A Random Walk Through That Other World

Morning weigh-in: 178.5#, 10% BF

What I've been doing lately to occupy my time (besides walking around in the woods and downtown) is, of course, playing with the computer, and what I've been doing on the computer lately (instead of buckling down and getting my high-speed internet connection running) is fiddling with math programs.

(I had a conversation with a friend's brother-in-law on Thanksgiving, where he asked me about Linux and wondered how I could possibly handle real world stuff like Microsoft Office documents, specifically Excel files. I told him I had two very good spreadsheets on my machine, and both were capable of reading Excel files, thank you very much. He countered with something like "well what about if it uses [some MS-specific technology], like what if has embedded video?" Well, top that, mister!

I was a guest -- and it was obviously a contest, not a conversation -- so I let him win; I was too polite to mention that embedded video in a spreadsheet was a digression from what spreadsheets are actually used for, and in fact, the mere presence of embedded video is a sign that the spreadsheet probably came from some marketing guy, is therefore worse than useless and can safely be ignored. Meantime, what if you wanted to do real math? A spreadsheet isn't even near able to do the job, but what could I say? The guy probably doesn't even know "real math," and in fact probably drinks Budweiser... )

Where was I? Oh, yes... So anyway, I've been playing with octave and Gnuplot again, mostly finger exercises to see if I can get them to do different things, solving differential equations that I pull out of my ass, plotting pretty cardioids in polar coordinates, generating different types of random numbers and plotting them to see which look most like the stock market -- this last one is pretty cool, I remember things from old "Mathematical Games" articles on "random walks," and now thirty years later I try them out for myself.

One thing octave can't handle right now is optimization, at least not until I install some library routines. In the meantime, I still have those genetic algorithms. They're written in C, so you'll never guess what else I've been messing with...

Bambi Mocks My Stupid Camera-Phone

Morning weigh-in: 178.5#, 10.5% BF

Listening: Will Carrol, "Some Lunch."
Next Song: Duende, "Overboard (live)."

Karen W told a story last night, about when she was riding with her dog Shelby the other day, and the dog flushed a doe (with fawn) hiding in the woods, separating the fawn from its mother and chasing it down. Nothing happened to the fawn except it was separated from its mom, but Karen was worried & felt bad. I'm sure it happens all the time, they separate to avoid predators & then regroup.

I saw this firsthand tonight on my Merril Creek walk, when I flushed a doe with two fawns: one fawn took off with the doe, but the other fawn ran in the opposite direction. When I first heard them I thought "aha, bear!" and took out my phone, then realizing what was happening I stood quietly and allowed the fawn to come back. It got almost within touching distance, then spooked just as I took the picture. Doh!

I started hearing thunder so I cut the walk short, maybe 2.5 miles. On the drive out another doe crossed the road in front of me, followed by another fawn; I got a good look at this one as well, as it struggled to get up the roadside embankment. Then, not a hundred yards away, two more deer were on the side of the road; both were full grown but one was missing its front left leg. I drove out of there pretty slowly after that, which was lucky because a few more deer jumped out at me on the way home.

More Listening: Gary Numan, "Cars."
Recessional: Bad Brains, "Sail On."

Greg also told a story: he and Judy raced their new sailboat on Saturday, and won!

Evening Recap

Listening: Iggy & the Stooges, "Search and Destroy."

Back from Greg & Judy's BBQ: Greg & Judy, me, Eric and Kris, Eric & Janna, Bob & Karen, and Brian. Mellow evening w/ burgers & salads & some socializing...

Before that, the afternoon: got my laundry done, and while it was drying I walked around downtown. It was like a ghost town, hardly any was about. People were probably trying to avoid the heat but I really didn't think it was too bad. (Granted, I don't have AC at home, so I get used to the heat, and get no escape by retreating inside anyway.) Anyway, among other things I took a tour of the Museum of PEZ dispensers. I wouldn't travel to see it, but if you're standing on Bank Street and have four bucks to blow, it's pretty neat.

Of course I took pictures, and so now I have a backlog of about 120 photos to go through, cull the duds and put the winners up on Flickr. Sooner or later.

Now it's Bauhaus, "Bela Lugosi's Dead," and with that I'm outta here.

New Gadget Alert

Happy Memorial Day! Here and here are some appropriate links.

Well, I actually did get out of the house yesterday, but not until about 4:00. What happened was, I decided to check out eMusic, ended up getting a trial membership, then browsing and downloading a bunch of songs. First song I got was Fugazi's "Waiting Room" -- I can see myself becoming a pain in the ass over this, listening to it had me up on my feet, pumping my fist and punching the air... Some Bad Brains, Beat Happening, a few other things (yes, Neko Case is good), then I had to deal with my monkey 4:00 antibiotic infusion...

Anyway, got out and did a 2 hour hike along the Lehigh. Like Saturday I parked at the new public boat launch, but this time walked east along the riverside singletrack; I turned around at the Chain Dam. Plenty o'pictures both days, I'll probably post the good ones in a day or two.

Speaking of pictures: That graph of my blog is now my second most viewed image on Flickr and moving up fast, probably because it's part of a currently popular set of images -- can you say "buzz tag?" Oh well, that's show biz... I also noticed, and this started a few days ago, that my cast photo has been getting a lot of hits, as well as the Halloween shot Judy M as bare-midriff Jeannie, and those "girls gone wild" photos. Come for the ankle, stay for the hotties...

I'm out of here (really!) in a few minutes; as soon as my laundry is done I'm taking it out to the laundromat for drying, and will walk around downtown while it tumbles. I've got chili bubbling in the crockpot for a bit of Memorial Day potluck at Greg & Judy's, but that's later, hope it stays nice.

By the way: the new gadget isn't mine yet, nor do I even know exactly what I want yet, but I think I'll be getting an MP3 player soon, or maybe an iPod. Some research is required, stay tuned (sorry, couldn't help it).

Drive a stake into the river, cap it with a bone...

Fun With Graphs: The Final Chapter

don-flickr-graph
Originally uploaded by donXfive.

After this I'm going outside, I swear... This one is a graph of my flickr account. Flickr has a whole bunch more of these graphs, which you can see here -- but don't click it if things that look like pollen make you sneeze!

You can find a link to the java applet, and an explanation for what's going on, here.

Son Of A Fun With Graphs

blog-graph
Originally uploaded by donXfive.

Another one, this time it's a graph of my blog.

Fun With Graphs

website-graph
Originally uploaded by donXfive.

Found this via Pharyngula: a java applet that generates graphical reperesentations of websites based on their structure, or something. So, here I am on a beautiful Sunday, Memorial Day Weekend no less, futzing around with the computer.

The Ghost of Hugh Thompson

Morning weigh-in: 177.5#, 10.5% BF

The doctors must be getting sick of me: surgeon doesn't want to see me for three weeks, and yesterday the infectious disease guy said "Don't come in next week, come back in two weeks." Good news is no longer news, I guess, it's just what normal looks like... Yesterday was day 21 of 42 for the antibiotic regimen, by the way --I am now more than halfway done.

Here's an interesting look at the emerging Haditha scandal, and reaction it.

Parting shot: Another photo from Wednesday's walk. I spent most of the time with my cameraphone in my hand, on the off-chance that some random bear would pop out of the woods for a photo.

We Gazed Upon The Chimes Of Freedom Flashing

Morning weigh-in: 176#, 9.5% BF

Walked yesterday at Merril Creek again, maybe three miles total this time; saw more deer & rabbits but no bear. (No coyotes either, which I have also seen there.) I walked out to the halfway point on the second dam, which is higher and way more scenic than the first -- it crosses what probably was the ravine cut by the original outlet creek. Anyway, three miles, an hour walk, which gives me seven miles (and three hours walking) so far for the week.

Today I don't stay late, I have an appointment at 3:00 with the infectious disease specialist. I may walk around the block or something tonight.

Joe Hill, Tom Joad: I heard Bruce Springsteen singing "Chimes of Freedom" today on the way in, sounded like a live version but I don't know.

Starship Trooper, Astral Redux

Morning weigh-in: 177#, 10.5% BF

It's a little cloudy now, but it was another beautiful morning: sunny, deep blue skies, cool but not too cool. This time of year I like looking up through the new canopy to the late-spring/early-summer sky, it reminds me of Yes's "Starship Trooper," and of other spring/summer days spent in the woods... Needless to say, I'll be walking again after work.

Paging Doctor Arrowsmith: Here's a cool post about bacteriophage. (Via the most recent Tangled Bank.)

Sister Bluebird

Morning weigh-in: 177#, I forgot the body fat

Went in to work a little late today: visiting nurse at 7:30 AM (blood tests, PICC line maintenance takes about an hour), followed by an 11:00 appointment with the surgeon. He looked the incision over and seemed to think it looked OK, and then the nurse took the stitches out. Right now it has a bunch of strips across it, maybe like butterfly bandages. I now have the OK, at least as far as the ankle is concerned, to walk and to do mellow workouts on the stationary bike. (Still can't get dirty/sweaty/wet or do anything strenuous with my upper body, because the PICC line is still there.) Anyway, got all that in in the morning, and got to work by noon.

I've been walking a bit lately, trying to get the legs (and the rest of the body) ready to start getting back in shape. I walked a few miles Saturday (at Allamuchy), then a mile Sunday in my neighborhood, and yesterday I stopped at Merril Creek on the way home, walked maybe a mile, mile and a half. I will be doing the same over there tonight. I might try running a bit, maybe 50 yards or so at a time, slow pace.

