3285 Settling Down

Thursday, June 16, 2011

A round woman has an extravagant body.
-- Silk --

-----------------------------------------------------------------

I'm feeling pretty good now. From not walking in so long, my energy and stamina are a bit low, and my legs complain, but that should pass. My bladder aches today, and the urethra feels bruised, but the stinging on urination has been gone since Tuesday overnight, and my tummy is shrinking.

Time to pick up my life again.
.

3284 Maelstrom

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

There is negative perfectionism and positive perfectionism.
Negative perfectionism is based on a fear of inadequacy.
Positive perfectionism strives for mastery.
-- Silk --

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the past few days I have experience a maelstrom of emotions, ranging from anger, sadness, discouragement, fear, and disillusionment to joy, happiness, hope, and excitement, and everything in between, sometimes in quick succession and sometimes all at the same time.

Early Monday afternoon I met with the urologist. I had looked up the ESWL procedure scheduled for this Friday, and I had a bunch of questions and concerns, and when the office help said I wouldn't see him before the actual procedure, I had asked for an appointment to talk with him.

When I was shown into his office on Monday and took the seat in front of his desk, before I had a chance to speak he looked at me angrily and said, "You went to the internet! You can't believe anything you read on the internet! It just causes trouble!" or something like that, it may not have been his exact words, but that was the gist of it, and he was VERY angry.

I responded something to the effect that I went to the internet for questions, and have now come to him for the answers. Doesn't matter, I guess. It's obvious he doesn't like questions either. He's Egyptian, I think, has a heavy accent, and I got the distinct impression he doesn't like challenges to his authority. He asked what kind of questions.

So, I sorta blinked twice, and said, "Well, the most important one I guess, is that I have fragile capillaries. Could that be a problem?" His face turned purple, and he said, "Yes. I will not do the procedure. Do you have any other questions?" Well, that response pretty much eliminated the rest. I asked if it was possible that the fragility was only maybe in my skin, not the internal organs, and asked if there was any kind of test, and he said no, no, no, and reiterated that he would not do the procedure. Period. End of discussion.

I asked what next, then? He said we'd take the stent out and then "play it by ear". Those were his exact words. I was dismissed.

I was stunned. On the way out, I stopped at the desk to get the appointment for the stent removal, and was told that the first opening was June 30th.

I pretty much crashed then. June 30th is two and a half weeks away! This useless stent HURTS! It's hurting more every day. And there's no reason for its existence, let alone to be tearing up my insides!

I wanted to cry. I wanted to kill somebody. After all this, there's been no headway. There's been nothing but deterioration since April 2, when they removed a stone blocking the distal end of a ureter, and put the stent in the wrong place.

Driving home, I wanted to cry, but I was too angry to cry.

--------------------------------

You know, I got the distinct impression that it was not so much that I had questions at all, but that I said the words "fragile capillaries". One of the questions always asked is whether you have a bleeding problem or if you are taking a blood thinner. I always answer that I don't have a bleeding problem, I clot well and quickly and I heal quickly (in fact I have phenomenal healing ability), BUT that I do have fragile capillaries. I ALWAYS state that. And if it's not an interview, if it's the checkmark list, I always check "no" on bleeding problems, but then write in "I have fragile capillaries". So it was in my folder right there on his desk. It shouldn't have been a surprise.

(In fact, I suspect it's related to the blowout problem with my veins when anyone attempts to draw blood or set an IV. I just have thin walls, I guess.)

Now , here's the part that angered me more than anything else, more than his attitude, more than having to endure unnecessary pain for another two weeks, more than having no other avenue to resolve this -
I had the distinct impression that if I had not specifically asked, if I had not mentioned it to the nurse and she wrote it down as a concern when I made the appointment and if it had not been overheard by his office staff, no one would ever have asked, he would have gone ahead and done the procedure, and it's entirely possible that I could have started bleeding in and around the kidney, which is a life-threatening emergency. If I lived, I could have lost that kidney. If I had never mentioned it to him, he would have gone ahead and taken that chance!

By my actually bringing it up, he's now open to malpractice if anything went wrong.

And THAT's what made him angry!

That's not a conclusion I came to later. I had that impression right there in his office. Instantly.

--------------------------------

So, I have a double kidney with stones in the lower collection chamber, one of which is blocking the lower ureter, no stones in the upper collection chamber, but a stent in that upper chamber that is tearing up my bladder and doing absolutely nothing else since it's in the wrong chamber, and possibly tearing up the kidney, too, who knows, and I've had only one day in the past month or so that I haven't bled. My stomach is sticking out like I'm seven months pregnant, and it's incredibly tender, there's a nyt-load of edema going on, and since there's all that edema, but the doctor's scale says I've lot four pounds in the last month, I've probably lost a lot more than four.

There's a lump just in front of the urethral opening "down there" which I suspect is the stent poking the bottom of the bladder. It hurts. It hurts when I sit. It hurts when I walk. Imagine a fork shoved up in there, and then the tines are bent every which way, and the handle is hanging out. Now sit, and walk, and bend over. That's what it feels like. It HURTS!

I tell the doctor it hurts. I tell the nurses it hurts. Everybody just shrugs. I don't think they believe me. I tell them I'm bleeding constantly, and we're not talking pink lemonade, we're talking BLOOD! But nobody asks for a urine sample. I think they think I'm exaggerating.

