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I've been back to my retina specialist a couple of times for
checkups sine I had laser surgery in February, and it
appears that everything in my eyes is stable for now. My
problem tooth, on the other hand, didn't fare so well. The
intermittent pain got so bad I told the dentist if he didn't
do something for it, I was ready to get someone to use some
pliers to yank it out. I told him I had started myself on
some leftover antibiotic capsules and was on the verge of
breaking into my emergency travel stash of hydrocodone for
the pain. That got his attention, so he prescribed an
antibiotic and gave me a prescription for some fresh pain
meds until they could fit me into their schedule in a week
or so. I don't really like taking narcotic pain relievers,
but I made an exception this time so I could sleep at night.
(I have no idea why some people become addicted to something
that makes you so spaced out.) When the week passed, the
dentist began a root canal but couldn't find one of the
roots, so he set me up to see an endodontist to finish it a
month later. But, the pain was gone, so I was happy. The
endodontist finally finished digging the roots out of the
bone and charged a lot more money. Last week, I went back to
the dentist so he could finish with a permanent filling. The
whole ordeal took a couple of months.
 We
finally had an opportunity on a city weekend in May to get
down to the beach for the first time this year. It was one
of those rare days on the coast when the air is actually dry
and mild. We set up our chairs and umbrella and enjoyed the
morning before walking across the street for a burger at our
favorite place, "The
Spot" (highly recommended.) While we were eating on
their upstairs deck, our umbrella uprooted and started
blowing down the beach. Fortunately, we saw it fly away, so
I jumped up, hurried across the street and chased it down
before it got out of sight. By the time I got there, a
helpful woman had managed to capture and subdue it after it
chased her down the beach for a dozen yards.
 I
took the week of Memorial Day off so M and I could spend
some time with son, who was in from California. Youngest
daughter was in for about a day as well. Unfortunately, the
big boat was still in the shop , so we couldn't water ski as
hoped. The weekend before the holiday was pretty busy on the
lake, since the weather was superb, and lots of people
besides the regulars were out enjoying it. We stayed at the
house on Memorial Day and grilled some chicken. On the
following days, we had some nice relaxing time lounging out
on the deck at the lake.
My parents joined us for lunch and visiting on a couple of
days.
We spent one whole day burning three big brush piles that
used to be a huge sweet gum tree right in the center of the
lake lot. It took a couple of tries to get the piles to
burn, but a homemade flame thrower made from a pesticide
sprayer full of diesel fuel did the trick.
The shade from the tree was nice, but it was in the way of
future building plans, and of course every year it dropped
thousands of those nasty spike covered balls that are so
much fun to step on with bare feet. We had paid a crew of
immigrants to take the tree down piecemeal on a Sunday
morning in February. They hauled away the biggest piece of
the trunk as part of the deal. (I love doing business with
people who do what they say on a handshake.) Next project
will be digging out the stump and some much needed major
dirt work to get the contour of the land ready for building
on. We'll have to find someone with a serious backhoe for
that.
We loaded most of the remaining big limb pieces onto the
flatbed trailer several weeks ago and set out hauling them
back to the house so we could unload them in a pile to rot.
We only made it 5 or 6 miles down the road before one of the
four trailer tires disintegrated. With no spare, we unhooked
the trailer on the side of the road, jacked it up, and drove
into town with the rim to find a used tire. After a couple
of strikeouts, we found a little place in an old former
filling station that had just what we needed. The guy
mounted a decent used tire, made change in cash from his
pocket, and we were on our way. After driving back and
putting the wheel back on, we noticed another tire on the
other side had gone flat. Not wanting to repeat the
exercise, we unloaded all the wood to the edge of the woods
beside the road to lighten the trailer, aired up the flat
tire with a little emergency compressor I keep in the truck,
and we headed home. We eventually had the same guy replace
the last two old rotten trailer tires with "newer" used
may-pops. All set for next time. We pass our special wood
pile every time we drive to the lake now, but it is quickly
recycling itself and disappearing.
 M,
son and I traveled back to the city in separate cars caravan
style on the following Friday morning so we could move all
my belongings to a new apartment much closer to my work. We
took in a baseball game on Friday evening(the Astros lost).
Saturday was a really long and tiring day, but with the help
of a rented U-Haul trailer, we got it all done. Son left for
Dallas early on Sunday to catch a flight back to San Jose. M
and I spent the rest of the morning cleaning the old
apartment and loading the last items, mostly plants, into my
car. When we were done, M left for home, and I turned in my
old keys and headed for my new home away from home.
M was down this weekend, and we were hoping to have some
relaxing pool and beach time. Unfortunately, we had endless
thunderstorms, so there was no hope of outside activities.
