Farewell 2024

Welcome to (in all likelihood) the final post of the year!!! I had a few others in me, but they're not ready for prime time as of yet. So, what do I now have in common with my cat???

In 2024 we both have broken a bone related to walking!!!

On Saturday, 4 days ago, I was coming down some stairs, and on the last one I rolled my foot to the inside, and I swore I heard a pop (and, yes, I swore). It was painful, and I was limping around afterwards, but the pain wasn't in my ankle as I would have expected. I went to a local urgent care (which I'd been to once this month already, I had a cough that wasn't going away, and it turned out I had a bacterial infection. The stuff they prescribed did a fine job clearing it up!!!) and was told there was around a 3 hour wait. I expected as much, being a weekend, it wasn't anywhere near that long when I went on a Tuesday. Of course, I work in the evenings on Saturdays, and it was going to be close at best.

After a wait commensurate with the time estimated, they took me in and took my vitals and my story. After a quick visual inspection they took X-rays, and a bit later the doctor comes back and tells me I broke it. Displaced 5th metatarsal fracture, to be exact. They put on a splint (which feels loose to me) and gave me a pair of crutches and referred me to an orthopedic surgeon for further evaluation. Oh yeah, they told me before they put the splint on that I may have to cut off my pants when I got home. No thanks, I'll just take those off now!!! My surrogate son had been driving us around, and I know he had his windbreaker, and I figured I'd fashion it into a kilt. I never did, but that's what I was thinking of doing.

Ended up 45 minutes late to starting work that day. I tried to contact the orthopedic surgeon they had referred me to on Monday, and it put me on hold forever, then put me through to a message machine, which told me it was completely full after it beeped. At any rate, I had been looking them up the day before on the map, and they aren't very highly rated. My wife happens to know a place that does some orthopedic surgery, so I contacted them. The soonest they could get me in is this coming Friday.

I never saw the X-rays, so I don't know exactly the location or extent of the fracture. Most of the information I found was it'll be 6 to 8 weeks if no surgery is required. It honestly doesn't feel that bad, unless I try and walk on it or put pressure on it. There are a few types of fractures it could be, avulsion, Jones, or dancer's. I found a couple of images of them, and one of them was actually from another guy on Blogger, and it sounds like his injury came about similarly to mine, but it looks like his was worse, with some swelling.

This is now my second broken bone, the first one I referred to when it had happened, back in 2005 around when I'd started blogging. I have a couple of mentions and links to the picture, but they were hosted on Geocities (now defunct, if you didn't know), and if I'd posted about it, it was probably on MySpace. You remember MySpace, don't you??? Maybe I'll post about it at some point, I tell people it's where my newest tattoo came from (they injected numbing agents in my knuckles through my greasy dirty hand, and the mark remains) and it's one of my many tales that my younger likes me to share with his friends.

I was thinking of making this into a random post with several bits of the aforementioned possible future posts, but not tonight. One of the things I would have had that carries over is my wife had broken some of her back rods again, and had surgery at the beginning of November to repair and reinforce things. She got out the day before Thanksgiving, and thankfully she's got a good amount of her mobility back, which works out since I now can't drive. It was on my right hand foot.

Still holding the title of Titanium Queen!!!

Maybe This Year Will Be Better Than the Last

SO much to blog!!! I keep thinking I'll do better, but there's always something else, it seems. Oh well, it is the way of life.

Welcome to my year end wrap up!!! If I finish before 12 tonight, I'll have one more in for 2011!!! I'll go over a little of this & that interspersed with the pictures from this year's Christmas.

Completely unrelated thought, know how some stores (most, I would estimate) shun using the actual word "Christmas" in any of their advertisements and promotions??? Perhaps all us consumers should thusly shun doing any of our actual Christmas shopping at their establishments...

I like the way my son caught my wife giving me the sideways eyes in the first shot.

I think I did all my Christmas shopping online this year...

Bought our cat a catnip apple for Christmas. It's always lost. He never tells where it's at, if he knows.

Seems like work was busy all year. Goodie day came and went, and our department didn't do the T-shirt exchange that we usually do. Kept me from having to find one for a co-worker, usually with only a week or so of shopping time. Gravy day elicited a roar of approval from packing when it was announced to them, moments before our department. Biggest one I've ever had, bigger than everyone was thinking it was going to be, much to our delight. Not too far below the amount it was the one year prior to my arrival that the employees ended up shutting down the local branch of the bank the checks were drawn on because they ran out of cash!!! Signs so far tend to indicate this coming year will be at least as good!!!

Too much zoom in the shot of my wife getting the DVD set of Dexter season 5, boy. Actually, it came out a pretty good effect, though!!!

Now, to get on to non-Christmas related news, and in relation to the post title... Two weeks ago today I was actually up fairly early for a Saturday, when I got a call from my dad. He found my mom keeled over & unresponsive when he got up. She was already on her way to the hospital, and he was heading over.

