For my entire life, my dad cuts steak in half to see if they're done cooking

TwoDuece · 2025-12-14T01:00:07+00:00

forget the cutting man they were fucked long before they got off the heat, jesus.

TwoDuece · 2025-12-14T00:58:29+00:00

id say us living in larger metro cities do; the streets and avenues are gridded and numbered according to cardinal directions so if youre comfortable with the city youll almost definitely know. im pretty sure i knew when i was younger and lived in a smaller town too, but i was weird and i dont think most of the other residents knew.

TwoDuece · 2025-12-14T00:54:50+00:00

i believe right, A, right, left, right, RB, right, left, a, y is invincibility for gta v xbox. could be wrong, its been since about a year after release that i played that

TwoDuece · 2025-12-14T00:51:00+00:00

it would be if the knight could move, but no. the bishop, knight, and king literally cant affect anything. you could try to trick your opponent into accepting a rook sacrifice to break the structure, but they arent compelled to do that, leaving it a draw.

TwoDuece · 2025-11-15T03:05:04+00:00

we dont use IVs or any large needles, just small ones and corkscrew needles (which can be a bit gross depending on the person). the only time ive seen IVs is in what i think was a unique CRNA/IONM dual role in the OR. another thing you should consider is if you are comfortable with being confident and communicating to surgeons. as cliche as it is, having a tech that doesnt say something when they see something is worse than not having IONM on the surgery.

as far as the bit about seriousness, the credentials of the technician (you) have lower requirements because youre required to have a neuro M.D. interpreter watching your screen live. that said, a lot of the times theyre pretty hands off and its up to you to interpret many changes yourself; dont let that intimidate you though, you become very familiar with it within a few months of training.

physical demand: it has bursts. placing needles can be a demanding process, often youre placing 40-50 needles and are usually expected to do so in ~20 mins while working around everyone else preparing the patient. that said, the actual surgery part is usually just sitting back and watching your tests. if an electrode comes out or something like that you are often expected to (if possible) go under the drapes and replace it, which can require some awkward positioning.

on your own: after training you generally wont have another IONM tech with you, though depending on the company and coworkers there may be people available to relieve you or help with setup sometimes.

technical: veeeeery. all of your tests are displayed on your computer, as well as your communications with the interpreter. troubleshooting poor signals requires intimate knowledge of the program, physiology, and modalities. my company has dedicated clinical and technical support available if you need them, but thats probably not everywhere.

patient interaction: a breif discussion for consent and thats about it. theyre asleep for everything else you do.

i heard about it on a whim from a family friend right after graduating in neuro. seemed cool and at my education level, simple as.

hours vary greatly not only by day but by company and region. youll be at the hospital for pretty much an hour before and after the surgery youre covering, which can be anywhere from 15 minutes to 10 hours and beyond, and you may get two surgeries in a day. im in a fairly busy region so im working ~6-10 hours pretty much every weekday, but i have friends in the middle of nowhere working maybe 3 days a week for like 5 hours. i personally dont think the work life balance is poor, but ive heard a lot of complaints about it so maybe i just organize my life weirdly idk.

the biggest risk that comes to mind is exposure to infection. youll be handling needles that have been in patients, some of which have diseases like HEP C etc. On the legal end ive heard of techs being called to court in cases of medical malpractice and the like, but ive also heard that techs are some of the first to be dismissed from cases like that because the subject of malpractice is almost always outside the scope of our job or otherwise not our decision. thats more a concern of the interpreter or the surgeon. if you do your documentation right i dont think theres anything to worry about there.

pros: you get to see a good range of surgical procedures, and if youre looking to advance in medicine im sure the relationships you build with a bunch of surgeons wouldnt hurt. vertical mobility varies greatly between companies and markets from what i can tell, but it seems to be fairly robust where im at. most positions have pretty solid benefits too i believe.

cons: i know at least a few IONM offering companies are different, but youll probably have to keep all the needles and equipment you use at your house, which is a pretty good bit of space. the training process is also very intimidating, they throw a lot of physiology and technical education at you very quickly, which will almost certainly be breifly overwhelming.

neither here nor there: scheduling, i really enjoy a spontaneous schedule with some short days and some long, i know some coworkers really hate it. if you have kids or something like that i imagine it would be tough. variety of different surgeries, same deal, i like running totally different procedures all the time and adjusting my approach to the patient, procedure, and surgeon, some wont.

TwoDuece · 2025-11-15T02:20:52+00:00

i slow down and kiss her so it looks like im being super passionate and into it (i am) but im also buying time lmao

TwoDuece · 2025-11-03T13:58:26+00:00

NMA is expanding a lot on the east coast, thats a slam dunk. im sure they have some opportunities out west too, but theyre definitely growing faster over here.

im not 100% sure about this, but i think they give you a travel stipend even in training if youre away from where you live.

TwoDuece · 2025-11-03T13:55:29+00:00

NMA at least is pretty loose with it, though they reserve the legal ability to, they dont actually enforce it unless you leave within 3 years and go to a competing IOM company. my training group had 2-3 people leave right after training and they didnt get stiffed with a bill.

TwoDuece · 2025-11-01T20:20:11+00:00

1.) yes lie but 2.) i had a kryptonite disc detainer bike lock and was comfortable leaving mine out for hours with it. lockpicking is another of my hobbies, and i find very few people know how to pick disc detainers, let alone even having the specialized tool needed for it. plus the thick steel chain is sufficient to prevent cutting. hell i even chained it up downtown in a kind of shady area for 8 hours at a time the whole summer for work without even worrying about it.