UPDATE: Went there after work, walked for an hour, did ~2.5 miles according to the markers along the trail (no running). Ran into a couple who said they saw a bear, but I didn't see anything except deer & rabbits.

Home Connection Is Back Up

Just a quick update, since I really wasn't planning to try fixing the computer tonight, and I'm definitely not supposed to be playing with it now that it's back online -- I am out of food, and have a ton of other things to do tonight... But I did get my dialup connection back up and running. (It was not so much a matter of fixing it so much as "un-breaking" the stuff I was messing with yesterday. But it's back up, and I learned a few interesting things along the way, like "don't press the history-eraser button."

Getting Back To A More Active Weekend

Morning weigh-in: 177.5#, 8.5% BF

Friday night was the Mug Club "investor's thank you" party. A little different from what I expected, just a few tables in the back, somewhat quiet even though it was very nice. I really didn't stick around the main group too long, they were basically having a wine-tasting thing and that's hard to manage without actually tasting any wine... I mingled, got some dinner on my own in the main bar, hung out with the regulars. Several other investors were drifting in and out of the party as well, and we would drop back into the dining room to grab some of the free munchies, BS for a bit, drift back to the bar & BS there, pleasant social evening.

Saturday I was going to help with the Allamuchy trailwork organized by my friend Bob. I got to the meeting place but I was a little late, figured I must have just missed them so I went walking into the woods to catch up. I thought I knew where they were going to be doing the work, but I never did actually find them... It was a nice (long) hike though, and I got a few good photos.

Saturday night was the annual Mug Club "mug retirement party," so it was back to Which Brew. The place was packed, and many partiers had followed the directions & arrived in costume -- you were supposed to dress as your favorite superhero/arch-villain -- so things were very festive. I have to wonder though, was Bettie Page a superhero? Or an arch-villain? Either way, that girl had the best costume there... Anyway, another good night (despite not being able to drink, in a room full of free beer -- good beer too, dang), and the band was the Roamin' Gabriels.

Sunday was spent reading and playing with the computer. I wasn't too nice at first, but the sun came out later in the day and I went for a walk on my one-mile jogging route. Two days of hiking and my calf actually felt tight...

Stormy Seas for the S.S. Linux: I started messing around with my Ethernet card again, among other things, and now I managed to screw up my internet connection. Those pictures I took, don't expect them on Flickr for another few days yet...

Ankle Update: Not much to say really, except that things are coming along. I had a lot of discomfort during and after the hike on Saturday, my boots seem to rub the newly-reshaped parts of my ankle, and it was kind of raw. No damage or problems by the incision though, which is good. It's killing me not to wear boots (I'm constantly in running shoes), I feel like an invalid without them.

The tendons/ligaments are coming along nicely though, and I now walk without much of a limp at all, but I find that I sort of "bop along," bouncing with each step, to compensate for and hide what's left of the limp. This too shall pass...

Sensitivity

Morning weigh-in: 177.5#, 12% BF

More Good News from the Medical Front: The infectious disease doctor says my blood tests are looking good. So things are moving along.

While I was there, I asked the doctor if what I had was in fact MRSA, the "superbug." He said no, I have MSSA (methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus) or ordinary Staph, so luck broke my way in at least that instance. Strangely enough, there was a big breakthrough the other day, the discovery of an MRSA-killing antibiotic. Looks like I won't be volunteering for any clinical trials...

Bad News on the Kitchen Front: I'm not sure if it was because my crock pot runs too hot on the higher setting (must get meat thermometer & find out), or if it was just because I forgot to add water, but the Bavarian Pot Roast got kind of dried out -- I even have burned stuff in the bottom of the pot. It still tasted good though, which is good because I have a lot left. I toss in a lot of extra stuff that's not in the original recipe (celery & carrots, potatoes etc), and the potatoes were golden-yellow inside, so I think they sucked up all the moisture from the sauerkraut.

After dinner I just hung out at home, played with the computer. Tonight is the Which Brew "thank you " party for investors, and tomorrow is the regular Mug Club annual party. I'm going to both of course, but -- sigh...

Dream Date

Morning weigh-in: 178.5#, 11.5% BF

Interesting dream last night: I was hanging out at a sort of cliff or escarpment, and I ran into this really cute girl. We got to talking, and I just happened to sing part of "Change the Locks" as sung by Lucinda Williams, and she said "Wow, I have two tickets to see Lucinda Williams, do you want to go?" Then the alarm went off, oh well -- but you know what I'll be humming in public places today...

The song that's really stuck in my head is from E-Rock's Christmas CD:

Guy: A monkey and a donkey,
Girl: Ya-Ya, poo-poo, tat-tat.
Guy: A donkey and a monkey,
Girl: What do you think of that?
Guy: They had a silly argument,
Girl: Ya-Ya, poo-poo, tat-tat.
Guy: Which one could run the speedier,
Girl: What do you think of that?

Over and over and over and over. You down with OCD, yeah you know me...

Chain Gang meeting last night at Which Brew. Pretty good dinner party, and a good if very abbreviated meeting. It was a little easier, in that context, to not drink than it was there the other night. Then again, I stuck around for only a minute afterward, to talk to my friends Jeff & Tracy, who just got married.

Today is an appointment with the infectious disease doctor; this is the second visit, of about six total if all goes well. I have the crock pot cooking away at home for afterward.

Good News On The Foot Front

Went to the doctor (surgeon) yesterday, he was very pleased by what he saw, though he didn't take the stitches out. Hopefully that'll be next Tuesday.

Meantime, never did cook the crock pot stuff. I prepared it last night, and the pot is sitting in the fridge ready to go but that'll be tomorrow -- tonight is the Chain Gang meeting, which will be at Which Brew.

Perl Diving: I tweaked that program some more, finally got it to where it works for erroneous cases as well. Right now it's a "demo," but I may revamp it for real-world use. Nice finger exercise...

A Little Experiment

Morning weigh-in: 179#, 9.5% BF

So dinner last night was pizza, which, in conjunction with the Quadrant's Cuban sandwich, managed to get my weight back up a few pounds. Tonight is the rest of the pizza of course, and I have some pork chops defrosting in the fridge, for Bavarian Crock Pot Pork Chops goodness tomorrow night. Wednesday night is the Chain Gang meeting at Which Brew, but the rest of the week will be crock pot leftovers.

I put together an "IV infrastructure" for work, so I wouldn't have to go home early just to get my antibiotic infusion. Basically, I got a soft-pack cooler, and put everything I need in there; actual meds go into an insulated bag inside the cooler, along with a cold pack (that's how they are shipped to me). I just took them out, time to let them warm up, things look like they're working according to plan, we'll see.

What happened to Fitzmas? I guess it was just wishful thinking...

An Early Weekend Update

Thought I'd better cover my ass here, since tomorrow may be a busy day, both for me and for the internet: there are persistent rumors that Rove got indicted last Friday. I'm not holding my breath, but if it happens or, did happen, I'm sure I, as well as many others, will have something to say... Furthermore, some analysts are saying that Fitzgerald's real target is Cheney, and he now has him in his sights -- it could be an interesting week. (I see that there's still little mention of the CIA-"Hookergate" connection, though that may also start to unravel pretty soon too. Like I said, could be an interesting week.)

So, I went out yesterday, some chores & errands but not as many as I would have liked to accomplish; instead I managed a "triple play" -- where I go to all three of the bona-fide cafes in Easton, something I haven't done in years. (It's been years since there were three bona fide cafes in Easton.) I went to Coffee Works for breakfast, then hit the Quadrant to buy coffee beans (really only "half a play" there), and later in the day I went to the Cosmic Cup on College Hill, first time there though it's been open more than a year.

Pretty nice place, more like a Starbucks setup (the color scheme is red though), or those coffee shops you see in bike stores, than the other places, especially the counter design -- it's definitely more espresso-oriented than the other two. While I was there, a jazz combo came in and started playing, and their first song was "All Blues." I'd been listening to Miles's Kind of Blue a lot lately, so it was kind of a neat synchronicity -- though I have a feeling these guys might have been playing that particular song because it was easy...

Went home, did some stuff, then went out to Which Brew for dinner. Kind of beat, not drinking is lame in a setting like that -- even hanging out with my friends wasn't all that fun. I ate, then went home even before the band started playing.

Linux Voyager, Perl Diving in Pleasant Waters: I overheard a conversation the other day at work, some people trying to write (rather, re-write) a program to do some specialized text manipulation. They sounded like they were killing themselves, trying to re-invent regular expressions in Visual Basic or whatever. It got me thinking "this would be a perfect job for perl," so last night I broke out my Learning Perl book -- I'd forgotten everything I ever knew -- and started experimenting. I was up half the night, then got right back into it this morning, but I have a working demo, a simple program that will do what they're trying to accomplish. Some bug fixes, and it's there.

Today I had lunch at the Quadrant, to make up for yesterday.

The Gift Of Pain

Morning weigh-in: 175#, 11.5% BF

Ever since I've been laid up, I've been more aware of people with disabilities: guy at the store in a wheelchair, someone with a limp or a bad arm or whatever. I've also gotten a bit of insight into that kind of existence, where -- screw dignity -- just getting through the day (bathing, getting places) is a big friggin chore. Pity is at least somewhat condescending, and sets up the other person as an "Other," but empathy is like the good parts of pity without the exile: I know where you're coming from, bro, cause I've been there too. I hope I get to keep this when I'm done.

