November 25, 2012
Although my brother's laptop works, it's big and clunky. The next plan was to get a netbook, but going through the newegg lists, I suddenly realized that I didn't want to spend several hours removing cruft. The new plan is to use my HP Slate, and that's what I'm typing this on.
IE can magically lose everything you type, so I'm posting in pieces. Since the Slate is full Win7 with IE, I don't have any compatibility problems.
TV is just as bad as I remember it. There have been ads for something called XFINITY which seems to be about putting cameras in your house and makingg it so you can remotely control the heat and lights, through a web browser. A million boy hackers are rubbing their hands with glee.
I'm doing laps. Every hour or so I go out for a walk, or roll on my wheel chair. The chair is good exercise for my left arm and hand.
That's all for now. This was mainly to prove that I can post with Saten.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at
10:22 AM
| Comments (9)
| Add Comment
Post contains 178 words, total size 1 kb.
November 23, 2012
tap tap Is this thing on?
My brother loaned me an old laptop and now I can post here. I'm in rehab and they have free wifi for patients and guests. I've been here for a week, and we're going to have a meeting next Wednesday to decide whether I'm ready to leave. As nursing homes go, this one isn't a nightmare. It almost was; second night I was here they gave me the roommate from hell, but my brother went up to the front desk and got them to transfer me to a single room.
Status: I can talk normally. My face barely sags.
My left leg is very weak, but I can walk with a walker.
My left hand is also weak, but I've been getting back function. Ooriginally I could hardly move it, but now it's good enough so that i can use the bathroom without help.
I haven't been posting here because the Fire doesn't recognize our text entry boxes, and doesn't pop up the keyboard. Don's blog is recognized, so I've left messages there, and my thanks to him for his help.
When I was in the hospital, I tried to use J's blog, but evidentally the Fire's Javascript isn't comprehensive and I got blacklisted.
I get three therapy sessions per day, most days. The speech therapist has been giving me tongue twisters to read out loud. I don't know if it's helping, but I'm not having any trouble making myself understood.
Physical therapy seems mostly concerned with my leg. Lots of stretching and exercise machine work. I'm skeptical about it, but she's the expert. She seems obsessed with the fact that my ankles don't bend much, even though I've told her that they never did.
Occupational therapy is about my shoulder and hand. They're doing good stuff, and it's a joy every morning to discover I can do something new with my hand. I'm nowhere near being able to type yet, and I'm one-fingering this.
The food is mostly pretty good, and I've got some 6-packs of Oreos to get me through if I need more. Lunch yesterday was excellent.
I get two showers a week, supervised by a nurse or nurse's aide. So far it's been women both times. I've decided that physical modesty is a luxury I can't afford as long as I'm here, so I'm not sweating it. Anyway, I'm no treat to look at, clothed or naked.
I can leave the room any time I want, in my wheelchair. Which turned out to be better exercise than I expected when I use my arms to move. I tend to drift left.
Most of the other patients are a lot older than me, but there aren't very many who are profoundly crippled an painful to be around.
I want to go home, but this place isn't bad in the meantime.
I read a bunch of posts about ep 6 of Girls und Panzer, so I know what happened, but I'm looking forward to watching it myself.
That's all for now.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at
04:23 PM
| Comments (19)
| Add Comment
Post contains 511 words, total size 3 kb.
November 11, 2012
Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at
04:50 PM
| Comments (67)
| Add Comment
Post contains 4 words, total size 1 kb.
. 
November 10, 2012
I just thought I'd mention that.
This afternoon I got an attack, that lasted over an hour. Then I managed to make them stop. I took a nap, and after I got up, they started up again. And kept going until I started to eat dinner.
And now they've started again, and I'm posting this to try to distract myself. I think this may be the first time I've gotten hiccups since I stopped drinking, almost 20 years ago, and I'll be damned if I know what I did to deserve this.
If it's (hic) punishment for some sin, I (hic) wish I knew (hic) which sin. If (hic) you're gonna get (hic) punished for a sin, you oughta (hic) get the chance to (hic) enjoy it first.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at
07:44 PM
| Comments (8)
| Add Comment
Post contains 132 words, total size 1 kb.
October 31, 2012
I just taped a candy bar on the door, to tell people I have candy for them. Last few years I only got one group each year. I sure hope I get someone this year, because if I don't, then I'm going to have a ridiculous amount of candy to eat myself.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at
02:08 PM
| Comments (11)
| Add Comment
Post contains 57 words, total size 1 kb.
October 30, 2012
The county showed up today and completely removed the dam. It took hours. It wasn't terribly cold out today, but I'm sure that water is chilly, and the two guys spent a lot of time wading in it. I don't envy them the job.
A couple of days ago, after a down pour, that's what the dam looked like. (Except that the picture doesn't do it justice. There's something wrong with my camera; pictures taken under overcast skies come out with hardly any contrast. I had to process all of these so that they were even recognizable, and they don't look like reality, at all. Maybe it's time for me to get a new one.)
