In clot news, I saw my doctor this morning to decide what’s next for the ugly leg.  Considering my leg is pretty much the same as it was after 3 months the clot is still there and she says it’s likely to remain there. So the choice is whether to continue on the Warfarin and start developing a risk for major internal organ bleeding over time, or to stop taking it and see if the clot gets worse again. I decided it to put off that decision in favor of talking to a vascular surgeon to see what they think can be done.

Hopefully a surgeon will consider this something that can be dealt with and the clot can be removed. Since I’m not a clotter by nature I won’t have to worry about recurrence so much. I know what to look for now.

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.

Saturday evening was another Santa Cruz Roller Girls roller derby match, this time between Fistful of Dollies and Beach Flat Betties. These two of the three local teams that the all-star team draws from to play against teams from other cities.  The Dollies ended up winning by about ten points but it was pretty close all the way though. Robin Yo Life joined the announcers which was nice for clarifying what was going on at various points and amusingly it sometimes turned into comments that were meant more for coaching what was happening at that moment. Next match in Santa Cruz is on June 28.

Sunday we went to Bay Meadows for the final day of live racing and it was really crowded, both from people there for Mother’s Day and people there for the last day. For the first half there was a lot less smoking going on than normal, but then the parties with mothers thinned out some and the smoking kicked it up a notch. The horses ran, we lost money on our small bets, we ate junk food, it was a lot of fun.

Anyway, I made it to work and the chocolate pies were devorured along with the cookies. I checked in the last of my code changes, visited with a lot of people, had a goodbye lunch. Things were good. HR person wasn’t made aware until very late that I was leaving today so my exit interview was over the phone. I found the big box of kazoos from our wedding party that was left over and I gave them out throughout the building. I gave away the cube loot people wanted and since cube space was available at the new job so I carted all the stuff I was keeping on cart to the new cube in the new building. I answered some questions at the new job and ran back to the office so I could turn in my badge before the person I needed to turn them in to went home.

I had Dan go with me to Long’s so I could get back into the building after I bought a lot of chocolate to leave on my desk so people wouldn’t have to go cold turkey. Then I said my goodbyes to those still remaining and went home. I’m going to miss working with everyone there and I hope I get a chance to work with them again in the future.

In the Hertz shuttle the LED display that showed the time and date was claiming it was November 30, 2026. The time was almost correct but it hadn’t been adjusted for daylight savings time yet.

The Hertz desk was having problems using their computer to find a car for us. I guess technology isn’t so hot in Chicago.

Since being back I’ve been told that Chicago has two seasons, Winter and construction. This was definitely construction season. We were cruising on the freeway to get to our hotel. A helpful sign pointed out that our exit was closed and we should take the exit before it as a detour. That sign is placed so you’ll only see it as you are passing the detour exit and the next exit was 15 minutes away. after going 30 minutes out of our way we made it to the hotel in Evanston.

The next morning was business breakfast in the hotel followed by a 3-hour meeting. Then a business lunch int he hotel, followed by another 3-hour meeting. Then there were informal but essential meetings in the hallway afterwards. Then it was time to go to the airport.

Evanston seems like a nice place and the return trip to the airport showed me a large Jewish population (bagel shops, kosher delis, two large temples). The houses have some really nice brick work on them. I was surprised a lot of trees weren’t starting to get leaves yet so a lot of areas looked barren, but it was neat seeing people paddle their little boats in the streams. I think I need to go check it out without business betting in the way.

I was most concerned about Opera’s data since that’s also my e-mail reader and note keeper. I didn’t realize how much I had in there. Quicken was the easiest to restore and Trillian was a little tricky, but not too bad.

Next up is installing the sound card drivers, the extra IDE drivers, and catching up on everyone’s pages so I know what’s going on in everyone’s lives.

About three weeks ago Grover and Sage turned four. On the weekend of the 19th of August I felt a lump on Grover and asked Nicole about it. She thought I was talking about another lump on him that was from normal day-to-day stuff like bruises from playing or a poke from a fox tail. A few days later she asked me about the lump since she felt it too and we realized that we were talking about different lumps a few days ago.

Nicole took Grover in the next day (Friday) and the x-ray showed a mass growing next to his kidney. Further testing was scheduled for Monday.

Monday they aspirated the area and found a lot of blood. The ultrasound results showed it to be large and growing fast. They couldn’t tell for sure but based on the bloody aspiration and the ultrasound the doctor thought it might be a hemangiosarcoma. It didn’t appear to be invading any organs, but the doctor x-rayed his lungs and they appeared clean. We agreed it needed to come out so we scheduled surgery for the next day.

Tuesday Grover had his tumor excised and sent to the lab. They cut out some of his side muscle since it was growing into the muscle but they couldn’t get it all. The tumor had a pretty good blood supply going to it. The doctor said it was a spindle cell tumor which is good because mast cell tumors I guess are just plain nasty right off the bat. We kept his drain tube going and waited for the results. By Thursday Grover wanted to be a lot more active but he listened to us when we told him to lay down.

