Category: Misc

I muffed the name of one of the boys friends at his learn-to-skate session today. It’s hard not to conclude that my memory was affected in a minor way by the blow. It’s possible that I’m being overly sensitive to the situation, but I don’t normally makes these kind of mistakes with such frequency.

I still have the mild sense of disorientation. Painwise, there is a dull ache where my head and neck meet when I lift my head to look up. I’m guessing that my head shifted forward from the force of the blow. I found out it hurts to sneeze- mainly behind my eyes. I suspect coughing would be similarly uncomfortable.

I drove today for the first time since without any ill-effects. There will be a better test tomorrow when I take the lass to here dance class at the Y. I’ll take the opportunity to swing a racquet while I’m there, see if there’s any surprises for me in that regard.

From this point, I’ll only post on this topic as I notice improvements or other possibly related symptoms. More normal topics to follow shortly…

It’s roughly 36 hours after I got my concussion. Yesterday morning was easily the worst day. I didn’t sleep well through the night and the combination of that plus the injury having occured only 18 hours previous resulted in a nasty headache. I wasn’t much good for anything save laying on the couch, trips to the sink for water and trips to the bathroom for taking a leak (pardon my bluntness).

Finally, about mid afternoon yesterday, I was managed to get some decent sleep. When I woke up I felt much improved- the headache being mostly gone. A minor feeling of dizziness cropped up if I moved my head to quickly, otherwise I felt OK.

My brother called to see how I was doing. I didn’t know who it was for the first several seconds. I saw hiw fiance’s name on caller ID, but didn’t recognize it, and then didn’t recognize his voice. It was a surreal feeling since this person on the other end of the phone KNEW what had happened and was asking me questions about it. He was talking to me like he’d known me his whole life as well. Weird. Then recognition finally struck. The world was set to right once again.

In addition, that morning I had forgotten the name of my nephew. I dismissed that as a brain fart when it happened, but after the experience with my brother it’s hard to dismiss the 800-pound gorilla in the room.

Today I’m feeling even better. The slight feeling of dizziness remains- but no headache. The back of my head does have a tender spot, but it’s minimal. I’m now convinced that, contrary to my original impressions, I was outcold for several minutes after the blow to my head. The fact that my head has no lump and minimal physical tenderness (lieing on ice would have been instant first aid), that my hands were chilled with snow on them when I woke up (but my hands were up in the air), and the fact the timeline doesn’t make complete sense to me without a period of unconsciousness lead me to the conclusion.

Hopefully the mild dizziness will be all but gone after tonight. More tomorrow.

We have 2 African Grey parrots in addition to the 2 dogs and cat. Our second dog is a 2 year old German Shepherd with tons of energy. He is fascinated by the parrots.

Well, as of this morning the parrots have figured out how to leverage that fascination into entertainment for themselves. They will go to the bottom of the cage and taunt the dog by hopping around and flapping there wings a little. The dog then charges the cage, which results in me barking at the dog to stop charging cage.

The Greys did this 3 times in quick succession this morning. The Wife and I both realized the Grey’s manipulations after the second time.

Until I can get the dog to stop responding to their taunts, the Greys will continue to get their entertainment.

The rules for a good sandwich are pretty simple:

• Has to be sloppy…
• …but not so sloppy that it can’t be held together
• Naturally, it better taste good
• The eater should be sorry when its gone
• The eater should feel a little guilty that they ate it

The burger I had today was a bison burger at Ted’s Montana Grill. The name of it is ‘The Kitchen Sink.’ Now, it’s not quite that audacious. But still: bacon, grilled onions, mushrooms, tomato, pickles, Jack cheese, ham, and a fried egg. When I ordered, the server gave me a half “OK” and half horrified look. I don’t think she even liked serving it. The Wife didn’t like looking at it. Probably because it looked like a coronary on a plate. It had to easily top 1500 calories. It took me a good couple of minutes to figure out how to tackle it.

