View From the Bushes

I got an e-mail this morning from my brother. He mentioned that a friend of his had had an accident over the weekend and had been badly burned, bad enough that they had had to Life Flight him to the University of Utah hospital. Shortly after that I went downstairs and donated platelets. It wasn't until after I got back to my desk and read some replies to my brother that I made the connection. ARUP supplies all of the University Hospital's blood and platelets and since my brothers friend is at the University Hospital it's possible that some of the platelets I donated went to treat him, particularly since burn victims use a ton of platelets.

Speaking of a ton of platelets, there are two measures they use to determine how many platelets you donate: one is based on weight and one is based on a device which tries to count the platelets as they pass by in the tube. On the latter measure the phlebotomist said I had the highest value she'd ever seen. It's fairly common for people to donate a double load of platelets (particularly if you're fat like me) and a triple is not that uncommon, but today I almost did a quadruple... It's nice to know that I'm good at something, although as usual, it's something that just comes naturally rather than as a result of any amount of hard work.

I watched "Kung Fu Hustle," which was excellent. I would definitely see it again, and it probably qualifies as something I wouldn't mind owning. We watched "Amelie" last night, which was also really good. It was somewhat instructive to watch a French movie followed by a Chinese movie and compare the two different styles of film-making. In any case, that's it for now. February starts tomorrow, and hopefully I'll be better about blogging than I was in January.

Caveat Emptor
Ross