In the meantime, I haven't been able to do anything physical, I haven't been to the old house in months and if I don't get out of there soon I will lose the buyer who's interested, my back and stomach are losing tone, which is dangerous because I need those muscles to keep my spine aligned, and nobody seems to care. Like two and a half more weeks don't matter. And I still have half a double kidney full of stones and blocked. That can't be good....?

--------------------------------

So, that was my status on Monday afternoon.

Late Monday afternoon, I got a call from the urologist's office. They had a cancellation Tuesday morning. Could I come in then to get the stent out?

Uh, yeah.

--------------------------------

So, Tuesday morning. Yesterday. Stent removal. Office procedure.

On Monday, during the unpleasant office conversation, I had pointed out that we still didn't know how the ureters from the left kidney were arranged - whether both ureters emptied into the bladder, or whether they joined into one before reaching the bladder, and that it was important to know that because if they joined, the stent itself could be blocking the lower ureter. I asked if it was possible to actually LOOK into the bladder with a scope, and then we'd know if there was one or two.

Apparently he hadn't thought of that. And you know sumthin'? I think that had a lot to do with the "cancellation". I think I piqued his curiosity.

When I arrived the nurse asked for a urine sample. (The first one in this office.) I filled the little cup with blood. The nurse's eyebrows shot up, but she didn't say anything.

The procedure involved a topical anesthetic swabbed around the urethra, and then a scope was inserted. With men, they use a flexible scope, but with women they use a rigid one (according to the internet - HE didn't say a single word to ME!). There's also a lot of saline pumped in to clear it out and expand things smoothly. The nurse stood next to me and told me what was going on.

The urologist cranked that damn scope all around like he was digging a hole. Then he grabbed the end of the stent and pulled it out. That surprised me. The stent has curls at either end that are supposed to keep it in place, one end in the kidney and one end in the bladder. When it's put in, a guide wire is used to keep the curls straightened out. I had assumed a guide wire would be used to straighten out the kidney end for withdrawal, but if there was any wire used yesterday, I wasn't aware of it. There were a few slight pinches, and a short feeling of heavy pressure, and then it was done.

I think the nurse asked him if he saw a second ureter on the left, and he muttered something about too much edema, so I guess that didn't pan out. I wonder if he'll ever say anything to me about it.

I put my panties back on, and the nurse told me that there would be blood for a few days, that's normal, and some pain and stinging on urination. They gave me a prescription for an antibiotic (Cipro) and a pain killer (Phenazopyridine). Six weeks from now, we need a 24-hour urine collection to find out my urine's chemical composition, and then we'll "play it by ear".

As I was walking across the parking lot, I suddenly realized I was walking without pain. The pain had crept up so slowly, and increased so subtly over the past two months that I hadn't realized how really bad it was until it was gone. Also gone was the pain I'd had in the right lower back, that I'd ascribed to my spine, because it was lessened by changing position. (Now I'm wondering if the stent had been pressing against my spine and had thrown it out of alignment.)

I threw my arms up in the air and shouted, "I'm walking! I can WALK!" I startled a few people.

Since then, I haven't seen a single drop of blood, not from the instant the stent was pulled and I was allowed to empty the saline load. It's a clear pale yellow, like evening sunshine. There was a little stinging when I piddled yesterday, but that's gone. I haven't even opened the pain pills' bottle. (And after reading the info sheet on it, I don't think I'd have ever taken it even if I did have pain. That crap can do some really nasty stuff!)

Of course, I wonder. Is all this pretty urine coming from the right kidney, and the left isn't working? Was all that blood coming not from the bladder, but from the left kidney, and now without the stent it's just building up in the kidney and not coming out? Is there any way I can know?

But I can walk without pain. I can sit without pain. For now, I'm happy.

Later, I'll think about the stones, and the blockage, still there. But not now.
.

3283 Poor Little Thing

Saturday, June 11, 2011

If there is life on other planets, they probably won't believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God.
-- Andy Rooney --

-------------------------------------------------------

I saw a firefly (lightning bug) in the front yard this evening. One. All alone. Its blinks were far apart, and lasted a long time. So slow.

Poor little thing. It looked so lonely. So discouraged.
.

3282 WOW!

Saturday, June 11, 2011

A great leader knows the way, shows the way, then goes away.

---------------------------------------------------

No bleeding today, for the first time in ... uh ... ages!

I'm happy about that.
.

3281 Out, out, damned stent!

Friday, June 10, 2011

“A sad soul can kill you quicker, far quicker, than a germ.”
-- John Steinbeck --

-----------------------------------------------------

Yesterday it hit 100 degrees. Odd, I didn't notice the heat much at all. I did notice the humidity in the house. Bleck.

The Nugget visited with me for a few hours Wednesday and again Thursday while her mother went to appointments. We played "stick your tongue out like Gramma". Now "open your mouth wide like Gramma." At 6.5 weeks, she's very good at copying what you do. She loves the sound "moo", so Old MacDonald has a lot of cows when we sing the song. She smiles a lot, especially a big grin when she first sees me, which feels nice.

Today I saw my new GP for the first time. Actually, he and his daughter practice together, and I really wanted his daughter (I prefer a female GP), but she had jury duty this week, and I needed to establish a GP before the pre-admittance testing next Tuesday. The urologist and the hospital require my "family" doctor's approval for the ESWL procedure.