Friday he got his tube out which made our lives easier since we didn’t have to keep watching out for him messing with the drain tube (he didn’t much anyway). We put a tube top on him when we aren’t around so he won’t mess with the stiches but he doesn’t seem too inclined to do that either. Later Friday we got the call back about the tumor, it is cancer. An unknown cancer. We didn’t think unknown was in the realm of possible answers, but apparently it’s fairly common. So we still don’t know if it’s the nasty hemangiosarcoma or not. From reading about the various cancer types on caninecancerawareness.org it seems like the only one that fits what we know. It doesn’t target specific areas, it’s not a mast cell tumor mass, and it grew very rapidly.

Today the doctor called and told us that it will definitely come back if we don’t do anything. They recommend 16 radiation sessions over 5 weeks. Each time he must be anesthetized. Apparently radiation is handled better by animals better than people. The biggest side effects should be a bald spot or maybe a fur color change. Friday Grover gets his stitches out so he can really go run and play.

I saw him in concert six times, but the most memorable were the shows at the Great American Music Hall in S.F. and at Doc Rickett’s Lab in Monterey. The Great American Music Hall was a great show. The sound, the connection, it was all there. During “Hey Jude” the trumpets came out into surrounded the audience while playing the chorus. This was the ultimate surround sound. It gave me chills. The show at Doc Ricket’s Lab in Monterey. A large room with a low ceiling and a weird shape. The band stand had a weird pole in it but they managed a great show. The best part was a long solo that lulled everyone as the lights went down on teh band to highlight the soloist. Then the solo came to an end that the rest of the audience wasn’t expecting and Maynard had the band punch back in. The entire room jumped! Maynard was up on the stage giggling at getting everyone.

Maynard Ferguson’s home page has the official obituary and links to others and memorials.

I’ll end this with three video clips:

Here’s Maynard at 22 with the Stan Kenton orchestra on the Ed Sullivan show.

Here’s a concert video of Maynard trading on a solo with Serafin Aguilar recorded this year. The sound is out of sync but it’s still good.

Here is Maynard’s band in the 70s playing “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me”

The right side I have a hole in my jeans and a scrape on my palm and a blood blister on my thumb. Also a spot scrape/bruise in the back of my right calf.

I didn’t hit my head at all and luckily I was across the street from the fire department so the paramedics were on scene right away. They didn’t find any evidence of internal injury or my spine. They gave me some adhesive bandages and checked my blood pressure which was normal, but a little high for me.

The CHP showed up and wrote up the accident with her at fault and took photos of everything.

My scooter is pretty munched up: torn seat, most of the plastic cracked or broken off, missing a mirror, the storage pucket is no longer mounted, but the core is still good and ridable.

Thanks to the cigarette store guy whoe picked up a lot of the pieces and taped on the ones that wouldn’t stay in place. He also gave me some more adhesive bandages.

Oh yeah. One pair of singing magnets are gone now. I saw one of them but didn’t see the second one and then forgot to get the one I saw before I left.

In the morning I sent mail hoping they would get it, and went to breakfast where they said they might go Monday morning but with no time set it was goin to have to be a chance meeting. Luck wasn’t with us today though. Breakfast was pretty good though at Gayle’s.

I’m bummed that I really messed up how to see them while they’re in town.

So last night after I finished the work I brough home I decided I wanted to rent “Eulogy” so I could finally see it. I got to the video store and it isn’t in. So I rented “Hitch” (1-day) and “Saw” (5-day), went to the store for paper towels and went home to watch a video.

When I got home I remembered that I needed to copy the file I was working on to my thumb drive but I couldn’t get it to show up in the explorer so 30 minutes later I finally finished copying my file. Then 20 minutes into the movie a co-worker calls with questions about the porting he’s doing to the Symbian platform. Since we’re trying to get any solution on a device by the end of next week it’s important so I answer his questions for 30 minutes (he doesn’t speak clearly and has a heavy accent so it takes longer).

I return to the movie for another 10 minutes, decide I don’t have time for it so I turn it off. At least Saw is a 5-day rental.

Hopefully the plumber will be able to fix it the way I want.

The plumber I picked (not knowing any) was T’s Plumbing. My reason was we used to live next door to the owner on Bianchi Lane and he struck me as a good and honest man. When Peter from T’s Plumbing arrived he mentioned I lived a block from the owner and I sadi I used to live next to him. He then asked if I knew what happened to him and I told him I didn’t. Apparently cancer cropped up and he died last year. Very very sad.

Peter examined everything and thinks what I want is reasonable and will be back on Wednesday to do it.

