What's a Delmer Look Like?

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February 29, 2008

Back When I Had a Blog Part I

I'd get up, go to work, walk or ride the bike at lunch, work some more, come home and do something exercisey for an hour or so.  I'd eat a several times during the day, maybe twang the wire, and I'd blog a bit. Depending upon when the twanging of the wire occurred I might have a nap first or, at least, run a Wet Nap over my hands before touching the keyboard.

If it was a week I had my kids there may be some running them all over hell and back involved.

A week ago today I stumbled across the restraining order portion of my divorce decree and it put me in a sour mood. It didn't depress me; I try to make note of how I feel so I'm able to relay it to my counselor person when we have meetings and this wasn't being depressed (if anybody cares to know it's been over 8 weeks since I've been able to report a day of feeling depressed… normally I'd get blue the Saturday after my boys went to their mother's for the week. Listening to Ted Nugent is normally enough to improve my mood.).

Friday night something that further soured my mood occurred and I thought that, maybe, I'd stick my head in the sand and keep to myself. And, if I were in the mood to share all the details you'd be sitting there saying to yourself, "I can see how that makes sense. Perfect sense, in fact."  Male readers would say to themselves, "I've been there buddy/mate/infidel."  Gay male readers would think to themselves "Even if this wasn't how I was born and how God wants me to be, it often seems like it would be a wise choice to make, it if were, in fact, a choice."   Women readers would want to "do" me on the spot —  and that would be a shame as, on the heels of finding the restraining order I'm really not in the mood to be done and don't expect to be until next Friday, about five p.m., just after my kids have gone to visit their mother for a week (but then I'll be in the mood twice a day weekdays with a matinée thrown in on Saturday and Sunday (following an adequate breakfast)).

Anyway, on Friday I thought I'd feel better about everything on Saturday and on Saturday I thought I'd be in a better mood Sunday.

Sunday came and trashed me out again.  I was only having fun, wasn't hurting any one.

Wait a minute; I'm not even sure if that's the right lyric. Of if it's lyrics instead of lyric.

Sunday I was not in a better mood, which was a bit concerning as I'd worked my way through Cat Scratch Fever, Weekend Warriors, Double Live Gonzos, and Penetrator (that title of that album is normally enough to crack me up).  As I tried to sort out if I should buy Full Bluntal Nugity, Craveman or Love Grenade, my mind started to wander. Sure My Baby Likes My Butter On Her Gritz would probably be enough to cheer me up but, really, I had things to do. So I thought I'd shut the blog down and reduce, generally speaking, the amount of time I spend on the Internets.

Tomorrow I'll tell you what I did with all my extra time.

 

 

Posted by delmer at 3:54 PM | Comments (3)

February 28, 2008

A New Sex Dream

This you had to hear about.

Last night I had a sex dream and I was with a woman I know.  There was no kissing, though there had been just the briefest period of pre-climbing-on cuddling. In the dream, following penetration I looked down at the fun centers — I always do, at least briefly, as I just think the whole thing is amazing (every time — and I've never almost fallen off when I looked).

At some point I started losing the erection.  Not so much that it was going to stop things, but enough that I noticed. At some point just after that I had the thought, in my dream, that giving oral sex would be fun.

After that thought, but before going there, the dream ended, or I woke up, before reaching the exciting climactic end. 

I don't remember reaching down and checking the tools after the dream. I normally do following a dream like this (it's just habit … if I wake up in the night I give everything a scratch) and things are normally in a state of readiness. But this time I don't remember checking.

And the female person? My ex wife.

There is sooo much wrong analysis that can be done here, so stop it now. 

I fall into the line of people who think dreams are just dreams most of the time.  I've had very detailed dreams come true before, and there's something mystical about that. And things that are going on in our daily lives influence our dreams. But I don't think each and every dream we have has super-special meanings.  This dream, I think, falls into the category of recent goings-on influencing our dreams.

As for analysis:

• In the past I've commented that I don't have sex dreams with women I know because I have too much respect for them.
• I stumbled across the restraining order in my divorce decree packet on Friday and have been in a pissy mood since (Just typing about it now is irritating me — I was fine and happy during the earlier story about Assholes at Kroger. I'm going to have to set my filing cabinet on fire; who knows what I might accidentally read if I try to remove the decree and burn only it.) 

Well, I guess that's all you need.

Oh, as for the erection thing, I've recently updated the tale of my hormones and that tale does involve some battlefield-conditions penis-hardness worry.

And, as for the not dreaming about women I know out of respect for them, I say that just to make fun of me and the ineptitude that I bring to the bedroom. Which is how I say it when I make the joke. If I actually meant it, then the whole thing would be sort of twisted, wouldn't it?  

(And really, I'm a lot of fun in the bedroom.  Had I written "Behind Closed Doors," it would have been a lively little ditty with a rock-n-roll reggae feel, not that slow-moving thing Charlie Rich sang.

Posted by delmer at 8:26 AM | Comments (3)

February 27, 2008

Duck

This is supposed to the second of two photos. In the first photo you see a red Fiero with my sister and her boyfriend getting ready to go to the Prom. Mostly what you see is my sister's dress and her boyfriend's tux as most of her head and all of his is lopped off.

My mother, as you may recall, used to have the bad habit off cutting of heads when she took photos. Perhaps you remember the time I told you about the moving pictures we have featuring Adams-apple-and-down shots of me and my brother on the first day of elementary school.

And so, when it came to mom taking this picture, sometime in the early-to-mid 80's, my brother and I both said, "duck" and did so.

 

As you can see, mom left plenty of headroom.

(And her inability to take photos 25 years ago does nothing to tarnish her reputation as a trophy parent.)

Posted by delmer at 11:44 AM | Comments (1)

February 26, 2008

This is not Blogging

But I had to tell you something that just happened.  Actually it happened about 12 hours before I wrote this and for a minute I had the thought that it was a shame I'd quit blogging as I wanted to tell someone about it. Not because it's fascinating but in all fairness I never let fascination or lack of fascination, as it applies to my stories, keep me from telling one.  I'm not the Human League.

Last night I discovered I was out of garbage bags (tall kitchen bags, to be precise — the 13-gallon kind, though there's no way in hell you'd ever get 13 gallons of garbage in one. Maybe if you were throwing out pot after pot of soup or baked beans) and decided I'd stroll to Kroger to buy some more.  I could have strolled to Walgreens, as is it so much closer, but the trip to Kroger went better with my plan to walk 4 miles.

With my iPod in my ears I took off.  I think it's about 1.6 miles to Kroger… in any case I was there in short order.

The number of people in the store suggested there was some sort bad-weather thing moving in and I had a vague recollection that we might be getting ice and snow.  Anyway the checkout lanes were full;  as I moved past the magazine aisle I'd heard a code-red alert for more cashiers go out over the intercom.  I wasn't horribly concerned about this as I planned on using the self-checkout.

I grabbed my Hefty bags, gave them a baseball-player style adjustment, and headed toward the trash-bag aisle where I picked up a 30-pack of the Kroger generic Tall Kitchen Bags (I didn't want to carry a big box home). As I moved back to the front of the store I grabbed a rotisserie chicken then moved to self-checkout.

There are four self-checkout lines; each one was in use and there were at least four people waiting. 

As you know, self-checkout is designed for people with just a few items, I think our sign says 15 or Less which I think is too many items to trust a person to self-checkout with. I also think the sign should say 15 or Fewer (but that's just the guy who knows something about grammar and countable nouns speaking).

As you know, many Americans are self-important assholes who think that whatever it is going on in their lives excludes them from the laws of common courtesy and societal rules even when those rules are printed out on a sign hanging above their heads.

Wait, maybe I'm wrong here. Maybe these weren't self-important assholes, but rebels flaunting their rebelness. In retrospect maybe I should be happy the sign didn't say: No Masturbating.  ("Clean-up in self-checkout.")

In any case you didn't have to be Rain Man to see that the two people, a man and a women which serves to demonstrate that self-important assholiness transcends gender, using the rear-most self-checkout posts had more than 15 items in their carts. I counted them anyway, stopping at 15 but making a mental note that they had more than 16, 17 or 18;  I'm not a Nazi about this, I'd cut them some couple-items-over slack.

What is even better is that the guy seemed to have never used self-checkout before. Anything the pulled from his cart he gave the once-over like he wondered what he was supposed to do with it. (Actually, now that I think about it, he may have had the wrong cart in line with him as each and everything he pulled out of it he looked at with a what-the-fuck-is-this expression.)

[Yes, I've ended a sentence with a preposition in the above paragraph. That's not a grammar error — but a style choice. 15 Items or Less is a much more severe grammar f'oh pa.]

I sort of make fun up there, but, honest-to-God, the guy had no idea what he was doing.

He was outdone only by the woman who seemed to have brought a bunch of stuff with her from another store as none of it was scanning.  In all fairness, I can understand how this can happen as, just the other day, I emailed a PO off to a vendor who called me to ask for some clarification on some item numbers I'd sent. I rechecked at their website, read them to her over the phone, and only when she started a sentence with "Are you sure…" did I realize I was at a competitor's website.  We were able to sort it out in seconds and the people in line behind me were none the wiser.

Such was not the case with the woman.

I have not been at the top of my game with respect to mood lately and this just irritated the hell out of me.  We had two people who could not be bothered to get in a regular line because it would take too long for them to get their 20-plus items checked out holding up the folks behind them. Of the four of us waiting, only one had a cart (containing 9 items) and the remaining three didn't even have baskets; we each had one or two things.

So, I put my chicken and my bags back (where they both belonged — I'm not one to make work for others by being too self-important to carry things bag to where they go) and walked down to Walgreens, where I purchased the 100-pack of Walgreens Tall Kitchen bag.