I like him. He really listens, and added some stuff to the testing based on things I said.

Tuesday's testing will involve a LOT of blood drawn. At least I can drink water that morning. I intend to be absolutely bloated.

I see the urologist again next Monday. I have many concerns, mainly about how we don't really know what my anatomy is in there, except that I do have two unconnected collection areas in the left kidney, and I'm concerned that if the second ureter joins the first somewhere along the line instead of going all the way to the bladder, the stent could actually block the broken up stone pieces from passing. If the second ureter goes all the way to the bladder (and it seems like it should be easy to LOOK in the bladder and see if there's a second ureter), then the stent is useless, and I don't see why we can't get rid of it.

Plus there's my fragile capillaries thing, and I'm worried that the zapping could damage the capillaries in the kidney and cause eventual failure. Plus there's no way the anesthesiologist is going to get an IV in me if I'm dehydrated (as they want me to be) for the procedure. I need the IV in place the day before. Plus I want to be absolutely certain there's no NO NO infection in the kidney, and I'm not sure they're going to check for that.

And so on. I intend to be a pain in the urologist's rear.

Right now, the procedure is scheduled for next Friday, assuming I pass all the tests.

I don't care about the damn stone anymore. I could probably live with that. I'd still have one and a half functioning kidneys, and that seems to be enough. I just want this stent OUT! My bladder is irritated, I've had bloody urine for the past few weeks, it feels like something's poking sharply at the bottom, and my stomach is sticking out horribly and I can't hold it in because even that hurts.
.

3280 Spam

Wednesday, June 6, 2011

"SpellCheck programs may ensure that the word is spelled correctly,
but it doesn't ensure that you used the right word."
-- Me --

-----------------------------------------------------------

I just came upon another slur against Spam - you know, the ham in a can?

For the thousandth time, Spam is NOT gristle, brains, eyeballs, innards, or anything else.

Spam is perfectly good shoulder/hip meat, and that's ALL it is.

When you buy a boneless ham in the store, ever wonder how it got boneless? When the ham is removed from the bone, there's a lot of meat left on the bone, because the bones are oddly shaped and there's a lot of scrap left when you cut out a nicely-shaped ham (boneless hams come from closer to the joints than bone-in hams, which come from the area with nice straight bones).

Spam is the trimmings left on the bones. Trimmed off, put in a can, and cooked in the can - and that's where the jelly comes from. There's nothing in Spam that isn't also in the ham. If you've ever fried a slice of ham, you've seen it make the same jelly, that turns brown in the pan and tastes sweet and salty.

So quit panning SPAM! Stop following the herd. It's good stuff, nothing to turn your nose up at.
.

3279 Humid

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Computers may make it easier to write, but they don't make the writing any better.
-- Andy Rooney --

-------------------------------------------------------------

On Saturday morning I finished crocheting a blanket for Nugget. My kitchen floor is large ceramic tiles, perfect for blocking a rectangular item, so I machine washed the blanket, pulled it out after the "gentle" spin, and then laid it out on the floor. That was Saturday morning.

Tuesday morning, three DAYS later, it was still damp. I figured air wasn't getting through it, maybe? I figured the shape might be pretty well set by then, so I draped it over a stool to finish drying.

An hour later there were 8" pools of water where the four corners were dripping. DRIPPING!

Today is Wednesday. It's still damp.

Daughter opens her windows. I don't because the air out there is full of dust and pollen. I can't believe how dusty it is around here. The town is amazing about sweeping the street, and there isn't all that much traffic. I don't know where the dust comes from. So, anyway, I have the A/C on. I thought A/C pulled moisture from the air. That's what the "Conditioning" part means. Otherwise, it's just air Cooling.

This is as bad as Florida. I'm waiting for my leather stuff to start molding.

Speaking of Florida, we expect to reach 95 degrees today, and 97 tomorrow.
.

3278 About Blogs

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

A lot of men consider rape merely assault with a friendly weapon.

-------------------------------------------------------

I follow about 94 blogs through Google Reader, and another 10 that don't have feeds. Some of them are things like LOLcats, many are news blogs of one type or another, most are people's personal journals. Of those personal blogs, many update only sporadically, and a few are people I happen to know in "real life".

I also read a lot of Just-Plain-Stuff that I find here and there. One thing leads to another, you know, that sort of thing.

I have several regular readers (I haven't the faintest idea why), only a few of whom have been known to leave comments.

A few things I've noticed about bloggers:

• Many people with personal blogs start out innocent enough, doing it for themselves, then they find out that if they build up a readership, they can make money! Several of the blogs I had followed for years turned into books. Others don't get a book contract, but they start selling advertising space. And then next thing you know, either they stop blogging (book), or the tone and content changes (advertising).
• Many of the old blogs I had enjoyed suddenly had a post saying, "I'm moving to Facebook! (...or Twitter) Follow me there!" and the blog abruptly died. For about half of them, the owners got disenchanted with Facebook or Twitter when they discovered they didn't have the control over their time that they'd had with a blog, and they came back.
• Many blogs just plain peter out, like the bloggers can't think of anything more to say. That's sad.
• With other bloggers, their life suddenly gets interesting, and they think they don't have time. That's even sadder ... just when things get interesting.
• A lot of bloggers pretend to be something they're not.
• A lot of bloggers flat out lie.

