Category: Uncategorized Page 43 of 157

My 9-5 (or rather, my 7-4) consists of working with websites. And some of those are…cluttered. It seems like sometimes the question is – “How much can be shoved onto this site at once?”

And while I can’t always simplify those sites, I do have complete control over my own site. Over the past few days – and much of that was this weekend – I tidied up my site and simplified it. The homepage is stark, the links are unstyled and straight-forward, and the images are reduced. It’s quite plain at the moment and I like it.

I’ve got some more work to do – updating text and adding in the google analytics code – but it’s very clean at the moment.

http://thunderofwade.com

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Cleaning up my website was much like cleaning out a basement. Some things got tossed – lists of links and jokes that were never very funny. Others got moved elsewhere – mostly the origami over to http://thunderofwade.tumblr.com And some things got saved off-line or to other resources – like that web comic I was so proud of when I first did it and became less proud of over time.

Some of it was good and made me smile – like the old blog entries where I just ranted up a storm.

Some of it made me sad – like the pictures of costumes I had helped Jeff with. I saved those images, but moved them to their own archive.

The most interesting bit were the photos of me. I really don’t like having my photo taken and those are really few and far between. I put all of those on one page and watched as my hair, facial hair, and build changed over time. The photos aren’t in any order and that’s okay – it’s more of a collage instead of a timeline.

Made me a little introspective about where I’ve been and how things are going now. I’m not one to really dwell on the past or the future and much prefer to focus on the present.

And things are good.

My arm is getting better and I’m kicking ass in the pool again. I’m really happy with my house and my cat is the coolest. I like my car and my job and co-workers are interesting and fun. I’ve got a great family and wonderful friends that share my adventures. And a pretty amazing special someone who looks out for me – and who I look out for in turn.

And now it’s time to put my blog and website – and me – to bed for tonight.

Sleep well, internet – I’ll see you tomorrow.

I’ve been very diligent about paying my assorted – and wildly (deliberately) inefficient – medical bills. The notion that some over-zealous random doctor’s office would turn me over to collections makes me anxious and so I’ve been quick to put the checks in the mail.

I’ve also been keeping careful documentation on everything and that includes making a copy of the bill before tearing off the payment section to send in.

I got a bill yesterday and decided to get it in the mail and out of the way that day. It was late in the evening, but I figured I could get a copy made at Staples and then drop the payment in the mail on the way home. I needed to get gas anyway, so it seemed like a quick and productive trip.

I get to staples and head over to the copy area. I had a pocket-full of change with me and figured I would just use the self-serve machine.

Except I forgot that I was living in the era of “let’s make things more complicated for no reason and fix things that aren’t broken”.  So, my coins were no good.

The self-serve machines require a copy card. Which I didn’t have and had no intention of getting. I needed one copy, after all – getting a card seemed like a waste of time.

I head over to the counter and the woman has me wait while she attends to a machine. Which is not a good sign.

When she’s finally ready to deal with the human, I hand her the bill and ask for one copy. And here begins the madness.

1. She picks up a copy card from the counter, inserts it into a reader, and spends a minute or two typing on the register. I’m guessing it was a blog entry on how freaking stupid I was.

2. The card pops out of the reader and she collects it and the bill and goes over to the self service machines.

3. She then inserts the card and makes one copy.

4. The card pops out and she comes back over to the register to reinsert the card and hand me the bill and the copy. She types for a bit, the card pops out, and she announces the total.

11 cents.

I hand her my two dimes and she gives me 9 cents in change and my receipt.

There was the briefest of moments. A pause. A stillness. And in that clarity, the horror of our situation was shared. All that time and effort, all the back and forth, all the sheer waste… it chilled us both.

I took my change, my receipt (which, ironically, used nearly as much paper as my copy), and my papers and I was on my way.

I dropped the bill with payment in the mail on my way home and then filed the copy in with the rest of my bills.

Next time, I’ll either man-up and buy a card – or just wait until Monday and make the copy at work like everyone else does.

So, I’ve got my elbow brace. And it’s miserable. I mean, yeah, it’s working and I can handle the pain that goes with it, but it’s miserable to use.

1. It’s too short. My torso is kinda long and I have to hunch over to rest my arm in the brace. I still haven’t worked out the right base to add to it to get it high enough to not hurt my back.

2. The gauge is on the wrong side so I can’t see it to track my progress – and keep me motivated.

3. The frame is either loose around my arm or digging into my skin enough to leave marks. It just doesn’t fit very well.

And it’s boring. Super intensely over the top boring. And I’m in there for 2 hours a day.

