Just in time for Valentine's Day, Matt brings us the International Geek Love song.
Ok so it's not so new, but anyway. Here's a photo my daughter took during her weekend trip to the Grand Canyon. She sent from her phone to mine, and I downloaded to my laptop via USB.
It would've been even cooler if I could've gotten my Bluetooth connection to work.
Some more disgusting than others.
And this would be more fun than watching a geek bite off a chicken's head, wouldn't it?
Got even more good news last night. My son and his fiancee finally got married yesterday. Woo-Hoo!!
Oh, the title? Their baby is due in 5-6 weeks. Cutting it a little too close for comfort, he was.
I told him he had made his mommy very happy.
Now here's some great news....looks like Miss Vicky has finally taken a turn for the better.
I'd do the dance of happiness, but this damn cat would steal my lunch.
Mike & I don't do Valentine's Day, we think it's dumb. But the anniversary of our first date falls right before Feb. 14th, and we usually celebrate it in style in one way or another. This year I'm getting 2 extra-special gifts, this followed shortly by this.
Am I a lucky girl or what?
Yeah, well anyway, met with my new neurosurgeon yesterday, who decided I needed more detailed testing. I like him so far, a no-nonsense kind of guy, who seemed geniunely interested in solving the puzzle of what's wrong with me.....and relished the challenge. I like that in a doctor. He even asked what I wanted to happen, which was refreshing.
Much like the guy in an old Jerry Clowry story, I just want this to stop. Ever hear that one? A guy climbs a tree, thinking to scare out a raccoon, but encounters a wildcat, which attacks him. In the ensuing melee, he yells down for his companions to shoot. His companions tell him they can't, for they're afraid they might shoot him. His reply?
"Fire away boys. One of us has got to have some relief."
I'm just about at that point myself.
My little hometown newspaper has been running a series of articles about how the sheriff is raising funds to get a drug dog. In this week's article about a large donation received, it mentions that the average working life of a K-9 is 7-9 years. And that it had been 10 yrs. since the sheriff's department had had a drug dog.
I got a pretty good chuckle out of that because it would lead one to believe that the last drug dog had outlived its usefulness and it's time to get a new one. A reasonable assumption, but not exactly accurate.
I remember the last one they had, a nice little dog named Dixie. Dixie was an Alsatian or maybe a Belgian Shepherd, if memory serves. Someone had gotten some kind of anti-drug grant money to purchase Dixie, and a deputy was selected and trained to be her partner.
All went well for quite a while, Dixie worked hard & was generally regarded as a welcome addition to the sheriff's department. Until the day came when her human partner left the sheriff's department for a job elsewhere.
Dixie refused to do anything except lie on the floor at the jail/sheriff's department and stare mournfully at the wall. Permanently. They tried everything, including if I remember correctly, bringing in another dog trainer to work with her. No dice. She became a more or less permanent fixture at the jail, lying in the floor staring at the wall, and never worked another day in her life as far as I know.
I hope they have a little better luck with the next one.
You might remember I posted back in November about an interesting DWI on appeal. The question for the appellate justices was when is a driver 'in control' of a vehicle. (The drunk guy was asleep in a running vehicle, which had been started by a remote starter, so no keys were in the ignition) There was a ruling today.
The Arkansas Court of Appeals reversed the drunken driving conviction of a Washington County man who turned on his car's engine using a remote device.
Judges ruled that there wasn't enough evidence to convict Charles Franklin Rogers, who was found asleep in his car by Fayetteville officers in January 2004.
You can read the full opinion here, including the dissent....who I think has the better argument, especially Judge Griffen.
It seems to me that if all the guy had to do was put the key in the ignition, depress the brake pedal, put it in gear & take off, he's 'in control' of the vehicle. At least as much in control as some of the other convictions that have been upheld, anyway. I don't see whether the key was actually in the ignition to be dispositive, especially when one prior conviction was upheld when the drunk guy was merely steering a non-running vehicle that was being pushed.
Gotta adapt to new technology, you know.
Just got back from a dr.'s visit for my 3rd round of antibiotics to try to get rid of this stubborn sinus infection. While I was there, he went over some test results that had came in since my last visit....yay. It wasn't very good.
If the next check of my blood sugar comes back at the same level as the last one, I get a prize. And not a good one. Full-blown diabetes. Yikes. Stick to my diet & hope for the best he said. I will, I said. And you can bet your ass I will. Hopefully the combination of the diet & getting (slowly) off prednisone will do the trick. I hope.
