The Manic Mechanic

My posting here hasn't been frequent, as most of you reading have probably noticed. I still peek in a couple times a week to read and comment when I can, so, rest assured, I'm still reading everyone on my friends list, even if I don't always comment. All that being said, life here has been pretty much okay for the most part, I've been busy as hell, with our own needs as well as helping out a couple friends that haven't had it so good in recent times. I am happy that, for the first time in six years, I am able to enjoy a Christmas day not immobile with pain and drugged mostly out of my senses. I've decided that this gift of normalcy is one I am sharing with people, lending a hand where I can. Money for me is very tight, so physical gifts are small this year. I feel happy doing what I can, and it certainly proves something I've known for a long time, that the gift is in the giving.

I hope everyone here in LJ-Land has a wonderful Holiday.

Pardon me if I'm not exactly filled with Christmas spirit. The weather outside is frightful, with lots of rain and even thunderstorms battering the area for the next couple days. The fire is so delightful, however, as I have the woodstove cranking to offset the dreary, cold, wet mess outside. Jeff and I have both been hit with a very nasty gastrointestinal bug, where we got it isn't clear. I've had these before, but this is by far the worst I've gotten slammed with such a thing, which made me violently ill. I think the worst is over, for I tried to have a little bit of chicken soup tonight and no warning sirens are going off yet. Jeff thankfully has off tomorrow, and with both of us under the weather, our dinner plans might have to be changed to something very light, if anything at all. He has to work Friday, unfortunately. We were planning of heading up the see his family and make a nice dinner, but that looks like it might out of the question given our messed up health. We will see. I was hoping to make it through the holidays without the usual, inevitable winter maladies dropping by to say hello, so instead we got something different and just as unwelcome. Ah, well, it is what it is. I got a couple nice presents for Jeff, he apparently has a couple for me, and we have no idea what we are getting. So that's good. Little surprises, lots of love and warmth.

Our little pooch Kodi needed to have some serious surgery done to remove a number of bladder stones. These were discovered during examinations for something unrelated, and these had the potential to wreak havoc on the little guy had those stones moved into and blocked his urethra. Little trouper he is, after the surgery he was mostly his cheerful self, but kept having accidents around the house. These have subsided, fortunately, and he's almost back to normal. In fact, it seemed in recent months he'd beg to go outside to pee more often than usual, and the frequency is less than before. So I think we had something taken care of before it could get a lot worse. Today I promised him he'd have his stitches removed, but that turned out to only be partially true. When we initially picked him up, he had of course been fitted with The Cone of Shame for obvious reasons. A day or two later he somehow managed to knock the thing off, and he went straight for the surgery site and the stitches. Jeff saw this in time and stopped him from doing any damage, but apparently he pulled one loose and created a large scab. So all but two stitches are gone until next week, where hopefully the disturbed area heals up a bit more, the scab comes off and the remaining stitches that are all caught up in there can be taken out. The Cone of Shame remains on as well, but Kodi has gotten used to it in some ways. Around here, to make the little guys feel better, we don't call the collar the "Cone of Shame," instead it's known as "The Bowl of Kisses," because all you have to do is hold that bowl in your hands and put your face inside, and you will get lots of happy licks.

As for me, well, I'm still down and out from the crumbling spine issues. Only a bit less pain, but unable to do much to the point I have even stopped climbing the walls in frustration. The pain that radiates down and concentrates on my lower left leg has resulted in now shocking amounts of atrophy. My calf is about the size of my forearm, and my thigh is about the size of my biceps before I began having all these old man issues. These days, the biceps are pretty much gone too, my clothes hang off me like a scarecrow, and everyday objects feel heavy. Some of my tools and equipment that are normally quite heavy are nearly impossible for me to deal with. On Jan. 6, I will head in for one last chance at a needle in the spine to help matters. If this doesn't do the trick, I will either have to have very invasive surgery to bolt my back together, or resign myself to pain and disability for the rest of my life. Honestly, with my track record under the knife, the latter choice is looking more promising.

