Mood:
mischieviousTopic: I can has topik?
Yesterday was a snow day. it was also total chaos. Dan had to go to a school sponsored high tech job fair and because the schools were closed his arranged ride couldn't get the car, and there was no bus to RIM park until 2:00, and my Dad's car was in the garage, ours was buried under ten inches of snow and encrusted with frozen rain, and Heather's dad doen't like to drive to unfamiliar places on un plowed roads...so finally Heather's best freind's step dad was contacted and gave Dan a ride to the job fair and he made some good contacts and gave his resume to several high tech companies, a few who were very interested.
After that, it began snowing again. Two separate storms in less than twenty four hours! Three storms in less than a week! Five storms since New Year's eve...when it snowed over six inches...but wasn't enough to be considered a storm. I'm quite happy there is another cold snap on it's way, it mean it will be too cold to snow for a while. We hope!
One interesting story to relate. On the corner of King and Victoria a large bright shiny new building is going up, a bright shiny new school of pharmacy...where pharmacy student will learn about drugs and interactions, the history of drugs and modern pharmaceutical practices, for all those who think a pharmacist counts pills, they are the first line of defense in prevent drug overdoses and fatal drug interactions, the pharmacist knows more about the drugs than the doctors in some cases.
This new biting had about five girders up, enough to frame a window, and the first of many windows goes in. These windows are quite distinctive, frosted and featuring paintings of several old medicinal plants, ones that are still used to this day. The building is quite impressive now, and everyday more work is done and more of these special glass panels are interspersed with the regular clear glass. My hubby walks past it everyday. On Tuesday He stopped for a while to look at while the light was red.
While he looked a man asked Dave what he thought. Dave said he liked the building, especially the panels with all the healing plants on them, since herb lore was the source of modern pharmacology. He asked the man what he thought. The guy answered that he wanted to know what Dave thought because he designed the building and the plants are an integral part of the building design, and for the reason's stated by Dave. The man was positively beaming with pride because Dave got the meaning of the building. The guy knew i was risky for the city's concrete block architecturally-impaired mentality (why build a fancy building when concrete blocks will do is the usual mantra for expensive and fancy public buildings) (and then they wonder why people think the city is ugly and without character)
Pharmacology and botany are closely related fields, Linnaeus, the man who invented the binomial method of taxonomy, was a doctor and a pharmacist, and an herbalist. He wanted a language that was not regional and would encourage consistency in herbal medicine. No longer would asparagus be called "sparrow grass" in someplace, while other regions would call it different fern names, everyone everywhere would recognize it first as asparagus sativas and then regional variations second. While asparagus isn't a big issue, if one plant has three names, and the same name in one region is applied to a different and poisonous plant, there are serious problems.
This history is what is referenced in the design of the building. It honors the plants of the past, and how they are still the medicine source of the future. In the future a public outdoor herb garden will be part of the school, and further down the road there will be a large indoor herbarium/arboretum where medicinal plants from the past, present and future will be studied. Science still looks to plants for medicines, and there are still medicines to be discovered in the plants of the world.
So this guy was thrilled that someone liked his building and knew about plants. And I get an interesting story to write about! I can hardly wait to see their herb garden. As I have mentioned I love plants, know about plants, and have been called a "plant talker" I dunno about that, but I hear some seeds begging to be turned into sprouts!
Speaking of Asparagus, here's a flash game where you use an asparagus gun to kill the evil broccoli! Of course...asparagus is good and broccoli is evil, especially that vile overpriced stuff imported from unknown central american countries.
And that's all for now. There's tons more shoveling to do, the snow isn't going away by itself and it won't be melting anytime soon either.
I think the real ones work better! Later!
