I'm doing a lot better. I have been unable recently to sit in my office chair or drive my car without considerable pain; I am now able to do both these things. My pain meds, which before were simply useless, are now quite a lot of fun ;)
And the only things I am doing are: 1) resting 2) not running 3) not lifting weights 4) getting traction at the physiotherapist's office 5) swimming
The thing is, no one, including the first doctors I saw, gave me any real hope that I might just recover. Even my beloved wifey-wife, who is a Worker's Compensation lawyer, told me that only surgery had the possibility of given me relief. I'm glad to prove them all wrong.
Feeling better. Crossing my fingers.
Friday, August 26, 2005
Thursday, August 04, 2005
God wants me tatoo'd
Just walking along minding my own business, doing some gym exercises too soon after recovery from shoulder strain and BLAM! ... I'm shot in the arm, or at least it feels like it. Burning pain in my shoulder, the feeling of red-hot dowels being shoved down the length of my right arm, my head bent over in forced navel-contemplation.
Anyone who knows me knows that my exercise regime can be charitably described as "mild". I think the ultimate cause must either have been the bicycle accident I had a year and a half ago wherein I was forced to slam on my brakes at full flat terrain speed and managed to fly over my bicycle and land on my arms, which thereafter hurt for a couple of weeks. Or, it might have been an earlier trip to Hawaii where I slipped climbing down a rock embankment, flipped around backwards and my arms were pulled backwards at an unpleasant angle over the edge of the rockface.
My neurologist says I have a herniated disk at C5 (I think) and that surgery, such as a laminectomy, is required.
He then suggests a surgeon he knows who I later find out is no longer taking patients. I make an appointment to see (just see, no cutty cut yet) two months out in October. I'm now waiting three days for a callback from colleagues of the first surgeon. They don't make it easy, do they?
My heart is out to all that have no insurance. How could you possibly get by? If my party has something to say about it, you will.
Anyone who knows me knows that my exercise regime can be charitably described as "mild". I think the ultimate cause must either have been the bicycle accident I had a year and a half ago wherein I was forced to slam on my brakes at full flat terrain speed and managed to fly over my bicycle and land on my arms, which thereafter hurt for a couple of weeks. Or, it might have been an earlier trip to Hawaii where I slipped climbing down a rock embankment, flipped around backwards and my arms were pulled backwards at an unpleasant angle over the edge of the rockface.
My neurologist says I have a herniated disk at C5 (I think) and that surgery, such as a laminectomy, is required.
He then suggests a surgeon he knows who I later find out is no longer taking patients. I make an appointment to see (just see, no cutty cut yet) two months out in October. I'm now waiting three days for a callback from colleagues of the first surgeon. They don't make it easy, do they?
My heart is out to all that have no insurance. How could you possibly get by? If my party has something to say about it, you will.
Sunday, July 17, 2005
The Story of English
I remember seeing, a long time ago, a PBS documentary on the English language called "The Story of English", narrated by Robert MacNeil of the MacNeil-Lerher report. It was utterly fascinating to me, especially the parts about Anglo-Saxon, the root of English brought to England by the people from the northwestern part of present-day Germany and Holland who invaded in the centuries after the Romans left. Especially cool was the part about Frisian, still spoken in northwestern Holland, which even today is similar enough to English that recognizeable English sentences can be written in it.
Since then, I've read Bill Bryson's "The Mother Tongue" and dug into the old English roots of Tolkien's work through Professor Tom Shippey's books "The Road to Middle Earth" and "Tolkien, the Greatest Author of the 20th Century". It reamains a fascinating topic to me.
I didn't every expect to see the documentary again. It is damn near 20 years old now, and I have not seen it in the documentary sections of the DVD stores. On a whim, I recently did a search for the series on Amazon, and it was available! Still on VHS, and costing nearly a hundred bucks, but I bought it anyway and it's just as good as I remember. I'd forgotten the interesting sections on the influence of Cockney and the "Guid Scots Tongue" (and if you know me, you know why the Scottish stuff is interesting to me ;)
Since then, I've read Bill Bryson's "The Mother Tongue" and dug into the old English roots of Tolkien's work through Professor Tom Shippey's books "The Road to Middle Earth" and "Tolkien, the Greatest Author of the 20th Century". It reamains a fascinating topic to me.
I didn't every expect to see the documentary again. It is damn near 20 years old now, and I have not seen it in the documentary sections of the DVD stores. On a whim, I recently did a search for the series on Amazon, and it was available! Still on VHS, and costing nearly a hundred bucks, but I bought it anyway and it's just as good as I remember. I'd forgotten the interesting sections on the influence of Cockney and the "Guid Scots Tongue" (and if you know me, you know why the Scottish stuff is interesting to me ;)
Friday, July 01, 2005
Partisanship is a Good Thing!
