Monthly Archives: February 2019

Song: “Dance Across The Floor” by Jimmy “Bo” Horne

Mood: 7

Nightmares: 0

Ghosts: Pack

I went to bed early last night and was surprised that between the medications and some breathing exercises, I was able to fall asleep pretty quickly. The night was pretty typical – I woke up worrying several times but didn’t have any nightmares and I was able to get back to sleep reasonably quickly.

I somehow managed to groan and sigh my way out of bed a few minutes after my alarm went off, then had breakfast and took my medication and bounced around the house while singing along with loud music, trying to clear my head so I could take the truck over to the repair shop a couple of blocks away.

An hour later I bundled up and went outside to take the battery tender off the truck and start it up. It started right up, and after a minute or so of talking positively to myself, I put the transmission in reverse and backed out – right into a giant snowdrift that I hadn’t yet cleared away. The truck was only in 2WD at the time and I almost got stuck so I drove back into the garage, put it in 4WD, and then gave it another shot.

I find backing up to be very difficult. It’s never been my favourite thing to do but I used to be reasonably competent at it. Now, I can’t take my mind off the thought that I may be backing over someone’s pet or a child because I can’t see them well enough. I also worry that something will get into the garage and die in there or wreck/chew a whole bunch of stuff because it wants desperately to get out. I also worry I haven’t closed the garage door properly, whether the house is locked, whether the basement is flooding, the bathroom fan is overheating, the stove is on, the aquarium pumps are overheating, any CFL or LED bulbs in the house are on the verge of failing and might start a fire… everything floods back. It also doesn’t help that our neighbour piles all of his snow right by the street on the side closest to our house so visibility isn’t great.

Anyway, once I was done with the driveway and was moving forward down the street, things got a little easier. Fortunately, the shop is something like 3 blocks away and I was going when things were pretty quiet out. The owner was friendly and helpful and said they’d give me a call when they were done or if they had any questions. I handed over my key, thanked him, and walked home.

I did some more grounding and breathing after I got home (the flop sweat was pretty bad at that point), and that helped a lot (especially with being back in the house). I did some more tidying and set up the table and waited for J’s aunt to come by.

She got here at noon and we talked for a little while before we broke out the cribbage board and the potato chips. During a break, we also talked about 3D printing a bit and discussed the toothbrush holder she was asking me to build. I scrawled out a few designs and we figured out something that should do everything she’s hoping for.

The card games went great. We played an open hand first so we could get used to it but after that we were counting out our fifteens and runs like pros. It was a lot of fun. I think the best hand of the afternoon was 20 plus pegging and crib, and I think my best hand was 16. It was a lot of fun.

Then we gave Carcassonne a try. J’s aunt had been quite emphatic in texts that she does not like board games, but I told her it was different from Monopoly or Risk or any of the usual ones. She seemed to enjoy it quite a bit and we got two or three games in, and she absolutely obliteratified me in one of them.

We talked a lot, too, and the conversation was light and enjoyable. We talked about all kinds of stuff, including the music I was playing from my collection of favourites – I was hoping she could tolerate it but she paused quite a few times and say that she really enjoyed a particular song or that she hadn’t heard another song in forever, that sort of thing. It was an angle of her I’d never seen before… who would’ve known she was a disco fan?

Anyway, time went by far too quickly and before we knew it, it was 4:15PM. Neither of us had expected her to hang around for that long, but we’d both had a very good time and said we were going to arrange another game afternoon soon!

She gave me a lift to the shop, where the truck was done and waiting. The work they did was great and, despite me giving them plenty of opportunity to “find” things wrong and charge for them, they just slapped a new clamp on the coolant hose, topped it up, changed the oil, and checked the level and quality of the various other juices in the truck. I was expecting a bill for $500-$800… but it was $103. That’s the second time now that they’ve been straight with me and haven’t taken me for a ride so I think that’s where I’ll be recommending friends to now.

J had a rough day at work so she wasn’t feeling well when she got home but we had supper and hung out and watched another episode of iZombie. Now she’s in bed and as soon as I publish this post that’s where I’m heading to as well.

Tomorrow, Dad is coming in. He’s hoping to be here around 11AM and we are going to talk and look at things that could be fixed or changed. We may also go out to the hardware store and even go for groceries. Who knows – but regardless of what we do, it will be good to hang out with him again.

