Whatever

Doctor Ordered Seperation

It has now been a week since Donna has returned home from the hospital and she is making slow and steady progress towards normal. In that week her sister has come and gone, leaving behind a refrigerator and freezer full of cooked food that fits into Donna’s colon friendly menu (and is tasty to boot) and I have gotten about 30 hours of sleep total, none of which has been more than an hour and a half consecutively.

Whenever she gets up to go to the bathroom, I wake up too. I have to turn on the bedside lamp so she can find her way to and from because the Xanax makes her very drowsy. Most nights around 2:00 AM (the doctor thinks because of the steroids) she feels so cold that she has to put on a second long sleeve shirt and a thicker pair of socks. Then for whatever reason, she cannot stay in bed past 4:00 AM and her rattling around in the kitchen making grits keeps me from returning to a full sleep.

Needless to say this is taking its toll on me, even the people at work notice that I look like crap. Yesterday at lunch I went out to the car covered myself with a blanket and tried to get some shut eye. I set the cell phone alarm for 12:55 so I would wake up and get back to the drawing board. Fortunately I woke on m own at 12:53 because I had set the alarm for 12:55 AM!

Today we both had doctor’s appointments, her with the gastro guy to see how things worked out with Monday’s medicine change (very good) and me with the GP to check on my blood pressure (better than I thought.) My GP is her GP and even though it was my appointment he did ask about her some too. When I told him that I was having sleep issues his “cure” was a script for lorazepam and the recommendation that we try sleeping in separate bedrooms. So tonight, because tomorrow is a work day, we are going to give it a try. She will spend the night on the living room couch with the TV and I will stay in the recently vacated back bedroom with the PC and internet radio.

Started down, went up, back down, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 537

Hi, I’m Zeke And I’ll Be Taking Care Of You

After a pleasant afternoon geocaching we decided to eat out for dinner. Because a couple of our favorite haunts are not open on Sunday we settled for a third tier option, Chilis. They have that 2 for $20 thing going on which we had enjoyed at one in Statesboro, GA on our way back from Florida at Thanksgiving. This dining experience wasn’t as good as that one, but that is a whole ‘nother post.

While waiting for Zeke to bring our drinks, Donna spotted an application booklet on the table to join their E-mail Club. They ask for your birthday, so we figured maybe you get a free margarita or something on your special day. Trouble was we didn’t have anything to right write with, so we asked Zeke if he’d lend us a pen. We both filled one out and handed them and the pen back when Zeke brought our appetizer.

As we finished our desert Zeke asked if we wanted anything else, when we replied in the negative, he dropped off our check and disappeared. Trouble was, he didn’t leave us a pen. I eyeballed the receipt and noticed that it was that thin glossy stuff, almost like old time fax paper, and thought, I bet this is pressure sensitive. I grabbed the salad fork, which I hadn’t used, turned it backwards and test wrote the total on the *guest copy*, with the handle. It worked, it was a little light, kind of like I signed it in pencil, but fully legible.

Zeke returned a few seconds after I had finished filling out the charge slip and said, “Did I forget to leave you a pen?” “Yep,” I replied, “But not to worry, I signed it with the fork.” He was so stunned than he forgot to say thanks for dining with us or hurry back or whatever the corporate mandated server’s last line is.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 519

98,000 Pieces of Coal

Loading CoalSaturday the MMC took a trip to Winnsboro to visit the South Carolina Railroad Museum. This weekend there was a visiting steam engine to give that old time feel (and smell) to your train ride. We combined the Club’s monthly breakfast with the train event, plus following the hour long train ride we drove to a nearby town for lunch making for almost a full day Miataness.

After lunch Donna and I went our separate ways from the group because we had an alternative agenda, that’s right, geocaching. Before leaving we made tentative dinner plans with another MMC couple to meet in Lexington at the Uno Chicago Grill at 5:30 to complete the Trifecta (all 3 meals out.)

Got all caught up chasing camo’d containers in the north central part of the state and ended up not being able to make it back to Lexington in time for pizza with Rudy & Patti. We were disappointed on two levels. With the dreary day and approaching of dusk we opted for the more direct way home from where we were and resigned ourselves to eat in Newberry at whatever place we could find. Luck was on our side though, willing to dine in a Hardee’s or a Subway, we stumbled on The Flying Pie on Main St and had a wonderful pizza about half way between the thin crust of West One in Hendersonville and the thick Chicago style pie in Lexington.

Saturday by the numbers:
299 – Miles driven on the day
98,000 – Total miles now on the Emperor
1 – Tank of gas used
5 – O’clock wake up call
14 – Hours from leaving home until returning
58° – High for the day, 20 below normal
9 – Cars in a line (7 Miatas, 1 Boxster and a Jeep)
11 – Mile train ride (5-1/2 under steam power)
100 – Pounds of coal burned by the train per mile traveled
8 – Caches found
3 – SC County Challenge caches and
2 – DeLorme Challenge pages finished

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 437

Insect Food

About two weeks ago I got two insect bites on both sides of my right leg just above the knee. They itched, swelled and oozed clear stuff, staying that way for about three days until a scab formed. I’ve never reacted to mosquito bites that way, so I guessed they were from a spider, but whatever they were from they were unpleasant.

Then a week ago I got bit 4 times. Back of the right side of my neck, about four inches further down on my back, near the waist on the left side and on my left ankle. I don’t feel the initial bite, but then I’ll notice something itching and scratch a bump.

Those four had just about cleared up when on Monday morning I had an itchy bump on my left forearm. Then later that morning I noticed an itch under my left arm and then one further down the back on the same side.