One-hundred bags people!  That's 1,300 gallons of garbage I'll be able to throw away. You know, so long as it's baked beans or soup or something.

Posted by delmer at 7:10 AM | Comments (2)

February 25, 2008

Rewards

Not long ago I had the opportunity to provide telephone and e-mail support to four separate women on two different continents with four separate wireless networking problems. 

In the end I'd made four women happy. I suspect some of this happiness came about as none of the women actually had to have me in their homes and having me around sometimes has a negative effect on the level of happiness a woman feels toward me.

Ah well. At least in none of the above cases were attorneys or large sums of money exchanged.

Two of the women I've never met in person and know only on-line. One of them lives in Canada and is 29.

Before we continue with that story, let me tell you another. This one involves Canada as well. Oh, and an on-line forum. I was in Usenet and ran across a thread in which someone was talking about a book called The Testosterone Advantage Plan. He was thinking of buying a copy and I offered to send him mine as it was going to do me no good since my low testosterone was caused by bad hormones.  I had the guy send me his address and I shipped him the book for free — I even paid postage, which was a little more than usual due to the Canadian-boundness of the package.

So, my female Canadian friend had a wireless problem and it looked like her notebook might have lacked a wireless card. I several of these at work that we'll never use and I thought I'd send her one. 

One of the rules I live by is that I don't ask women I don't know for their addresses. Another rule I live by is that I don't hit on women 15 years or more younger than I am. Well, women in general, but 15 or more years younger would be even more uncomfortable.

As luck would have it I was getting ready to ship presents to the children of another Canadian gal. Even luckier was the fact she knew the first woman (which is not as uncommon as it sounds … Canada is sort of thin when it comes to population).  I figured I could send the gal I knew the card, she could get the address of the second gal and send the card off to her.  I'd be able to keep a wireless network card out of the landfill and someone who needed one wouldn't have to shell out fifty bucks for one.

I ran the plan by woman I was sending the package to. She suggested that if I were trying to seduce the other women that I could leave her out of it.

This led to some discussion in which I pointed out how I was just trying to be a nice guy, how I thought it might be sort of creepy for me to ask for the address and how it might make her feel unsafe, and how I didn't expect to sleep with everybody I tried to do something nice for (please refer to The Testosterone Advantage Plan story above).

Conversation eventually turned to other things. One of those things reminded me of something I'd done several weeks prior and allowed me to say, "That was the Saturday night I was helping so-and-so strip wallpaper… because I'm a nice guy and not because I'm trying to sleep with her."

In the end I didn't need to send a wireless card to Canada. Some additional research uncovered a situation with the notebook that was resolvable my e-mail.

And the reward: I felt like a helper.

Posted by delmer at 11:59 AM | Comments (1)

February 24, 2008

In Closing and My Hormones

Regardless of anything else, I'll continue to post my hormone stuff as new things happen. I'll be getting blood taken in about two months (and three months after that, I think) if anybody wants to mark their calendars. I'm guessing I'll eventually get another MRI.

Today was a big day of posting as I wrote a bunch of stuff last night that I thought I'd dole out over the next couple of weeks leading up to WADLL's three year anniversary.  Following an incredible breakfast I thought I'd post them all today and call it quits even though it'll bring me in at under three years. 

Anyway, I didn't want to go without saying something about my hormone postings.

I'll eventually copy the pertinent hormone-related stuff to:

http://mypituitarytumor.blogspot.com

Regardless of anything else I always update Alt.Support.Impotence in Usenet.  The members there gave me my life back and I like to contribute to the community. You can find all of my postings by Googling groups:

http://groups.google.com/groups/search?hl=en&q=d+hamilton+group%3Aalt.support.impotence&qt_s=Search

 Sort by date to get my most current contributions (as they are).  I always put "Blood Work" in posts about my hormone tests.

Posted by delmer at 2:40 PM | Comments (7)

Big Head

Here I am with a broken hand. Sometime around February 1986; I know because the hand was broken the night before the Challenger blew up. So, I'm 25.

 

I could weigh something close to 205 here. It seems that the broken hand time was about the same time I weighed the least I've ever weighed as an adult. It seems that I've got a photo of myself with a really big looking head — like Mick Jagger in the "Going to a Go-Go" video.  In that photo I weigh 204; my head doesn't look all that big here, so I may be closer to 210.

 

Posted by delmer at 12:01 PM | Comments (0)

I've no idea

Why I'm sitting on the floor, what I'm eating, or what's keeping my balls from falling out of those shorts.

I'm likely between 23 and 25 here. I remember the shirt.

 

 

 

Posted by delmer at 11:56 AM | Comments (3)

Chatting Up

Once in a while, over the course of my life, a gay gentleman has hit on me. It's not always the same gay gentleman. Well, it's never been the same one twice — each time it's happened it's been a different guy. It's not like I've had the same man following me around for 25 years thinking to himself, "Today's the day." (Though, who knows, with dedication like that maybe I could be swayed.)

Sometimes the hitting on me is so subtle that I'm not even sure that's what it is. This past summer I ran a 5K and there were two things that happened during the race and one after, with the same guy, that left me wondering.

Other times it's pretty obvious as was something that happened a few weeks ago.

One of the several interesting things about all of this is that I can normally sort out when a guy is hitting on me. During the 5K had the same three things happened and a woman been involved I certainly would not have thought she was interested in taking me home.  Not long ago I had an interaction with a woman that was witnessed by a second woman who would later tell me, "You know she was hitting on you, right?"  And I still don't think she was. (Of course, I once had a woman tell me "You really need to be able to figure out when a woman is throwing herself at you," and I wasn't sure exactly what she meant until several minutes after we were naked.)

It used to be that when a gay guy hit on me I'd tell my buddies as I knew it would freak them out. I never understood why. I mean, these were the same guys who would periodically take a chance and chat up a girl using the you never know until you try theory. I think the same thing should apply to gay guys; they never know until they try.

Why get pissed about it?

Another reason the freaking out is unwarranted is that women will go home with anything. Guys… take a look at yourself. If you've had sex with a woman my point has been made.

Gay men, on the other hand, are a little more discerning and, generally speaking, have better taste.  If a gay guy's hitting on you, really, you should be flattered more than upset. Especially when you consider the chance they're taking; if a gay guy approaches the wrong straight male (i.e., homophobes: men denying their own homosexual urges) he might try to lay a thumping on the gay guy (as a way of expressing rage over their own, suppressed, homosexual thoughts).
 

[Rats. This is one of those things that has sounded like it's had potential the two or three times I've written it in my head and now I'm not sure it's gone anywhere.  Well, you know how I am. It stays.]

 

 

Posted by delmer at 11:54 AM | Comments (1)

Another photo c. 1985

I'm about 24 in this photo. Maybe 25.

 

I'd be about 210 pounds, probably. What's funny is that I'm sort of thin there and never felt thin.

In the photo of a couple of days ago I'm sort of fat, but I never felt that fat.

It would seem I've always felt just a little bit overweight regardless of my size.

That's my buddy, Jeff, with me.

 

 

 

 

 

Posted by delmer at 11:50 AM | Comments (1)

Marches

I go to McDonald's several days a week for breakfast and it isn't uncommon for me to run into a retired doctor while I'm there.

Not long ago he was telling me a story about his time in the service. He was giving physicals to the men and one rather large guy came through. The doc told him that even if he passed him on the physical he was going to get flagged for his weight, which was over 250 pounds.

The guy told the doc, "Well, I used to weigh under 100 pounds."

"When was that," asked the doctor.

"When I was in Bataan." And the he went on to say that sick guys died first, then the thin ones. The only ones who made it were the ones who started out heavy.

Posted by delmer at 11:49 AM | Comments (0)

More On Accents

Not long ago I was talking, on the phone, with a real, live British person. Samson, my youngest, walked by and I asked if he'd like to say hello on the phone.

He paused, got a sheepish look on his face and hesitantly said, "I can never understand her."

Not long after that I was listening to a Wait Wait Don't Tell Me podcast. They had a Brit on the phone explaining the differences between Soccer and Football and while the whole thing was pretty funny the part I recall with the most clarity was when the phone call ended and P.J. O'Rourke said, "You know they don't talk like that at home." 

[As it happens, the main difference between Soccer and Football is that Soccer is boring and Football isn't. The difference between American Football and Australian Rules Football is white tuxedos and flags (and didn't their officials wear pimp hats in the early 80s)].

A couple nights later I was watching Graham Norton on BBC America. Ashley Jensen, the Scottish gal from Ugly Betty, was one of the guests. Ms. Jensen has a delightful accent (as does Graham) but at some point felt the need to say something about fanny packs in an American accent. This, of course, led to mentioning that an American fanny is a butt while a fanny in the UK is a hoo hoo (and therefore, I suppose, a 'pack' unto itself).

Anyway, when Ashley did her American accent it didn't sound too bad.  It sounded very clean and more inflection-free than any Americans I know, but this seems to be pretty common when non-Americans do us (The first time I noticed this was when Emma Thompson was on Ellen and claimed she wasn't really British, but that she was from Dayton, Ohio. She said this in an American accent, though it certainly wasn't a Dayton, Ohio accent.  Despite this, Emma is still really cute.)

But it also sounded very, uh, easy is the word I want.  I think, what I mean, is that it didn't sound like it was too much work for Ashly to sound like an American. She was very easy to understand, and she wasn't breaking a sweat trying to sound that way.

And then I thought of my trip to England and all the people I talked with over there and how nobody ever said, "What was that again?" and how, once in a while I'd have to ask someone to repeat themselves as I'd get lost in the accent.

Much like Samson does.

The point is, the American accent seems to be easier to understand than a lot of your other accents. And it seems easy enough to make. I know that whenever I try to do an Irish, Scottish, British, or Australian accent I'll get an odd look; and not only when I'm getting my prostate checked.