I figured I owed y'all an update, unfortunately it isn't all peaches and cream. But I'll get by. I had so many opportunities to exit the human race but defied the odds. I was born prematurely, with low birth weight and needed resuscitation before spending my earliest days in an incubator, I've been hit by lightning, been electrically shocked hundreds of times during work and tinkering, been in nasty accidents, a round of misdiagnosed peritonitis that had one day left to kill me, and any other number of near misses, bad ailments, stupid situations and close calls. But I'm still here. Too bad that old saying about that which doesn't kill us makes us stronger is pretty much bullocks, because I'm the weakest I've been since most likely elementary school right now. I should be the world's strongest man.

All the best,

Phil & Jeff & Kodi & Snickels

So, frustration has been the key work in recent days. No real improvement in pain levels or mobility, so it looks like this week I push on to the next level. One thing for certain, between pain and pills, my body chemistry and rhythm are fucked up again, I can't sleep at night, and I try going through the day until I start dozing off in the middle of whatever I'm doing. The narcotic pain killers help me to get some sleep beyond what is comfortable or sensible. Not getting a lot of exercise day in and day out leaves me with lots of unusable energy. Rather than climb the walls, I find little things to pass the time and feel useful. Even this has a special little bothersome horror for my brain. You guessed it, it makes me want to do more stuff. lol

I've been taking some time to organize video and music I have stored on the servers here. Keeping with a method I've had for decades, a drive on the server acts as a repository for all my digital music. About 8 years ago when I built the current server, I loaded it with a half dozen 1 terabyte drives. Seemingly huge at the time, most of them are now at or near capacity. The drive containing the well-sorted music held on the longest, but last night while adding several dozen more albums and artists into the heap, I finally get a notice from the server saying the drive only has about 50GB left. I anticipated this about a year ago, I bought a 2TB drive as a replacement. The current drive is being backed up as I write this, then all the data from the current drive will be copied onto the new drive, I will then swap the drives and put the old one in a safe place as a backup. It will take me what will hopefully be a long time to fill the new drive, after all, it's only music. Granted, I am dropping bigger and bigger files on it, everything is high bitrate mp3 or better, with lots of lossless and high res 24 bit/192kHz these days, the latter being a few gigs just for one album at times. When the new drive gets to be too small, I repeat the process. There's no practical way to make offline backups for a terabyte or more of data other than stockpiling drives. I have a separate server that is tasked solely with automatic backups of data stored on most of the PCs here, and I have begun the rely on two NAS units with lots of capacity to hold online backups of the backups as well.