A few things I've noticed about blog posts:

• "TLDR" means "too long, didn't read". Yup. My posts are sometimes long, and I know a lot of people won't read long posts. I don't care.
• Too many posts a day will make people not pay attention. Yup. I often do that too. But again, I don't care. That's one reason I don't subscribe to feeds from many of the good middle-eastern blogs - several have multiple members, and you can get buried in posts. Instead, I visit once a week or so and skim, or more often if I know something interesting is happening.

About blog readers:

• People take things personally. A few months ago I wrote about people who try too hard to be BFFs, and end up turning folks off, and it came from thinking about a guy I used to work with, and a few Mensans, triggered by something I'd read somewhere. I was very surprised when TWO of my blog readers whom I know personally asked me if I was talking about them. Many bloggers have gotten in worse trouble for that kind of misunderstanding, when someone read something and thought they recognized themselves.
• Other times, when a blogger DOES attempt to address some cautionary tale to someone in particular that you know will read it, without naming names, hoping they'll see themselves and "get it", it's really funny how they never recognize that it applies to them. Exactly the opposite of the above point. So if you think something here was addressed to you, you're probably wrong. If you think it wasn't, maybe it was. But mostly it isn't. Mostly I deal in generalities, thoughts that wandered through my head. Maybe you kicked it off, but probably not. Even if I say "a blogger", remember that I follow about 100 bloggers. I'm amazed at the coincidences that crop up constantly.
  

About comments:

• Most readers never leave a comment.
• There seems to be some kind of convention that all comments on personal blogs must be agreeing/positive/encouraging. Bullpoopy. Fire away. I've been banned from a few blogs for telling the blooger what I thought they needed to hear as opposed to what they wanted to hear, like that they'd find life a lot easier if they quit drinking, or if they're really looking for a nice girl, maybe they should try someplace other than a bar, whatever. Back on AOL Journals, in about 2005, before the economy tanked, I had one occasion when the supporters of a gal who was blatantly soliciting, and GETTING, expensive gifts from her readers, came after me personally because I simply asked, "Have you applied for any jobs?" The spam was incredible. I have learned that people don't want and don't appreciate constructive criticism, but I won't support something I can't agree with, either.

What are your thoughts on blogs, bloggers, blogging? Is personal blogging (as opposed to "special topic" blogging) going to be around for a while, or have you, like I, seen blogging dropping off? (That list of "blogs I follow" over there on the right is woefully out of date. Half those people aren't around anymore, but I keep the URL and keep visiting just in case they decide to come back.) Given that a lot of people use anonymous blogging as cheap therapy, will Facebook and the like fill the role?

Over to you....
.

3277 Critical Analysis

Monday, June 6, 2011

Woman describing how one does not realize how final death is: “And then I found I was waiting for him to come home. He'd been dead long enough now, it was time for him to come home.”

---------------------------------------------------------------

Yeah, back on one of my favorite hobby horses again. Mainly because I've recently been exposed to a few more egregious examples of muddled thinking.

Another blogger mentioned a newsletter. I located it and read it. As often happens when someone has an agenda, the writers stated "facts" (whether verified or not is another issue), and then drew conclusions from those facts that were in no way supported by those facts! Connections were made between statements where there was no direct connection. "Oh, this sounds good - let's throw this in, too!"

If someone were to read this uncritically, they'd believe those conclusions to be valid. They may or may not be true - my point is that they are not supported by the "evidence" offered.

I stewed about that for a while, and concluded that anyone who'd accept those "proofs" and arguments is beyond reason anyway, so I didn't bother to attempt to refute it.

Then just this morning I ended up (again, one of those link to link to link wanderings) at a site on making one's own kefir (pronounced keFEER, by the way, regardless of how Dr. Oz mispronounces it - it's an Arabic word), where there was a discussion of making it from non-bovine milks, including cocoanut milk and soy milk. Some commenter sneered that she didn't see why anyone would want to make it from soy, after all, "soy is very bad for you", and she included a link to a site that slams all soy products.

So, ok, I went there.

And yeah, they had their own drum to beat. And again, they stated "facts", and drew from them asinine conclusions. Which to an uncritical reader, would sound like a valid argument.

For example, the author states that since soy products have arrived in the western hemisphere, the rates of high cholesterol and obesity have soared. From this, they drew the conclusion that soy causes obesity and high cholesterol.

Um, the timelines might match up, but that doesn't mean they are in any way related. In fact, the people who consume the MOST soy, both fermented and unfermented, who seek it out, are vegetarians and vegans, and they are emphatically NOT members of the typical artery-clogged obese herd.

Note that by the same logic (or lack thereof) we could conclude that actually, obesity and high cholesterol create a craving for soy! How is that any more silly than the other conclusion? It's based on the same data, handled the same way.

It may or may not be true that too much soy is bad for you, but this website sure as hell doesn't present any good arguments.

It reminded me of the breakfast cereal commercials that pissed me off - the "healthy" cereal that bragged that people who ate it were the most healthy, and had the best BMIs, implying, of course, that it was the cereal that did it. Snort! The people most likely to buy a cereal whose very box screams, "this stuff tastes like cardboard, but it's loaded with FIBER!!!" are the same people who take the stairs instead of the elevator, and run marathons for "fun". Oh, come on.

