Happy New Year!

There is a lot that can be said about the past year, and I started to write about it several times, but I've decided to put all of that behind me. I've had enough of repeating things about the past. There was a good thing that happened in 2009 - the favorable decision - and I will use that to let me stop thinking about this.

It has been an ever-present thing on my mind, but it is - and has been - time to move forward.

Here's to moving forward and to moving ahead.

I wish everyone a new year filled with happiness, health, peace, success and fulfillment.

Happy New Year to Everyone!

Wow, that was a long day!

I know, I said that I would post more tomorrow - which would have been a month ago.

Well, what with doctors and NaNo and doctors and NaNo and Thanksgiving, the month sort of got away from me.

However, I survived, and I finished NaNo. OK, everything I wrote is complete drek, but ya gotta start somewhere. Now I have something to fix up.

Maybe I can manage to post more in Decemeber. What could possibly interfere with posting in December?

And they're off!

Or maybe it's just me. No, there are definitely other people involved.

So, here I am, back again after nearly a month away. I was waiting for things to resolve a bit in my head. They didn't, but I'm back anyway.

The title refers to NaNoWriMo, which has now begun and I am again participating in my own inimitable - and really, who would want to copy it - way. I have chosen what I hope will be a fun idea to work on. This is all about cranking out the drek and having fun doing it. I'll worry about something that anyone could tolerate reading some other time.

For now it's just stringing words together in some semi-comprehensible way. I can't wait to see whay my brain comes up with and how my fingers interpret it.

More tomorrow.

Just to be clear

None of this is to say that I am not very grateful for having gotten this favorable decision. It will give me the security - no pun, just truth - to keep trying to get back on my feet again. That's all I've ever wanted to do and this won't change that, except to temporarily lessen that one worry.

I hope it will, anyway. There's a lot to worry about and I'm so good at it.

Some of my comments are angry. But I want everyone to know that I am grateful for what I have. My company covered me for disability and without it, as arbitrary and obstinate as the LTD company has been, I would have declared bankruptcy years ago. So I know that I am much more fortunate than many other people.

So, anger aside, I want to say thank you to everyone who has supported me through this.

Regardless

I shouldn't let any of that get to me. It is what it is. I have other things to do.

The sordid truth

In response to something brought up in a previous comment, here are some annoying details about Social Security disability payments and Long Term Disability works.

SSDI is retroactive to January 2006 (6 months after the disabling event). But all of that goes back to the long-term diability company. Not only do they require that you apply for SS, but they either withold what they estimate you will get or you have to pay them back when you get it.

So everything I get retroactively has to get paid back, but I also have to pay the lawyer. Now the lawyer only gets paid if he wins, and his fee is capped by Social Security, so he gets paid a maximum out of my benefit directly by Social Security. But since I owe the whole amount back to the LTD company, I have to make up that difference out of my own pocket even though I never see a dime of it. So the LTD company gets the benefit of my effort and money because they get reimbursed and going forward they will also reduce their payments to me. I'll be out somewhere between $5k - $6k.

Of course, getting this decision may mean they keep paying me the LTD. They've cut me off twice so far this year, without telling me. Coincidentally it was right before I called to tell them about the hearing and then right before I called to tell them the decision. They never said anything, but missing payments showed up early the next month - about a week late - after they heard the news.

With this decision in my favor, maybe they'll finally believe my doctors.


Now that sounds kind of bitter, and it is. In part becuase of the arbitrary and capricious nature of the LTD insurance company's behavior. But also it's becuase the LTD company gets a benefit I am pretty sure they never explain when they sell the policy. My company paid a premium for a specific level of benefit, but the insurance company isn't paying that benefit. So they get the premium, taking the bet, but they don't pay off in full. I just doubt that they ever mention this when selling a policy.

I am officially disabled. Yay?

So, 4 years after I got sick, 3½ years after applying for Social Security and 2 months after the hearing I finally received notice from the judge about his decision. He has decided that, based on all the information and the SSA regulations, I am disabled and have been since July of 2005.

Oddly, the decision is dated the last day of the month, which is 4 years to the day since I came home from the hospital.

With everyone questioning me over and over it was hard to not start to doubt myself – and I was really just adrift with all this waiting. I was trying to just let it all go and not worry about anything since there was nothing that I could do but wait. Still, I couldn’t help being anxious about it so I was really on edge.

I had this thought that it’s time to move on but I just can’t leave this behind – feel free to use that as a song title.

Enough of this – it’s finally over with.

Well, just one more thing. Now I know why my lawyer told me that this judge does not give quick decisions and that it would be a while before I heard anything (though 2 months still seems like a long time). Anyway, you can tell that this guy was thorough, and made a very considered decision after looking at all of the information. This thing is long.

OK, that’s enough of that. I was trying to do other things, time to get back to them. The only thing that this changes is that I don’t have to wonder when I’ll hear something. I still need to get on with other things. Which I will post about later.

Dazed and confused

In a way I feel like I’m sleepwalking. I move through the day and sometimes the world but I’m not fully aware of what I am doing or what is going on around me. I don’t know if this is a long-standing problem or a result of my trying to gather my thoughts. Maybe it’s my medication. But by focusing on my thoughts I lose track of the rest of life.

I also post things like yesterday’s mass of words that are amazingly lacking in clarity. Not to mention a really formal title. Why use ‘it is’ instead of ‘it’s’, I ask you? I ask myself as well.

I am wondering if this feeling is because of my attempt to get my thoughts clear and maybe that is making me more empty-headed; in other words, rather than organizing my thoughts, I am not thinking. I also worry that by trying to not let the events of four years ago influence my present too much I am still frozen by a subconscious entanglement with the months of August and September. I’m trying to remember it as my own history but not as an overt and limiting influence on my life. That may not be working so well – I’m being too passive about it and may need to work out an active plan. That past keeps breaking through into my present in unwelcome ways.

Now that I think about it, I am also trying to force myself to relax at the same time. While neither thing may sound like much, they are both reorientations of patterns of behavior and thought. Sort of like trying to stop smoking and going on a diet at the same time. Not a formula for success.

I am also concerned that I am starting so many sentences with the word ‘I’. I think this may signal a pattern. I do not know what this pattern indicates. I wonder what it could mean.

See, I told you that writing helped me think things out. Except for that whole ‘I’ thing.

It is September

I imagine that you noticed. In fact September is more than half over and I have been absent from this space for more than an entire month. It was not intentional – well, it was, sort of. I wanted to let myself get my thoughts together. Since I had not yet gotten those pesky thoughts together, I refrained from posting. There was nothing coming to me to post. I have still not gotten my thoughts together, but that’s OK – as far as this is concerned. I’ll post anyway.

What I need to do is let myself recover without constantly pushing myself, physically and mentally. I do not do this. I do not relax well because I perceive this need to keep pushing to get things done and to get better. While there are things that need to be done and I need to get better, it is also true that I need to relax. This has been pointed out to me, more than once, by more than one person, but I cannot relax. I see it as a luxury so I go until I am forced by exhaustion to stop.

