My Journal- April - September 1998

Now that you understand this, let me explain why Type O Blood is more scarce. Because Type O- blood can be given to ANYONE, it is used all the time for Trauma situations. It takes approximately ten minutes to type someone coming into an ER, and many times, there aren't 10 minutes to spare, so O- blood is given. For more information about the rarity of type O- blood and why it's so desired, click here and then here. Here is a plea for Type O blood. Here is another- and another- and another. I wasn't kidding when I said my blood is desirable!

Here are the different Blood Types and the percentages of the population that have them:

What Blood Type are you? Have you donated lately? What if you ever needed blood? Wouldn't you be glad someone had donated for you? Want to be a hero? Donate Blood! I certainly hope that if I ever need blood, there is enough O- out there, cuz that's the only type I can take. Hell, maybe you'll save my life someday! Here's a site with some cool pie charts on population percentages of Blood Types.

TO make matters even more interesting, a woman with Rh Negative blood needs to be careful when getting pregnant. It is possible for a baby to inherit the father's Rh Positive blood. This means there is positive and negative blood mixing when the fetus develops. This is very bad and can be fatal to the baby- it causes anemia and can result in a fatal condition called erythroblastosis fetalis. If the baby has Rh Positive blood and the mother has Rh Negative blood, it's called Rh Disease, and a mother getting an injection before the 28th week of pregnancy and right after delivery can prevent it. Read more about this issue here or here or here or even here. Evidentally, first pregnancies aren't at risk because the mother usually hasn't produced the antibodies that attack Rh Positive blood. The anitbodies are usually formed immediately after the birth of the first child.

For information on wondering what blood Type your child might be or what your parents must be, check out the chart on this site.

Well, now, wasn't that interesting? Perhaps I should have been a bio-researcher after all! ;-)

As you can see, I'm not kidding when I say I've been busy. Plus, you only know the half of it. The other half is all too boring and long to describe here. Watch for some of it (the more exciting stuff) to make some news here soon, though.

Work has been busy, recently we released a new phase of PC Save and a new Intranet geared for our engineers (sorry, ya can't see that one). On July 11th I had my TWO year anniversary with CompuCom. Time flies.

The car and apartment are doing well. As a matter of fact, Nick moved in this weekend, as my previous roomate (Kyle) moved back home to Wisconsin. Was just silly for each of us to pay rent on 2 bedroom apartments, when he's over here most of the time we're not at work anyway.

I've also seen several movies lately, my favorite ones being Armageddon and The Mask Of Zorro. Antonio is Hotter than ever in this movie! Oh la la! Armageddon is NON STOP excitement, suspense, laughs and fun. I highly recommend it. One movie I've seen recently that I didn't care for was Saving Private Ryan. It was much too violent for my taste. I know it's all violence that really happened and that fact is a little too disturbing for me. Makes me have nightmares. I feel so bad for anyone who has ever had to fight in a war. I pray to God another huge World War will never ever break out again, but what are the odds? For those of you who haven't seen Private Ryan yet; just let me warn you that it is non-stop war and fighting. There is really no break at all from it. I can't even compare it to another movie. If you're easily grossed out or easily disturbed by war images, I really recommend you DON'T go see it.

Well, I'm getting ready to go to the Ranger game tonight! I hope they win! GO PUDGE!

• http://www.parentsoup.com/parentspicks/toy/Wigwam.6-14.17_29.html
• http://www.ifdirect.com/northforty/index.asp
• http://www.kjv.com/family/jpeg/hippos2.jpg
• http://www.bway.net/~zoid/music.html
• http://ng.netgate.net/~whitney/hippo.htm

I saw the travel version of the game when I was up in Pittsburgh last month visiting my parents. All the fond memories came rushing back as I picked up the game. "JON! Shut your mouth!" I yelled-- 18 years ago. My brother, Jon, was holding his hippo's mouth open so that all the marbles were rolling in. It wasn't fair! He was winning!

"Don't speak to your brother that way, young lady!" Mom called up from the living room. "How would you like it if he told you to shut up?" My brother and I looked at each other. Uh Oh. She misunderstood. I was telling the hippo to shut up, not Jon. My brother, being the sweet kid he was, vouched for me. We giggled and yelled back down to mom that I meant for him to shut the HIPPO'S mouth, not his. We laughed some more. I didn't get in trouble. Whew.

Why do memories like these stick so clearly in my head? I can picture us so perfectly sitting on the shag carpet of my brother's bedroom near the door. I can even see him sitting across from me, just 5 years old... long, dark hair hanging in his face as he leans over the game.

Seems like yesterday, and now we're both in our twenties. Weird, huh? Guess I'll still have the same memory when I'm in my eighties.

Well... that's all. Just a short little introspective to childhood games. As a kid... I had absolutely no idea what a strong and fond memory that minute would become in my mind. I wouldn't have been able to comprehend that fact anyway at that age.

Needless to say, a few minutes later, I found myself at the register with the Hungry Hungry Hippos game in my hands. What a great purchase.

Anyway, one night a couple of weeks ago I was talking to my brother on the phone, who was visiting my parents in Pittsburgh for his spring break. Somehow we got on the subject of Beanie Babies. Jon (my bro) reminded me about the one mom had sitting on the desk in the guest bedroom. 'Oh yeah!' I remembered! 'That Panda Bear!' That poor thing always sits there in the lonely guest room all by himself. The times I've come to visit and stay in that room, I'll always pet him a bit so he isn't so lonely, but other than that he doesn't really get any attention.