Instead, we shopped a bit, and I spent the afternoon hanging
all of my many framed pictures on the apartment walls. I
must say, it looks a lot better now.
Our boat mechanic left a phone message a couple of days ago
that the ski boat is finally fixed, so I'll plan to pick it
up and we can hang it in the boat house at the lake next
weekend. On next Sunday morning, I'll leave from the house
for the airport to fly off to Brazil. Hopefully, we'll have
some fun in addition to our business activities, and I'll
have some pictures to post next time. |
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The weekend turned out nice here in the city, and it was our
28th anniversary, so M and I tried to take advantage. On
Saturday, we did some shopping early, took a nice bike ride,
ate lunch, sunned ourselves at the pool along with the other
apartment dwellers, had a nice dinner with a glass of
Chianti at an Italian restaurant, and went to a party for a
bunch of my coworkers in the evening. A lovely day all
'round.
 This
morning, we took another bike ride before M headed home. I
looked on the web to see what all was going on in town, and
it happened that this was the weekend for the Houston Grand
Prix. So, I loaded up my camera and headed down to the
Reliant Stadium / Astrodome area where the parking lot had
been turned into a race course, complete with concrete
barriers topped with fences to protect the spectators. I
actually only drove as far as Hermann Park, where the
parking is free, then took the light-rail train to the
venue, saving $13 and avoiding the hassle of the giant
parking lot. I paid for general admission and walked around
the infield until the marquee event started at 2 PM. I tried
taking pictures from several different locations but the
double layer of protective fencing made it a bit difficult.
 When
it was about half over, I noticed that the attendants who
were guarding the entrances to the grandstands (those
tickets cost more) had left their posts, and there were lots
of extra seats, so I walked right on through and found a
nice seat high up. Finally I could see the cars screaming by
without looking through a fence. To me, these super high
tech race cars are a lot more interesting than the stock
cars of NASCAR, but the smaller crowds show that they
haven't figured out how to market their events like NASCAR
does to the good ol' boy crowd. Instead, they appeal
to serious motor heads and to people from other parts of the
world. In fact, most of the drivers were from outside the
US. All in all, an amazing amount of effort went into
turning a parking lot into a world class race course. |
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Last Tuesday, I became a human pin cushion. A group of us
are planning to travel to Brazil on business in June, and my
fellow travelers and I were given a list of recommended and
mandatory immunizations as we submitted our passports along
with visa applications to the consulate. I took my paperwork
to the designated local occupational health clinic, and they
rounded up all the proper vials and syringes. The nurse
asked me where I wanted them, and I volunteered my left arm.
She asked why I didn't want any in the "hip", so I told her
the story from my childhood where we were playing in my
grandfather's barn on an improvised swing, made with rotten
rope of course, and it broke when I sat in it. The good news
was there was a lot of hay on the bare dirt floor to cushion
my fall. The bad news was there was a board with a nail in
it sticking straight up under the hay. I couldn't sit down
properly for several weeks, and the obligatory tetanus shot
in the arm didn't hurt nearly as bad as the nail in the
buttock. So, if I'm going to be punctured, I prefer they
stay away from where I sit down.
The nurse ended up giving me three shots in the left arm,
two in the right, and a TB test in the left forearm. So just
in case we're kidna0ped and dragged into the jungle, I
should be resistant to typhoid, tetanus, polio (yes, I had
the sugar cubes, but they don't count anymore), hepatitis A,
and hepatitis B. There was some confusion on whether we
needed yellow fever, so if it turns out we do, I can get
that when I go back in a month for the round 2 of the
multi-part hepatitis regimen. I declined some other offered
vaccinations, such as chicken pox and measles, since I
developed antibodies to all the childhood diseases the old
fashioned way - I had the diseases.
Tuesday evening, I felt like I was coming down with the flu
and went to bed early, but I was OK the next morning.
Unfortunately, for the third or fourth weekend in a row, the
weather was cold and rainy, so we mostly stayed inside.
Today it is just lovely. Oh well. |
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Last weekend, we had a lot of rain in the city, so we mostly
spent our time indoors as much as possible - shopping,
watching DVDs, cooking and eating a steak dinner with a nice
bottle of Beaujolais, and finally driving 30 miles to the
west side of town to see the
Cirque du Soleil. One of the nice things about the
Cirque is that the seating under their big tent is cozy, and
even near the back you feel close to the stage. Our
seats were in the center, so the view was just great.
This venue was way different from their last show that was
designed for full sized sports arenas. Like everyone
else, we really enjoyed the show, although the guy next to
us complained that this circus had no elephants (he was
joking).
