Doug’s Sounding Board

My 2008 didn’t end very well health wise which didn’t do wonders for my spirits. I enjoyed my visits with everyone and wished I could visit more but stuck I am on a couch most of the time now. A few days ago I was feeling pretty down and it wasn’t that physically I wasn’t feeling that well, but mentally. After wallowing in that feeling for awhile I finally recognized it as I was falling asleep as a feeling I had previously encountered.

When I had my hernia surgery about 10 years ago I was similarly frustrated at being immobilized and the recovery time, but really the downer to my mental state was the feeling of mortality, or maybe it’s the feeling of a blow to the normal state of “everything is fine” which plays into the natural state of immortality. Normally you don’t think about that, it’s just the normal state. There is an implicit expectation that things will continue as they have and when they don’t the continuum has been spoiled and the awareness of mortality sets in. Well as of this morning I feel really good! Like this isn’t going to dominate my life from here on out. Like it’s going to heal quickly and I’m going to be back being active shortly and begin making myself better than I was.

I hope everyone has a happy new year!

I’ve fallen behind and I have more movie watching time right now…

This Film is Not Yet Rated - A documentary about the MPAA rating system. I knew a good bit about it from following movies over the years but still there were a lot of new information and a lot of it was surprising. I think it’s worth watching for any movie fan.

Vacancy - This one started out with some good tension but it ended up with a good bit of comedy in it by the end. Not really laugh out loud, but definitely not so serious as early on. Come to think of it, that humor was early on too but the mood wasn’t set yet so it didn’t really fit in.

Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins -  This is kind of an odd coming home story with not as much humor as you would hope, but enough entertainment to make it through. This is one of those you might watch when nothing else is on.

Mad Money -  This is a pretty smart heist movie with average characters. Not that the portrayal is average, but the character’s background is from the common person. I like house this is put together from start to end.

Igby Goes Down -  My favorite Culkin, Kieran Culkin, in a disfunctional family comedy/drama. It reminds me in some ways of Catcher in the Rye.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford -  This movie is compelling and it pulls you into the time and characters. I’ve heard that the original cut was five hours and I want to see that cut.

Lawrence of Arabia - This film is beautiful. The story is good. The acting is sometimes laughable as you see Lawrence appears as always happy-go-lucky. I’ve read that after it came out someone said he were any prettier he would have been Florence of Arabia and the prettiness of Lawrence is part of the laughability. The rest of the cast is great though and the photography on all the locations is awesome. If this film is remade the one area it won’t improve is in the photography.

Dreamgirls -  I thought the filming style on this was odd until I realized that it’s a film version of a stage musical. I don’t know why I didn’t know that before but the context helped. Anyway, I really enjoyed it but I enjoy musicals in general. There were no weak performances here.

Europa Europa -  This was an interesting Holocaust story I hadn’t seen before. How he kept his identity secret and how he was able to integrate himself with all those he encountered.

High Anxiety -  So now the only Mel Brooks movie I haven’t seen is Silent Movie. This ones has some great moments but on the whole it isn’t so much funny as it is a set of references to Hitchcock. Very well done and clever references. My favorite is that since many remember the shower stabbing scene in psycho having the blood going down the drain in color. In High Anxiety the stabbing is with a newspaper so though it’s in color it’s black going down the drain.

Good Night, and Good Luck -  I was totally unaware of the battle between Ed Murrow and Senator Joseph McCarthy. I liked the weight given to the subject, the portrayal of the time, and the older look to the film.

The Strangers -  Another home invasion movie, but this one is a lot dumber than Vacancy. It’s portrayed tat the attackers are normal humans and yet things happen that wouldn’t be happening with normal people. Especially with as it turns out in the end, it was their first time and they indicated it didn’t go that smoothly. Well they had the most elaborate plan and were ready for any event for it being their first time. Another thing I decided is that I dislike the person in the distance that vanishes on the next look. Close up, ok, because they could see the target of the soying and dodge. The far away spooking I can’t get behind.

The Librarian: Quest for the Spear - We checked this out because the third one was being advertised a lot. It’s a pretty good tv movie. The cast is good and a lot of fun with Noah Wyle, Bob Newhart, and Jane Curtain. The premise is fun and the humor works well with the characters and the story. The effects are lower budget than a big budget picture but they do the job. Think of this as a kin to the National Treasure movies.

The Librarian: Return to King Solomon’s Mines -  Another adventure with the addition of Gabrielle Anwar. Jonathan Frakes is the director this time and aside from that it upholds the standards in the first movie.

The Librarian: The Curse of the Judas Chalice - The latest installment of the Librarian series and I hope it isn’t another two years before the next one comes out.