Stay safe.

Song: N/A

Mood: 6

Nightmares: 0

Ghosts: Lots

Really quick post because I have to get to bed early to wake up early tomorrow.

I slept better last night and felt quite a bit better today. I didn’t accomplish a lot around the house, but my Dr C appointment went reasonably well. We talked a lot about what I was thinking and feeling while I was out and how we can keep the momentum up.

I took my evening pills quite early tonight; the plan is to wake up tomorrow at 8AM and be clear-headed enough at 9AM to top up the coolant, back the truck down the driveway, drive to the shop a few blocks away, and communicate the things I’d like them to do. If it takes longer before I can clear my head, it’s not the end of the world.

Around noonish, J’s aunt is planning to come by (with the exception that if either of us feels like crap we won’t hang out) and play cards and have snacks. She has some very strict dietary requirements but one of the things she can eat is potato chips, and I’m ALL OVER that! I’m not sure how long she’s going to hang out but I hope we can turn this into a regular-ish thing, like once a month or something like that. Being social is important I think.

Dad’s still planning to come out on Thursday, we are coming up with all kinds of stuff to do or play around with while he’s here. Should be great!

My alarm is set, wish me luck for waking up on time tomorrow and for not being half in the bag until noon!

Stay safe.

Song: N/A

Mood: 6

Nightmares: 0

Ghosts: Horde

Yesterday, I felt like I was getting one of the various plagues that are going around. Then last night, I fell asleep on the couch sometime between midnight and 12:30AM, and woke up around 4:15AM. I staggered into the bathroom to brush my teeth and then fell into bed with my CPAP mask on.

Today, I feel like I am 217 years old and someone has scooped half my brain out and replaced it with dead horseflies. I wasn’t able to get enough steam or brainpower to accomplish anything, and I spent far too much time on the couch disgusted with myself because of it. I just sat on the couch with my eyes closed, feeling that gentle slide toward sleep and then the BAMP that jerks me back awake every time. I didn’t design or print anything, I didn’t sew anything, I didn’t look at anything under the microscope, I didn’t write anything. Just sat on the couch doing nothing until something got my attention that I couldn’t ignore and had to investigate… that happened a LOT today. Probably because I’m tired (the quality of my sleep without CPAP is very poor) and not feeling well, things were harder to ignore or rationalize away. I spent over an hour sitting in the basement and watching and listening for the hot water tank to go through a couple of cycles and only stopped because J startled the crap out of me when she got home from work and opened the door.

My mom called this afternoon and it was good to talk with her. She’s been having a good time with my sister and the kids… and the cats. For whatever reason, Mom seems to be the cat whisperer – they’re all over her and once they get settled they go to sleep. It’s pretty sweet but Mom says she’s not a big fan of all the fur left over.

A letter arrived from the health department today. I was too nervous to open it so I put it on J’s pile to take a look at when she got home. She called a while later, though, and while we were talking we decided to open the letter. The letter says that my application has been approved and I am now medically retired. J says it’s good news, and I get that, but I feel very mixed on the whole thing. Part of me is relieved that I won’t have to sit through a bunch more examinations and interviews designed to make me uncomfortable. Part of me is grateful that I will still be getting my disability payments and I don’t need to worry about being cut off. Part of me is worried that there’s been some sort of paperwork error and we will get another letter in a few months saying that no, in fact, I have not been approved. Part of me worries that I don’t know what I’m allowed to do and not do while I’m medically retired – despite what most of those know me might think, I don’t want to spend my whole life in the house, and I want to work again and contribute something. Part of me is very sad that all of the stuff I was before – back when I was a capable person who did stuff that mattered – I don’t think I can ever be again. All those friends I left behind… all of the good times that helped everyone get through the bad times… all the tradition, the history… they’re all gone. I will probably never work with WG again, and that makes me very sad. And, part of me is really, REALLY angry with my former employer because they were arrogant, inflexible, and incompetent to the point that any brand new hire (I’m just kidding – they weren’t hiring! But anyway…) could’ve listened to a department head for 30 seconds and figured out they were completely full of $&%@. They made me flush two years of distance and evening university courses down the toilet. That was a lot of time and money and sweat, let me tell you.

