Tag Archives: life

general posts about my life

Surviving, but not pleasantly

So Today was my first full day back from the convention, but sadly it was not as care-free as I would have liked it to be. I injured myself at the convention and that injury has continued to plague me.

On Saturday morning my sweetie-wife and I were walking back from a spot of breakfast before the convnetion when disaster struck.

I sneezed.

Now you are probably expecting at this point something like I tripped while I sneeze and fell hard to the ground. Or that when I sneezed I lost track of where I was walking and walked into danger or some such exciting event.

Nope, I sneezed and noting more. When I sneezed a sharp pain stabbed me in my side. Very much like a cramp from running too far too fast and I thought I had triggered a cramp. The rest of the day it hurt to walk, to get up from sitting or to go down to a sitting position.

The next day, yesterday, I sneezed again and it was clear that I had strained a muscle or muscle-group in my left side. the pain continued throughout the day.

Today I went and saw Toy Story 3, a fine film and a worthy sequel, it was very funny. That turned out to be not the bets of things. It hurt to laugh. When I sneezed twice today, I really put pain into my left side.

There’s no doubt about it I have injured myself with the power of my own sneezes.

One the plus side I have a new idea for a short story; something fairly subversive in my opinion. It’ll be fun writing it when I am through with Cawdor,

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Been Sick

Sorry I have been away so long my friends but I have been ill.

Now, not all of my absence has been due to the illness. On Sunday , my sweetie-wife, Gun-And Rockets, and myself drove north to Pasadena visiting the Jet Propulsion Lab on their open house. It’s really a geek disneyland with kiosks about their missions, but past and future. It was fun, though my knees hated me by the end of the day.

Anyway I got home way too tired for a Sunday Night Movie.

Monday my throat began to hurt and I did not feel up to making any sort of postings here.

I struggled to work through nasty stomach cramps, but after just two hours I called it quits and returned home and to bed.

I can say I have truly broken in my CPAP machine. When I am sick I sleep. With a fever of 102 I slept a lot, and I used my CPAP machine throughout. Well I missed work the next day and that brigs us up to today.

I made it back to work, struggled through another tough day, then I skipped dinner as my stomach was in no mood for one. Instead I watched Dr Who with my sweetie-wife and finished a round of edits on Cawdor. (More than 60,000 words, 240 pages or past the 2/3rds mark.)

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Post Birthday

So yesterday was my Birthday. I celebrated by getting up early and going to see a sleep specialist. He informed me not only do I have sever sleep apnea but I have a jaw that is too small and is contributing to the sleeping problems.

However all was not lost. I did prescribed a CPAP machine and I was told I could pick it up right away. So I left the doctors office and drove to the company suppling the CPAP machine. That went well and from there I made a brief stop over at my work to bring home person items. (My day job is moving to a new location at the end of the month and bringing home your personal items is part of the process.)

I spent the rest of the afternoon with my sweetie-wife getting ready for Birthday celebrations for that evening. People showed up about six thirty and we had a very pleasant evening of chili, cake, conversations, and games.

I went to bed and slept my first night at home with the CPAP machine. It went pretty well, except once during the night I awoke to find I had taken off the mask. I slipped it back on and went back to sleep.

Today I am feeling more refreshed and more energized than I typically do so I think the machine is the right call for me.

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A Milestone – late

32 years late to be precise.

Most people in America get their driver’s license when they are sixteen. For all sorts of reasons far too numerous to go into here I did not.

I have never had a driver’s license . Many learner’s permits, but something always interceded and prevented me for completing the plans at time for getting my license.

Today I had my frist road driving test ever, at the age of 48.

My examiner was an older gentleman  who appeared utterly bored by the process. He quizzed me on the car and its equipment. (I failed to find the defroster right away but in San Diego they are harder commonly used pieces of equipment.)

Then we buckled up and hit the road in the Clairemont area of San Diego, This is an area where I used to live and know many of the streets.

The test was shorter than I expected. Frankly I spent more time waiting in a roasting car for my turn to be tested than in getting tested. I did not perform perfectly, but long story short, I passed.

Be terrified I am now a licensed driver.

My sweetie-wife reported that the DMV building seemed to be shaking while I was on the road. I guess me being licensed is truly unnatural.