As I was sitting uncomfortably in the Mayhem Lab where all this IT infrastructure quietly hides, I've also realized that I am maxing out some of the electrical circuits I put into the space. This was inevitable too. When I built La Casa back in '88, I slightly raised eyebrows at the electric company when I specified a 400 amp service for the house and garage. This is split between the house and garage, with each having a 200 amp, 42-slot breaker panel. Before the house was completed, because of the all-electric nature of the house (no gas, water or sewer were available) the breaker panel in the house was not enough to hold all the circuits, so an additional subpanel was needed. As I added more goodies to the house and built the workshop in the basement as well as the lab, I tore out the little box that held ten circuits and put in a 20 space panel. The workshop, with the woodworking machines and lots of outlets and other goodies got its own dedicated 20 slot box as well. My plans are to add two more 20amp circuits to the lab, plus a new lighting circuit for the basement. Problem is, I have only two spaces left for three circuits in the main house panels. Soooo, my little lab wiring update will force me to pull out the 20 slot panel and install a second 42 slot in its place. There is a method to this madness as well, since I plan on installing a backup generator as well as solar electric panels in the not too distant future. By juggling the electrical loads between the panels, I can segregate the critical loads (lighting, water pumps, fridges and freezers, the lab and the like from the unnecessary heavy draw items like the heat pumps & A/C, electric heaters and other things that don't need to be run off the generator. This, along with other means of performing "load shedding" lets me have better control of what gets critical power in order to make the best use of it and lower costs. This sort of thing is actually fun for me, and despite having an electrical service more befitting small industry, our electric bills are not that outrageous as one would think. It also adds to my sense of security in cases of emergencies and really bad weather. Like all too many things, I take the electrical installations here very seriously. I use commercial/industrial rated components, and the seemingly excessive numbers of individual electric circuits is done in order to prevent any possible overloading of the individual branches, and to prevent a tripped circuit from causing an unexpected issue. For one example, the branch circuit the feeds the two freezers in the basement was also shared with a pair of infrared heaters in the bathrooms. The branch was sized accordingly, and was never going to be overloaded even if both freezers were running along with the heaters. One day the bulb burned out, and given the bulb's 250 watt rating, it went with a huge flash. Unbeknownst to me at the time, it also tripped the breaker. It took me a while until I found water on the floor in front of the freezers and the food in danger of soon thawing out. Luckily I saw this in time, reset the breaker, then eventually moved the heaters and freezers to their own dedicated branches. In the case of the lab, the computers, servers, etc are on one of two dedicated lab circuits I put in, along with a separate lighting circuit, a shared electric heating circuit and a 120/240 volt special purpose outlet. As my relatively tiny 10x12ft lab accumulated more and more test equipment and other goodies, the two branches have become maxed out. I have some specialized soldering equipment that takes a lot of power when in use, an infrared heating table takes 16 amps just by itself, the hot air reflow unit is 7 amps, a heat gun I use along with all that is 13 amps, and this isn't counting all the test equipment, extra lighting and the surround sound system with subwoofer that is often playing while I am working. The little room gets hot in a hurry, so fans are needed. I am trying to figure out how to install some sort of air conditioning to all of this as well. As you can see, when I get into something, I go all out. :)

Maybe I am just more than a little bit strange, but this is also my way of building a nice place for the two of us to enjoy our myriad pursuits as we close in on retirement age. I want a lot of this done so I can cruise along and not have to worry about anything done half-assed. I've done a lot of involved work over the years, with the eventual result being able to forget about the work and just use it in day to day life. For example, I did a large amount of plumbing upgrades a few years back. I "built in" many means for any future updates if needed. Adding solar water heat, for example, is all about installing the system and connecting two pipes to what currently exists. If a filter, water heater, softener or other major component needs to be replaced or worked on, flipping a few valve levers lets the water stay on and uninterrupted while the problem piece gets removed. The modular nature of a lot of the work I did over the years has been paying off later on. All the climbing around now will make life easier when I am older and unable to deal with it like in my younger days. Sadly, I've been getting a lot of previews as to what that sort of life is going to be like. I just wish my body would stay together to let me get the work done so I can have my enjoyment later. One big plan that vein is an extension of the deck by the sunroom and the installation of a hot tub/spa, something I was hoping to complete in the next couple years. The funny thing is, technology and materials are finally catching up to a lot of the ideas I had many years ago. I never finished the sunroom remodel due to health reasons. Part of that involved hidden lighting and automatic shades. Back then it was not easily done, but now it will be something that will integrate perfectly into bits and pieces I've been adding this year. It's also more efficient and connected than ever. The geek in me is having a lot of fun with it all.

I sometimes feel as if I am in some sort of race, one to make life simple later on with some concerted effort now. These health/injury setbacks become extremely frustrating. I am getting a taste of the payoff, but the goal isn't reached yet. Life keeps teasing and testing me at the wrong time.