Please, everyone, read critically. Think critically. Ask whether the conclusion is really supported by the facts.

Please.
.

3276 Morbid urge

Monday, June 6, 2011

“Progress ... is not the result of individual accomplishments, but the product of a vast human consciousness that contains ... a perception of purpose, potential, and need.... [The] contributions of any single person is not substance, but style.”
-- Les Kamm, letter in the Mensa Bulletin --

----------------------------------------------------------------------

I've been bitten by an urge I don't quite understand.

By the usual circuitous internet links route I ended up this morning at this article, http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/05/thats-not-in-the-bible/?iref=obnetwork, about how people misquote the Bible. I then read the comments, which were interesting until people (as usual) stopped commenting on the article and began sniping at each other.

Many of the commenters in attempting to refute the author's arguments did not seem to realize that they did exactly what the author bemoaned - they interpreted the passages to suit their desired interpretation.

Anyway, I wanted to look up the passages in question. My late youngest sister's Bible happened to be on the shelf over the computer, so I pulled it down. My late sister had tucked in a newspaper clipping of my mother's obituary, and apparently my sister's mother-in-law had also tucked in a clipping of my sister's obituary before she sent the box of materials to me.

I read the brief obit again, for perhaps the third time since I'd discovered it, and was seized by a strong desire to visit her grave.

I'm not a grave visiting kind of person. I visit the place where Jay's ashes were spread, but mainly because it was one of our favorite places. Otherwise, no. I see no point. But for some reason I want to visit youngest sister's grave.

The obituary has the name of the town, the name of the church and the cemetery, and the name of the funeral home. It's smack in the middle of Georgia. The town is tiny. Google maps has found the church for me, but not the cemetery. That's disappointing. I would have liked to see the satellite view. There are many online lists of cemeteries in Georgia, but the one I'm looking for isn't listed anywhere.

I suppose I could call the funeral home and ask, but somehow I don't want to. I want to go to the little town this summer sometime, when I'm able to drive distances again, and to the church, and find her myself!

I lost her, and now I want to make the effort to find her.
.

3275 Four tires in four months

Saturday, June 4, 2011

“Religious freedom means not only freedom to practice your religion,
but also freedom from being forced to practice someone else's.”
-- Charles Manning, letter in the Mensa Bulletin --

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I save the quotes you see in green at the top of most posts because they make me think in some way. The above quote kicked off thoughts on our system of laws. Like, if I am forced to obey a law which is based on someone else's religion, then am I being forced to practice that religion? (Practice as opposed to belief.)

A simple example might be "Blue Laws", where businesses must close on Sunday. Sunday is the Christian Sabbath. If I must close my business (or am prohibited from selling certain wares) on Sunday, as opposed to Saturday, or whenever I chose, then I am being forced to observe the Christian Sabbath, regardless of whether I am Christian or not.

We have many laws based on religion as opposed to common law or agreed-upon morality.

This is not freedom of, nor freedom from. You see it as freedom only if it's your religion.

-------------------------------

Steven King has said that his favorite stories involve ordinary people in extraordinary situations.

I agree. Me too.

I joined a movie Meetup group yesterday, and one of the organizer's questions was "What movie genres do you like best?" I found that difficult to answer, because I don't think in terms of genres. But it got me thinking about types of movies. It seems like many of the "big" movies coming out these days (those that don't involve gross-outs, anyway) revolve around extraordinary people in ordinary situations.

That doesn't interest me, because I feel no connection, and I'm not after escapism. I guess that's why I prefer the lower budget independent movies.

--------------------------------

I spent a significant amount of time in the tire place waiting room yesterday. I had ordered two tires, but when they went to put them on, they found a bubble in a third tire, so that had to come from the warehouse. That makes four tires in four months.

On the left, the upper diagram shows an ordinary flat tire. The lower diagram is of a "run-flat" tire, like what's on Hal.

"A" is a reinforced sidewall that supports the weight of the car when the air pressure is too low to support it. The darker gray around the outside is a softer rubber. It needs to be softer for traction.

What happens, what makes the run-flat tire fragile, is that if you hit any sudden bump - a pothole, a curb, a sharp ridge in the road - because of the difference in the "give" between the two layers, the layers may (probably will) separate. That's called "side wall shear". If air gets into that space, you'll get a visible bubble on the sidewall of the tire. You can drive on it, but it will eventually go flat, and the possibility of a sudden blowout exists. Although a mechanic might not worry about it on his own car, he's not going to tell you it's safe, because if it's not, if it suddenly, unexpectedly, fully separates, it could cause a serious accident.

So. I drove Hal a lot in NY, May 2010 thru December 2011, with no problem with the tires. I brought him down to NJ, and in the past five months on NJ roads I have replaced all four tires! All due to bubbles. The damn things had about 3,000 miles on them - still had the little feathers of rubber that stick out on new tires.

After the first one, which I know was due to a deep pothole, and finding out what Hal's tires cost when bought through BMW, I have been very careful. I've avoided certain roads, and I've watched the road ahead so I can take evasive action if I see a hole or bump coming up. Hal's very very good at those quick evasive moves. He's got sports car react time. I am positive I have hit no significant potholes since that bad one. And I am 100% sure I have never hit a curb.

