Drained

I have returned from the blood drive. It went very well. I observed some extremely interesting technology there; the same nifty one-way valve devices that allow them to take multiple tubes (and the actual blood sample) with a single needle. There was also a small finger-sized device that used a tiny spring-loaded needle to quickly shallowly puncture the tip of a finger to test iron levels and such. The technician doing this was fast; he swabbed my finger, and took a sample within twenty seconds. There was also a complex network setup involving laptops, some sort of Palm Pilot-based device for keeping track of blood samples, and I would imagine some sort of server or gateway. It was pretty awesome.

I got a bunch of stickers too.

Unfortunately, one of my friends couldn’t give blood because her temperature was too high. It was very disappointing, but it was good that we went.

I ended up not being able to meet my family for dinner; by the time I was done they were home. Just as well, because I heard that the food was not too good. So it goes.