Well, at least I had a pretty decent run since around the time of our wedding til a couple days ago. Once again, my lower back decided to crumble from beneath me and I am again a hunched-over invalid in lots of pain, needing a cane to get around and no longer leaving the house. While it is not nearly as bad as my situation last year at about this time, it's similar to my original symptoms that eventually needed surgery to fix, and after that first surgery I was left permanently affected with nerve troubles. At least I can sleep mostly normally this time, unlike last year where laying down was impossible in any form. I am hoping this is a temporary setback that won't require trips to the doctors or worse. This all flared up late last week while I was doing the last bit of electrical work on the house. I was installing an electrical outlet in the entryway in order to plug in an illuminated console cabinet, a task I've been wanting to get to for over twenty years (I definitely put the "pro" in procrastination). This involved walking back and forth from one room to another, squatting or sitting on the floor, making holes in walls and fishing cable, among other involved tasks. Perhaps it wouldn't have been so bad if I had noticed before that the wiring in the wall was 12gauge instead of the 14guage I had assumed, and needed to start over. Halfway through the work and with live wires sticking out from the wall and many of the remaining outlets in the living room dead, I couldn't stop, so I finished everything and cleaned up despite the increasing, excruciating pain. If there's a bright spot in any of this, I had gotten most of my numerous current projects and tasks completed, save for taping/spackling/sanding the reconfigured wall between the entryway and living room, and the paint and trim work. Jeff's excitement of me also finally finishing the skylight project I began 4 years ago will be dashed once again. As usual, I feel like I let him down, which I feel is often the case. I just can't catch a break anymore.

We were set to go watch Penn State play Maryland up in PA, but I sent him up along with Snickles, with Kodi and I staying behind to rest. Snickles likes to take the long walks at least twice a day in order to do his doggie business, and those walks were a big part of my exercise routine, many times 5 miles or more. Those are definitely out, and while I can simply let Kodi out of the house by himself to do his thing, Snickles needs to be leashed and walked lest he take off to points unknown, his only issue remaining since we've had him in training. We have also some shows/concerts in the works, and I'm afraid I will lose out on those too. If there is a silver lining in the cloud this weekend, there was more family drama that erupted during my absence, and this is one thing I want no parts of. I am no longer technically an outsider and will hold not one damn thing when it comes to the intra-family drama, feuding and attitude problems. Seriously, there are Jerry Springer levels of lying, thieving, homophobia, bigotry, closet cases, mental illness, addiction and more in the extended family, and both of us are glad to be far enough from it not to deal with it on a daily basis. Still, it creeps in over the phone, emails and text messages, and it makes stress levels go up. If it weren't for his mom and dad, we both would remove ourselves from any further contact. It's nearly always some stupid issue whenever the siblings call. This is why I 1) am so glad I am an only child with no other family and 2) I refuse to be dragged into this nonsense. I have no problem telling them where to go, nor with the amount of broken noses I might leave in my wake.

As my dear readers can probably imagine, I am going stir crazy already, I hate laying about doing nothing. I was like a smiling pig in a big puddle of slop doing all these projects and more, and setting up ideas and supplies for the next thing on the evolving list. Lots of momentum was brought to a complete halt now, and while I might not be literally climbing the walls, I am bracing myself against them as I move about. I just gotta focus my energies on things that don't require much movement. The one thing I have managed to avoid so far in all of this is a return to taking the narcotic pain killers I had needed the last time. The side effects are something I just don't want to deal with unless the pain becomes totally unbearable, and I definitely don't want to go through the detox process again either.

Finally, I consider this the "third strike." Since I initially was beset with these back problems and the lingering damage and disability afterward, I could not bring myself to file for permanent disability. I figured I would be able to pull myself out of it all eventually and head back to the workforce until my official retirement date (or even after), but I am beginning to face the fact that that day does not appear to be coming anymore. This is the biggest hit to my pride that I can think of besides the disability itself, as I have always, always been proud of my independent nature, my ability to literally lift myself from poverty to living in what is currently the second-richest county in the US, and to be able to handle whatever might come my way. My ego didn't want to face this day, and it's looming larger than ever. I feel I am giving up. I have run out of options by all measures, and it kills me t think about it.