Tomorrow night I do sleep study tests 2: The Sequel.

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Ignorance was bliss

It seems that the worst sleep I have been getting has followed the diagnosis that I have sleep apnea. I’d swear that knowing I have sleep apnea has made it worse. The last few weeks have been the worst for unrestful sleep. Everyday I have been waking up tired and had to struggle through the waking hours.

Last night I went to bed at 8:30, got nearly ten hours of ‘sleep’ and yet I am tired. I can’t wait for my treatments to start this is really taking a toll on my quality of life and quality of writing.

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How my writing is like a supercarrier

It’s all about momentum.

Before I can even start writing a big project like a novel I have to do research and build the back story. That’s like fueling the carrier, getting the crew, marines, and air wings aboard.

Once that is done I can set sail with my outline acting as crude navigation to steer me to my far away port, a finished novel.

If the novel goes well, I start gather real speed in the writing and it takes a life of it own. Pages start flying by and the words just flow from me to the page. It takes  awhile for this to occur. The first ten or twenty pages are usually me fumbling about trying to find the voice and the path I need to take.

Lately I’ve been churning out nearly 8 pages a day on Cawdor. This has been a really productive time and its made me quite happy.

Monday the crippling headaches brought all progress to a rapid halt. I got nothing done, yesterday the headaches and the exhaustion from a bad nights sleep reduced me to less than two pages of text completed. I was really depressed today when at my first break at my day job the headache had returned and robbed me of even more writing time. I managed just 30 minutes of writing during my hour lunch.

Luckily i seemed to have found the steam again and finished up with about five pages completed, but it’s been tough getting that momentum back up.

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Exhausted

For whatever reason I am utterly exhausted tonight. (Could be why I am going in for  a sleep study in a little over a week.)

Anyway I did watch a Sunday Night Movie and I will write it up tomorrow.

See you kiddies on the other side of the terminator.

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Been busy

Well, I have been away from my blog for a few days as I have been busy.

Yesterday I had a doctor’s appointment with my Ear, Nose, Throat man. Dr Brian Weeks. IF you live in the san Diego region, have health insurance, and need any sort of Ear, Nose, Throat medical help I would highly recommend this doctor. His great at his work and hhe’s also great at talking to you about his work.

I may be having sleep apnea issues so Dr Weeks and I are setting up a sleep study to look into that. I’ll be sure to let everyone know what that is like.

Then I had to mess around with my bank. They got swallowed by a larger bank as part of the whole fun financial fracas and this week I got my new debt card. Worked fine as a credit card, but my pin number failed at ATMs. So it was sitting in the lobby waiting for a ‘banker’ to fix that issue. Finding out it was not fixed and being told that it should be fixed today. Joy

Today I sit around waiting for Fedex as I am expecting a DVD from amazon today.

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Databasin’ fool

So I have spent a few hours this morning databasing my DVD/Blu-ray collection.  I have according to the database 222 movies in my collection, but this number is not completely accurate. The database software counts boxed sets as a single entry, so for example my boxed set of the Star Wars movies is one entry, but it has three movies.

Given that my feature film count is closed to 290 from boxed sets. (The el cheapo 50 ‘classic’ horror films bosted that count by 49 alone.)

The database software is Movie Collector and I love it. After the jump is a screen capture of what it looks like. The software cost me $30 so it is not pricey. You can enter films by title, barcode number (typing it in by hand) or by scanning the barcode on the box of the DVD/Blu-ray. I bought a cheap barcode scanner off Ebay ($8) and it took me just a couple of hours to enter all the films. Continue reading →

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No Sunday Night Movie post tonight

This is because it took me two nights to watch my Sunday Night Movie feature.  The film was 2 hours 37 minutes long and tomorrow I will tell you what I watched and how hard I laughed. (Not a good sign as it was not a comedy. Here’s a hint, I much preferred  When Worlds Collide.)

Today I got my new computer glasses with an Rx designed for use at a range of about 22 inches. It seriously reduced the eye strain I had at work and for most of the day and early evening I was feeling fairly good. The headaches returned to full force by the end of the evening because for everything else I am still using glasses that are out of date and my eyes are just too damn sensitive.

Talk you to tomorrow.

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