting between the season finale of "24" and the western conference basketball games. Alas, I could not stay up to watch the celebration in Phoenix as the Suns handed the Clippers tickets back to LA. But I read about it the next morning.

I have two major gripes with the last two episodes of "24". First of all, why did nobody in CTU bother to ask where the heck Jack was when he told them he was coming back after dispatching Henderson. I guess Bill was too distracted with trying to score with Karen to notice.

The second was at around 6:45 AM, Jack gets taken by the Chinese and drugged into submission. Within 15 minutes, we learn he's on a large cargo ship that's on its way to China. To get from an air force base to the port, and have the ship out sailing in the water isn't fesible. So Jack must have been shoved onto a chopper and the chopper landed on a ship out in the water. I don't remember seeing a chopper on a helipad when they panned out for a shot of the ship.

Other than that - we learn don't fuck with the first lady (soon to be former first lady). Chloe showed a softer side to her ex hubby. There seemed to be a lot of loving going on in this season (or should I say longing for love). Wonder what's going to happen (if anything) to the sexual harrassment chick. Wonder how Mike Novak will get to stick around.

To be decided in January (NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!)

if it was the stomach flu

I only wish that I knew what was going on. For almost a week now, anytime food hits my stomach (minutes after eating), I feel funny. I get a numbing sensation in my hands, and I feel fuzzy in the head. It's almost as if I might pass out.

Celiac symptoms have been a problem for a week and half now. Still can't figure out what I'm eating that is making me sick.

So I'll scrap eating most food. Ensure type drinks are gluten-free (says so on the package). So I'm drinking those, and gatorade (in case I'm just dehydrated). I made myself a sandwich with gluten-free bread using the same lunchmeat and cheese that I've used before without problems.

I'm hoping that it's just a stomach bug. But with the other celiac symptoms I've been dealing with, I don't know.

Just wish that eating didn't want to make me pass out.

If I can't get things under control by Friday, I might have to get my carpool buddy to drive the way to San Diego. At least I have that option.