*sigh*

In case you might have been wondering, my social media silence for the past several weeks is due mostly to exasperation and other pissedoffedness as I deal with pain, immobility and other health issues. I've been trying my best to be as useful as possible as the both of us stare down the impending wedding date and the increasing rush to get things done before the big day. There have been setbacks but most have been figured out, but there's still more to come. Rather than sit here and bore everyone with rants and other negativity, I just stay off the internet. Currently I've been seeing several doctors and having tests and procedures with little relief. So, that's about where I stand health wise. Most of the wedding invitations have gone out to those who have provided their addresses, and a trickling have been coming back, around 70/30 attending. Kinda miffed at the lack of communication that inevitably happens, but I have my way around that too. If I have to be strapped to a handtruck and rolled down the aisle on the big day, that's what I'll do. I'll be happy just to be able to stand and not be in pain.

So, there ya have it, the reason for radio silence.

This week has been one of mostly successes and accomplishments. Jeff took off Tuesday to haul my increasingly narrowing ass to the doc for my 2 week followup. Despite the blowout of my sutures and the resulting bleeding on par with a gunshot wound the few days prior, he said I was healing nicely, the intern pulled the remaining bits of sutures and doc set me up for physical therapy centered around traction, e-stim and strengthening. I will get those sessions scheduled starting next week. After the appointment, which was held at the Montgomery county office instead of the more local Howard offices, I took Jeff for a nice lunch, celebrating my second leaving of the house since the surgery (I managed to do some grocery shopping with Jeff a day before) and being able to get around mostly using the cane, albeit hunched over and very slow. But progress is progress. The pooches, left alone and uncrated in the house for the first time in a long time, were well behaved as we found upon returning home, so riding the crest of accomplishment we went to Lowe's and Home Depot to pick up some decorations for inside and outside the house, plus some tools and bits, and a shopping trip to the Goodwill store. Today was a trip to the Amish market in Laurel then a trip back to Home Depot for more stuff and deals and back to the Goodwill store to pick up a DVD changer I spied the day before for a good price. This was a lot of walking, albeit hanging off of shopping carts for support, but it's walking nonetheless.

I have three more days of Jeff at home with me and we will do as much as we can as well as enjoy our time together. I need to rearrange the outdoor equipment in the garage in order to have the snowblower handy and ready to go, and I have to get some other equipment put up for the winter. I am finally getting back to all the minor and major tinkering, fixing, building and other things that make me happy. I am way behind in many thing, the yard is a mess, some vehicle projects not done with boxes of parts sitting stacked in the garage, but that stuff can wait until I am far more mobile. THe yard, well, the leaves will blow away eventually. Things could be worse. I did notice the alternator in Jeff's truck is getting increasingly noisy, so I have to replace or rebuild it soon to keep him on the road. Luckily it is an easy job on his truck, no crawling underneath or digging deep into the engine compartment from above. At least the rest of the fleet is usable and I got some work done on them before being hurt.

I am anxious to get back to a normal life, but I am still not going to push it getting there. I ordered a couple new walking sticks to make getting around easier and safer. Today was the first road test for them. I shouldn't be taking taking spills on asphalt as I did a while ago. I look forward to the day I can take the dogs for a walk once again.

Well, I'm off to get knifed in the back. Hopefully this will fix my back issues for good. If you don't hear from me in a day or two, something went wrong.

Wish me luck.

In today's mail was a large envelope. Inside was a certificate congratulating me for my years of service with The Company That Makes Funny Looking Airplanes, as well as a catalog of gifts. Major stuff this time, watches, espresso maker, crystal, clocks, 32G iPod, big screen TV, even bicycles. How long have I been at the same gig? Thirty years. At one time I couldn't imagine myself being thirty years old, much less working at the same job for that long.

I should feel a sense of accomplishment, but it pales next to my feeling just... old. I guess it's part of my current round of spine troubles making me feel all of my years behind me pushing back.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to shoo people off my lawn.

