Nothing Much but This Update

I have a sore throat so I’m taking it easy so I don’t get full-blown sick. Hope you are too. Taking it easy that is, not getting ill.

The Cal-Miami game was interesting. That’s about it.

Alright, now for your Lolcat pic. Have a good night.

 

Quick update for the masses

Wireless connection isn’t working right, so we’ve got an uber-fast, uber-expensive wired connection from it now. Jesse will be dealing with the Linksys people again hopefully tomorrow.

I’d give detail as to why it’s not working right but I am a poor describer of all things computer hardware-related, and I have a splitting headache, which I acquired around 11 a.m. today.

Still, I feel proud of myself that I managed to continue my daily flossing streak today. Small victories, one day at a time.

 

This Just In

My mom went to the doctor yesterday for a check-up and like most people her age (72), she has to have a medical procedure done. In this case, it’s a surgery to have her bladder and uterus lifted. Now one would not even realize that such things could fall – to where could said items plummet? There ain’t that much space to move around. Apparently, it isn’t as uncommon as one might think, and the bladder-dropping happens a lot to women after childbirth.

Be that as it may, my mom might be off of work for up to six weeks AND she might need me to come stay with her for the first week after she gets out of the hospital. I love visiting with my mom but I would miss Jesse (and our cats) terribly.

At least it would only be for a week, and it would be in the spring before school starts. Jesse’s parents visited us this past May so my mom is due to visit us or have us visit her. I guess all things considered, this would be the easiest way to do it.

 

What a long, strange week it’s been.

Jesse and I have had an unusual week, to say the least. On my end, you never know what exactly you have forgotten to backup until you see it being deleted during your reformat. Specifically, I forgot to backup several hundred fonts and my birthday reminder list on my Firefox. Hopefully, both will not be too painful to reconstruct.

Jesse, on the other hand, knows the meaning of the word “pain”. His facial infection, which the doctors suspect started as a clogged tear duct in his left eye, grew to be so painful and swelled, that we went to the emergency room on Wednesday. As per usual with all services in Nevada, we got seen pretty much right away. (This is a tourism-based state where service is king and you may not find the people exceedingly friendly but, by God, you’ll get served faster than corn dogs at a state fair.) We had a follow-up with our primary care physician on Thursday, who said his antibiotics would still take a while longer to work, and he would not be able to work Friday. Two positive notes: his MRI came back clear and his 100 deg F fever is gone.

Now that his fever is gone, his body can begin to recover. Since his MRI is clear, it means the infection is not moving to his brain. The scary part of a facial infection is this: when you have an infection in your body, it very often moves. In your face, it doesn’t have too many places to go. Me, I’d go to Vegas, or maybe a nice tropical resort. Anyway, Jesse is out of the worst of it. It’ll just take time for the infection to run its course. In the interim, I’ve rented several films for him to watch.

The most horrible part of the process now is the fact he’s been told he can’t be on the computer for more than 30 minutes at a time, else he will strain his bad eye. That went over like a plate of veal at a vegan banquet.

Okay, better topic. I’ve decided on a major: computer science. It’ll be a good fit with my previous degrees, especially my masters. There are a vast array of fields I can work in with a comp sci degree and I’ll have a free tutor at my beck and call every night. I’m not terribly stoked about being behind a desk for eight hours a day. On the other hand, Jesse has proposed getting us a pair of street bicycles, which would help us exercise and get out and about. So it probably wouldn’t be so bad.

There was something else I was going to mention. I can’t recall now and I need to go feed the cats. I leave you now with this:

“Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon.”
~Doug Larson

 

“ ‘Cake or death?’ That’s a pretty easy question. Anyone could answer that.”

I’m off to do my reformat. I have all my ducks in a row, I think. And it’s a good a time as ever. Plus, Jesse’s absolutely miserable so I may as well join him in company.

Jesse’s got a 10:30 a.m. appointment with the doc tomorrow. Morning can’t come soon enough.

See you on the flip side.

“I like my coffee like I like my women…in a plastic cup.”
~Eddie Izzard

 

“I intend to live forever. So far, so good.”

So tomorrow is the big day. The Great Reformat of 2008. A day that will live on in infamy, or not, depending on how well I backup my files. My computer has too many programs, files, and whatnot on it currently, and it’s become rather fussy as of late. As the adage says, it performs much in the same way as old people have sex: slow and sloppy. Sometimes it just locks up and says PISS OFF to me in not so many words. Plus, Jesse reformatted last week, so I might as well do it too. It’s good to reformat every so often, though most formats are forced rather than chosen.

I am going to the dentist tomorrow and Jesse will have a meeting of the minds with our medical provider sooner than he would like due to an irritating eye problem. I think – and hope – it is allergies. Sometimes my allergies do rather funny things, but it’s more in the “splitting headache plus nausea” kind of way.

If the dentist appointment is long and gruesome, then the reformat may be delayed. We shall see.

What else? Oh yes, World of Warcraft’s expansion: Wrath of the Lich King started up this past week. Well done there, although I hear the servers were not really prepared for the onslaught of users. I wasn’t surprised. The servers weren’t prepared when I was in the Beta testing. Lord of the Rings Online’s expansion: Mines of Moria starts Tuesday. Both Jesse and I got it but as neither of us are nowhere near 50 (the current level cap), it’ll be a while before we see the xpac content.

“I went to a restaurant that serves “breakfast at any time”. So I ordered French Toast during the Renaissance.”
~Steven Wright

 

“Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time.”

Today I went to the doctor and got a new prescription for Flonase. It is a nasal steroid that literally can change your life. I remember the first week I was on it. I was blown away by the sensation of being able to breathe through both nostrils fully and completely; I almost choked on air. It then dawned on me that was what other people were breathing like all the time. To quoth Master Keanu, “Whoa.”

I went into Costco for the first time in many, many years. Jesse and I got a new family membership, despite my years of hesitation. He assured me the Sparks/Spanish Springs location would be a reasonable, low-key venue at which to shop. I ordered our cards online but one must trade them in when one receives them in the mail for photo IDs at the store proper. I made it in the store and took a fairly decent photo – mind you, it was a tiny black-and-white shot. But I did notice that even though the store’s parking lot was full, the store seemed to be relatively calm, and not…chaotic. I think that’s the best way one could describe a Los Angeles-area Costco. You give a battery of “over-40″ housewives some super-wide grocery carts and add to that sales on just about anything in bulk packaging. In a matter of minutes, they will be converted into a pack of wild, heaving savages, careening down aisles with no caution or care for others. It is truly a sight to behold.

I happened to walk through our Costco with no cart. This was done for a couple of reasons. One, quickness of movement. When I want to go through an entire store in a matter of a couple of minutes, it is best not to be slogging along a rolling skeleton of metal. Two, there is an old phrase that I’m sure still rings true today, “You can’t go into Costo and leave with less than $300 worth of stuff.” No cart prevents that. Three, if I was going to be dodging bullets, Viet Cong, and Martha Stewart communist vampires, I was going to travel light and fast. Last and most importantly, I just plain forgot a cart.

I have picked my Spanish lessons back up. I will go into that in a future update. I have several reasons for this and some interesting things to share from this past week. See if you can spot the particularly unusual thing that I noticed about the two speakers from this podcast series.

Oh heck, it’s 10:25. Time to clean the litter box and be off to bed. Some days you rock and roll. Other days, you clean up the rocks others leave behind.

“I have never taken any exercise except sleeping and resting.”
~Mark Twain

 

“Health is not valued till sickness comes.”

I have a bit of a head cold. Back tomorrow. Feel free to roam about the place. Just don’t break nuthin’.