I was thinking that if we'd all speak using an American accent, I suggest something from the Midwest, we'd all be easier to understand. And folks in the UK and Australia would only have to do it for a single generation before it was the standard UK/Aussie accent.

This reminds me of the time I was at a cookout at a coworker's home. A little girl appeared and talked with another little girl who was there. I asked who the first child was and was told she was Phil's daugter; Phil was a Brit.  When I asked why she didn't sound British I was told she was using her "American accent," which is what she'd use when she was at school or around Yanks.

The point, or what passes for a point here, is that even the children can do it.

Why make the change? To streamline communication. Just think how much more would get done without all the "What was that, again" being said due accent-related things.

It would make the world an easier-to-understand, if less interesting, place.

Posted by delmer at 11:14 AM | Comments (0)

Restraint

I pulled the divorce decree out Friday as I needed to sort out who I declared on my taxes this year. As I rifled through the stack of stapled-together papers I found a copy of the restraining order against me.

Did I know about this? I wondered. I didn't remember it. And I was offended by it.

I read through the item and found that it said I wasn't permitted to do things I'd never think of doing.

Now, I understand that there are plenty of to-be-divorced men and women out there who would have no trouble thinking up plenty of rotten crap to do, but are they the kind of people that a piece of paper is likely to get in the way of?

Has it ever happened that a soon-to-be-divorced woman has had the thought, "We'll, I'd really like to sell the house for $10.00, but the restraining order says I'm not allowed to screw with our assets."

Someone has suggested that restraining orders are just part of the divorcing-your-husband process.

I don't know.

I don't care.

This is why I don't get the decree out more often; I normally rely on the interpretation provided by another person familiar with it.  

It used to just make me sad.

Now it has the potential to piss me off.

 

Posted by delmer at 7:40 AM | Comments (5)

February 23, 2008

More Scanned Photos

This photo was taken April 6, 1996, per the time stamp.   Jack is just under a year old and Haydn is two and a half. I'm very close to 36.

 

I've said a lot, in the past, about not being much of a smiler. My boys are always able to bring one out of me.

Posted by delmer at 12:34 PM | Comments (4)

February 22, 2008

His name is Jack, he might attack ...

Once upon a time, Jack was very small and I had a beard that stayed brown all by itself. 

I get a little teary when I look at this photo (and some others like it); I thought I'd share it with you.

 

 

Posted by delmer at 8:56 PM | Comments (2)

February 21, 2008

BOOM

Last night I dreamed I was with a petite blond girl. I didn't know her so, naturally, we were wrestling just a little bit. I woke up before either of us pinned the other, but this time there was no "Hey, this is a dream" thought; I think I was doing some reaching and the motion woke me up.

Anyway.

Back when I was a senior in high school (1978) two of my friends — good kids with good grades and, therefore, trusted — were in the chemistry lab when it was otherwise empty. This room had a back door that went into a small office area between it and another lab; there was a class in the other lab.

My friends went into the small office and used the faucet there to fill a beaker with water. They then took a chunk of potassium and dropped it into the beaker to watch the reaction. And it burst into flames, which was what they expected.  The didn't, however, expect the flames to be as high as they were… it seems they used a bigger chunk of potassium than they needed.

Worried, one of them placed the beaker in the sink and leaned toward it to blow out the fire. When the fire didn't go out he raised up, looked back at the other, and said, "It won't go out," at which point the beaker exploded and bits of it (probably due to being in the high-walled sink) blew into the ceiling tile above.

Alarmed by the, "What was that" noise the teacher in the other classroom made, the boys made a dash for the door and got stuck in the frame 3 Stooges-like. An instant later they were out the door, out the classroom door and into the hall. Later that day one of the guys would send the other, as they sat in an advanced-math class, a note that said:

K + H2O = BOOM

At least that's how I remember the story. And that's how I'd tell it over the years.

At some point someone asked me if I didn't mean sodium, instead of potassium. And I didn't mean sodium… that would have been Na+H20=BOOM, and didn't go with the memory at all.  The person suggested that sodium reacted with water as I'd described but that maybe potassium didn't.

And I started to wonder. Even though I was sure it was potassium.

I had some additional wonderment when I recently read a Billy Bryson book in which he mentioned how sodium reacted violently with water while sodium chloride (salt) did not.

And I wondered more last night when the Mythbusters decided to test some MacGyver myths. One of the myths involved MacGyver blowing a hole in a wall using sodium, water and a  closed container. Rats, I thought, I've been wrong all these years..  When the Na+H2O didn't produce the BOOM needed, Adam said something like, "So we decided to move to potassium which will give an even more vigorous reaction." (He didn't say "vigorous." The word he used was more explosive sounding.")

Potassium did, in fact, provide better results though not the type the guys wanted. So they then moved on to C4 which provided a BOOM that was juuuust right.

The point is, this is another memory that has been cleared up without me having to put too much work into it.

Posted by delmer at 9:32 PM | Comments (2)

February 20, 2008

My February 19

Let's take a look at my yesterday. We'll start at 4 p.m., which is when a meeting between my department and our Administrative Department was supposed to start.  The problem with the 4 o'clock start time is that the Engineering Department had the 3 o'clock slot and you know how engineers are; they drone on and on and on.

Well, maybe not.

Anyway,  4 o'clock came, went, and eventually turned into 4:15.  I had to pick a child up at 4:30 and while some of you might wonder about the sensibilities involved in leaving a meeting with the bosses thirty minutes into it, let me assure you it would have been OK.  As I hoped missing it entirely would be, as that's the route I took. (I hoped the meeting would end up canceled.)

I had the child picked up by 4:30 and had pork chops in the oven at 4:50.  

At 5 p.m. I had an Olympic bar on my back and was doing squats. The boys, all three of them, were in the house doing homework.

Dinner was served at 5:50.  Dishes were in the dishwasher at 6:15.

At 6:30 I had Haydn back at the school for a play audition.

The younger two boys and I shot back to work where they continued homework while I rebooted the phone system (it has to be done after hours) and did some quick work on a PC (that also had to be done after hours).

While at work I ran into the CEO who asked me about the meeting I missed. He was never peeved about it and, as a father, understood my absence.  And he saw me at work after hours, which is always good.

I had Haydn back in the van by 7:30 and we were at Staples minutes later.  We had to buy some transfer paper so we could make iron-ons for a shirt he needed for school the next day. (I picked up 50 DVD-Rs for $5.00, after Instant Savings)

Between 8 p.m. and 1:45 a.m Haydn made the iron-ons which we ironed onto a clean, white T-shirt. There were four iron-ons in all and it takes more time to do than you would think. 

He also put the finishing touches on a Puerto Rico project; this involved making a short video that he needed to burn to CD. Without going into all the details let me just say that the short-in-length video was 2.1 gigs in size.  I sent Haydn to bed at 1:45 and told him I'd take care of the CD (now DVD) burning and started a file transfer to my notebook. Then I went to bed.

This morning I got up just before 7 a.m. and copied the file to DVD. The audio kept dropping out so I listened to the original. It sounded fine.  I made another copy which also sounded like crap. I opened some software I owned and converted the file from and .avi to .mpg.  It reduced to 25 megs, copied to a CD nicely, and sounded fine.

I got the boys out of bed at 7:45 (a full 45 minutes later than usual) and they repaid my letting them sleep late by  getting ready and out the door in record time.  Haydn and I tested the CD on the way to school.

All was good.

It is certainly easy to wonder how a child's projects took until 1:45 a.m. to complete. Haydn started being apologetic for the lateness right around 11 p.m.  Looking back, well not even looking back, at the time I could see several ways the projects could have been completed faster (too much time on transfer design was one big time suck), but Haydn was having a good time with everything and I admired the attention he was paying to detail.  And this has never happened before.

[My favorite quote from last night: "What?! Two point one gigs? How?"  Which was an indication to me that Haydn learned the sad truth that just because a video is short in length, it isn't small in size.]

Posted by delmer at 7:22 PM | Comments (2)

February 19, 2008

Increased Global Smartness

There are 20 million people in Australia and about 33 million people in Canada; these are statistics I pulled from Google. 

There are about a dozen people in Holland according to a friend of mine who has been there, and while Wikipedia suggests there may be as many as 16 million Dutch I'm not sure the author of that article has ever been to Holland. I know my friend has.

If you're curious, Holland, Texas has just over 1,100 people living in it.

What's the point?

Well, the other day I took a poll in which I asked people in our cafeteria what they thought the capitals of Australia, Canada and Holland were. The answers I most often received were: Sidney, Montreal and Holland? You mean Denmark? 

One hundred percent of the people I polled got each capital wrong. And these are some smart people. People that can design and build things. Incredibly good-looking people.

None of them were Geography majors, however.

What's the point?  Let's see, in Australia, Canada and Holland you've got about 53,000,012 people. In the United States there are 300,000,000 people (about); almost six times as many as those other places combined. Add it all up and you've got 353,000,012 people, the vast … VAST … majority of whom are going to think the capitals of Australia, Canada and Holland are Sidney, Montreal and, well does it matter — there's only about a dozen Danes, great or not.

And I will bet you this capital confusion extends to other countries as well.  I suppose a fair amount of Aussies think the capital of Canada is Montreal and that a fair amount of Canadians think the capital of Australia is Sidney.  While the Dutch probably don't give a shit about either they think legalizing just about everything is a good idea (and I'm right fine by that).

Where am I going with this?

A lot has been made about just how stupid people are. Americans mostly. Face it, we, as a world, aren't likely to get any smarter than we are now. And while this is a bit sad there is something we can do to create the illusion of increased global smartness. Rather than ask people to actually sort out the capitals of all the countries, we should ask that the countries change their capitals to what people already think they are.