I've been slipping lately in my bloggerly duties. It has not been helping matters as I continue to battle the worst-ever sinus infection the past week. Seriously, this is the absolute embodiment of nazztuh. The entire left side of my head feels as if I endured nine rounds worth of right hooks from Mike Tyson. At least I still have my ear. But my left nostril is sealed up tight, and the post nasal drip tastes of rot and sewage mixed with sulfuric acid. Honestly, I've had my share of sinus hell, but this beats them all. The doc has me taking a handful of industrial strength antibiotics, painkillers and decongestants. The last day I am noticing some improvement, but that has been tempered by the side effects of the regimen of meds. I was at least able to sleep in a bed last night, rather than upright in the recliner trying to keep my face from bursting off my head. I've also practically devastated our stock of tissues. I hope this is a side effect of the antibiotics, but my sense of taste as well as my limited sense of smell is all screwed up. Having dealt with this issue after being bombarded with strong antibiotics in the days after my colon ruptured many years ago (yeah, I'm pretty much a mess), it took months for my senses to normalize. My appetite is lacking, but that's no big deal.

I've been very cranky the past week or so, and I've been avoiding people and interactions and removing myself from any drama-inducing situations for my own good, as well as those around me. I just don't "sick" well at all.

Jeff has been going through his own health issues lately, and I've been accompanying him to his doctor's visits as well. Turns out he will need to undergo carpal tunnel surgery at the end of the month, which might eventually involve both arms at the wrist and the elbow. He also has to have a portion of his thyroid removed, but that can't happen until sometime next year, as his recovery from last December's heart attack and surgeries precludes it; the thyroid and surrounding surgery site is a highly vascular area, and the meds Jeff is currently taking post-heart attack cause significant bleeding. He bruises quite easily these days, and he tends to blame them all on me, which upsets me. Of course, at work he blames them on his boss, which is amusing.

So, as it goes, in sickness and in health, right? We seem to have a lot more of the former lately, but we manage somehow. It's hell getting old, but at least we can do it together.

A quick update and some words. First off, and most importantly, Jeff and I went to his doc this afternoon for the results of the biopsy performed on his thyroid a a couple weeks ago. The growths are benign. This was a huge parting of dark clouds for us. Still needing to be addressed is the cause of and the symptoms (tiredness and lethargy primarily) from these growths. This will take place in the near future. Thankfully there is no push for surgery and treatments the worst of the news would have brought upon him. So, I can't yell "YAY!" loud enough or from too high of a mountaintop as an expression of relief and joy.

Now I can get on with my own health issues. These have gotten me quite bummed, but I will work it out.

And here's the part when I stand humbled, with hat in hand. In my post from a while back I lamented my dissatisfaction and disappointment in regards to "social media" and its varied and uncertain value to me at times. Well, in the posts since, I was (once again) reminded of the value of the phenomenon. While I still feel that it often exacerbates the disconnect I feel between friends because of the inevitable distances involved, there is no denying the connections offered. There are real people, with true concerns and even love at the other end of the posts, comments and messages. Yeah, I get frustrated that people I know I'd have an awesome time being around are hundreds or thousands (or even just a few) of miles away. So, I will try harder to measure the real folks with real words coming from the glow of my screen against the occasional disappointment I feel because they are not in the same room. I will also endeavor to rectify the latter as much as possible with more travel, trips and invitations. I might have been rather quiet here as far as followup replies to comments and such, but rest assured your words have a definite effect. And I loves yas all for it.

So, it's with a bit of extra sunshine that the plans we've been making for travel and fun despite what has been unfolding for the past few months. We've got tix to see Elton John this weekend, Cirque du Soleil's Totem in a couple months, four trips to Hillside and an extended trip to PTown. And we'll do more I'm sure. And I hope to make real more of the virtual connections I have.

I humbly thank each and every one who have left words of concern and encouragement. You've done more for me than you know. And, well, more than *I* know at times.

Peace.