epistaxis

This is a fancy medical word for a nosebleed. I learned it in nursing school and wondered if I would ever really use it. Remember this word because it will come back up later.

The truth is that I had typed out a really long post that just died. Actually, I've got a really low internet connection in the hotel room and tried to open up an Adobe file in another window -- that killed both of my windows. Such is life. This post will attempt to be the sum-up...

I've enjoied the conference. I've both gotten to see people who I've not seen in a while, and also learned a few things, which in my book count towards a productive learning experience. Our hotel room is snazzy. The Hater's been taking advantage of their poker room. You might think that we have no complaints about the weekend.

But there wouldn't be a post without any complaints...

I do understand that casinos and gambling and drinking and smoking all go hand-in-hand. I know that the world shouldn't bend over backwards for any group of people. But the smoke here has been awful. Even their "nonsmoking" rooms have reeked.

We sleep with a humidifier at home, which has probably made me more sensitive to the dryness here. My eyes are like sandpaper and my nose aches. Tonight I've had two nosebleeds from the dryness... I've tried to hover over a sink of running hot water with a towel over my head for some ease, but it's not really helping. I anticipate at least one more nosebleed before the morning.

So I'm feeling rather pitiful tonight. I'd like to be downstairs where the action is -- people watching, looking for poker tells, loitering at the piano bar -- but I'm up in my room instead, trying to will myself into a more hydrated state. So far I'm breaking even with the house...

The point of this post was to whine, but not at smokers -- just the smoke. If you're a smoker I'm not going to play like I'm your mamma or the Surgeon General. If you're not aware of the health risks of smoking, you can look here for more information. If you'd like to blame your mamma for smoking, you can look here at Freud's psycosexual theories about oral fixation. If you'd like more information about lung cancer you can look here, here, or here. If you'd like to hear a good story sometime, ask me about why I wear a clear ribbon pin on my nametag at work.