They managed to bring her around, and the thing everyone (including myself) goes to is a stroke, so that was what they were treating her like. Turned out not to be the case. Arrhythmia and cardiac arrest was what was actually going on. Of course, we visited her that day, but she was heavily sedated and had, among many others, a tube down her throat. Somewhere between 13 and 30 times they've had to defibrillate her to get her going again. THEN she gets infected where they had the IV inserted in her hand, so it was later before they could implant the ICD... Pretty impressive device, they're able to externally adjust it, which they had to do a couple times in the next days. She seems to finally be in fairly good shape.

One bad thing, though, there's been illness within my household, so we haven't been able to visit much. I've called my dad most every day, and my mom several times also. My dad's been there every day, of course. Best Christmas ever, he says. I agree. My oldest sister has been there a lot, too, which is also a good thing.

I'm sure I could say much more, but don't want this post to be nothing but. I think I've covered most of the salient points. Oh, a little insult to injury, she went out with her leg on the little electric heater. Looks nasty, but it's healing up. Oh, another one, one of her rooms at the hospital got flooded out by the toilet. My dad was the one who discovered the extent of that one.

Got my boys a night vision viewer with video capabilities. It's pretty sweet, for the money I paid. I think they managed to delete the one pretty hilaras video of the older boy spooking the younger by coming forth from the darkness.

Massive windstorm last month. Knocked out power for something like four days and blew a sizable branch off the tree, narrowly missing the Falcon. My wife finally finished the book she was working on for a year or more. Had to use watches and phones to wake up. It was an adventure. I was very glad we have a gas heater.

I don't think I saw a single movie in the past year, with the exception of the documentary "Born to be Wild" when we were vacationing in San Diego at the Science Center's domed IMAX theater, and that was included with admission. It's about orphaned orangutans and elephants and the people who rescue them. It was narrated by Morgan Freeman, which was pretty epic. The movie was pretty decent, but you could tell it wasn't designed to be projected onto a dome, it didn't come out right around the edges. Much like facial piercings, I found that to be... distracting. They had another movie coming on after that one that I'd wished I'd opted for instead about storm chasers (which may have been the title of the movie, as well).

The couple of pretty good books I got in this year were one we'd got from my mom, John Irving's "A Prayer for Owen Meany". Had that for a long time before I got to reading it. My wife started on it, but found it too dark. Got Stephen King's 11/22/63 when it came out, and went through that in fairly short order. It ended, I though, surprisingly upbeat for a King novel. I certainly enjoyed it. I'm currently going through Douglas Adams' HG2G books. I'd long ago gone through at least the first three (and in the middle of the third is where I currently at) but know I never made it through the final one. A couple years back, I think it was, I bought the five in one ultimate one for my first born, and that's the one I'm currently in. The one the seller shipped at first was a collectors edition with photos and such, but not all five books. They made it right, though.

Hey, it's already 2012 on the Eastside!!! Happy New Year!!!

Car news. The last week my wife was working this year, the traitorous starter on Janice went out again, less than three month later. Do NOT buy your starters from Auto Zone, their rebuilders suck. That was what I was going to be doing the weekend my mom went down, so that was delayed. Oh yea, we had been planning on doing the family Christmas the following Monday (I had it off, along with the Tuesday after Christmas as my last personal days) so needless to say that has yet to happen.

The Wednesday following THAT, Baby started showing some problems... First sign was she stalled right after starting up!!! That never happens... Had to two-foot her when coming to a stop and such. Checked forums and it sounded like (along with a previous symptom I'd noticed) a bad coolant temperature sensor. Bought a new one, as well as a fresh set of plugs and wires, the next day. When I went to install it, made the mistake of giving it one too many cranks tightening it down and snapped it off down in the hole.

Didn't want to try and get it out in such an awkward area, so I JB welded it back together. That seems to be doing fine, and it seemed to be working fine until it warmed up, then it was worse than before!!! Limped her home again, and popped the hood and heard what sounded like a major vacuum leak. Turns out both ends of the PCV hose has elbows that were both cracked open. Of course, no one makes anything like that, so I've fabricated a lengthy section of hose and an elbow from one of Janices' repairs. So far it seems fine, but I've yet to drive her any distance. At this rate, that won't happen this year!!!

Counting Crows' "A Long December", in case you didn't get the title reference!!!

And, finally, a little Christmas something for all you that read or happen across my low traffic blog, a shot of my wife's boobs (or at least cleavage) in her Christmas Victoria's Secret push-up bra and pajamas!!!

And to all a good night!!!

Technology Meltdown

This is the tale of my New Years Eve. First thing you should know is that I had to work New Years Eve. There wasn't a lot of work going on, but I had to be there. I made a mistake the previous Friday, but it worked out OK. It was slow on Friday, too, and the supervisors came around asking people if they would like to go home early that day or Monday. I immediately said Monday, my logic being that I would prefer to get a little earlier home on New Year's Eve. Just a little after I'd told them that, I got to having second thoughts. Firstly, I was on the later shift on Monday, and being on the road an hour earlier would mean potentially being more in the midst of traffic. My second thought was that, while it was slow on Friday, it was likely to be even slower on Monday, so they might still send people home early that day, even if they'd left early on Friday too. As I said, it worked out, just a bit after I'd articulated this thinking to one of my co-workers, a supervisor came up to me and told me I was leaving an hour early that day, Friday. OK, all's well that ends well.