On the way home I turned on to my street and remembered I wanted to go to the store to get apples. No problem, I’ll just loop through the parking lot and get back on Capitola Road. I decided to go around the speed bump which meant I had to ride on the patch or dirt on one side. Next thing I know I’m on my hands and knees on the ground. Looking at the patch if dirt I see that it’s actually very fine, soft, and not the thing I should have been riding on. Jeans show no signs of damage, knees are a little scraped up. Scooter is a little scraped on the side it fell but no problem otherwise.

When I got home I decided to work on my computer writing DVDs slowly. I learned that there was a bug in WindowsXP where if there was 6 timeouts in talking to a storage device it would downgrade the speed. I added the registry entries it wanted, and figured new drivers would be a good idea too. After I install the drivers and reboot it won’t boot. It gets to a certain file and tells me it can’t go on.

I decided to go watch Eulogy in the tv room. It’s pretty funny, at least until the part where my DVD player froze. I stopped it and tried to start again but it wouldn’t even start playing the DVD. I went and finished reading the Discover magazine.

I put in the card and it tells me right away that this computer won’t support 32-bit cardbus. That’s kind of a bummer. I guess if I want to go the external route I’m going to need a newer machine. Right now I’m leaning towards the MacMini (FreeBSD based) and the MiniMate. I figure I’m not in a huge hurry so I can wait for the perpendicular storage for some really big size. And I don’t have a lot in the way of computational needs so it should last a good long time.

They said we migh thave to wait an hour before they looked at it since they weren’t scheduled for that right now but I think a look of shock on our faces at maybe being stuck there for awhile bumped us up to a 5-minute wait. Then it was about 30 minutes of actual fix time and we were back on the road.

At least they were friendly and good and it worked out ok.

She managed to get out and dried off and shut off the water, but now we have no water since if water is on it will spray in the shower. I called the rv people and they said to bring it in and they would replace the shower. So now I lose part of my work day during a critical 2 weeks for the project. I guess I’m going to be working late.

We need to get out of here fast or figure out some other way to deal. Otherwise we’re going to be hemmed in on both sides by large homes on tiny lots.

So I checked the oil level and it was on the bottom of the area it should be and figured I could make it the rest of the short way to the restaurant and then to home and I did. The oil cap was put back in place with a melted spot on it from the engine.

Anyway, when the oil was added the car ran smoother but it was still hot. Cathi suggested it was the thermostat and looking at the mileage I need to agree with that assessment. The first one only lasted about 80,000 miles and when they replaced it they said it was a poorly made device and there aren’t any better after-market versions.

Anyway, this morning (the day of the car appointment) the temperature light started blinking and smoke/vapor started coming from the engine area. Hopefully something that is fairly reasonable rto replace cost wise didn’t turn expensive.

I popped up the panel in front of the seat where most of the wires are and move some around trying to look for a loose connection. The motor starts working again. I continue to check and it stops. I push everything back and it works.

So a connector might not be so great, or the wire running in to the controller is loose just inside the controller. In either case it shouldn’t be so hard to fix. This does explain the occasional moment on a bump when it would feel like it lost power.

The basic premise is that there is a theory in physics that explains everything as being an interaction of wave fronts that creat the hologram that we see as reality. There is another holographic theory of mind that is in psychology where a part contains the information of the whole as well, as evidenced by removing part of the brain not destroying the knowledge of how to do something. Memories and other brain functions are not all local to specific portions of the brain.

Now take those and draw links between them and use that to try and explain psychic phenomenon. I’m not saying this isn’t the way things really are or not because there certainly are things out there that aren’t explained by current theories and things that people don’t want to try to address because they are too far out there. I’m glad people are working to try and explain these things even if they are considered the outside fringe of science.

The problem with this book is the support for many claims are anecdotal tales from the author or his friends. The other weakness in the support is in jumping to conclusions. After spending considerable time explaining how people have been shown to be able to manipulate physical phenomenon like which holes balls will fall in statistically vs no concentration, he uses a completely different explanation for how the contents of a tape got changed when experimental subjects were supposed to focus on changing it. The explanation? They changed the past! It’s going to be a lot easier to change a tape than to change a computer generated tape made some time in the past.

The other example was in his explanation that subjects predicted the future by guessing what picture would be shown the next day. This was after a lengthy description on how mind reading and telepathic communication can be explained by this theory. It’s more likely that the subjects were influencing the choices of picture made by the researcher.

If the author had stuck to a the few areas where his points do seem to hold up instead of trying to stretch it to fit any reported oddness that happens his case and book would have been much stronger.

I’d say to avoid this book.

We’re still waiting to hear about car status.

Nicole is doing ok, but the left side of her body hurts.

I hope this is as bad as it is and that she hasn’t had anything seriously injured. I hope I hope.

Update: They got the car to her brother’s house. It’s leaking coolant and oil. I’m going to get her now and we’ll deal with it more tomorrow.