The Rantings of Quadius

Just too long

2008-05-17T14:36:00.000-07:00

Am I the only one that thinks According to Jim has definitely gone on too long? I only watch the show because there isn't that many really good comedies on television nowadays and I enjoy watching sitcoms in order to add a little bit more levity to my life. However I cut it, According to Jim is definitely in the last throes and probably should have been cut last year.

It's a shame that good quality shows have been cut dry while this, once moderately humorous, show has been left to wither up like a California raisin left in the sun too long. The writers and producers of the show are blinded to the fact that this show has had every ounce of comedy wrung out of it during the last several years. It's too bad they didn't let it end last year while it was still funny.

Have I been wrong about shows before? Yes, I was way off base when I wrote a review about Rules of Engagement. While I still think the first episode was a complete waste of time, the producers and writers worked diligently to resurrect the show and now it has a certain cute quality that has me coming back for more. I, however, don't think I am off base when it comes to According to Jim.

Just barely back

2008-04-22T15:37:00.000-07:00

I know I haven't been posting in quite some time, but I have been doing some stuff on my other blog and I just haven't felt like updating this one lately. I am, however, going to start blogging here for a while. I'm taking a break on my other one and I'm going to try to use this one to chronicle things that are happening to me daily.

I read the following interesting article today.

It was originally printed in the USA Today through the AP.

Lawsuit: VA has failed to prevent suicides

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs isn't doing enough to prevent suicide and provide adequate medical care for Americans who have served in the armed forces, a class-action lawsuit that goes to trial this week charges.
The lawsuit, filed in July by two non-profit groups representing military veterans, accuses the agency of inadequately addressing a "rising tide" of mental health problems, especially post-traumatic stress disorder.

But government lawyers say the VA has been devoting more resources to mental health and making suicide prevention a top priority. They also argue that the courts don't have the authority to tell the department how it should operate.

The trial is set to begin Monday in a San Francisco federal court.

An average of 18 military veterans kill themselves each day, and five of them are under VA care when they commit suicide, according to a December e-mail between top VA officials that was filed as part of the federal lawsuit.

"That failure to provide care is manifesting itself in an epidemic of suicides," the veterans groups wrote in court papers filed Thursday.

A study released this week by the RAND Corp. estimates that 300,000 U.S. troops — about 20% of those deployed — are suffering from depression or post-traumatic stress from serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"We find that the VA has simply not devoted enough resources," said Gordon Erspamer, the lawyer representing the veterans groups. "They don't have enough psychiatrists."

The lawsuit also alleges that the VA takes too long to pay disability claims and that its internal appellate process unconstitutionally denies veterans their right to take their complaints to court.

The groups are asking U.S. District Court Judge Samuel Conti, a World War II U.S. Army veteran, to order the VA to drastically overhaul its system. Conti is hearing the trial without a jury.

"What I would like to see from the VA is that they actually treat patients with respect," said Bob Handy, head of the Veterans United for Truth, one of the groups suing the agency.

Handy, 76, who retired from the Navy in 1970, said he founded the veterans group in 2004 after hearing myriad complaints from veterans about their treatment at the VA when he was a member of the Veterans Caucus of the state Democratic Party. The department acknowledges in court papers that it takes on average about 180 days to decide whether to approve a disability claim.

"I would just like to see the VA do the honorable thing," said Handy, who is expected to testify during the week-long trial.

Justice Department spokeswoman Carrie Nelson declined comment Friday.

But government lawyers have filed court papers arguing that the courts have no authority to tell the VA how to operate and no business wading into the everyday management of a sprawling medical network that includes 153 medical centers nationwide.

The veterans are asking the judge "to administer the programs of the second largest Cabinet-level agency, a task for which Congress and the executive branch are better suited," government lawyers wrote in court papers.

If the judge ordered an overhaul, he would be responsible for such things as employees workloads, hours of operations, facility locations, the number of medical professionals employed, and "even the decision whether to offer individual or group therapy to patients with" post-traumatic stress, the papers said.

The VA also said it is besieged with an unprecedented number of claims, which have grown from 675,000 in 2001 to 838,000 in 2007. The rise is prompted not from the current war, but from veterans growing older, government lawyers said.

"The largest component of these new claims is the aging veteran population of the Vietnam and Cold War eras," the government filing stated. "As they age, older veterans may lose employment-related health care, prompting them to seek VA benefits for the first time."

Government lawyers in their filings defended its average claims processing time as "reasonable," given that it has to prove the veterans disability was incurred during service time.

They also noted the VA will spend $3.8 billion for fiscal year 2008 on mental health and announced a policy in June that requires all medical centers to have mental health staff available all the time to provide urgent care. They said that "suicide prevention is a singular priority for the VA."

The VA "has hired over 3,700 new mental health professionals in the last two and a half years, bringing the total number of mental health professionals within VA to just under 17,000. This hiring effort continues," they said.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Great viedo

2007-11-24T15:39:00.000-08:00

I really enjoyed this viedo.

It's been forever

2007-11-04T17:00:00.000-08:00

I know I haven't been on here very much, but I am planning on continuing with my blogging once my Frau returns to Germany in a few weeks. Normal I would have time to blog while she is here, but I have been having some difficulties with my bowels. Tomorrow I'll end up having to call in to see if I can get an appointment to see the doctor about this situation.

Back

2007-09-19T15:23:00.001-07:00

I haven't been doing any blogging in quite a while as you can plainly see. This is largely because I have not felt my very best over the last couple of months. Right after I developed two lesions on my chest in June I started having difficulties with my bowels once again. This whole thing started right after I began taking an antibiotic to fight what the doctor thought was a bacterial infection on my chest. The lesions healed relatively quickly, although my bowels which were affected tremendously by the antibiotic have not rebounded to their normal functional state.
It has been a couple of years since I have experienced these types of problems, and the knowledge I was able to overcome this once before doesn't seem to be helping me get over this sensation that I may have to live with this discomfort for quite a while. I am trying a multitude of different techniques in order to get myself right again, and even though I am getting a little better day by day, I am still having troubles more often than I would like.
Well, I am going to be trying to get back to blogging more often and start just writing down what I am feeling on that particular day. My other blog has been neglected as well, but at least I have been able to put a few things up every now and then on that site. It has been so difficult to concentrate on much of anything, let alone writing when I feel like trash so often. And on those days when I do feel pretty well, I tried to get things done which make me feel even better. My to do list continues to grow and I just don't even have the energy sometimes to tackle some of the more easily rectified things on that list, but I do know I will get to it eventually.
I have been selected to be an advocate for all spinal cord patients at the Tampa VA. Tomorrow is my initial meeting and I cannot wait to dive in headfirst so that I can get my mind wrapped around something other than my woes. I used to be so busy when I lived in my other neighborhood that I didn't have time to concentrate on not being so comfortable much of the time, but right now it is all I am focused on. I am, however, really optimistic that I will be able to get my bowels in order once again and then perhaps my energy levels will return to the same level they were in early June.
I'm not going to do any corrections on this unless I see an obvious error in my quick perusal.

Back shortly

2007-07-19T15:11:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately I'm just about ready to go into the hospital. It is nothing serious, just a routine procedure, however, I will be gone for about two weeks. Since I won't have access to the Internet or my voice-activated software, I don't anticipate doing any blogging. It's going to be a big change for me, but hopefully I'll make it through unscathed. At least I'll be able to get some reading done next week.

I'll be in bed until Monday. That is a pain.

One of these days

2007-07-11T18:29:00.000-07:00

I am so glad that I am not under time crunch. I had quite a bit on my plate today and one of the very last things I was going to work on was that entry I have working on for quite some time. It's nothing special, but I wanted to dictate it once again with many of the ideas I have come up with in the last few days.
I thought it would help my voice profile (all of the work I have done with my voice-activated software) since I had switched microphones within the last few weeks. It also seems to be easier every now and then if I dictate a complete paragraph or a document instead of trying to take a prepared document and then edit it. The only time that seems to work is when I do it on paper was somebody else writing down my ideas.
I haven't been able to work on the entry over the last couple days because the microphone has been shifting positions and now I have figured out how to position it correctly. Before that I just didn't feel like it. Today I thought there was nothing going to stop me from working on this thing and I guess I was wrong. Late this evening my voice software started to act up. I spent an hour and a half trying to rectify the problem and ended up doing a system restore, only to have it completely eradicate my voice profile (which is very time-consuming to restore). Thankfully I read that I could undo any system restore and that is what I did. Now the thing seems to be working correctly, but all of the work I have been doing to improve the accuracy over the last three weeks is completely gone. I guess the user file became corrupt and now I am forced to use a backup from June.
I guess the best way to look at this is, at least I have a backup.
I hope this is somewhat legible. I'm going to have to go back in and change a few settings. Once I do that I am going to ride around the block clear my head and try to do something tonight. Maybe with any luck I'll get something done over the next week.
Tomorrow I am going to be gone most of the day doing some much-needed shopping. I probably won't get hardly anything done in the evening, but I can still hold out hope.
Well, I'm going to post this and see how it looks in a few minutes.