I realize this might require that some new letterhead be purchased but, in the grand scheme of things, it's a small favor to ask. 

Montreal would become the capital of Canada.  Sidney the capital of Australia. Holland and Denmark would undergo sort of a spiritual merging becoming a rather pleasant and free-thinking place to visit somewhere not too far from England; the details of where it is actually located would be left for travel agents to work out should someone want to visit.

Since were on the subject, we really need to do something about the capital of Iceland. While I'm guessing it is pronounce Ray-kuh-javic, that isn't exactly what Reykjavik screams to the American eyeball. The letter combination "YKJ" appears nowhere in the Bible which I suspect is more by (grand) design than happenstance. "Reykjavik" either needs to be softened up or renamed altogether. "Jerusalem" might be a good choice especially when you think of all the accidental tourist dollars Iceland would see. And think of the conversation you'd hear on the streets: "Jesus wore open toed sandals in this?" 

Before this turns ugly and someone feels compelled to say that Americans should just hit the books a little harder, I'd like to point out that here in the US we've got 50 states all of which have capitals and all of which we send disaster relief to when something bad happens and there and a Democrat is sitting in the White House.  States are further divided into counties, and in rare instances parishes, each with a seat of government. Furthermore, some states are actually commonwealths.

As Americans we have plenty to forget about our own country without having to try to remember that Iceland isn't the frozen glob its name suggests.

By the way, Ohio has 88 counties. Auglaize, Warren, Hamilton, Franklin, Madison, Belmont, Licking, Harding, Reykjavic, Scioto, Butler — really, more than you'd care to read and more than I care to type.

Posted by delmer at 1:17 PM | Comments (3)

February 18, 2008

Hide in Plain Sight

I work for, quite possibly, the best company in America; and I don't say that just because some of my coworkers read the blog (in their spare time, away from work and only after satisfying their significant others in the way a significant other yearns to be satisfied.).

[Before I go any further I'd like to point out that my coworkers are one of the reasons the place I work is the best place in America to work (and the good feeling is so strong it actually bleeds into Canada and Mexico just a bit); surprisingly, as good, kind, friendly, and superiorly smart as they are, they bring me very few homemade oatmeal and raisin cookies.]

Anyway, the company I work is located in an area that is surrounded other similarly-sized businesses. I'm not sure what the other businesses do, but if they're like us it's probably some sort of light manufacturing. The point is, we're not in a residential area and there's very little around us. I'm guessing that after 5 p.m., with the exception of the stragglers, most of the street is empty of people.  Traffic, after close of business is very light; I often ride my bike by work in the evening and rarely see anything moving.

The other day we received a code violation. One of the city's code enforcement people drove by and noticed our sign had a spotlight on it that was still lit.  Our sign is a very nice-looking brick the metal thing that is at ground level; the spotlight is in the ground as well and aimed at the sign.  In all my years of coming to work I've never approached the building and had the spotlight bleed around the sign and into my eyes as I was driving. I would have noticed and said something.

Anyway, per city code, signs may not be lighted before 7 a.m. and the light has to be off within 30 minutes of the close of business. What this says is that on most days we can have our sign lighted when the sun is up.  There will be that little bit of time, right around mid-December when it gets dark early, that the light will be helpful, but mostly we'd just be wasting electricity.

Of course, it's easy to argue that having our sign lit at all is a waste of electricity. Aside from looking nice at night, I don't imagine it really serves much of a purpose.

But that is not the point.  The point is that the city has a person driving around, before 7 a.m., taking pictures of lighted signs in industrial-park areas. 

And this person has consistently missed the guys building the mulit-unit apartment/office thing across the street from me.  They wake me up most mornings at 7 a.m. backing something up (that makes a beeping), or pounding on something, or talking about the blow jobs they got last night (I made that last one up, but this was getting sort of ranty).  They're not supposed to start, per the city, until 7:30 a.m.

I honestly don't care, much (Saturdays trouble me), about the construction, or the fact they start early as I'm normally up at 7 anyway.

But. But what?  It just seems odd that our sign gets dinged and it is so incredibly unobtrusive. I know the thought is that the light may distract drivers or interfere with traffic lights (it was spelled out in our notice).  And I accept the fact that the rules can't be selectively enforced — if you don't cite us how can you feel good about citing someone who's sign is actually in a position to create a hazard. Of course, if we bring "selective enforcement" into the equation you have to wonder about the building that's going on across the street from me.

[In all honesty, I don't care about the light on our sign. I've already said I don't care (much) about the construction (I wish they'd hurry the hell up). And I love the little city I live in. It's just that when we got the code violation I was filled with such a "You've got to be shitting me" that I had to blog about it.]

 

This is where I work. (Surrounded my nothing and light industrial.)

 

This is where I live. (You'll notice "Main" right before street.)

 

 

This is your brain on drugs… any questions?

Posted by delmer at 8:31 AM | Comments (5)

February 17, 2008

My Wart Cure

For about the past 15 years I've had a wart on my left index finger. It started at the back of the nail and worked its way up around the right side of it toward the front of the finger, almost to the end.

In that time I've had it frozen at least twice by dermatologists. It would go away and come right back; it was never fully killed.  Each freezing hurt like hell.

I'd tried duct tape, caster oil, jalepeno juice (just to create a hostile environment for the wart virus), and praying for a healing. In all fairness to the duct tape I don't think the layout of the wart was conducive to it working well. In all fairness to the oils and juices, I don't think I tried any of them long enough to work if they were ever going to work. In all fairness to the praying, I'd like to think God has bigger things to take care of (if it came to my wart or feeding a hungry person one night, I'm hoping he went for feeding the hungry).

The thing that seemed to work best was using some sort of blister-wrap Band Aids. They were sort of flesh colored (assuming you're a Caucasian person) and very elastic jobs without that breathable part in the center.  I'd wrap one of these around the finger and it would drive the wart into submission; this was normally accompanied by some pain in the finger that, I think, was the wart dying; it could have been that the Band Aid was too tight, but the pain normally came hours after I'd put it on (normally waking me up at night).

I'd change the Band Aid every couple of days. Normally the change of the first Band Aid would reveal that the wart seemed to have died. That is, the wart area was a darker color and might even be peeling off.

Over time I'd learn that the dead-looking wart area was no indication that the wart was gone for good. If I didn't put another Band Aid on I'd appear to be wart free for couple of days but it would always reappear. Slapping a Band Aid on at that point would take me through the hurting-finger stage again, so I got used to wearing a Band Aid most of the time.

A year or so ago I decided to treat it with Compound W. It held the wart at bay, sort of.  It never got as big as it had previously, but the Band Aid did a better job of keeping it smallest. Compound W also left me with a white finger.

It seemed my choice was bandaged finger or white finger.

At some point I bought a Dr. Scholl's Freeze-Your-Own-Wart kit. I'd seen the commercials and was a bit suspicious as they end with the cute little blond girl, who'd had a wart treated, looking up and saying "Thanks mom."  It was all I could do to not get all Kanye West on her ass and scream, "You lying little bitch" at the television. Getting a wart frozen hurts a lot.

The Dr. Scholl's kit comes with some warnings that I'm sure a person should follow. And follow them I did. When I treated the wart it didn't hurt. Of course it didn't turn that gray-like color like it does at the dermatologist's either.  So, I decided to ignore the warnings and abuse the product, using it in a manner more similar to that I'd experienced in the office of a licensed professional.

And I still couldn't get it to hurt the wart. I wouldn't say the wart came back as that would imply it had gone away at some point and it didn't. It held fast. Had it been a sentient being, it would have looked up and said, "Thanks Dr. Scholl."

 Back in June I tried liquid Compound W again. I'm not sure what else was going on at that time but the bit of the wart at the back of the nail hurt like nothing else shortly after I treated it. It actually felt like something was going on.  That may have been when that part of the wart died; I'm not sure as I did a pretty good job of keeping it covered in the months after that treatment. That was the last time I saw that bit of wart though.

While at Disney I had a Band Aid on the wart. I removed the Band Aid when we returned to Columbus and let the finger air out a few days.  I could eventually see the wart starting to rear its ugly head along the side of the nail.

I decided to buy a Compound W Freeze-Your-Own-Wart kit. I read the instructions and decided I'd modify them a bit. I totally disregarded the "wait five seconds" warning before applying the applicator to the wart. I'd also, eventually, hold the applicator to the wart a bit longer than recommended.

The Compound W kit was able to turn the wart a gray color and make my finger hurt like hell.  I had a feeling it was working.

Three days later, when I had a sense the wart was coming back, I hit it again.

Three days after that I gave it another blast.

Three days after that it looked like the wart might be returning … but it also looked different. On the chance the finger was just throwing some healing at me I decided to take a wait-and-see stance.

And the wart is gone and has been for a couple of weeks.  Should I sprain the right index finger, I'll still be able to do some nostril cleaning; for the first time in about 15 years.  

 

Posted by delmer at 10:55 PM | Comments (5)

February 16, 2008

The Motion Sickness Epiphany

Just a few minutes ago I was at Mama Lia's Pizza talking with the owner about the trip to Disney and the Cruise.  Conversation eventually turned to motion sickness which then led to charters he'd been on on Lake Erie, a charter I'd been on in the Atlantic Ocean (no motion sickness, by the way) and a charter a buddy had been on (spectacular seasickness all the way around).

I eventually said that the motion sickness I'd had on some of the rides at Disney and on the Cruise had lasted all day, though it wasn't ever severe. "Not as bad..." I started and then had trouble figuring out when I'd been horribly motion sick.  I knew I'd had some sort of motion sickness and that when it had hit it had lasted all day and that only sleep seemed to cure it . And it had happened more than once.

And then it hit me. And sort of cleared something up.

