Todd Horton's back

I know what you're thinking. Oh, goody. He must have sensed how much we missed him.
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Dale,

Long time since we've talked. Just wondering if you would like to pick up and resume a dialogue. I know that you've gotten enough of a vacation from my "craziness" by now, and you should have had some time to study up and try and present an intelligent argument by now. So if you aren't afraid and are willing I would like to start a dialogue in order to use as an opportunity to get the science students at my local university to toughen up and have a debate. Just think you could be a hero to scientific minded students far away from where you live. This is posted on the board already along with our old dialogue so if you choose not to respond you will let a lot of students down.

Todd

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Can you believe this guy?
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Wow, it's Todd, back for more. Let's see, how does this go again? You're going to say there's this guy called god who made everything, all the evidence for which amounts to nothing.

I'm positive at some point I referred to your "craziness", and that's what it is. I decided that you had flipped when whatever it was that was in the last email I sent you, words I carefully constructed so that they couldn't possibly have been made easier to understand, you decided were, if memory serves, "a little confusing". I was at the end of my rope, and I figured you for a lost cause. Which you are. So if you are itchin' to fight about some specific thing that makes it look like there's a magic man who lives in the sky, fine.Take your best shot, I guess. You bore me to tears.

So now you want to drag a science class into it, like that's going to prove something. If some science class somewhere needed someone like me, which they don't, to have some kind of argument with you, it wouldn't be a science class. It would be an argument class. Science, since you didn't know, isn't a competing philosophy, it's a method invented (or at least formalized) by Isaac Newton, a framework for examining facts and testing ideas. Rigorous, relentless analysis is involved, and nothing is held sacred. This is to make sure that what comes out the other end of "experiments" is actually real. Religion, on the other hand, is designed so that the belief comes first, and everything that comes out the other side looks exactly like it's supposed to, to fit the pre-existing notions of the believer. It makes me laugh and cry that people like you think their beliefs are the equals of everyone else, when they are so clearly grounded in a dogma that bears no resemblance to physical reality.

Two questions for you.
1) Where would you like to start?
2) Where are you posting this, so I can be sure you aren't editing it.

If I get there and all of this isn't posted, you can forget about it.

Hugs,
Dale
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It was Francis Bacon, by the way, not Isaac Newton. Oops. Let's see if he gives me shit.
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I ain't working in chemotherapy

This was addressed to all personnel management in my department.

Dear five or six managers,

When I get moved around, I do as I'm told. I may prefer some jobs here at the pharmacy to others, but I don't refuse to do anything. I've done leeches, IVs, station checks, moved pyxis machines, fixed them, done 8P, decentral, and all kinds of other things, and done well at each; the tube system has never known a more fiendish adversary than when I work first fill. One thing I sincerely like about coming here, is you show up and do your job as well as you can, and then you're done and go home, and it's not a job you take home with you. Working here has made me appreciate the clean separation of work (professional life) and home (if you will, regular life). At least (and you may have seen this coming) until now.

I found my transistion three weeks ago back into the IV room to be very easy, albeit a little strange. Whatever the genesis of the idea to move me back in there, it's something I am capable of doing with (dare I say) a high degree of proficiency. My instincts tell me there was probably some antagonism directed toward me that resulted in my being relocated, but since no one ever mentioned it, I'm content it was a decision management is comfortable with. Not that it matters, but this is just fine with me.

But next weekend, the first in April, I am surprised to see that I have been scheduled to train in chemotherapy, and this presents a problem. Not that it is something I would address if there were any other way to go about it, but you force my hand, so I have to now reveal that I am planning to reproduce, and I don't want any babies coming out with flippers for arms or any other birth defects.

When I plan to make babies is not up for discussion, not least of all because it is an intensely (is there anything more personal?) private matter that doesn't concern one among you.

In short, I refuse to comply with my scheduled shifts training in chemotherapy.

I trust that working together, we can find a way to overcome this obstacle, whether it is through disciplinary action, giving me the weekend off and calling it even, or moving me to another work area. Please don't hesitate to let me know how I may be of help in resolving this matter.

Thanks,
Dale
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Subject: RE: my upcoming schedule

I am shocked, flabbergasted and amazed that not a single one of you chose to respond to my email, which, if your memories are as bad as your sense of obligation to your employees, is included below. If I have learned one thing from your collective silence, it is that I do not feel responsible for the events that transpire this weekend, and that my expectations of you were inflated. I shall report as scheduled at the pharmacy, where, as per the schedule, I will take up space and get paid. In closing, I must say that I would be more concerned with how the department wastes its money than you apparently are is even more surprising than your refusal to make even the smallest of
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Then I accidentally sent it, just like that. Then I sent another one.
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Outlook tip of the day:
If you hit control and enter at the same time, it sends the email immediately, and without giving you the chance to edit horrible nonsensical sentences which are in the midst of being written.

