Turkish delight on a moonlit night

[greatbear]

Any time I hear or read "Istanbul", the auto-complete routine in my brain, scrambled as it is, adds "not Constantinople", then I am subjected to a half day-long earworm of said song by They Might Be Giants. I decided to share this time, here's the wonderful version starring Plucky Duck and the Tiny Toons.

Other news from around Mayhem Acres, Snickles continues his painfully long assimilation into family life here. It's at times a rocky road to ride, what with teething, chewing and barking that puppies are wont to do, but there are also those moments of starry-eyed schmoopiness that make it all worth it. I will write more in a State of the Pooch entry later on.

I am finally clearing out the long-neglected Lab of Mayhem of hundreds of pounds of obsolete and worthless electronic gear and other cruft, carrying this activity into the garage as well. Some of the stuff is being dismantled into the few remaining usable parts, the bulk is going into boxes to be taken to the recycling center. The lab itself is getting an overhaul as well, with some new tools and supplies obtained to make and repair stuff built with surface-mount components. I've also taken some of the reclaimed parts and cobbled them into usable items; an old fluorescent arm lamp, a salvaged DC fan and filters for a range hood became a soldering fume extractor, and ancient spectrum analyzer has been brought back to life with donated components, and a number of collected items have been finally installed and put to use. I want to get this all done before the weather breaks and I spend more time outside.

Health wise, I've noticed more healing of nerves in my legs and feeling returning to my feet in the last few months. I had resigned myself to never having normal feeling and abilities in my legs post-spine surgery, but I am not stumbling as often as I had been, and I can resolve temperatures better in my lower extremities. I might not have a future as an acrobat or b-boying, but anything is better than previous numbness.

I hope all is well with my fine readers this week. Stop in and chat a while!

Comments

[maxauburn.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you are recovering more.

I told you a year or so ago-it will take time.

When did you get a new puppy?

What breed?

[greatbearmd.livejournal.com]

We got the new pooch in the middle of January, I posted about it here. As for the breed, the jury is still out. We were told that the dog is a mixture of Dachshund and Pomeranian. The dog far more resembles a Miniature Pinscher. I will be trying (mostly in vain) to take more photos of the dog and post them. This past weekend we took both dogs to visit Jeff's mom in a nursing home. Three of the nurses immediately identified him as a Min Pin, and they have the dogs as well. Regardless of his breed, he's a cute dog that people are drawn to, and if I can make it past the crazy puppy stages, he should be a good pet.

[maxauburn.livejournal.com]

He's adorable!

Don't worry-he'll be housebroken & grown up before you know it!

Charlie almost drove me crazy with his kitten craziness-until he began to settle down some, around the time he was 9 months
old.

Snickles first year will fly by so fast-enjoy it while you can!

My Charlie is just over 1 year old now, but still very "Kittenish."

[theoctothorpe.livejournal.com]

"Any time I hear or read "Istanbul", the auto-complete routine in my brain, scrambled as it is, adds "not Constantinople", then I am subjected to a half day-long earworm of said song by They Might Be Giants. "


100000000000x this. Always.

[greatbearmd.livejournal.com]

I know, right? On the very rare cases I hear the word "Constantinople" I will often blurt out "Istanbul!" and have to deal with the earworm and singing the song to myself.

[ciddyguy.livejournal.com]

Glad things are going well in Mayhem Acres and that you are gaining more feeling in your lower extremities. That is always a good thing you know.

Speaking of cobbling parts together to make something else, you mention an old fluorescent arm lamp, I've been geeking out on old fluorescent lighting, and the technology in general, ever since the bulb in my strip light over the sink went bad a week ago, getting weaker, and weaker to it barely would strike and when it did, it was dim, dim, dim.

Now I has light! Sadly, it's rapid start, not preheat tho and wished it were a preheat fixture instead.

[greatbearmd.livejournal.com]

This was a cheap, mostly plastic arm lamp. The head broke and it wasn't worth fixing, but the arm I figured could be used for something. About twenty years later it finally found a use, reborn as a floating fume extractor. Looks like something I bought instead of made. I can remove the fan from the arm and use it on the bench, or flip it around, remove the filters and use it for cooling or drying stuff, or aim it at my face to stay cool.

I reballasted a few fixtures in the house as well as most in the garage to use T8 lamps instead of the now obsolete (and soon to be scarce) T12 tubes. The instant-on lighting beats having the lights slowly flicker on, and the lack of hum is nice. For me, having the lights operable well below freezing in the garage was the big reason for the switch. Many days I would come out to the garage, throw the switches and was lucky to have one fixture out of the 26 making light. I would snap the switches on and off in hope to kick other lights into working, but too often I'd have less than half the fixtures working in the cold. Now, everything comes on instantly even when the temps here have been around zero F. The other big bonus is the lack of flickering. No 120Hz strobing, especially when the lights are cold. I'm one of those unfortunate people who is bothered by flicker, and with the 30-50kHz switching rate of solid state ballasts, it's gone for good.

[ciddyguy.livejournal.com]

As to the scarcity of T12 tubes, I heard it's only for commercial/industrial uses, but the home lamps will remain T12, at least from what I could find as most links from Google only mention the change for businesses.

Anyway, I don't notice the flickering most of the time, and only with bulbs that are aging/or at end of life that it becomes a potential problem.

I don't mind the old flickering upon startup but yeah, in very cold weather something that keeps the filaments hot in a hot cathode factor would have helped with your situation back in the day.

[mikiedoggie.livejournal.com]

I am happy to hear the numbness is going away. While not as severe as yours, it took quite awhile for the numbness in my right foot to go away. I still stumble a bit, but I never planned on being a professional dancer myself. ;)

Puppies are adorable! Hope he is causing some fun mischief.

[greatbearmd.livejournal.com]

The fun and cute stuff tends to override some of the bad doggie antics. I just have to be on my toes. lol

[dan4behr.livejournal.com]

After noticing little doggie toothmarks in a leg of a family-heirloom mahogany chair a few years ago, I learned about something you can paint on calle 'Bitter Apple'. It definitely worked.

b-boying?

[greatbearmd.livejournal.com]

I have leftover damage from Kodi several years ago. I thought by now the carpets would've been replaced, but it worked out better that they haven't. Shoes get dragged out into the living room and the insoles pulled out and chewed on. Seems to be preprogrammed into little pooches. I have several more months of puppy-proofing to contend with, then things should return to normal. By then I should be doing some much needed remodeling.

"Bboying" is a word used to describe male break dancers. Some of the guys are beyond incredible with their moves. Hell, watching this clip reel makes my joints hurt:

[designerotter.livejournal.com]

Goodness - I haven't heard that song in ages; probably first heard it over fifty years ago (after a certain age your life tends to reel backwards). I love They Must be Giants, probably because they're so damn eclectic with their music choices. Actually, I got introduced to them by some of my students. I've often had to stay up late supervising the painting of stage floors with students - they usually picked the music to accompany and half the time I'd be saying 'Hey, this is pretty cool music- who's the band?" and the answer would be TMBG :0)

I love pooches, though for me having one would be a bit impractical. My bro sent his eldest pooch (as a pup) to 'obedience training' class and now Harley is the best-behaved of all his poms. Incidentally I just sent the bro a product called "Orapup"...basically a mouth cleaner for dogs. I'm awaiting news about how well the pooches react to the stuff.

Great hearing that you're getting sensation back in your legs. Sometimes nerves manage to regenerate - one of the miracles of the body's ability to heal itself!