First thing they did was tear a big gap in it. Then they waited an hour or more while the pond began to drain out. I figure there were a couple acre-feet of water behind it to get rid of, and it was going to take a while.
Once the water level was down a bit, and more of the dam was exposed, they started tearing out branches and generally dismantling it. They ended up with an amazing pile of branches and general debris on the bank, which they hauled away in a wheelbarrow.
And by this point a couple of hours later the whole dam was gone. But the job wasn't over. Rapids like that are attractive to beavers; it's why they built the dam in the first place. If the county wants to prevent a reemergence, they have to dredge out the bottom of the creek. So they had another hour or more of wading around, working on the bottom with rakes.
And now they're gone, and this is how it looks. There's still a rapids there, and it won't surprise me if they come back tomorrow and work on it some more.
It also won't surprise me if we see more beaver activity out there.
By the way, in that last picture you can clearly see the cut in the culvert caused by erosion, due to the fact that the concrete pipes are clogged. That's another thing the county is going to have to do something about, sooner or later.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at
03:40 PM
| Comments (4)
| Add Comment
Post contains 372 words, total size 2 kb.
October 28, 2012
Nyaah Nyaah! Can't get me!
For those of you in the path, please be careful. Our goal is zero casualties.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at
01:51 PM
| Comments (4)
| Add Comment
Post contains 24 words, total size 1 kb.
October 25, 2012
Finally got my act together enough to go outside today (to pay my rent) and I took my camera and went out to the creek.
The concrete pipes under the culvert are completely blocked. I couldn't even see where the upstream ends of them were. There's no water flow through them.
The rain started about a week ago here, and we've had two or three pretty good rain storms.
And the stream has washed away part of the soil over the pipes. That's the new route of the creek. Which is a real problem. That culvert is the only way across the creek. People go over it with their dogs, but now it isn't safe. And a couple times a year men go over there with lawnmowers and other stuff and clear away the brush, and as it stands there's no way for them to do it.
Just filling in that slot is pointless unless there's another way for the water to go. Somehow or other, those pipes have to be unclogged.
That's a rather placid scene, isn't it? Nature, untouched. Well, except for the downed tree.
Here's another view of that tree. The one next to it looks to be doomed. They're already working on it. I didn't look closely but I think it's already dead, ringbarked. There are no leaves on it.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at
11:25 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 227 words, total size 1 kb.
October 23, 2012
The beavers took down one of our trees last night. They managed to make it fall right into the creek, probably deliberately.
On to other things: Halloween is coming up, and I rather went overboard on getting Halloween candy on my last grocery delivery. 8 bags each of Peanut Butter Cups and Butterfingers.
Once I saw how much there was, I decided I was going to give away unopened bags. The kids can choose which kind they want.
UPDATE: One interesting effect of that downed tree is that it divides the pond into two halves. The ducks can't swim past it, so if they want to go from one end to the other, they either have to fly or walk around on the bank.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at
08:18 AM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 131 words, total size 1 kb.
October 18, 2012
I don't know about you guys, but I'm ready to switch back to standard time. Over the summer I generally woke up about 6:30 every morning. But middle of September or so, I shifted and started waking up after 9.
Back in the old days (of ten years ago IIRC) this is about when the change would have happened. But Congress, in its finite wisdom (UPDATE: or infinitesimal wisdom), changed the rules again and now there's three weeks more in spring and three weeks more in the fall. Which meant that every computer in existence which had a clock had to be reprogrammed, or if not then we had to put up with being wrong a month and a half out of each year.
My Qube is one of those. It's running a moldy version of Red Hat, and if I knew what I was doing I could probably download an appropriate patch. But I don't, and I'm afraid to touch anything like that for fear of breaking it entirely. (Note: advice not needed on this subject.)
Last couple of days I haven't had any energy at all. If it weren't for caffeine I'd spend all my time sitting staring at the wall, or taking naps.
Sometimes that happens to me when the weather turns sour. But the weather isn't turning sour until tomorrow. We get rain all weekend and into next week.
As to the beavers? Apparently they don't think it's time to slow down yet. Guys from the county have been in here three or four times now, attacking the dam with rakes and making gaps in it, but every night it all gets repaired, and the only important effect has been to make the dam thicker, and in the long run stronger. They say you can't out-stubborn a cat. Looks like it's pretty tough to out-stubborn a beaver, too.
The guys from the county I talked to said they were going to try a "beaver deceiver" but nothing like that has happened yet.
Yesterday the apartment manager, assistant manager, and the new handyman were out looking at it, but I'm not sure what they were saying. I went out on my deck and called out to them and suggested dynamite, but they didn't think that was such a good idea. (They're no fun.)
I'm still rooting for the beavers. The creek looks a lot nicer when it's high and wide, and I'm no longer so sure it'll represent a flooding hazard. I guess with the rain this weekend we'll find out.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at
05:10 PM
| Comments (3)
| Add Comment
Post contains 426 words, total size 2 kb.
47 queries taking 0.4712 seconds, 203 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.