How that was supposed to go was, essentially, "I can't believe none of you bothered to respond."

Sincerely,
Dale

the case of the jailed pyxis user

Dear Dale,


I read your writing below and I have a friend who was wrongly convicted of stealing drugs at the hospital where she worked. The prosecution's entire case was a pyxis report. I'm curious about the reliability of the reports. I'm not wanting information on how to do any of it. What I'm mostly wondering is, could someone have made it look like she took the pills. The report was run twice with no flags, but after she was suspected, it picked up the information that convicted her. Any light you can put on the subject, or if you can direct me to somewhere that I can get more information, I'd sure appreciate it.


"Work has been going well. It turns out the midazolam I discovered was missing, wasn't. Which is good, because when something isn't where it's supposed to be, it always winds up with my little signature attached. I do know how to get around that, by the way, but I don't want my blog to be the favorite destination of health care workers who want to steal drugs out of the pyxis, so I'm going to leave it at that, except to say that if I ever get in trouble for stealing drugs I didn't steal, I plan to us that knowledge just to show the management I pretty much have a sticker of Calvin peeing on their beloved drug security. I don't think it will ever come to that. This place isn't rife with enough of those kinds of problems to make overreacting a symptomatic, commonplace event. You're innocent till proven guilty around here."


Thanks,
Steve

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Sorry it took me so long to get back to you. I've been on vacation.

The following information is pertinent to the medstation 2000 system from pyxis.

The reports generated by the system are indeed a perfect record of what the machines think happened. It's all archived away in a very secure fashion and printed out and hidden in a locked facility for the DEA to look in on any time they want. Hoorah. But if the reports reflect what the machines think they're doing and the machines aren't doing that, the data is worthless.

It's usually not worthless in the long run, which is only the case because people tend to be honest. I think this is because they think they're being watched, which with the biometric ID's psychological value is understandable.

If I were you I'd try to subpoena a FST (field service technician) and his or her records (if they have them) for the facility your friend worked at. They're going to have specific information about how much the machines break down and what kinds of problems there typically are. And they're not going to want to give it to you, not to make it sound too "down the rabbit hole"-esque.

There are 5 different kinds of storage in the pyxis, all with their different problems, all of which are directly related to their mode of operation.
matrix, cubie, carousel, tower, mini.
Controlled drugs like opiates only wind up in the secure ones. Cubie, mini, carousel.

Carousels spin, and sometimes the sensor gets screwed up and the machine opens to the comepletely wrong pocket. This happens ALL THE TIME. When it happens, and the drug the machine thinks it's open to isn't controlled and the drug it IS open to IS controlled, then the drugs that walk off and the machine doens't know the first thing about it. Where's your precious report going to get you on that one? The machine didn't do what it thought it did. I saw this happen every other day when I worked for pyxis.


Cubies release at the wrong times sometimes, and sometimes they even open up for no reason. This is probably the best single fact for you, as it's where the drug your friend is accused of taking most likely was. Sometimes, drawers full of cubies open up and every single cubie in the entire drawer opens at the same time. Ask a nurse is she's ever seen it. Ask an FST. And if they (the FST) pretend not to know what you're talking about, ask them what happens when they push the little red buttons in the back of the cubie drawers. That's what they're for. I think it's if somebody is dying or the software totally eats shit and they have to empty the machine out. They get the keys, open the back of the machine, and push the little red button, and every drug you could imagine is just lying there wide open. Sometimes, this happens without the keys, without the button being pusjed. The machine is crazy. There's another sure thing -- ask a nurse if the machine is crazy. I'm not a legal guy and I never watch annoying law shows, but I would think this fact alone could create a reasonable doubt that the appearance that Cardinal health is heavily invested in, that their system is ironclad, is not the case all the time like they'd have you believe.

Minis work fairly well in my experience. I really haven't seen problems with them opening, just not opening.

I hope this has been helpful. Good luck to your friend.

dear dog, bounty hunter

So there I was, watching Dog, bounty hunter, when they showed him sitting in his office on the phone. Behind him on the wall was a picture of George W. Bush. I looked up his business and emailed his work address, which is dakinebailbonds@msn.com

Dear Dog,

I was watching your bounty hunting show tonight and I saw you have a picture of President Bush on your office wall. Are you not aware that he lied to get us into a war? I had to email you because I assume that you're a patriotic guy and you wouldn't appreciate someone doing a thing like that to your country. I know I don't. In fact, I think that's the worst thing a president can possibly do.

However, opinions differ. So if there is some reason, and there may well be in your mind, that it's ok to lie to go to war, I would sincerely like to know what that reason is.

Thanks,
Dale Shipley.