Thunder of Wade

I’m on a laptop here this morning.  No word yet on how soon the replacement board will come in for my dual monitor machine, so, to avoid the wrath of my cube neighbors, I decided to borrow a laptop and work quietly.  Not a big deal – though I don’t have admin access on this machine and ran into some flash-issues because I couldn’t install it.

I’ve been trying to get dual monitors set up on my work machine for a few weeks now.  My first try was a cable splitter that “should” have done the job.   No luck.  Even the computer repair guy couldn’t get it going.   He suggested a new splitter cable – which we ordered.  That was delayed in shipping and when it finally came in it didn’t work either.   Next, he thought it might be the DVI-D cables and that didn’t work either.  Finally, he tried a new video card – which finally worked, but caused a “CPU Fan failure”.    So, now the fan runs all the time.  At full power.  It’s actually a nice breeze, but in time this will kill the fan.  He tried another fan and that was no different.   So, a replacement motherboard is on order and should be here Monday.  In the meantime, it’s quite loud here.   But the dual monitor is very very cool.

I did 30 laps today in the pool – which is not too big of a deal, except for the kind of laps.  I did 5 crawl, then 5 back, then 5 more crawl, then 5 breaststroke, then 5 backstroke, then 4.5 laps of crawl.  The crawl is what I’m really trying to work on – but that last 1/2 lap I decided to step it up a notch since I was feeling pretty good.  So, the last length I did the butterfly stroke.  

I went to the dentist on Friday.  It had been a while – well, a long while – since I had gone and I was expecting the worst, including a lecture.    Instead, they said my teeth were in pretty good shape, all things considered.   The x-rays were not fun – I kept gagging on the plastic they put in my mouth.   The wait time was quiet long, but I had plenty of paper and kept myself busy.   I wasn’t impressed with the actual dentist – his presence was sort of limited – but the rest of the staff were pretty good.

I gave blood on Monday. Went pretty smoothly, though they changed the procedure a bit for the sign in. I felt fine after the donation and was only in the recovery area long enough to eat a small package of cookies and drink a can of juice before heading out with my new red cross first aid kit. I’ve really got to figure out a polite way to not get these things. The umbrella was nice, but the I think they are starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel.

I got really tired that evening – I guess swimming earlier in the day plus giving blood really took a lot out of me.

In other news, the garage door is messed up. It only goes down about 1/2 way and then goes right back up. So, I called the landlords office yesterday when I got home and they sent out their repair guy. The dude showed up, said he couldn’t fix it, and promised to come back today – early this morning.

Well, in the meantime, it’s been very annoying. The door is normally automatic and apparently the manufacturers didn’t think it would ever go wrong since they didn’t put a handle out the outside. (well, they must have figured something might happen since they put in the “ripcord” for the manual use of the door).

This morning, I had to manually open the from the inside, start up and pull out my car, go back into the garage to close the door, back through the apartment, then out the front door, then back in my car, restart it, and then I was on the road. I’m hoping they get it fixed today, otherwise I’m going to strongly consider installing my own handle on the outside of the door.

Finally, someone put a temperature gauge in the men’s bathroom here at work. The bathroom is on the side of the building and is apparently unheated – and is on an outside wall. The gauge said it was 50 degrees in there this morning. Chilly.

I had a surprisingly good day on Monday. Tuesday kinda sucked and got worse over time. Today has been moderately crappy. I hope the Chipotle is good tomorrow and that the dental appointment goes well on Friday or I’m going to end up with terrible weekend if the current trend continues.

later…

Went to Chick-fil-a for dinner last night and from the balloons visible two blocks away it was evident that a childrens birth-day party was underway. Once in the restaurant, there weren’t that many children present – it looked as though the party was over. After getting the food and sitting down, the children returned from the play area.

Now, I’m a big fan of polite, well-behaved children. I think they have neat ideas and an interesting perspective on the world. These children were neither. They got worse when asked to line up to to spin the prize wheel. And then worse again when… the cow showed up. Someone dressed as the Eat More Chikn cow lumbered in and photo ops abounded. I wondered if dressing up as the cow was a reward or a punishment.

