Some good Holiday music

I'm always interested in finding new and unknown artists. If you're willing to listen to a lot of music, you can find some really great music; usually for short money as they get started and try to establish themselves.

The web site Amie Street is one of my favourite places to check out new music (hmm, i should blog about that :) One recent find has been Caleb Collins.

He's got a Christmas album out, simply called Christmas. Mostly standards, but he's put a nice twist on them. Some nice ballads. A big band style 'let it snow'. A swing version of 'God Rest ye Merry Gentlemen". But what's even better - it's cheap. Right now only $2.50 for the whole album; and a large chunk of the money goes to the artist himself. Plus, on AMIE, you get to listen to a long sample of each song before you buy. Check it out now - the more people buy, the higher the price goes...

Check him out.

And you thought just the movies were bad

The LA Times re-investigates movie theater popcorn, and still comes up disappointed. Guess it's a good thing that the teeny tiny child size popcorn bags are now $5 and not worth my dollars.

"A medium-sized popcorn and medium soda at the nation's largest movie chain pack the nutritional equivalent of three Quarter Pounders topped with 12 pats of butter"

45

Well, another birthday month has come and gone. (The 13th, for those of you that missed it). It’s nice that it often happens close to the Columbus day weekend. All went well, even though it started off with a little excessive imbibing after Friday’s dinner – but a tasty drink and cute boys, well… I ended up going out every night of the weekend, so I think I birthday’ed enough to justify the actual day (Tuesday) to be relatively regular and boring.

I must say the Internet age makes things interesting. The Birthday celebrations began on October 1, when I got a flurry of birthday emails from restaurants and stores that had my day on file. Some had some nice coupons, so saving a buck or two was nice. Cards are pretty much dead except for my immediate family. Being a computer guy myself it doesn’t faze me. I’m just happy to still be remembered. So over the weekend I got plenty of email well-wishes, and a flurry of Facebook Happy’s from all my FB buddies near and far. The strangest ones being some more robo-emails at midnight Monday as Tuesday EST officially kicked in – I’m not sure why the Eudora help forum or Apple Insider really wanted to wish me a happy – but I guess “the only thing worse than being talked about” and all…

So this was 45 for me – half way through the decade. Studies say this is the “unhappiest” decade in most people’s lives. The exuberance if youth is gone, and the “don’t care, you’re still alive” of the later years hasn’t kicked in yet. Not sure where I fall in that yet. I certainly don’t feel old, except for the knees (paying for all those skinned knees as a kid maybe). By now I do realize the whole ‘work’ thing is overrated, but aside from the occasional lottery ticket there’s not much you can do there. :)

I'll end it with a great column by Charlie Brooker, a columnist from The Guardian, a newspaper in the UK. (That's Charlie's byline pic at the top of the post - I love that cheeky look :-)

Grocerie$

Sometimes it feels like this is what my neighbourhood is turning into....

Brrrrr

OK, I finally caved. Home nursing a cold today, and when I got out of bed it was chilly. it had gotten down to 60 in the apartment. So for probably the earliest time in the past 11 years, I turned on the heat this morning. (The latest in the season was 2 years ago - a warm fall let it go until December 12th.)

Since right outside Boston got some snow today, it's time to dust off the French Toast Alert system on the bog.

Things I read

The There, I Fixed it blog. A collection of fun pics, proving again that reality will always be stranger than fiction...

Pimp your ride

A company called Dub has dedicated themselves to making your ride even hipper than it is now. Tire rims that spin independent form the wheel are so 2008. What you need now are LED Display lights for your cars wheels. That's right, Pimpstar can turn your ordinary wheels into rolling LED billboards.




Now you can be the hippest dude on the block. Let your wheels tell people something about you! Be patriotic. be hip. be sexy. Be cool. Turn that dull ride of yours into the talk of the neighborhood.

It's scary what technology can do in the wrong hands :-)

Smile of the day

Today's comic from Real Life Adventures

I have doors!

Yes - My cabinets finally have doors! Installed Monday, the kitchen takes another step toward completion. Not that there are doors on, I have to say they look a whoel lot better thnan open cabinets. A nice wood tone, matching the older lower cabinets.

And they're actually paneled doors - that's a real frame with a real panel in them. Thought Ikea would have been solid or something a little more generic. They have a 'soft close' hinge as well. You swing them closed as if to slam them, and it'll stop short of slamming and then ease closed. Nice, but it will take some getting used to. if you try and hand-close it all the way, it'll start resisting as you get close to the cabinet. And of course if you swing it closed without enough force, you get get an almost-closed cabinet door. After a few days I'll probably be used to them.

Some nice looking things to. Looks like actual wood. (The cabinets themselves are just laminate. The finger joint looks nice, and I actually have pulls this time - the old ones were jsut 'pull open from the bottom corner', so this is a nice change. Only thing left is the microwave. That should be next week...

