Two Paths Diverged In A Wood...

...and I definitely took the geekier one.

Once again, I have not disappeared. Nor am I dead, ill, resigned from blogging, extinct, wiped out, or dispossessed of my mind. Well, possibly the latter at times, but not at the moment.

I was in a funk. Trying to find my way. Things were cloudy. I needed a plan. And now I have one. Well, two. No, I am not going to go into the two-plan theory of Scatness right at this very second. It would take way too long and there are still details to work out. Suffice it to say that Scat has once again regained her...um, center? Whatever. Scat without a plan is not a Scat you want to behold or even be near. Scat totally derailed is even worse. But, the train is now back on the tracks and there are not one, but two plans in effect for the future of said Scat and she is greatly pleased. Rather than have plan A and plan B, I am proceeding with two plan A's. Yes. I am. Generally, whichever succeeds first wins. They are both equally pleasing and, in the long run, profitable. Yay. Great amounts of work will be involved (as usual), and there will be more school (big surprise), but it will be concurrent with work (yay).

In general, there is quite a bit of turnover happening family-wide, so I am not the only one with a new plan and new things, places, and ideas to get used to. There is a considerable amount of bumping into one another going on and quite a bit of who's going to ferry who to the airport when sorts of conversations happening, but such is our slice of life at the moment. No one who has known us for very long is surprised in the least. Most notably, Attrition and myself are doing a total turn-around in our day-to-day lives and this is, yes, causing some angst, but also causing some...joy! Out with the old, so-to-speak. And there was definitely some old to be had out with. And we are laying waste...to...that.

But for today, a total and complete display of geekiness.

There used to be a day when you had to buy an expensive contraption to adapt your camera (a special one at that) to fit to your microscope in order to get pictures of what you could see when you look through the eyepiece, but no more! Viola! Smartphones! Well smartphones, an understanding of focal lengths and a certain amount of steadying oneself and breatholding reveals things like this:

Transitional epithelial lining of the bladder! (Yes, inspiring subject matter, but we are, after all, studying the urinary system, so bear with me. Had I discovered my new-found talent during the chapter on blood or lymphatics this might have been more stimulating and less...weird).

Endothelial cells centrifuged from a sample of urine...yes MY URINE...are you grossed out NOW??

A bacterial crypt found in the sediment centrifuged from my urine...evidence of an attempted past infection.

Calcium oxalate crystals (more sediment from someone else's urine..even grosser, I suppose).

That really, really dark, black thing in the center is a tyrosine crystal (again, my urine sediment).

A mucosal thread (my sediment).

A section of kidney (not mine LOL) showing glomerular capsules (the white circles). The white circles are the Bowman's capsules and the red mass in the center is the glomerulus. This is where your kidney does it's filtration, well, in the capsules and the tubules surrounding them.

And all this done with my handy dandy iPhone.

Thus endeth the geek tour for the day.

Sleep well!

Scat