It occurs to me that, if it weren't for partisan politics, I would probably not be interested.
When I was growing up in the 70's, and just starting to become politically and socially aware, the general consensus among my peers was that politicians were all the same. Never mind the very obvious differences between the politically effective but amoral Nixon and the smart and genteel Jimmy Carter[1] (who was less polically effective). Vietnam had made the US government "the enemy". I and my peers had a strong feeling of malaise, that we really couldn't make a difference and that it wasn't worth getting involved with the "evil" government in any case. The Reagan era and Iran-Contra did little to dispel those feelings for me.
Then an interesting thing happened; Clinton was elected[2]. And everything changed; the extreme right mobilized and found that they had teeth, and went after Clinton (who, you must admit, was probably not the most liberal democratic president we've ever had) with amazing and, to my mind, way over-the-top attacks. It seemed as though interfering with Clinton and his presidency was the most important thing in the world, for no other reason that because he was a popular democrat (and the calls from the right for liberals to stop interfering with the Bush presidency seem really ironic).
Personally, this galvanized me, and continues to do so. Moderate Republicans, who might be interested in doing their jobs, rather than just attempting to gain and hold onto power, are swept aside and attacked (Jeffords, McCain, Hegel, etc.) by the controllers of their own party. They are so damned awful, in fact, that they keep me involved in politics where in normal circumstances I'd be off gazing into my own navel and watching those pretty girls go by.
Thank you Messrs. Gingrich, Frist, Hatch, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Lott, Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Hannity, etc., for keeping me interested! ;)
[1] Nowadays poor R.M. Nixon is dead, but Jimmy Carter continues to try to make a difference in the world through his Carter Center (and I am a contributor).
[2] Why is it that democratic presidents have to be Southerners these days? It doesn't seem fair; Northern voters will vote for whoever is competent and has "The Right Stuff", but Southerners won't seem to vote for non-Southerners.
When I was growing up in the 70's, and just starting to become politically and socially aware, the general consensus among my peers was that politicians were all the same. Never mind the very obvious differences between the politically effective but amoral Nixon and the smart and genteel Jimmy Carter[1] (who was less polically effective). Vietnam had made the US government "the enemy". I and my peers had a strong feeling of malaise, that we really couldn't make a difference and that it wasn't worth getting involved with the "evil" government in any case. The Reagan era and Iran-Contra did little to dispel those feelings for me.
Then an interesting thing happened; Clinton was elected[2]. And everything changed; the extreme right mobilized and found that they had teeth, and went after Clinton (who, you must admit, was probably not the most liberal democratic president we've ever had) with amazing and, to my mind, way over-the-top attacks. It seemed as though interfering with Clinton and his presidency was the most important thing in the world, for no other reason that because he was a popular democrat (and the calls from the right for liberals to stop interfering with the Bush presidency seem really ironic).
Personally, this galvanized me, and continues to do so. Moderate Republicans, who might be interested in doing their jobs, rather than just attempting to gain and hold onto power, are swept aside and attacked (Jeffords, McCain, Hegel, etc.) by the controllers of their own party. They are so damned awful, in fact, that they keep me involved in politics where in normal circumstances I'd be off gazing into my own navel and watching those pretty girls go by.
Thank you Messrs. Gingrich, Frist, Hatch, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Lott, Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Hannity, etc., for keeping me interested! ;)
[1] Nowadays poor R.M. Nixon is dead, but Jimmy Carter continues to try to make a difference in the world through his Carter Center (and I am a contributor).
[2] Why is it that democratic presidents have to be Southerners these days? It doesn't seem fair; Northern voters will vote for whoever is competent and has "The Right Stuff", but Southerners won't seem to vote for non-Southerners.
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
A Plan for Iraq
Regular citizens and senators from both sides of the isle are now calling for a timetable for withdrawl from Iraq. The President refuses to set one, believing that this would send the wrong signal to the insurgency.
It seems so simple; set a timetable for withdrawl but make it conditional. We will pull out on such and such a date, but only if violence has lessened this much, or the Iraqi army is now of a certain size, etc.
As I understand it, it is our presence in a country that really incenses the Islamic extremeists. By setting a conditional timetable we use both the carrot and the stick; the extremeists have their main motivating factor removed, but only if the country is really in good shape at the time. Seems like a no-brainer to me. Who loses?
That is, of course, unless WE have no real plans to leave.
It seems so simple; set a timetable for withdrawl but make it conditional. We will pull out on such and such a date, but only if violence has lessened this much, or the Iraqi army is now of a certain size, etc.
As I understand it, it is our presence in a country that really incenses the Islamic extremeists. By setting a conditional timetable we use both the carrot and the stick; the extremeists have their main motivating factor removed, but only if the country is really in good shape at the time. Seems like a no-brainer to me. Who loses?