Of course now I have to put things back in place. This is the perfect opportunity to get rid of stuff I haven't used in ages, but who empties their cabinets and cleans them out. Maybe pick up some of those mini-shelves for the smaller things inside. such excitement :)

Getting there - cabinet frames are up

Well, the cabinets are almost there. Late last week the missing cabinet (over the sink) was installed and they were all attached to each other. The doors should be installed early this week, meaning I can finally clear stuff off my dining room table and start to put everything back into it's place. I guess Ikea doesn't keep every style of door in stock - you can get any of several styles for each finish. I did have some basics on the shelves since Tuesday when the last cabinet was installed. just enough to cook with and make dinners without running into the living room to get things over and over, but cleared them out again so nothing gets knocked over during door installation. Not sure when Microwave is due.



The old cabinets were just screwed into the walls. These cabinets are attached to a bracket. As you can see, many lag bolts have been used to attach this bracket to the wall. The screw sticking out is where the 'late' cabinet was installed. it's eventually attached to another bracket in the cabinet as such



The sides of each cabinet are attached to such screws on the bracket. So every vertical piece pretty much isn't going anywhere. I don't think these will come off the wall. (those silver brackets are hidden by grey snap on pieces, as seen in the first picture.) I have to say there's a certain convenience to not having doors on cabinets. but I don't want anyone to see where the potato chips are, so i guess it's all for the best ;-)

The blogging world

Kitchen Catastrophe

It was supposed to be a quiet Sunday afternoon.

I was sitting at the desk, puttering on the computer with the game in the background. Then I heard a crash in the kitchen. A real dish crash, like the dish rack had toppled over or some such. I hopped up and went to the kitchen door. It all happened in slow motion.

The far corner cabinet had come off the wall and was pitching forward as it came off the wall. That one held the glassware which was cascading onto the tile floor. The crash I heard was the 'nice' dishes on top of the cabinets beginning to smash on the tiles. The first cabinet was bringing the others with it. The small cabinet over the sink came next, carrying the rest of the 'nice' dishes. This was followed by the main large cabinet, containing all the rest of the dishes. The sound was deafening. It ended with half the next cabinet coming down, dumping a cadre of cookbooks onto the counter top.

When it was all said and done you just kind of look at the mess and take it in a bit. Glad I wasn't in the room at the time, but wondering if I could have 'stopped' it if I were in there. Although being barefoot and in shorts that may not have been the best place to be. Called the LL who said he would pop over. He said it had happened before; but when he came over he confessed he hadn't seen it that bad. From the looks of things the screw came out of the wall with the first cabinet, and since they were all screwed together the rest of the screws couldn't handle the rest of the weight...

LL and I picked the cabinets up and brought them outside. He took some measurements for new cabinets, which I may get before the week is out. Given the opportunity I've asked him to install a microwave over the stove. That'll let me get a larger fridge when the time comes.

Took a few hours (on again off again) but the mess is cleaned up. Some bread crumbs had opened up and a bottle of vinegar had smashed, which made a sticky mess of things. Have several trash bags of shattered dish ware. Must have been quite a smash, as there was a lot of glass pretty much ground to dust. Broom, vacuum and damp mop has taken care of everything and kitchen floor has returned to clean. I think the most annoying part was the neighbours never came down to see what the crashing was. nice to know people care...

The final tally of survivors - one drinking glass, three mugs, and four 'nice' bowls. Interestingly enough, almost all my 'every day' dishes survived. I got them at a supply sales place - they're dishes that would be used at a diner. Guess they make those a little more durable. Oh, and because all the cabinets pitched forward, a piece of stemware that was on the dish rack was completely untouched.

Guess I get to do some shopping...

You can find a few more photos here

Don't rush me

Wow. Haven't blogged in a while. A short one for now. In Boston we haven't really had summer hot weather yet. But non-summer is right around the corner!

- July 3rd, I was in Target. The outdoor furniture section was gone, replace with the Back To School kiosks. If you want to torment your children, take them to target now for that back-to-school shopping experience :)

- Today (July 14) my email from Maggiano's (local restaurant) reminded me to book my holiday party now - "Holiday dates fill in quickly!". The email had Christmas ornaments on it and everything...

sigh.

Broccolli. Tasty tasty broccocolli

Had my first large garden harvest today. Had had one broccolli crown 2 weeks ago, but that was just a taste. Today I got about a half dozen crowns. Steamed and drizzled with some rosemary olive oil. mmmm. Some spinach was ready for the picking as well tonight. Planted some Mustard Spinach - a very unique taste. I was able to harvest enough leaves to actually cook. Sauteed them in a pan with some garlic, olive oil and pepper. A very nice veggie combo with dinner this evening...

PT Moving Along

Wow - almost a month since my last PT blog. Things are going faster than I had ever expected...

