Welcome to Alchemist Threadworks, Claire!

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Alchemist is excited to annouce that Claire Lochridge is the new Director of Sales.  The former director of sales at Alchemist was cranky,  incompetent and couldn't sell crap, so he got himself fired.  Claire brings a background in journalism, a sunny dispostion, and a southern drawl which will surely sell a boatload of shirts.  Please take a moment to welcome Claire to the Alchemist family. Welcome, Claire!

Another night shift here in the ER, which is when I seem to find the time and motivation to update the blog.  Claire has a much better command of the English language and will be posting as well.  It's been a refreshingly chill night.  I only saw a drunk lady and a guy who ran into a staircase so far.  No explosions yet.  The drunk lady was pretty entertaining though.  She told me she had nothing to drink tonight and then proceeded to have an alcohol level of almost 300, which is almost 4 times the legal limit.   Her arithmatic was the only thing worse than the sweetly sour stench of hard liquor on her breath and clothes.  And she was 70 to boot! But to her credit, she didn't drive in.

Monday's first Alchemist photoshoot was kinda rough.  As Mark said, "It can only get better from here."  It truly was just a calamity of bad timing, awkwardness, and ill-concieved ideas.  It's better not to explain it all, so I'll just get to the part we can giggle about.  Our model, Tracy, was super nice, but we should have explained the shoot a little better to her.  After disappearing to change into the Alchemist t-shirt, she returned decked out in foundation and mascara.  Given that the shoot was taking place in a bike garage and she was modeling a bike t-shirt, I felt like we needed a more . . . industrial look.  Mark used his shirt to wipe off as much of the foundation as he could, and we proceeded to smear chain grease onto her glamorous face.  She was remarkably receptive to the idea.  After a little grungification, she was ready to model.   That's when sparks started flying.  Literally.  Walt (from the illustrious Walt Works custom bikes, and whose shop we were using) used an abrasive cutting wheel to shoot sparks all over the garage.  Sadly, while the sparks looked great in real life, they didn't show up on film.  So Walt gratiously lit up the acetylene torch and started blasting the air with fire in the background.  That worked better, but made me a little nervous about having a Michael Jackson, hair-on-fire, emergency.  The final scene ended with Tracy holding the blazing torch on full blast in the air, Walt needing to attend to some things inside his house, and neither Mark, nor I having any clue as to how to shut the damn torch off.   I stood about ten feet away, too afraid to move.  We didn't even know where else we could hold the torch without permanently searing off our fingerprints. Fortunately, Mark braved the potential disaster, and rescued Tracy from the wand of fire.  But not before they did a little dance that looked like a strange game of Twister.  He moves pretty good for a big man.  Kinda stealthy.  In the end, the shots I liked best were of Walt wearing the "T.V. Sucks, Ride your Bike" shirt and actually working on one of his bikes.  That's not really fair to Tracy though because we were so pressed for time,  we never really set-up the shots appropriately for her.  And the situation was so unnatural, it was impossible to look, well, natural.  I hope Mark doesn't give up on me.  But again, it can only get better from here.

. . . So I just saw a 2 month old kid for "shaking".  Not body shaking, not arm shaking, not leg shaking, not head shaking.  But face shaking.

"Like his lip was trembling?"
"No."
"Like what then?"
"He was making foam."
"Did you say foam?"
"Yes. Foam."
"Uh, Like blowing bubbles?"
"No. Foam.  And he didn't feel good."
"Was he crying?"
"No. He just didn't look right."
"How so?"
"He didn't look right.  but he's fine now."

I couldn't think of a test for foam or for just-didn't-look-right-but-looks-fine-now, so I told them we would observe him for lack of anything else useful to do.  Now they are going home.  Nice Folks.  I just didn't know what I could offer.

Jeez, now it's 5am.  I gotta dictate and hit the sack before I have to see more foaming kids.

night.