Woman of the Year - You look at the women in this movie and the level of their careers and recognition and you wonder why there was such a leap away from it after WWII until more recent times. The chemistry between Hepburn and Tracy was excellent and this plays as well today as it did back then.

The Three Musketeers (1973) - I always thought this would be some cheesy 70s movie. I certainly didn’t expect good costumes, good sets, and more realistic fight scenes than probably any version. This now ranks up with the 1948 Gene Kelly version for me. The 1948 for it’s energy and playful sword fights, and this one just because it’s good all the way around. There is still humor here but it’s a not the same as in the 1948 version. Now I have to track down The Four Musketeers and see how I like that follow-up.

Get Smart - Yeah, it’s not the original but I think this fits well as an update to the old series while still referencing it. I think the cast is as good as you’re going to get for this and I liked the whole thing quite a bit being a fan of the old series.

Grindhouse -  Planet  Terror was the more entertaining of the two, but when you compare Robert Rodriguez to Quentin Tarantino, Rodriguez make more entertaining popcorn kind of films. Planet Terror was also far more gory, but it really captured the B-movie feel. Death Proof was half Tarantino dialog scenes and the rest was car duel. Both were fine on their own but they didn’t really flow well together.

Shrek the Third - So here’s something unusual, I liked this one better than the second Shrek film. Usually when something starts going downhill it just continues, but this I felt was a definite improvement. The story had more feeling and the look was a definitely improvement throughout.

Ratatouille -  This film made me feel like Pixar is growing up both in the story telling and the look. Everything used to be bright and have a halo. Now the characters still have a cartoon look to them but not like they glow. The effects for looks for the environment were fantastic with the water. The story was more complex and directed to an older audience than the usual Pixar film and I’m not sure I’m completely happy with that but it works for this film.

My calf hasn’t hurt for a little over a week and the swelling has been steading going down, so when I woke up on the 25th to more swelling than ever I thought it would be wise to see a doctor. After all the morning Christmas stuff I mentioned that I would like to go to urgent care for my swollen leg. I didn’t have to wait too long to be seen. My pulse was strong and the rate was good. My blood pressure was excellent. The doctor came in and listened to my story and then asked for my diagnosis. I wasn’t sure I heard him right so I asked “My diagnosis?”

“What do you think it might be?”

“I think it might be a blood clot.”

He agreed, but wasn’t certain because despite my leg being swollen and red I had no pain which usually goes along with it. He went through some more possibilities before deciding that it was definitely a clot and sent me to Dominican for an ultrasound.

Dominican wasn’t crowded in radiology but there was only one radiologist on duty that day and that included covering the emergency room which was apparently crowded. The ultrasound tech. found the clot but couldn’t tell me because she’s not a doctor. She also said that I couldn’t get a CD of the images. It was cool to listen to my blood rushing when the probe was kept in one place. After that they sent the results to the urgent care and the doctor there called me back and teld me it was a large clot and that he was trying to get me some Lovenox from Dominican. Apparently the only pharmacy open at that point was in Watsonville and they didn’t have much. Domican had plenty but they didn’t want to give it up unless I was admitted to the emergency room so off to the emergency room we went.

Dominican was fast at getting me checked in and all the results were sent over to the one doctor on duty there. Unfortunately I seemed to arrive during a shift change so while I was put in a room and hooked up to the monitor I wasn’t added to the list. I was able to listen to the patients around me liek the woman across the hall whose husband died ten years ago that day. Forty-five minutes and still no doctor later Nicole flagged a nurse down to get some attention. The nurse then got the current doctor who knew nothing about my situation so the story got told again and they wanted to draw their own blood. For whatever reason they decided the side of my forearm was a good target (ow!) and we got to see my pulse jump to 92. The doctor decided I had a large clot and should have Lovenox and get started on Coumadin. He also ordered more blood tests to determine whether I’m a hyper-clotter or not so they needed another poke for that one. Luckily they decided to go for the crook on my left arm. I also got my first Lovenox shot (actually two because I’m big) subcutaneously on the sides of my stomach. We finally got out of there and went home where I put up my leg and we watched tv until I fell asleep.

I transferred to the bed and this morning the swelling was greatly reduced. I went to the doctor they set up for me to see as a followup and she said my leg was looking good and prescribed the rest of my Lovenox supply which Nicole or Julie will be lucky enough to inject me with later. The doctor saw no reason for or against using a thrombosis stocking so that’s up to me. For now I’m going to go without one I think.

How did it happen? No one is sure. One generally has to be a hyper-clotter, have some trauma or surgery recently, or be sitting or laying in one position for about 20 hours. I wasn’t sitting around that long and there isn’t any recent trauma so I have to wait for the results on the hyper-clotting. My aunt recently had problems with clots that the doctors believe are left over from a car accident four-years ago so if that’s the case this could be related to my long ago scooter accident. The doctor says that’s not likely though.

