ReDecorating

I had made mention of a couple of items recently. One was that I would likely be replacing my printer in the near future. The other was the lack of content I've had recently.

Well, I took care of both of them today!!! I was going to try and scan a form the other day, and I couldn't get my printer to get past the “Print Head Not Installed” portion. I messed with it for a few minutes, then called it, and ordered a new one!!!

I stuck with Canon, since I've been happy with the one I had, present experience excluded. Got a Canon Pixima G6020, another all in one with print, scan, and copy functions. Since it's a much newer model, it's also wirelessly connected, and since ink has been a major expense with my previous printer, this one is an ink tank model with big reservoirs. Oh yea, I can also scan and print from my phone now, as well.

As a side note, I had long ago mentioned the artwork on my file cabinet upon which my desktop computer tower and printer have always sat. Never had an actual picture here, only a link to a page on a long gone Geocities site. When we were living in Long Beach, my wife had saved up and bought a set of chairs and a love seat that were black with blue and maroon pattern shapes all over them, and when I got a 2-drawer file cabinet, I painted it black, and hand painted similar blue and maroon pattern shapes to match. The chairs and love seat are long gone, but the file cabinet remains, so I've included it in the picture here!!!

A little over 12 years ago, I had painted the bathroom in a black and white theme. My dad made up the custom painted toilet seat that has been the base for many of the pictures posted on this blog, and when I'd painted it up, I picked up three black 5”x7” picture frames, with the idea that I could rotate in various black and white pictures. (The only picture that actually shows much of the black and white was the third on this post) The first three, I printed out pictures of Mochi sleeping on the top of the cat tree, Leo relaxing in the sink, and a vertical picture of both their paws. I'd added the picture frame effect in Paint Shop Pro, and had them printed at WalMart. Well, those pictures have stayed there since that day, until today!!!

After setting up my new printer and printing the test page and a test picture, I printed out these pictures to replace the old ones. The first two are from out Texas trip from a few years ago, both taken in Galveston. The first was looking out from the window of the Best Western (second picture from the end of this post). The next was on the beach on the Gulf of America (the final picture on this post). When I saw both of these pictures, I knew they'd work great for the theme I was using in there!!!

For the third, I kept with the theme of having a cat picture. I used Sid's X-ray showing the repair!!! Hey, it cost me a lot of money!!!

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!!!

Fixed It!!!

We've been doing a lot of going back and forth to the vet's with Sidney's leg.

I'd thought they wouldn't take a follow up X-ray until his 4 week follow up, I know I'd heard that anyway. But on one of the many trips, my wife got them to send these X-rays!!! Nice though, apparently after 4 weeks, he'll no longer have to have his leg wrapped!!!

Every week they want to check up on his progress, so that's what some of the back and forth has been, just taking him over to get checked out. They sedate him, check him, and re wrap the legs, so it's one trip to drop him off, then pick him up a couple hours (minimum) later, so two trips each time. Twice they've failed to wrap his other foot well enough, and he's kicked the splint off, resulting in follow up trips the next day.

So there's the repair!!! They put a rod down the length of the bone, and screwed a plate on the outside. Design notes from a tooling designer, I think they should have radiused the edges of the plate, and I think it should have been moved up a little, it looks like of all the screws they put in, only 2 made it into the unbroken upper part of the bone, and short ones at that. Not sure, but it looks like the longer ones may be poking through the far side. Hope that isn't an issue.

Hadn't mentioned that I never knew that the bony elbow portion of a cat's leg is actually a portion of the leg bone that runs long!!!

And there he is, being his friendly self!!! Still has the licks and nibbles for us, and reaches out from his cage for us. Just trying to get a picture, and he comes right up into the camera!!!

My wife and my cat now both have titanium bone reenforcements!!! For this post I added a new label that I could go back and add to several other posts!!! What is the cost of all of this?? If I hadn't recently bought the Sky, it would be more than I've ever spent on any of my cars!!!

3 Random Pictures

Just a few pictures from my phone...

To start off, last week they held Burger Week at Oinkster. Never posted about it, but I followed up in 2016 by participating again. I skipped last year, but heard about it again this year and decided to give it a go again. Once again, I enjoyed breaking the routine. One thing, though, since the Oinkster has a fairly small parking lot, I usually end up parking up one of the side streets and walking about a block. Along the way, I passed this tree with massive roots, where it looks like they actually conformed the sidewalk to clear it!!!

A week back I was wearing a shirt with a breast pocket. I dropped my phone into it before we went for a drive in Jade. Unbeknownst to me, I'd managed to swipe the camera on on it's way in, and it took over a hundred pictures as we drove. I deleted all but this one, as we were going under a railroad bridge. Most of the other ones were nothing but sky, and a few with palm trees or power wires.

Final shot is of the wife's pelvis. I've never gone through all of it, but she's go a lot of titanium!!! Started out by getting both knees replaced at the same time. Following that, she had the one hip replaced, and I believe this is the first picture I have of it. Next, she had her shoulder replaced, the one she's been complaining about for the longest time. Most recently, last August, she had her neck reinforced. Last Monday we had a final appointment before she was going to get her spine reinforced, but her doctor noticed she was having trouble getting around. The X-ray he'd taken for her back had down to her hip bones, and he called in his colleague, the hip guy. Now she's got an appointment with him next Monday!!! Her doctor reasoned that hip surgery is a quicker recovery than back surgery.

Just a Sprain

This has been sitting on my side table here for a few weeks now. Finally put it in my CD drive and got the images off it.

It's from last year's epic road & boat trip vacation. Just realized that this year's will be a plane, road and boat trip, cool...

Anyway, these are the x-rays from when the boy sprained his foot. As you can see, not much to see, as it's just a sprain!!!