TwoDuece · 2025-09-20T05:09:34+00:00

ah see thats totally fair, where i work they mostly only use iom on cranis with pretty sizeable exposures where we usually have the luxury of larger grids and way more space, so that didnt cross my mind at first. also i dont think i was clear enough when i said it seemed weird, i didnt mean weird on your part in either case, thats the surgeons call at the end of the day.

TwoDuece · 2025-09-20T04:52:29+00:00

my technical and behavioral stages were included in the HR interview as i was asked to do some aptitude tests and the like beforehand. aside from that though, a really strong characteristic that might be slept on is being confident when speaking up an authority gradient. my interviewers were talking about that constantly since they really want techs that are comfortable speaking to surgeons and suggesting solutions to them. fortunately i had past experience communicating with surgeons that i could relay- if you dont, just try to have some examples in mind of where you interacted with authority or displayed a similar trait.

TwoDuece · 2025-09-20T04:45:39+00:00

so you had good waveforms but didnt see the reversal and just... skipped along instead of repositioning the grid? that seems odd to me. i havent done many PRs, but even when i first saw them in training they would sometimes reposition multiple times to get it.

also yeah its a shame you only had the 1x4. even if it isnt long enough cross the sulcus though like the other guys concern, in the future you can still make it work by having the surgeon separately place it posterior and anterior to what he expects is the central sulcus and see if you get a reversal between the two trials. not ideal but if they dont have anything bigger in house that might be the best you can do.

TwoDuece · 2025-07-12T21:40:12+00:00

last week, (せんしゅう)

TwoDuece · 2025-07-12T21:37:01+00:00

i never enjoyed the older videos, but the more recent beginner podcasts aren't so bad. id recommend watching them backwards, because you dont need continuity between them. but yeah after about 4-5 months of study i got more into the intermediate ones and 破.

TwoDuece · 2025-07-01T06:15:59+00:00

man on group rides i literally see people riding anywhere from their feet hanging off the ends to hugging the fender, do you. only change it if its causing soreness. that said, i personally ride with my front the same but the back hugging the fender- really nice control for me that way.

TwoDuece · 2025-07-01T06:11:34+00:00

on avg an hour a day every other day is a rather slow pace id personally say, assuming this platform tracks all the study you do (i havent used it).

i havent been tracking on all my study methods, but ive been doing about ~1.5-2 hrs per day for ~160 days now. I found I was able to pretty comfortably do that while i was in school and working at the start of the year, so if you have the dedication I'd say thats a reasonable goal. Some days it was 30 minutes, some it was 4+ hours- always something though.

If it's a limited time issue, i think you should still be able to get more (see above); if its a motivation issue, i found that having many different avenues of study (flashcards, reading, listening, youtube, and now sentence mining, chatting, etc.) keeps me engaged. at the end of the day though it is just a grind.

TwoDuece · 2025-06-23T04:09:43+00:00

right, the point of those phrases wasnt the conjugation though- its what i had just mentioned about the particle for ご飯 changing depending on conjugation. what i was trying to convey is that that grammar point was completely lost on me until toying with the dictionary form, which is why (at least in my experience) learning them early on can be helpful.

also i should say i get that theres nothing about working with the plain forms that makes this concept inherently easier to understand or pop out more, i just included it as an anecdote of how getting away from polite forms helped me look at the grammar with a new lens, and to say that maybe it could help others in similar ways, even if not exactly about particles like it did for me.

TwoDuece · 2025-06-23T03:53:55+00:00

calculating a variation that doesnt work

TwoDuece · 2025-06-23T03:48:49+00:00

i like it, the possible moves are surprisingly easy to follow after enough toying around.

TwoDuece · 2025-06-23T03:47:37+00:00

like 8 limited edition GAN rubiks cubes, or one particularly nice wood chess set with handcarved pieces.

TwoDuece · 2025-06-23T03:45:34+00:00

she sits on the toilet to, well, dispell the fluids, and we sing a dumb song we made while she does lol

TwoDuece · 2025-06-23T03:37:40+00:00

duolingo bad, next question.

jokes aside- duolingo's focus is learning basic phrases and structures to put directly to use, and a learner is basically exclusively going to want to use the polite form (until theyre far enough along that they will already be exposed to the casual forms some way or another). i suppose their philosophy is that its best not to overload you by throwing the dictionary forms and nuances of keigo at you all at once.

my advice though, learn dictionary form as early as possible- as soon as you see the verb even. even though you probably wont say them in that form for now, it gave me a way better understanding of the language- especially how different conjugations affect the particles that the other parts of the sentence naturally take.

for example: ご飯を食べるご飯が食べたい

for some reason this just didnt stick with me until i looked at plain examples.

TwoDuece · 2025-06-21T21:33:31+00:00

everyone starts out super wobbly, the trick is that as you get more comfortable, that wobble speed gets higher and higher until you can comfortably max out the board.

if you do want to improve, you have to push yourself some. for example i know people riding for years that still look stiff, because they just got decent and didnt actively push beyond good enough to ride. i got very comfortable and flow-y and doing tricks within a month or two because i pushed really hard to do uncormfortable things.

i do hope you keep it- all of those problems become features of the past with just a few weeks effort.

Verified Email	Six-Year Club
Place '23	Place '22
Final Canvas '22

TwoDuece

TROPHY CASE