Electric shock therapy and Death Stars!

Well, it definitely was an interesting weekend. I rolled into work around 7:30 am on Saturday to begin my long shift for the day (of course, after being there until 11:30 pm the night before!), and at first I just thought it was going to be hell. However, due to the fact that I both of the assistant managers on the floor were busy elsewhere, I assumed control of the floor. Ah, power in the workplace leaves me with such a heady feeling and brings the phrase "drunk with power" into reality. Though I am definitely a benevolent dictator, but I made sure things got done. By noon, I was walking the newest barista through the process of mopping the floors (the ones behind the counters, we don't do the lobby until close of course), and part of the process is to mop underneath the movable milk fridge that sits underneath the espresso machines. The unfortunate thing is that the cord for the fridge is too short for it to be moved, so every time it is moved the fridge is unplugged. Well, since it an enormous pain to plug it back in, especially if you have never done it before, I decided to show the new barista how and where it needs to be plugged into the wall. Unfortunately for me, having collected some water while it was sitting on the ground, when I plugged in the cord electricity arced through the water and shot up my arm. Now I have been shocked many times, but I have never been hit this hard. It felt like my arm swelled to three times its size before I was able to release the cord. Needless to say, there was a yelp of pain (ok, maybe a scream, but I won't admit to it, you'll have to ask the witnesses) and then me huddled up against the fridge clutching my arm for a solid two minutes. My arm felt both like it was on fire and that the entire Los Angeles Dodgers decided to practice there swings on my arm. Luckily, my arm went numb after about four minutes of this pain, and while my arm felt "weird" at least it wasn't hurting. Unfortunately, my arm "woke up" and it began to hurt and feel, the only way I can describe it, fiery tingling. I have never been one to treat electricity lightly, so after filling out a work injury report, I hightailed it to the urgent care and saw a doctor. Well, after calling me a lucky punk, he said that since my heart rate was normal, I had no burns, and my muscles weren't spasming that I should have no long term damage. He did however say that my arm would hurt and feel "weird" for the next week. Even today, my arm still hurts and is about half numb like its constantly in a state of sleep. Of course, now it's time to deal with worker's compensation which will not be fun.

In other news, I read an article today about the universe's true Death Stars. While the conclusions are typical alarmist journalism, it was a fun read. First off, 8,000 light years is a long distance and the chances that the pinwheel is perfectly aligned with the Earth to receive any of the death rays is slim to none. From that distance even a millimeter off from dead center would mean that rays would pass harmlessly by Earth. Second, the "short fuse" of this star is at a few hundred thousand years. Yeah, that's a guess if I ever heard one, but it does sound better than, "We have no idea." While this was definitely an interesting read (for one who loves astronomy, like I do), it definitely reminds that the general public is just not that interested in the Final Frontier when it takes this kind of story to make any sort of news.

Well, life as a whole is pretty decent. While I still have ups and downs, they have become easier to deal with and their strengths have lessened (well, the downs anyways). I still have many unanswered questions still ponder at night, I am making progress which is encouraging. Also, new openings have happened for the acting career, but too soon to really report anything quite yet. Hopefully in the next week or so I will have some big news.