Joe Average

Morning weigh-in: 176#, 11% BF

Went to the infectious disease specialist yesterday, he helped me with a number of my worries:

1. Sometimes, some people can feel the PICC line inside their arm. It may be uncomfortable, but it's not something to worry about.

2. The oral antibiotic has to be watched, and if any signs of toxicity show up (in either the blood tests or symptoms like jaundice) it will be dropped. It is not as necessary as the other (IV)antibiotic, but it helps to take it when there is possibly infected hardware involved. (BTW, I found out what they mean by "infected" hardware: the more accurate term would probably be "colonized," the bacteria find a home on the metal, and build a "protective layer of slime" that makes getting to them with the antibiotics difficult.)

3. My bloodwork indicates that I'm normal -- I should probably get that in writing? No problems w/ liver enzymes, white blood cell count is OK, etc. One week down, five to go...

He was a little concerned with the incision since it is still "leaking," and wants me to talk to the surgeon about it.

All Else Is Dusty Dracularity

Morning weigh-in: 177.5#, 11.5% BF

Got a call yesterday: nursing service needed another vial of blood for doctor visit today. I snuck out of work a little early and hit Quest Diagnostics, a sort of cross between Red-Care and a blood-test clinic; maybe they also do the actual lab work, I don't know. Anyway, got that done, then went home and did my biz with the PICC line, and my evening responsibilities were over.

Dinner was tuna w/ wilted greens (with stone-ground whole wheat linguine) left over from Monday night, and a second dinner was the last of the pot roast -- I wasn't really hungry, but I wanted to get the crock pot ready for another meal. All of this was done early, so I went for a walk, took a few pictures of the alley behind my house. Kind of a disappointment, since the light wasn't right, or the photo composition or something, and I had high hopes for at least one of them. It was good to get out, but I didn't take much pleasure from the walk (foot wasn't happy), and didn't stick around to take in the sunset on the porch.

My foot worries me, it felt better a few days ago. I see one of the doctors tonight (infectious diseases specialists, who I'll be questioning closely anyway); I'll have him take a look but I think the go-to guy will be the surgeon, who I see next week. I fear that I'm not actually winning the battle against infection, but that may really just mean that I'm starting to be less worried & freaked out about the PICC line...

Linux Voyager, trying to get the speedboat running: I had a little time on my hands, so I finally took a look at that DSL stuff. Among the things I got was an Ethernet card, but I found (via lspci) that I already had one. Next step was to recompile the kernel, and compile a driver module for my Ethernet connection, then restart the computer. After that I hooked up the DSL modem/router thingie, but have yet to get the computer to be able to talk to it. Maybe tonight, maybe more research...

Linux Voyager: Different View Of What Should Be Familiar Waters

I had a bit of an interesting revelation yesterday, dealing with my memory stick:

Background: Since Unix was designed for multiple users, each maybe doing more than one thing at a time, all on one machine, it has mechanisms in place to keep people from stepping on each other's stuff, reading private info etc. One of these mechanisms is file access control, aka "file permissions:" each user has an identity, and might belong to one or more groups; files likewise have an owner, and may belong to a group as well. Then, what a given user can do with a file depends on his/her user or group identity, and the permission information associated with that file. A file may be readable, writable, or executable (ie launched, if it is a program), for three categories: the file's owner, members of the file's group, and everybody else on the system. Thus you could have a file that is readable and writable by the owner, readable but not writable by members of the group, and totally inaccessible to everyone else.

This comes in handy with security programs like SSH, which will not load a "secret password" data file if the file is readable by anyone but the owner, since the program assumes that it can't be much of a "secret" in that case.

Anyway, The Problem: I wanted to put an identity file on my memory stick, so I could eventually use the stick as a portable security key for SSH, but the stick set the permissions of the file to "readable by everybody," and I couldn't use the standard tools to change them, and SSH refused to deal with the file in that case.

What's Going On: Turns out, the memory stick is set up with the Microsoft "fat32" file system, which doesn't do permissions. Linux compensates by assigning a default permission to all files on the stick whenever it's connected, and these permissions cannot be changed while the stick is attached. What I had to do was tell the system to use different default permissions when attaching the memory stick; when I did this (and re-mounted the stick), all of a sudden everything was fine.

L'Affaire d'Earring

I found an earring in my front hall yesterday afternoon, specifically a diamond-tipped post for a piercing. I'm not a good judge of jewelry but it looks fairly expensive. Visitors are not unheard of here, but have not been particularly common lately -- in fact the only people I can recall in the last few weeks, who would visit wearing earrings, are my mom, yesterday's visiting nurse and several women friends who happened to help with groceries etc -- none of whom I'd like to reward with the loss of jewelry for their good deeds. I called all I could think of, and none are missing an earring. Unless it's been sitting there, unnoticed since the girl moved out upstairs (maybe a month ago now), I have no idea whose it is or how it got there. It will have to remain a mystery -- an expensive mystery, for someone. If you happen to know something, 'fess up.

Moving Forward

Just got off the phone with the Critical Care people in Philly: I am not constrained by Medicare rules, which require me to be home-bound to be eligible for home nurse care; I in fact, am supposed to get a home nurse to clean the PICC line and do bloodwork on a weekly basis, and my insurance is fine with that whether I'm bedridden, house-bound or going to work...

Meantime, you'll all be happy to know that I finally bathed, for the first time (for a real bath/shower) since last Wednesday -- been living on hospital sponge baths and at-home Baby Wipes, but they can only do so much. I probably had some ordinary funk going on, but last night I started with that "sick old man" smell that I associate with the ecxema (the skin problems came back hard, especially on the unbroken leg, which spent the hospital visit sweating away in a pressure collar), and which fills me with fear and loathing. I had a nightmare last night that I had mold growing on my torso... Anyway, good experiment, since I have to figure the best way to bathe without getting either my left foot or my right arm wet.

Next up in the grooming department is the beard, which is getting long and a bit scraggly. I have to go out, get some medical supplies like bandages and a thermometer, so I may just pick up a beard trimmer while I'm out.

Post-Op

I'm back. Essentially I had/have a staph infection, probably worked its way in along the incision seam and brewed away inside, but the surgeon said it didn't look like it was too big or that it got to the hardware (which hardware, even so, may have to come out at some later date). I had one operation on Thursday morning, got a PICC line installed, another operation Friday afternoon, all the while getting pumped full of esoteric antibiotics and painkillers, and after the infectious diseases specialist reviewed the lab reports they discharged me today.

No pictures this time around; this trip was grimmer and there was less of a "holiday air" about the whole procedure, though the process itself was a lot less of a hassle than the first operation. Unfortunately, I'm really getting to know my way around Muhlenberg... Once again, cool doctors (saw a lot more MD's & specialists this time around), and waaay cooler nurses & aides than last time. Can't say I had a blast, but it was a lot better than it might have been.

Got some visitors last night, Doug & Lori stopped by for a bit, which really raised my spirits -- Doug also got me home today, so thanks again.

What's next: I am on some oral antibiotics, as well as self-administered syringes I do through the PICC line. I inject myself three times a day for six weeks, and I have weekly blood tests and visits to the infectious disease specialist, but I should be on my way back.

One Final Update

Another quick post, with some info:

1. My operation is 10:15 AM tomorrow; wish me luck.

2. I have posted a few pics on Flickr from my recent towpath ride. (The party pics were not all that good.)

I probably won't be posting until at least the weekend, see you in a few.

Time For An Important Update

The pot roast was delicous. That is all.

Well, Guess Who Needs Another Operation

Morning weigh-in: 181#, 8% BF

Things were looking pretty good, lotsa mobility and the wounds were finally closed and healing, but then this weekend the situation took a turn for the worse: I started getting inflamed, then I got a discharge, which eventually became pus. (I am eating lunch as I write this, so I won't be dwelling on what I saw.) It looked kind of bad yesterday morning, so I called the doctor to see if I could get more antibiotics, and instead was told "the doctor will see you today." Skip out of work, go to the doctor, he looks at the leg and says an oral antibiotic will not be enough -- I will need to have the wound re-opened and cleaned, then spend some time in the hospital getting an antibiotic IV drip -- I go back in on Thursday. Shit.

Worst case scenario, I may need to have a "pick line" installed for home antibiotic IV (goodbye cycling for this year), and may also have the leg wound left open, so it can be regularly cleaned etc, then get skin grafts at some later date. Shit shit shit, shit shit and shit.

Anyway, deal.

Last night I went to Jordan, walked the trails there until the VMB meeting, which was surprisingly fruitful. Meeting was 7:00 to maybe 8:00, when it started to get cold & dark. After the meeting, I met Doug & Lori for dinner at JP McGrady's, then went home and prepped the pot roast. I will be eating that tonight, unless the crock pot burns the house down...

Welcome To My Hell

Morning weigh-in: 180#, 9% BF

Taco Hell! Yes, after eating right for over a month I broke down and had some Taco Bell for dinner. Well, it was that or cereal... I did laundry last night, ran out to dry it and stopped in at Porters for something to eat but I was too late. I spotted it immediately: Doug the cook was hanging at the bar, and he had his dog with him -- a sure sign that the kitchen was closed. Had a beer and "watched the game," fetched my laundry and just couldn't help myself, made the detour...