Hate is a strong word. I may toss it around and say I hate fish or I hate it when the sun reflects off the car in front of me and shines in my eyes, but those are just irritations or distractions – not actual hot, seething hatred. There are very few people who I honestly, truly hate in this world. All of those managers who spent more time bragging about how good they were before announcing that we were going to be responsible for LOWERING the level of service to our clients… all the “yes men” who blathered platitudes and just reported what their managers wanted to hear to improve their chances of getting promoted – I hate them. The upper management/COO/President-level people who never clued in on why things weren’t going well and figured that the number of re-orgs and the constantly changing people in management were normal – I hate them. The directors who insisted they were the best qualified to develop and roll out an upgraded network but who didn’t even know what the word ‘latency’ meant – I hate them. The even higher-ups who clawed money back from our budgets, turning a merely untenable situation into an impossible and dangerous one – I hate them too. The arrogant manager 2400km away who didn’t bother to figure out who I was or what I did but revoked the shifted hours schedule that I had negotiated with my previous managers, forcing me to quit university – I really, really hate him.

Sometimes I wish they could see this blog and read how much they screwed up my and J’s life, but then I remember that even if they did, they wouldn’t care. All they’d be looking for was whether they were mentioned by name and, if so, whether I said anything that’d help them get a promotion.

I appear to be winding myself up, which is what I should NOT be doing when I’m getting ready for bed so I’m going to stop this here by reminding myself that the letter I got today was good news. If all goes well, we should almost be at the end of the process.

I have a Dr C appointment tomorrow. I am looking forward to talking to her about being out to the hardware store three times now and how it all worked out, but I’m not looking forward to all of the introspection and digging that accompanies it. I hope that I’m able to maintain my current level of getting out of the house – I worry that I’m going to get up one day and it’ll all be gone again. Fingers crossed that doesn’t happen.

Stay safe.

Song: “Frank’s 2000” TV” by ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic

Mood: 7

Nightmares: 0

Ghosts: Pack

Another quick post because I’m already dragging pretty badly…

Today was a good day. I slept poorly last night, fell back asleep after my alarm, and had a nasty case of the flop sweats while being away from the house for almost two hours, but it was good.

FA swung by at about 11:40AM. We talked for a little while and then looked at a neat little block heater cord adapter she had invented and was hoping to install. After a few test fits and some unintentional plastic melting, we headed out to the hardware store to wander around and pick up a couple of things. It was a little more difficult today than it was last week and by the end I was sweating up a storm but we got through the whole store and found most of the stuff we were looking for.

After that, we went to the burrito shop and I stayed in the car while FA ran in to pick up lunch. We headed back to the house (thank Jeebus) and ate (the burritos were fantastic as usual), then looked at the block heater cord adapter again before heading outside to install it.

What seemed like a reasonably pleasant day turned out to be frigid when standing out in the open, trying to manipulate stiff plastic insulation and tiny screws with bare hands. After several rounds of working and then standing there with hands in pockets to warm cold fingers, the adapter was installed and I think it looks pretty great.

After that we went back inside and had another good chat. DM arrived a little while later and the three of us shot the breeze until J got home. We discussed pizza and then put in an order and then got back to talking.

Between good company, good stories, quite a few laughs, and good pizza, the time flew by. I was shocked when DM mentioned that it was after 9PM, and I still don’t know how the time slid by so quickly.

We talked for a few more minutes, then DM and FA put on their parkas and headed out, and J and I tidied up a bit, talked about our days, and eased into our evening routine. I was surprised to find that when I sat back and closed my eyes, I was actually kind of tired – but the good kind of tired where you feel like you’ve done something. I think today was the most active that my brain has been in months, and it was a good thing.

J and I are very lucky to have and be able to hang out with good friends like FA and DM. They’re comfortable people to be around, are fun, don’t mind too much if the house is a mess, and always have neat stuff to do or talk about with. Everybody should have friends like that!

We are going to firm up plans tomorrow afternoon, but it looks like my dad is going to come to visit on Sunday. We may putter around the house and build/fix/whatever some things, or we may take it easy and possibly even go out to the hardware store. Regardless (or ‘irregardless’, as he purposely says to get my goat), it will be great to see him and hang out. Depending on what we end up doing, he may stay the night.