Surprise - a quick move, a jerk to one side as you'd do to avoid a suddenly visible pothole, can also cause side wall shear. So can taking a tight turn too fast.

You're kidding me.

I've got a sporty little sexpot, who can dance sideways, and take turns like a quarter horse, that I have to drive as if it's an old bent man with a cane?

What's the point?

I already have less enjoyment driving Hal, knowing that hitting a bump, or NOT hitting a bump, can easily cost me a small fortune. And NJ roads are mostly ridges, holes, lumps, and bumps. I've never seen such bad roads in my life, not even on the back roads of upstate NY, or in the woods and mountains of central PA.
.

3274 This one took a minute

... then cracked me up.

[From http://xkcd.com/745/]




(This assumes, of course, that you're familiar with the original joke it's based on.)

3273 A good thing

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Infidelity isn't about whom you lie with. It's whom you lie to.
-- Frank Pittman, MD --

----------------------------------------------------

My potted patio tomato plant has really taken off. It's big and lush and covered with blossoms.

The two potted sweet pepper plants, however, haven't done as well. There was no change in size for three weeks. Then, about three days ago, I checked it more carefully, and found it covered with cheek-by-jowl aphids. They weren't there the day before.

About the same time I noticed some kind of tiny bee-like insect hovering and darting around almost all my flowers - the pansies in particular. They move like bees. A bee with a very pointy behind. It looked dangerous, bite or sting, and was showing far too much interest in the flowers on the porch.

I wasn't able to get out to find something that would kill aphids without poisoning the peppers or the soil until yesterday. I found a spray that is all plant oils, like peppermint, rosemary thyme, and clove, and not much else (EcoSmart). The directions said to wait until the cool of evening to spray.

So last evening I went to spray the peppers, and was amazed! In one day they'd almost doubled in size and had a healthy knot of infant leaves. And no aphids! None. Two days before they had been covered with them. Now there were none.

Very strange.

Later, out of curiosity, I got out my bug book and looked up the tiny bee-darting thingy.

It's called a snipe fly (family Rhagionidae), and they are predators, and their favorite snack is aphids.

Cool.

That's where the aphids went.

In this photo, scarfed from the internet, it's obvious it's some kind of fly, not bee, just by the shape of the head and eyes - but they are so tiny you don't notice that. One easy to notice characteristic is that if one lands near you, and you move to touch it, it will hop and sidle away rather than take off.

So if you see any tiny (less than 1/3 inch) bee-looking things with long pointy behinds in your garden, don't hurt them. They might LOOK like they could bite or sting, but they don't.

Send them my way.
.

3272 Frustration

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

One can be spiritual without being religious.
One can be religious without being spiritual.
They are two different things, with a casual, not causal, relationship.
-- Silk --

-----------------------------------------------------

It is now June. My plan was to be out of the old house by now, and to be started on the repairs to be made before I can sell it as something more than a "fixer-upper". Ha!

First there was the miserable winter that grounded me, then this kidney thing that has floored me.

I'm very frustrated.

I called the doctor's assistant yesterday, as ordered, to set up the blasting of the stone ("ESWL", google it) which I thought was supposed to happen on "Friday or Monday". I foolishly assumed that was this coming Friday or Monday. Of course not.

I actually swore at the assistant when I was told that the machine travels around among hospitals, and won't be here until June 17th. And the doctor does procedures only on Friday and Monday, because otherwise he's seeing patients in his office. So it won't happen until the 17th.

I am extremely upset. As I said to Daughter, maybe the Fates are trying to teach me something.

Daughter wants me to give up and find another urologist. But given that three CT scans and three X-ray sets haven't clarified exactly what my physical arrangement is in there, I'm afraid another doctor would simply want to start his (they're all "he" on my network list) exploration all over again, so I'm not sure that would make any difference.
.

3271 nookindle

Monday, May 30, 2011

"Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute."
-- Josh Billings --

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

For a little while now I've wanted to buy one o' them newfangled e-reader thingies. Nook or Kindle, Kindle or Nook? I knew nothing about them, didn't know which was better, each have their adherents, and besides, they're always coming up with "improvements" and next generations, and maybe I should wait until the dust settles a bit. And the cost is significant. If I make the wrong choice and end up disliking it, I'd feel worse.

Well, last week, before getting the news of Hal's tires, back when I was feeling flush, I came across a deal I couldn't resist. Two different websites were having competing one-day sales of reconditioned e-readers, the most recent model (there are new models coming out now), one the Barnes & Noble Nook and the other the Amazon Kindle, each for about 1/4 the list price. I could get both for 1/2 the price of either one new.

It's been my experience that reconditioned is generally as good as new, pretty much the same rate of problems, especially since a large portion of "reconditioned" had nothing more wrong with them than buyer's remorse, so how could I not?

The Kindle arrived Thursday, and the Nook on Friday.

Instructions:

The Nook's instruction book is easier to read, understand, navigate, and apply. The Kindle's instructions are less well organized, it's difficult to skip over functions you know you won't use, there are just too many options and functions, and too many esoteric terms that I'm sure the writers understood well, but are Greek to us neophytes. Nook's technical writers win.