This hasn't happened in years, but for a period of time, it seemed that if I ever got really excited, or maybe exerted myself, I might have what I thought was a severe dizzy spell.  It would, to me, look like the room was spinning 1/2 way around and then snapping back only to repeat. If I moved my head the motion felt exaggerated and when it was over I'd be sick the rest of the day.

The first time it happened someone, I think my sister, had gotten a new bike and I was being allowed to put it together; and I was really happy to be allowed to do it. Oh, I forgot to mention, I threw up during one or two of this episodes and for this first one I remember puking spaghetti out my nose. 

Not long after that, and this would have been when I was in 8th or 9th grade as I remember it happening at the Jr. High, I was carrying a projector from one classroom to another.  I don't know if it was the excitement of being out of class and doing a special task, or the amount of exertion involved in lugging the projector around (it was some sort of special, big, thing ... you remember what 60's -era AV equipment was like).  I had to sit in the hallway until the episode passed. I was nauseous the rest of the day.

It may have happened once at the gym, when I was in 10th grade.  I remember explaining the condition to one of the guys there and he commented that I should probably get the condition addressed as one day I'd likely have sex with a woman and that it might be rude to throw up on her. (Some of the women readers are thinking yea, men don't like being thrown up on either.)

You know, it would periodically happen with I was twanging the wire. Not enough that I'd ever considered giving it up (I had thousands invested in hand lotion), but I wonder, now, if the worry that it might happen could be the reason I have weak orgasms.  Now, maybe realizing this was some sort of concern floating around in my subconscious I'll be released from the worry and I'll start having tectonic-plate shifters. Man, if I didn't have hot pizza waiting for me I'd head to the can and knock one off right now (not for me, but for you).  Damn! my endurance; it would be ice cold before I got back to it.

I remember getting sick while bass fishing once. The white bass had started to hit (and when you came into a school of them the fishing was furious for a few minutes — I once caught 12 on 14 casts) and the excitement set the world to spinning.

When I was 25 I'd probably gone a while without having one. I must've told the girl I was dating about them, however, as one night while we were rubbing noses it happened. And I think this was the first time I had a person with me when one happened.  When I asked her what my eyes looked like she said they were twitching; this explained the room moving and then snapping back.  She also said, "You should have a doctor look at this. It looks a lot worse than you make it sound."

I think that was the last one and I've since come to think it was related to the amount of sugar in my diet. In the above story I'd been eating fairly well for a long while, but my girlfriend and I would sometimes stop for ice cream. At the time it made a lot of sense, looking back I weighed 215 and she was 98 pounds. It isn't like we were going through gallons of the stuff; still, it may have been more than I'd been used to.

Anyway, I mentioned my thought regarding sweets to a doctor, probably five years after the last episode (I'd gone to doctors before about it, but everything always came back looking good). All I remember him saying was something about an 'insulin dump' and probably exertion or excitement.

So why all this? Today?

As I was talking at the pizza shop I was trying to recall the times I'd had bad motion sickness that had left me horribly nauseous all day. And I thought back to the eye-twitching things and realized they had been leaving me motion sick.

It seems sort of anticlimactic now, but when it came to me in the pizza shop I was tickled as hell.

Posted by delmer at 8:15 PM | Comments (2)

February 15, 2008

The Dammit Thought

Yesterday I needed a computer to install Linux on for use with an upcoming project.  The computer isn't going to have a lot of demand put on so almost anything not to terribly old will work.

I found a PC in Engineering that had been set aside just to keep the data it contained handy in case it was ever needed (even though it had been written do tape and DVD as well … you can never have too many copies of your data).  I decided to take the box, make another copy of the data (just in case), remove the drive and set is aside (just in case)and use the computer.

When it came to making another copy of the data what I should have done was write it to the network and then back to a PC with a DVD burner in it. Instead, as I had a new tool — one that would let me plug an IDE drive (2.5 or 3.5 inch) or SATA drive into a USB port, I decided to remove the drive and use the new tool. 

(It's worth noting that the PC sat, running, on a table behind me for most of a day.)

I installed new drives and reconfigured them so they'd be on different IDE channels. I added RAM and replaced a noisy CPU fan.

I went about installing the software and endured several hours of the computer hanging time and again as I removed, reinstalled and reconfigured the various parts.

I eventually had it stripped to nothing, and still getting hangs, when I had the Dammit thought.

That thought went: Dammit! We decommissioned this computer because it had started to spontaneously reboot itself. I thought then that it might have a motherboard problem.

I verified the rebooting problem with the previous owner. He had to put some thought into it, so I felt a little better.

Had I tried to write the computer's data to the network I'm certain it would have failed and I'd have had the dammit thought a bit sooner.

But no, I had a shiny new toy I wanted to try out.

And you know how men are.

(The new toy makes the data-transfer process faster. Ninety-nine percent of the time it would have sped up this project as I could have started the software install without having to do the data-transfer dance back and forth between PCs.) 

Posted by delmer at 12:25 PM | Comments (1)

February 14, 2008

A Question for All You Brits

Dear British Readers:

I've been watching a lot of Coupling the last couple of months. We get it on BBC America and, along with Top Gear and Graham Norton, it's one of the things I never miss.

It's my understanding that Coupling was a knock off of Friends. What you may or may not know is that we had a show called Coupling, for a while, that was a knock off of your Coupling. Our version was not terribly good and, rightly, did not last terribly long.

While your version of Coupling is charming, witty, and a bit risqué, our version tried too hard to … I'll be damned, one of our Coupling commercials just popped into my head. The folks are standing around and one of the women says, "What do you call people you don't sleep with," and one of the guys says, "Men." I remember being put off when I saw that in the promo here as being too obvious. What's sad is that I've heard Patrick say it in the UK version, multiple times, and have enjoyed it each time.

Anyway, our version tried too hard to be risqué and it came off forced.

Your version of Coupling has some very attractive women in it with really cool accents. I'm not sure what it is but there is something about Jane, the dark-haired girl, that just does it for me. The accent, the quirkiness, the general hotness, I don't know. Anyway, all the women are very attractive and yet something about them is approachable.

Our version of Coupling had women in it that didn't exist outside a television studio. Something about their appearance suggested they didn't want to be bothered by anyone.

Your Sally, Jane and Susan: hot, approachable, with accents.

Our girls (I don't even recall their names, though I assume, Sally, Jane and Susan): Did not exist in the wild; sort of plastic characters.

Both shows had some guys in them. As I've said before, if a guy isn't Burt Reynolds or Tom Seleck I'm really not able to determine their attractiveness level.

Finally: Here's my question: How many episodes of Coupling (the UK version) were there?  When I go to Amazon I find I can buy the complete series, seasons one through four, for about $75.00.

Maybe a better question would be, how long is the typical British TV season?  Years ago, for example when Get Smart was on, ours was 30 episodes. Then it was cut to 26 episodes, and I think it's even fewer now (22 or 24; Psyche and Monk may be 20).

Anyway, I've seen what I'm sure is the first Coupling — Steve is trying to dump Jane (the episode is titled Flushable).

And I've seen Sally give birth, which, per Amazon is from season four.

In between I've seen: Sally find out what is meant by Patrick being donkey-like. Jeff swallow a handcuff key. Susan speak French when Julia is mistaken for Giselle. Steve and Jeff do the Spider-man dance. Wilma. Oliver show up at Jane's apartment without a shirt (I could watch her answer the door in that episode over and over).  Jane give the traffic. Patrick handcuff himself to a bed after putting a bit of whipped cream on his nipples and something off camera.  Lamaze classes (which you mislabel antenatal classes). Oh god, the show with the great phone call in it — Susan's afraid she'll end up with jelly belly (or something) and Steve screams into the phone "this isn't an American sitcom."  Sally and Patrick's first kiss. Lesbian Spank Inferno. One where Steve says, "shit hit the fan" which just wouldn't work over here. The truth snake.

Right now, on my DVR, I have nine episodes of Coupling recorded and waiting to be watched. One is where Jeff swallows the handcuff key. One is where Sally and Patrick kiss for the first time.  One is when Jeff and Julia meet. Three are where Jane goes up to Oliver's apartment. Three of antenatal class.

I have seen each and every one of those already (obviously as I listed some of them in the paragraph before though maybe by different bits) and I believe I've listed almost every one I've seen.

I've gotten off track.

Inasmuch as I keep getting the same episodes over and over and, inasmuch as the British are very orderly and wouldn't skip around with things as important as sitcoms, and inasmuch as I've been watching Coupling for months and it's on at least five times a week, I've almost got to believe your television seasons are something like three or four episodes long.

How else can you explain a dozen episodes over four years? And what makes up the 835 minutes of viewing time on the DVDs?

I know you pay some sort of television tax and I've got to tell you, you're getting screwed.

[While I've got your attention, if you ever see James May, Jeremy or Richard Hammond out you've got to let them know that the next time they're in a small, hick town in America and they feel compelled to say "No, we're not gay," they really need to say it in whatever American accent it is they're able to pull off.  Gay men screaming "We're here, we're queer, get used to it," sound less gay than Jeremy did in that episode of Top Gear. Not that there's anything wrong with that.] 

Ah. I just found something. This actually makes me sad.  So, never mind, I guess.

 

Posted by delmer at 12:04 AM | Comments (4)

February 13, 2008

Hormones and Weight Analysis

We'll start with the summary.  The rest of the post, and it's sort of disjointed, appears in the extended entry.

I was a bit worried about how my weight has gone up in the time that has passed as my meds have decreased. After writing everything out I've determined I'm not going to worry about it.  I can wear the shorts I wore to England this past August despite what appears to be an 8-pound weight gain since then. (I don't think I'm actually up 8 pounds). 

I cannot wear the pair of jeans I could barely snap from this same period.