My PT guy has been really great. he's a nice guy, and a pleasure to work with. Answers all my questions and deals with me when I try to get out of things. :)

The first few weeks were more about stretching (previous blog post). We slowly moved to arm raises, where I started raising my arm on my own. It was nice to be able to start doing a real activity again. And then the fun wore off when I had to do to arm raises at home as part of regular exercise. There's one tendon in my shoulder that's still stiff, and while I could do arm raises, I couldn't do too many in a row.

The more I go to PT, the more fascinating the shoulder joint becomes. There are a lot of different muscles working together to move this ball joint around. Only part of what we've been doing has to do with the repaired muscle. A lot has to do with all the other muscles that haven't been raising my arm since January, and have suffered some atrophy.

A lot of the PT sessions are 'training' the other muscles how to do their work. For example he would ask me to do some movement and it would be almost impossible. Then he would hold my arm immobile while I tried to move it back and forth. This would 'teach' the muscles how they're suppose to work. After that little exercise I would be able to do do the movement with no problem.

Last week came the big news. Permission to start using the arm. cool. I'm almost normal. :) Still stiff though. I can reach up and get a glass or open the shades, but it still feels tight when the arm is fully extended. Actually holding onto the subway bars with my left hand (a little erratic exercise).

So this past week we moved forward again. Some stretching and progress check. Then progressing even further - he puts a 3lb weight in my hands. I of course ask 'what do you expect me to do with this". Well, I couldn't lift it, so we went back down to 2lb. After a number of arm lifts, we tried with 3lbs again and I got a few raises in.

While I can use the arm for almost everything, the shoulder is still 'learning' how to work right. If I pick up a glass and take a drink with my left hand, the arm is still shaking a bit; a symptom of the arm remembering what to do, and learning how to maintain control. that should clear up over time...

I bought up some hand weights and am doing some weighted lifts at home now to try to build shoulder strength. I continue to use the arm daily... I hope this week to get some more strength, and to try to stretch a little more and regain some more range in the arm. I've gotten so much done in the last month, but still waiting for raising my left arm to be as simple and effortless as raising my right is. (OK, how many of you are now lifting your arm.. :-)

Lilac Time

That time of year again. The lilac bush that is slowly taking over the garden is in full bloom. last year it rained every weekend in late Spring, so I never got a chance to prune it back. Then it was summer, then come fall the buds were already in place. So after this bloom, it'll definitley get a haircut.

But for not, it's pretty amazing. the fence behind the lilac is about 6-7 feet tall, to give you come scale. When the wind i right, the lilac smell can be smelled throughout the garden. I'll cut off a bouquet every morning, and still I won't get to cut all the blossoms. They come and so do quick, I feel as soon as you start enjoying them they fade away. but I'm sure the broccoli will be happy when I cut the lilacs back. (Yes, Lilacs do enjoy getting a hair cut ;-)




A close up of the flowers.



A few years ago I planted a second one, closer to the aisle. This is the first year it has given me a blossom. Nice white flowers. Decent scent. Growing taller as well, so I hope next year I'll get even more.



Thre in some nice sots of the bleeding heart as well.

More garden 2009

The broccoli are doing well. not exactly skyrocketing, but they've settled in and are taking hold. Not as tidy a bed as I'd like, but with the bum arm weeding isn't high on the priority list.

Second PT session

Had my second session of PT today (Physical therapy). Apparently I'm progressing along, as I didn't get yelled at. :) That's one of those things you do the exercises you're supposed to, but you wonder if you're doing enough... the woman I met with today thought I was progressing nicely. And then proceeded to torture me...

Last week was my first session. Doc just gave me some basic stretching and passive 'arm swinging' to do. If you check out this web site and scroll down to the images, you can see the swinging motions and the 'wall climb' stretches I have to do.

I'm basically starting off by stretching the joint and muscles as a first step to use them again. For the wall stretches, you put your hand against the wall with your arm horizontal. Then use your fingers to 'crawl' up the wall, slowly stretching your arm upwards without using the shoulder muscle. I do one stretch facing the wall, and then one perpendicular to the wall. Those are a lot harder. Last week I really couldn't stretch more than an inch or two more than horizontal. Now I can go almost vertical - maybe 20-30 degrees more to go before the arm can stretch up a full 180 degrees. Hopefully I'll be there next week.

So the woman today pretty much went to town on the arm. I laid down and she just tried to stretch and rotate my shoulder in different directions. Yow. Some were easy. Some were "hey Hey HEY!". A little tight in some directions it seems. Funny though. She'd move my arm in some weird direction and I wondered if she was helping or just trying to extort money from me. :) Then I'd use my right arm to try the same motion, and could move it in that weird direction easily.... Guess some stretching will take longer than others. So I have one additional stretch this week (#2 on that web site is my new one - the rest of those photos happen to be the sae stretches I've was doing since my first visit)

So still no lifting of the arm; just these stretches. In it's own way, I feel a lot better. Before PT, my arm was in "do not use" mode, just hanging by my side, not doing much with it. Now that it's "safe" to use the arm, I've found the stretches are making it easier to do things. So simple tasks like putting on socks, tying shoes, washing a dish or two, are now much easier to do. (Activities that don't require raising the arm, mind you). Just having that greater mobility back makes me feel like I'm getting back to normal.