On the bright side, it’s working. At least a little, according to my physical therapist. And, unrelated to the brace, my hand strength is almost back to normal. Along with that, I’ve regained enough arm strength to drag my ass out of the pool without using the ladder.

Before I get on the rack again tonight, I’m going to try some push-ups. At one point, I could do 100 without stopping – but I’m a long way from there. If I can do one, I’ll be pleased.

It’s all just so damn slow…

On Friday, I took a slightly longer lunch (I stayed late to make up for it) and hit the pool. Despite the constant Irish folk music over the loudspeakers, I still managed to push through and do a mile. This is the first time I’ve done this since I broke my arm and while it took me a while, I was really pleased that I could still go that far. I’m not fast enough to do that every day in my lunch hour, but I’ll get there.  Oh, and apparently the Head Guard gets to pick the music and he wasn’t quite done with St. Patrick’s day.

Yesterday was an evening of games with friends. We played Zombie Fluxx and Love Letter – both simple games to learn, but deep with nuance. I like a game that requires a little brain power. We had pizza, played with the kids, and laughed the whole evening. I count myself lucky to have such good friends who “get me” – which is a rare and wonderful thing. 🙂

This afternoon, I headed over to Best Buy to donate blood. Another double red donation – and it went like clockwork. Very easy and a very quick recovery. I had some cookies and juice and I was on my way. I’m glad I’m healthy enough to donate and that I can do some good. And I’ve got O-, which makes my donation even more useful.

Tomorrow, I get fitted for my rental brace. It’s supposed to help straighten out my arm and also flex it further – in two separate, 1/2 hour sessions per day. Not looking forward to it – or the time it will take. It’s basically just a specifically shaped crank – and this is as high tech as it gets. Sigh. Sometimes science is disappointing.

Finally, a book recommendation… I just re-read Stephen King’s Insomnia. Really excellent book and the ending is some of the finest writing I’ve ever read.

Time for another round of stretching out my arm – not sure if I’ll need to keep this up when I get the brace – and then off to bed. Long day tomorrow, I think. Hoping for some sunshine…

[Event photos here]

This was my third year participating in the Portage Lakes Polar Bear jump and I was getting more and more excited as we go closer to the destination and the jump time.

We saw people we knew right as we arrived at the lake around 12:30 and it made the event feel even more like a community. A community of people of varying degrees of crazy, but still.

Met up with my fellow jumper – George, in his kilt – and headed through the snow to the beach. The crew was working to keep the hole in the ice from freezing over with shovels and heaters and we watched as snow mobiles raced across the lake. The day was warmer than we’d had recently, but the snow was coming down heavy and we soon lost site of the other side of the lake.

We enjoyed the music and chatted for a bit and at 1:45, I decided it was “time to get stupid” – and I stripped down to my speedos. Blue, square-cut – very tasteful.

Most folks were still bundled up, but I figured that if I was going to do this, I needed to do it up right. I walked around a bit and found some other people I knew – and then a woman walked up and said she was from the Beacon Journal and wanted to interview me.

I talked to her for a bit, then went back and found my friends at the edge of the lake in time for the Star Spangled Banner – and the launch of a quad-coptor.

The Very Important Bears (VIBs) jumped in and it was time for me to get ready. I left my friends with cameras ready, and headed for the jumping area.

Then, the moment of truth. I took a deep breath… and jumped. I was in the air for a fraction of a second and then I hit the water.

Cold.

Just… cold. Beyond any other cold of the entire winter. Outer space cold.

Let’s do this!

I surfaced and immediately began to power my way to the ladder – swimming with remarkably good form. I struggled a little with the ladder since my left arm is still weak, but got out of the water. Someone asked me how it was and I replied, “Brisk”

I was almost back at the tent area when someone with a video camera tried to interview me. They asked how the water was and I gave a more truthful – “Cold!”. They tried to ask me something else and I shook my head and said, “Sorry, gotta go!” and headed out.

Dressed and back at the edge of the lake, we waited until it was time for George to jump. He had a pretty loud cheering section and nearly forgot to hold down the front of his kilt as he jumped.

After he was dressed in a fresh kilt and warmed up a bit, we said our good byes and headed out. I got a hot chocolate on the way and then spent some quality time at home with my feet in the tub.