It is just me, Donna hasn’t been bothered a bit. They could only be coming from a couple places, my dresser or I’m getting bit each time we venture into Hitchcock Woods. My plan of attack to combat this issue was to wait until I had had been bitten enough that my body developed an immunity to what ever was feeding on my, but it didn’t seem to be working. So last night my wife saiid let’s take everything out of my dresser and wash it. Then in the morning you can spray the drawers and everything down with some bug spray.

Washed, sprayed, replaced, we’ll see how it works out.

Started up, went down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 283

Damn It Jim, I’m A Doctor Not A Porn Star

Star Trek XXXPerhaps hoping to capitalize on the popularity of this summer’s new Star Trek movie, Hustler Video has released a Triple X movie parody using the characters from the original series. They even loosely base it on the episode Space Seed which introduced us to Ricardo Montelban as Khan. So if you have the newly remastered TOS on DVD, a giant collection of ST:TNG on VHS tapes, you should probavbly buy this, you know, just to complete your collection.

A review is here, but it is on a site that is definitely NSFW or homes with small children. At the bottom of the article is link where you can buy the 2-disc set (including a blooper reel?) for $25.

If you do follow the link (hey, I was just curious) you will find that, whatever your age, there is a XXX parody of a TV show that will fulfill your adolescent fantasy, from Gilligan’s Island to Happy Days to the Office.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 251

Satellite Radio

Here at home, music is served up in the Emperor via MP3s recorded on 10 CDs stored in a changer in the trunk. I have not listened to over the air radio for, well, as far back as I can remember (which due to repeated drug use in my youth, is not far), so what was I to do for two weeks in a rental car. It will be a base model, so would it have an iPod interface? Doesn’t matter, don’t have one anyway. Probably have a CD player, but all my audio CDs are long gone. Satellite radio? Doubtful. Hey wait a minute, a friend in the Miata Club has an extra Sirius unit that I could borrow, brilliant.

For testing purposes I temporarily hooked up the Visor in the Miata. Not bad, there were a couple channels I could enjoy and even a few I could listen to for a while, nice.

The expected Chrysler Sebring turned into a Ford Mustang and it had a CD player that read MP3s. I had brought along a couple of my Radio Paradise MP3 CDs for listening to on the laptop in case of spotty internet or whatever, so I popped one in and off we went.

The Mustang even had an extra ciggy lighter socket along side the external input jack in the console which would make powering up the Sat Radio real easy. My intention was to at the first early evening stop to install the Visor. Well one day led to the next when we weren’t done driving and seeing the sites until 7:00-7:30 at night, so I didn’t even get a chance to try the install until the sixth night of vacation.

I ran the antenna cable from the trunk through the rear seat backs gap, plugged in the power cord, hooked both into the unit and hit ON. Nothing. OK, maybe the key needs to be in run before the aux power jack is hot. Nope. Dang, did I break the radio in transit? I plugged it into the primary cigarette lighter in the upper center of the dash and sure enough the satellite radio came right on.

So what gave? Was that port broke (blown fuse?) or was it there but not hooked up because the car didn’t have a certain option package? Anyway, I didn’t want to drive around with the wire draping down the middle of the front of the dash and I didn’t want to have to worry about unplugging it every time we stopped where any nefarious individuals would think there was something worth stealing, so in the end I wrapped the Visor unit all back up and stored it the luggage.

I think we ended up playing those 2 CDs four times through (alternately) for the 2 weeks. Each disc holds about 170 songs, so it really didn’t come off as too repetitious.

Thanks anyway Rudy.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 176

Motion Sensing Light Fixture

Our laundry room is in the garage and every time you go in or out during the night time you have to reach up and away to pull down on a chain to get the light on. After almost 20 years, my patience has worn thin and felt it was time to get a light that would turn on by itself.

We went to Lowe’s over the weekend and searched and searched and they had all manner of “on at dusk, off at dawn” devices and plenty of outdoor spotlight motion sensing lights, but no indoor types. I was just looking for something I know I’ve seen somewhere, one side screws into a socket and the bulb screws into the other side, but no dice.

When I was complaining about my inability to find this motion sensing light socket thingie to my cubical neighbor Jim on Monday he said he was in Home Depot on Sunday and had seen just what I was describing. On Tuesday Donna and I made the short trip to HD and looked all up and down their lighting section…twice…and couldn’t find anything.

Beginning to doubt the existence of such a fixture, when we got home I searched the interweb and found several places that sold them for around twenty bucks. I saved a link to place and contemplated whether or not I wanted to pay $7 to ship it.

This morning my cube neighbor said he was in Home Depot again yesterday buying some rabbit fencing to keep the hungry from his garden, saw the motion sensor fixture again and thought of me. I told him I had searched high and low and couldn’t find it. He offered to buy one for me, but I said if it was in the store, I’d find it myself. He told me it was not where I first looked, but over by the junction boxes and light switches.

Tonight Donna and I made a return trip to get one of these elusive objects. We looked up and down the aisle Jim described and didn’t see anything. We expanded our search parameters buy going slowly up and down the aisles on either side…twice…and still so no such thing.

I broke down and asked. The customer service rep behind the counter said they were at the end of aisle 4 on the right. Shazam! There they were.

First thing I did when we got home was unscrew the bulb, screw it into the motion sensor base and screw the whole thing into the wall socket. Pulled the chain to turn on the electricity, waved my hand wildly in front of the sensor and was rewarded by nothing. Crap. Unscrewed the bulb from the base, the base from the wall and put the bulb back in and it lit up pretty as could be.

All that effort and the thing doesn’t work. Now, it means a return trip to the store. Should I chance it on another cheap unit or just get my money back and just keep yanking the chain? I tried it a second time with little hope of any change and for whatever reason, it worked.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 147