Reconditioning Life 101
Jun/090
As of yesterday afternoon, life is getting better. This is the result of my new proactive outlook. No longer will I worry about being a victim of my circumstance.
Here’s the plan:
- Food budget reduced from $375/week to $50/week
- Food style changed from “whatever” to bulk/organic items from the Riverwest Co-op
- Wasteful random spending reduced from $30/day to $0
- Discretionary budget increased from $0 to $100 each/month
- General finance handling changed from debit to cash
- The kitchen will be clean every night before 21:00
- The living room will be clean every night before 23:00
- All furry pets will be brushed daily
- I will not make up time off of work: I will take it as unpaid leave
- I will sleep at least 8-hours every night
- I will use a motorcycle in lieu of a car whenever possible
- I will not waste time watching TV or aimlessly surfing the ‘net
Call it God. Call it karma. Call it the universe. Whatever. It will provide for us. We always have exactly enough to get by. Any time we get a windfall, we get an equivalent expense. Every time we have an unexpected expense, we immediately receive an unexpected windfall. It is too exact to be accidental. It’s time to start living within our means.
Day 1.5
Jun/090
Here’s the word of the moment:
- Surgery last year officially failed. The “repaired” disk is still/re-herniated. Heather hasn’t done anything for a year.
- Symptoms don’t line up with location of the herniation.
Where we go from here:
- EMG scheduled for Tuesday at 2:00
- Pretty much no matter how that comes out, they’ll do an MRI of “a different area of the spine”
So, we’re up in the air as per what’s actually wrong and the doctor isn’t really talking. However, I think I pretty seriously respect his not talking. To give an analogy:
It’s like coding. (Sad, eh?) When you start programming, you tend to write single-purpose programs. Then, they grow into multi-purpose linear programs. After that, they grow to amazingly complex and impossible to maintain linear programs. After which you finally give up and learn OOP. The way I see it, most doctors try to solve the entire problem in one fell swoop, no matter how complex it may be. This guy is taking an OO approach. Heather has a foot drop on her left side. We’re going to find out why and take care of it. After that has been taken care of, well look into the next most important symptom and evaluate the inputs and outputs of that. I think I approve.
Day 1
Jun/090
In about a half hour, we’re taking off for Heather’s appointment with her new spine guy, Dennis J. Maiman at MCW.
As a matter of course, he seems to prefer therapy over surgery. This is a pretty stark contrast to the surgeon (James Stoll) who did her L5-S1 procedure last year. At the time, the procedure was a success. Heather regained effective use of her legs. However, right now, it’s looking like there was a distinct lack of followup care as it seems to be common knowledge that work on L5-S1 requires a regimen of exercise therapy to prevent damage to L4 and L3. We never heard of this until Heather’s chiropractor (Tim Bertelsman) mentioned that her symptoms weren’t from the surgery site. Given some more followthrough, it appears that Tim was right (as always) and there is pressure and other nastyness around L4 and L3. So, now we embark on getting that fixed.
I’m nervous.
Golf: Reprise
Jun/090
I suck at golf. Given that, I can see it as something I would enjoy doing regularly. The game itself is pretty boring. I can see it being completely obnoxious if you really try to play by the rules. However, add in the occasional dropped ball and “fuck this putt”, and it becomes much more tolerable. All in all, it’s mostly a good time to hang out and talk with whoever you happen to be playing with. Final thought: walk; don’t ride.
Cranky
Jun/090
Today was a cranky day. I slept in. I didn’t feel like getting moving. I left late. I got to work late. I didn’t really get anything done at work. I left right at 5:00. I got stuck in traffic. I took an alternate route. I got stuck in more traffic. I got home. I cleaned most of the kitchen. I’m tired. I don’t want to get up in the morning. Tomorrow, I need to leave the house 30 minutes before I usually get up. I’m going to suck at golf.
- Push my student loans into forbearance
- Snail mail hard copy of Heather’s forbearance docs
- Re-route student loan auto-payments to annoying credit cards
- Officially accept IRS payment plan
- Get new rear tire for Eurosport
- Take Neon in for tune-up
- Finish cleaning the kitchen
- Cancel appointment with therapist
- Get CB750F running for cousin Chris
- Get CB450SC running for cousin Chris
- Get appointment with dermatologist
- Cancel superfluous auto-payments to credit card
- Unpack the car
Why is it that when you almost get one thing done, many more things come to take its place? More importantly, why does the cat alway feel the need to nest on my backpack?
