Snot, Sects, and Marketing

There are sneezes to clear dust and then there are sneezes that start out at your feet and shake your spine and tingle afterwards and make the roof of your mouth start to sweat. These are the ones that let you know you're getting sick.
That one hit me somewhere on I-70 late Sunday. I had been fighting a cold for ten or so days, bobbing and weaving with vitamins and orange juice, so I could be well enough for Thanksgiving so I could enjoy my son and avoid my mother-in-law saying "you're always sick!"
So I'm glad the germs took their time winning the war. As it is, my nephew (who is always sick) had the sniffles, and, after sneezing at the dinner table, looked like he had two green snakes attacking his brain.
Which is why, I claim, my son now has a cold.

Did I mention the walls in my apartment complex are thin? I usually have to study at the AFIT computer lab at night, since my neighbor plays music or loud television shows all hours. (Some war movie is drowning out my Simpsons episode as I type.)
At least he was nice enough to turn it all down last night while he was having friendly relations with someone in his living room.

I'm going to go make dinner: the last time my wife was in Seattle she got me another bag of my favorite pasta all formed in the shape of the Space Needle, called "Space Noodles." While falling asleep last night, I tried to think of some other food I could market like that. First thing that came to mind was to take some tic-tacs, whittle down one end to a sharp point, and call them Washington Monu-mints.

Reuniting with the little plump-kin

Well, it didn't start out great...

...and it just got worse. It took me two hours to get the first 60 miles to Columbus, partly due to weather, partly due to traffic, partly due to people stopping to look at the pretty police car in the median with its lights flashing. For no reason.
I wasn't able to leave Dayton until 2pm, and it was already getting dark at 4:30, which made things infinitely worse. There was a five-mile back-up in both directions on I-70 in eastern Ohio, even though the overturned truck was again in the median. But the snow wasn't piling up; it was just annoying. And add everyone and their brother-in-law on the road, and a six-hour drive turned into nine and a half. After passing six car wrecks and one that was just through being on fire, I debated pulling off and getting a motel room, but I wanted to see my wife and son, dad, and sister-in-law's family, all waiting for me at my parents-in-laws' place in Berkeley Springs. I was going to make it if it killed me.
Okay, the logic was flawed.
I do not have a car for winter travel. But I have North Dakota experience, relatively new tires, and what southerners call "chutzpa". It amazed me how reckless some drivers were, and how ridiculously overcautious others were. I wanted to be somewhere in the middle, so I was swerving and breaking and windshield wiper-fluiding all over the place. I finally got off the main highways around 11 pm, and reached my in-laws' through a steadiers snowfall, which had the effect of a continuously undulating jellyfish the size of an armchair hovering over my car.
My knee sore from more than a third of a day of accelerator and break maintenance, I hobbled up the stairs to my wife's room, where she was feeding my son. My boy.
It was wonderful to see so much family at once; quite the contrast from solitary confinement in Dayton. Although the mass of people did cut into the on-hand pumpkin pie supply.
After two days at the barn, Saturday we drove home to see the animals and take care of some things there. But it was too short. I turned around Sunday for the ride back, this time through rain instead of snow. I'm told that the dogs are sulking.

The Toes Knows

I returned to the pain management clinic Tuesday to discuss back treatment options. But first they had me take off my socks.
They wanted to see how much spine damage they were dealing with, so they hooked me up to a Neurometer, attaching electrodes to my my big, middle, and little toes, and then zapping me like a psychology student. This was to establish my Current Perception Threshold, as the tester turned the dial down to imperceptible levels, then back up so I could barely feel it -- basically a hearing test for my toes. The test determined that I have a back injury.
Huh.
The nerve root around the L4 and L5 region of the spine is still irritated, now 4 years removed from my surgery. They have recommended physical therapy involving hydromassage, spine-pulling traction, and back-strengthening exercise. It's a 20-session/five week program that is meant to be strictly followed once begun, so I'm not going to start until the new year, after I'm back (har!) from Christmas break.

At least I'm getting partial credit

As I mentioned back in May, it's the math I'm struggling with most.