But wait. There was more. The ultrasound scan of my thyroid showed not 1....not 2....but 3 freaking nodules. 2 were pretty small; 1 was over 1 cm. Well crap. I had one removed about 5 yrs. ago. It was not fun. So now I get to see an endocrinologist to examine my options: 1) Surgery; 2) Biopsy; and/or 3) Keep a close eye on it.
Plus I'm to see a neurosurgeon to see if he will whack the lipoma out of my spinal cord so my freaking leg will stop bothering me.
*sigh* Good grief, I'm falling apart. I'm getting to the point that I dread going to the doctor because I know I'm going to find out something else isn't working.
I think Mike's right. If I'd known I was going to live so long, I'da taken better care of myself.
Golden years, my ass.
I've posted a few of the photos from my Phoenix trip, start at the top & scroll.
New Mexico was by far the most beautiful place we went through. The Flagstaff area was probably the second. And with apologies to any of you who live there, but Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle was mostly a whole lot of nothing.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
I was pretty excited the other day to read that my old alma mater, the Leslie Public School system, was ranked 2nd in the state by the UofA's recent School Perfomance Index study. It confirmed statistically what I already knew: I got a damn fine education at my little school. Not only did I receive a solid grounding in the basics, but more importantly I was also taught how to learn. And most importantly of all, I was encouraged to pursue higher education even though I was a girl....which was a big deal back in those days.
So you may perhaps imagine my dismay when I read this:
The Searcy County School Board unanimously voted Tuesday night to set a course for establishing only one high school in the district.
Guess which school will remain, the one ranked 2nd in the state or the one ranked 77th?
Yep. The sons o'bitches are closing my old school. Why? Well, under our Rev. Gov's school consolidation plan, my old school doesn't have enough students. Marshall, ranked 77th, does. (And I suppose it didn't hurt that all but two of the Searcy Co. School Board members attended Marshall school.)
There's also the factor of lengthy bus rides that consolidation will cause. We lived about 7 miles from my school; my bus ride was 1 1/2 hrs. on a good day. And we didn't live nearly as far back in the boonies as many kids did.
So not only are they closing a better school, they're also adding hours to students' commute time.
Wow, that's a great idea to improve these kids' education, isn't it?
That would be me. The flights back yesterday were fairly uneventful, though I got a little nervous while sitting in Houston waiting for my connecting flight because of all the flight delays I kept hearing. But my flights were all on time, and except for the extraordinarily hard landing at XNA, pretty routine. Note to Continental's XNA pilot: I'm sure you were excited about successfully completing the flight, but it really isn't necessary to land your plane as if you were spiking a football. My back is still sore, thanks.
I hope to get some photos up later today, but right now I've unpacking, mail sorting, etc. to deal with. At least this morning the dogs have stopped shadowing my every step and settled back into their normal routine. Even the cat has settled down after drawing blood multiple times last night. He was not very happy that I'd been gone.
It's good to be home.
After struggling to get dialup to work for two days with no success, my daughter got hooked up on t-mobile/starbucks pay-as-you-go. I have never seen a harder place to get freaking internet access.
And yes, I've been in withdrawal for the last 2-3 days.
Home tomorrow afternoon, back to my cable modem, a/k/a The Precious.
...is probably a bad idea. Or so I would think, after seeing all the bums hanging around the truck stop at which we stopped. Today was a bit more exciting, thanks to my daughter saying, before we crossed into Arizona, "Wow, I bet this is even prettier when it snows."
Within about 15 minutes, we found out.
It wasn't too bad at first, very windy but just light snow. The farther into Arizona we got, the harder it snowed. Until I could see about as far as three cars in front of me. My daughter by this time, was freaking asleep of course. The road never really got slick, thank goodness, so we made it to Flagstaff ok. Though, as we discovered when we were unloading the car at the hotel, the parking lot & streets were covered with about 1/2 inch of black ice.
Nice.
Anyway, we made it here safely, and aren't leaving tomorrow until it warms up above freezing. New Mexico was absolutely beautiful, and Arizona has been pretty too...what I could see of it through the snow.
Hopefully, I'll get to see more of it tomorrow as we head south to Phoenix.
Guess who got to go home?
Now that's a beautiful sight.
We've made it to Tucumcari just fine....me, my daughter and one of her cats. Both were surprisingly well-behaved. Her car handled well, and was pretty comfortable.
No interesting tales so far. Oklahoma was very windy. Texas Panhandle was very flat. It was too dark to see New Mexico by the time we got here.