On the other hand, to do all the things *I* want to do with it, with the Kindle everything is pretty much intuitive. The way the onscreen menus work, I don't need more than one pass through the basic instructions. With the Nook, I often stare at the blank screen thinking, "Now how do I get to xxxx?", and I have to go to the instructions. Kindle's usability people win.

Keyboard:

Nook has a touchscreen keyboard, which is ok, except that it wants SKIN ONLY. You can't use a pencil eraser, or fingernail, or anything but skin. My fingernails are long. The squares for each letter are tiny. Using the side of any finger spills over to adjoining tiny letter squares. I finally resorted to folding my index finger and using the point of the knuckle, which hurts, and one out of four letters it spills over anyway. Not cool, Nook.

The Kindle has a permanent button keyboard. The key buttons are tiny, but at least I can press them with my fingernails, which is how I usually type. I think Nook's thinking is that most people won't use the keyboard that often, so why waste space on one.

Kindle wins usability of keyboard.

Navigation:

The Nook has a touch screen at the bottom where all the menus appear. That's similar I guess to a smart phone.

The Kindle has buttons instead. There are Home, Menu, and Back buttons, and a little toggle thingy that acts like a mouse and cursor. That's similar in operation to a browser and a mouse on a computer.

I guess which one prefers depends on one's familiarity, but I vastly prefer the Kindle arrangement.

Turning pages:

You can use Next and Previous buttons on the sides of both to turn pages in your book. One thing that's annoying about the Nook is that there are those little locator "pegs", tiny stick-up dots, on the page turn buttons. With the Kindle, the buttons are smooth, and you can locate them by the softer feel of them. I guess I'm like the princess and the pea. Those Nook locator dots HURT!

You can also turn pages on the Nook by swiping across the touchscreen at the bottom, but only when there's no menu displayed there, and it doesn't always work on the first swipe.

Kindle wins, even if it is "old" technology. Fancy isn't always better.

Downloading books:

They're both pretty much the same. You need an account on the (B&N/Amazon) bookstore website, register your device, provide a credit card, and you're ready to go. Both devices use wifi, and it's fast. I mean really fast. A 600-page book arrives in like a second or two. (Howcome I'm not getting that speed on my laptop?)

I was at first a little concerned because I have no wifi here. How will that work? Heh. Silly Silk. Apparently they use cell phone towers. It just works, period. And it's completely and totally free for books downloaded from the stores. On both devices people can send files (documents, photos) to your device's email address (name@kindle.com, for example), and that does cost, charged to your bookstore account credit card.

Both stores have the usual library of books. I haven't explored what's available on B&N yet, but I discovered a slew of free classics on Amazon. Free! No charge at all. I've already downloaded 37 books - some Twain, Poe, Austen, Flaubert, Eliot, Christie, Wilde, and so on.

I've also purchased one book from each store, and that was pretty easy.

So, assuming B&N has some free books too, they're pretty equal there.

[Flash! Later edit - I went looking for free books on B&N. There are a bunch, but they are all in other languages, or things like "The history of the village of Rothugh", by the committee to promote Rothugh, ya' know? The same classics that are free at Amazon are about $1.99 at B&N. However, keep in mind that I haven't checked out the transcription quality of the free Amazon stuff yet.

The B&N website is a bit awkward to navigate. Like, there's a few "free books" links, but one gets you a 1500+ list of untranslated titles that you can't sort and have to scroll through 100 at a time, a second gets a list of books in English, at least, but they're all cheap bodice-rippers or sound rather dirty, and a third gets books selling for $7-8 (Free?), and another gets what they call "samples" - which appears to be an excerpt.

So, so far, the Kindle is ahead here, too, in website usability and really free books worth having.]

Reading:

You can't read either of them in the dark, but you can't read paper books in the dark, either, so that doesn't bother me.

I've read both in the glider on the front porch in full sun, with no great difficulty. No glare.

Both allow you to change the print size and font. I'm fine with the defaults.

General:

There is one problem, and I consider it a big problem. We know I like bargains. I'm used to buying hardcovers in the remainder bins in bookstores, and at yard sales, and at library sales of donated books, or getting them free from friends who have read them and are passing them on.

Other than the free classics, there will be no bargains in e-books. (They do both have a "lend" function, but you can lend a particular book only once, and for a limited time.) You have to pay their price, and I doubt there will be any "stock reduction" sales. No need.

On the other hand, the writers will do better. They get paid full contractual price for (almost) every reader.

Conclusion:

Both devices are pretty much the same in any area I haven't mentioned. The Nook is a tad smaller in height and width, but it's thicker. Weight is about the same, as is screen size. Battery charges pretty quickly in both, and seems to last a satisfyingly long time.

Right now I prefer the Kindle. I find it more comfortable to use - with my long nails, tender thumb pads, and preference for buttons over touchpads.
.

3270 My watermelon exploded!

Sunday, May 29, 2011

“[Marriage is] about being together some of the time and apart some of the time.
About entering and leaving together.
About being free to follow your own tastes
yet always conscious that there is a seat saved for you beside the other.”
-- Terry Bisson, The Edge of the Universe -

----------------------------------------------------------------

...well, I think it would have exploded if it had gotten warm.

I love watermelon. A few days ago I bought a very small round one, and put it on the kitchen counter. It was uncut, the refrigerator is too small, and you see them sitting in bins in the grocery store for a few days, right? So it never occurred to me to put it in the refrigerator.