Why it is aggravating to be a quad sometimes

2007-07-10T14:30:00.000-07:00

There are those days which really aggravate me and this is one of them. Why do they seem to occur when I really feel like a ball of fire with nothing but desire to accomplish everything I set out to do? Once again I had all of these things on my list to accomplish and many of them involved dictating e-mails and even an entry. Well, for some reason my microphone isn't getting the accuracy it normally does. I really think it had something to do with the way it is plugged in to the transmitter or possibly my PCA (personal care attendant) might have inadvertently turn down the volume on the microphone when she was plugging it in. I tend to believe the latter is more likely today.
The really unfortunate part is last night as I was just getting ready to go to bed, I had a breakthrough with something I had been working on for quite some time. It always seems to happen when I can't really do much about it, but today I awoke with all of the same thoughts and the notes are already down on paper. Today, however, unbelievably I am having to dictate much too loud and with my portable AC running in the background it is almost next to impossible to do the extensive dictation I had planned for the entry. I guess I'll just have to be satisfied with sending out the multiple e-mails and making numerous phone calls.
The worst part is that yesterday everything was working great, but my bowels were feeling really terrible. Today my bowels are doing too great, but I seem to be able to function and really feel like getting as much accomplished as possible. I can working here for short spurts without the AC on, but it is just not conducive for long extended periods.
I will probably be taking a respite on this particular blog. I am not sure exactly when that will commence, but as I grow closer to the day I had scheduled for a colonoscopy, I will need to focus on making sure all the preparations are in order and I have all of my wills and living will taking care of prior to going to the hospital for a few days.
This thing has been a pain in the butt to dictate, so I know how bad it would be to try to do much work on the entry. Sadly I can't even go outside and see if anyone is about that than turn the volume up because it is raining cats and dogs right now. We need the rain, so I'm not going to complain about that.
Well, I better get going. I still have quite a few e-mails and phone calls to make.

President Bush must go!

2007-07-04T17:53:00.000-07:00

In my opinion this is a must see video. I also believe the commutation of Scooter Libby is so outrageous that the 60% of us who are opposed to this, should sound out.

Fair warning, this video is political in nature.

I guess it's just another Saturday

2007-06-23T14:22:00.000-07:00

I haven't written much in this particular blog because frankly I haven't felt that great. It has been quite some time since I have had persistent bowel problems, but the last week has definitely felt as if it were two or three years ago. Perhaps I am taking in too much fiber once again or maybe it could be the supplement I was taking. Yesterday and today though were significantly better than the past week, so I guess maybe this is just a small bump in the road. A few weeks back I broke out in a very perplexing rash which had the potential of sidelining me in bed for quite some time, but thankfully it resolved itself on my back and rear end, so I ended up being able to spend about the normal amount of time in my chair. The sides are still trying to heal effectively, although I am optimistic it should be okay.
I'm giving serious consideration into taking some sort of writing class next semester. I need to be able to get more effective at communicating with a little bit of levity or at least trying to make more effective use of my writing so that it is creative. Unfortunately I'm not getting the time, or at least I'm not making very good use of the time I have, to do some serious reading. My writing is often very stilted and this probably is the result of many of the news articles and history related books that I read. Maybe I'll start reading some novels again, however, right now I have some HP Lovecraft stories sitting in one of my bookstands and a compilation of short biographies by Plutarch in one of the other ones.
On a completely separate topic, I just realized I failed to mention that my new microphone is working out real well. I initially thought that I would be forced to wear it on the right ear because it seemed to impede my ability to use the mouth stick on the left side of my workstation, but today I discovered that is not the case. I have been wearing it on the right ear and I haven't been able to hear the dictation which is read back to me by the computer as clearly as I would like. Off and on I have noticed my voice seems to be trailing off, but in fact I don't believe it was. I noticed a small irritation on the right ear last night and decided to try to wear the microphone on the left ear today and one thing I have discovered is it is much more comfortable and louder. When I do the test utilizing Dragon NaturallySpeaking, it gives me a far superior rating and I have seen some significant improvements in accuracy. However, the accuracy I was getting on the right ear was phenomenal compared to my other microphones. One thing I do need to keep in mind is that it is vital that I keep my voice on an even keel. It has become more than apparent to me that I have a tendency to raise my voice for certain words and not for others and this definitely affects how the computer interprets what I am saying. Oh well, I can only wish that I would have purchases microphone quite some time ago. I'm definitely going to be putting my Plantronics microphone in a drawer and use it whenever I finally get another computer and decide to put this one into my bedroom.
Well, that's about enough for today.

Can't seem to get anything accomplished

2007-06-16T16:13:00.001-07:00

Today has been another one of those non-productive days. It's not that I'm down, depressed, or in a funk, it's simply that for some reason I get distracted every time I get on the Internet to check out a few things. My first intention was to try to work on a blog I had written out and now think it is entirely too verbose and serious for publication here, yet I still may end up posting it anyway. Well, that didn't happen.
I saw a message from a new friend and something popped into my head from my army days. Now I'm off searching the Internet for a story and image I know exists, but I don't know what it's called or the exact context any longer. I remember saving at once on my old computer, but it's probably long gone by now. As I frantically typed different combinations into Google, I didn't come up with anything remotely like what I'm looking for. I know... I can go to the MP website and post an inquiry. Another dilemma solved, right? No! Now they require registration and they have changed everything which was great about the site.
Why is it people feel compelled to change which seem to work? Oh yeah, I do that all the time, but they even deleted the locator, which was one of the best features they had on the MP site.
Anyway, not wanting to be redundant, I try to look through some of the older postings. The next thing I know I'm looking at a completely different entry and thinking about a particular item I used to wear on my uniform that is not in my possession any longer. Thirty minutes later I discovered I have become completely sidetracked and will try again to get back on track.
Several hours later I finally give up and decide to take a break. It is now 7 p.m. and I know there is no way my microphone is going to last much longer. So today is another day I didn't get hardly anything accomplished which I intended. I really need to refocus and get the discipline back I used to possess.

I completely forgot to mention that the rash, which I discussed in two separate entries at my other blog (first entry, second entry), has just about disappeared. It literally has disappeared faster than it appeared. Therefore, there are no more blisters and of this I am absolutely elated.
I wonder if I'm going to post this in Spaces or in Blogger. The topic seems more appropriate for blogger, but who knows.
Billy