I raised over $240 myself and the event cleared over $100,000 raised with over 700 people participating.

Special thanks to Dennis, Scott, George, and Jim for joining me on the cold winter day and getting great photos. And especially to Jim for keeping track of my gear and looking out for me.

Next year? Hmmmm…

My physical therapy at home involves heating up my arm, then doing some stretches. The other evening, I decided the warming up part could be done in a hot bath. I don’t take many baths – preferring showers because I would rather save some water and time – and as a result, ThunderCat was very puzzled by my behavior. He stretched up on his back legs to peer into the tub as it filled, looking at me questioningly. Or so I would assume.

When the tub was finally filled, I climbed in and looked forward to relaxing. Instead, I was confronted with tension that would rival any Hitchcock thriller.

Thunder hopped up onto the sink and carefully reached down onto the edge of the tub to investigate. He pulled himself back up – amazingly – and then carefully reached down again and crawled onto the curved edge.

I lay very still as he balance-beamed his way along the edge over to me. There are some cats that actually like water – or so I’ve heard – but Thunder is not one of them. If he slipped and fell into the water… well, he’s still got all his claws and I was naked.

With my left arm heating up in the water, I carefully moved my right hand to cover my “junk” – and waited for him to either fall into the water and ruin both of our days or get bored and wander off.

After stopping to lick my head and reaching down to “bat” at the water, Thunder retreated to the hall to keep an eye on me from a safe distance.

And I let out a sigh of relief. Crisis averted.

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I got back in the pool on Friday – first time since the accident that broke my arm. I kicked off from the wall and hit the first stoke.

And it hurt – like a sharp pain.

As did every single other stroke. I got used to it – sort of – except for once when I over-extended my arm and got a stabbing pain. And then I curled up in a ball underwater until it stopped and/or I needed to breathe.

Twelve laps later, I got out of the pool and into the hot tub for a few minutes. When I was down, I stretched my arm out. It wouldn’t go out all the way – but far more than my current “usual”. So, it’s working and worth the pain.

This week is more swimming and more a trip to the physical therapy again.

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Coming up on Saturday, the 12th Annual (3rd time for me) Portage Lakes Polar Bear Jump. Looking forward to it – but I seriously need to figure out how to relax in water again.

I had my 6 week follow up with my surgeon today. I got good news, bad news, and good news.

The Good News Part 1:

I’m healing up very well. The hardware hasn’t shifted, the bones are healing, and there’s no sign of infection. So, I’m making a good internal recovery from being opened up, having a Home Depot dumped in my arm, and then stitched up like Frankenstein’s monster.

The Bad News:

I should have been doing physical therapy this entire time. The doctor asked how the PT was going and I had a puzzled look on my face when I told him I hadn’t done any. He asked if I had gotten a prescription (from him) and I said I got a prescription for the pain meds and was directed to not lift anything any heavier than a coffee cup.  And that was it.

There was a moment of awkward silence as we reflected on how badly the ball had been dropped and then he said, “Well, you’re about 5 weeks behind and you’re going to have to hit the physical therapy pretty hard to get caught up. Do you have time today for a session” and I said I did. He wrote me a prescription for the PT and told me he wanted to see me in a month.

I’m cranky about that, but there’s not much to be done about it.

The Good News Part 2:

I headed down the hall to the on-site PT, got checked in, and filled out some paperwork on what I can do at that point and what hurts.

The Physical Therapist was great. She measured how much I could move, then heated up my arm and massaged it a bit, then measured it again. Just heating it up improved my range of motion by about 15 degrees – which is huge. I’ll lose some of that, but get it back with exercises. It hurts, but I’m determined.

For now, I’m headed off to a hot bath to warm up my arm – then exercises, cold, and then an early bed.

So 5 weeks behind – but I’ll catch up.

My arm is doing much better and I’m able to type for a longer span of time without it hurting – so, time for a blog update.

The initial injury was on campus so I had initiated the paperwork for a worker’s comp claim at the emergency room. Despite doing everything right as far as paperwork and reporting went, my claim was denied a few days before my birthday. Apparently, I wasn’t technically at work – I was instead going to work when this happened. If I had already been at the office and then gone back out and fallen, it might have been a different story – though it’s not like I was in my own driveway or something.

Also, I wasn’t technically on the university property – I was on city property. Even though I had parked in a university deck and was walking directly towards a university building, the sidewalk where I fell was city property.  Though I understand that the university did maintain at least part of that area.