When I finally picked it up, the egg broke and coated the whole thing in yolk- as well as a good portion of the plate. But, once I finally started eating it- just … WOW. Heaven on a bun. I sopped up the drippings on the plate. I licked my fingers. I savored every bite. I didn’t dare put it down because I was not going to be able to pick it up again. The Wife coudln’t believe I ate the whole thing. I couldn’t believe there wasn’t more of it.

Did I feel guilty about eating it afterwards? Yes- like I said, it had to be worth 1500 calories. How could I not feel guilty. I didn’t even bother to have dinner.

4 stars. 2 thumbs up. Go find one for yourself.

Glenn Reynolds linked to a very interesting article about vitamin D and exposure to the sun. I won’t summarize the article, as it is a summary itself of the process by which the past 40 years of scientific consensus regarding exposure to sunlight been overturned. It’s worth a read.

I’m commenting on it because it seems to me that the pattern described here is a familiar one. A lone individual decides not to take conventional wisdom on faith. That person basically spends a lifetime carefully researching and documenting a new train of thought. He is rigorous, because he has to be, and his research is better, because it has to be, than what has come before. Combined with some other fortuitous events, he is able to finally break through and demonstrate that the conventional line of thinking is, if not compeletly wrong, then at the very least not right.

In the wake of climategate, I’m thinking it will take a similar effort by some individual, or uncoordinated but related efforts by multiple individuals, out there to develop a better picture regarding climate change and the impact of man-made carbon dioxide on it. I wonder if that individual is out there now, or if climategate has spurred him to action? I also wonder what irreversible damage will be done before it happens.

Well, we made it to Tuesday.

The first day back from vacation is always a drag. So naturally, this year, we didn’t waste any time getting back into the swing of things. The lass had her new dance class, the boy had school, we had our chiro appointment, the Wife had work and I had racquetball.

The timing from dance class to school was such that I had to pack a lunch for the boy so that he could eat it while enroute to school from the Y. Last night’s racquetball match was at 8:30. At least, it was scheduled for 8:30. We actually started closer to 9 and didn’t end until after 10. I finally got home around midnight and then had to deal with the fire.

But it’s Tuesday now, so it’s all downhill from here. Just another 360 days or so to go…

Welcome to the New Year. May it be a happy and healthy one for you all.

What resolutions did you make that you’ll likely forget about in 2 weeks?

Just because I wanted to be perverse. No more time for blogging this year…

Today started out like any other- I got out of bed and had coffee. Woopee. My plan was to finish assembling the drawer I’ve been working on. I was on the last set of half-blind pins. After that, I just had to get the drawer bottom glued up and the grooves for the bottom milled into the drawer sides.

It’s cold up here. The day started at 19 and the temp fell as the day wore on. To make the garage a little more comfortable, I went to get a propane tank filled up so I’d have some heat out there. After I got back, the Wife went grocery shopping and I started in on some other chores.

Remember all that snow we got?

Yeah, it’s all gone now. Actually, it was all gone yesterday- one week after it all fell. Amazing. I’d put up a picture of the picnic table, but really, what’s interesting about an empty picnic table?

The casualty of the morning was the boy’s snowman. He gave the snowman a carrot for a nose. Unfortunately for the snowman, dog #1’s favorite snack is carrots.

I post this knowing full well it’s probably not worth it, but what the hell. I haven’t seen anyone else ask them and they seemed kind of obvious.

First, if the planet and our existence is in peril according to “settled” science, and then evidence surfaces that maybe, possibly, science was wrong, isn’t that a good thing? I mean, can’t we all take a deep breath and thank our lucky stars that, in fact, it looks like the global warming apocalypse might not occur after all? Has anyone else looked at Climategate through that lens? Or is it just me?