Just one of those days

2007-06-05T16:32:00.000-07:00

This has really been one of those days and I am seriously considering just shutting down my computer and reading some Lovecraft. So, please bear with me as I ramble in no particular order. For some unknown reason I have not been reading any books lately, but today looks like as good a day as any to begin once again. That isn't to say I haven't been reading. No, it's actually quite the contrary. I have been looking through tons of blogs, in addition to news articles, albeit on my computer.
Focus, I need to focus. Anyway, my day started off pretty decently, but that allusion soon evaporated. First, I immediately noticed my dictation accuracy has gone down significantly since last night. This is perplexing, but what is more aggravating is my central A/C is taking an inordinate amount of time to cool my house down and I believe the Freon is getting low. I unfortunately can't do anything about it right now, because I don't presently have anyone here to turn the thermostat up to my normal daytime setting. Since I usually spend the majority of the day in my office, I had a portable A/C unit installed there and this permits me to turn the thermostat for the central A/C up pretty high. Today would be one of those days I decided to keep my thermostat set on the setting I use during the night. I can see the money swirling down the toilet as I listen to the central A/C droning on and on. On a positive note, at least I have a warranty and will only have to pay 50 bucks to get the A/C looked at.
Today I am suffering from some nasal congestion, which has me feeling a little less peppy. Because I needed a pick me up, I have been drinking more tea and unfortunately this makes my face feel even warmer. These are of course the main factors which lead me to leave the A/C set lower than normal. You see the cyclic situation here, don't you? Now that I think about a little more, my A/C problems could also be due to my ceiling fan in the family room not working properly. My brother had to turn it off last night because the light would not shut off and he forgot to turn it on when he left a little while back. I could have easily had him removed the bulb so that just the fan ran, but my memory just seems to fail at the right time once again.
At least I was feeling like writing today, so I decided to pull out that blog I have slowly but surely working on for the last month and had just made some significant changes to it, when I noticed my UPS (uninterrupted power supply) made a clicking noise. Since I have heard this before, I wasn't too worried. Previously the noise occurs when there is a minor fluctuation in the electrical current, but the UPS is supposed to come on so that my computer is not affected. Well, the first time everything went fine, however, a few seconds later another click occurred and my computer went blank. In order to dictate quicker I almost always use the word processor which comes with my voice software. This processor does not have a backup like WordPerfect or Word, so therefore everything I had worked on was gone. Not only that, now I have fragments to worry about and this power disruption significantly compromised my voice profile. It took me several minutes to reinstall a backup that I had saved about a week ago. It's a good thing I read up on how to do this procedure.
Later this afternoon I found out my DVR didn't get all of an older episode of both Desperate Housewives and The Riches. These shows are both serial in nature and I normally watch them after I have recorded four or five. Now I'm left trying to download TV shows which are three or four weeks old. It's definitely not as easy to get them now as it would be if I had realized this earlier and started the downloading a few days following the original airing of the episodes.
When this many things go wrong, I see it as a sign and this is why I am seriously considering just reading for the remainder of the day. I guess I'll just wait and see if my creativity, which is in short supply anyway, comes back.
As I lie back and think about the little annoying things which have happened today, I am amazed that I am writing anything at all. For that matter, I'm really not angry, just peeved. Perhaps my recent epiphany has given me a little bit more patience than I normally possess. I know I am seriously considering going down to the university and checking on some writing classes. I am unsure whether I want to give a stab at creative writing or some journalistic endeavor. I have recently found a passion for watching and reading about the political intrigues which are going on right now. Maybe one of these days I could start blogging about that, but I know I don't want to do it in Spaces are on Blogger. These are sites where I usually write about nonpolitical perceptions. Man, I had better get going.
Later gator,
Billy

A brief respite

2007-05-28T18:31:00.000-07:00

I probably will not be on here very much over the next few weeks.
I am going to be concentrating on reading and blogging in Spaces. So, if you want to check out what's going on, go to my other blog.
Best wishes.
Billy

Need to read a little more

2007-05-23T17:15:00.000-07:00

I am probably not going to be blogging on here as much as I would like, as I am going to try to start reading more than I have been. I am seriously considering reading some Lovecraft and possibly some old Roman biographies. It has been difficult for me to find a decent novel that I really want to read, but hopefully I will fly one shortly.

As for my health, and doing well. I am planning on going to a party tomorrow and can't wait to see all of my friends.

No good titles in my mind right now

2007-05-18T21:03:00.000-07:00

There is so much I would love to write about, but I don't want to bore everyone with my political views about all of the crap which is going on in our world right now, so I'll stick with the trivial today. Since I have quite a few personal things which I am juggling around, I will attempt to make an entry tomorrow so I can get a few things off my chest.
I am feeling great and emotionally doing much better than I was a few days ago. My day could have gone better, but in the end it turned out okay. I woke up at 7:30 a.m. this morning to the doorbell ringing. That is usually the sign of a bad day coming, but I wasn't going to let it if I could help it. It goes without saying that I'm not going to answer the door so early in the morning or have anyone else answer it, therefore, I decided I would just lay back and relax for a little while. All of a sudden I hear a strange noise outside my window. My senses are piqued and my entire journal and system goes in the hyperdrive when I see someone walking along the perimeter of my screen in an enclosure. I reach for the sip-n-puff with my mouth are used to dial 911 if this person actually tries to enter the enclosure, but finally my heart rate finally slows down when I realize it is the exterminator. Whew! I take a few deep breaths trying to make sure that my heart is fully extracted from my throat and pushed back into my chest where it belongs. You must keep in mind that when I am in bed I have a rather limited perspective of what is going on around me, so it is even that much more scary when things like this happen outside of my view. It can be downright petrifying.
Knowing that I'd be up for a few minutes after a shock like that, I decided to turn on the television and possibly drift off to the sound of the Military History Channel, so I could get a few more hours sleep before I got started with the process of getting up. I'm a late riser and do most of my work late in the afternoon and evening (although, most people think it's night by their standards). Anyway, just after I turned the television on I heard my stupid alarm systems start to chirp. It had done this the previous night and I knew that my battery was low, but my brother was able to reset it so that I could sleep through the night. Something like a perpetual chirping noise always occurs whenever I don't have someone in the house to rectify the problem, and this was one of those mornings where I didn't have anyone around. Just figures! This incessant noise was driving me bananas and all I could do was turn the television up to try to drown it out as much as possible. Imagine something chiming every 30 seconds and not being able to do much about it, not even close a door or leave the general area. Now you understand my predicament. It is definitely beyond frustrating.

A little later in the morning my sister-in-law decided to bestow me with her presence, so I immediately put her to work trying to figure out how we could stop this incessant mind rattling, noise. Unfortunately, she was unable to locate the power source and I ended up calling a neighbor to see if he could shut it off. I have had experiences with my previous alarm system and know full well all you have to do is disconnect the battery and unplug the power source. Thankfully, Ron, my neighbor was not busy and came over right away. He, like me, thought it would be a very simple matter to rectify, only he soon discovered this was definitely not going to be easy to fix. He had absolutely no idea how the system was receiving power. Since he is a handyman and has worked on other peoples alarm systems, I am left in a small state of disillusionment. Will I have to put up with this chirping until I can figure out what the original password is and possibly get a new battery? Once I finally got up in my chair, I quickly search through my old e-mails and found the one where the previous owner has given me the original code. Only, it is not the original code, but a secondary code. Thankfully my brother was able to go get a new battery and $32 later, the system has finally stopped chirping. It is operational, but I can not change the code the previous owner used to one I'm I remember without the old code.
If you're wondering why I didn't simply call the alarm company, it's because they charge $20 to come out and that is only if you sign an extension to your contract. Since I am currently paying month-to-month because my contract ran out, I have the freedom to be able to switch to a more cost effective company whenever I want. If you're under contract, these companies really have you by the short hairs, if you know what I mean?
Well, I'll write more tomorrow or Monday. I hope everyone has an outstanding weekend; I plan on it.
Auf Wiedersehen,
Billy
PS there are a few paragraphs that I noticed were a little confusing and I tried to change the tenses, so there might be tons of mistakes. I was also having a lot of problems with my microphone and my dictation today. Hopefully it's legible.

Don't have a good title right now

2007-05-16T15:32:00.000-07:00

I just haven't felt like doing too much lately and I guess it shows in the number of blogs or the lack of them. Hopefully I will get in the mood to do more in very short order. I have quite a bit on my plate over the next few days and usually this gives me an adrenaline rush, which in turn gives me the inspiration to do more.

One of those days

2007-05-11T17:53:00.001-07:00

I had actually written out an entire blog about my situation with my ex-wife, but then I felt it was just a little too personal and ended up deleting it. Oh well.
For some reason I haven't felt like getting on here and writing very much and I guess that is evident in my blogs on both sites. I have tried to do several interesting things on my other blog, only to find out it is much more difficult than I originally thought. Sometimes it is quite frustrating and I really do not want to spend the time learning all the intricacies of Spaces.
Man has this been one of those days which I really dread. I didn't feel like doing much of anything and I can't figure out why. For the last 2 1/2 days I have suffered from tremendous amounts of fatigue, but I am hopeful that tomorrow I will feel considerably better. Perhaps I'll get will start reading or something that will give me the enthusiasm which I am normally imbued with. Keep your fingers crossed.
I know one thing I need to do is get back to the core of what I like and that is making sure that I look up words which I do not know, in addition to trying to expand my vocabulary to new horizons. I have around 80 words on one of my e-mail addresses and 75 on another. Of course that doesn't even go into the multitude of pages I had compiled over the last several years I was going to school. Some of the words are so obscure and complicated that most people wouldn't have a clue what they are without looking them up.
One more thing that has me down today is the smoke. I don't like to cry about things, but being virtually trapped in my house is one of those things I really despise. I truly feel for those individuals that are unable to leave their homes for a large part of a year. I used to be like this, but since I realized how much the fresh air means to me and what it does for my Outlook, I have tried to get out as much as possible.
I am going to get going. I probably won't be back for the entire weekend, but who knows?