Done with the meal, a quick exit away from the cow, and back into the cold – but peaceful – night air.

My room-mate and I watched Quarantine yesterday. It was essentially “cloverfield” + “28 days later” – suspense + bad acting. So, a not quite zombie plague with a camcorder. In a building. Fortunately, I had a good book started and read through most of it – and I don’t think I missed much.

I also discovered, last evening, that I had somehow managed to chip a tooth. On what, I don’t know. But while not really visable, it’s easy to feel with my tongue and very annoying. Looks like I finally need to make an appointment with a dentist.

later…

I recently ordered two cables – one for my cell phone so I can plug it into my computer and another to set up dual monitors at work.

Neither of these are, strictly speaking, essential. But the cable for my cell phone would let me easily download my pictures and the splitter cable would let me run two monitors at work and that would be cool. Plus, everyone else is doing it and I felt left out.

The cables came in last night and I eagerly unwrapped the box.

1. The cell phone cable doesn’t fit my phone. So much for trying to get a deal…

2. I took the splitter cable with me to work this morning. It doesn’t work. I had one of the repair guys come over and take a look – he suspects the cable may be bad and is going to try and find a replacement for me.

So much for the cool technology – I can’t even get the dang things plugged in.

later…

On Friday evening, I’m playing a video game while my room-mate watches from the couch. He says to me “I think my neck is bleeding” and I look over to see blood running down his neck. I think I swore in surprise, paused the game, and ran for paper towels. I helped him get his neck cleaned up and advised him on direct pressure while I went back to my game.

After about 10 minutes or so, we checked the area again and the paper towel was soaked through. And the blood wasn’t stopping. This time, I got out the first aid supplies and used several layers of gauze along with some neosporin and tape.

On saturday, we check things out again and when we removed the gauze it started bleeding again. I cleaned the area then put on more gauze. It still wasn’t better by the evening, so I called my parents (both former volunteer paramedics) and got some advice.

On Sunday, we were able to remove the gauze without it bleeding again. I again helped with the clean up and replaced that elaborate first-aid gear with a simple band-aid.

Weird things… The affected area was the size of a needle stick. It was on the side and toward the back of his neck. He doesn’t have any idea what caused it. He had been taking a lot more aspirin than usual for the past few days due to a cold/headache combo and it could be that it was causing a blood thinning effect.

If it hadn’t stopped on Sunday, I think I would have been driving him to the hospital.

In other news… I went for a walk on Saturday over to Lowe’s and GameStop. Picked up a new Wii game and some dremel supplies. I also worked on a project to turn an old keyboard into thumbtacks – turned out pretty cool and I’ll have to get some pictures. I’m also working on making a primative flute out of pvc pipe.

that’s it for now… later…

I did 20 laps today – should have done more, but there was a swim meet going on and I had to share a lane.  That, along with a sore knee, a cramp in my side, and a mild headache, got me out of the pool before I really should have.   As a side note, the pool area smelled of tired people, bengay, and the stuff that’s used in elementary school to clean up and mask the smell of vomit.  So, that was fun too.

I did 24 laps in the pool on Monday. I think I could have done more, but I was tired and a little dizzy. I’m glad I’m pushing myself in the pool, but it has consequences.

My room-mate and I played Need for Speed last night a bit on the Wii. He says the controller gives him a cramp in his hand so we switched to use the controller like a steering wheel. It works okay, but is not as responsive as I would have liked. I played a little bit on my own and unlocked some new areas – I think it’s far better than previous NFS games I’ve played.

I think I finally got the spyware cleared off my computer at home. It was annoying and worrying. I also got Norton updated on my machine – I’m hoping that, plus a little caution, will keep this from happening again.

I’ve been working hard and getting a lot accomplished, but I’m not really feeling positive about that. Just sort of down – I think the winter blahs are hitting me again. The exercise is helping – but I also think I need to get going on a project at home. Feels like all I do is work and sleep anymore.

Well, time to get my pre-swim oatmeal and get back to work.

later…