meara, I wanted to thank you for your response to my friend with MS. I don't yet know what she's decided, but your perspective, I doubt she was getting elsewhere (I don't think anyone in her circle works in the med profession.)

And the Sea Wasp's venom can kill you in 30 seconds.

My scuba instructor, a marine bio prof, hammered this into us even though we only dove around Nor Cal coast. IIRC, skin suits and the like were developed in Australia for lifeguards to protect them from sea wasps. It's said to be so agonizingly painful, one wants to be killed to get it over with.

I've been diving over turkeyfish (like stonefish) in Hawaii. Very pretty, and nice to be floating in water over them and know they aren't the kind of thing that leaps at you. Sea snakes are scary when they are slithering through water under you. They look unpredictable.

I've picked up conefish before. Huh. Did not know that. Maybe they just looked like conefish.

After coming back from rotator cuff surgery this season, Pedro Martinez went 4⅓ innings today before going back on the DL.

Bah.

meara, I wanted to thank you for your response to my friend with MS. I don't yet know what she's decided, but your perspective, I doubt she was getting elsewhere (I don't think anyone in her circle works in the med profession.)

I am sure Meara gave excellent advice. I didn't receive any e-mail, so I figure you musta gotten all you needed from Miss Meara. On the other hand, I was cc'd on some e-mail from Kristin a while back that ended up in my (new and hated) work spam filter, and I didn't receive it until one of the cc's got through the filter and I saw that the stupid filter had caught and deleted the entire preceding chain.

Which is my way of saying that if you did happen to write, I didn't see it. :(

Oh, good, I'm glad I could be a little helpful, even if I didn't really have answers! I'm always glad to see people contemplating clinical trials--otherwise, we wouldn't have new medicines, and I wouldn't have a job! :)

t edit: and I"m pretty sure you were cc'd, java...

Shit. I need to talk to the IT guys. The thing is, the filter isn't one like I've got at home (McAfee) where the crap sits bold-faced in a folder in my Inbox and I can check it. The work filter filters at the server level, and I have no idea it's there until I get the occasional "these messages were not delivered" and it's sometimes days after the e-mail was sent. Totally random and driving me nuts. And since it's at the server-level, there aren't settings available to me to adjust.

Did all y'all see on Fark.com, the Muppets blooper reel? HYSTERICAL. Go, watch.

javachick, I'd emailed you too, at yahoo listed in your profile! Maybe I got spam filtered (my address is like my name with gmail.) If you want me to try again, will do.

Anyone else watching Frontline's Bad Voodoo's War ?

These guys' attitude remind me so much of my brother. He got out after the Serbia thing, my SIL a while later. For which I'm selfishly grateful because they had it easy and to think of the changes that would've happened to them had they still been Army these days, well, it would kill me. So instead, my heart just breaks for all these soldiers still serving. It's so fucked up.

Interestingly, the box jelly/sea wasp stings are more likely to kill women and children than men -- not because they're weaker, but because abundant body hair is sufficient to keep the stingers off the skin. I understand that in some places in Australia, the lifeguards wear pantyhose which is also sufficient protection.

If you want me to try again, will do.

Okay, just checked Yahoo bulk folder but it's usually 300+ every morning and I delete it daily. Nothing there. Yes, please re-send. Thanks!