Don't know what I'm having tonight, but I'll be preparing a crock-pot pot roast for tomorrow. I also got a good tip at Saturday's party for my Bavarian Pork Chops: toss in some apples. Not sure how "Bavarian" the recipe is anymore, but this sounds like a good addition -- I'll try it next week.

Meantime, tonight: I'm going to the VMB meeting at Jordan Park, which is at 7:00, and before that I want to get in some errands, so there will be some general rushing around after work. Not sure when I'll eat, let alone what.

Dancing Fool

Went to that party yesterday, my friend Andrew's "Drinking and Smoking" shindig, after the gym and some errands. The idea was, he would provide two kegs of Weyerbacher (Winter Ale -- my favorite, and Merry Monk) and a smoker, and we would all bring meat or other food to smoke; there were also a bunch of grilled veggies. I brought one of those pork tenderloins, and, planning ahead, I took a taxi... Great party, though I only took a few photos (and only one was coherent), late at night when I remembered my camera, but by that point the party, which started out as a family-friendly afternoon picnic, and then became a fireworks show after dark, had degenerated into a few diehards dancing in the living room. I was right there in the middle of it, but I'm not sure if you can call it "dancing" when I never actually picked my feet up off the floor... Gotta hang out with that dude more often, he knows a lot of really good looking women.

Slept in a bit this morning, got up around 10:00 but with no ill effects other than a general smoky smell to my body. I got out around 1:00, rode the towpath to Sand Island, and ran into Bryan and Marge on the ride back. It was good to see them, and we talked for a bit but hey, the trails were waiting so we saddled back up and went our separate ways. I tried the singletrack along the river, which has been, um, aggressively maintained, and is now non-technical and very easy, so it wasn't as useful to gauge progress as I'd like, but I was riding singletrack.

Flickr Update: No new pics posted (I did take a few at the party and on the ride today, so stay tuned), but I took all my ankle photos, put them in order and made a set. You've seen them all before but now you can enjoy them -- chronologically!

The Internet Reaches Its High Water Mark

In an amazing confluence of politics, Photoshop, and inside jokes, the internet has produced its crowning masterpiece. (I didn't think he could beat either the Easter Bunny or Adam Yoshida pictures.) I guess it helps to know who all those people are, but it's better to check out Fat Chicks In Party Hats. "Wrong on so many levels" has never been truer, but I haven't laughed this hard since Time Cube. Of course, that guy really means it...

My Hopes, Dashed To Pieces

Morning weigh-in: 178.5#, 9% BF

Got a call last night, just before going to physical therapy: they have a problem with my insurance, so we had to cancel the appointment. Well, at least I found out at home rather than after driving there... Anyway, it was nice out so I went for a ride, about 9.3 miles on the (paved part of the) towpath and the Palmer Bike Path, with about 200-300 yards of very mild offroad. Dinner was leftover pork chops & sauerkraut, with some steamed stringbeans.

Next step: I'm waiting for a call from the therapy place, see if they have the insurance issue resolved, otherwise I'll just have to pick another place. If I don't go somewhere tonight, I'll hit the gym.

Cue The "Rocky" Theme

Morning weigh-in: 178.5#, 11.5% BF

Bavarian Black Forest Porkchops: How very Walpurgisnacht... Had those Bavarian pork chops last night. I think I'm getting jaded, I came home last night and the house smelled of dinner cooking, but I wasn't as impressed as last time. Still tasted good though, and I steamed some asparagus to go along with it.

Giant Steps: I was going to do a ride last night, but it looked like rain so I skipped it and ate dinner, then I decided to go anyway. Rode around three miles, maybe a little more, mostly in the neighborhood alleys and quieter streets. Ran into my old neighbor, Dapper Dan, and talked for a few minutes.

Tonight is my first night of therapy.

A Victory for Cubists Everywhere: I see that today is not just the anniversary of the start of the Chernobyl disaster, but also of the attack on Guernica.

The Word For World Is Forest

Just got back from a short walk: waiting for the cafeteria to open, I walked out the front door of the building, around and and back in at the side door, past a bunch of flowering, landscaper-planted trees, maybe apple. Nice scent in the air from the flowers, a little like being in the woods when the mountain laurel blooms. (I was disappointed that I couldn't watch spring come this year, except for looking at it from passing car windows. Luckily, the mountain laurel isn't for another month.) I think I'll go for a ride tonight, obviously something easy but I'll definitely be down to check out the river & towpath.

Dinner tonight will be Bavarian Pork Chops, slow-cooking away as we speak, so it should be done when I get home. I did a food run last night, bought another month's supply of meat, plus an extra pork tenderloin, which I'll bring to that dude Andrew's "Drinking and Smoking" party. (He's supplying a keg, but all guests have to bring some meat to cook in his smoker.) That's happening this Saturday -- which is also the season's first trailwork day at Allamuchy, more time in the woods -- and he lives along the towpath, so I may try riding to the party as well.

Meantime, I guess I'll check out the canopy tonight...

UPDATE: I just counted them up. All told, I have 982 photos online.

Sloosha's Crossing

Stayed in Friday night, played with computer.

Saturday I went to Coffee Works for breakfast, then the gym, and then went to the Quadrant for lunch and to buy some unground coffee. I was too tired/footsore after that for any other shopping or errands, so I just went home afterwards & took a nap. Crappy weather anyway, didn't feel like being out.

Saturday night I went out to Which Brew (no band) and met Brian for dinner. Early night for both of us.

Sunday I stayed in most of the day. Got up at say 8:00 AM, but immediately parked my butt in front of the computer, didn't even eat breakfast until noon. As a followup to conversations with trainer Dawn (who's reading a biography of Cicero), I downloaded Xenophon's Anabasis from the Gutenberg Project, and reading it while jamming out to the Electronica charts from SoundClick, weird juxtaposition I know but it kept me entertained...

I kept at the computer most of the rainy part of the day, then when it cleared up I decided to go look at the bikes. I did a little post-ride cleanup on the Turner, only seven weeks after the fact, then I got up some nerve and rode the Surly around the block, then I took the Turner out for a one-mile ride. Seven weeks to the day, and I'm at least technically back on the bike.

My morning routine is now to get up early & get ready, then kick back on the recliner for a few minutes of "foot higher than my heart" before going to work. I usually read a bit while I'm there, nothing big, mostly either short essays or a few pages of some book I already read. This morning I read part of Cloud Atlas, which I've been dipping into quite a bit lately. The part I'm reading is called "Sloosha's Crossinn an' Evr'ythin' After," or something like that. It's the story, told by an old man in Hawaii, maybe 1000 years from now, to his grandkids about how he escaped enslavement when his society was invaded and destroyed. Amazing story for a lot of reasons, but it just struk me how the behavior of the Ten Thousand with respect to the natives in northern Turkey was so similar to what happened to the invaded people in this other story.

Impulse vs. Momentum

Pretty soon I'll have to start weighing myself again, but I don't want to think about that now, after having sausage & pepper pizza for lunch...

I got a coffee grinder a few weeks back, total impulse buy while grocery shopping, but I have yet to use it. I still have a lot of ground coffee to go through, but I may buy some beans this weekend anyway. I'll also have a chance to go to the good old corner coffee shop, where I haven't shown my face in almost two months -- I may actually try for a "triple play:" Coffee Works for breakfast, Quadrant for lunch & bean-buying, and then a trip to that new coffee place on College Hill. I haven't done a triple play since, well, since the last time there were three coffee shops in Easton...

I made an appointment for physical therapy; I'll be going to the same place I went last time, up near Wind Gap. Next Wednesday is my first session.

Drove to work yesterday and today. It felt good to be independent but I was pretty worn down last night, went to bed almost immediately after dinner -- uh-oh, could this be the start of a head cold? Tonight I'll probably stay in; tomorrow I'll try to get out, but I think I'll stick with using a taxi.

It's Getting Better All The Time

Drove in to work today, which means I drove today for the first time since March 5th. Foot needed to stretch a little further than felt comfortable when working the clutch, but it was easy enough to do, and my driving skills were of course all still there. My friend/co-worker Scott showed up, on his bike, just as I was about to leave, and so I gave him a ride to work as well. (He used to live around the block from me but now lives in Nazareth, and I guess he realized he was running too late to continue biking in, took a chance that I'd be there...)

The secret, revealed: I finally figured out what all the skater kids in my neighborhood remind me of. They all look like, like... The Ramones. Healthy Ramones, at least, which is good.

Good meeting last night, even if the attendance was a bit light. There were only seven members there, but we had a nice dinner of burgers etc, then a meeting that I at least thought was very productive. We also looked at a bunch of Brian's Moab photos, and heard some of the stories. Got to show off my foot, got some more advice (skip the betadine, use neosporin, walk on it a little more frequently to help loosen it up). The foot feels a lot better today, thanks to keeping it limber -- and also not forgetting to take painkillers before going to work. Tonight I'll probably try to shop on my own, after some more chili.

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Foot is not as happy now as yesterday, it stiffens up unless you work it; sleeping got it pretty locked up, and sitting at work is not doing it many favors either. I've been using the crutches to get around; once the foot/ankle warms up (say 50 yards of walking) it's good for a while, but here at the office most of my walking is about 10 feet max.

Tonight is the Chain Gang meeting, or at least I hope so. Attendance will probably be sparse, and some members have been agitating for a cancellation. We shall see.

Three, Two, One, Castoff!