I also invited J’s aunt over next Thursday to play cards and eat potato chips. She has an appointment earlier in the day but agreed to come over in the afternoon but we’re going to talk tomorrow and figure out the details. If things work out I think it’ll be fun – neither of us can remember all the rules to cribbage but that’s fine, and I’m always in the mood for potato chips.

All of this is going to make next week very busy for me: Sunday/Monday – Dad, Tuesday – Dr C, Wednesday – truck going into shop, Thursday – J’s aunt… by Friday I’m going to be pooped but I think it’s going to be good. I need to get out of the house and/or socialize with human beings more, and all of these things are either with people I know and trust, or are close enough to home that I won’t be away for very long. Wish me luck!

Hmm… this post ended up being a lot longer than I expected. Neat!

Stay safe.

Song: “Theme From Lost In Space (Season 3, 1967)” by JOHN FRICKIN WILLIAMS!!!

Mood: 6.5

Nightmares: 0

Ghosts: Lots

Short post tonight, I need to get to sleep soon.

Today was a decent day. I think I slept pretty well last night.

I puttered around the house, got a bunch of stuff done, and talked to both of my parents and my brother-in-law. I designed a new filament master spool that uses less plastic and takes less time than the one I got from the filament company. I may need to make it a liiiittle heavier but I think it’s going to work.

A parcel came today and in it was a Kill A Watt electricity meter. I now know that my laptop pulls about 93 watts when I’m playing Star Trek Online, and I did some math (so I could be utterly wrong) and the power cost to run the printer is a little under one and a half cents per hour.

I called the garage down the street and made an appointment for the truck next Wednesday morning. I will have to drive it there but I just need to keep in mind that it’s just down the street.

My dad may be coming into town for one or two days this weekend. Depending on the weather and what we end up doing, he’ll head home the same day or stay overnight. It will be good to see him again, it’s been quite a while!

FA and DM are coming over tomorrow! I’m a little anxious about it and have no idea why but I’m also very much looking forward to it. It’s also been a long time since the four of us hung out and had pizza!

I think I’m going to invite J’s aunt over some time next week to play some crib… or maybe I can convince her to try out Carcassonne or Sequence. That’d be cool.

Tomorrow I have to do some tidying and a full set of my exercises before FA arrives, then we might go to the hardware store again, have lunch, and then come back here and hang out. DM and J will arrive later, we will have pizza, there will be much talking and laughing, and it all be wonderful!

Tomorrow’s going to be a good day.

Stay safe.

Song: “You’re The Reason Our Kids Are Ugly” by Loretta Lynn & Conway Twitty

Mood: 6

Nightmares: 0

Ghosts: Lots

I’m already fading pretty fast so I need to keep this post short so I wont end up with four pages of ……………………. like I had last night.

Today was not too bad. I was groggier than normal for longer than normal after I got up but it didn’t interfere too much with my morning schedule. I must be more tired than I thought because shortly after noon I had to really fight to keep from moving to the couch, pulling a blanket over me, and taking a nap. It was also pretty weird how quickly it came on, it was almost like someone threw a bucket of exhaustion on me. Plus, now that I’m writing this, my eyelids are getting heavier and heavier and my hands are getting dumber and dumber.

I spent some time with the printer again today and made a few things. J asked for one of those floppy dinosaurs, but in yellow this time. I think it turned out pretty well – using the ironing feature really smooths out that top layer! I also drew up and printed two of what I’d hoped would be phone/tablet styli for J and me. I did them with conductive ABS. You may recall that I said before that I gave up on printing with ABS but in this case I’m just trying to print little things and I couldn’t get conductive PLA. Anyway, after the first design was done on the printer, it looked pretty great until I picked it up and it fell apart – total delamination. Never saw that before. The second attempt with a higher temperature and lower feed rate worked out much better but it didn’t do a very good job at being a stylus. I have some ideas and, fortunately, some more of the conductive ABS sample packs…

While the dinosaur was printing, I did some cleaning up in the room the printer is in. Parts of it now look wonderful, while other parts look an order of magnitude messier than when I started. Oh well… part of the process I suppose. As part of the process, I finally decided to get rid of some of my old books (mostly textbooks) that I don’t use, haven’t used, and don’t expect to use again. Some of them are about stuff that I have NO desire to ever look at again unless I absolutely have to (I’m talking to you, Calculus textbook). Some of them fall within the scope of stuff that I’m still doing or still want to do but they’re too old (not a lot of token ring around anymore, Data Comm textbook). Others may still be useful and contain current information but it’s just so much faster to go to a search engine than it is to find a book and then find the info I’m looking for. This all being said, I much prefer paper versions to electronic versions, particularly if it’s something that I’m going to want to jot down little notes about and dog-ear pages for later.

