Without the details, I used to GPS to get to Yeehaw Junction, intending to take the same road as I did to Disneyworld a few years back. But the roadbed has deteriorated and become like a washboard, so I opted for the route through Lake Wales. There I found a Laundromat to dry my blankets, but they have this weird card system. You buy the card and they keep track of your laundry usage. Big Brother wants to know these things. I know I have photos of the place, so check back tomorrow or so.
It is still possible to make navigation errors with a GPS. Once again, you have to know where you are going and that is not always the way I travel. I cannot program the thing to do precisely what I want as the options are not there.
Kudos to the Denny’s at Davenport. They let me park overnight. I arrived after dark in a spitting rainstorm so they saved my bacon. The staff was great. Alas, the parking lot was so near the freeway I was entertained by noisy mufflers all evening even with my white noise generator on full blast. I was not over the frost line, so I had to sleep in shorts. The fan draws enough power that I will have to upgrade the battery—but I’m not convinced I need an expensive marine battery yet.
I’m underway. No sense waiting for everything to be perfect. At 7:30 AM I fired up the boilers and didn’t stop until Gainesville. It was the usual uneventful start as I drove north around the east shore of Lake Okeechobee and up to the town itself. From there it was due north to Yeehaw Junction. Here are random pictures of the day.
Here is a photo of Yeehaw Junction, I think. There is no sign and somehow I remember it as being different somehow on my last trip through, that was the Disneyworld trip of 2006. I can’t find my notes for this date but they’ll turn up somewhere. I had already left town when I realized my laptop computer is kaput. It will not boot up, a repair I cannot perform easily on the road.
I drove a few miles north on the road but it was in too bad of a shape. So I doubled back and drove to Bartow, FL, not to be confused with Barstow, CA.
ADDENDUM
I’m having exceptional fun with JZ’s medical texts—these are the books he’s lent me for study. There are gaps in my education that prevent me from grasping much of the material, especially foreign words, but my perspective is slowly changing toward the matter of laboratory test results. The books were published in 1985 and show that except at the margins where I can read his notes. There has not been that much change in medical knowledge at the working level.
DNA is mentioned once but indicates the results are sensitive to certain conditions. To what extent? A person who had foreknowledge of DNA testing could potentially take steps to taint the sample. I’d need to read more, but the literature suggests that a possible contaminant is ordinary vitamin B. Don’t quote me on that, the text isn’t clear. That’s why I said it suggests.
At the other extreme we touch areas where I do have a great education. I had to hold back the laughter and the tears about the 1985 predictions of how computers would change [concerning the treatment of sample results]. Distinguish this in your mind away from the collection, storage, and analysis steps. I’m writing [now] about only what happens eventually to all these type of records.
It is scary the degree into which imposed authority as opposed to hard facts begin to affect laboratory conclusions. Not all med labs are created equal.
One would like to think if subjected to, say, drug-screening analysis, that computerization made the test more automated and accurate. And that the computer treated your results separately and uniquely so that the findings were not influenced by any externalities whatsoever, but particularly social, prejudicial, or judicial concerns which could bias the testers interpretations. I suppose the one being tested would hope this the more if he were indeed innocent or drug-free. I can now assure you, that is highly wishful thinking.
Relatively little computer power has actually gone into the laboratory, but Niagaras of cash has flowed into the statistical interpretation of the results which almost consistently compare to other results. In other words, merely standing next to a perp could make you both half-guilty. Every step added introduces potential for error, which I particularly note because the computer in the text is identical to my first Apple][e. I have a feel for both the system capabilities and the type of coding used. It was far from ideal, and “modern” languages that can be programmed by MicroSoft employees are even worse. The computer is an added step.
RULE NUMBER ONE FROM THE 1980s: Handing a computer to a person who is basically a boring idiot to begin with is asking for . . ., for . . ., well, asking for the Internet.
Conclusion: never completely trust lab results. Automated testing formulas are coded by the caliber of nerds who brought you HTML. Quality control is more concerned with on-time delivery than consistency of testing chemicals. Robotic testing machines are regularly calibrated to misleading averages rather than the more proper optimums. Data-logging is more connected with protection from lawsuits than accurate patient treatment. The recognized standards for laboratory management focus on how, not who, is permitted to perform the role. Even the very database designs show more focus on billing than feedback or updating.
[Author’s note: as a reminder, one of the largest “small” databases out there, MicroSoft Access, was so bad at time-stamping that I gave up trying to use it for tracking employee transfers. I’ll bet you money which database I’d find in a lot of labs.]
Added together, I’d say avoid giving samples, but if you must, keep a note of what the sample was originally for. This has a direct bearing on other tests right down to the order and timing of the samples, what type of tube held the sample, what chemicals were present, and even as to how and when the samples were stored and could anybody or anything have touched them.
That’s what I get from the only book I’ve read on lab tests. It is almost thirty years out of date. But thirty years has nothing on how Mother Nature produces generation after generation of incompetent people, bumbling and biased. However, unless there is demand, I will refrain from this depth of reporting on my studies. It is enough that the reader be aware I am capable of it but I can’t allow my precious blog to become dry academic reading.