I had a chance to appeal it and I suppose I could have fought it by being as nit-picky as their lawyers were, but it almost doesn’t seem worth the effort. I have good insurance and paying the co-pays is worth saving on the hassle. Well, I say that now – I don’t know what the surgery bill is going to be.

I’m disappointed that there didn’t seem to be an investigation and that the claim was denied on what were essentially technicalities – I’m also well aware of the adage about not defecating where one consumes food.

So, for Christmas I got a broken arm and for my birthday? Medical bills. Kind of a crappy winter so far, actually.

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In terrible, but funnier, news… Thundercat had a rough night recently. We were chasing each other around the house – as we sometimes do – and I decided to stop the game and take a shower. Thunder was near the bathroom door “hiding” and decided to take off when I turned on the water. He went from 0 to 60 – and right back to 0 when he missed the turn and slammed into the door frame head first.

He threw his head back and let out a silent howl of pain – looking much like the logo of his namesake – and went into my bedroom. I followed him and tried to console him, but he wasn’t having it.

I guess he blamed me – though it was his own dang fault for not looking where he was going. But, because he’s a cat, he forgot about it by the time I was done with my shower and we’re bros again.

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This past weekend, I had some friends over to help me celebrate my birthday. It was slightly impromptu and grew into a bigger event than I expected. Ended up with 8 adults and 4 kids.

Since I don’t have kids, I’m mindful that my house isn’t really all that kid friendly. So, I make it a point to have some kind of kid activity lined up. I had paper and markers for coloring, kid level card games, floam, and – the hit of the party – shrinky-dinks. Super, super fun. I was in charge of the scissors and the oven, but all the kids got to make something and were pretty much amazed with the whole process. And they were way more fun than the adults. 🙂

We had pizza and played some games – and it was a fun night. Though I was pretty tired from cleaning that day and being the “one-armed host with the most”, I’m glad it all came together.

I don’t like taking medicine. At all. I’ll do it grudgingly if I have to in order to get better, but I really rather just tough it out. And pain meds scare me.

But, when you’ve got a broken arm and can’t sleep, a pill may be the most effective measure.

So, I’ve been on pain meds since the 19th of December and suffering from a side effect that they didn’t tell me about.

I wasn’t pooping.

For days and days on end.

But I was still eating. Less than normal, yes, but still taking in far more than was going out – which was zero. I kept trying to go when the urge hit, but nothing worked.

Finally, I headed to bathroom in the basement with a book and grim determination.

I was literally full of it and settled in for a battle with my bowels.

Both legs fell asleep over time, but I was finally able to go.

And it was mighty.

So much so that I stopped up the toilet – beyond what I could resolve with a plunger.

I had to call a plummer to come over and get it cleared. It was, by far, the most expensive poop I have ever had, but it was worth it.

I’m cutting back on the meds and while I’m still hurting, I’m having an easier and more frequent time in the bathroom. This is perhaps more information than should be shared, but if you read past the title, I think you should consider yourself warned.

12/24/2014

The nerve block wore off the day after the surgery and I had a melt-down. I was hurting worse than when I first fell. The meds finally kicked in and I got a little sleep.

12/25/2014

On Christmas, we visited Jim’s family for a bit and while it was fun, it kinda wore me out. I showed pictures of the x-rays and everyone was suitability impressed.

12/27/2014

That weekend, my parents came up for the day and we did a little shopping – mostly to get me out of the house. I was getting on a more regular schedule, but the decreased appetite and disrupted sleep were wearing on me. It was good that my folks visited, I think they had a nice time and I did too. While they were there, I helped update their laptop and Garmin – and they helped me put in a new shower head.

12/31/2014

New Year’s Eve I got the splint removed and the doctor said I was healing well. Of course, I had another series of painful x-rays before he came up with that, but it was good news. They put a sleeve over it and told me to come back in a week to get the stitches removed. I visited some friends that evening to drop off some pre-made origami for a project, then called it an early night.

1/6/2014

Got the stitches removed and it was dang weird. Never had stitches before and the removal was unpleasant. Not really painful – though I had healed enough they were tricky to remove – but it felt strange. And really? String? We aren’t more high-tech than that? Sigh.

I’ve got another appointment in 6 weeks for a follow up, but for now I’m just trying to get some range of motion back while I wait for the green light to return to work.

It’s been an odd and painful adventure and I kinda learned a bit about myself. Mostly that I’m tougher than I thought in the short term, but not so tough over time.