So I'll continue to stretch, and see what torments await me next week :)

Math R Us

Had two interesting mathematical experiences this weekend. Being a smart guy, it's always interesting to see when people actually pay attention to numbers.

The first was an email I got. One of those things your family forwards to everyone, and never deletes all the old header information. This one was a letter to the editor that had supposedly been published - and is now circulating the internet. Basically, it said there were 40 million people "ready to retire". Pay them a million dollars each. That will free up jobs, give people money to spend, and be cheaper than the current bailout. Apparently neither the letter writer, the newspaper, or anyone on this chain of emails bothered to do a little math. 40M * 1M is 40 trillion dollars, about 50 times more expensive than the 800 billion bailout. Maybe they just didn't know how to use big numbers.

The second was more fun. I asked the hardware guy to cut me 15 feet of chain. At the chain display it took him a minute to find the yardstick sticker that was stick to the shelf holding the chain. hmmm. Maybe there was a reason he was sweeping the floor...

So he starts measuring chain. 1 yard. 2 yards. 3 yards. He stops and goes for the cutters. I stop him and remind him I wanted fifteen feet. He points to the measuring sticker and say No, this is a yard, not a foot. I said Yes, I Know that's a yard. Then he gives me a bit of a "you silly customer you" looks. I retain any composure I might have and resist chuckling. Instead I resort to my fingers. and count for him 1 - three 2- six 3- nine and stop with three fingers raised. After way too long a pause, he finally realizes what's going on and laughs it off.

At the register he gave me a little discount. Hopefully that wasn't a math error either. Perhaps more broom is in his future...

That darned economy

So my retirement plan only lost $11K last quarter. Does that mean things are looking up? :)

New England weather

So was I the only one unhappy about the weather this weekend?? Friday in the 70's was beautiful, but mid 80's Saturday and Sunday was too much to bear. I don't need the summer doldrums now - it's only April!! :) Plus, it was tough being outside. The trees here don't have leaves yet, so if you want for a walk or down to the park - there was no way to get out of the sun - it was jsut beating down at you all the time.

So when the strong breeze kicked in around 5 and brought cool April temps back in I was a happy camper. And I may actually be able to sleep tonight. Got frustrated at the weatherman though. Tomorrow will be 67 degres - 7 degrees above normal. And he described the day as being 'cold'. ugh.

Now, Spring is here.

Can I consider that Spring is officially here? Now that we had a nice weekend, I took the opportunity to do the first planting in the garden. I went to a great place in Cambridge call Pemberton's. Their web site doesn't show it, but they have a great outdoor garden center; and it's a short walk form the subway. I've been getting all my plants there for a while.

So even though it's only April, it's Broccoli Time!! Yes, broccoli is a Spring veggie, and loves being in the ground now. It'll provide me with veggies until June-ish, which (depending on when it get's "hot", it'll start petering out. When I'll do is plant corn seeds between the plants. They'll grow up between the broccoli, and once the broccoli is slowing down the corn leaves will begin shading the area. it works out well, and I get two crops form the same bed!


I got the plants in single handedly - literally. I was able to kneel next to the raised bed and keep my left arm in my lap and work with my right. Light clearing out last year's debris. Then a small hole with a shovel to plant each new plant. I subscribe to "weed free gardening" techniques, so I don't turn the soil at the end of the year - has worked pretty good so far. I can clean out some of the smaller weeds as they get bigger, and my arms get better :)

I'll post more photos as the season goes forward. the lilacs are close to bursting out, so within a month I hope I'll have some nice floral pics...

Repair work continues

Hi all. The shoulder healing continues at a great pace. it's been two weeks since surgery. The arm is still stiff, but no real intense pain. I've been off the pain meds for a few days now. (nice to have wine with dinner again - been dry since January). Not sure, but maybe I had a really good doctor - I expected lots of pain and to be incapacitated for a while. but things are going amazingly well.

Although I'm not using the sling, I'm still under orders not to 'use' the arm. I'm not allowed to raise the arm at all - the muscle is still healing, and we don't want to tear anything yet. I'm not to 'try' anything until at least 3 weeks. The toughest part is probably sleeping. I still have to exclusively sleep on my right side - can't do back or left side yet, so night times aren't as relaxing as they should be...

But after these two weeks I am well enough to try work. Today was my first day back. I may not be full time yet - depends on how tired myself or my arm gets. I can put the keyboard in my lap and type with two hands without too many problems. My arm did feel work out at the end of the day. Maybe take Friday off and give my arm three days off before next monday...