Yep, it came off today. Mom & Dad came up in the morning, not suspecting that I also had a ton of chores that needed doing, but first order of business was to go to the doctor's office. That was pretty uneventful, the cast came off in what, from stories I've heard, is the usual way -- ie they used a small circular saw, more like a wafer wheel -- gave my foot a little cleaning, and took a few x-rays. When the x-rays were ready the doctor came in, said everything looked pretty good, answered my questions and gave me a prescription for physical therapy. Unfortunately, it turns out that Valley Sports & Arthritis only takes my insurance for surgery etc, not for their in-house rehab, so I'll have to find somewhere else to go.

Anyway, got home, put my other shoe on (tight fit due to swelling; I also think my toes have become a little splayed), and with the extra support of the hiking boots I tried a little experiment -- within a few minutes I was able to walk without crutches. Woo-hoo!

We finished up the chores and errands at my place, which mostly revolved around laundry and garbage, then had a late lunch at Lutzi's (a place I'd passed by hundreds of times, but never been inside... verdict: it was good) before my parents headed home. Thanks again Mom & Dad!

By the way, you can see photos of my cast coming of by clicking here (WARNING: ICKY).

Monday Rap

(Cast comes off tomorrow!)

Cooking/Eating: Had that chili last night, probably my best batch so far. Two pounds of stewing beef (cubed, not ground), two onions, one red and one green bell pepper, the ingredients from two of those "chili kits" (with Weyerbacher Heresy oak-barrel-aged stout), some canned corn, canned diced tomatoes and a can of black beans. I chopped the peppers and onions pretty fine, which I think made a big difference.

The only disappointments were that the meat, which wasn't all that marbled, came out a little dry despite stewing for eight hours (note to self: don't believe the crockpot cookbook, get better cuts of meat), and there weren't enough beans. I may add some red beans today now that the pot's a little lighter, but I basically had the pot almost filled and wasn't sure I could fit one more can of beans in last night.

A few tweaks here and there, but I think I've just hit upon my "standard chili" recipe. Work this one a few more times and I can start branching out. Pork & chicken, chili verde...

Meanwhile, back at the Super Dimensional Fortress: I fixed up some of my photo galleries, there was a problem with the HTML for navigation. I still don't know why my gallery maker script acts funny when I use it on freeshell.

Sunday Night Wrap-Up

(Two days until the cast comes off -- actually, "one day and a wake-up.")

Let's see, last post was Friday...

Friday night I went out to Which Brew, 3rd day in a row there. It was pretty cool, not too crowded even for a weekend, lotsa regulars, and Ryan Carr's trio had a guitarist sit in for some jazzy goodness. Got home kind of late, maybe 12:30.

Saturday was the gym, then a few chores around the house. Though I get to the gym by taxi, my trainer Dawn has been kind enough to drive me home , and this time she had a gift for me: a special boot-like device you step into, and roll on the floor to work your ankle. She's aces in my book...
Later in the day I put on my old college bookbag, gimped up to CVS and bought milk and other necessities. Much tougher walk than I anticipated, another (approximately) mile-long walk but with a heavy pack for the return stretch, and the pavement on this route was not very even. Glad I did it though, and not just because I needed that stuff...

Saturday night was back to Which Brew, then over to Porters. It was that young girl Megan's birthday (she must be all of 24 by now), so a few of her friends, as well as some of the bartenders from WB, ended up at Porters forone last drink. They're all pretty cute & fun people, so a bunch of guys (including me) tagged along. Late night for me, I called for a cab at like 2:00 AM, finally got a ride home just before 3:00 from my friend Bill -- he manages Porters, stopped in as the place closed and saw me on the deserted street; we talked for a minute while cabs drove by, not picking me up. When he came out I was still there so he said "screw the cab, hop in." I was all for it.

Today I slept in until about 9:00, then just hung out. Made chili, which smells awesome and should be done right about now, dinner after this post. Tomorrow I have to go in early, so it's an early night for me.

Reading: The Broom of the System, David Foster Wallace's first novel.

When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed

(Four days until the cast comes off.)

Saw a porch decorated with lilacs yesterday. Most likely they were plastic, and more than likely it was an Easter thing, but it reminded me of Lincoln who was shot today. Trees seem a little late to bloom this year; it may be the drought.

I had another crazy dream last night, again involving Jamestown Drive: driving around with a bunch of friends (including the guy who drives me home from work) in Bob W's car, while I was in between eye surgery sessions (that -- earlier -- part was pretty freaky), we saw a woman I work with walking down the street on Jamestown Dr, just by that unoccupied house. We stopped, talked and went with her to her house, which was the Benkes's house, only decorated inside with giant slabs of dark wood, like giant slabs of plywood hangings or something -- she claimed they were part of her new sound system, but they looked like the alien decor from Independence Day. The wood had a weird odor too, first time I can remember odor playing such a distinctive part in a dream... Anyway, we hung out there until I got a call on my phone: I was late for the operation on my other eye. The alarm went off shortly after.

H&R Block for taxes, and then Which Brew (again) were the awake parts of my evening.

Long Day So Far

(Cast comes off in five days.)

Not much to say. I got a phone call from Brian last night: they miss me, but not enough to stop them from having a great time without me... It sounded like they've ridden every day since they got there, some days even doing two rides, and everyone is getting along beautifully. (Brian actually sounded surprised to discover that Greg H is a great person.)

Feeling blue and left out again, I decided that the best thing for me to do after that was to go out, so I called a cab and went to down Which Brew. It was a quiet Wednesday night: a few guys were there, talking mainly fishing, though my presence forced some injury/rehab tales into the mix. (Since I usually come in, put my crutches against a wall and sit at the bar, there were a few people there, who have seen me plenty of times since I got hurt and had no idea that I was hurt or in a cast until last night.)

Says Young James To Red Molly...

(Six days until the cast comes off.)

Listening: Among my birthday presents was Richard Thompson's Rumor and Sigh, which means I now have a copy of "52 Vincent Black Lightning" for my very own. Ahhh... -- and if fate, should break my stride...

Speaking of strides, I went for a walk on Sunday before my parents came up. (Or as my friend at work said, I "went for a limp.") Went down to the hospital, then over and back via Washington Street -- little kids stopping their play to stare agog as I gimped past -- for a total distance of about a mile. Luckily there was a bus stop (with bench) by the hospital, and war memorials (with benches) along the wide, grassy Washington Street median, because my arms had major fatigue. Benches didn't help with the raw spots rubbed into my armpits by the crutches though. Raw spots are just about healed up now, so I may go for another walk tonight.

Dinner last night was the last of the pork tenderloin, with some steamed stringbeans and a bunch of grapes for dessert. Therefore, lunch today is a slice of pepperoni pizza, and one of sausage & peppers.

Ka-boom! Billmon drops the bomb. I sure wish he posted like he used to, ie more frequently.

Someone Likes Looking At My Feet

My Shiny New Toy
Originally uploaded by donXfive.

With 52 individual views (not including my own), this is now the second-most-viewed photo on my Flickr account.

When Meat Goes Bad

Cast comes off one week from today.

Had a major kitchen problem yesterday -- major by my standards anyway: the beef roast I'd put in the fridge (last week) to defrost had gone borderline bad, but also leaked a bunch of blood/juice all over the bottom shelf of my fridge. All sorts of veggies got leaked on (the outside of the bags anyway) so I had a ton of cleanup to do. I cooked that other pork tenderloin while all this was going on, had that with a salad and some broccoli. Looks like I am back under the gun in terms of eating the food before it spoils, since I also had to toss a few bell peppers and some bags of salad (granted, salad goes bad pretty fast) -- the meat I re-froze, to keep it from spoiling in the garbage can before trash day.

In other news, I got to read a translation of that Gospel of Judas they just found. Interesting, but I think the consensus is right: the theological implications are probably pretty small.

Updating Early This Weekend

Just a little catch-up:

Friday night I went out to Which Brew, had dinner and hung out with a few friends.

Saturday I went to the gym, went home and watched the snow, then with the help of Greg's wife Judy I got some shopping & laundry/drycleaning done. I also picked her brain about my short- and medium-term foot prospects (she's a physical therapist, though her experience differs somewhat from the kind of therapy I'll be getting). What she said didn't quite give me the warm fuzzies, but it was good to hear. Basically, I will have quite a bit of trouble with my foot for a while, until tendons re-stretch -- she expects therapy for this to be very painful -- and muscle atrophy will not only affect leg strength, but the atrophy of the little muscles (proprioceptors? -- or whatever she said) will mean problems with balance for a while. When can I start biking and running? She would only say "it depends."

Meantime, my foot feels pretty good, and I've been moving it around a little inside the cast, at least partly to get a jump-start on recovery. I asked her about this too, she said I was probably OK as long as it didn't hurt, but she didn't look enthusiastic. I'm going to do it anyway, since it's the only way to scratch some of the itches under the cast.

Anyway, it was a good productive afternoon -- especially since I'd originally planned to take a nap -- and now I've been the first to see their new boat, and their new kitchen floor. I also got the scoop on flight delays for the Moab trekkers, since Greg called with an update. (I'd talked earlier to Doug & Lori who were driving out: they were making good time, drove through the first night and were in Kansas when I called.)