One of those days

2007-05-08T16:37:00.001-07:00

It's been one of those days. The ones where I just don't feel like getting much accomplished, no matter how much I have on my plate. I did make a few phone calls and even had a handyman come over to help install a window air conditioner in my office window, but unfortunately we need some additional things in order to get it put in properly.
It is difficult for me to figure out exactly what has me in this mood one day and totally committed the very next. It could just be one of the side effects of SCI (spinal cord injury), fatigue, but I am more likely to believe it is possibly the lack of complete direction. There were difficult days whenever I was going to school, but I was able to quickly kick myself in the butt and get back to work, although now I don't have anything pushing me that strongly. I know I am retired, but I need some sort of a hobby to take up a large part of my time. Maybe I will be able to get a business going one day, however, I really don't have any skills in this particular arena. I know I'm capable of functioning well with any major firm in the human resources Department, but what particular company might hire me just to work at home? I really have no clue.
It is nice and cool today, albeit the smoke from a nearby wildfire definitely has a little hazy and smelly. We really need the rain. It is so bad right now that I would mind if it rained for four or five days in a row, just as long as it doesn't flood anyone out. Well, I'm going to get going for now. I know I haven't written much lately, but I have been busy in other arenas and that in itself is a good thing.

A productive Saturday

2007-04-28T19:42:00.001-07:00

It seems as if I've been doing a lot of complaining lately, but in reality it's just on here that I seem to cavil about everything. Maybe it's just the fact that it's cathartic to get it out, however, I do seem to be able to cope better with things when I can write them down occasionally.
The good news is that my older microphone seems to be working better after some tweaking with the settings on my computer and hopefully it will continue to work without any difficulties. The bad news is that I purchased another microphone which had been touted as a pretty good substitute. For some reason it's not working with the wireless system which was also touted as a good system. Now I'm sitting here wondering if I should have just settled for my older microphone and my oldest backup microphone, which operates about as effectively as the new wireless. Sometimes I just piss money away.
Speaking of money going down the toilet, I got the bill for my local handyman down the road and it was pretty significant. You would think you give me a little more of a break, but I guess he thinks I can afford it. Oh well, maybe I'll have the gentleman across the street, who was also a pretty decent handyman, do quite a bit more of my things around the house, like putting up light fixtures.
Well, I'm going to get going for now.
Billy

Today's chuckle

2007-04-27T16:45:00.000-07:00

Since I know I won't get by here over the weekend, I thought I would simply say that everything is going wonderfully. I am fully aware that I accidentally forgot to post a link on one of my other entries, but if anyone was really interested, they'll write to me and ask for the link.

Billy

Something is better than nothing

2007-04-26T17:02:00.001-07:00

Since my parents decided to come over on the same day as the handyman, I didn't get hardly anything done on my computer. I did, however, sell a small item on eBay and now I have to make sure that I get it sent out without cost to me anything extra. It is one of those trivial items to me that I don't even use, but it is probably important to someone else. I would love to try to send this thing out using the online method, but right now I do not have labels. I am supposed to be getting them from the post office within a few days, but I wrote to the individual that won the bid and basically told him/her if I didn't get it in the mail by Monday, I would put in an additional one free of charge. Since I've never used these things, I don't see it as being a big deal. I'm basically only going to make around $.90 on this now, so it really is trivial. Basically I'm just getting my sales numbers up so that if I ever do decide to run some sort of business on eBay, I have a good track record.
This particular microphone is definitely not as accurate as my other one used to be. As for the older model, the support personnel did not give me much advice on what could be causing the problems and sadly informed me that there still isn't a battery with a talk time over eight hours. Thankfully I won the bid on a rather modestly priced microphone and should be receiving it early next week. I am hopeful that I will be able to use it to solve the majority of my problems, but I'm definitely not going to hold my breath. I probably need to start another voice profile with another microphone so I don't screw up my main one, like I have now. When I first purchased the wireless microphone with the battery, I anticipated on having someone at my house at a specific time so it could be recharged every day. I also didn't count on the stupid thing losing synchronization every time I talk to a neighbor, but you have to adapt and overcome the situation which is presented. Tragically it's probably going to cost me another $150, on top of the $90 I already put out for a new wireless system. However, my parents did give me a gift card for Circuit City today, so with any luck I might be able to find a decent noise canceling microphone there which would work with my system.
Enough of this crap about microphones. I am getting ready to go outside and ride around my neighborhood so I can get the air is so desperately desire. It has been rather hot here today, but it is so beautiful at night this time a year that it is difficult for me to stay in the house.
I'm going to get going for now, but I probably should mention that we did get to pretty decent sized mirrors put up along with some other odds and ends today. The handyman and my father were amazed by how well those Hercules Hooks work. They are so simple to use and I can get a knock off on line for a reasonable fee, given what they can hold. It definitely makes putting pictures and other decorations up much easier.
Till later,
Billy
I know everybody will understand if there are errors, but I just know feel like going over it to make sure that it is completely legible or error free.

Not much going on

2007-04-25T17:13:00.000-07:00

Today is one of those days where I have made telephone calls, wrote a blog, read an article, and even began a new novel (I decided to give up trying to read "Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq" because I have been reading too much about that subject lately).
On the subject of Iraq, I found a wonderful article it doesn't take a tremendous amount of time to read. It is very enlightening and well worth the time and effort it takes to read it. It is written by a military officer and I believe that came in either the Army Magazine or the Army Times. Anyway, here is a link where you can find it, but I actually read the original version in PDF format. If you would like that, you can always let me know and I will send it to you.
Just click here for the link.Sincerely hope everyone else is doing fine and I anticipate it should be able to be dictating a little better shortly. It looks as if I might be able to get some answers from the technical support company for my older microphone or I might be able to buy a relatively reasonably priced headset to wear around until I decide if I'm going to completely give up on my other microphone.
At least I am keeping up on my daily journal. It may not be every day, but it is definitely much more frequently.See y'all later.

A successful day is... successful

2007-04-24T20:27:00.000-07:00

I have felt pretty decent today, but once again I have had nothing but problems with my supposedly superior microphone. It actually sounds much worse than the inexpensive microphone I am using right now. I just don't know what the problem is and I have no idea how to remedy it. I went down the street once again and decided to speak to a few of my neighbors, knowing full well that the microphone would probably lose synchronization. Once I returned home I found it had indeed lost synchronization and because I have the inability to put a microphone back on the stand and re-synchronize it, I was therefore forced to go to the backup microphone. Thankfully my new wireless system came with a very inexpensive lapel mic which seems to be working pretty effectively. I would have to say I'm getting about 85% accuracy right now, which is not bad considering my more expensive microphone seems to be giving me so much difficulty.
It is hard for me to shell out $150 on top of what I have already spent on microphones over the last few years to get a really good microphone, but I may ultimately end up having to do so. In the short term I am seriously considering just buying a used headset on eBay which has the noise cancellation feature that I am looking for. It is fairly inexpensive and according to the ratings it is a pretty decent mic overall. However, if the bidding process goes up too high a might look at another option. Well, enough about microphones.
I went to the doctor today and basically all he could tell me about my new allergy is that I need to think about carrying around a syringe of epinephrine just in case the reaction gets too bad and of course to make sure I have Benadryl always on hand. He acknowledged that there isn't much I can do when I eat out. I can try to ask if the product has red pepper in it, but in most places the people don't even know exactly what the ingredients are in specific meals. I'll just have to do the best I can and hope for the best.
One thing I really need to work on is concentrating on dictating properly. I have this overwhelming desire to dictate as I speak and since I occasionally talk much too fast, the computer has difficulty separating the words. I can't complain, this particular software is leaps and bounds above what I started with back in 96. Technology keeps booming and this allows me to reach out further in this world and touched places that I never thought I would be able to again.
On that topic, I now have the ability to keep up with my favorite German soccer team. I used to have season tickets to 1. FC Nürnberg, but up until a couple of years ago I had no idea that I can keep track of them on the Internet. Since they have moved up to the German first division I am able to watch them on TV occasionally. In fact, last week I was able to watch a whole game on television for the first time in my life. It was a tremendous thrill and I had to share this with my ex-wife the next day. While I was telling her this she let me know that they now have sports bars over in Germany which also have satellite systems that allow the diehard fans, like myself, to watch the away games which are not broadcast. Of course, it goes without saying that you can't watch football (soccer) without having at least six beers. Oh how I wish I could live in Germany once again, but that's not going to happen anytime soon.
Hopefully this is legible, but I'm not really going to spend the time to look over this in too much depth. One of these days I will get a microphone that dictates up there in the 90 percentile. That in combination with good dictional skills should allow me to write a little more effectively, but I'm still going to be hampered by the fact that I do not speak grammatically correct and thereby it does not show well on paper/screen. I also have this overwhelming desire to put things out quickly and not go over them effectively. For some reason looking at things on the screen is not the same to me as looking at them on paper. One of these days I might get back into the habit of printing out what I am planning on publishing, but right now I'm just going to have to get the best out of what I got.