But relaxing is a necessity. If I don’t relax I won’t recover and I won’t be able to get done what needs to be done. I will also go crazy.

So I have been trying to not do things that are not immediately necessary. I have succeeded somewhat, though the other day I did a few things around the house, a few relatively minor things, and I crashed hard. Sunday was a particularly bad day. I thought I was being good, but I need to look closer at how I assess such things. On the other hand, I do that sort of thing less often these days.

I obviously haven’t worked everything out yet, but I feel less like I’m coasting if I at least post something. So I’ll just post whatever comes to mind. Writing also helps me work things out so I hope to get back to this more regularly. Maybe I’ll even post things that are more coherent than this – we can all dream.

Silver lining

I suppose having such a messed up weekend at least kept me from going on about the anniversary of the day I went into the hospital and into the ICU and was put on a ventilator. Four years ago Saturday, August 1st.

Except for this short mention that is.

Responsible for my own actions

OK, for personal reasons Saturday sucked. Because of that Sunday sucked. The rain was nice – since we suffered no devastation. It was nice to sit in the storm shadowed house and enjoy the rain. When there are no consequences I enjoy a good storm. Yes, I am being selfish – I do realize that other people did have problems. I take my little pleasures where I can.

So, this was a weekend of failure. Mostly because I am absolutely, monumentally and totally disappointed in a lapse in my behavior. In a familial, but not at home, setting. I was exhausted, I exercised a poor choice of words and I did not control myself well and my actions were not what they should have been – which is an amazing understatement. No excuses, just explanation. These are the some of the things that I am responsible for. This is also something that I am working on. Yes, it is a result of my illness.

As in all cases like this I hope that I can use it as a lesson to better understand myself and improve wherever possible.

Now, how do I apply that to this week? Time to start thinking. Today has already been used running some errands. I know I need to recharge after last week but I need to be as productive as possible.

We’ll see how this works out.

Over, but not quite done with

The hearing in front of the administrative law judge was this morning. It went well as far as I can tell. I liked the judge – and I hope that opinion doesn’t change. My lawyer knows him, says he’s fair, and he also thought things went well today. Unfortunately, my lawyer also says that he does not make on the spot decisions and that along with the backlog means there’s no telling when I’ll find out what the outcome is.

One other thing. The way these things work, you don’t really see your lawyer face to face that much. There are long waiting periods – waiting for the state to do something – so you go for long stretches without even talking much. So, as much as I like the guy, I don’t know that much about him. Before the hearing we were running through things, and he checked out the CD the SSA creates to keep all of my records on. It could not be read.

Now this was no big deal. The people at the SSA office just went and created another one. We had it well before the hearing started, and my lawyer had time to check it out. So he stuck the CD in the computer and expressed his hope that it could be read and that he could see the files. He said that he was looking for wormsign.

I did a double-take. I looked over at my wife and quietly asked her if she had heard the same thing I had. Then I asked my lawyer if I had heard him correctly. I had. And he meant exactly what I thought he meant.

Turns out that he had been re-reading Dune.

That was completely unexpected.

I hope it’s a good thing.

And at warp 10 we're going nowhere pretty fast

There’s a lot going on in the world right now, and a lot going on in my world, and you know, I’m walking right at the edge. Plus it’s one of those days when my neck is so bad my head spins whenever I try to stand up.

No matter how much I try not to think about the hearing on Wednesday, let alone not worry about it, I just can’t keep it from my mind. This has been going on for 3½ years and now that it’s all coming down to this, everything focused on one day, I’m really feeling it.

One benefit is that this has been keeping me from going on about the anniversary date stuff. Well, with the exception of yesterday’s little quip. I have a lot to say, but since I haven’t been able to work it all out in my head I haven’t written it yet. I hope that this gives me a chance to actually get a handle on all of the conflicting issues that I am trying to deal with.

One thing I can tell you – and I am saying this to myself as well as to anyone else – is that this will be the end. For four years I have lived through endless recapitulation of what had happened to me and what was wrong with me. It’s been four years of endless rounds with doctors and lawyers and paperwork and people not believing what I have been saying – as if I would want to even fake living like this. Four years of basing my life off of those two months in 2005 when I was unconscious in the ICU. Four years of constant effort just to tread water and keep telling people the same thing over and over. One problem with only telling the truth is that you just keep repeating yourself. For four years I have been looking back at where I was. No more of that. No more of the past keeping me back.

After Wednesday that’s all over. It’s time to look forward and move ahead. It’s time to look at the past as a starting point and not the finish. It’s damn sure past time to start living for myself, put the past in perspective and look to the future. It’s time to live today as today and not as an echo of some day in 2005.

It’s time to work on having a life.

Now to get back to worrying and setting my nerves on edge and messing with my gastrointestinal system. I need to work on that ulcer some more, and sleep tonight should be really interesting.

I’ll probably post about the hearing tomorrow unless I crash for too long.

Celebrate

It's Call In Sick and Never Go Back to Work Day.

Enjoy.

Or, whatever.






Hey, you knew I had to say something about it.

One small step ...

Stunning. Awesome. Cool. Wow.

40 years ago I was a 10 year old sitting in front of a black and white television marvelling at the sights from a quarter million miles away.

Here's a salute to everyone involved: the engineers who designed everything, the little old ladies* who knitted the computer memory, the women who hand-sewed the spacesuits, the thousands of people who put all the pieces together, the ones who gave their lives, the ones with the vision, John Kennedy, the ones who went there first and only watched the Lunar surface in passing - and the Command Module pilots who all did that and the two who set foot on the moon for the first time 40 years ago today.

40 years later and I still say, wow.



*Historical reference.

We choose to go to the Moon …

Forty years ago today Apollo 11 was launched from Cape Kennedy (at the time) to begin its flight to the Moon. As a child I followed the space program with a nerdy delight. I was a little young when the Mercury program began, but I caught up quickly and I followed everything through Gemini and Apollo. I read the magazine articles on various lifting body re-entry designs, the boosters that were used, the lunar lander and rover concepts, the Agena rendezvous and space walk missions - the works.

I loved it. I was enthralled. I was thrilled by the successes, angered and saddened by the tragedy and sat in rapt attention watching the launches.

July of 1969 was a magical month. It was not, as I hoped, the beginning of an age of space exploration. It was, however, the realization of an astonishing human endeavour. Was it all altruistic? Of course not. It was, however, amazing and magical and for a 10 year old boy – and avid reader of science fiction and lover of science – it was a dream come true. Well, by proxy at least.

It was wonderful to have in the world when I was a child.

VISTA SUCKS

Just so all y’all know. Vista is the worst operating system that I have ever had the misfortune to work with, and since I’ve been doing this for more than 3 decades, I say that makes it the worst OS ever.