As you readers know, it took a while between my diagnosis until surgery - with this freeze-that-freeze winter, there were apparently a lot of spills out there. Talkign with the hospital liaison while waiting for surgery, even she remarked how crowded the hospital was in Jan/Feb of this year. Well, apparently I didn't think ahead and realize that the wave of people in front of me woudl also be going to PT. My health plan location couldn't see me for starting PT until the end of may - 4 weeks after I'd be 'ready' for it. I got the numbers of some other places, and they were either all booked as well or got less than stellar reviews on line.

Luckily the downtown location of my health plan is less croeded, so I have my first appointment there in 2 weeks. I'm eager to start, but more eager to see what I can and cannot do as time progresses. I have tis fear about stretching or lifting the wrong way and tearing stitches or muscle and have to start again. Unlikely, but we all have our phobias.

I do have some in-arm photos. I'll try to edit those and get them up. They do need some labels - even the doctor had a hard time point out what is what.

Mircles of Modern Science

As you can see from the previous blog entry, there's not much cutting for a shoulder repair. Only 4 small incisions left on my shoulder.

Most joint stuff is done by Arthroscopy. Basically they insert tools through tiny incisions and do the procedure with the remote tools. The Wiki page has a pic of a shoulder being worked on (cool). Since they cut less and disturb less tissue, the healing time is shortened. Considering I feel pretty good 3 days after surgery, I can attest to faster healing time.

"Modern medicine" also plays a part in the overall operation. I think around 12:30 (pm) I was wheeled into the operating room. 2:45 I opened up my eyes in recovery. 3:15 I was walked to the recovery chair, and by 4-ish I was in the lobby waiting for a cab. Here's your hat, what's your hurry?? But a hospital really is no place to be sick - being at home is much better. The anesthesiologist did a great job - when i woke up I was awake and lucid. I could walk and talk and sign legal forms and everything. :) Since the doctor had numbed a major nerve, there really was no pain. All in all pretty impressive.

The repais is also different than I has assumed. I thought the torn pieces would be stitched back together. Apparently though wouldn't not be a strong enough repair. That's when the term Anchor Bolt came up. :)

Apparently they put small anchor bolts into the bone, and then stitch the torn muscle to the anchor bolts. I'm not sure if that's cool or gross. :) I did find a great web site with illustrations here. The whole thing is a good read, but scroll down to Arthroscopic Repair to see what they most likely did to me shoulder. When i get my stitches out on Tuesday I get to see pics of inside my arm. That'll be cool :)

Better & Better

Well, been three days since surgery, and I'm doing remarkably well. With rotator cuff repairs, everyone seems to heal at a different pace; so I'm glad on I'm on the good side of things.

After 24 hours the 'cry pack' thing came off. I have a compress like thing that I use every now and then. The big bulky bandages came off as well and have been replaced with regular band-aids (pic). Thanks to Jess, the med student downstairs who was nice enough to replace the unreachable bandages for me. When I'm at home, I'm not even using the sling any more - just making sure I keep the arm 'limp' at my side and don't even try to lift it on it's own or use it for any work.

They gave me high doe ibuprofin as well as some 'good' drugs, hydromorphone. The 'good' stuff just weirded me out too much After a day I stopped taking them - and the ibu seems to be keeping any pain in check so I should be good.

This first week is 'stitches heal' time, so no use of the arm at all. I can 'passively' exercise it; which means using the other arm to life th einjured one up and down. I'm doing a little of that, but the shoulder feels stiff, and I'm just worried about pulling something out. Today I can passively put the arm on the nesk, and can now type with two hands for short periods of time.

Went out for a bit today. Was able to put jeans on, so I didn't have to wear the sweats outside. kept the arm in a sling just for safety, and so I accidentally didn't try to use it. Was nice to finally get out of the apartment. Its getting a little tough. I'm not sick enough to want to spend all day on the couch, but well enough to do everything I was. Also frustrating is just the waiting to get better. The arm doesn't hurt-hurt, but it's uncomfortable. So it's incomfortable to be awake with a sore arm, and it's uncomfortable trying to sleep with a sore arm. So you just try to keep your mind distracted and ge through it...

Home and doing fine

Hi all. More details to come another day, but wanted my blog followers to know I'm home and doing fine. post o was better than expected. Just waiting for the pain to kick in later tonight. Hopefully the drugs I got will do the trick :)

I'm off

Off to the hospital shortly. Actually not nervous at all. Got a great night's sleep. Miss breakfast and my tea though. Actually I'm awful thirsty - that's probably the toughest thing right now. :) I'll sve nervous once I'm on the gurney being wheeled down the hall - but they have good drugs for that. :) Right now just trying to think if there's anything else I need to do around the apartment and killing time before I have to leave.

Thanks for the well wishes, and see everyone on the other side.

Tomorrow...

