The Kindle version of the first volume of my MCAT(R) study guide can be downloaded from Amazon FOR FREE this weekend (9/5 and 9/6/15).

If you're just dying to know, I'm about halfway through the second volume, covering Gen Chem, Organic Chem and Physics.

Also, our Bassett hound needs a tummy rub:

Pet stories

Tank, the same cat that sent me to the hospital about 4 years ago*, spent Monday night and Tuesday night knocking things off my desk.

Normally when he is being annoying it's because he wants me to feed him.  I'm not sure what the issue has been so far this week, though, since feeding him hasn't stopped the gravitational experimentation.

After two nights the sleep deprivation was about to kill me, so last night I foiled his furry little nefarious plans by covering my desk with a sheet.

We slept through the night, or, at least, I did, so there's a minor victory.

When I just removed the sheet from over the desk I got it caught on the back of the monitor, I guess, as I swept just about everything off my desk, including the things that are too heavy for Tank to move.

Victory turns to defeat.

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*Christmas 2011, and I was lying on the couch.

First feeding request (foot bumping):  I did not respond.

Second feeding request (looking at me like I'm some kind of idiot):  I did not respond.

Third feeding request (knocking the remote control off of the arm of the couch):  I did not respond.

Fourth and final feeding request (biting me on the eyebrow, demonstrating that he can, if necessary, eat me):  I got up and fed the cat.

December 27, 2011:  One tooth caught the very thin skin of my eyelid, which by then was horribly infected and swollen shut.  Dr. Mac's office is closed, of course, so off to Urgent Care.

Urgent Care Center Doctor:  Yikes, that eyelid looks horrible.  What happened?

Me:  My cat bit me.

Doctor:  On the eyelid?  How tall is your cat?

Plumbing repair story

Problem:  Toilet tank does not fill.

Solution:  A quick trip to Lowe's for a new valve float tower thingy.

Outcome:  Fastest, simplest home repair ever.

Problem:  What the heck?  Why is the bathroom floor all wet?

Solution: Double-check and tighten all the connections.  Place a bowl under the toilet to catch any dripping.  Wait a while to see if maybe the seals just need to swell up a little or something.

Outcome:  Pending further developments, all seems to be well.

Problem:  Roscoe (Labrador retriever) chooses to drink out of the drip-catching bowl, spilling most of the water.

Why he did that:  All the advantages of delicious, delicious toilet water, without the inconvenience of asking a human to raise the lid for you.

Solution:  Replace drip-catching bowl, raise toilet lid.

Problem:  That must mean the drip catching bowl was catching a significant number of drips.  We must still have a leak.  Investigate.  Seems to be leaking from the toilet supply line where it attaches to the new valve float tower thingy.  Bad seal?

Solution:  Another quick trip to Lowe's.  A new toilet supply line with rubber seal thingies is only $0.25 more expensive than the new rubber seal thingies by themselves, so I get a new toilet supply line.

Outcome:  Got the wrong toilet supply line.  There are several possible sizes for the lower connection, such as 1/2 inch, 5/8 inch, and 3/4 inch. 

Solution:  Go back to Lowe's, get the other size.

Outcome:  Nope, still not right.  Ours seems to be 251/410 inch.

Solution:  Dig through trash, recover original toilet supply line and rubber seal thingy.  Re-install.

Outcome:  Still dripping.

Solution:  Let it drip for a while.  Give it a chance to miraculously heal.

Outcome:  Sometimes the Lord is Not Subtle.  The drip worsens.

Analysis:  The drip is present with all permutations of new and old toilet supply line and new and old rubber seal thingies.  The common factor is the new valve float tower thingy. 

Problem:  Perhaps the inlet of the new valve float tower thingy is itself faulty or ill-manufactured.

Solution:  Go to Lowe's again, but this time get the top-of-the-line $18 valve float tower thingy.

Outcome:  While installing the newest $18 valve float tower thingy, notice that the rubber seal thingy on the inside of the tank of the new valve float tower thingy (not the newest $18 valve float tower thingy that I bought this morning, but, rather, the one I bought last week) was somehow installed upside down, thus making it impossible for the rubber seal thingy to accomplish that it was designed to accomplish.