I know that MS’s motto is ‘The world is our Beta site’, but this is ridiculous. It doesn’t network, it doesn’t recognize peripherals, it doesn’t even recognize other Windows apps. IE is not a fully functional browser. Installing updates destroys drivers and the first service pack took an hour and a half to download.

I tried to install a printer and not only did it not recognize the printer it killed my network.

Like I said. Worst. OS. Ever.

A new record

OK, so after that last post I had to go see what I’ve been doing that’s been leaving me so tired and feeling like I just have no time or energy to do anything. So I checked my calendar and my wife and I have had a combined total of more than 110 doctor visits this year. In the last 32 days we have had 25 appointments, and even with having some days when we both had an appointment, 16 of those days have had doctor appointments. So we’re averaging 1 doctor appointment every 2 days.

No wonder I never know what happened to the time.

Wringer, Been through the

Everything has been happening at once lately, or close enough together that it feels like it.

I recently had an appointment and for some reason visits with this doctor always take a lot out of me. It was just a follow-up, but they are always very comprehensive with her. So it wore me out.

I also had a full load of doctor visits that same week.

Then I got the notice about the Social Security hearing. This is a good thing, but it also sets off the worry response that I need to control and that is tiring and that makes me more frazzled.

I also had a very non-productive meeting with a State office person which went exactly as far as I expected; namely nowhere. But I knew this going in. This visit was just to confirm what I could not confirm over the phone because they just won’t do it that way. Eh. This was made more annoying because I took a wrong turn and got lost, in the sense that I sort of knew where I was but couldn’t find the office, and was late for the meeting. I did get some interesting information though, just in general terms, because even though the governmental department she worked for offered limited help, the person I talked to had something to offer.

Just before that there was a very good but very tiring meeting with a private – um – social worker type. I’m not sure what to call her. She is from a community reentry organization that works with people with brain injuries – I hate that term. Central nervous system insult I think some doctor once called it. That’s a bit better. This was paid for by the Traumatic Brain Injury Fund. Just the initial interview so far, but there’s no reason to believe they won’t fund more once things get rolling.

Anyway, she came to the house and we talked for quite a while. She is very experienced and skilled at this and much information was exchanged. More than I’ve had a chance to process yet. But she was nice, told me a lot, gave me some written info and told me about a local support group that I want to check out. I have some probably unrealistic hopes about this, but even realistically this looks like something good getting started.

On top of all of that I haven’t been sleeping. It’s even worse than usual. I did fall asleep in the recliner the other day, but all that did was mess up my neck and back. I slid down in the chair and when I woke up the nerves and muscles in my neck and back where spasming. The room wasn’t spinning, it was flipping up and down. For those of you old enough to remember it was like a TV with horizontal hold problems. My wife worked on my neck and back which helped enough to let me lie down and get some sleep. My neck cracked a bit and when I got up many hours later the dizziness had subsided.

Wow, I just looked at what I’ve written so far and boy what a self-indulgent whiny rant. Well, maybe not whiny, but I do seem to be complaining a lot. It’s just that I’ve been beaten down the last few weeks and I felt like getting it out. I’ve been much more active, just not in the ways that I had planned for June. Though what I did was probably more productive than anything that I had planned so there is that.

Now the question is this: just how far off of my track will I get if I make a plan for the rest of July? And will the non-scheduled things be productive?

Suddenly, at last

I finally got a notice for a hearing in front of an administrative law judge to decide my Social Security claim: July 29th.

For those of you playing along, I originally filed for Social Security in the spring of 2006. At the time I did it because the long term disability policy required it – I thought that I would recover too quickly for it to matter. Yeah, well, anyway.

After that there was a denial, a review, a denial, an appeal, a denial, and so forth. Somewhere in there I got myself a lawyer so he could worry about the details and I tried to put it out of my mind so I could stop reiterating how bad I had been and still was and concentrate on moving forward and getting better.

The last step, more or less, is the hearing by an administrative law judge, which will probably be the first time anyone actually looks at my medical records. If I read the notice correctly, I can still appeal this decision, but that would be it unless I want to start the process all over again and file a new claim and the clock starts all over again.

So, I am trying to not worry about this especially since there isn’t anything more to be done once I make sure that everyone has all the paperwork they need.

When I filed the request for a hearing in late November 2007, my lawyer told me that the wait would be about 18 months and he was right. Start to finish it will be 3½ years. It's taken so long that now that it's almost here it took me by surprise.

IN CONGRESS. July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

WHEN in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.

WE hold the Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness – That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that when any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The History of the present King of Great-Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public Good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing Importance, unless suspended in their Operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the Accommodation of large Districts of People, unless those People would relinquish the Rights of Representation in the Legislature, a Right inestimable to them, and formidable to Tyrants only.

He has called together Legislative Bodies at Places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the Depository of their public Records, for the sole Purpose of fatiguing them into Compliance with his Measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly Firmness his Invasions on the Rights of the People.

He has refused for a long Time, after such Dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the Dangers of Invasion from without, and Convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the Population of these States; for that Purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Migrations hither, and raising the Conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the Tenure of their Offices, and the Amount and Payment of their Salaries.

He has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their Substance.

He has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies, without the consent of our Legislatures.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all Parts of the World:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us, in many Cases, of the Benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended Offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an arbitrary Government, and enlarging its Boundaries, so as to render it at once an Example and fit Instrument for introducing the same absolute Rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with Power to legislate for us in all Cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our Seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our Towns, and destroyed the Lives of our People.

He is, at this Time, transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the Works of Death, Desolation, and Tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous Ages, and totally unworthy of the Head of a civilized Nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the Executioners of their Friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic Insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the Inhabitants of our Frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known Rule of Warfare, is an undistinguished Destruction, of all Ages, Sexes and Conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble Terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated Injury. A Prince, whose Character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Ruler of a free People.

Nor have we been wanting in Attentions to our British Brethren. We have warned them from Time to Time of Attempts by their Legislature to extend an unwarrantable Jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the Circumstances of our Emigration and Settlement here. We have appealed to their native Justice and Magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the Ties of our common Kindred to disavow these Usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our Connections and Correspondence. They too have been deaf to the Voice of Justice and of Consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the Necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of Mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace, Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the Rectitude of our Intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly Publish and Declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that they are absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political Connection between them and the State of Great-Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which INDEPENDENT STATES may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

Happy Anniversary to me

No, nothing so important as a wedding, just my presence here.

I let my anniversary here pass without comment. It’s been just over 1 year of somewhat irregular blogging. Note the two weeks since the last entry. I started this as a way to let people come and check on my status on their own time. So this has been a blog of mostly medical history and updates with some eclectic musings thrown in. With a couple of exceptions I have not posted political entries. Not that I haven’t written any, I just didn’t post them. I wanted to keep this a less intense place.

That may have led to this also being a somewhat uninteresting blog.

Now, I intend to keep posting medical info and medical status entries. I want anyone who knows me to be able to keep up to date. I also want anyone who wanders in here to see anything I can post that might help.

