Sunday, August 14, 2011

Sleep? What's sleep?

The title of this post is kind of ironic given what's been going on lately.  I've been working this awesome job that I love bunches.  It leaves me lots of time to study, read, blog, whatever while I am on shift.  This past week I worked some ridiculous amount of hours and ended up getting about 6 hours of sleep in one 3 day period.  Well that resulted in me going on a call with my FD that I don't exactly remember.  Sleep deprivation is a weird thing....I remember the pager going off and then the next thing I know I am standing in the middle of the ER staring at one of the probies making up the stretcher.  There were 2 other techs on the call so I wasn't in charge of patient care but apparently had an entire conversation with my co workers and don't remember it either.  When I brought it up to one of my buddies he said I was acting completely normally.  Weird.  I truly thought I was losing my mind for awhile there.  As I talked to a few of my tech friends I was told it's happened to them before and that I was operating automatically.  Good to know my training is so ingrained I can basically sleep thru a call and still get the job done.  Still scares me and I need to make sure I get enough sleep.  This coming week is going to be just as busy but I will have time to actually sleep....I have a day off between two long shifts.

Signing off 21:42

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Dumpster diving and an enlightening film

Dumpster diving?  What does that mean to you?  Have you even heard of it before?

According to wikipedia: dumpster diving is the practice of sifting through commercial or residential trash  to find items that have been discarded by their owners, but which may be useful to the dumpster diver.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumpster_diving)

Have I ever gone dumpster diving myself?  Picked stuff out of the trash to re-use?  Well, yeah.

It only makes sense!  People make a living off this stuff even! In the US 40-50% of the food thrown away by supermarkets and restaurants is perfectly good!!  Lots of stuff goes in the garbage that could be recycled or given to someone who can use it/make something out of it/re purpose it.

I even belong to a group where you can give away stuff and get stuff people are offering up for FREE.  Yeah that's right...FREE.  www.freecycle.org

I furnished my first apartment pretty much based on what I got from freecycle.  Maybe with the exception of the bed that I came with.  I got a free sofa bed, lamps, dishes, pots, pans, hell I even got 2 free televisions.  FOR FREE.  All I had to do was drive to where the person had the item, pick it up, put it in the car, and take it home.  Done deal.

Well if anyone is wondering where this is going I will let you in on a little secret.  This blog is going to culminate in an awesome documentary that I recently watched on the topic of dumpster diving.  The two film makers moved into an apartment and then lived there for 3 months only getting all their stuff from the trash.  They ended up eating awesome well balanced meals and having more stuff than they knew what to do with just from dumpster diving.  It's a pretty sustainable lifestyle.  Re-using "trash".  They obtained 2 full wardrobes, food, furniture, appliances, and art materials all from the GARBAGE.  Perfectly good stuff someone didn't want because they probably got new stuff.  Then at the end of their "experiment" they gave all their stuff away...for FREE.

THINK ABOUT IT

Consumerism sucks.

So watch the movie and let me know what you think.  What kind of impact could you be making on the planet?
http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/i_love_trash/

I'm sure going to try harder now....


 Signing off 10:38