Jun-zi...nesting
Golf
Jun/091
I’m trying to sort out work. I love my job. Due to everything going on recently, I owe them a whole crapload of time: somewhere on the order of 100 hours. I’ve been trying to figure out if they’re happy with my work or not. I always obsess about crap like this.
Anyway, my point: Today, D.J. invited me (and everyone else around) to play golf Wednesday morning before work. I’ve never held a golf club in my life. It should be interesting.
Last notch in my psychosis: I was in Atlanta on my anniversary, getting certified to do my job. One way or another, D.J. got wind of said happenstance. Today, he handed me a gift certificate for The Melting Pot and told me to take Heather out for an anniversary dinner on him. How cool is that? This is why I love my job.
Wash
Jun/090
Yesterday was pretty much a wash. I watch maybe 10 episodes of Scrubs on DVD, played Racer V3 for a while, and slept the rest of the day. The only thing I actually did accomplish was getting cat food. First thing this morning, I took a picture of Heather’s forbearance request (can’t find my scanner), and emailed it to Wells Fargo. They probably won’t accept it over email, so I’ll be dropping hard-copy in the mail as soon as I figure out where the outgoing mail is. I also noticed this morning that the slow leak in the rear tire on the Eurosport is getting to be less slow. The Neon is also only getting 24 of it’s supposed 36mpg. Bah.
- Push Heather’s student loans into forbearance
- Push my student loans into forbearance
- Re-route student loan auto-payments to annoying credit cards
- Officially accept IRS payment plan
- Get cat food
- Get new rear tire for Eurosport
- Take Neon in for tune-up
Awakenings
Jun/090
For one reason or another, I’ve decided that I’m returning to my old habit of stream-of -consciousness blogging. For anyone who actually knows me, this little exercise should be quite akin to my original “log”, back before “blog” was even a word.
Before I dive to far into things, I want to make something fairly clear: I’m not afraid of the Internet, nor the people who exist there-in. I will not be changing names or details other than those which I am contractually obliged not to talk about. I know who I am and I have no fear, gentle reader, of you knowing who I am as well.
Today was a cranky day for Heather. Nothing terribly life change, but one of those days that it’s better for me to spend some time on my own, getting my own projects done. In that right, today was productive. Big items knocked off the checklist were:
- Fix Eurosport temperature sensor
- Replace Eurosport blinker relay
- Attach front blinkers to Eurosport
I should probably mention that the “Eurosport” is a 1983 Honda CX650E, a model not sold in the U.S. Mine came down from Canada a couple of years ago. At any rate, the most important thing to realize is that you can’t get parts for the thing even if you’re trading solid gold. Fortunately, several parts are interchangable with the Civic. Go figure. Anyways, I went into O’Reilly Auto and picked up a 1983 Honda Civic Radiator Switch as well as a generic electronic blinker relay. (This was actually a month long undertaking involving several iterations of ording the part, then getting called out of town, coming back to find that they sent the part back. Fun.)
Another big problem when working on truely foreign bikes: documentation is even harder to come by than parts. The only written word I could find about replacing the temperature switch is that “you do not need to drain the radiator before beginning this procedure”. Having now performed this procedure, without draining my radiator, I would like to profess for all to know: you need to drain the radiator before beginning this procedure. Can you physically remove the sensor with the radiator full? Yes. How much coolant pours out all over the lower radiator and floor? Enough to fill a Clabber Girl Baking Soda tub half way.
Anyway, ripped out and redid a bunch of amateur wiring and that’s done. Same with the blinkers, except that involved adding amateur wiring and zip-tying the actually blinkers to the forks. Don’t ask. I’ll do right by the bike one of these days. I’m thinking steampunk.
At some point, I’ll probably write some of that stuff up on Grind.
That was pretty much the apex of the day. Mom still has cancer. I still have a job to go to on Monday. Heather just got up and seems to be in a much better mood. I should probably go hang out with her. Before that, my list of things to get done before Monday:
- Push Heather’s student loans into forbearance
- Push my student loans into forbearance
- Re-route student loan auto-payments to annoying credit cards
- Officially accept IRS payment plan
- Get cat food