I also need to keep moving on with things. So, I am going to keep blogging with whatever regularity I can manage. I’ll keep the status updates going as well as medical info and also whatever else I happen to be up to. Whenever I can I’ll throw in anything interesting that I come across and fun stuff and news updates.

I have another anniversary coming up in July which I hope to use for productive ends. We’ll see.

That’s all for now. I just didn’t want the year to pass totally unremarked.

It's green

My neighborhood is turning into a jungle. It has been raining so much here that the vegetation is getting out of hand. Personally I can’t really take care of it myself anyway, but my more able-bodied neighbors are also being overwhelmed. There are green things everywhere.

It’s actually kind of nice, but boy is there a lot of stuff growing out there. And is it ever wet.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go make sure there are no triffids.

I’m tired of the games

The Following Is a Political Rant on Health Care – consider yourself warned

I don’t want to hear anyone – President, administration personnel or member of either chamber of Congress – say anything about health care reform unless they are saying that the bill they are proposing guarantees health care for every citizen of the United States.

That’s it. No convoluted plans, no compromises. Every person in this country deserves health care as a fundamental right. It’s embarrassing that we have the most expensive but least effective coverage of the world’s leading industrialized countries (and some of the poorest counltries). Think about it: a foreign army threatens, sure we’ll save you; your house is burning down, sure we’ll put it out; someone is burgling your house, the police will be right there; you’re dying of a curable disease but can’t afford the treatment, sorry, maybe we’ll send flowers. Who does that make sense to?

I want the minimum level of care tied to what members of Congress get (which is paid for by our tax dollars). In other words, no member of Congress or their family can have better coverage than the lowest level of coverage available to an average citizen. Guaranteed, birth to death.

If we must maintain the for-profit health insurance model, then every American should get a subsidy to pay for insurance. I don’t give a damn if insurance company executives can’t make millions, we are talking about peoples’ lives here. This affects health and emotional and financial security. The fact that any citizen of the United States must choose between food and prescriptions, or rent and a doctor visit, is obscene.

Don’t bother telling me that we can’t afford to have a government bureaucrat making decisions about our health care. For one thing, it seems to be fine to have this done for people on Medicare or Medicaid and for veterans – you know, the people who put their lives on the line for us. For another, I have insurance company bureaucrats who personally profit from denying benefits making those decisions now so how would it be worse?

And stop throwing out lame ideas like taxing benefits or taxing sugar and tobacco to pay for this. Raise the marginal rates on income over $500,000. Tax stock transactions, say $0.25 per transfer, to pay for the bailouts to recover that money. Fuck the hedge fund managers and tax their income as income, not as capital gains. Why someone earning billions pays 15% tax and someone earning $50k has to pay 22% is beyond me. And the effective rate on corporations in this country is 0%, how about we make that more equitable so the average citizen doesn’t have to pay for everything?

Any plan to further cut Medicare and Medicaid is also outrageous. Medicare administration has already been farmed out to private companies. That’s tax dollars from a non-profit government agency being funneled to third party administrators. An additional layer of unnecessary administration has been added whose only job is to cut benefits so they can show a profit. That is criminal.

Don’t forget, we already subsidize healthcare. For every emergency room visit that can’t be paid for, for every indigent care case, for every person without health insurance, the insurance premiums and hospital fees are pushed up to cover the loss.

Yes, I am bitter and royally pissed. Everyone in Washington is playing political games with this. This is much more than a political power play. This is a game that affects peoples’ lives. To fight against health care is to support insurance company policy that harms lives and has lead to deaths. All for the sake of profit.

Also, please remember that the network of Blue Cross/Blue Shield plans were originally not for profit, and they made tons of money and the executives made huge salaries.

All that we have now is a system of for-profit insurance that can be arbitrarily cancelled and emergency rooms nationwide that are strained to the breaking point, with many closing and leaving the community they served with no place to turn for help. To believe that this constitutes a working health care system is delusional or at best wishful thinking.

We need change – now where have I heard that hollow statement before? We need it now. This is a moral imperative. People are suffering and dying because of our collective actions. I don’t know what to do beyond this here and annoying my Congress critters, which I do routinely. Any suggestions?

One more thing: health insurance is not health care. The current conversation is focused on insurance and forgets the people who need care.

Fair warning

I started this blog so that people I know could find out what was going on with me at their convenience and not by me sending out long, boring emails. But I also wanted to use it to just get information out there in the ether so that it could be found by anyone else who had lived through a similar experience. I know the value of learning that you are not the only person to have lived through something, that you aren’t the only person to have an unusual experience, that your life being turned upside down in a spectacular way has actually happened to others – because that means that you aren’t alone even if you never meet the other person.

I have been contacted by other people because of things I have put on-line. So I am going to keep posting things about myself that are not pleasant experiences. Some of it is old stuff – nothing I’ve posted before, just not necessarily a recent experience, but I want it out there for people to see just in case it might help.

Just so you know. I’ll probably have something up in a day or two.

The hits keep coming

I just though that I’d add one last update on my car. The repair shop is only about 4 blocks from home, so it wasn’t until a couple of days after the repairs that I found out that the air conditioner wasn’t working. I hadn’t thought to ask them to check that.

Now, for me, an air conditioner is a necessity; I can’t breathe in the summer without one. If it had been October I might have let it slide for a while, but summer is just getting started. For me, with my lungs, having a car without a/c is like not having a car.

So, ka-ching! I got me a new compressor. Oh well, them’s the breaks. My other bills can just wait. At least I have a working vehicle again to take the strain off of the other car.

The penguin is gone

Or in other words, there’s nothing on the telly.

My TV is no longer useful. It works just fine, but there’s nothing left to watch. I have a Sony Watchman that I received as a gift more than 20 years ago. It’s a clunky little thing with a 1.5 inch black and white image and I’ve always thought it was pretty cool. Oh, it was surpassed in functionality as the technological times rolled on, but when it came out in the 80s it was leading edge in consumer electronics.

I was always amazed when I would take it out over the years and find that it was still working. I didn’t use it much, more recently for the fun of it and because of the impending loss of signal, but it was nice to have around. It was a neat gadget.

Now I can’t use it anymore. There are a few low power stations still broadcasting in analog in the area, but the only one of those that I can really get a decent image and sound on is a shopping channel.

Well, it was fun while it lasted. I’m just sad that the TV still works but the times have passed it by. Profit has overwhelmed technology. Everybody with a voice in the matter wanted broadcast TV to go digital and so it did. Now I have a relic. At least I’ll save on the batteries.

Maybe I’ll add a new, digital, color TV to my wish list. After all, you have to have something to use to sit outside and watch the game on. OK, the 1.5 inch projected Watchman image was not really good for watching a game (I used it for news and weather mostly) but I can go for an upgrade, can’t I?