Ohio Gazamas

One of my thrill-a-millisecond classes is called Business Process Improvement, in which we've started a new book called "Lean Thinking: Banish Waste in Your Corporation", so don't bother getting me it for Christmas.
Today we were discussing the history of Toyota's success, specifically its "5S" system of organization, where, magically, someone has found alliteratively appropriate English equivalents:

• Shitsuke -- sustain or self-discipline
• Seiketsu -- stabilize or standardize
• Seiso -- scrub or shine
• Seiton -- straighten or set
• Seiri -- simplify or sort

Our professor asked if anyone was familiar with the "5S" model, and Brian said he was (he had seen it during a visit to an American car company), but he added that there it had been called a "6S" model.
"What was the sixth 's'?"
"I can't remember."
(For those of you who occasionally ask, "where do you come up with this stuff?" this was the point where my mind raced into full auto. Though it always helps to get lucky.)
Then it came to him. "Oh. It was 'Safety'."
I added my two yen: "...and I believe the Japanese equivalent of that is 'shiitake'."
A pause.
Vanessa couldn't shut her big yap: "That's a mushroom."
"Exactly," I say. "It's the safe mushroom to eat."

The professor: "So you've spent some time in Japan, then?"

The Fortuitous Residual Ambienceness of Neighborly Shiverlry

Friends of the blog know that I'm a cheapskate but am also trying to save money so I can buy my kid a hybrid rocket scootercycle when he turns twelve. So, every penny counts. If I'm gone for a weekend, I go so far as to unplug my clock radio.
So imagine my glee
go ahead, sit there and imagine it
done?
but my imaginable glee was garnered when the seasons changed with a thud here last week (we went from the sixties to the twenties in two days, and never the twain did shone) when although I fretted I would have to start paying electric heating bills, it seems that my good neighbors that surround me do a good enough job heating their apartments, mine never drops below 69 degrees. It even got down to a windshield-glazing 19 degrees Friday morning, and my thermostat narried a mind.
Maybe I can buy a tandem scootercycle!

Getting to UnKnow You

I've now been gone for as long as I was home with my boy. I miss him. I'm starting to forget little things about what he looks like, and am obviously missing out on the daily changes. Plus I miss getting to know him as he becomes more coherent day to day, which I didn't really get to while I was there. There really wasn't a connection made, which was perfectly understandable with someone who spent most of the day either asleep or buried in my wife's mammariousness. I just fed him and cleaned him. It was almost like just having another foster kitten in the house, only this one was actually wearing its own litter box.
So while I miss experiencing my boy, and learning all there is to know, like how the back of his head feels like a half-filled soda can, I feel worse that I'm not there for my wife, spelling her, giving her a breather when she needs it, sharing things with her, letting her feel like a human rather than a milk spigot.
Thank goodness for her parents and my dad, stopping by when they can.
Only seven more months...

My First Political Post

Something occurred to me this evening about this media-intensive frenzy we call life:

Now -- granted, there have been a lot of important things going on lately that would take our minds off this, but:

Sure, he seemed like a real dillhole, dressed like your seventh grade social studies teacher, and had the face of a walrus (or a shrink-wrapped Wilford Brimley with a bad toupee), but:

It's been three and a half months now (I had to look it up; I had forgotten when it was), and to my knowledge, United States Under the Table-Ambassador-Appointee John R. Bolton has not caused the UN to melt into the East River nor compelled Kofi Annan to run around naked begging begging for Boutros Boutros-Ghali to come back.

Can we now put a moratorium on future hubbubbery?

I didn't walk the pig

Apparently, he's not friendly.
But imagine my surprise to see him back in there in the dog kennels! My wife's Humane Society used to get goats and ducks and horses and snakes and stuff, but I was taken aback by what I thought at first was the FUGliest dog I'd ever...

Trey and Lori and last week's Great Dane were adopted this week, but Mickee has been decreed temporarily unadoptable thanks to last week's biting incident. So now people can't even go look at her cowering away in her kennel. She seems to do all right with me, so I gently led her outside in the brisk 24-degree weather for a tinkle and a skritch under the collar, and I told her flat out, as her legs trembled while stepping up to me to lick me on the nose, that if I didn't already have dogs...
At least she doesn't have it as bad off as Chester, who had to be put down for attacking Emily's throat. She's recovering nicely. I walked her today; she's part beagle, part dirigible. Whoo! She's a big girl. But tons of energy.
Actually, I was greeted at the front counter by Lady, who's no Slim Pickens herself. Picture a Corgie mixed with a Guinea Pig, then enlarged ten times. Still, I'd rather see them fat than skinny; I walked two neglect case dogs, a great yellow lab named Stanley and a young girl hound with a beige butt named Thea.
Thea was VERY timid at first, but once I got a belly rub in, she was Captain Spasmatron.
And then there's Tiger, who's been there for months, now. She's big, she barks, but she's o so friendly. Very cute when she sits. Just needs some training. And to get out of the prison. Gah! The place isn't fit for a pig!
..uh...