[Okay, I’m fading really fast here. Need to wrap up.]

It sounds like FA and DM might be coming over on Monday. It will be great to see them, it’s been a while since the four of us got together to chat, eat pizza, and hang out!

J and I have been trying out iZombie. It’s not too bad so far – they’re still figuring out what the characters are going to be like but I’ve enjoyed it and I think J has too.

There was more I was going to type but I just can’t do it tonight. Need to brush my teeth and get into bed while I can still shuffle around.

Stay safe.

Song: “Food Fight” by The Village People (seriously, go listen to it, it’s fantastic!)

Mood: 6

Nightmares: 0

Ghosts: Lots

**I started to write this post last night but fell asleep at the keyboard a few times before giving up and going to bed. So this post is actually from yesterday**

I don’t know what was going on but I was clumsy as hell yesterday – I kept bumping into things, dropping things, and almost everything I touched turned to garbage. Stuff I tried to print didn’t work out, I kept misplacing things… it was a frustrating mess.

Fortunately, today has been better. It took a while before I could drag myself out of bed – I spent far too much time rubbing my face and mumbling, “twooomoreminutsss”. It also took quite a while before my usual morning dumbness and grogginess wore off, so I quietly sat on the couch and ate my Raisin Bran and yogurt in a daze before I got enough brain cells working so I could send out some texts.

I did some tidying up in the kitchen today. It never ends, and I don’t understand how a room that can be so clean become so dirty in so little time. Blows my mind.

I also did some printing – some for J and some for FA. It makes me happy that I can help people out with stuff that they want or need. I also quite enjoy the designing part of the process.

There is still some towel fabric left so I started in on it. I measured and cut the first piece and then went to take out the hem that I put in to keep the material from fraying when I put it through the wash. I learned my lesson and used black thread this time so it was very easy to see. Unfortunately, trying to remove stitches from cotton towel material is still quite time consuming because I was trying to avoid getting snagged on the cotton loops while I was taking out the stitches. It took me over an hour.

Stay safe.

Song: “Buttons And Bows” by Dinah Shore

Mood: 7

Nightmares: 0

Ghosts: Several

So aside from a bit of flop sweat, some stammering, and having to fight the urge to bolt outside, I am pretty comfortable saying that yesterday’s expedition to the hardware store that FA and I went on was a success. I really wasn’t sure how it was going to go but I’m glad that we went to the store first and then had burritos later. I even have proof that I went to the hardware store. I am reluctant to use the word “selfie” but I wanted to have some kind of proof to show Dr C and Dr W at our next appointments:

One of the things that we found yesterday was a neat little flashlight/wall switch thing. I’ve always been a fan of flashlights (you can never have too many, and some are better for some jobs than others), and I was looking for a flashlight with some bright LEDs in it I could harvest to light some lithophane frames I’m making. We looked at a couple of flashlights that were a little underwhelming before we came across these:

They looked pretty cheesy but when one of us flipped the switch, we were both gobsmacked at how much light the thing put out:

Since they seemed to be a pretty good deal (I priced the parts out and making one of them would’ve cost at least 15 bucks, while these were selling for $3.99 AND most of them came with batteries installed), I thought some other people might be able to use them so I sent out some texts to family and friends and got quite an excited response from most people. So…

You’re not going to believe this…

J and I went out to the hardware store this morning and bought every one of those lights they had. We were in there quick (and I took some PRNs before we left), and after we were done there we went to the library (I stayed in the car). Then we went to the water store (I went in and carried the bottle out), and then we went to the bank (the drive-thru ATM), and then to the grocery store (I stayed in the car).

Then we went home. It was a huge relief to get back but I was doing okay. That’s two outings in two days that weren’t mandatory appointments, and I MADE IT!!!