Wasn't that exciting?
I hope tomorrow is just as uneventful.
Check out today's Day By Day. You might see someone mentioned you know.
Like me. For this.
Chris, thank you. You're the best.
So we're cleaning up my old laptop for my daughter to use while she's in Arizona, but we've run into a small problem. It refuses to run Disk Cleanup. I've defragged it more times than I can count. And repeatedly run 'chkdsk /R', which says it can't find any problems. Cleanup will run until it starts scanning Compressed Old Files, then it'll run for a while and then stop.....like it's timing out or something.
The OS is W2K, BTW. And there's about 20% free space on the drive.
Any suggestions?
While on a futile quest for decongestant today (apparently there's a county-wide shortage), I saw this flyer that I didn't quite get:
RAW VEGAN
COOKING SCHOOL
That kinda made my brain hurt.
This reminded me of something that happened while my daughter was buying her new car. The dealership's financial guy was going over the sales contract with her, and was trying to get her to agree to forego her right to sue & agree to arbitration. My daughter asked "What's arbitration?"
I replied "It's where two parties sit down with an arbitrator and negotiate a compromise that makes everyone unhappy."
He was not amused.
Heh.
Does this make me a full-blown geek?
I just realized I was double-clicking the clothesdryer's off button.
Sheesh.
I may be permanently crippled. That's right, major road trip this week. My newly-single daughter has taken a job as a travel nurse, first 13 week assignment at a hospital near Phoenix. So I was faced with a rather devil-or-the-deep-blue-sea choice:
Which would make me sicker, driving with her to Phoenix & flying home, or worrying about her driving out there alone?
Tough call, but since she's not very travel wise, the safer choice was going with her. I mean, the child actually was amazed when a friend told her that rest stops weren't a safe place for a young, attractive female traveling alone. Jeez.
We're leaving Wednesday, and I expect to make Phoenix sometime Friday. We've planned at least one short sightseeing detour for the Petrified Forest. I'd like to take her by the Grand Canyon, but not sure if we'll have time. Besides, she was way too disappointed when I told her if we went there, we weren't doing a Thelma & Louise. Ha.
We're planning to take I-40 to Flagstaff then whatever it is south to Phoenix. Any travel tips (things we should see, places to avoid, etc.) would be much appreciated.
Wish me luck.
So I was sitting in the living room last night after dinner, vaguely watching tv when Smokey came streaking by. He was running from window to window like a total spaz....even more than usual. He finally settle nervously in the window beside my chair, and peered out of the blinds at me with that "Here's Johnny!" look on his face. All a-quiver, he turned & stared intently out the window.
What's gotten him so cranked up, I wondered. Then I heard it. The staccato tick-tick-ticking of hail bouncing off the window panes. Then the thunder and lightning started. We were having a thunderstorm, which always gets him wound up.....I suppose because we've have so few of them in his lifetime due to the drought.
It doesn't scare him so much as get him all excited. I think he's not sure what it is, but he wants to catch it and kill it. Or at least bat it around for a little while.
The nice thing is that he's much more accurate than the National Weather Service. It was a good 10-15 minutes after he started spazzing out before they issued a thunderstorm warning for our area.
When you live in Tornado Alley like we do, that 10-15 minute advance warning could come in handy.
Our good neighbors Matt and Miss Vicki continue to get more and more bad news....update here. Looks like Miss Vicki will be transferred to Little Rock's UAMS for even more tests and specialists.
Which I'm sure will be hideously expensive. Now I don't know about their financial situation, but I'm fairly certain they could use some help.....as anyone would. So if you can, drop by Matt's and leave a little something in his tipjar. The blogosphere has always been great about taking care of our own, so help spread the word.
And keep sending the encouraging emails. They're a big help.
After all, we all get by with a little help from our friends, right?
Just got back from seeing my internal medicine guy, update on my condition below the fold for those of you who're interested. While waiting to get even more blood drawn, I was subjected to Biden at the Alito hearing....which gave me a killer headache. Has there ever been anyone better at talking so much & saying so little?
What a pompous blowhard.
Bottom line, it's been 11 months since my first symptoms. Not only am I not better, it's getting worse. Very frustrating.
First, as Goddess commented earlier, the prednisone has elevated my blood sugar. So I'm to follow a diabetic diet until my next checkup. Funny, I've been reading over it and I don't see biscuits & gravy on there anywhere. Must be a typo or a sheet missing or something.