Well, tomorrow is surgery day. I'm actually not too nervous. more worried about afterward and such (you know, the whole pain thing).

Spent this weekend getting the place ready. Doing housecleaning, changing bed sheets, doing lots of laundry. Baking a bunch of stuff,as it'll be a little tough to cook one handed. So Monday and today have been just taking it easy and relaxing. Glad I did go to work both days. not only finished up some stuff, but working kept my mind occupied.

My friend JP is gonna head over with me (thanks JP). I think he's just looking forward to giving me a hard time while I'm all drugged out and can't respond with witty repartee. Either that or you'll see some compromising pictures of me and a hospital gown on facebook on Thursday. :) Getting home will depend on how drugged out I am. It'll either be a quick cab ride home, or spending the night at my friend Bryan's place if I'm still doped out of my mind.

Just taking it easy tonight. Clock in some pain-free couch time :) I have time to catch up on anything afterwards. Hopefully get a good night's sleep and be ready for the roller coaster ride tomorrow...

Countdown to Surgery - 1 week

At this time next week, I'll be at a friends house recovering from surgery. After waiting a month, surgery is one a week away (And yes, I'm getting tired of all the jokes about surgery on April 1st. :-)

One week before surgery marks drug changes. I need to get off of ibuprofen and on acetaminophen (Tylenol). Ibu thins the blood, and that's not a good thing when you're going to be sliced open. Also have to quite the vitamins, as they may thin the blood a bit, but they just recommend you stop everything to be on the safe side.

I meet with the PA (physicians assistant) last week (postponed by a week due to my having the flu). They just want to make sure you're actually healthy enough to have surgery. One of those take the afternoon off appointments to see the doc for 10 minutes. ugh. the PA seemed competent enough - he'll be taking part in the surgery as well. Looked up his profile on the health care site - he's quite the overachiever. Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

I also have a 'phone appointment' with anesthesia on Thursday. not sure if they'll have any real questions, or just want to remind me not to eat or drink before surgery.

I'll try and blog more before surgery. I'm sure the week left is going to fly buy and it'll be here before I know it.

History plus

Just finished a book that was unusual on many levels, so I thought I'd share. The Book was The Terror by Dan Simmons. It calls itself a historical novel. Dan has taken a historical story and embellished on it a bit.

The story is about two ships trying to find the Northwest Passage - a sea passage from England to China going through the waters of Northern Canada. Apparently they knew the waters freeze over int he winter, so all ships making the trip planned on being frozen in and wintering on their ships as part of the journey to China. As of the trip being written about, no one had found a Northwest Passage yet.

The first odd thing was reading this book in the winter. Here I was reading about ships frozen in the Atlantic, and trying to live on a ship with very little heat temps 30 to 40 below zero. Reading it in the middle of January - making the 15 degree commute feel as if it were -40 here in Boston. I should have saved the book for a 90 degree day.

Second item, there happened to be a PBS type special on the Northwest Passage on TV while reading the book. The special was about the guy who finally did find the Northwest Passage. Rather than take a massive ship like other explorers did (and as the Terror did), he took a smaller lighter ship, and was able to avoid the winter ice floes and take smaller passages between islands. This particular captian also spend his winter hanging out with the natives, so he ws able to keep warm and learn the ways of the locals, keepign him and his smaller crew alive over the winter. The exact opposite of what happened to the crew of The Terror...

After i finished the book, I did some light research on the HMS Terror and the ships captian. Apparently Dan Simmons did more research than I had though. I thought Dan hd taken a light story and went with it. Apparently people in England were concerned enough when The Terror never returned that several rescue missions were sent out, including searches for the wreck as recent as 2008. A great outline of The Terror can be found on Wikipedia.

I don't usually blog about books, but after reading this one, and doing some research on my own, I found Dan Simmons' interpretation of what might have happened on The Terror to be even more fascinating. (Dan also takes a lot of liberties as to what happened day-to-day on the ship, and adds a bit of a supernatural twist to the story, so this isn't a history book).

But in one last little twist, there is a biography that recently came out on the captian of The Terror, Captian Francis Crozier. Odd Timing? Or Dan's inspiration? Either way, the true biography looks to be interesting reading in and of itself.

Check out both books - you might enjoy...

The Visitor

Had a bit of a visitor today. I saw him fly by the window and perch on a branch on the tree outside my window. I tripped over a dozen things to get the camera out so I can snap my photos. Turned out he hung out for over three hours! It sat in the exact same spot for the whole time - just moving it's head about. It often looked like it was trying to stay warm during the windy snowfall. The only real movement was when it 'relieved itself'. Talk about volume and distance. I'm glad I wasn't on the sidewalk.

But I do have a bird guide handy. Nice as the guides are, a lot of hawks tend to look the same. My first guess was Broad-Winged, but they don't winter in New England. It could be Sharp-Shinned, but my visitor may be too large for that. My best guess is a Cooper's Hawk. is there an ornithologist in the house?