Muddling about

2007-04-23T15:25:00.000-07:00

Lately my days have seemed to be consumed with trying to figure out what I am going to do after my ex-wife visits and my house has been completely renovated. Following her visit, I will have more time than I know what to do with on my hands and I really need to settle down and figure out what I'm going to do to stay busy, besides simply reading and blogging. I have been scouring over eBay to see if I can find a niche, but nothing leaps out at me. Additionally I have been thinking about volunteering to sit on the board of a disabled advocacy group, but my caregivers don't presently have the time to devote to taking me to all the meetings. It's a rough time for them and I need to try to be more understanding as I continue work their fingers to the bone.
The world of Quadom is definitely a world of give-and-take. One must always balance the needs of their caregivers with their own needs in order to maintain a good symbiotic relationship. It is always important to remember that the health and welfare of your caregivers directly impacts your own health and mental well-being.
Well, I'm going to get going for now and would love to hear from anybody that has any ideas on ways that I could become more engaged in society and possibly even make a buck or two while doing so. Damn, now that I think about it, Big Brothers/Big Sisters still haven't gotten back to me on about being a big brother. I bet you they are trying to pigeonhole me into some unique category and thereby eliminating me from the majority of the needy pool. It seems a damn shame that someone that has been successful in life and is willing to share with those less fortunate, could be hampered by a physical disability that most children don't seem to worry about once they understand it.
Well, I better get going.
See you all later.
PS I know you'll bear with me and the mistakes as I continue to try to use my older microphone, which has been having a little more difficulties since I retrained my system for another mic. Unfortunately I saved the voice profile, which unfortunately backed up the voice profile, and it has been giving me hell ever since then.

My enthusiasm was a bit premature

2007-04-20T17:30:00.000-07:00

Here I am right back just after I said I was going to take a break. Little did I know that my wireless transmitter and receiver would arrive today and thereby give me the desire to try to dictate some things. I am thrilled with the wireless system, but the actual microphone which hooks into the system is less than perfect. It seems to move a little too much and does not have that sharp crisp sound that my other microphone does. I may have to try to purchase more expensive version, but there doesn't seem to be many out there that are ear clip microphones. I absolutely abhor handsets, but this particular system does not have near the accuracy my other system enjoyed. There is one particular microphone which cost around $150 and if you included the fee for the wireless system, which I was able to get at a very good price, the total fee would be around $240. My wireless microphone that I had been using cost around $185, but I have had so much problem with the synchronization and the fact that the battery only lasts between 7 1/2 and eight hours. Normally this may not be a problem for most people, but I cannot but the microphone on its stand and therefore it stays on the entire day, even when I am not using it.
Well, I am going to get going for now. So far this microphone is not terrible and would probably work well as a backup to the other wireless microphone, but it seems a bit strange to wear a microphone on each ear. I will have to see how this one works out in the long run. Man, I almost forgot one additional problem I have noticed with this less expensive microphone is that it tends to rotate down towards my chin and then the volume is considerably lower than it should be.
It is sad that I decided to go ahead and open the microphone and try it out, because I probably will not be able to take it back now that we have destroyed the packing. However, I could lose give it to my brother since it does seem to be a good microphone for nearly everyone except for people that use voice activation extensively. It has a little earpiece which permits you to use the microphone has a phone on your computer. Anyway, and that only going to go now. I hope everyone has an outstanding weekend. I plan on it.

A little lost

2007-04-19T16:34:00.000-07:00

Well, today hasn't been too great a day, but it hasn't been bad neither. I did manage to get my nails manicured and that in itself is a plus. Although, I ended up spending too much money while shopping once again. It seems like it cost more and more to live each day. Right now I'm going through a funk, one of those types of feelings that I get every so often. It would probably be much easier if I had someone to share my time with a little more often. Maybe my ex will show up shortly and alleviate this problem.
I am seriously considering ending this particular blog. I can't seem to keep up with it as well as I would like and one day I would like to start a personal journey where I can write about the inner demons or other things that are definitely too personal to share with individuals on the web. Now that I think about it, however, I could do a blog in an anonymous type fashion and write about some of the things I feel consistently. Maybe that would be fun. I'll have to think about it.
I'm going to get going for now.
If anybody reads this, let me know if you think I should continue on or just concentrate on one of my other blogs.

Not much getting done

2007-04-09T16:27:00.000-07:00

I am actually composing this within the very box that able-bodied individuals use to post their entries. Although, I have decided to use a separate little box, which comes with the voice software.
I haven't had much time to make entries lately or it would probably be more accurate to say that I haven't made good use of the time I've had to make entries on this particular blog lately. For some reason I'm still not getting too terribly much done around here. It is extremely aggravating having to wait for the painters to come finish up my patio. I definitely learned a lesson there: never pay them completely when the job isn't done. In my defense, they had completed everything else around my house and this seemed like such a trivial little amount. Now I am considering having them come in and do just a little more in my kitchen to entice them over to my house in order to get everything completed. Since it is raining, I might be able to get them over here to do some of the interior minor items I need done.
Getting my handyman to complete all of his tasks is another arduous task in itself. I cannot wait to have this house finish so I can concentrate on other things. It seems as if my to do list keeps growing and my list of accomplishment keeps getting smaller proportionally.
At least I am feeling better and know that things will be very good shortly. I cannot wait for the ex to get over here on her visit and I sincerely hope it is for six weeks this time. Perhaps I'll find out something tomorrow, but I'm not holding my breath.Interestingly enough I have also started getting involved in a contest which is designed to entice people to invest in the stock market. Maybe if I can learn what I'm doing I might be more inclined to do so. Anyway, one of the quadriplegics that is on the quad list has provided us with some companies that might be worth investing in. He must have an unbelievable amount of time on his hands in order to do all of that research.
I wish I could make as much use of my time as he is able to, but I choose not to do too much once I am already in bed. Maybe when the technology gets more advanced in the voice software, so that I do not need to manually hit anything with my mouth stick, I might consider using the computer while I am in bed. My new high definition television can serve as a monitor and this enhances the likelihood that I might do this in the future. Then I'll never get any sleep. Well, I better get going.
I know I didn't check over this, but maybe it will at least be understandable.

A small look at Reign over me"

2007-03-28T14:27:00.000-07:00

Since I haven't been writing much at all lately I thought I would take a quick stab at something which bothered me the other day. Additionally, I have decided to totally eradicate my previous site which dealt with books and movies. I'm just going to simply reference them on my main site and direct everyone to this particular series of blogs.
Since I wrote this rather quickly today while I was taking a break, I hope it is somewhat legible, but I think you get the idea that I really did approve of the movie, despite what some of the critics have said. I believe I commented on this in another blog, but I thought it was worthy of another look.
Since I was having difficulty sleeping last night I decided to watch Ebert & Robert just to see what they had to say about "Reign Over Me." Well, to say they were not too kind is a bit of an understatement. The words absurd and preposterous were used with the glaring regularity. I was initially floored and flabbergasted by their supposedly professional analysis, however, as they went on to explain some of the problems they had with the film, I found myself agreeing with some of their contentions. Although, I still think there are too many aspects of the film which are so intriguing they outweigh the negatives. Of course, that is my personal observation and many others may not find this to be self-evident.
As for what I agreed to in their analysis of the movie, I definitely think Janeana Johnson, played by the impeccable Jada Pinkett Smith, was completely underused and a little ridiculous, in that she really ever seemed to leave their apartment. I also think the obviously psychologically troubled Donna Remar, played by Saffron Burrows, was a bit over the top and probably the biggest distraction of the film. The movie would have been much better without her, but I chose to ignore these problems for the much more prevalent issues at hand: the struggle of two completely different individuals to discover their own way through life with what has been dealt them. I completely disagree with their contention that Alan Johnson, played by Don Cheadle, and Charlie Fineman, played by the surprisingly dramatic Adam Sandler, were completely absurd.