For the Easter weekend, I traveled back home, just in time
for the cold snap, or as the old timers call it, "the Easter
spell". We managed to get some chores and yard work
done on Friday, but it got really cold overnight, so we lit
a fire and mostly stayed in the warmth inside the house on
Saturday. The only good thing about the weather was that
this should be the last shred of winter before it gets good
and hot, just how I like it.
I've about decided to move to an apartment closer to work so
the drive will be easier. Monday, I'll go check out
the finalists, update my comparison spreadsheet, and make
the logical selection. Or more likely I'll go with my
gut, since there are too many intangibles to assign rankings
in a spreadsheet. |
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My change in job assignment and location back in January
resulted in my pattern of every other Friday off to be
switched to the other set so that our manager group would be
balanced and half available each Friday. Actually, Fridays
are very quiet at places like ours around the city, since
either everyone works 9-hour days and half the people are
off, or in some cases, everyone works 10 hour days and
everyone is off. Driving to work every other Friday like I
do, there is much less traffic to fight. Today is my day
off, and I would normally have driven home last night, but
we have tickets for the Cirque du Soleil performance of
Corteo on Saturday night, so M is driving down this evening.
This morning, I went to the dentist for a cleaning, but I
also had a very sore tooth. My current dentist is one of the
good ones who will try the simple fixes first - in this case
grinding down the tooth a bit to make my bite match up
better, since the tooth may simply be inflamed from too much
pressure. Too many dentists would be anxious to do a root
canal and crown immediately, for several hundred dollars.
The hygienist harassed me as usual about flossing more,
brushing better, and using some kind of fluoride rinse every
day. She drew blood from my gums getting all the gunk off.
Perhaps that is my punishment for being bad. I imagine
she'll fuss at me again in six months.
I'm having fun at work these days, staying very busy with my
troop of young engineers who are all eager to learn and make
an impression to further their careers. There are no duds in
the bunch. It pleases me no end that half the new hires
these days are women, and they are capable and career
oriented, even when they are building families. The
opportunities for women and minority groups are definitely
better here than at my former company, as evidenced by who
is in managerial positions at various levels. Although there
is really no formal diversity training in the company, I
think the proximity to an urban environment provides a more
modern view of the world than exists in rural areas.
Admittedly, the very top management is still all white
males, but there is lots of diverse talent coming up through
the ranks to take their spots someday.
One of my most experienced engineers (5 years) recently
accepted a challenging new assignment, and she asked early
in the week if I wanted to go to lunch on Thursday, to which
I answered "Of course". We rounded up some other people and
headed out, and one of them announced that it was her
birthday! When we were done eating, I told the waiter to put
her meal on my check. When she didn't get a check and
started to ask, I had to fess up. I told her it would be bad
karma to allow a friend to pay for their own lunch on their
birthday. One of the others at the table volunteered
immediately to mail me a list of birthdays...
M and I were down in the space center area last weekend
looking at apartments so I can try and find something I like
closer to my workplace. It might be a fair trade to exchange
the forest I live in now, with all the biking and walking
trails, for living close to the bay, with the potential for
water sports. I would really love to get back into sailing
after all these years, but it's hard to find a nice
apartment in a nice area for a reasonable amount. I suppose
I'm too picky, but I have to have a washer and dryer, and I
have to have a south facing exposure with lots of light
coming in. So far, nothing has taken my breath away.
We stopped into a bicycle store in our travels so I could
look at some of those funny little pedals that require
special shoes to clip into for my bicycle. The sales guy was
talking about the importance of keeping your foot aligned to
prevent joint and muscle pain, and it occurred to me that
this is probably why the 63 mile ride last fall was such a
killer. I had removed my toe clips because they had broken,
so I had nothing on the pedals to hold my feet straight.
Still thinking about whether I want to spend the money on
the fancy pedals.
I took the ski boat to my favorite boat mechanic a couple of
weeks ago, and he called this week to tell me the motor
mounts are rotten, so it will need some serious repair. They
will have to pull the engine and do some fiberglass work,
then reinstall. The engine runs good though, and the boat is
in great shape otherwise in spite of being 15 years old, and
hauling countless kids many miles learning to water ski, so
I asked him to have it ready for Memorial day if at all
possible.
I planted four tomato plants in pots on the balcony back in
January, and I now have baby tomatoes rapidly getting
bigger. By the end of April, I'll be slicing them for
dinner. Yum!
The clouds have thinned a bit, and it is in the low 70s
outside, so it must be time to take a long afternoon bike
ride. Off I go... |
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A couple of people have recently asked me why there has been
no update to my ramblings for awhile, and I was surprised
that I had gone six months since my last posting.