It's seems I'm not usual

One of my classes is called Organizational Behavior, and our instructor had us fill out the Martin-Briggs Type Indicator, which categorizes personalities based on answers to seventy questions, like:

• At parties do you a) usually have fun b) get bored easily
• Do you usually make decisions with a) your heart b) your head
• If you were a teacher, would you rather teach a) fact-based courses or b) theory-based courses
• Would you rather kill a) French Canadians or b) Flaming Caucasians

The specialist came in and gave us our results, but she first gave us a worksheet with definitions to see if we could guess if we were Introverts or Extroverts, Sensors or iNtuitives, Thinkers or Feelers, and Judgers or Perceivers. Sort of like my politics, I felt I was very much middle of the road, being a little of both in each coupling, except for being a firewall Perceiver.
Though people are scattered all over the chart, it seems the category with the most people in it is ISTJs, and the overwhelming majority of military people are either ISTJs, ESTJs, INTJs, or ENTJs.
The lady checked my results and came up to me and asked me a funny question:
"Do you enjoy being in the military?"
"Absolutely."
She had a follow-up question:
"........really?"
My results labeled me as an INFP, which, she said, was very typical. For people in the medical or religious career fields. She said only 1% of my type are in the military.
I'm weird.

Learning through half-open eyelids

So the medicine appears to be working. I've felt better the last couple days. But I've also felt estrmlydrowz amst alldayhuh ya i likk pizza.

I'm supposed to take the pills twice a day (one of them thrice daily). so. feel better, or get an education? hmmm. choices.
I had to take a make-up mid-term today, and I waited until I got to question 60 of 70 before popping the pills. I'm all about compromise.

The gang at the Humane Society this afternoon was pleased to hear I was a pappy, though I was dismayed to see that not much had changed. Tiger, Chester, and Mickee were all still there, and Trey had returned from being adopted earlier (I don't know why). Plus, they had only recently reopened from a kennel-wide disease -- I had gone to volunteer the day before I left for my son's birth, but the dog kennel had been shut down due to an outbreak of parvo; unfortunately, four-month-old Puddin' had died from it. :-(
Mickee was still a little skittish, but after I walked a few dogs, she really seemed to want to go out and was wagging her tail as I approached. But after I got her outside and she did her business, she was her old look-sideways-at-me self, hunched over, almost low-crawling. I tried to get her across the street so we could get away from traffic (and I could give her a jumbone I had smuggled in for her), but halfway across the street, she darted backwards and slipped out of her collar. Fortunately, she's like the old guy in Shawshank Redemption, and would rather be in prison than anywhere, and she ran right to the front door of the shelter.
I tried to get her into a socialization room to just get her used to humans, but she was freaking out, so I walked her into her kennel, and sat down in there with her.
Fortunately, there weren't a lot of customers in there at the time. I am unadoptable. My wife seems fond of me.
I'll close with a silly picture of Lady Jane.

New Best Friends: Ultracet, Topomax, Voltaren

So Doctor number 13 has tackled (not literally, har!) my back problem, checking me for everything from diabetes to thyroidal issues to extensive neurological damage. I was assigned by the base hospital (which doesn't have a pain management clinic) to go downtown to the Dayton Pain Center, where I'm seeing Bhimavarapu K. Reddy.
He's not from round here.
But he wants to put me on a spinal decompression device that targets the particular vertebrae of issue, which would be different from the physical therapy device I endured in Turkey which can best be described as "the Rack".
He's also prescribed some new medications, one for pain, one for inflammation, and one for epilepsy.
?
Apparently it's meant to target the nerve damage in the spinal cord. We shall, as ever, see. Though I feel like I'm back to square one, at least the other squares are laid out in a path ahead of me.

He Can Hear Me Now

My son had his audiological appointment today, and my wife told me he passed with flying colors. Apparently, the test is newfangleder than just blowing up a paper bag and snapping it behind his head; it involves computers and sensors and complete, absolute silence, which of course is super easy with a 17-day-old.
I have returned to classes, though my thoughts are still 505.7 miles to the east. I was going to try and sneak home over this Veteran's Day Weekend, but I just can't justify it -- I didn't get a word of studying done during my two weeks home, and I have four tests to make up by next week...it would be no fun going home just to have my nose in a book (not that I would). My professors have been very lenient with me, but I need to get back on track so I'm not behind all quarter.
Thanks to my educational research input of my 11 Aug 05 entry regarding our oil-damaged mollusk friend from the north Pacific, there are a handful of people who have nicknamed me "Gumboot."
So, naturally, they're referring to my newborn son as "Gumby."
*sigh*

Back in the Saddle

Sorry, I've been a little busy having suddenly become apparent.
More to follow; hope everyone had a lovely Halloween.