Analysis:  I must have installed the afore-mentioned rubber seal thingy without paying sufficient attention to the instructions provided with the valve float tower thingy, thus exhibiting the sin of hubris.

Result:  Express one's frustration, humiliation and embarrassment through the media of blasphemy and obscenity.  Invent, through purely description means, of course, and not by demonstration, a new form of deviant sexual behavior involving noted religious figures, pig nipples, Viking helmets and swim fins. 

Obvious solution:  Install rubber seal thingy in correct orientation.

Problem:  I have added the sin of blasphemy to the sin of hubris.  Sometimes the Lord is Not Subtle.  Approximately half-way through the re-installation process the shut off valve at the base of the toilet now fails, delivering approximately 250 gallons of water per second into my face.

Solution:  Send Dad out front to shut off the water supply to the house as a whole.  Complete the re-installation of the new valve float tower thingy (not the $18 valve float tower thingy, but the one I bought last week) with the rubber seal thingy in the correct orientation, using the original, 20 year old toilet supply line.  Ignore the failure of the shut off valve at the base of the toilet.  Place newest $18 valve float tower thingy and new toilet supply line in closet.  Note that there is now a great deal of room in the closet, as every towel we own is currently soaking up water on the bathroom floor.

Outcome:  Uncertain.  It is difficult to know if the re-installation is dripping, as EVERYTHING IN THE BATHROOM IS NOW DRIPPING.

Observation:  I have four college degrees.  

Significance:  Unknown.

Congratulations, you must be very proud

Louise, Donna and I are sitting in the break room at work [names have been changed to protect the innocent].

Louise announces that her son, Robert, will be receiving an award at some sort of school function on Thursday night.

The thing is, it is (at the time) a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving, and Robert has only been in kindergarten since late August.  As a properly trained scientist, dedicated to spotting anomalies and solving problems, I wonder what this child could have accomplished in the first two and a half months of his academic career that would merit some sort of individual award.

"What can Robert have accomplished," I say, "in the first two and a half months of his academic career that would merit some sort of individual award?  Did he write an opera?  Did he design a new kind of super-efficient high band-pass filter?  Just how good can his macaroni rocket ship be?"

"Is it possible," as I conclude my observation, "that every student will be receiving some sort of award this Thursday?"

Donna is looking at me as though I have just torn the head off of a Cabbage Patch doll - a behavior of which she had previously not thought me capable.

Louise is looking at me as though she has decided to see if there is something to telekinesis after all, and is attempting to set me on fire using only the power of her mind.

I'm sitting there, wondering why Donna and Louise are looking at me like that.

After a second or two, Clark, our boss, walks into the break room.  Clark notices that something has happened, but knows not what.

Karen says "Hey, Clark, Louise says that Robert will be receiving an award at school this Thursday."

"Congratulations!  You must be very proud," Clark says, as he gently pats Louise on her shoulder.

OH!  That's what I SHOULD have said!  "Congratulations, you must be very proud."  Yes, that's way better than what I said.  It's even true.  She must be very proud, or she wouldn't have mentioned it.  I have to remember that.  I should practice it when I get home.  Congratulations, you must be very proud.  Congratulations you must be very proud.  Congratulations, you must be very proud.

Sometime in the following week, after Louise had resumed speaking with me, she said that, yes, every single student in the class had received some sort of award that night.

"Congratulations," I say, "you must be very proud."

"Geez, Jim," she says, "you must be some kind of autistic 'tard of some kind."

Evidently I still have work to do.

Just getting started ...

Greetings, Earthlings.

I've just self-published the first volume in what I hope will be a series of study guides:



It's available in electronic book format in the Kindle store on Amazon, and in paperback from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, CreateSpace, and probably other places, too.

Here's at least one weird thing:  I just looked on Amazon and someone is offering to sell you a new copy for six times the price at which Amazon will sell you a new copy.  So, yeah, I don't know much about marketing, obviously, but that sounds like it might not be that good an offer.

I'll be posting additional bits of information, things I've thought of since the first volume was published, corrections of the egregious errors as readers point out to me, random stories that have no moral or purpose, and other things of such ilk, from time to time.