Well, that's probably a long enough break, so time to catch
up.
November, 2006 - Not much happening besides work except for
Thanksgiving, when youngest daughter was in for a couple of
days.
December 2006 - One of the unit managers I work with talked
me into interviewing for a position at his plant site to
manage a group of young engineers, and I finally agreed to
do it, though it means I will have to drive 31 miles each
way to work every day. I got the nod and will start the new
assignment on January 1. Only youngest daughter made
it in for Christmas, so it was quiet around the house.
January 2007 - We finally had some cold weather starting
about mid January. It was very nice and warm up to then. The
new work location is good in every way except for the longer
drive. Lots of people around the city drive further every
day, but it's a waste of time and money. Since I drive a
route over small back roads, it takes 45 minutes to an hour
each way.
On the 13th, we were out looking at modern lightweight
street bicycles and bought a nice Lemond Etape for M.
They didn't have quite what I wanted at that store, so we
went back to the apartment for lunch, and I got online to
find locations for another bike store. I found one that had
a great sale on 2006 model TREK 1500s, so we headed across
town to have a look. I liked the bike a lot, so we bought
one and loaded it in the car and took it home. Later in the
evening, we went to see the Symphony performing Bruckner's
Eighth downtown. Our seats were in the third row, which
allowed us to really watch the musicians in action. I
wondered if we would get too much of the closest
instruments, but the sound was just fine.
February 2007 - The weather stayed pretty cold. The
pool pump at the house died when the motor got flooded
during a big rain, so we had to take the pump to an
electrical repair shop to get a new motor ordered and
mounted. Unfortunately, in spite of the cold weather,
the pool began slowly turning green over the coming weeks.
On the 9th, I went to see my retina specialist in the
medical center to find out why the vision in my left eye was
deteriorating, and an angiogram showed that there are too
many blood vessels growing in a clump under my macula (the
center of focus), which is where fine details are discerned.
By the time of the exam, I could barely make out the big E
on the eye chart. On the 20th, I had a treatment on
the eye. A special chemical is injected into a vein in the
arm and allowed to circulate for a few seconds, and some of
it collects in the problematic veins in the eye. Coherent
(laser) light of a specific wavelength (689 nm) is focused
through the front of the eye onto the spot on the retina for
a few minutes, and hopefully the veins are damaged by the
activated chemical to the point that they quit growing,
without harming the retinal layer above. For three days
after the test, the patient must completely avoid direct
sunlight, or there is a risk of getting serious burns while
the chemical is still in the body. I did my best Michael
Jackson imitation, wearing a wide brimmed hat, long sleeves,
and gloves while driving or walking outside in the daytime.
My next appointment to asses progress is in a month.
March 2007 - On the 3rd, M and I rode in our first organized
bike ride since the one last October. This time we did a 43
mile route on our wonderful new lightweight bikes. We
started in a pack of about 1000 other riders at 7:30 AM on a
crisp sunny day. We averaged 13.6 mph over the route and got
back to the finish line around 11:15, just in time for free
food and a surprisingly good live band. We're still not
quite up to par with the full gear and regalia of most of
the other riders. We're still using normal shoes with toe
clips on our pedals rather than the special shoes that bind
to funny-looking stub pedals. And, we don't have
brightly colored skin tight jerseys with a team logo.
Instead, we wore (gasp) ordinary T-shirts. In spite of
our lack of conformance to current fashion, we managed to
finish 3rd in our mileage class among the people riding in
company sponsored groups. I even have a nice little wooden
plaque on the wall of my office at work to prove it. Heck,
if we had all the fancy gear, we might have done even
better. Or not...
 On
the 10th, M and I got up at 4:30 AM and drove to Austin to
see youngest daughter's apartment and to go on the Canopy
Tour west of the city where she guides people on weekends.
The idea is modeled after the canopy tours that have become
popular in tropical rainforest areas. We spent an hour and a
half sliding on zip lines between platforms mounted up high
in very large old bald cypress trees growing up from a creek
bed. It was a lovely sunny day, and we had a nice time.
When the trees are fully leafed out, it will probably be
even prettier. We all spent the afternoon sipping
beers and margaritas on one of the decks at the Oasis, a
restaurant on the side of the hill overlooking Lake Travis.
Very nice indeed.
I was back home for the weekend, so I got the repaired pool
pump installed - this time raised up 4 inches on a separate
slab of concrete so it can never get flooded. The piping all
had to be redone, so it took a bit of work and several trips
to Lowes. With the water circulating and some heavy doses of
chlorine and algaecide, the green color in the water is
getting lighter and lighter.
My next eye doctor appointment is on Tuesday afternoon.
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