That is, of course, unless WE have no real plans to leave.
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Thursday, June 02, 2005
Albany
You know what is important?
Having beautiful places to see, instead of unending urbanity.
Are you listening, City of Albany?
Having beautiful places to see, instead of unending urbanity.
Are you listening, City of Albany?
Friday, May 13, 2005
More on Vonage
Um, be careful if you are using Vonage and downloading with BitTorrent (I have good reason to do so, I assure you). It's pretty easy to hit your upstream limit and so interfere with your phone transmissions (which, of course, you won't hear and won't know is happening unless someone tells you).
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Vonage Arrives
My new Vonage phone adapter arrived last night. It seems to be working fine, and it is mighty cheap. I love getting emailed notices of voicemail messages, and then listening to them online (which even works on my Linux worstation at work).
I'm a little disappointed at the adapter, though, which is actually a full sized Linksys broadband router. A significant selling point of the system is the portability of it, and this adapter is less than portable. It looks kind of funny having two of them on my tv (my own broadband router is a Linksys wireless router).
My new Vonage phone adapter arrived last night. It seems to be working fine, and it is mighty cheap. I love getting emailed notices of voicemail messages, and then listening to them online (which even works on my Linux worstation at work).
I'm a little disappointed at the adapter, though, which is actually a full sized Linksys broadband router. A significant selling point of the system is the portability of it, and this adapter is less than portable. It looks kind of funny having two of them on my tv (my own broadband router is a Linksys wireless router).
Sunday, January 09, 2005
Saturday, January 08, 2005
Michigan
Here I am in beautiful Michigan. It's 26 degrees, and there's about 3 inches of snow. The wifey-wife can't go skiing yet because of her hip injury, so I'm satisfying my snow jones this way. Unfortunately my Mom tells me it'll all be gone by Wednesday, darn it.
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Treo 650 Mini Review
I picked up a new Sprint Treo 650 yesterday; it's a keeper. It is in all the ways I can find superior to my Sprint Treo 600.
Highlights:
* The keys are bigger, flatter and easier to push; it is much easier to type on the 650.
* The screen is SO much nicer; photos look great!
* The camera is totally useable, even in low light. The camera on the 600 was useless, IMHO.
* The screen resolution allows other apps to work better; for instance, PalmVNC looks much nicer and is much more useful as the higher resolution doubles the size of your control window. Also, pssh will allow unix apps that require minimum terminal sizes (such as "w") to funtion properly. You've never seen terminal text so small, however.
* Bluetooth is very cool. Setting up Bluetooth syncing is terribly easy with a Mac, and the syncing is very handy, if not faster than USB sync.
Problems:
* Versamail 3.0 (only available on the 650) seems to have problems with my SSL IMAP server; I have been unable to use it so far. Sprint support is contacting Palmone about this problem; in the meantime the Snappermail Demo works fine.
Highlights:
* The keys are bigger, flatter and easier to push; it is much easier to type on the 650.
* The screen is SO much nicer; photos look great!
* The camera is totally useable, even in low light. The camera on the 600 was useless, IMHO.
* The screen resolution allows other apps to work better; for instance, PalmVNC looks much nicer and is much more useful as the higher resolution doubles the size of your control window. Also, pssh will allow unix apps that require minimum terminal sizes (such as "w") to funtion properly. You've never seen terminal text so small, however.
* Bluetooth is very cool. Setting up Bluetooth syncing is terribly easy with a Mac, and the syncing is very handy, if not faster than USB sync.
Problems:
* Versamail 3.0 (only available on the 650) seems to have problems with my SSL IMAP server; I have been unable to use it so far. Sprint support is contacting Palmone about this problem; in the meantime the Snappermail Demo works fine.
Friday, December 24, 2004
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
The Wife Gives a Big Thumbs up for the DVR
As soon as Comcast put the DVR in (a Tivo-like device, but which can record HDTV as well) the wife totally took it over. Within hours it was recording "Road Rules" and Alton Brown's "Good Eats" (the only cooking show I can bear to watch). This from the lady who didn't want HDTV, didn't want Tivo, etc.
Pat Robertson a Liar or Deluded by the Devil?
From usatoday.com:
"I think George Bush is going to win in a walk," Robertson said on his 700 Club program on the Virginia Beach-based Christian Broadcasting Network, which he founded. "I really believe I'm hearing from the Lord it's going to be like a blowout election in 2004. It's shaping up that way."
So, either he's a liar or he's deluded (by Satan, maybe)? Bush won by a tiny majority.
I guess people will stop listening to him now.
"I think George Bush is going to win in a walk," Robertson said on his 700 Club program on the Virginia Beach-based Christian Broadcasting Network, which he founded. "I really believe I'm hearing from the Lord it's going to be like a blowout election in 2004. It's shaping up that way."