So now it’s drugs and rest for the rest of the weekend.

Julie lent me her foam wedge from when she shattered her ankle which has been the perfect tool for keeping my leg elevated. I’ve spent most of my days since then on the couch with my leg elevated, reading and watching movies and checking to make sure I haven’t thrown the clot.

In the mean time I have to not do anything and that’s starting to drive me crazy and it’s making me feel a little bad that I can’t help out with anything around the house. Nicole will let me do something simple like carry dishes to the kitchen but beyond that I have to stay still until the Coumadin reaches a stable theraputic level.

My parents came up for the day yesterday which was really nice. It gave a Nicole a small break from watching me to see if I’m still ok. We got to exchange Chanukah gifts on the final night which looked like was going to have to happen some time in January or so. My father took me to the lab this morning for a blood test to determine whether I still needed the Lovenox shots or not.

There was only a 5 minute wait at 7:30 in the morning and theblood draw was only two vials. It was marked for same day processing so I called the doctor at 2:30PM to see if they had results but nothing was there yet. I called again at 3:30PM but still nothing. I called again at 4PM and they said they were going to call the lab, but still I heard nothing back. Finally at 4:30PM I said I really needed to know since I take the shots at 5PM and I needed to get to the pharmacy if I needed to get more. They promised to check and call me back. In the meantime I called the pharmacy to make sure they got the supply they said was going to be in today and they confirmed that my prescription was filled and waiting. The doctor then called back and told me my INR levels were at 3.6 (they need to be between 2.0 and 3.0) so no more Lovenox shots in my stomach (yay!) and no more Coumadin today or tomorrow. I’ll also be glad to get my blood less thin because my hands will stop getting tingly when I hold them up reading too long. In the meantime I need to avoid things that will make me bleed because clotting will be a problem. My next blood test is Wednesday morning and that afternoon I’ll find out how much Coumadin to take next.

In September Nicole signed us up for No Boundaries, a running training program through Fleet Feet stores and New Balance. The goal at the end of the training was the 5K Turkey Trot. They set up a whole workout routine and twice a week there were runs with a coach. Previously when I’ve done running it was just go out and run X amount and I would do my best to run that amount. The coach introduced us to intervals and that definitely extended range for those of us not used to running. Even with the coaching and the training the speed that things were ramping up seemed kind of fast. A couple of weeks in we learned that the intended program was compressed from 12 weeks down to 7 weeks which explained the rapid increase in difficulty.

The morning of the Turkey Trot was cold but the free socks made decent gloves while waiting to start. We never got to the point of running the whole thing so it was intervals all the way, which was fine. Seven weeks ago it would have been walking the whole thing so it still feels good to complete it without having to give up on the running part.

About 2-3 weeks from the end of the program two days after the most recent run I woke up with my left calf feeling like it had been through the workout from hell. No cramping, just muscle soreness. I continued running on it until No Boundaries was done which was pretty dumb but it didn’t seem to be getting any worse so it didn’t seem so bad at the time. I’ve since learned it’s a calf strain and once the program ended I’ve been resting it and wrapping it and keeping it elevated and today I was able to go without the wrapping without discomfort. Now it just feels like the muscles are tight and need stretching. Tomorrow evening I’m going to try walking the dogs (they’ll appreciate it a lot) and see how that goes. I’m glad the end seems to be in sight for the healing. Now maybe I can consider a full length version fo the program this spring.

This past Saturday was Fullpower’s Christmas party and it is my favorite of the ones I have been to since I started working at Borland. Borland’s had good food, so-so music, and lots of people I know. Oracle’s, Agile’s, and Verisign’s I skipped because we didn’t work at the main campus so I didn’t know anyone. Spyglass had the best food but it didn’t allow you to much with any but those seated around you. Tropian I can’t recall having one.

So Fullpower’s had good food, good music, it was easy to socialize with everyone, there was a pile of games to play with, holiday trivia, co-worker trivia, guessed for number of Hershey’s Kisses in a jar (894), of how many marshmallow’s are in 3 jars (563), and for how many bows in the jar (82 I think). The Kisses were won by my cube neighbor and he doesn’t like chocolate so they are in my cube. I separated out the mint ones this morning so they don’t contaminate the rest. I won the marshmallows but I don’t like marshmallows so they’re on my desk too. Oh yeah, there was a series of boxes to guess the contents of too. For the kids there was a magic show and face painting and toys, and later Santa Claus came in with Mrs. Claus to give gifts to the kids. The whole thing was just right.

It was more crowded at our local polling place than I have ever seen it. There were more voting booths, more workers, and more people to fill them up.  There was some chaos as I don’t think all of the poll workers were trained very well, but for the most part it went smoothly.