Better luck next time – oh, I see you had lots

I read Angels & Demons. I bought this on the recommendation of someone working in a bookstore 5 years ago. They said it was better than The DaVinci Code. When I started it the first time I had to put it down because of some flaws in the details, not the writing itself but the content. They aren’t big things, they aren’t things most people would know about or even care about, but they put me off the character and the author. Before the movie came out, my wife bought me The DaVinci Code as a diversion because boy did I need one. She also knows that I like to read the book before I see the movie. I read it. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Dan Brown may not be remembered as a writer of great literature, so what, he can sure plot a thriller. And I like the main character. Well, I want his job, anyway.

Now that the movie of Angels & Demons is out, I needed to read the book. So I took my disbelief, suspended it, wrapped it in bubble wrap, sealed it with duct tape and locked it in a back room. It didn’t matter; it got loose and I could feel it reading over my shoulder. But once I got past my personal problems with the book I had fun. I don’t think it’s as tightly plotted as The DaVinci Code, but it is an earlier book. Assuming that I’m remembering the book and not the movie, The DaVinci Code had a more fully realized conflict and leaner plot – which is not to say that there weren’t some things that could have been edited. Though the more I think about, I think I am comparing the movie to this book.

I expect the movie version of this one to have the requisite changes to get the story on film but it should translate well. Go ahead and read Angels & Demons. My complaints are nitpicking in a very real sense.

Overall, easy to dance to with a good beat.

I feel almost human

My wife and I went out with a friend to see a movie yesterday. It was like being a real person. We have now broken our long-standing annual total of movies seen in one year. For 2009 our total is now 3! Yay!

We saw Star Trek. It was, in a word, fun. I expected some major changes – as you would need to do to make a movie of this sort where many pieces are reworked into a whole – and I have some complaints, but for now I’ll keep them to myself. They managed to get in all of the original main characters in a reasonable way which was not easy. The cast was very good, but for me there were two standouts.

I think Zachary Quinto nailed it as Spock. There was one moment there with a raised eyebrow and an expression where he absolutely channeled Leonard Nimoy. Karl Urban was also pretty darn good as McCoy. He just had the personality down. Oh, I almost forgot Simon Pegg. How could I do that? He was fun and exuberant and a little crazy. His attitude was pure Scotty.

I also loved the lines they threw in: I’m a doctor not a physicist. I’m givin’ you all she’s got. There might have been more, I forget. That was fun. At one point it got a laugh out of us at a tense moment, but it was too much fun to care.

Go see it.

Languishing car update

I have my car back. Much worse could have gone wrong in a year of being little more than a sculpture. It needed a new battery, brakes, oil change and a tuneup – plus a few ignition parts. Not bad considering, but it still cost about 35% more than I was hoping it would.

Oh well, at least it's a functioning automobile again.

On the expected unhappiness of yet to be reported events – or, Bleh

Some things just need to be done, no matter what the cost. Well, actually, it's just that some things have to get done even if you can't really afford them.

Last month I took my wife’s car in to check out a few problems. It needed a new catalytic converter. That did not make me happy.

Today I dropped my car off to find out just how much can go wrong when you don’t drive a car for a year because you can’t afford to get it fixed. I’ll find out tomorrow. Any bets on how unhappy this is going to make me?

Old words

While I haven’t been reading much, I realized that what I have read recently is old words: Rex Stout, Robert E. Howard and Isaac Asimov. I didn’t plan it that way. Of course the words are old because that’s just the way it is. It’s that the stories that are old, though except for the Asimov they were new to me (I reread Foundation and started on Foundation and Empire).

It gives me a view of the world from the authors’ perspectives. Howard looks back, Stout looks around and Asimov looks forward. I didn’t read these things looking for social commentary, I read them for fun. Sometimes the rest just happens on its own.

In the Nero Wolfe novel, it was just a few lines that were used to define the characters – very concisely and nicely sarcastic in one particular character’s voice. I got a glimpse of people from different backgrounds living through a time of change. For the novel, it tells you who the people are and how they fit together. For me, it shows me clues to where we came from and how our society got to where it is now.

I’ve only read the first story in a Howard anthology, so all I can see is a dramatically different style. It’s flamboyant, broad-brush, bold color characterization – well, dark colors in this one, but still rich. You have to be uninhibited to write like that. It’s fun and enticing.

Asimov is, well, Asimov, offering a calculated look at all of human nature as seen from the future. It’s the question of ‘where do we go from here?’ when the ‘here’ is the scientific maelstrom of the 1950s. Of course, science will show the way.

I did try some new stuff; I started a new fantasy novel at the end of last year, but I put that on the shelf. It’s entertaining, but long and not engaging. There just isn’t anything happening. I got halfway through a 700 page book, and if this is all a setup it better be for one heck of a payoff. I might not ever get to it though because I just don’t feel connected to the book. I figure I get credit for reading a book, though, since I’ve invested so much time and effort just to get to where I am.

I’ve been putting down books I just don’t get into, no matter what the reviews. I have a pile of books to sort through and old words to read.

Stockpiling, or maybe just piling things up

I have not been reading much lately. It’s been a combination of some of my medical problems and the fatigue associated with some of my other medical problems. I have also been going through some tests the insurance company required on top of the class I’ve been taking and it’s been all I could do just to get by.

Enough of that. I am going to try to reverse this abject decline in my consumption of fiction and non-fiction. Towards that end I am putting together a list from my to-be-read pile. Then I am going to attack it.

Wish me luck. I’m going in.

Culinary Literacy

I want a cookbook called There’s the Rub: BBQ in the works of William Shakespeare. I don’t think it exists anywhere but in my mind, but wouldn’t it be awesome if it did?

Motorcycle Insanity

I have nothing against motorcycles – except for the ones driven noisily down my residential not-a-through-street signed street. Really, I think they’re fine. I’ll probably never ride one because I don’t think it’s safe in my current condition, but that’s me. But sometimes I have to wonder about some of the people who do ride them.

I was coming home from my Mother’s yesterday, and as I neared my exit on the highway a half dozen motorcyclists entered the roadway from an on-ramp. Here is the scene. It is dusk, the road is pretty crowded, cars are entering and jockeying for an exit that comes up in less than a mile. The three lanes of high-speed traffic have to rearrange themselves to exit and those cars that enter the highway have to get out of the far right lane because that will become an exit very quickly.

Enter 6 motorcyclists who are speeding (OK, they’re not alone in that) and then cutting across lanes to get out of the exit lane. But they are not leaving enough room, they are cutting people off and they are passing between cars, not in lanes. They eventually spread out over three lanes – and then suddenly decide that they really did want the exit after all. Four of them start cutting back through traffic while one of them overshoots and makes it onto the shoulder to make a roundabout turn back onto the ramp. One rider misses the exit completely and by the cloud of smoke I thought he had wiped out but it was just smoke from his tires (I looked so I could call 911 if I had to). High speed panic braking in the center lane of a crowded highway is not my idea of safe driving.

I was paying close attention because I needed to get over into the exit lane. If I hadn’t been watching and anticipating their crazy riding, I could have killed 3 of the riders all while signaling and legally changing lanes. I didn’t really want to do that.