When I got home quite early that evening, I put my older boy's computer system upgrades in. For all practical purposes, it's a brand new machine, the only things remaining are the case and the CD and floppy drives. I have to say, it was the easiest computer I've ever built.

As I has predicted, it was even slower on Monday. That worked out as I had hoped it would, too. Actually, even better than I'd planned. A bit after morning break, one of the supervisors told me that I only had to work until the start of my lunch break, something they were doing for all the people with good attendance stats. Whoo hooo!!!

I had been planning on scouring junkyards over the weekend. The Benz is running great, except that the transmission doesn't want to shift right. Since the engine is different than the chassis, I'm looking for what is called a "change over valve" that is proper to the year of the chassis. Since I was done at 1, I called up my dad to see if he wanted to go. We did, to two different yards, but had no luck finding the valve.

When I got home is when the title alluded technology meltdown happened. As I was attempting to get some dinner together, my older boy starts calling out, asking what to do when his screen goes upside down!!! I go out and take a look, and sure enough, his screen is displaying upside down!!! Huh. Flip your monitor over, boy. I have no idea how he did it. I remembered some years ago seeing a little joke program you could send your friends that would do just this when activated, but I couldn't find anything like that. I messed with it for quite a while, then gave up on it for a bit.

My younger boy tells me that his new keyboard "does numbers when you do letters". Huh??? I type a few letters. No problem. He types a few farther to the right, and sure enough, it does numbers. Huh??? I'm thinking that his new keyboard has some crossed wires from the factory, and grab the box out of the trash before it goes any farther. I can't figure it out at this time, and finally sit down to eat.

While I'm eating, I happen to look at the digital photo frame that I gave my wife for Christmas. The front of it looks like it's been scribbled on!!! I'm a little upset by this and ask a bit loudly what happened. My younger boy says, "I'm sorry!" Once again, I ask what he did to it, and he repeats "I'm sorry!" Two or three more times we go through this, and I finally have to explain, "Yea, I got that you're sorry, now WHAT DID YOU DO TO IT???" He tells me that he was drawing on it with his finger. Fortunately, it cleaned off with no negative effects.

On my older boy's machine, my wife had the brilliant idea that, since he's now using XP instead of 2000, he could use the system restore. One day back, and everything is fine. I discovered a bit later that his display driver has a built in rotate function. If I'd known sooner...

Sin City came on at 10:00, and it is one of those movies I'd always kind of wanted to see. I turned it on and laid back on the couch. Twenty minutes later, I was out.

Happy New Year!!!

Meanwhile, on the Other End of Colorado...

Thousands were camping out on the curbs of Colorado Boulevard on the afternoon of New Year's Eve, staking out a viewing spot for the Rose Parade. I live just minutes south of the area, and it is always fascinating to drive down this street in the weeks leading up to the parade, with bleachers set up in parking lots and parkways, and that stripe that the floats follow going down the middle. However, just a little bit to the west of there, across the suicide bridge, lies Eagle Rock.

On Saturday, after a trip to Fry's, we went past Tommy Burgers in Eagle Rock for lunch. About a block away is a fairly new restaurant, Oinkster. I had heard of it, and seen it before, but had never been there. Sunday, while the preparations for the Rose Parade were underway, we went to check this place out. Having seen it the day before, it had stuck in my head. There were several classic rods in the parking lot, a '32 highboy, a duce coupe, a 30's pickup, and as we ate on the patio a '53 Chevy panel truck and a '63 Falcon ragtop came through. The shakes were one of the things that had been touted, so we got several of those. Belgian fries with roasted garlic aioli dipping sauce were also on the menu. I don't know what classifies them as Belgian, but they are slightly larger than most, and the salt was coarser than what usually comes on fries. Very tasty, tasted very fresh, like the ones you get from In-N-Out. The sauce... I've never tasted anything like it!!! This is what fries have been waiting for!!! The boy and I both ordered the pulled pork sandwich, which was indescribably tasty. My wife got the veggie burger (lower in calories and fat) and it was quite good, too.

Their slogan is "Slow fast food", whatever that means. They do give you a number and bring the food out to you, but it didn't seem to take much longer than what it takes at Carls Jr. Pricey, though. The shakes alone are nearly as much as a combo meal at many of the "faster" fast food places. After we paid up and went to the patio to await our food, I said "Hope you enjoy this, it will probably be the last time we come here." I could have gone to a real restaurant for right around the same amount. However, after the food arrived and we got to eating, the consensus was that we'd probably be back, at least once more!!!