I personally was in a different place when I saw this particular film and frankly needed a little bit of a pick me up. I chose to see the brighter side of this film and instead of continuing to scream about the glaring plot holes, I reveled in the brilliance that an individual who is highly successful in many aspects can be dealing with problems which seem to be incomprehensible to the majority of people that are living paycheck to paycheck.

One thing I do want to warn everybody about this film is that it is rather slow in spots and possibly a little more palatable when viewed on DVD at home.

2007-03-18T14:47:00.000-07:00

As it probably shows in the total lack of entries over the last month I haven't been doing much of anything. This particular virus knocked me down much lower than I thought it would and it has been much more considerably difficult from which to rebound. Today is one of my better days. It only required about an hour and a half nap in order for me to function properly. At least I am breathing properly, however, this doesn't do a lot for my positive attitude. I have definitely seen better days, but I know they are on the way once again.

On a brighter side, my house is looking considerably better. We are even beginning to start to decorate the walls. Even though my landscaping is a bit sparse, it is much better than it was and by next year will be much better. The landscapers planted saplings and it has been so long since I first started with a new landscape, I had completely forgotten how timid it looks in the beginning.
Well, I'd better get going for now. If I can make it back onto the computer more often, I can start to post on here once again.
BTW, I really don't like the new setup for blogger yet, but I haven't really checked out much of its capability.
Till later.

What a bummer

2007-03-06T17:24:00.001-08:00

This is my first day in three weeks that I've been able to spend more than 10 minutes on the computer. I tried to catch up on some e-mail, but one of the lists to which I subscribe has managed to deposit more than 340 e-mails in my account. It will, therefore, take quite a substantial time to get through all of these e-mails. The sad part is I have not been receiving any personal e-mails as of late. My, what have I been doing wrong? Perhaps it could be that I have not been writing, but I'll never know.
Anyway, I will hopefully be able to do more dictation and read quite a bit more tomorrow. I am trying not to overdo it, so I'm going to keep this real short. In the past, I have tried to get back in the swing of things much too quickly and ended up relapsing. And in my experience a relapse is much more devastating and time-consuming than the original illness.

January 11, 2007

2007-02-11T15:57:00.000-08:00

For me it is difficult to comprehend how I have so much on my mind at night as I'm watching television, yet in the morning or late afternoon, depending on when I actually get up and about, all of those thoughts have practically been wiped clear like someone re-formatted a section of my brain. But, similar to a hard drive there are vestiges of those thoughts still around, but they need to be brought into clearer focus, possibly with the aid of one of those high tech devices they use to retrieve deleted files on all of those TV programs I watch. One of these days I will try to get something into my room so I can record my thoughts late at night as they are oozing out of my mind. Then you won't hear me complaining as much, or maybe I'll just be bitching about how I am unable to keep up with all the things on my mind.

Once again I am experiencing some problem with my bowels, although I think the majority of this situation is the result of my running out of my daily yogurt supply. Maybe someone will get me some today so I can get back on track. On a completely different topic, I had the children over last night and unfortunately I was so exhausted I was not able to enjoy their company like normal. I ended up going to bed a little early and dozing on and off while they watched TV. For some reason I have fallen into a cycle where I can't get to sleep until around 4:30 a.m., waking up around 9:30 a.m. or 10 a.m. and then dose up on Mountain Dew in order to function for the large part of the afternoon. The problem is I end up bottoming out by early evening and end up feeling like crap for the majority of the night.

Lately I have not been able to feel as warm as it did earlier this winter. Even though the winter was probably the warmest I can remember, when they did get cold I didn't have any problem with it, but now when it's not even too chilly outside I am already cold. I cannot wait until spring arrives and then summer. I really despise the winter.

Just another day

2007-02-07T19:37:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a pretty decent day until around 10:30 p.m. when I developed one of the most horrific cases of indigestion I have ever experienced. I almost vomited during the evening, but thankfully I was able to get it under control. Sadly it came back and almost full force this afternoon as I was drinking another soda. I am now suspecting it has to do with the amount of carbonation I have taken an within the last few days. Even some of the water I drink is carbonated. I just can't seem to win for losing.

One good aspect of today is that it seems some of the gremlins which have been plaguing my house lately have decided to leave temporarily. Hopefully this will last quite a while. The only thing I can think of is that I actually turned off my transmitter from my wheelchair. Additionally, I put a very powerful appliance module in the area which was affected and it may have possibly helped out (or as they like to say on those more technical sites, it attenuated the deficiencies). All in all, it makes me happier when I have fans working with are supposed to and I don't have to sit there and have someone set up special things around my bed.

I am scheduled to go to an adaptive equipment seminar which is being held at Home Depot. Hopefully they will have some good ideas and I can talk to somebody about the backup generator system I am seriously considering having installed in my house. Thankfully I have a pretty decent size grant that might pay for this improvement. The sad part is that when I bought my first house just after my injury, I was given a sizable grant and they have now decided that wasn't enough. Back then, they used to just apply it to your mortgage if your house was already approved by the VA. I thought they would simply take the grant and applied towards my mortgage since my newest house is also VA approved, but that's not the way it works. I have to actually get approval to have improvements made and then they will pay for those improvements. However, the improvements have to be related to my disability.

Right now I am looking at the backup generator, tinting all of my windows due to a skin allergy I have, and possibly another door opener to go out to my deck. The sad part is the door opener would have to be put in the large spare bedroom's bathroom. If I am alone, it will allow me to get out and see the sunset when I want. That last one is actually one of the lowest on my priority list. I'm sure I can come up with several others. I have also been thinking about widening the entrance to my office as well as making the door a saloon type swinging door so I can use my brand-new window mounted AC to keep me cool while I let the remainder of the house swelter at 81° in hopes of saving a few bucks. Of course, if I do that I probably should put a small television in here it I might be able to operate, so I only have to leave in order to get a quick drink. It can become like my ultimate John.
If only dreams can come true.

I think I'm going to keep this entry for a few days and see if I want to put it on my other blog, after a few modifications of course.

Soccer or no Soccer

2007-02-05T17:12:00.000-08:00

What should I write about today? Based on that question, I would say this is probably going to be very jumbled and desultory. At first I thought I was going to be writing about politics, especially considering that I usually start the day watching some sort of political show, but I have found that if people want to read about politics they usually go to the political pundits blogs, not some amateur. Although, I may be wrong on that subject.

I have been giving serious consideration to subscribing to the Soccer Channel so I can watch all of the interesting European games and keep up with the world of soccer, instead of watching so many shows about the state of politics. Soccer, football in Europe, is definitely one of my passions and usually after the American football season ends, I end up watching a multitude of games during every week. It helps me pass the time as I am getting up in the morning. Since I watch enough news and and other such shows, maybe it is time to get back into my old habits again. Although, now that I think about it, I used to listen to books every morning, but now I just don't seem to have the passion for doing that any longer. Maybe if they change the format for the books on tapes, but I just don't know.

Prior to writing this particular entry, I just finished dictating something I wrote back in 1998 into my computer so I could work on it later. My gosh, was I a horrible writer. I know, I'm not a Hemingway right now, but at least I can usually form a complete sentence and keep some sort of flow to my thought process. I guess if I compare my early writing to what I do now, it shows some maturation. That is, of course, if you exclude these types of entries where I tend to just jump around from subject to subject and not really think about what I am writing. I am usually dictating rather quickly when I write entries like this and attempting to get things now while they're in my mind. If I want to make more detailed entries, I typically go back and edit them and try to develop them further.

I was going to write an entry in my other blog about the freaky weather we were experiencing down here late last week and then on the same night I was considering this, Central Florida, just 50 miles northeast of me, was hit by a barrage of tornadoes. While this is extremely disturbing and I'm probably should be doing more to help these individuals out, it is extremely disconcerting knowing that it could easily have happened here. It is also aggravating that many of the news shows continue to try to attribute the strange weather we are encountering this year to global warming. Yes, global warming might be intensifying some of the strange weather patterns, but it is actually El Niño that is the main culprit.