However, let me say, I went to England, we had Thanksgiving, we had Christmas, I went on a Cruise. Worse things could have happened.

Again, I don't think the weight gain is anything to worry about. For fun I'm going to try to make my way back to the next smaller sized jeans. I could hardly be taking any less medicine. It'll be interesting to see how this goes.

[Greeneyezz has suggested I mention my height. And it just occurred to me my weight isn't mentioned anywhere except the extended entry. This morning I was a hair over 6'4" and I weighed 241 pounds. (17 stone 3 lbs; and why do you guys do it that way?)]

Today I'll go on a little bit about my weight, my eating, and my exercise habits.  I'm doing this as I know some folks come by here to catch up on what's going on with my hormones and may have noticed that as the amount of medicine I take has decreased, my weight has increased.  I know I've been curious about any cause and effect that might be going on, so I thought I'd take a moment to cobble some thoughts together.

[And, if I'm going to be completely honest, I'm just a little bit concerned. The whole messed-up hormones problem sort of sneaked (or snuck) up on me. So I'm keeping a close eye on things.]

Back when I was 370 pounds I tried very hard, and for a long time, to drop weight; I had limited success and any weight I lost I quickly regained.  At one point three of us at work tossed $100 each into a hat and whoever lost the most weight in 90 days would win the whole pot; even with that kind of motivation I wasn't able to drop more than a few pounds.  [Fortunately, the contest was extended and ended some time after December 2002.) 

In December of 2002 I started taking Dostinex to control my prolactin and I started losing weight shortly thereafter.  In June of 2003 I weighed 330 pounds. On October 10 I weighed 308.  So, in 10-months time I dropped 62 pounds (roughly).  The only 'new' thing in my life was Dostinex.

I've been lifting weights on a regular basis since 2000; at World Gym for four or five years and in my garage the last two. Not long ago I made the comment that if you were to see me in the gym you might think to yourself, "That guy looks like he should get a refund or something."  I don't look like a gym guy; I look like a normal guy.  (Despite the fact I don't look like a gym guy, I do get a kick out of sometimes putting a shirt on and having the sleeves bite into my arms. This thrill is typically short lived, however, as my 9-year old doesn't really care for me to wear his things.)

Also, for most of that time I was taking walks of three to six miles almost daily.  I have body-weight logs on my PC going back to late 1999; if I was tracking my weight, I was most certainly exercising (I typically walk a bit over an hour which puts me at four miles).

I weighed 239 in May of 2006.  This is about the time I started riding The Mighty Schwinn a lot.

In October of 2006 I came in at the lowest I've weighed since I was about 29.  I hit 224 pounds.  During this time I was riding the bike a lot and lifting. I thought I was eating well enough and I was still writing everything down. I had a brief concern that my weight was going to continue dropping regardless of what I tried and joked that I might let it get as low at 219 before I went on a diet of only ice cream.

It's probably important to note I was wearing 34-inch jeans.  Thirty-four by thirty-four to be exact, which gave me perfect symmetry.

Alright. We're getting close to the end.

Today I weighed 241, which takes me up 17 pounds since December 12 of 2006 (14 months).  In August 2007 (pre-trip-to-England) I weighed 233 lbs, so I seem to be up 8 since then.

Here is what I think we need to know. In August I could get into 33-inch jeans and snap them if I didn't breathe too hard. I can't do that now. I can, however, wear the same shorts I wore to England and, of course, the same jeans. 

I think I have a little more fat on me, but I was getting tired of the lack of gains I was making lifting and I'd started to eat more as nutrition was sort of my weak spot.  [I'm aware that cycling as much as I do doesn't lend itself to great gains in the gym, but it isn't my goal to compete at The Arnold Expo.]  I also don't think I actually weigh a solid 241 and recall that in the past I'd see spikes, usually after visiting my parents, of five pounds or more for several days followed by a return to a much more acceptable weight.

And I've certainly added some muscle, but I can't imagine it's anything like 17 pounds.

Posted by delmer at 12:28 PM | Comments (3)

February 12, 2008

Hormone Update -- February 2008

Alright, let's start with the medicine news. My cabergoline (generic form of Dostinex) has been dropped to 1/2 pill once a week. Most recently it was 1/2 pill twice a week.

If we pretend I'm taking name-brand Dostinex, which was $33.00 a pill, I'd now be down to $16.50 a week. Multiply that by 4.3 and you have $70.95 monthly. Compare this to the $851 per month of a couple of years ago and you can see I'm doing all I can to drive health care costs down. (It seems I've reported this cost in the past as "about $1000 per month had I not had insurance."  That may have been rounding, as the $851 plus my copay of $45 comes closer to $900. I've checked my postings in Usenet and "approaching $900" is how I'd referred to the August 2004 cost there.  Of course, maybe I never said it was close to $1000 in the blog).

One of the more interesting things about cabergoline is that I think it is one of the few pills that might actually make a man's penis bigger. At least when it comes to girth.  The pills are about the size of Tic Tacs and I think they'd be pretty easy to shove up the tip of the penis — a lot easier than an Enzyte would go in there I'll bet  (let's see Bob smile and wave with couple of pills shoved up his dick). Of course, Tic Tacs would be a lot cheaper.  (Beware:  The spearmint coating may irritate the foreskin of the uncircumsized man.)

During this last appointment I weighed 242 pounds. I'm too lazy to trot up the stairs to see if I can still wear the shorts I wore to England, but I'll try to do some sort of weight analysis later this week. 

So, what do we need to know?

• Prolactin: 8.0, up from 7.8 (where normal is 2.1 to 17.7)
• Weight: 242, up from a low of 229
• Meds: Dropped to 1/2 pill (.25 mg) once a week

The next drop in medicine would be to be off it completely. If that happens I will still be monitored by my endocrinologist at least annually.

My Hormone Table History Link 

 

Posted by delmer at 7:36 PM | Comments (1)

February 11, 2008

The Conversation

I hoped to have some more info on whether or not my meds were reduced by this posting. Alas, I put a call into my doctor today and had to leave work before he called me back. Since I have no idea how to retrieve my voice mail messages from work it'll have to wait until tomorrow.

Instead, you get a conversation I had this afternoon at another doctor's office.

First the setup:

I needed to have some tests run for a child and prepaid several hundred dollars. In the end we didn't need as many tests run as we thought might be necessary. I've never received a statement from the doc's office and getting anything from them has been a challenge. They were supposed to fax me a statement last week; it never came.

So I thought I'd ask for it today.

Young Receptionist (after I gave her the child's name): Would you like to pay your copay now?

Me: Yes. Oh, and can I get a copy of our statement history?

YR: [Looking at the computer] It looks like you're all paid up.

Me: Can I see the breakdown?

YR: For Doctor A [the doc who'd done the testing] or Doctor B [who we'd been referred to and in the same practice]?

Me: [Feeling a bit better] Dr. A.

YR: Your balance is minus $220.00.

Me: What does that mean [because I think it means they owe me $220].

YR: Hmmm. I don't know. [She makes a call to an accountant.]  It doesn't mean anything.

Me: It must mean something.

YR: No [and she waved her had for emphasis]. It doesn't mean anything.

Me: I think it means you owe me $220. I paid for testing in advance, and we didn't have all the tests we though might be needed.

YR: No, it doesn't mean anything.

So, she beat me down. It was time for our appointment. I'll call tomorrow. 

I'll bet if my balance had been $50.00, she'd know I owed them $50.00.  

Posted by delmer at 11:53 PM | Comments (6)

February 10, 2008

The wind blows

There is a condition, I'm not sure what it is but an example of it would be that you have a problem with something and you've been aching to get it fixed, or you want a new version of something and you've been wanting it a long time.

And then you get the old something fixed, and it's perfect and you're so happy because you'd tried several times to get it fixed but nothing had worked, and now you can't wait to use the fixed something. Or, you've finally purchased the brand new thing and can't wait to put it to use.

You sit the thing aside knowing you'll use it tomorrow.

And a month passes.  Maybe a bit more.

That's the condition — I'm not sure what it's called.

I am sure, though, that it's been longer than a month since I've been on The Mighty Schwinn.  The last time I rode it was around the parking lot at the bike shop when I had the last bit of the clanks fixed. That was back around Christmas.

I'd almost gotten on it January 31, but it was too cold.  Had I had some cold-weather riding in the bank (that is, had I been riding the day before, or a few days before, you know what I mean) I'd have gotten on it and ridden regardless of the cold.

And I can prove it.

Today the high was going to be 17 F, which was colder than the end-of-January temperature.  When I woke up it was bright and sunny and even though I knew it was going to be cold I thought I'd Lycra up and hit the road. And then I heard the wind and thought I'd check the weather first.

The wind was gusting to 40 mph.

So, toward the end of the day I opted for a four-mile stroll.  The thing I had around my face and and under my nose iced up just below the nostrils; forty minutes into the walk my iPod failed due to, I think, the cold.

I was so happy I'd left the bike in the garage.

Posted by delmer at 10:25 PM | Comments (3)

February 9, 2008

The February Blood Draw

Guy and Gals ...

I had more blood taken. I'll have a more complete update tomorrow, but I wanted to take a moment to mention that after the decrease in meds this past time, my prolactin went up .2 of whatever the measure is. I'll have that tomorrow as well.

So, it went from 7.8 to 8.0.

I'll know Monday of my cabergoline is to be reduced further.

Posted by delmer at 12:38 AM | Comments (0)

February 8, 2008

Rock Operas

Who  would have thought that I'd be able to take a near disaster in the bathroom and get three blog entries out of it? Fully 2/3 or my trips to the bathroom take less time than telling this story has;  a bathroom misstep hasn't seen this much virtual ink since Senator Larry Craig made the news (maybe Mr. Craig's defense should have been that he was just trying to regain his balance and that he splayed his legs out to help him do so).