I really, REALLY hope that this is a sign of things to come. I’m going to try to avoid getting too excited about it because there are always downs and I don’t want it to feel like the end of the world for me, but I’m feeling encouraged by this.

As an added bonus, I went downstairs this afternoon and sat in the room with the printer. I did some grounding and some deep-breathing exercises, and then I got to work trying to convince myself that I used to be good at electronics and some of it must be in there somewhere. I tried to keep the self-doubt back and the end result is I can now turn my printer on and off by connecting to the print server. This is something I’ve wanted to be able to do since the first week I had it – powering up the printer and getting it ready to print takes 10-15 minutes, and being able to do it from a warm seat on the upstairs couch while covered with a blanket is really nice. Plus, the less air disturbance around the printer, the better. PLUS PLUS, having electronics control the 120V power to the printer means that there will be more features I can put in later, like adding a heat sensor or smoke detector that will cut power to the printer if it detects something bad going on. But that’s stuff for another day.

Thank you so much to everyone who has helped me, supported me, had my back, believed in me, cared about me, made me laugh, made me think, and has stuck around despite me literally and clinically going crazy. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be here without you, and I certainly wouldn’t have just bought 35 light switch things from the hardware store. Thank you all so much – I wish I knew something better to say but THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!

I have no idea what tomorrow holds but today is going pretty well.

Stay safe.

Song: “You Think You’re A Man” by Divine

Mood: 7

Nightmares: 0

Ghosts: Lots

Just a short post here – I will write again tomorrow and go more into things, but get this – I went to the hardware store with FA this afternoon, and we were out for TWO HOURS! My PRNs had worn off near the end so the last while was getting rough and the flop sweat was going, but I didn’t freak out and the cashier was able to understand everything I was saying.

I had a great time with FA, we did an aisle crawl, got some of the stuff on my shopping list, and found a bunch of other neat things. Then we went to the burrito shop and then back to my place to eat and have another one of our typically fascinating and enjoyable chats.

It was so good to hang out with FA again, and I am really happy we were able to wander around the store we used to always go to. I am pleased.

Thanks again FA for being a great friend and someone I know who can tolerate my odd way of thinking about things.

More tomorrow – walking around and thinking so much today has left me pretty exhausted.

Stay safe.

Song: N/A

Mood: 6

Nightmares: 0

Ghosts: Lots

I slept pretty well again last night. Woke up three times that I can remember but after quickly checking the garage door and stove pictures I was able to put it behind me and go back to sleep. I even woke up a little later than usual, which was a nice (and pretty groggy) surprise.

I didn’t get as much stuff done today because I kept getting chasing ghosts and had trouble setting priorities. I kept flitting back and forth between things, with the end result being that I mostly spun my tires and accomplished very little. Today was the second day since I turned it on (December 7^th) that the printer wasn’t running. I haven’t run out of projects – far from it. I just had an appointment this afternoon and I’m not entirely comfortable leaving everything running when there’s nobody home. I’ve let it run overnight a few times and that’s been okay, but we have a smoke detector and extinguisher in the room with the printer just in case.

My sister called and we had a good chat. They got an awful lot of snow over the past two days so it’s pretty much a snow day everywhere where they live. Kids didn’t get to school, grownups didn’t go to work, so everyone was home. Fortunately, despite the weather, my mom got out there safe and sound and will now be out there for the next few weeks.

My Dr W appointment today was in some ways better than normal and in others worse. Dr W was in a good mood and laughed several times while we were talking, and apparently when J went in to chat about some of the insurance stuff, they had another good laugh. That’s good. Dr W wants to make sure I’m not forgetting to do the ERP stuff; fortunately, I haven’t.

Texted again with FA today and I think we are good to try the hardware store trip on Friday. While J and I drove by it on the way to my appointment this afternoon, I noticed that there was a sign saying it’s still open during construction. That’s got me a little antsy, but FA had a good point – there may be more deals! I found my gift card and wrote out my list of stuff to look for, and everything else will fall into place on Friday. Just need to hammer out the last few details, like does she want to go to the store right when she arrives or does she want to come in and chat for a bit first? I guess we’ll see…

Ok, I just fell asleep for 30 minutes at the table so I think I need to call it a night. Sorry for the short post!

Sty safe.