As for news about my health, I am feeling pretty darn good. I am little more spastic than normal and my urine does seem to be smelling significantly stronger (who am I kidding?) it smells like crap. I should probably start taking more cranberry supplements and drinking as much fluid as it is safe. It is so difficult to go anywhere when my urine is this strong.

Well, you better get blog walking or I'll feel as if I didn't get anything done today. Now that I think about it, I really didn't get too much.

The painting progresses

2007-02-03T17:46:00.000-08:00

This is definitely going to be short tonight. Even though it is Super Bowl Sunday tomorrow, the painters are coming back in order to finish the back two bedrooms and now that I have decided to paint my hallway a completely different color, they'll probably start that on Monday.
So far I have been extremely excited about the painting and I even posted a few new pictures with the older ones. Unfortunately my niece took the pictures, so they didn't turn out exactly as I anticipated. As you can probably tell my office is still in need of furniture. The worst part is that I have some really nice bookshelves and cabinet sitting beneath one of the beds just waiting to be put together and then painted white. Once I see what they look like, probably purchase another few knickknacks. As you probably also saw, my house still has some boxes around it. Most of that will be gone whenever I get the furniture put into my office. Additionally, everything is down off the walls and I had the pictures taken before we can move everything back where it needs to be.
As for that wall in the hallway, I have decided to paint it gold, the color of the family room, but this is going to cost me a little more. I have also discovered that there are more than a few spots on my bedroom wall which are bleeding through with the original white color. For me this is a little unbelievable. I watched them put two coats of all of the paint on every wall in my bedroom and still the red is not covering up all of the white. So, they're going to have to put an additional coat of red paint on them back wall. Thankfully the bathroom seems to look wonderful.
Well, that's all in my opinion a new way. Did anyone notice a lavender in my dining room? So far I'm not too thrilled with it, but maybe whenever we get the window treatments for backup I will think it was a decent color to put on the wall.
Till later,
Billy
if you would like to look at the photos, you can go to my other blog.
http://spaces.msn.com/quadius/

Plain confused

2007-02-01T17:16:00.000-08:00

This has been one of those days when the temperature is absolutely gorgeous, but the off and on rain has zapped my enthusiasm to do much of anything. I am sitting around looking at my walls trying to determine if there are little problems with the new painting I just had done and frankly I'm probably being a little too critical. I am, however, definitely going to have to have my hallway repainted. A gentleman, who was over here to work on some technical problems I am having with my wheelchair's environmental control unit (ECU) transmitter, confirmed my observation and said it would definitely need to be repainted, because it appeared the painters had used two different textures. Oh well. Perhaps I may just go ahead and change the color. A few more dollars is worth my sanity, not to mention it really makes the house look wonderfully warm and inviting, even if that is not really the case. :-). For some reason I have been getting upset about my lack of progress and considering that there has been much more accomplished over the last week than at any time in the last three or four months, I really should be happy, not disillusioned. I guess it's just the disarray and mess which has me a little off my normal game. I need to remind myself about what this place actually looked like when I moved in and what it does now. All I should have to do is rewind to the point when my tile was being put in just after I moved.

My overall health is absolutely wonderful and I can only hope that it will continue to remain so. Everything which is going on with me right now is psychological. It is difficult for me to nail down exactly what was bothering me, but for some reason I do not feel like I am personally getting much of anything done, which in truth I'm not. Although, as I once said before, I am supposed to be retired, which in my opinion means I should be content to rest and relax whenever I want and not feel guilty about it when I do. Then I have the strength to go out and do whatever I want whenever I want.

I definitely need to be reading more and I am never satisfied with how much I am writing or how well, but at least I am staying active. Speaking of activity, I probably should see if I can get out tonight so I can get some much needed air. It has been raining for much of the day, therefore, it is not conducive for me to venture outside my door into the dank environment. Well, I'm going to go for now and will definitely try to write more tomorrow.

Random ramblings

2007-01-28T10:30:00.000-08:00

Thought I would take a few minutes and just ramble about what's going on around here right now. Hopefully there are not too many errors in this, but I really don't feel like checking it over thoroughly.
Just when you think you have something completely licked, it comes back up to kick you in the ass again. I have felt really well since Wednesday afternoon and lo and behold Sunday I wake up feeling like crap, but on the brighter side at least I do not have the problems with losing my voice. Basically I am just aching a little and seem to be a little more fatigued than normal. Hopefully trying to relax and do a minimal amount of things will enable my body to fight off whatever is trying to invade it. Unfortunately, scheduled I have quite a bit of things done around my house and now I am not able to take it easy around here without getting in everyone's way. Oh well, at least I will get a lot of things done and feel even better tomorrow when I look around my house. I am optimistic that a large amount of sleep in combination with copious amounts of Jews, vitamin C, as well as chicken soup will get me back on the straight and narrow in no time.

Anyone who has read any of my blogs knows how addicted I am for watching television, so if I were to tell you that I went to bed last night and basically fell asleep without watching anything, this would tell you that I was not feeling my best. Today I am going to just do some blog walking and not worry about much of anything else. Therefore, my office is going to look like a hurricane hit and the rest of my house will be in disarray when the cleaners come in tomorrow. I am sure they will live through it, but I will hear about it later as I have informed them I have even more work being done tomorrow. Oh well!

Feeling better

2007-01-27T16:34:00.000-08:00

I haven't felt much like writing in quite some time and a lot of it has to do with the fact that I have been fighting off a virus. Thankfully it is pretty much over with and now all I have to do is simply make sure that I am well rested and try to stay away from all of the sick people around here. One of these days I will be able to keep up this journal so that I can look back on it, but I know I really never will.
I'm going to get going today. My shoulder is hurting like hell, so I think I will go to lean back and watch the news.

Getting stronger every day

2007-01-16T16:22:00.000-08:00

It has been another one of those days. I feel great, but don't seem to be able to get much accomplished, if anything. I had intended on getting quite a bit done on my other blog site a little more modified, but that didn't happen. It definitely wasn't for lack of trying, however, I seem to lack the skill. I guess I really need to get down and dirty and try to finish the book I haven't even started yet.

As for how I am doing physically and mentally, I am doing great. My bladder feels fantastic and I am just aggravated that I am not getting more accomplished. Hopefully some of the individuals I've been trying to get a hold of to start working in my house will call me shortly. Man, I think I just jinxed myself. Right after writing all about how fantastic my bladder has been, I am now experiencing a few spasms and a slight amount of discomfort. I guess that is to be expected occasionally. I sincerely hope my doctor will get back with me shortly on what type of stones I had in my bladder. If they were a certain type, I might be able to drink lemonade or apple cider vinegar in order to prevent them. However, if they are not, I will probably just be exacerbating the situation, so I will hold off and call them later.

I had better get going and get some reading done.
Till later,
Billy

Minor surgery without hospitalization, what a great feeling

2007-01-13T15:33:00.000-08:00

I haven't been writing much, because frankly there hasn't been much time lately. It seems as if every chance I get, I'm involved in something else. I did, however, manage to make it through my minor surgery with little difficulties. It was miraculous that I was able to do this procedure (cystosco- lithotripsy) without having to be hospitalized. Yahoo! The only problems I encountered were the ungodly hour I had to get up in order to get there (3 a.m.) and the fact that my catheter clogged continuously for about two days following the procedure. I lost quite a bit of blood, but I seem to be gathering my strength back slowly but surely.

I am hopeful I will be able to get back to my reading tomorrow as well as trying to get things done around the house in addition to more writing. One of these days I'm going to be able to get my older microphone fixed so that it can be powered off my chair once again. I love the microphone I am using right now, but it only holds up for about 7 1/2 hours. This doesn't sound like a problem normally, but I don't always feel like working on the computer until later in the afternoon and then half my time has been consumed without doing anything on the computer. Well, I'm going to go for now. More updates to come.

A Wonderful Tribute to Our Troops.

2007-01-05T17:41:00.000-08:00

I usually try not to regurgitate information I have on my other blog, but this was definitely, in my not so humble opinion, worth it.

As I was riding home today in my van all I could think about was all of the items I wanted to bitch about, like why is it that when the price of a barrel of oil dropped below $56 yesterday, but gas is still $.28 a gallon higher than it was on November 7. Coincidence? I think not. Once I looked through my e-mail and discovered this one website sent to me by an acquaintance, I could not find it in my heart to complain so bitterly about all of the trivial things in life. There are so much more important things going on right now.