One of the reasons I’m posting about this is because I’m not sure that it qualifies as the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen by motorcycle riders on that same highway. The other contenders are 2 guys speeding down the same highway during a weekday evening rush hour. They’re in the running because they were popping wheelies in the middle lane.

I have seen some weird shit on that road.

And just a hint of mint

The Milky Way doesn’t taste like nougat. Scientists (you know, generic science guys in white lab coats or something) have discovered that the Milky Way Galaxy is just full of ethyl formate. Which means that the Milky Way tastes like raspberries. Apparently that’s the chemical that makes raspberries taste the way they do.

If you get the reference in the post title, well, then you know weirdly obscure things.

Forward, into the past

Actually, this is about moving forward, but I couldn’t resist that title. But first…

I am not the man I used to be.

Don’t worry, this isn’t really going to be one of those posts. In fact, I’m trying to move on. But, I am not the man I used to be and therein lies the source of the dilemma. I am not the man I used to be and I need to stop trying to be who I used to be but while I need to accept who I am now I also need to keep trying to get better so I need to face who I am in order to get past where I was but also move beyond where I am today. I am also looking to maintain my standing as a master of the run-on sentence.

I need to be who I am now and stop trying to reclaim the past. Then I can move on from here – which is really where you always start from anyway.

I have class

Now, some – OK, all – of you who know me will argue about this, but I have a receipt to prove it.

It should surprise none of you that my wife and I have been to many doctors many times. One particular practice has a billing office that is off-site, I think possibly Uranus. They have a very creative way of generating bills. I’m not sure if this was any impetus, but while discussing possible options for part-time work for me to look into, my wife and I came up with medical billing and coding.

At this point, some of you may be wondering what the heck I am thinking. I have all sorts of problems, I have no stamina and unless I could find someone willing to pay me to work three hours a week I’m not going to have any luck. On Friday, when I was talking to the doctor overseeing the neuropsych testing, I said that I would try anything if someone had a suggestion for a job. Her response was something along the lines of “What do you mean, if someone had a suggestion you’d try it? You can’t work. What could you try?”

The answer is simple. I know that I have problems. I know that I can’t work. I also know that I have no source of income, right now I am a waste of space and I have to do something about that. In other words: yes, I can’t work, BUT I HAVE TO TRY. So what if it sounds like a paradox, I can’t just sit around and do nothing. If I fail I fail, but if I don’t try I have already failed.

So, working on the firm belief and principle that I Have To Try Anything, I signed up for a course in Medical Billing and Coding. Yes, I am insane.

Like I said in an earlier post, I thought that I was ready; I was feeling pretty good about things; optimistic even. I was ready to try something new and take another major step on the road to recovery.

Slip. Stumble. Ooo, and he recovers and does not fall! But that was a pretty impressive wobble there.

Dang this is draining. I am exhausted. On the other hand I am still doing it. The class started the end of January (there was a hint about this in an earlier post) and runs through next week. I am one stubborn clod and I will see this through. I am tired but I am conscious and active and doing a heck of a lot more than I could do last year. I am not good at this, yet, but damn I’m doing something. I’ll take credit for that.

I’ve still got a long way to go, but this is a step. And in its own way it’s interesting. At the very least I know more about what that flipping billing office should be doing.

Hmm

I should probably stop posting about how tired I am.

Oh, what the heck

Here’s another one of those posts.

My long-term disability company, the one that says that all of my doctors say that I’m disabled but they just don’t understand, decided they needed to send me for neuropsychological testing. An Independent Medical Examination, where Independent is defined as a doctor that the insurance company chooses and pays. Now I am not against the testing. I think any test that can help determine where I am and what I should do next is great., but somehow I don’t think the insurance company has that in mind. I really don’t have a clue why they are doing this.

This testing is ostensibly used to determine cognitive ability. So far it’s all been memory testing. I know that some of this is supposed to reveal deficits and strengths, and, I imagine, cheats. That last part I don’t worry about. I tell the truth. Period. OK, sometimes I hide my problems but I’m getting better at telling doctors about every little thing.

The first part about cognitive ability testing, that part I wonder about. This really doesn’t feel like an objective test. It is also designed for your average moron – no, seriously, this test is not designed for anyone of above average intelligence. Trust me, if I know you, you would ace this test, in your sleep, heavily drugged.

It also appears to equate knowledge with cognitive ability. If I don’t remember the definition of a word, how do you know that I ever knew the definition of that word? Similarly, you can test my ability to remember definitions, but does that tell you anything about how well I remember the name of my family members, or what a truck is?

Then there’s the problem that this test can only show how you compare to some accepted performance standard. I didn’t have a test before I was sick so there is no baseline to compare the current results to. So there is no way to know, through this test, if I have a deficit compared to how I was before. Not to mention that they guide you through the whole test so they don’t see anything about how you initiate tasks.

Ah well, I’m just ranting. I went into Philly for the test on Friday. I don’t have the energy to do the whole thing in one day so I have to go back. It is exhausting and unexpectedly painful. I fell asleep as soon as I got home, woke up to eat some dinner, and then slept until 2:00 Saturday afternoon. Then I slept for about 12 hours or so each night since, plus naps. I’m going to be in pain until I get some myofascial release therapy.

I was going somewhere with this but I can’t remember where. My brain is on one track right now and it’s a sidetrack from the testing that leads nowhere. I do have other news that I keep meaning to post about, but that will have to wait.

There's something going on in the swamp

I remember the original of this from when I was a child. Anywho, as my effort to commemorate the day – and I remember the original one of those as well – I am putting up this picture.



I have to go to the doctor today, so I will be burning fossil fuel and adding some pollutants and particulates to the atmosphere, but I will do my best to compensate in some way. I’m still trying to figure out how to convert my car to diesel-electric.

If anyone is gathering on Belmont Plateau (as they did all those years ago), do something like a hippie for me.

Little things

There are things that I cannot do well, like manage the twist tie on a loaf of bread or stir a cup of coffee or butter a piece of toast. They are little things, but they are the things that make up daily life. They are minutiae, insignificant not only in the overall scheme of things but in the mundane order of the day.

But little things are our life. Our existence is made of many of these little things. In their own way they are life altering changes because they are so small. Because I can’t do the little things I am not quite the person I used to be.

I can’t laugh the way I used to.

I can breathe and walk – after a fashion. I am alive. That’s why I care about these things. Maybe I’m just being perverse and focusing on the relatively inconsequential parts of life. Everyone has problems, I know that, but these didn’t use to be mine. I didn’t age gracefully, I aged overnight – well, it took 2 months but I was unconscious most of the time. And I haven’t been graceful about it.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this. Maybe nowhere, though I have to think all of this through so I can get to the other side. But now I’ve derailed my train of thought. I’ll wait at the station until it gets going again.