It's also elevated my blood pressure slightly, but for now we're just going to keep an eye on that. All this should resolve itself once I'm able to stop taking it. We hope.
Good news, I've lost 2 lbs. in the last week or so. Which doesn't sound like much but volume-wise, 2 lbs. of fat is a much bigger chunk than 2 lbs. of muscle. My goal is to be able to wear something besides freaking sweats, which shouldn't be a problem once I get off this damn medication that made me gain the weight in the first place.
Not so good, my thyroid level was elevated. So more blood tests, and an ultrasound Thursday to see what's going on.
And to further make my freaking day, the MRI of my lower back showed a small lipoma and supposedly a bulging disc. According to the neurologist anyway. Seeing as how this is the same doctor who tried to convince me I almost sorta kinda have sleep apnea, I want a second opinion. From a neurosurgeon who doesn't run a sleep clinic. *ahem* And because the neurologist said I shouldn't have the lipoma taken out until it got worse even though it was probably the source of my leg pain. Easy for her to say. It's not her leg. She can stand for more than 5 minutes at a time.
Finally, I'm on antibiotics again because the last round didn't clear the sinus infection I got from having the Christmas Crud. Happy, happy, joy, joy.
All in all, I'm not having a very good day. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to enjoy a nice hot cup of tea before my daughter drags me out into the cold & damp to find her a car.
Our Rev. Gov. has signed a proclamation to help with our current drought.
Huckabee, a Baptist minister, said the lack of rain that has led to wildfires and imperiled local water supplies around the state "serves as a poignant reminder of our complete reliance on God for even the most basic necessities of life."
"I, Mike Huckabee, acting under the authority vested in me as governor ..., call upon the people of our state to pray for rain," the proclamation said.
Or what? We'll burn in the everlasting hellfire of eternal damnation?
Not that I necessarily disagree with the expressed sentiment mind you. But I do question whether it was appropriate to express it in such an official capacity.
Especially when one is considering a run for the presidency.
Matt reports they've made progress on diagnosing Miss Vicki's illness. Not the best we've all been hoping for her, but not the worst we've been dreading either.
Keep the good thoughts, prayers and e-mails headed her way.
Speaking of my daughter, guess what book she's currently reading?
When I could stop laughing, I asked her if she'd heard about this? She hadn't, but she said she was going to finish the book anyway because it was pretty good.
Just going to read it a bit more critically now.
Went with the daughter today to look at new cars. This is the one she test drove....and wants in red with a spoiler. We're going back tomorrow to see what kind of deal the salesman can come up with.
While we were there, the salesman tried to nudge me towards one of these....which I have to admit if it's as much fun as my BIL's, is rather tempting. But not tempting enough to have a car payment again.
Besides, I bet it wouldn't get out of the driveway when it snows. I think I'll stick with my Subaru.
Looks like Matt and Vicky have gotten some not so good news. Drop by and give them some support....and let's all keep them in our thoughts & prayers shall we?
UPDATE: More details here, including how you can send a message directly to Miss Vicky at the hospital.
BTW, I noticed Matt has a PayPal button down on the left of his site. Just in case you wanted to do more.
Just a suggestion.
I don't remember making national news when this happened to me recently. Not that I'd want the entire nation to know that I now have to find a restroom about every 15 minutes.
Only a slight exaggeration I assure you.
So I drove down to Fayette-nam after lunch and had a great visit with Miss Vicki....who I'm happy to report may not be feeling too well, but she looks mah-velous as usual. I was in a great mood when I left, who wouldn't be after spending time with her?
Then I got home & returned a call from one of my doctors. My lab results were not so good. (Neither were the ones I got from my other doctor, but we're not going to talk about that yet). Nothing too serious, but my blood sugar was borderline high again. He wants to put me on a diabetic diet. You know what that means?
NO MORE CHERRY DR. PEPPER'S FROM SONIC!!!
WAAAAAAAH! NOOOOOOOO!!!!!
Damn my ailing pancreas. Damn it to hell.
I may cry.
Our favorite neighbors Matt and Miss Vicky could sure use your get well soon wishes and prayers. Drop by and leave 'em here.
Mom continues to recover and to be a complete & total PITA. I'll spare you the details. But she's doing well, and if the rest of us can keep from smothering her with a pillow in her sleep, should make a complete recovery.
But I did have a couple of interesting.....adventures. The first happened while I was driving up to Marshall to pick up my dad. I had just passed the little town of Clinton when I casually glanced over at a pasture full of cows grazing....and thought hmmm, that's a funny looking llama in there with those cows. Then I did a double take and damn near wrecked. It wasn't a llama at all.