It was ok this morning. This evening I glanced over and noticed that it looked ... deflated. It was flat on the bottom, sinking into the counter exactly like a leaking soccer ball.

I touched it, and it was empty-squishy-feeling. I scooped it up and ran for the sink, just in time for it to literally fall apart in my hands.

What you see in the photo is what happened when it landed in the sink. I didn't scrape it out or anything. There was a little "meat" in it, but not enough to so much as block the drain. It was mostly water.

I'd read a story about Chinese farmers who were losing their watermelon crops - that the melons were exploding in the fields because they'd had a very wet spring and the melons contained a higher ratio of water to fiber, and when they got warm they blew apart.

---------------------------------------------

Friday morning very early I drove 1.5 hours to Harriman, NY, to get Hal inspected. He's one year old this month. I'm not ready to change the registrations yet because Suzy is still in NY and that just makes things too complicated.

He passed inspection, but I got a severe shock. Both driver's side tires have bubbles in their sidewalls. Probably from potholes. PLUS both driver's side wheels are bent. They'll need to be replaced.

Hal's tires are $417 EACH! I have no idea how much the wheels cost. Note - the guy didn't say "rims", he said "wheels".

The tires are not dangerous, but they'll eventually go flat, and they can't be repaired. They're so expensive because they're "drive flat" tires. Once the sensor says it's flat, I can drive something like 50 miles - at a lower speed - then it needs to be fixed or replaced. Well, that's the dealer's definition of "drive flat", anyway. Given that this makes three bubbled tires in four months, I think it means "drive them and they go flat". And honest, since the big pothole that blew the first one, I've been very careful NOT to hit potholes, even to avoiding the north section of route 35, and the back entrance to the post office.

Sigh. I was just beginning to get control of the finances, too.

-------------------------------

The worst part of that diagnosis was that Fred was sitting outside with a flat tire, passenger side rear (another valve stem shot, that's the fifth of Hal's five tires in the past five months), and a holiday weekend is coming, and Daughter and Hercules are away until Monday, and now I hear Hal could go flat any minute, which would leave me stranded.

Neighbor George helped me put the spare on Fred this afternoon. (Well, he actually did it all.) The big problem with Fred is that his floor and rear axle are dropped 10 inches for wheelchair access, so an ordinary jack won't fit under him, and NO jack will fit under when a tire is completely flat. George had a compressor and pumped up the flat enough to get a special jack in there, and got it done.

George is 72 or 73, not in the best of health, and it was 88 degrees and sunny. He was bright red and sweating up a storm, lying on hot blacktop poking around under Fred, but he wouldn't be deterred. I was very worried.

-------------------------------

Yesterday and today I did some yard work (in bits and pieces. I stopped every time I saw a trace of blood in the urine. Since I piddle about every 20 minutes (I've GOT to get this stent out!) it was easy to keep track of.)

Today my (new, replacement) gardenia bloomed. I took this picture before the blossom was completely open. There are two other swelling buds, but, if it goes like every other gardenia I've ever tried to keep, that simply means it will die next week.

Sigh.

3269 Aaaaargh!

Sunday, May 29, 2011

“Bad news stops you for a while, then you move on. Hope is paralyzing.”
-- A line on “Criminal Minds“, 09/09/09 episode --

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is today's Dilbert. It struck a chord with me, and not in a good way. That guy on the right, Asok, I think? That was me in The Company. I got so sick and tired of other people getting awards for things I did.

3268 Orb of Madness

Friday, May 27, 2011

“You have to expect as much from yourself as you do for yourself.”
-- Chris Darden's Nanny --

-----------------------------------------------------------

This video was on CuteOverload.com a few days ago, under the title ""Reginald Locates the Orb of Madness".

I loved it.


[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MqHN-4okZ4&feature=player_embedded]
.

3267 The Nugget

Thursday, May 26, 2011

“Women like their men occasionally childlike, but never childish.”
-- Silk --

----------------------------------------------

3266 Falling Apart

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

"We sense that life is a dark comedy and maybe we can live with that.
However, because the whole thing is written for the entertainment of the gods,
too many of the jokes go right over our heads."
-- Dean Koontz, Mr. Murder --

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Click on the photos to see them without interference.)

Photos from Joplin and Minneapolis, from Boston.com:
Full set at http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/05/deadly_tornados_strike_again.html.

Photos of the latest volcano in Iceland, from Boston.com:
Full set at http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/05/another_icelandic_eruption_gri.html.

---------------------------------

I get annoyed at people who go on and on about how there are so many "more" and "bigger" natural disasters "these days", and how that's "proof" of whatever their pet theory is.

There aren't more tornadoes, hurricaines, cyclones, earthquakes, droughts, tsunamis, floods, mudslides, anything, really, not in the long view. (Maybe more and larger forest fires in the western US, but that has a lot more to do with forestry management policies than anything natural.)

It just seems like there's more, but only because we hear more about them now. Some years there are more than others, but that's always been true. The human impact is higher now, but that's because there's more people, not because the event is worse. For example, tornadoes that used to tear through prairies with little notice, now, following the same path, tear through suburbs.

Nature (or God) isn't out to get us. Humans are out to get Nature.
.