My finished book count is standing at a meager "2" at the end of April '09. What happened? I just looked at the number of books I have with bookmarks in them (indicating a partial read) and I stopped counting at 15. I'm going to narrow that down and finish four or five this weekend, but that still leaves a big ol' pile to deal with. Only five of the partials are from my "borrowed" pile...if I borrowed a book from you (dennis, molly, rick, brian, neil, etc.), it might be a while before you get them back ;) TV season is almost over, so I'll soon have one less excuse to avoid reading. Hopefully I can buckle down and get my read on all summer long.

 

-Jesse

Molly and I were talking about dinner last night after I got home from the grocery store when we heard a blood-curdling scream for help from a woman in the hallway, followed by swiftly running footsteps away from the area. I opened the door and saw a woman collapsed in the doorway of her apartment about 20 feet away. I ran to her to ask if she was alright. She was breathing in slow gasps and was totally unresponsive to my voice. She looked older, like in her late 50s, early 60s. I had never met her and didn't know her name. Now, I can guess how to take a pulse, and I've seen CPR done on television, but I had no idea what I was doing. Luckily within a few seconds, the other neighbors starting opening their doors and the boyfriend of the woman who had originally screamed for help came running toward the scene. The across-the-hall neighbor seemed completely frozen. I asked if he had a phone and if he could call 911. He thought for a second, and then disappeared. I asked the boyfriend if he knew CPR. He said yes and began looking for a pulse. He said it was irregular and started calling her name and rubbing her back. His girlfriend reappeared. She was on the phone with the police, and they asked her to describe if and how she was breathing. We told her that it was in gasping breaths every 30 seconds or so, and that she was otherwise unresponsive. By the time we timed another breath, we heard the sirens and people started running for the doors to make sure they could get into the building. The EMT felt for a pulse and called her name a couple of times and then said "Full arrest" into his radio. Within a minute a couple of different teams arrived (the FD and PD are on the same block as Molly's building). They began working on her immediately with a chest compression machine and a mobile defibrillator. The defib eventually shocked her once, but there was nothing they could do to restore a normal pulse. They worked on her for what felt like 20 minutes before finally calling time of death. I'm leaving a lot out, but it's pretty clinical stuff and I don't have a lot of personal perspective to offer. The neighbors said she's been in and out of the hospital lately, and that she was taking a lot of different medications. The police stuck around for a while to talk to the woman who found her and the apartment building people in order to get some contact information for her son. What a night.

Also I stopped going to school for a bit while I get my life back together. I miss Japanese...but not the homework ;) I really miss my firends at Concordia too, but I'm Facebook friends with them now, so there's that. Hopefully I can get back into it again this year, but I really need to settle into my job and into my new relationship before I commit such a big part of my time to school once again.

So I quit working at McKesson. I really liked the project and the people, but I had a couple of great opportunities come right up and knock on my door. I thought about taking a job in Saint Cloud very briefly, but I don't think my love life, sanity, or physical health would survive a 2+hr commute every day. I turned down another opportunity initially, but they approached me again and I decided to take it, so now I'm working at PROSAR with my friend Dennis.