Second, if you’ve spent your entire life believing in something and then evidence surfaces that you’ve been duped, shouldn’t you be mad at the dupers? I mean, you’ve put your LIFE into this stuff, and now this comes out? Isn’t the sane thing to tar-and-feather the jackasses who’ve been manipulating you all these years?

Now admittedly… that’s more than 2 questions. But the others were kind of supplemental ones…

Slightly more seriously, I know what the answer to these questions are- or at least what the likely response to them would be.. Still, it’s striking to me there haven’t been any global warming believers express any emotion other than “It just CAN’T be true. The science is on OUR side.” Along similar lines, I wonder what it would take for GW proponents to admit they’d been mislead?

We got about 2 inches last night. Nothing to fantastic, but it made for a decent pic.

The latest DirectTV commercial has to be one of the best. I can’t help but laugh everytime that guy gets up out of his chair declaring “It’s ME!!! Goin’ to Barbados folks…”

And it’s the little things that make it work: the subtle sideways glancing of everyone as they try to figure out who won’t be there next week, the high-five he gets once he gets up from his chair, the incredulous look on the CEO’s face when the guy gets up, even the rest of his parting line as he leaves stating “Good luck with that DirectTV thing. Sounds hard.”

Most amazingly, at least for recent commercials, is I remember who the ad is for.

The dearth of posting is related to my blog client project. I had it running and then decided it needed a fairly significant overhaul. Naturally, that broke it again. It seems to be limping along again now.

I do have some posts on stale topics, timewise that is, to come now that I can use it again. But not now. The Lass is tired of waiting for me to get off of the “pyooooter.”

Back later.

Checking how timestamping works.

UPDATE: Interesting, putting NO timestamp info in the post object sent to the XML RPC results in the post being published immediately. This means the logical thing to do is not include timestamping unless someone wants to schedule a post for publishing.

Having finished up thing fairly early yesterday, I got a chance to sit down and catch some football for awhile. The Patriot game was the only interesting one available and it looked to me like vintage Patriot football where they slowly strangle the other team as the game goes on. Even though theoretically the Dolphins were in the game, it never really felt like they had a chance. If the team continues like this, I won’t be surprised to see them in the Super Bowl again.

I watched about two thirds of the Cowboy/ Eagles game last night as well. When I turned it off, I was pretty sure that the Eagles were going to pull away. I was pleasantly surprised this morning when I saw that the Cowboys had not only won, but they’d managed the win in a way they’ve been unable to since Romo has been QB. He had a tough game last night but still managed to get the job done.

Of course, these were just the eighth games of the season, so there’s still plenty of football to play. For the Cowboys, December still looms. Unless they can actually win games then, they won’t be doing anything. For the Patriots, I wouldn’t expect them to have mental problems, but physically they’re an older team. The latter haf of the season will show how much those guys still have in the tank.

As a sort of one-off, kind of a bummer that Penn St lost to Ohio St this weekend. I thought they’d been looking pretty good this year- but they pulled a real stinker in that one. About time that Iowa lost. I was getting sick of hearing about them. Looks like the SEC championship will be the National title game as well. Sorry BCS, that’s just the way the ball rolls.

I don’t have time at the moment, but I’ve finally made some visible progress on the armoire. In short, I’ve got the frame and the side panels put together. What I’ll need to do for the drawers is also becoming more clear. I’ll be more specific tomorrow when I have time. I’ll also get a pic up.

Daylight savings was a nice treat for today. An extra hour, however manufactured, is always nice.

More tomorrow.

I’m not much of a baseball fan. But when the Phillies walk into Yankee stadium and whomp the Yankees, well it’s certainly something I’ll notice. For many years Phillies fans were kind of embarassed to admit that they were, well, Phillies fans. My guess is a lot of them are still waiting for them to screw it up. Even after winning it last year, the circumstances were weird with the split 5th game and what not, so it didn’t seem like they ever got the credit normally due a World Series Champ.

Winning 2 in a row is a whole different thing though. People tend to notice that sort of accomplishment.

3 to go…