It was a freaking CAMEL.
Which was peacefully grazing alongside the cows, in the middle-of-nowhere, Arkansas. I cracked up laughing. I mean, a CAMEL is the last thing one would expect to see in the wilds of the Ozark mountains. I only wish I'd thought to stop & take a photo because no one believed me. I was beginning to think I might need a medication adjustment until my sis & dad saw it later that afternoon on their way home. Which made me very happy because Whew! I'm not crazy.
The other interesting....adventure happened yesterday morning. I'd spent the night at the hospital with my mom, and had gone downstairs to get some breakfast. On the way back to her room, I hopped on the elevator, hit the button for the 4th floor and the elevator started rocketing upward.....and came to a sudden jolting stop on 3.
WTH? I thought. It just sat there, unmoving. The door didn't open. Ummm, shit. Am I stuck? I hit the button for the 3rd floor. Nothing. I hit the button to open the doors. Nothing.
Great. I'm stuck in the elevator. I waited a few minutes to see if it would start again on its own. Nothing. The elevator in the adjacent shaft, meanwhile, is going up & down just fine. So I picked up the emergency phone & called the operator. She promises to send someone immediately.
A few (long) minutes later I can hear guys talking and the elevator started shaking as they began beating & banging on the doors trying to get them open. I'm starting to get a little nervous now because I'm wondering if they're going to accidentally release the emergency brakes. But I finally decided if they did, I would probably survive a 3 floor drop.....and man would I be rich when I hit the bottom. Just imagine the headline:
"Attorney Injured in Freak Elevator Accident"
Finally the door opened and 3 anxious faces peered up at me. I smiled brightly, waved and said "Hi!" They all laughed, I guess relieved that I wasn't hysterical. One held my purse & cup of tea while another helped me out of the door and down the ladder. (The elevator had stopped about halfway up the 3rd floor door) I waved off their apologies, and told them they'd gotten me out, that was all I was worried about.
One of them nicely escorted me on the ride up to the next floor, I thanked him and started down the hallway to my mom's room. I was about halfway there before it hit me and I started shaking like a leaf. Guess I was a little more concerned than I thought.
Of course I didn't stop using the elevators. A) There's no way in hell I can climb 4 flights of stairs; and B) Best thing to do when you get bucked off is to climb right back on and ride.
Shoot, that elevator was my bitch before the day was over.
UPDATE: Quick update, my mom's surgery went very well and she's doing fine. Well, as fine as one can expect anyway. I have free wireless DSL access until tomorrow morning (thanks Best Western!), so I'll open comments on this post until I have to check out in the morning. But right now, I'm going to hit the rack. I'm tired & my butt hurts from sitting all day.
So I've been getting ready to hit the road tomorrow....driving down to Conway to help my sis keep my mother under control during her hip replacement surgery. Including, but not limited to, prowling the aisles of WalMart trying to pick out some romance novels so my mom won't get too bored during her hospital stay. A rather frustrating expedition, as I don't read that crap & have no idea which authors are good....and then there's that gross-out factor of thinking about one's mom reading about heaving bosoms & throbbing manhoods. Yuck. I thought seriously about just pushing my shopping cart down the aisle with my arm extended & buying the first couple of books that I knocked in the cart.
I put off packing as long as possible because the dogs get intensely depressed as soon as they see a suitcase. But Mike started watching the Ohio St./Notre Dame bowl game, and after several minutes of seriously considering whether it would be possible for me to care any less about which team won, I decided to do something more productive.
Smokey seemed to think my duffel bag was a cool new toy, but as soon as I set it on the bed & started throwing stuff in it....instant sad pug. Sollie shuffled over to the chest of drawers, sighed, leaned against it, and with lowered head, stared desolutely out into space.
Poor little guy. There's no way to make him understand that I'll be back in a couple of days. And poor Mike. Since he was an abandoned kitty, Smokey gets separation anxiety when I'm gone for more than an hour or so. There's no telling what he will do while I'm gone this time. Mike may have his hands full dealing with him....not to mention the litter boxes.
Heh. That's one thing I won't miss.
Unsure whether I'll have internet access or not....I may sneak away to nearby UCA to use their library's access. But just in case I don't get a chance, I'll be closing all comments before I leave in the morning. Sorry, but you know, stupid spammers. I should be back sometime Thursday or so, depending on how Mom's surgery goes.
Or sooner, if she starts driving me crazy.
