Story Archive - February 2003

Sweet Home San Leandro (02/23/2003)

There's no place like home. I got myself home from undisclosed remote location late Friday night with no trouble from weather. A quick BART and taxi ride dropped me off at my apartment where I've been almost the entire weekend. I picked up some sort of bug toward the end of my stay, so it's been a quiet weekend of sleep for me.

Did I finish twenty days of work in four? Not quite. I finished about fifteen days of work in four, and that's good enough for me and should be good enough for them. So I'm not heading back out there any time soon. I'm tired of spending my days in environmentally sealed office buildings. San Leandro is a much safer place to be.

My follow up eye appointment is on Monday. The eye is about 95% better at this point. It gets a little tired after staring at a computer screen for six to eight hours, but works great beyond that. A good thirty minutes of rest and it's all refreshed to go for more hours. I expect the visit to be quite routine and boring.

Snowed In (02/16/2003)

Bless the east coast and it's 1-2" of snow every hour. The exists to my hotel are blocked and the roads outside don't look pretty anyway. I doubt my poor little Oldsmobile Alero could make it far without a spinout. So, just to add to my fun today, I'm trapped at the hotel. Guess I'll order some room service.

Undiclosed Remote Location (02/15/2003)

The eye is about 85% better right now.

Happy valentines day to all my illegitimate wives and children scattered through the U.S. and the rest of the world. Don't worry, I'm thinking about each one of you during this very special Hallmark holiday.

Darkness Falls (02/09/2003)

Acute Iritis

The inflammation of the iris, the colored portion of the eye. It has been known to cause extreme pain, light sensitivity and sight loss.

Hyphema

Bleeding in the anterior chamber (the space between the cornea and the iris) of the eye.

Orbital blow-out fracture

Consists of a fracture of the bones of the eye "socket". This may involve the orbital floor, walls, or roof. Most cases, however, involve the orbital floor.

I spent a fun few hours in the emergency room this weekend. The diagnosis is "acute iritis" of the right eye. I was pretty much blinded all Saturday due to this and Sunday hasn't been too much better, but slightly improved. Bright lights are big problem. That includes going outside in the sunlight, TVs, computer monitors and the like. Many thanks to my friend who decided to take some time out of her day to be my secretary and take diction of an entry on my web site.

I've got a medical appointment with a specialist bright and early Monday morning to have a closer looks. If all goes well, I continue on the prednisone eye drops for another little while and I take off to undisclosed location on Tuesday. The worst cast scenario is of course that's something has gone funky with my bionic eye and I'll need some more plastic surgery to put things into place.

My bionic eye was bestowed on me by my brother at the age of fifteen. He accidentally struck me over the head with a water ski rope-handle causing an orbital blowout of the right socket and hyphema. There was some reconstructive surgery to repair the broken socket on the orbital floor.

Enough of the medical lesson for the day. I got my network adapter for the PS2 a little while ago. I rented Tony Hawk 4 to try out the great network card and was a little under whelmed. I have a few friends who also have the card, so as soon as we can find a good online game, it should be a lot more fun. I've sent off for my free copy of "Twisted Metal Black: Online," which should be a pretty good game.

I was recently introduced to a unpublished work of Mark Twain's called "The War Prayer." It was poetic explanation of the lunacy he saw in the prayers of the defeat of enemies in war. After the tone of last weeks annual prayer breakfast with many of the federal government, it seems especially poignant.

Transcribed by Elisa.

Working from Foo (2/02/2003)

May the conscience and the common sense of the peoples be awakened so that we may reach a new stage in the life of nations, where people will look back on war as an incomprehensible aberration of their forefathers. - Albert Einstein

I tried the "work-from-Stanford" model for one day last week. It worked out pretty well. It's amazing that I can do about sixty percent of my job from any location that has a fast Internet connection and cell phone coverage. Too bad there's that forty percent that requires personal contact. It's that forty percent that has me traveling for two weeks in February. Still, I may try and getting some more fun-based traveling under my belt. I've got friends in various places who would love to have me hang out with them for a week and with no real need to be in the bay area, I could take them up on it.

I've still been kicking out my menial tasks. My car is successfully smogged checked now and registration is off. Though the oral surgeon sent me a bill for the remaining part of my wisdom tooth extraction that was suppose to be covered by insurance. It's all about the joy of trying to handle life myself while never home.

Finally, my new hosting vendor allows me to download and analyze the web access logs of my site. So I've thrown together a simple page that display some of the results: The Web Stats Page.