After that I got two calls: Hans was back in PA for a few days, called to let me know he would be down at Which Brew with his brother, and Joe C said that they would also be down there. Took a taxi, driver told me he'd had a broken ankle once, but the pins broke and they had to re-do it. Gulp! He dropped me at Which Brew with a "good luck!" and I went in, ate dinner, hung out with my friends, deja vu yadda yadda...

Skin: Much better this past week. I've been using that Vaseline Advanced Healing (aka "friggin' liquid wax"), as well as a slightly different bath treatment (it has mineral oil in it, as well as colloidal oatmeal) and a more aggressive use of cortisone cream, and it's been like a miracle cure. Skin's still kind of pinkish-red in areas, but not that inflamed stuff; bleeding has stopped and so has the itching (for the most part). The skincare regimen may have been a big factor, but I think that the rise in temperature and humidity is helping too, and also the extra sunlight and fresh air as I sit on the porch after work.

I'm off to sit on the porch, maybe walk around the block or something, then Mom & Dad are coming up to take me to dinner -- it's my forty-third birthday today!

You're Living In Your Own Private Finest Hour

Had a weird dream last night. Dreamt I was back home (Englishtown); part of it was hanging out at the Humphrey's, or rather on the front lawn, sitting in lawn furniture by a campfire, over near that house next door to them that was always unoccupied, with Peter Humphrey and a bunch of other people, then I was over at the entrance to St. Thomas Moore Church, which wasn't a church but maybe a school or hospital -- I think there was a gymnastic competition going on -- and I got into an altercation with some dudes in a car who came to pick me up, decided to walk home but I left my crutches in the car, and then I was jogging (with my cast) along Jamestown Drive, and then I was back at the campfire, hanging out with Victor Davis Hanson. I have no idea what the real guy looks like, and it was not like in the dream he was all "yadda hadda Bush Churchill Scipio Africanus Islamofascism blah blah," but that's who he was identified as. (At some point in the middle of all that, I found myself in a very, um, non-Euclidian version of the south of France, with Tom A and a bunch of his friends.)

Maybe it was because I finished that bruschetta pizza, and also finshed off the leftover pork tenderloin...

Wikipedia Featured Article: Well, look who made the list! Next up, Nobel Prize.

My friends are off to Moab, leaving today and leaving me behind... feeling kind of blue about it, but not as much as I expected -- woulda been nice though. Tonight Joe C is doing the designated driver thing, chauffering around the wives who were left behind on their "ladies night out." I got an invite to join the fun (George Hrab show at Godfrey Daniels) but I think I'll just get myself down to Which Brew.

Who's That Knocking At My Door?

I was looking at my "security logs" the other day, noticed that every few days someone tries to to log into my computer as "root" from the internet (via SSH), tries to guess the root account password, gets shot down and moves on. It looks like it's coming from different internet addresses each time. I'm not sure if it's someone just screwing around (or multiple people), or if it's one or more malware programs randomly sniffing around the internet for unlocked doors.

I don't have many internet-type services running on my machine; other than mail and a web server, which are both blocked from outside use by my firewall, the only one is the SSH server. That is accessible from the outside, and I want to leave it open, but I think I'm going to lock it down a little tighter: no root access, no access using only passwords. Luckily, I have that new book that tells me how to do exactly that...

Didn't go out last night, by the way, just stayed home with the computer and the leftover bruschetta pizza.

My Hump

Went out last night, down to Emmaus for dinner with Brian. This was that "charity dinner" at the Italian restaurant next to South Mountain Cycles: 20% of the bill went to Mark T to help defray his (ininsured) medical bills following his bike crash. It wasn't really an organized event, you just presented your flyer to them so they knew that's why you were there, and they did the rest. We saw Janna & Eric, and her parents, and Kris and her parents, and a few other PPRAC riders and various other riders there... also saw Mark, who had on a neck brace, and had some discoloration on his forehead but seemed to be in pretty good shape. Not too shabby, considering that he landed on his face, broke his nose & had all sorts of facial lacerations as well as some broken vertebrae & a "non-weight-bearing" fracture in his hip. We exchanged war stories, and despite how well he looked I think he got it a lot worse than I did.

Brian and I subsequently did our share, an antipasto each, followed by two medium pizzas: bruschetta pizza was yummy, the buffalo chicken pizza, not so much. (Brian liked them both.) We gave till it hurt, ordered way too much food, and now I have most of a bruschetta pizza at home on my "to eat list."

Geekout: I see that the Mozilla Foundation donated ten grand to help out OpenBSD/OpenSSH -- good for them! (FYI, that's the flavor of ssh that I use.) Meantime, I took a "How Geeky Are You" quiz last night, got 36 out of 60. It was a poorly implemented quiz, each question -- and they were mainly about gadget-consumerism and media consumption -- on its own web page, reloading advertisements etc each time. That's how I knew I'm not a true geek: I stuck it out, all the way to the annoying end. Looks like I'm not the only one to be less than impressed...

Tonight, if I can handle another food assault, is Mug Club Night at Which Brew.

Thermidor, Tristero Redux

My metabolism has slowed down quite a bit, I now get chilled in just about any situation. Last night I was playing with the computer right after getting home, and I just stopped and climbed into bed, shivering under the covers because I was so cold/lethargic/sleepy. About a half hour of napping and I decided to get up and start moving around. I did a few sets of exercises, maybe a half hour of leg lifts and light-weight, hi-rep upper body stuff, and I was fully warmed up and energized; that's got me through dinner and the rest of the evening. I guess I'll have to remember to keep the home fires going...

Through the Network, Darkly: Saw today that Freenet has just put out a new release.

It's Not Just A Month Of Meat

Try a little tenderloin: Cooked up some pork tenderloin tonight for dinner, pre-marinated in sa peppercorn sauce, one big piece, or half the package that I bought -- it took forever to cook, twice as long as the directions said, and I was done eating everything else before I even cut up the meat, but it was gooooood... I also made some steamed broccoli and some steamed asparagus, quite a bit of both actually since they were both in danger of going bad, and I had to get rid of them. All those veggies meant that I was stuffed when the meat was ready: I planned on eating half of what I cooked but I could only eat a quarter of it. At that rate it'll take four days to eat what I already cooked, then another four days for the other half of my purchase (still have a bunch of veggies to plow through as well), then there's a pot roast defrosting in the fridge (almost a week's worth of food), plus a bunch of pork chops (another week), as well as two pounds of beef stewing meat (a week of chili), in the freezer -- I figure I can eat like crazy, and I won't have to buy more meat for at least another month. (I heard that protein is very important for bone regeneration -- or was it kidney failure?)

Linux Voyager, Hush Now: Started messing with ssh, trying things I saw in that new book I got. I wish there were more places I could use it, since it's pretty interesting, but all I can connect to is SDF.

Reading: All the Pretty Horses, first book in the Border Trilogy. So far so good...

Back on the Sauce

Fifteen days until the cast comes off, two weeks from tomorrow.

So, what's new since late last night? Not much! Appetite seems to be on the wane again; I had a bowl of cereal instead of dinner last night. Dinner tonight will be pork tenderloin & some steamed veggies; tomorrow is a trip to Emmaus for a charity pizza dinner (20% going to help with cyclist/mechanic Mark Taylor's medical expenses, after his own -- uninsured -- cycling crash), then Wednesday will be the day I cook that pot roast. That's the plan anyway.

Skin Condition, Code Red: The skin had a real turn for the worse late last week, very likely caused by a change in moisturizer. Similar situation had occured a few weeks ago, the common factor, between the two different new moisturizers, being the term "non-comodogenic" or something, which apparently means it won't block pores -- whatever makes it "non-comodogenic" also makes it extremely irritating for me. Anyway, I got rid of that stuff ASAP and am back on the good old Vaseline Advanced Healing regimen, and things are already better, though the improvement could have been due to the sunning I got yesterday.

An Enigma Wrapped Inside a Riddle, Breaded And Fried

Little bit of an early birthday present, got some books from my Amazon wishlist -- thanks Mom & Dad! What I got was Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, Cormac McCarthy's Border trilogy (as a single volume), and SSH, The Secure Shell: The Definitive Guide, an O'Reilly computer book. They came Friday, and totally screwed up my weekend...

The first one I read was In Cold Blood; I wanted to read this before seeing that new (sorta new) movie Capote, which is at least partly about how writing this particular book ate him up. I started reading this Friday night, and it was so riveting I sat and read about two thirds of the book before getting up -- it was after 2:00 AM when I went into the kitchen for a class of juice, so I forced myself to go to bed. Saturday was the gym in the morning, then I came home and finished the book. Like I said, riveting.

Went out last night to Which Brew (they had Decadence on tap) with Doug and Lori, also saw Eric and Kris when they arrived later. Kind of neat to get Lori's take on Capote, since she's a big Breakfast At Tiffany's fan. Meantime, Kris had just come back from Philly, where she saw that Body Worlds exhibit with a friend, and she had a few tales to tell about that.

Today I got up a little late, in fact I got up a little later because of the "spring ahead" thing, spent a chunk of the early afternoon reading the SSH guide. Lotta good info in there, I already see some things I want to do to improve my own use of ssh. Kind of funny to be delving into encryption and secure transmissions right now, total synchronicity when I see that an Enigma machine is now up for sale on eBay. (The actual eBay link is here.)

I did my reading on the porch, got a little sun & air on the long-suffering epidermis; later in the day Eric came by and helped me with some shopping, that and a trip to the Quadrant for some coffee.