So, either he's a liar or he's deluded (by Satan, maybe)? Bush won by a tiny majority.
I guess people will stop listening to him now.
Sunday, December 19, 2004
The New Steven R. Donaldson book
I just started reading the new Steven R. Donaldson book, "The Runes of Earth (the Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant)".
Of all the Tolkien-influenced fantasy books, the Thomas Covenant series made the largest impression on my teenaged self. Rape, despair, murder, being a leper and a pariah in the community, it was heady stuff. (All right, I had a lot of angst as a teenager. Sue me) Looking back and remembering it now it seems overwrought, although I have occasionally gone back and read parts of the final volumes of each series.
I'm only a few chapters into the new book, and it certainly begins with a bang. I won't give away the plot except that it stars Linden Avery, the despairing doctor who fell in love with and was eventually redeemed by Thomas Covenant, and takes place 10 years after the events of the last series.
The one comment I wanted to make is that, beyond the surface Tolkienisms, one main underlying theme is the same in both series, which is the evil of despair. If you've ever read Tom Shippey's two books of Tolkien analysis, "The Road to Middle Earth" and "J.R.R. Tolkien, Author of the Century", you will know that that was one of the most important themes of the Trilogy and of the Hobbit. Donaldson uses more "modern" idioms to get this point across, but it's interesting that they have such a similar theme.
I recommend it for those who enjoy epic fantasy.
Of all the Tolkien-influenced fantasy books, the Thomas Covenant series made the largest impression on my teenaged self. Rape, despair, murder, being a leper and a pariah in the community, it was heady stuff. (All right, I had a lot of angst as a teenager. Sue me) Looking back and remembering it now it seems overwrought, although I have occasionally gone back and read parts of the final volumes of each series.
I'm only a few chapters into the new book, and it certainly begins with a bang. I won't give away the plot except that it stars Linden Avery, the despairing doctor who fell in love with and was eventually redeemed by Thomas Covenant, and takes place 10 years after the events of the last series.
The one comment I wanted to make is that, beyond the surface Tolkienisms, one main underlying theme is the same in both series, which is the evil of despair. If you've ever read Tom Shippey's two books of Tolkien analysis, "The Road to Middle Earth" and "J.R.R. Tolkien, Author of the Century", you will know that that was one of the most important themes of the Trilogy and of the Hobbit. Donaldson uses more "modern" idioms to get this point across, but it's interesting that they have such a similar theme.
I recommend it for those who enjoy epic fantasy.
Saturday, December 18, 2004
Comcast HD with DVR
Just got my new HDTV DVR installed. This is the second attempt by Comcast; the first attempt on Monday this week failed when we found that the cable box would reboot itself every time I went to a menu. This time (Saturday) the installer was one and half hours late, but was very knowledgeable and this time the device worked. It's a dual tuner DVR with a 120 gigabyte hard drive; evidently this means up to 15 hours of HDTV recording.
It's cool; you can record one channel while watching another, and you can pause and rewind live TV. Besides the outputs I'm using (audio over fiber, component video) it also has fireware, usb and ethernet connectors. It'll be interesting to see if these become useful.
Apple's developer software comes with a simple firewire recorder; I understand I could record HDTV streams to my Mac but I won't be able to play them back from there. Not much point to that.
It's cool; you can record one channel while watching another, and you can pause and rewind live TV. Besides the outputs I'm using (audio over fiber, component video) it also has fireware, usb and ethernet connectors. It'll be interesting to see if these become useful.
Apple's developer software comes with a simple firewire recorder; I understand I could record HDTV streams to my Mac but I won't be able to play them back from there. Not much point to that.
Sunday, December 12, 2004
Warren Ellis digs one of my improvs!
http://www.diepunyhumans.com
Quote: 'Plasmabat's 'Sweet Dirge With Choir Patch" is a gorgeous buzzy piece of guitar-ambient. I love it.'
This is Lynda's favorite from Compost as well.
Sometimes I'm almost embarassed to publish these improvs; isn't it a bit like wanking? But it's a beautiful world where I can wank for your enjoyment.
Quote: 'Plasmabat's 'Sweet Dirge With Choir Patch" is a gorgeous buzzy piece of guitar-ambient. I love it.'
This is Lynda's favorite from Compost as well.
Sometimes I'm almost embarassed to publish these improvs; isn't it a bit like wanking? But it's a beautiful world where I can wank for your enjoyment.
Saturday, November 27, 2004
Sunday, November 21, 2004
Just saw The Incredibles again, this time in DLP. It was wonderful, despite a projector problem that slightly marred the picture. Admittedly, I'm into the fantastic stuff, but this is one great movie. It always helps when you have some really uninhibited people in the audience who laugh at everything. Emeryville audiences are in for a nice in-joke or two :)
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