Anyway, rather than drag this out too much more, let's proceed with the ballet that is my bowel movements.

I've had several sit-down sessions in the men's room since the near catastrophe and it was the very next BM after the almost-fatal one that I figured out what was wrong. It came in one of those moments that you sometimes have when you've made an error of some sort, can't figure it out, go about your day, come to the same task again and work through it on autopilot (as you've done it without injury tens of thousands of times before) and then, after successfully accomplishing the portion that had almost injured you before, you have a Hey, that's what went wrong thought.

And that's how I found myself perched on the left side of the toilet seat (as you are seated looking forward) on my left butt cheek.

After I do my business I scootch forward, lean up on my left cheek, take a look back and check for harmonicas, and then despool some TP and get down to business. The whole process takes but a second or two and, as I suggest above,  has a Swan Lake -like quality about it.

Two days ago something went horribly wrong and while I'm not sure what caused it — maybe I had a feeling that this was the time! I'd actually expelled a hand-held musical instrument and I was eager to see — but I scootched forward and/or leaned left a little too much and almost fell to the floor between the toilet and the wall. The shock and surprise was so great that I made the wuh-uh noise I mentioned the other day; which I suppose moves the event from the ballet category and pushes it more toward opera. 

Many of you, no doubt, are likely wondering if guys really have the fascination with things that come out of their bodies and the cleaning that goes along with those things. Let me assure you they do. A very successful friend of mine, not long ago, went into some detail about a pus-filled something he had on his back; the whole time he was telling me about it I was saying "I know what you mean," and then I went on to tell him about something I found under my arm once.

Every guy I know looks at his snot when he blows his nose.

Based solely on anecdotal evidence a lot of guys also check their poo.

I shot an e-mail off to a friend of mine earlier today. The content of the mail was simply, "Until it bleeds? Or almost until it bleeds?"  This is a guy I haven't seen since, jeez, has it been seven years? And I've not had e-mail contact in about four. When his e-mail comes back it will be a simple line: "Until it bleeds."  And this is the technique he suggests using during the process that starts Step 1: Despool toilet paper. Despite the fact we haven't been in contact for years he'll know exactly what I mean when my e-mail hits his in-box. (And I imagine he'll get a chuckle out of it.)

Another of my friends makes three passes at his ass and calls it quits without giving it another thought.  While I know this about him I don't know if his diet consists primarily of green-leafy vegetables and other foods that lead to pooping like a rabbit and, thus, requires very little paper, or if his metabolism works in such a way that his poo is encapsulated in some sort of hard yet pliable plastic-like substance before it is expelled from his body. And what strikes me about knowing this about my friend is not that I know it, but that he mentioned it when we were 22 and I've had the memory lodged in my brain, like a peanut in my colon, for the past 25 years.

I really wish I had a better closing for this post.  You know, something that would tie it all together. I even hoped, for a second, that as I typed "tie it all together" something funny would strike me about that string of words and I'd be able to build on them.

Alas, no. 

Posted by delmer at 7:11 AM | Comments (3)

February 7, 2008

Some Accidents Happen At Work

When we last left off I was at work sitting on the toilet having just almost fallen off the seat and onto the tile.  How did it happen (and this will be the first of several questions I ask and answer)?

Before we get to that let me say I imagine that while many of the steps we (as humans) take when making a number two are very similar, some steps, I'm guessing, differ by varying degrees based on body type, ass size and arm length. I think I fall into the large body and ass types and long-arm type. As you read this and wonder to yourself why does he do it that way you should consider that my body type may differ from yours. (You may then want to consider why it is you stop by WADLL; are you hoping I'll change?)

If you accept that step number one of the whole making number two process is sitting down and cracking open a book, and that step two is actually producing the number two as you crack open … that's two obvious even for me.

Anyway you eventually come to the cleaning-yourself part. And this is how I go about it.

I scootch forward and take a look back into the bowl to see how things have turned out. Why?  Because I need to know. If it happens one day that I don't feel well and I have a particularly angry bowel movement and I look into the toilet to find, I don't know, a big bloody mass or a harmonica, I will know that is uncommon for me. As will my friends five minutes later because I'll tell them; in case I pass out, I'll want someone to be able to give the doctor some idea of my pre-passing-out symptoms. (I'm guessing that if you consider all the things that might cause a person to pass out, just a small percentage of them are preceded by pooping big bloody masses. An even smaller percentage are probably preceded by shitting harmonicas.)

I know I'm not the only one who looks at what they've produced as some of my male friends have told me they take a peek at their stuff as well; and for the same reason I do. (Women think we're talking about them any time a group of us get together. While that is sometimes the case let me go on record as saying that each and every man you know has dropped something out of his bowel that was so spectacularly incredible in size, shape, or delivery that given the choice between leading with a story about that poop or the night he scored the head cheerleader, he's going to be talking shit.)

Women do not share the same interest in what they've dropped into the can that men do. I guess if you've bounced a six or eight pound child out of you, then even the biggest stool blast isn't much to talk about. And the worst constipation isn't anything compared to childbirth; when was the last time you walked past a men's room and heard one guy screaming at another, "puuuuuush! puuuuuush!" followed by rapid breathing noises? (You'll still hear this, sometimes, when you walk past bath houses.)

Women say they don't look into the toilet because it goes against their dainty nature. These are the same women who think nothing of laying back on a table in a paper gown with their feet in the air while a member of the opposite sex, sometimes a complete stranger, examines their nether regions. What stuns me most about this is that insurance picks up most of the cost yet if I were to try to have a similar thing done to me I could get arrested in a prostitution sting.

Women will tell you their gynecologist is a trained medical professional, with diplomas on the wall and everything, who has nothing but a professional interest in their hoo-hoo.  To those women, I'd like to say, I own a speculum and have access to some very fine desktop publishing software; I'm just a table and a set of stirrups away from setting up my own gynecological practice. 

Gals (because I've started the last three paragraphs "women") are also reluctant to take a look at their snot after they blow their nose. I once read that one of the top ten things women didn't like that men did was when they looked at their snot after honking their horns. I look every time. How can you not? I don't even think about it, it's just an automatic action. If I ever blow out a big chunk of something uncommon I want to know about it right away; I don't want to be scrunching up a tissue and find myself thinking, "oooh, that has an odd feel to it" or even worse, "did that make a squeaking noise?"

Well, we seem to have drifted. Where were we?

Ah. I'd almost slipped off the toilet. How did it happen?

I'll tell you tomorrow.

Posted by delmer at 11:10 PM | Comments (10)

February 6, 2008

Many Accidents Happen in the Home

I had something else I wanted to blog about today but I've just had an experience I've never had — and I'm 47 — that I knew you'd want to know about.

Just a few minutes ago I almost fell off the toilet.

I know what you're thinking, that didn't really happy, he's just saying it for shock effect. 

Let me assure you, it did almost happen, and nobody was more shocked than I.  I even made that wah-uh! noise you make when you think something unbelievably bad, yet not life threatening, is about to happen to you. I've never been more happy to have had a bathroom to myself than I was at that moment.  Can you imagine being outside a stall and hearing wah-uh! come from within it?

I've been making use of toilets in reading mode for what, 46 years? The only other time I've ever come close to having an incident like this was when I was hospitalized with a high fever back around '83 or '84.  I'd gotten out of bed in the night to make a number two and had gone into the spacious hospital-room toilet to do my business. I lifted my gown, and as I went to lower myself I got faint; as I looked back to aim, my vision went and took my sense of balance with it. In an instant I developed a serious concern that I was going to wedge myself between the commode and wall and, to top it off, I'd be wedged there having to poop. So I gave the nurse-call lanyard a pull.

I don't know if the nurses can tell which alarm in a room has been triggered, but my nurse seemed to arrive with incredible speed, almost as if she knew this call was about something more than me needing a glass of water. 

She also arrived with incredible petiteness and this lends itself to a rather nice bit of imagery.  Back in '83-'84 I was about the same size I am now (yes, I know, bravo for me); that is to say, just something over 6'4" tall and about somewhere between 230 and 240 pounds, depending on the day of the week and my hydration level (other big guys will appreciate the 10-pound range as being an entirely-possible scenario). 

My night nurse, as I recall was about 5' 2" and about 100 pounds.

I don't remember if I'd actually started the ass-wedging-between-the-wall-and-commode process or not but I do remember my nurse having me by the hands and helping to pull me forward. As she pulled I farted a little bit.

No I didn't.

Another thing I remember about the night nurse was that she was really cute. I've got to guess that being wedged in a hospital bathroom with my junk all hanging out and dehydrated didn't make the best impression (I've noticed she hasn't called once in all the years that have gone by).

Anyway, in the time that has passed I've had many very successful toilet experiences and have never since almost suffered injury or humiliation. I can only assume that all these accident-free years have filled me with a false sense of security and that it was only a matter of time before I made a mistake that almost dropped me to the tile.

How did it happen?

I'll tell you tomorrow.

 

Posted by delmer at 10:16 AM | Comments (3)

February 5, 2008

Super Tuesday

Hey, it's Super Tuesday.  Regardless of where you live you won't be able to get away from Primary Results today.  Twenty-four states* are holding their primaries.

Twenty-four people!

And, to all my international friends, I'd like to point out I can name the state capitals in all of them. And I can name the county seats for all of Ohio's counties. That's 112 capitals/seats I've got floating around in my head taking up room that could better be used for something else.  I'm sorry I don't know what the capital of Holland is; I suspect it is Amsterdam, but I'm not certain. (I am the tiniest bit embarrassed that I don't know the capital of Australia (I'm thinking Sydney or Perth; and if it isn't Perth I'd like some extra credit for knowing a town with that name even exists). Or Canada, though I'm going with Montreal and, in any case, demand bonus points for knowing Canada is north of the US — well, east in one case. And that it's not a state; if it were, I'd know the capital.