Nothing For A Man To Do But Sit Around And Think

Finished off the pork & sauerkraut last night, and the night before was the last of the chili. Tonight I may go out, or maybe I'll cook up some tuna w/ wilted greens. Right now I have a ton of food at home to choose from...

Linux Voyager, Next Port Of Call: I'm thinking of upgrading my system completely from the ground up, since right now I sort of have a jury-rigged version of Red Hat 8 (which was superseded several years ago by RH 9, then Red Hat moved all their non-enterprise to Fedora, and RH 9 was superseded by Fedora Core 1, 2, 3, 4 and I think version 5 was just released), anyway, I think it might be a good idea to just bring the entire system up to date in one shot. I'm thinking of trying Ubuntu, a new distribution that's generated a lot of positive buzz.

Meme, Meme, Roses Are Red

Saw this post about Eugene O'Neill, and the post's title really stuck with me. I remember the song from when I was a kid, but the song that eventually got stuck in my head because of it -- all morning long, and counting -- is "Georgie Girl."

Went out last night with Doug & Lori. They took me to the drycleaner, then we tried getting down to Nature's Way but it was closed so we went to Porter's for dinner. Completely unrelated, but I had trouble sleeping last night from about 1:00 on (went to bed around 10:00), and woke up tired this morning. Long day so far...

Please Christmas, Don't Be Late

Cast comes off three weeks from today. Not that I'm counting the days or anything, just sayin'...

Made "Bavarian Pork Chops" (ie pork and sauerkraut) yesterday in the crock pot: prepped it Sunday night, tossed it in the fridge & put it on the heater before going to work. I was a little worried, since I used "pork lumps" (apparently meant for kebabs, since they came with little skewers) instead of chops, prepped everything before the meat was fully defrosted, and added celery, carrots & potatoes to the book recipe; I was a little skeptical about the smell before it got cooking -- it kind of smelled like bad cabbage when I took it out of the fridge. When I got home last night however, the whole house smelled great, and I immediately made myself a plate, and it tasted as good as it smelled.

I was planning to play on the computer after dinner, but I was so tired and sleepy I was in bed by 7:00. I'd been up late the night before, poking away at the 'puter, bored and desultory browsing long past the point of diminishing returns, so I figure the sleep was a better idea than the internet last night.

Kickass!

Twenty-four days until the cast comes off...

Went out yesterday, took a taxi downtown to do some errands: first stop was to the bank, make sure all funds were in order between my checking accounts, then it was off to the gym. Dawn set up a very serious "lighter weights but high reps" upper body workout, focusing mainly on my chest and shoulders (w/ plenty of other stuff as well), and it beat me into the ground -- but it was a good kind of hurt! I really needed that, it made me feel normal again.

With a little help from my friends: Brian helped me with laundry on Friday -- he picked me up & drove back to his house to dry clothes, we went to Which Brew for dinner while the laundry dried, then we went back, through a DWI checkpoint, to pick up my my clothes. Then, I got a call yesterday morning from Kris, asking if I needed anything while she was running her Saturday errands. She's out the other end of the Valley and I had Greg & Judy on tap for groceries in the afternoon, so I thanked her & took a raincheck. (By the way, her chili is better than mine. I'm working on it...)

Greg & Judy took me to the supermarket in the afternoon; they got a few things for themselves and I got another big order. (I have to say that they have the shopping thing down to a science.)

Since Doug helped me with drycleaning and also picked up a few necessities the other day, I am now very far from hurting on the domestic front. Hopefully, nobody'll ever need this kind of help, but when or if the time comes, they all have some major chips they can cash in with me.

Anyway, today looks reasonably nice out, though probably cold: I may go for a walk later in the afternoon but in the meantime there's breakfast and the internet.

Staying Focused

I'm starting to feel a little more comfortable in the cast, in fact I accidentally tried walking twice in the past two days. I'd be sitting or whatever, and I'd go reach for something, and just get up and got to take a step -- doh! Let it heal, don't break it again, remember you're in a cast...

Been working out a little bit as well. I've been doing mostly upper body stuff with light dumbbells, but have also added leg lifts, leg extensions and "bicycles." I think it's actually been very helpful, especially for the comfort situation: blood flow seems much improved during and after the workout, and the metabolism boost has helped with the constant lethargic/chilly feeling I've been having lately. I will be going to the gym tomorrow, for the first time since the crash.

Chili, Urp: Ate the last of my crockpot chili last night, just to get rid of it so I can clean the pot, and also a piece of baked stuffed tofu. Admittedly a strange combo, but it worked for me.

Terra Incognita, beyond the Linux Voyage: I started messing around with TOPS-20 again, over at twenex.org. This time around, I've armed myself with some documentation, and seem to be doing quite a bit better -- at least, now when things don't work, I can find out why.

I was thinking of going out tonight, some friends are going to see the Philadelphia Funk Authority in Quakertown and I planned on joining them, but now I'm starting to feel a little tired and will probably beg off. Tomorrow's another evening out...

Wow, Doldrums Already

Well, that honeymoon didn't last long... the workday flew by yesterday, but today the time has gone back to dragging. I think I kind of romanticized work when I couldn't come in, and now the reality of indoor pollution, loud & annoying co-workers, and (most important) no nap time has settled in like a dark cloud.

It's what's for dinner: Earlier in the week I made a crock pot of chili, and so I've had chili every night since. I can no longer stand chili. Unfortunately, I have one more night to go in the crock pot -- and also, a friend's wife made me some when she heard I was hurt. I got some more chili to eat before I'm done, but I think tonight I'll make tuna & wilted greens just to keep my sanity.

OK, Back To Work!

My first day back after two and a half weeks, and it feels like I never left...

Not much to say: it's lunchtime right now, had to get a friend to carry my tray but things were pretty normal otherwise, same old food anyway... Morning was spent talking to friends & explaining what happened, and talking to the people who did my work while was gone, and just getting back up to speed here. Now I'm back in the swing of things, not even a problem getting used to it.

The Party's Over

And not a minute too soon, I might add...

My parents came up this morning (my dad also limping, from tendonitis) and took me to the doctor, where I got the staples removed from my leg and, after satisfactory x-ray results, got my new permanent cast -- semi-permanent, that is, since it's coming off only four weeks from today, I even have the appointment already. Sweet! (You can see me get the cast in my latest flickr photos.)

That means that I now have a clean bill of health, and can go back to work starting tomorrow...

Spent the day/evening yesterday playing with the computer. Dinner last night was chili, which I ate just after Doug came by & helped me with some errands. This afternoon was spent mostly sleeping.

Linux Voyager, Smooth Sailing: I downloaded and compiled the latest Mplayer, something I'd been meaning to do for a while, since newer versions of various video formats have left me in the backwaters of planned obsolescence. Got it up and running, no problems, and it worked well with the new formats, but I still liked Xine (my old standard for MPEG/wmv viewing) better even though the interface is kind of clunky... So, on a whim I set Xine to use the new codecs that came with Mplayer, and now Xine also works perfectly with the new formats. Like I said, sweet!

It's Beginning To Smell A Lot Like Chili

All through the house... The chili has been cooking since about 10:30, should be ready by 5:00 or 6:00, and it smells pretty good despite some expedients I had to take (I had no diced tomatoes, so I used tomato soup, which was a fancy kind with parmesan cheese in it). Like I said, it should be ready in an hour or so; too bad I have like zero appetite right now.

So while that's been cooking I've been reading (see previous post), playing on the computer, and also I went and cancelled my Moab flight plans: four separate phone calls (Travelocity, Travelocity flight insurance, regular Travelocity again, and finally Continental), the final call consisting of 40 minutes on hold followed by one minute of transaction, but it's done. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out how to do this online, and believe me I was motivated. (I swear, these guys compartmentalize the process so much, like they run from any responsibilities, other than their most strictly routine, and no doubt legally mandated ones like actually flying the plane, as soon as they have your money. If a travel company could or would provide full service, cradle-to-grave care for your trip, I think they would own the industry in a year.)

Linux Voyager, Tossing Things Overboard: I noticed that my hard drive was 50% full the other day (rather, my main partition on the hard drive, which uses 29G of the available 40G, was 50% full). This freaked me out, I couldn't believe that there was so mch stuff on my machine... what it turned out to be, was that almost every time I upgraded some software, I kept the old version in case the new one didn't work out, and I kept the compressed files for the new version in case I had to re-do the upgrade, so each iteration (and I kept them all) would dump another 20-30 megs on my hard drive -- 20 megs here, 20 mwegs there, pretty soon that adds up to real storage... So what I did was park about 1.5 gigabytes of essentials in my 5G "dead storage" partition, then erase about 3 more gigs of old versions of Mozilla etc. I was a little worried at first -- as in, immediately after I pressed the "OK" button -- that I may have left a few library files in among the archives, like say maybe only putting links to the archived ones in my current system, so instead of having a "flash" plugin (for instance), I'd only have a broken link. (I was especially worried about Mozilla, since I'd played fast-and-loose with the initial install, and every subsequent upgrade, and I no longer remember all my clever-stupid shortcuts.) Things seem to still work OK though, so I guess that wasn't the case. Phew, and now I'm back to a more comfortable 35%-full main partition, so I'm downloading more stuff as we speak.

Hoppy, The One-Legged Bookworm

Apparently, Blogger is buggered right now (Sunday night), so I'm just typing this up for later, will post "for real" when they get their act back together...