I put some more pictures on my Flickr Page. A bad scenario for photographs though - the snow gave me a plain white sky. I had to blow out the sky to get any details of the hawk. But it was still pretty cool.

So it hung out for just over 3 hours. The Blue Jays came around and started making a ton of racket. Unfortunately I did't see it fly off. One second it was there and then gone. A look at the wingspan could have helped with identity. Another friend has seen it flying about before - maybe it'll be back again... In the mean time, I of course found a way to spend money on this :) There's an iphone/itouch application that helps identify birds and will play their calls. Pretty cool.

Verdict is in

Saw the doc today with results form the MRI. It's definitely a tear of the rotator cuff. A full 2cm. Given a small area a guess that's pretty impressive. Impressive from just a small fall as well. I wish that was more impressive. Like being tackled by rugby or something. having surgery because you slipped on ice just makes you feel old :(

The actual muscle torn is the Supraspinatus. Kind of nice having the internet around to research all of this stuff, and not just relying on the poster in the doctors office. The more you read about the shoulder, the more impressive it seems. The whole rotator cuff system is designed to control the ball socket that is your shoulder. From an engineering point of view, lifting your arms up given almost no leverage is pretty cool. The series of 4 muscles around the ball joint, and form a 'cuff' around the joint. That's what allows you to lift your arm up.

With this muscle torn, I pretty much can't raise my arm up past desk level - that's where the rotator muscles takes over to continue moving your arm. The other 3 muscles in the group are fine and intact, which is why I have regained a lot of other shoulder-based movement.

So surgery is on the docket (no date yet). He'll stitch the tendon back together orthoscopically. he says my shoulder is also a 'snug fit', so he'll 'clean up' anything else in there that needs attention. I love those medical terms. There are also a lot of other words on the MRI report I still have to look up. :)

Healing may be a bit better than some of the gloom-and-doom on some internet pages. Doc made it sound like I'll have basic mobility pretty quick. I have nightmare scenarios of not being able to function with a second hand for weeks, but Doc says I should have minimal use pretty quick. So I can at least waste time on the computer while healing. But still some PT afterward, and several months before full movement is regained.

This week will be scheduling surgery. Being cut open isn't high on the list of fun activities, but it'll be nice to move forward with this. Plus the doc promised to get me some pics of surgery. That'll be fun to share.

Red line fun continues

Another joyous day on the Red line today. The train pulled into Broadway smelling of break linings. You know this can't be good. But off we went. By the time we hit Park street, the whole train just smelled of smoke (althoguh nothing was actually smoking). After sitting with open doors for 3-4 minutes we were finally tossed off and had to wait for the disabled car to turn.

This time there actually was a red line car right behind us - and not that full at all. So our wait at park wasn't very long. Only bad part was the kid who decided to stand in the doorway even though a full platform of people were trying to get on. Welcome to Boston.

Rough Red line week

Since my rough commute Wednesday morning, the red line has been delayed once by a 'police action', and 8 times due to disabled trains. And it hasn't even been that cold this week.

The arm continues

Got an MRI on my shoulder today. Should get a call form the doc in a few days and see how things look. I can move my arm a lot more than I could a few weeks ago, but still can't raise it above shoulder height. After reading a bit about Rotary Cuff surgery, it doesn't look like a fun recovery.

The MRI itself was interesting. I've had CT scans before - you're pretty much in a big donut. Apparently MRIs are a lot longer (as you can see in the pic). It doesn't look bad when you're outside of it. But once you're slid in, it gets very small. and very long. Your hands are at your sides - and you pretty much couldn't scratch your nose if you had to. yipes. The best you can do is to close your eyes and relax. Classical music on the headphones helped a bit. Actually the loud hum of the machine was very helpful - like a meditative sound generator. I think I fell asleep for a short time. Just don'r open your eyes... :)

Red Line Woes

Another terrible commute on the red line today. Between when I left home and when I got to the T station, there was some break down, and the whole Northbound line was "running with delays". Of course after waiting 15 odd minutes for service to resume service was packed. Had to wait for 3 packed trains to go by until one was empty enough to actually get into. Then we spend half the time in tunnels, well, because there were three trains in front of us attending to packed South and Downtown stations. Great way to turn a 7 minute ride until a 40 minute journey.

I signed up for "Alerts" - so I get an email every time the red line has some delays. There seems to be at least one every day. There were 3 today alone. Between signal problems and mechanical breakdowns, is the red line jsut falling apart??

Maintaining your sanity

The Monday night dart league started last night. I have to say I enjoyed being out with the gang. I've been staying home more often with the cold weather and my arm. Work is chaos right now, and there are major issues going on right now with the Neighborhood Association and the Community Garden. Safe to say, I'm going out of my mind at the moment :)

So it was great to put all of that aside and head out for some fun. We had fun, and didn't get pounded too bad (loss 3-4). I could keep my left arm at my side and still throw decent (without hurting myself), so I was happy that I could play, and happy to have a few stress-free hours.