Woe is m– on second thought

I was thinking about some things to post, since it has been quite a while, and while I was thinking and bouncing around the Internet, I quite naturally stumbled across some things – and a thought popped into my head.

I am a very fortunate man.

Every now and then I do realize that I am very lucky. I have problems, and some of them are pretty bad, but it could be much worse.

Does this mean that I won’t be posting any more of those missives about my health and deficits and amazingly lousy experiences I sometimes have? Heck no. I need to get that out, and I do hope that it might help someone else to read. But until then, I think I’ll try to hold onto that positive thought.

You know ...

I was looking at that last post, just to make sure it posted OK, and I needed to say a few things. First, that post falls into the category of things posted for people who know me who want to know how I am doing, and also posts for people who don’t know me who may be going through something similar and want to see how others are getting along – a shared experience, just in case they come across my blog.

Now, on to the important point: whenever I see TMI, my first thought is almost always about Three Mile Island. Does that mean that I’m weird? The anniversary was just about a week ago. The song I heard on the radio right before I heard about TMI way back when was Dust In The Wind.

Ah, memories, I do have a few :)

Not TMI, but …

maybe more, moderately depressing, info on my current state than you want to know – but nothing horrific; it’s just the way things are.

I am back to say that I am exhausted, which is why I haven’t been around here much. I just haven’t had the energy. There has been the standard array of doctors that my wife and I have been going to which has contributed to this. Add in the basic necessity of life activities and I am already beyond my limit.

So with all that I decided to go and add more to the list of things I do each week. I have been trying a structured way to get myself back on a work-like footing.* I thought that I was ready for this sort of thing. In fact, at the beginning of the year I was feeling pretty good about things. I was ready to try something new and take another major step on the road to recovery.

Well, I was ready to try but I sure wasn’t able. As I’ve said before, I can do things, but I need time to recover. I recently realized that what I am doing now is pushing myself past my ability to recover. I have been having increasing problems with nerve pain, but also with muscle pain. It has become persistent and I am also having trouble moving because of pain and stiffness.

I think that this is from the cumulative effects of what I have been doing for the past few weeks. I think that my body is breaking down. I am using my mental and physical energy and not replacing it.

So, I’m going to stop.

Actually, I’m going to cut back where I can. April is pretty much already booked and I can’t do much about that. But I am looking forward to May as a time when I can scale back and regroup. I’m keeping that thought in my head to keep myself going. Of course, like I tell my doctors, I’ll get through this because I’m stubborn. I wonder if they think that’s a good thing.



*This is deliberately vague because I want to keep the details private for the moment.

Ballon, ballon

Wednesday is trash night, let the rejoicing begin. Anyway, two weeks ago, and why I didn’t mention it then I don’t know, but two weeks ago I was taking out the trash. It was late so it was dark. Just after I took a can to the curb and started back up the driveway, I heard a sound behind me across the street. I turned around to see what was there, wondering if there was some animal wandering down the street. It was dark, I was curious and I didn’t want to be surprised by anything. But I was surprised, because what I saw was a large red balloon going down the street.

I watched it for a while, more than a little surprised to see a large red balloon heading down the street rather late at night. I looked around, wondering what I would see next and then said, out loud, “If there’s a small French boy around here somewhere I am going to freak.”

Then I went back inside and related the bizarre experience to my wife.

I wonder what film character I will see wandering down the street next?

What's all this then?

Yes, I have been posting a lot today. No, I do not know why.

It’s probably just nervous energy. I would not expect this to continue at this pace. I also can’t guarantee the quality of future content.

Mea culpa

I have to admit that I didn’t watch the press conference this evening, even though I did just post a couple of political/economy posts which may appear to be in response to something said. My posts aren’t in response because I didn’t see the conference – also, my first post was before it was held.

I tend not to watch Presidential press conferences. I watch campaign speeches to see all of the candidates so that I can evaluate the situation. I have rarely watched press conferences because even when the questions are not inane the answers tend towards campaign style talking. I don’t need more of that.

I do often read transcripts, but all too often I find the press conferences tedious.

Besides, I wasn’t home tonight during the press conference. So there.

Nickleby

Can we get rid of No Child Left Behind? It’s designed more to help get public education privatized than about improving education. I know that there are arguments to be made about class size and teacher salaries and performance and curricula and student performance and lengthening of the school day - which if nothing else would help parents with child care - among other things. But we need to focus on education and not just teaching students how to take specific tests.


I don’t know where that came from, it’s just something I thought of just now.

Oh, joy

Wall Street loves the latest proposal to buy up toxic debt. That alone tells me that it is a very bad idea.

Can we just buy all these mortgages at current value already, like we did in the 1930s? That actually saved lives, homes and made a profit. Then we can put these failed banks into receivership, get them back on their feet and then sell them – and make a profit on that as well.

In the end, everybody wins, because that was how we built the prosperity that was enjoyed in this country in the previous century.

The blueprint for recovery exists but no one has the will or the moral or political courage to follow it.

Those aren't criminis

As I was driving home from the store yesterday, White Rabbit by Airplane came on the radio and I got to thinking about it – it’s also been going through my head ever since but that’s another story.

For some reason my first thought was to wonder why the song has never been used in a Viagra commercial. You know, one pill makes you larger …

Remember, if you experience an erection lasting more than 4 hours, go ask Alice.


On a related note, there is a Visa commercial about going to the aquarium – you can see it here - and it shows all of the aquatic life swimming around with the Moody Blues playing in the background. My wife was wondering who had the marine-life related acid trip to come up with that one.

Anyway.


Peace. Love.

Just a thought

I am older than at least 3.5 billion people. Or to put it another way, more than half the people in the world are younger than I am.

I don’t think that means anything, nothing encouraging anyway, it was just something that occurred to me.

I want my hour back

I'm sorry, but I've never been a big fan of Daylight Saving Time. Maybe it's because I used to walk to the bus stop in pre-dawn light because of it. Maybe it's because I'm not a farmer and don't use natural light for my work - except farmers complained about it too. Maybe it's because of the specious argument that it will save energy, even though the lights are on whenever people in a city are at work no matter what time of day it is. Maybe it's because there have been times in my life when I have driven to work in the dark and driven home in the dark in the middle of the Summer so it didn't do me one damn bit of good.

Maybe I'm just a curmudgeon.

Actually, I think it's just because I can tell that it's not natural. I like daylight as much as the next person, and I know that timekeeping is an arbitrary thing, but it just doesn't feel right.

I guess that proves it, I'm a curmudgeon.

It's just that 8 months of it seems absurd.

What in the wide, wide world of sports is going on here?!

Oh holy shit. Blazing Saddles came out in 1974. That’s 35 years ago! I am so old.


Can anyone guess what movie I watched recently?

Timing is everything

And boy has timing sucked lately. I’ll skim over the part where I’ve been so exhausted that all those thoughts I wanted to think are just piling up in my head. It’s rush hour in there and all the lanes are blocked.