Been doing a lot of reading lately. I just finished a re-read of Infinite Jest, which I didn't think I could bear to read again -- it's good, but does not end on an emotional high note -- and I'm glad I did: I picked up a lot more that I missed the last (two) times I read it, and I feel it was definitely worth the effort. I happen to have been reading David Foster Wallace's book of essays, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, and it's amazing the parallels I see between the essays and Infinite Jest. Kind of funny, there are also somewhat disturbing ankle/surgery parallels between my recent life and the book, let's hope they go no further...

After that I picked up Cloud Atlas for a re-read, but I'm just picking: I'm really only interested in the second section of "An Orison of Sonmi-451." I'll probably go through it all anyway, but in the meantime I've been re-reading that anthology of Outside Magazine's best articles from their first 20 years. That works out nicely; each article, essay or story is just a bite-sized chunk, already perfect for book-nibbling.

Those Outside articles got me hankering for some more outdoor reading though, and I felt like a little nonfiction, so I just started up Cadillac Desert. Again, I think I'll just graze, skipping the less interesting chapters to just hit the stuff I like, even though I've already plowed through the Introduction and the first few chapters. (If I feel like fiction I may pick up Blood Meridian again as well, but that's kind of a fast read.)

Anyway, real life: went out again last night, back to Which Brew for dinner with my friend Greg. It was not quite as bad an ordeal as the night before (understandable, what with the St Patrick's day celebrations & whatnot), and this time I got chairs for both myself and my foot. One good thing about this whole ankle debacle is that I've actually lost about 10 pounds, even with the splint on my foot, and I think it's mainly due to the sudden drop-off in beer and bar food consumption, so I have somewhat mixed feelings about getting back out there... Saw Doug Hawke's new band; they sounded pretty good.

Other than that, nothing much is going on. I spent at least part of the day researching and pricing laptops, and I just prepared a crock pot of chili, put it in the fridge for cooking tomorrow.

I see that blogger's back, so I'll just slap this post down and then it's off to bed.

Another Weekend, Another Update

Not much to say in terms of updates: I've been home since last Monday, but I've been spending most of my time with my new hobbies of eating Percocets and watching the ceiling fan spin around and around and around...

Assume the Position: Been keeping my leg up as much as possible. Monday's visit to the doctor showed possible signs of infection (or else just a slightly-greater-than-normal blood pooling near the injury) so was put on antibiotics; another followup on Thursday showed that it was most likely just edema or whatever, so I'd better let it drain, with the good old "foot higher than the heart" position, which is most convenient on the recliner with a few pillows. Did I tell you about the ceiling fan?

Infrastructure attack! When I got home Monday after the doctor visit, and also after being down at my folks for the weekend, really wanted to play with the ol' computer -- and it was great, but later that evening... the thing crapped out. I was totally panicked, thinking I'd probably have to get a new one (maybe a laptop), but I got in touch with my friend Paul of Twin Rivers Computing (husband of my biker-chick friend Mary, we used to be neighbors when I lived over on Southside), and he came over, swapped out my bad power supply, and now everything's fine again. Sigh.

Meantime, while I was recuperating and my car sat in front of my friend's house waiting to be returned, it managed to get hit.

Escape: I'm bouncing around a little here, but I guess I'm going by themes rather than chronology. In between Monday's return home and Thursday's computer fix was the Chain Gang meeting. It was good to see everyone, even f I wasn't the person with the most internal metal in the room: Linda had a bunch of rods in her back; I hadn't realized that her surgery was so serious. Then, I stayed off the percocets all day yesterday, and took a cab to Which Brew last night for St Patrick's Day. That was definitely worth it, even if it was a bit of an ordeal and I probably won't be going out again on a weekend for some time. I hung out with recently healed fellow-injured-biker Kirk, Art & his brother, Ed, and a quite a few cuties. Ahhhhh....

Today I'm kicking back, doing laundry/dishes, trying not to kick myself -- it's beautiful out, and this would have been the day I got to help with the bear denning and cub census in NJ, for which I'd managed to wangle an invitation as a volunteer. Oh well, there will be other years, and other bears.

By the way, here are a few more ankle shots, which I actually posted up on Monday night. Um, enjoy!

Weekend Update

So here I am, down at my parents ("parents'"? "parents's"?) house...

Thursday: The surgery went well, and was pretty easy in terms of what I had to do: they wheeled me in to the OR, put me on the table, there a were a few businesslike conversations going on, then the next thing I remember was being in recovery. My first memory, while I was still pretty "out of it," was saying something like "my left calf needs to be stretched" -- I said that in darkness, then opened my eyes to the recovery nurse telling me to breathe deeply. I was thirsty, but they only gave me a little ice, and a small amount of water. Back to my room, where they made every effort to get me to wake me up, then decided it was too late for discharge, got me a room, told me I could sleep but by then I was awake anyway... More work getting water/soda; they didn't like the way I was guzzling it & were worried about post-anesthesia nausea. The overnight was pretty tough, with pain and discomfort, and I now have less respect for Morphine the Great And Powerful, which didn't seem to do shit...

Friday: Spent most of the day at the hospital, saw my surgeon -- Dr. Mitch Cooper, who reminds me in some ways of my high school friend Ron -- and he gave me the info on the operation: one plate, 7 or 8 screws, all on the outside bone because the inner one wasn't as bad as the x-rays originally indicated. The plates/screws are titanium, because I have a problem with nickel (as in, rashes from stainless steel watch bands, etc). Doc said I'll get my regular cast at my Monday appointment. I was told I could leave "any time I want" just after I ordered lunch, so I stuck around for that, left the hospital around 2:30-3:00 or so.

The ride home was uneventful (I was pretty doped up & slept), then I just vegged around Friday night.

Saturday: More vegging out, then saw my brother & nephew when they came to visit. Watched the Princess Bride, which I'd never seen but I know half the lines anyway...

Today I woke up with a quantum leap down in my level of pain/discomfort, in fact I stopped taking the percocets (which I'd been popping every four hours like clockwork for the past few days) this morning, will probably only need them again for sleeping. Finally got upstairs at my parents, where the computer is, and have had my butt planted here ever since.

Tomorrow I should be home, and I should be back to work Wednesday.

Ankle Update

I have two separate fractures, one in each of the bones of my calf (tibia and fibula, I think) just where they attach to the foot. I am going in for surgery Thursday, getting a plate on the outside bone and some pins in the inside one, after which will come six weeks of being in a cast -- then no doubt several months of therapy.

Here and here are more photos, some that my friend Brian -- who broke his bike frame just a few minutes later -- took during the "rescue." Tough ride!

Oopsie

What a revoltin' development! Riding today at Lehigh, I slipped, hit a rock with my foot, and -- broke my ankle. Quite disturbing, my foot was pointing completely backwards just after it happened. Managed to twist it back, get it comfortable, and my friends -- among whom were two nurses and a doctor, luckily -- got me un-dislocated & splinted up for the trip out of the woods (I actually sat on my bike while friends pushed it, all I needed was a Burger King crown). A quick ride to the hospital, a splint/cast, some Vicodin and now I have to get an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon tomorrow...

I Talk To The Wind

Said the straight man
To the late man
"Where have you been?"

"I've been here, and
"I've been there, and
I've been in between."

Well, got my car: tires & inspection are done, but there's been yet another snafu in getting the camshaft, so it's going in again next week -- this time, I'm getting a damn loaner. Meantime, I just got back from a cold and very breezy singlespeed ride down the towpath, and now I think I'll walk on down to Which Brew.

I talk to the wind,
My words are all carried away.
I talk to tthe wind,
The wind does not hear.
The wind cannot hear.

Where You Been?

Morning weigh-in: 182#, 4.5% BF (um, yeah)

Back to posting, just in time for the weekend after a busy and frustrating week.

Car: The car is still in the shop, which seems to have planning/communications/inventory problems. Hopefully I'll be getting it back tonight, but I thought that yesterday, and also Wednesday, and I took off work Tuesday because I thought I'd be picking it up in the morning (morning comes & goes, car is still not ready & I'm stuck at home), ditto Monday...

It went in for an oil change and inspection, but it needed tires to pass so I had to get tires ordered -- then, I thought they were on the car but found out they hadn't even been ordered yet -- then, while waiting for tires the replacement camshafts arrived, or maybe they didn't, but they're also going in hopefully either today or yesterday or... something...

So, I've been carpooling, and meantime I have not done any shopping/drycleaning/errands for a week.

Skin: It looked like it was really improving, previously damaged areas are almost healed but it took a sudden turn for the worse over the past day or two. I wonder if there is still some irritant driving it -- I stopped my cereal-with-organic-whole-milk-breakfast routine, on the off chance that the milk (from grass-fed cattle) could be the cause: no change. The irritant could be environmental, so I must now start looking around for other possible causes, like new detergents or whatever.

The doctor visit has been postponed, first because of the improvement, then until the car issue resolves itself. By the way, excema is also aggravated by stress...

Work: We are mucho busy here. I am also being trained in some hot new 3D design software -- self-trained actually, which sticks in my craw a little; other people were sent out for several weeks of off-site professional training, which still managed to leave them with their heads spinning. I am supposed to put in an hour or so a day when I have nothing else to do, see if I can dope it out... Well I did pass 8th-grade math, in fact I aced 18th-grade engineering math back in the day, so this should be a piece of cake, and it is some seriously cool stuff.

I think I could use a weekend, in fact, I could use a whole month of them.