Now comes the waiting.

My iPod Touch was stuck at version 2.0. Telling it to check for updates would tell me that 2.0 was the latest version and that I was there. Trying to “Restore” it to the initial settings and force the upgrade that way resulted in a message “There was a problem downloading the iPod software for the iPod.” I kind of already determined tghat since downloading the update manually resulted in 0.4K downloads.

Finally I found an answer way down  in a support forum:

1. Turn iPod Touch OFF completely
2. Plug iPod Touch into PC/MAC while still off
3. Turn iPod Touch on if it wasn’t turned on my plugging it in and IMMEDIATELY do the followign steps
4. Hold the ‘Home’ and ‘Sleep’ buttons down for at least 5 seconds. It will restart and the Apple logo will appear
5. Release the ‘Sleep’ button, keeping the ‘Home’ button pressed
6. The iPod Touch will switch to restore/recovery mode and you can follow the prompts on the computer to erase and restore the iPod Touch

A few weeks ago the microwave door wouldn’t latch shut anymore. Since the hooks in the door were intact and seemed to be moving okay I figured it was the latching mechanism. So I took it apart and took out the latching mechanism but nothing seemed to be wrong. Still, I called around to appliance parts stores and even though I was going to need to bring it in for proper identification, the total would be under $10. While it was out I held it and ran the door into it so I could get a good look and realized that the hooks weren’t settling down into the latch which meant they must be pulled down. Shaking the door yielded a rattling noise so I opened it up and found the spring on the bottom. The hook on the door frame that it latched on to was torn off. I guess that tiny plastic tab wasn’t enough.  I went to the store for some appropriate glue, found about a hundred kinds of glue depending on what kind of plastic you have. I had no idea so I settled for one that claimed plastics in general and had a strength of 2300 lbs/sq in.  It was an epoxy without the nasty smell, 90 minutes of work time and 6 hours for complete ready to use time. It’s worked perfectly ever since!

The broken thing was the Blackberry Pearl I had for work. It was still in my jacket when I washed it. I took it apart made sure it was dry, re-assembled it, and it would charge the battery and blink some status LED but that was it. Then I followed the directions I later found that said to put it in a sealed comtainer with rice and put that over something warm like a DVR  for 5 days. That definitely pulled more moisture out and the backlight came on and some bad looking streaks showed on the LCD and then it was back to how it was the first time. I now fully admit it is dead and just when I was getting used to the keyboard and starting to appreciate the e-mail features.

Weeds season 4 finale - This is the first Weeds finale that didn’t leave it with the assumption that it might not get renewed fort another season while still ending on quite a cliffhanger. I don’t know how much longer the show can keep going but at this point I’ll keep enjoying it as long as it goes.

The recently were free preview weekends for HBO and Starz and now I’m making my way through the backlog on the dvr.

The Reaping - This is the best religious horror movie I’ve seen in a long time. No stigmata, too many candles, or arcane church lore necessary. It has a similar kind of satisfaction as I get when watching something like The Omen (haven’t seen the remake).

Dudley Do-Right - I wanted to see this because I like Brendan Fraser and George of the Jungle was great. This wasn’t great, but it still had a lot of fun. Unfortunately most of the fun came from the announcer. I think perhaps they should have borrowed the writers and director from George of the Jungle. The casting was fine.

The Devil Wears Prada - Great movie about a hell job and what it takes to get what you want.

Epic Movie -  There was just enough entertaining to keep watching and a few funny parts. If it didn’t haev the cast that it did (and how did it get that cast?) then it wouldn’t even have that. But hey, Stiffler’s mom.

Les Triplettes de Belleville -  Making a movie with no dialog that keeps you focused and doesn’t put you to sleep is a challenge but this movie is just that. It’s an odd story, and it’s funny, and it totally sucks you in.

Run Fatboy Run -  Despite Simon Pegg, based on the trailer and how long it lasted in theaters I didn’t expect this movie to be nearly as funny as it is. Not only that but it also manages to represent a good portion of what makes Rocky the movie it is in its own way.

Flushed Away - Most of this movie is pretty good except for the parts with the slugs. The slugs are awesome! See this for the slugs!

Babylon A.D. - The action is good but the plot seemed like a jumbled mess in the end. Apparently that’s because 70 minutes was cut out when the completion guarantee forced it to market. At least it comes out better than Highlander II did in that case. The action carries the day.

The Invasion - I think in 20 years there will be more remakes of this movie than any other movie, if it doesn’t already have that status. Surprisingly for a remake, it has a lot of good tension and it’s well done! I’m not so sure about the very end but I don’t think it really detracts from the rest of the movie.