Making a spectacle of myself

That time of life again. Got my eyes checked and time for some new glasses.

I could tell that my prescription would probably be changing; and reading is becoming a bit more of a problem. I can't read the tiny-tiny stuff, like on a medicine bottle. I can read a book fine, but after reading and looking up, it takes a while to re-focus. That's what doctors officially call 'old age' :) Apparently your eye lens gets a bit thicker and more tired as time goes on. So changing focal lengths tends to take more time to re-focus at a distance. So it's time for the B word. That's right - bifocals. ugh.

Went to my usual spot, For Eyes. (Get it. Hey, it got you to remember the name). They have good prices and have done well by me for years. But just for kicks, I priced glasses at the "health plan" optical shop. OMG. Their prices were close to 3 times what For Eyes charges. Wow.

So I got two pairs of specs. One bi-focals, and one for distance. Being my first bi-pair, I wanted a regular pair just in case. Fashion has also changed a bit, so the new specs will be a tad smaller. So from 'aviator' style, to current style, to smaller. Maybe Pince-nez will come back?? All those who know what they are without clicking the link raise your hand. :) So both pairs of glasses came to under $300. Such a bargian. Hopefully they'l look good. But my friends are strange and will laugh anyway. ;-) but dexter and sinister should be happy (OK, who got that reference?)

Speaking of Pince-nez, I was looking for a random 'glasses' picture to add color to the post, which is were I found the picture above. Now, you may need to enlarge it, but you're "seeing" it correctly. There are people out there who are wearing pierced glasses. They have a pierce bar through the nose bridge, and then lenses attached. Pretty gross. But kids today... Check out the site here. Creepy.

Still safe

Walked home form the grocery store again today, a little more wary of my surroundings. because I can't put a lot of pressure on my left arm, I had most of my groceries in my right hand (my poor little fingers :)

I made it home safe, but the walk was even worse. You see, most gutters form buildings let out onto the sidewalks. The past few days we've had melting during the day, and freezing at night, so at least 30% of the sidewalks in the South End were pretty much solid ice from the freeze/thaw cycle. Doesn't anyone put salt/snow on their own sidewalks??

I see someone in orthopedics on Friday. We'll see how good/bad things are then...

Winter wonderland

Well, it happened to me. I was walking ome with groceries Friday night, and while trying to step through the bad plowing by the city, I hit an unseen patch of ice and down I went. Was one of those unexpected falls. W was walking, then I was down surrounded by my groceries. Suppose that's a better fall - when you expect it you tend to stick your hands out and break a wrist or such.

But my shoulder took the brunt of the fall. I couldn't lift my arm up due to pain in my shoulder, but my lower arm and hand worked fine. I made it home with bruised apples in tow. Started popping pills and tried to ride out my evening, knowing things would be sore in the morning.

I got a little suspicious in the morning. I figured a hot shower and some stretching would help work out the shoulder. Neither worked well, so I made a "day of" appointment at the HMO. I've been diagnosed with a probably torn rotator cuff. Kinda glad I went, as the 'to do' list for this is to "do nothing", so stretching might be great for sore muscles, but it's completely terrible for tendons. At the moment instructions are to take even more pills and wear a sling wheneve rpossible to keep the sholder from moving about too much. They want me to minimise any potential additional damage until we can get a better diagnosis.

So I need to see an orthopedist on Monday, who'll do more tests and see how good or bad my shoulder really is. Between the drugs and the slin there's no real pain, but it's annoying I can't really do anything around the house today. I had planned to tid up and put things away and all, but that isn't goign to happen. Mostly DVDs and slumming on the computer.

I love winter.

Those real estate agents

It's both fun and awful scary to read blogs and articles written by real estate agents. Since they sell homes, they have a vested interest in always making the real estate scene sound great. Every home is a gem, and the industry is always doing wonderful.

Today's entry in the Boston Condo Blog tells is to dust off the snow and rush out to an open house today. Two million dollar condos that just have to be seen. As if there's some kind of shortage of million dollar condos. As if we've all got a cool million burning a hole in our pocket. (but the price per square foot is such a bargain!!)

You wonder when they lost touch with reality... :)

Theaters gone by

In another blog thread the comments got around to the old Beacon Hill theater (movie house). A theater form the days when Boston had many cinemas, not just one mega-plex. (We all remember the Cheri, Paris and Charles cinemas, part of the same chain when closed)

Someone found a historical link, and the old BHT site has a lot more history than I would have thought. Including being a proper movie house (sister to The Modern), and the first theater in the Sack cinema chain...

For the new year I will...

I gave up on new Year's resolutions a long time ago. But the Globe has a fun piece with resolutions that everyone can adopt...