But this post is not about my glaring inadequacies when it comes to things international (when I want to know more about a country not my own, I'll let it slip that there are vast oil reserves there and read up on it in Google News as we invade to liberate the locals). 

No, this post is about last night's dream.

And it was a sex dream. And, as a sex dream it played by all my sex-dream rules: I didn't know the person and before it got too far along it turned into something else.

I won't go into all the details.  They're entertaining, but a bit inappropriate even as things go here.

I did come away from the dream thinking I could use a bit of a shaving; just a touch-up really.

I believe I had this dream as I've been talking about dreams so much. And an odd thing about this one was that, while there were some rather nice things going on the whole thing had a pretty sterile feel to it. Like it was, I don't know, a demonstration for review or something. Not romantic, not sexy, not dirty, not even "just something to do because we're bored."

Well, no animals were injured during the dream, and that's something. 

So, I'm dreaming more, again, and the fact that I realize I'm dreaming more seems to be affecting my dreams.

And still, no matter what I do I can't get Patricia Heaton to appear in a dream and she'd be perfect dream material.  She's really cute but typically plays characters that are a little bit bitchy; in the morning, when you woke up, you wouldn't be so sad she was gone.

[Dammit: Amsterdam, Canberra, and Ottawa. In all fairness, I knew Ottawa on some level. Not that it matters, by god, as soon we invade it'll be Montreal.)

*Twenty-two state, American Samoa and Democrats abroad

Posted by delmer at 7:46 AM | Comments (1)

The Three-Way

Not terribly long ago I was involved in something every man dreams of: a Three-Way.

Yes, I was the creamy, white filling of a boy sandwich. For close to two hours.

As you probably know, Three-Ways, even your bad ones, are spectacular. So spectacular, in fact, that the common rules of grammar do not apply to them; they are always capitalized as if they were proper nouns or German (which, by the way would be Threezin-Wayzin). And both words are capitalized despite the hyphen (hyphenzin).

Three-Ways can be ranked in the following order:

Me and …

• Identical twin sisters
• Fraternal twin sisters
• Sisters
• Two unrelated women
• My left and right hands
• Gold Star Chili 

And then of course any other Three-Way that does not start Me and… 

I know what you're thinking, They all sound incredible. And they are.

If only the Three-Way I had fell into one of the above categories.  No, mine was more that I found out that two of my female friends were going to go see a movie and I sort of horned in on them. 

Really, they had no choice but to let me tag along, I sometimes provide computer assistance to both of them.

They were even happy enough to let me sit between them. I'm not sure if that was because they were afraid that otherwise they'd look like a couple of lesbians and the guy who thinks he can turn them around, or because I insisted on holding the popcorn.

 

Posted by delmer at 3:11 AM | Comments (7)

February 4, 2008

Do you think

Just the other day someone asked me if I thought I'd ever get married again.

I've got to admit the question left me speechless. Not because I've never considered the question and not because I don't have strong feelings on it.

But, because, I wasn't sure if hell no or fuck no is the superlative form.

Posted by delmer at 9:59 PM | Comments (8)

Roll Top Desk

Today's Dream Snippet:

There was a gunfight going on in a big lobby of some sort. It was one of those situations where there had been a frame-up and the guy the cops were shooting at was really not the bad guy. Maybe he was a bad guy but he was trying to do some good. I can't recall; there was a lot of gunfire and it was distracting.

A female police officer came in from the outside through some big glass double doors with her weapon drawn and blasting away.  What was odd in the dream is that she'd have been blasting at her fellow officers based on the way she was shooting. I had an awareness that  the knew the bad guy was not so bad and she didn't want the other cops to kill him, but I thought there might be a better way to handle the situation.

So did the cops. In seconds she had several guns in aimed very close to her head.

The scene changed and I could see in a back room. There were two adults and a small girl. The adults opened up a very small roll-top desk, like we had growing up and that my mother eventually painted (I think 'antiqued' is the correct term) and placed the girl in the top part of the desk. They told her she'd be safe there. I figured she'd be able to open the desk from the inside.

My alarm went off.

Posted by delmer at 9:07 AM | Comments (3)

February 3, 2008

Meet the Spartans

Last night's dream snippet:  I was adjusting someone's collar. One edge of it was tucked under. He was wearing a green shirt and was in the military, though it was a pretend branch of the service — not a real branch.  I'm sure I dreamed it as I've noticed in one of the Disney photos that my collar is boogered up.

 

The boys and I went to see Meet the Spartans today. As movies like this go, and those would be movies that make fun of other movies and current celebrities, this one wasn't too bad. I actually laughed aloud a couple of times and managed to resist reading the book I'd taken with me.

Having said that, you could certainly miss it and not suffer any ill effects.

But you could do worse.

This might be a spoiler: 

Yea, like you're going to see this. Anyway, I was admiring the abs on some of the guys and how Kevin Sorbo has kept himself in shape over the years. And then I started to wonder if the abs were painted on. They looked real. 

One of the characters gives a warning that went something like, "The Oracle said if you proceed you'll all be killed," to which the king replied, "The Oracle also said our painted-on abs would look fake ... but I think they looked pretty darned good."

I thought it was pretty funny. 

Posted by delmer at 9:11 PM | Comments (7)

February 2, 2008

One Dream Two Dream

Last night I had three dreams worth noting and I woke up several times in the night (probably early morning after the giant alarm clock across the street went off) and repeated each back in my head so I wouldn't forget them.  Somewhere along the line I lost track of one.

So, you get these.

In one dream I'd killed an agent or military person from another country. I honestly think it was a Mossad agent. Two other agents had me pinned down in their complex in a situation that was a certain loser for me. We were dueling back and forth; I had a rifle of some sort.

The female agent, in camouflage fatigues, called a time out, came over, took my gun, and gave me a Beretta. This led to an argument between us over why I'd change weapons when the handgun would obviously be less accurate. Her explanation, and I can't remember it, made perfect sense for the situation and the rules of the engagement but I wasn't inclined to play by them as I was so going to get killed no matter what.  In the dream I had the thought that went something like, "How can we be having a civil conversation like this when I know, in a moment, you're going to blast me."

I popped the clip out of the gun and checked to make sure it was had bullets. I put the clip back in and as I did noticed a grenade on a table I was hunkered behind (I think it might have been incendiary; it was one of those smooth jobs that Wil Smith had at the end of I Am Legend and like the one the guy had in Lost when he blew the window out and killed Charlie. Of course, maybe they're all smooth these days.)  I pulled the pin and flipped the grenade over my shoulder at several other military types; I don't know why they weren't engaged in the gun battle. One of the guys picked it up, casually looked at it, and tossed it back by way.  I tossed it, unconcerned, in another direction. It came back to me once more like a Hot Potato game.  The dream ended before it went off and the Mossad never killed me.

[I've recently read a book in which it looked like a Mossad agent was trying to kill an American Spy-type. The book also involved Mossad Assassination Squads.]

In the other dream I was sitting in a gymnasium watching some sort of dance routine going on.  There had to be something like 30 people dancing and they weren't in exact sync and hitting all the marks every time, but that was OK as it was a dance they'd just put together and hadn't had time to practice.  It was a very loooooong dance and involved and lot of movement.  At some point two people did belly slides and then four people danced off from those slides in what looked like it would have been a representation of fireworks going off.

And then it hit me.

They were dancing the National Holidays and this portion was for the Fourth of July.

When I woke up I thought it was most interesting that I'd had the people out of sync and missing marks. Wouldn't it be easier for dreams to sort of have everybody mirroring every move and in order — you know, like a big cut and paste?

[My niece, I noticed, was one of the dancers and I just found out she'd discovered the blog. She was involved in something in High School in which her class danced at The Tennessee Titans halftime.  The Tennessee Titans are an NFL team; I looked it up.]

Posted by delmer at 12:52 AM | Comments (4)

Let's Score 2007

Perhaps you recall last January 7 when I had the post detailing all the things I keep details of.

I've been trying to get around to making a similar post for this year but I keep putting it off as I want the Books I've Read page to be easier to update and in piddling with it I've sort of lost a few books (maybe). Today I put some time into it and it still isn't what I want.

Anyway, I've decided to go forward with the score from last year.

Miles on the Bike:  2467 this year. or Thirty-three fewer than 2500. Still, almost 1000 more than last year's 1400+.

Weight: 238 pounds.  Last April I weighed 232.  While the magic weight loss seems to have stopped, I'm still wearing the same pants (and sometimes the same socks two days in a row depending on where I'm at in the house versus where my clean socks are when it comes time to put my shoes on.)

Cabergoline: This is, of course, the stuff I take to keep my hormones in good working order.  I currently take .25 mg twice a week.  Last January I was taking 1 mg twice a week. (In dollars, and if we were talking the non-generic form which goes by Dostinex, this would translate to a current cost of $33.00 weekly vs. $132 weekly.  At my peak, if you are curious, I was swallowing more than $1000, monthly, in Tic-Tac-sized pills.)

I'm curious to know if the decrease in medicine has impacted my ability to seemingly lose weight without trying. Or if I've just reached a balance point. I was on the bike a lot more last year and expected to hit 219 lbs eventually.

Prolactin: Most Recently (November 29, 2007) it was 7.8.  December 12, 2006 it was 6.9. The small increase is not a problem.

Books I've Read:  It looks like 35.  Last year I worked through 63 and I can't help but think I missed one or two in this year's count. Probably the ones right after I read "Gone," which has been on my site as the current read for quite a while.

Women I've Slept With: Ah. What can I say. I thought you might catch this heading out of the corner of your eye and be inspired to read through this post.

 

Posted by delmer at 12:34 AM | Comments (7)