'Yeah, mom also has a dolphin.' Jon says. Good lord, where does he get his memory and attention for detail? I have no idea. 'I wonder if they're worth anything'. I quipped. I would have to ask Emily. She would know. Jon also mentioned he had a puppy Beanie Baby. Now we had three potential money makers! 'Hey Jon, can you get on the 'Net right now?' I asked. And so he did. He found a really awesome site: "Randy's Beanie Baby Price Guide" and discovered that Peking the Panda was the biggest money drawer. 'You're not going to believe this,' he says. 'It says Peking is worth up to $2100!' My jaw dropped. NO WAY! So unfair! So craaazy! I could hear the excitement in Jon's voice. I knew what he was thinking. I could hear the gears turning in that brain of his. How nice it would be to have an easy 2 grand to help him along through the semester. We teased about stealing it for a while, then I told him he had to tell mom how much it was worth and he agreed. I figured she wouldn't be that excited. I figured she'd want to keep it anyway, cuz that's the way Mom usually is. But boy was I wrong.

Jon called me a couple days later and said Mom was really excited about it and wanted to sell him (the panda, not Jon) so she could paint the house. Needless to say, I was surprised. 'Yeah,' Jon said, 'she wants you to put him on your web site to sell him.' Well, I could do that.

Anyway, so this leads me to where I am today. Posting Peking for sale on my site. He is in excellent condition and has all his tags in excellent shape as well! My parents shipped him to me insured mail and are very excited to make some money. I was excited to use my digital camera! Click. Click. Click! I took a ton of pictures of Peking and here are the best ones. Below are my favorites, then click on the links to see the others! If you're interested in buying Peking, please email me at Katie@Planet-K.com with your offer. We're trying to get as close to $2100 as possible and have had a few offers already (for lower than that, though). If you yourself wouldn't be interested in purchasing Peking, there's probably a good chance your co-worker or sibling or friend would! These things really are popular! If you could ask around for me and give any potential buyers this URL, I would really appreciate it (well, and so would my parents' houses' paint job).

        
Straight on from top pose
Belly pose
Tush pose
Back pose
Profile pose
Angle from top pose

Isn't he cute? I'm really starting to get attached to this little guy. I know I will have a hard time seeing him go when someone does adopt him. I'll miss him alot, but at least I know his new owner will love him very much (well, I'd hope so for somewhere 'round 2 grand!). But what is money compared to the admiring stare of this little guy, right? I'm starting to see why people love these things so much. They really do have personality. ;-)

Wednesday April 1st, 1998

Howdy! Guess what yesterday was? Texas Ranger's Opening Day! And I went! It was a lot of fun! I even got put on the HUGE screen! You know -- sometimes between innings they record people in the audience and project them on the big screen that normally tells the current batter's stats? Well, I was up there-- chair dancing! Yeee haaaa! I've ALWAYS wanted to be on that big screen! Sorta like being on TV or something. I think I'm obsessed with fame and fortune. Speaking of... I brought my glove, but I'm sorry to say, no foul balls came my way. Oh well. I did have great seats though. 20th row on the first base line! Unfortunately, the Rangers had to loose this one. I won't mention the score, but we did score TWO runs! So there!

I'm rambling... sorry. I do have to mention something worthwhile, though. Well, I don't know if you'll think it's worthwhile, and a few weeks ago I would have never thought I would think this is worthwhile... but I've suddenly realized that some of those Beanie Baby things are actually worth something. What's the deal? There was this HUGE craze and I thought: "gee, they're cute, but why would I need EVERY SINGLE ONE?" (like I should even be able to talk after looking at my web page dedicated to the Toy Story Alien).

Anyway, I never knew anything about Beanie Babies until I babysat some co-workers' (Kent and Tamara- FANTASTIC people, btw) children. Emily (6) loves Beanie Babies and has a ton and we played with them for a long time. To the left is a photo of Emily, with her brother Cody.

Playing with Emily's many Beanie Baby's made me realize... I have a Beanie Baby. I named him Morocco. Emily informed me his real name is Inky. He's a really cute pink octopus. Here is his picture:

Isn't he CUTE? Anyway, Nick bought him for me on his first visit to Milwaukee to meet me back in November of '95. This means Morocco is 2 and a half years old! Guess how much he's worth NOW?! Nick bought him for me for $6.95 and now he's worth a whopping... $8.95.

Needless to say, I wasn't much impressed by this fact. Then, for some reason, I got it in my head that I also had a Polar Bear Beanie Baby and I told Emily this. Several weeks later she called me and told me he was worth $910, but her prices may be out of date. I looked it up on the web and sure enough, Chilly the bear is listed as worth $1300! WOW! Now THAT'S AMAZING!

Here's the problem, though... when I found Chili (who I thought was Chilly anyway), I was crushed to learn that he wasn't really a Beanie Baby afterall, just an impersonator! OH NO! My one chance at $1300 gone! GONE! AHHHH! I still hold a small hope that one day Chilly will turn up in the bed next to me, but I think I'm stuck with the fake one. Which is OK, cuz he's really really cute. Just not worth anything. I still love him. Here's HIS picture:

There's more to this story... but I think I'll hold you in suspense for a little while. This way, I'll actually be able to write sooner than one month from now! That's a miracle in itself!

PLEASE NOTE: None of this above story has been an April Fools joke. This is an April-Fools-joke-free site (well, at least this year it is).

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