The Manic Mechanic

Today I took Jeff to Lutherville for carpal tunnel surgery in his left wrist. The procedure was successful, and surprisingly quick. It was not even 45 minutes before I was led back into the recovery room to see how he was doing, help him fill out paperwork and get dressed. I collected my groggy cub and took him to lunch on the way home. I then took him to get his prescriptions filled and to get some groceries, a stop at the donut shop, then home once again for more doting before I made pizza and salads with ice cream desserts. He's going to be mostly out of commission for several days before being able to return to work. Couple this extended stay at home with his vacation from last week, and he's sure to be sick of seeing my mug and begging for a return to work. ;-)

Once he's fully recovered from the left side surgery, the process gets repeated on the right arm, this time with the ulnar nerve included. I plan on making his life just as it was today when that time comes. I gotta take care of my Jeff, he's all I have.

Once again, Halloween was a bust, with no one coming to beg for candy. This leaves us with a big dish (on legs!) full of unhealthy snacks. Some of these will probably got with Jeff to work, unless a friend of mine that stops by on occasions doesn't dive in first.

It's been ages since I did a proper update of the current goings-on around and about The Garage of Mayhem. Really, there is not that much outside of the usual happenings. Work is still a soul-draining experience. Too bad the pay is decent.

In nearby Columbia, the continued big-boxification continues at a startling pace. Finally, there is a Costco nearby. I signed us up, Jeff has become enamored with the food, clothing and other sundries. I bought a new floor jack among other things, including a Nintendo DS Lite. The latter raised Jeff's 'oh jeez, another gadget' eyebrow a bit. But guess who's become addicted to Brain Age 2? And he's kicking my ass to boot.

In somewhat sadder news, I have finally begun the process of dealing with Mom's belongings as I tackle different areas of the house. This has been a mental sticking point for me since her death, and conquering it has not been easy. It's made me out off the process for over a year now. I want to find good homes for her stuff whenever possible. I find myself stopping everything and having to go into a 'neutral' part of the house and collect myself before I can go on. This emotional stumbling has slowed my progress to a crawl. Still, not all of it is bad, or heart-wrenching. I discovered yet another trove of forgotten photos, with a good amount of them from the 70s. With me in them. OMG the hair, the clothes. A lot of them were of Mom and I doing various things. I could not stop smiling. Maybe if y'all are good I will share some of the more amusing photos.

The aforementioned box of treasures was found as I was clearing out and redoing a big upstairs closet that was originally intended to house a washer and dryer but was used for storage instead. I have three big file cabinets along with new shelves to go inside, it will also be a place to hide a couple networked color printers. A drain pipe had leaked slowly over the years and made a mess of a section of drywall, I repaired that and began to repaint the closet interior. I did not buy enough paint to finish it off, so I rectified that tonight and will finish up this week. The new shelving, cabinets, lighting and a couple runs of gigabit ethernet into the space will go a long way towards organizing the upstairs.

Another detour on the way home from work tonight netted me a Sirius Stiletto 100 satellite receiver. I have not activated the thing yet, but it looks cool. Everything I wanted in a little receiver. About the size of a cell phone, it can receive signals via it's own built in antenna, fall back to wi-fi indoors when a signal aint there, plus record live programming and timeshift, and can double as an mp3 player. What's not to like? Oh, yeah. Pay radio. At least there are no commercials in the music.

Jeff has convinced me to decorate the house for Hallowe'en. To that end, we have acquired lights, big swaths of faux spider webbing (with spiders), a screaming animated skull, a howling animated ghoul-thing, an animated, protesting caged skeleton, and more than the usual amount of candles. Jeff has carved two of three pumpkins which turned out pretty good. He has one more to do. All I can say is that I hope we get more trick-or-treaters than last year. Jeff is even going to work in costume. As a beer bottle. I guess there is truth to the news that Hallowe'en is becoming the most 'celebrated' holiday. There seems to be more in the way of costumes and decorations these days than ever, and it's approaching what is usually seen at X-mas.

Speaking of X-mas, the decorations are already in full force in some stores. One of which is what I felt was to be inevitable. It's a set of three outdoor white trees, prewired with illuminated ornaments. What makes the set different is the lighting is coordinated to music. Yep, ever since that guy installed a lightshow and set it to Trans-Siberian Orchestra's "Wizards in Winter" and became a national sensation, it has become a turnkey affair. The three trees sequence their multicolor LED ornaments to several included songs, one of which is the aforementioned TSO tune. The whole ordeal is weatherproof, including an outdoor speaker that you can annoy the neighbors with as it plays the limited included library of songs, and it has a remote control to boot. Thankfully the lightshow's price of $299 bucks will keep it from appearing in every other yard this holiday season. Expect the price to go down, numerous imitations to appear and the setup to become as clichéd as icicle lights.

Bah, humbug.