On top of all of that the car is in dire need of repair so it is now at the dealer. We’ve been putting things off for a while and now it’s coming back to bite me in the ass. This is going to be one expensive repair. If I was working I’d probably just buy a new car. And since my car (we’ve been using my wife’s for everything) has been sitting dead in the driveway for six months or so, I also had to rent a car. Our car will be in the shop for about 2 days.

So, all sorts of things happening all at once and not a lot of time to think anything through.

Urgh.

In other words, this is my excuse for not posting anything. But without posts, you have nothing to read and no reason to be here, I must try to correct this.

Is this thing on?

OK, so I disappeared again.

Sorry.

Remember that I said that I was planning on getting started doing things? Well, I tried. It is crushing me. I’m not stopping the new stuff on my schedule but I really need to rearrange everything else. And I really need to just stop every now and then.

You might guess that this is advice that I have yet to take but that I really need to.

Well, not just yet. Sunday is my Mother’s 90th birthday so I will not be slowing down this weekend.

Maybe next week.

Where I’ve Been, or At Least Why I Wasn’t Here

January was an extremely difficult month. To be honest, I never really recovered from last year’s onslaught of doctor appointments. January started off about the same, plus my wife was not doing well. On top of that our dog became very ill and taking care of her was exhausting. We tried our best, but the vet just didn’t have any options left to help her. We had to have her put to sleep last week.

All of that clobbered me – and to be fair my wife probably more than me. I found myself, and find myself, in a position where I am having trouble forming any seriously complex thoughts. Well, they may form, but I can’t develop them or act on them. That extends to things as potentially inane as a blog post (see below, or even right here). This is how a month or a year can just disappear and I have no idea where all the time went.

I’m glad I was treating January as a platform to move off from and not a month in which to accomplish anything major. I still have lots of plans, well, a few, anyway. What I need to do is refine my thoughts and focus on more discrete ideas. Trying to tackle a gestalt concept will just make my head explode.

So, planning and list making and scheduling are the orders of the day – er – month. You know, this might take a while, maybe I should make this a long term project.

How many?

I just replaced two of the luminous orbs in the bathroom fixture, thus answering the age-old question: how many disabled software developers does it take to change a light bulb?

Pointless post to resume posting

Just to summarize, what I was trying to say is not that giving and receiving gifts is the most important part of Christmas. It’s just that I feel lousy because I can’t afford to give gifts. It’s not the gifts, it’s the personal circumstances.

OK. So everyone probably had that figured out already. I had just had to go back to this one more time. I’ll leave it alone now.

Or, I could just post the same thing every few weeks or so. I wrote this a few weeks ago and didn’t post it, but I could keep it up if everyone thinks it’s interesting.

Or not.

OK, I’m kidding, I just wanted to establish some continuity here. I’ll move on now.

Let’s try this again

Just to be clear about the Christmas comments in my earlier post, which I am having trouble doing, I wasn’t trying to make it all about the loot. I like giving things. I can’t help it. It isn’t about what I get. Mostly it’s about getting together with family and friends.

Every year we all agree not to spend too much, and we don’t. Because of my current circumstances, I was expecting it to be even less this year. It was, but not as much less as I expected. I gave little and I expected little. My family was generous and essentially gave me things that I needed (books are a necessity). I didn’t expect that – well, yeah, I did, but I was hoping that it would be even more toned down than it was.

I felt guilty, and embarrassed.

I can’t afford to give much. I can’t afford to give anything. Like I said, I couldn’t afford to give to charity last year. It hurts to admit all of this and that’s probably why I can’t get the words quite right.

I’m babbling. I guess I still need to let this marinate in my brain a little longer.

The start of a new year

Well, OK, it started almost a week ago, but I’m still getting up to speed. As I said before, I took New Year’s Day off and even made it a long weekend; though I did spend some time on Sunday going through my daily planner cleaning out the old stuff and putting in new pages for the next few months because I did need to get ready to start the year.

That’s when I found a card that showed that an appointment that I thought I had for Monday is actually on the 15^th. This was a good thing because on Friday I got a reminder call for an appointment for Monday that I had thought was on the 15^th. So it all works out. That meant that I only had one appointment on Monday, not two. But I did start out the first full week of the new year with a doctor appointment.

What a surprise.

My wife had one today. Between the two of us, my wife and I already have 11 appointments this month and my wife will need more physical therapy appointments and I need to schedule at least one more doctor appointment for myself. I think we’ll probably end up with 17, not counting non-doctor disability related appointments. We just don’t know when to quit, do we?

I am trying to make a good thing out of this, though. I am aiming to be more organized and I want to start with keeping track of all of this and working other things in with them. One of my problems is that there get to be so many things to get done they start to slip through the cracks. I want to set up a schedule so that I can keep track of things, plan my next steps and generally make orderly progress in the year ahead.

That sounds a lot like a resolution, but it’s more of a goal. I’m not looking to accomplish one singular thing, I am trying to use whatever strategies I can to achieve a goal. So, scheduling and organizing. With a month like I have ahead of me that will be a neat trick and I am not counting on it happening. I’ll be happy if January is just the Monday of this year – that time period when I get things started so that the rest of the year can run more smoothly.

We’ll see how that works out.

Six degrees of fail

Life has been hectic, maybe even more so than usual, in the past month or so. So of course I managed to fail at so many things. When it came to cards I didn’t mail out any. So I sent out e-cards for Christmas. I couldn’t find any suitable e-cards for Chanukah, so I totally failed there. My apologies. The house was decorated in a neo-minimalist style – meaning there are almost no decorations because I failed at getting them put up. There’s more, but…

OK, I don’t mean for this to be a dreary post. I learned something from this. I tried to learn things all year, and this all reinforces some points. Now I need to work on strategies to overcome these problems. So, let’s look on this as a major fail for this holiday season, one which I take full responsibility for, one which I deeply regret, and one which I will try to use to move forward and thus make a good thing out of – or at least something that I can use for good.

Overall, Christmas was good. The party earlier in the month was great. Christmas with the families was also good. I received far more than I expected. I am existing in gravely diminished circumstances, so giving was limited. My wife and I scaled back to the point where Scrooge would almost approve of our behavior. Of course, as in years past, everyone in our families said that spending would be limited. I don’t think that word means what they think it means. Well, yeah, I know they know, but they were being generous in as subtle a way as possible. I was overwhelmed. People were generous. I’m not saying that I got a ton of gifts, but there were books involved, and that is always a good thing.

We didn’t make it to a friend’s annual New Year’s Day event. Lately, by January 1^st we’re both too run down to manage anything. So, fail. I did, however, manage to take the day off. I tend to always worry about what needs to be done and I build up the stress and anxiety trying to do stuff and agonizing over what I can’t do and I do this every day. This year I actually just sat around and relaxed. I consider that a good thing.

I actually took the whole weekend off.

So I am behind and I need to catch up with my blogging, since I know you are all eagerly awaiting each post.

More to come.

Happy New Year!

I want to wish everyone a very Happy New Year!