Rants

Went out to dinner this evening after running the Miata Club newsletter through the postage meter at Rader. Damon’s is right across the street and we love ribs, so over we went. It was early, the place was pretty empty so when we and asked for a booth in the No Smoking section, we figured that would be no problem. When the hostess turned right instead of the usual left we questioned her. She said, “This is no smoking.” We said, “But it is right near the bar/smoking section. Could we sit over there instead?” She said, “That section is closed, besides there isn’t any one here yet, so…” That is when we stopped listening, turned around and left. There is a Tony Roma’s a couple of miles away. We have been in too many, there is no one here situations before. Invariably just as we are eating our salads, everyone in the booth on the other side of the little wall will light up. No thanks, there are just too many places to eat out to have to gamble on having our meal spoiled by the stench of cigarettes.

5 or so years ago when color copiers started to make their way into the copy & printing places it cost a dollar to make one 8-1/2 x 11 color copy. I have never wanted the services of a color copier until now. I print out the Master’s Miata Club newsletter at work. Always used the laser printer in my area for it, until a year ago. They company bought a color laser printer. I started doing the newsletter on it after hours. I didn’t think the folks at the company minded me running 25 or newsletters off a month, after all the Miata Club is a non-profit organization, so it is kinda like a community service. Well fast forward to now. Business is bad, sales are down, production is down, etc. I’m starting to feel a little like they might not take kindly to me “stealing” there paper, toner, time anymore. For the heck of it I called my friends at the Mail Boxes Etc. and asked how much for a color copy. 99?. Big price drop!?! I guess no one else has made enough copies to bring the price down any, huh? I now print 50 newsletters with just the front page in color. I would need 100 copies, fortunately there is price break at 100, times 78? equals $78. Some how I don’t think the club will want to spend that much on printing every month. August I go back to black & white.

Today was a nothing day, but I still feel the need to write something here, so this is it. Please deal with it kindly, ’cause I can’t.

For those of you keeping track today was my big stress/echo test. In a quest to figure out why my BP went way high (for me) and is now pretty much in line from medication. Well as expected I passed with flying colors, at least preliminarily. The Cardiologist is in the room when you are actually taking the test and he looked at the various EKG readouts and watched my sonogram and said, “Looks OK so far.” Worst part of it was them sandpapering my skin to remove any dead stuff, quickly followed by an alcohol wipe to remove any oils!

I seem like a perfectly healthy person, but once every 3 or 4 days my body freaks or something and I get that hazy feeling and warm and I bet my pressure and pulse rate go up. It happened this afternoon while waiting for the doctor, I was hooked up too the electrodes and I could see my heart rate hit like 90 for a few seconds. Next up is a 24 hour urine sample test to check for something the doctor called “exotic” abnormalities, AKA hormonal imbalances. Don’t know what that entails just yet, I have to go pick my kit at the lab tomorrow….

After Photopoint started charging a few years back I went looking for another site to host my online photos for free. A brief stop was made at Club Photo. They turned to pay as you go about 6 months later. The hunt resumed. This time I ended up at Ofoto (a Kodak company) I figured the had the bucks to keep it free. It is still free but I noticed they have taken the first step down that slippery slope. Used to be you could share your pictures with anyone. Now, for people to view your pictures, they have to become Ofoto members. It is still free for me to keep pictures there and still free for others to view them. I hasn’t happen yet but I think it is only a matter of time before we see something about Ofoto in The End of Free. I’ve no one to blame but myself, all these sites make money by selling reprints of the digital images and I’ve never done it.

I may have to stop writing about this “problem.” Seems as with the medication my BP is going to be right around the “Gold” standard for BP’s 120/80. Was at the doctor’s office this AM to get the script for the drug whose samples they gave me that seems to be working well (after a couple of week adjustment period.) The nurse took my BP and it was 118/74. Later that day I had the company nurse at work take it and she got 122/84. When I asked the P.A. why do I have HBP all of a sudden. She looked back in my chart and started reading off numbers:
10/10/94 120/72
5/17/95 130/70
8/15/95 150/84
9/25/97 120/80
9/22/98 154/82
12/15/98 156/84
10/11/99 146/90
5/24/00 142/80
4/08/02 146/82
Looks like the upper number has been high already for the last 4 years. Hmmmm. As to what caused the spike? Who knows, doesn’t seem to be anything major…..

HPB : Felt crappy last night, didn’t sleep well and still felt crappy in the AM. My BP was 130/84, up a notch. Missed the afternoon measurement, too bad as I felt better and the pressure probably would have been normal.
RT : Staples let me down. I was sure they would have indoor thermometers, looked around and even asked somebody, but they don’t carry them. I guess it is time to hit the web….