This particular link (click here) had my mind and heart racing with a myriad of emotions. While patriotism exudes from my very pores, I was bitterly against the way our government rushed into the war in Iraq. I often think that if more members of Congress had family members serving in our armed forces they wouldn't be in such a rush to invade a country without seriously looking at all of the other options. Even though I am seething inside about this, my feelings for all of the troops over there, as many of you know that read anything I write, has not been diminished in the least.

People, who happen to know that I served in the first conflict over there, often ask me what it's like for these young men and my answer is simple, "I really have no clue. It's a completely different war and to tell you the truth, I really never saw combat myself." I do, nonetheless, know what it's like to feel the conflicting emotions of being thankful that I am not serving in this war and actually desiring to be over there with my brethren. It may be difficult to comprehend these feelings if you have not served, but this very poignant website should give you a little bit of an idea of what I am feeling.

I hope all of you are moved even a little bit as much as I was when I watched this tribute. The really sad part is that I am not able to figure out how to embed this so that it comes up immediately with my website, but you will have to forgive me my inadequacies.

It is difficult for me to put into words, but my heart is overflowing with the desire that this particular conflict in Iraq can be resolved quickly so we do not lose any more of our most precious commodity, the wonderful men and women serving in our military.

If you find yourself at the end of this and have not clicked on the link, then (click here) and enjoy.
Billy

The frustrations of voice activated software

2006-12-29T15:16:00.000-08:00

I am writing rather hastily today knowing that I will need to get something to eat very shortly. The last several days have been extremely hectic around here and I have discovered that when my voice software has problems, it is more than frustrating. It seems as if everything started the day after my Internet went out for the majority of the day. First my voice profile became corrupted with god knows what. Then when I decided to simply create a new user (voice profile) I learned that my wireless microphone was out of sync with its base unit. Of course, I couldn't learn this while people were here, it was only after they had left that I discovered this new wrinkle. Later that night after having everything on the microphone reset, I learned my initial attempt to create a new user using one of my backup profiles had failed miserably. Thinking the next day would be much easier since all I had to do was to create a new user I decided to call it a night so my caregivers could get off work a little bit earlier than normal. This, however, was not the case at all. For some reason my normal microphone did not take the charge am supposed to be receiving as it sat in its cradle. I was therefore left with the only option of pulling my old wireless microphone out of an obscure drawer and going through the frustrations of telling my sister-in-law how to hook it into my computer.

After finally getting a new user install and completing the initial training, I decided to navigate the Web to see how well the microphone and new user working together. This navigation also assisted me in trying to figure out how I could import all of the commands, which really aren't that many, I have developed over the last few years. While doing this search, I came across a reference to a quick fix guide for Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Even though that link was no longer valid, I remembered saving that particular document on my computer. It was as if I had found the Holy Grail once again. Lo and behold I have discovered how I was able to restore my voice profile once before. It seems as if I was just making a simple sequential error in the way I approach the problem in the first place was not altogether incorrect. Two minutes later I had my old voice profile which have become corrupted four or five days earlier completely restored and ready for use. All of the work I had done on the new user was for not. There is no way I'm going to use that one, when I have one which has already trained and has an accuracy of over 96%.

I'm going to have to close for now since my family is coming in the door right now. I'll live there are not too many errors, but I am not going to have any time to check this over.

Warm weather leads to a shiny outlook

2006-12-18T15:29:00.000-08:00

It is unbelievably warm for this time of year and I am in pure ecstasy. I can only hope it continues for the rest of the winter and then the summer stays about the same temperatures. However, we all know that's not going to happen.

I did manage to make it down to the paint store and was able to get my paperwork turned into day. Now all I have to do is wait for them to approve the paperwork and then I can get going with the painting. I probably do need to get a hold of the painters and let them know what colors I am going to be doing on the inside and tried to get them in here as quickly as possible. I am so frustrated with the little progress I have made in the seven plus months I have lived in this house, but I am trying to remind myself of how long it took me to get nicely settled into my other place.

We did a trial run on the turkey yesterday so we would not have any difficulties on Christmas day. Yes, we did deep fry a turkey on Thanksgiving, but I wasn't worried too much about it because there are always stores open on Thanksgiving, however, this is not the case on Christmas Day. Anyway, with the help of one of my neighbors everything went great and now I know that Christmas dinner will turn out without a hitch.

It is getting so close to Christmas and I still need to get out and get a few gifts. I have managed not to purchase much of anything for anyone this year, but I will be doing it sometime this week. This is not to say that I was not out shopping. I spent a considerable amount of time online and in stores trying to get a high definition television for my parents at a reasonable cost, but this turned into more of a headache than it was worth. When I discussed all of this with my parents, they told me not to worry about it, so all I am going to get them this year is a hefty gift certificate for the restaurant of their choice. Interestingly enough to ask me why I wanted to get them a nice television and I just said I thought it would be a very good gift, but deep down inside me I knew this particular present would end up causing my brother and me a lot of pain. Let's just say I was thinking about getting it from Circuit City and then I read all of the reviews. Normally I don't go by all of the reviews, although, in this particular case I have heard my parents complaining bitterly about their experiences lately with Circuit City and I did not want to relive any of this again. Oh well, at least I tried and it is the thought that counts. Right?

I had better get reading and tried to get some other things accomplished today and tomorrow. The one thing I've been procrastinating on for so long is getting a proper will in order. I had one drawn up, from a document I downloaded from the Web, but I never managed to get it signed, witnessed, and notarized. After a considerable time trying to find a rather inexpensive lawyer, I decided to do with some of my friends did and get the documentation from Staples. Unfortunately, after purchasing the document and putting it on my computer, I found it to be even more rudimentary than the document I downloaded from the Web. I am, nonetheless, going to go ahead and complete this thing so that if anything does happen to me there is a will and my family does not have to spend an inordinate amount of time with no cash whatsoever. I am vowing right now that I will have this document completed and ready for signature by tomorrow.

Sluggishly still plugging along

2006-12-16T14:32:00.000-08:00

Despite the fact that I have felt rather sluggish the entire week, have managed to get quite a bit accomplished and feel pretty good about everything as a whole. Unfortunately, my ex-wife just informed me the possibility of her being able to come over for 90 days is not as likely as we anticipated, but I'm still hopeful she will be able to make it for about six weeks. This would be a nice visit and given my current arrangements, it would be wonderful to have her here around March or April. Maybe then I can entice her to commit to living here and we can get on with this thing, many view as a dance.

As I said in my previous entry, I submitted some paperwork so that I can have my paint scheme approved and they ended up turning me down. Believe it or not, I did not pass typically label what name brand I was using, what color would be used for the trim, what color would be used for the base, and what color would be used for the door. Well, I normally would have done this, however, they have pretty much only given us 37 choices of which I picked the 15th and I was under the impression you had to use the basic colors they gave you in this scheme. I informed him I was going to use that particular scheme, so I thought they would know that I was using the same name brand and colors. I guess I need to be more specific for these people. Given I served on a board in my previous neighborhood which was full of pedantic individuals, you'd think I would be used to this, but that is not the case. For some reason this particular neighborhood I have chosen to live in now, really has a penchant for having similar like colors. Oh well, I'll do the dance and get what they want. If I take it in on Monday, they should be able to get it approved Wednesday. I might even go by there Wednesday night to make sure everything goes smoothly. That way I can start the painting process right after the new year. I do, however, need to get these painters inside my house and painting my room's while the outside job is still pending.

Well, I'm not going to write very much more tonight. I just invited my family to go out to dinner, so I guess we really need to get prepared to go. With the sluggishness I have been experiencing, it is even more difficult to keep the sanguine outlook I try to maintain. It is probably nothing that a little caffeine won't fix or maybe even just a little more sleep. Man, I really better get going.

Busy times make good time for me

2006-12-13T17:32:00.000-08:00

It seems as if this week has gone by in a flash, despite the fact it is only Wednesday evening. This could be because I have been extraordinarily busy the entire week. Today I had an opportunity to go see Déjà Vu and I found it to be positively riveting movie experience. It was definitely much better than I had anticipated and it was not even my first choice, but it seemed to fit in nicely with the time constraints I had at that particular moment.

I have decided to set aside James W. Loewen's "Sundown Towns" and try to get into Nelson DeMille's latest novel, "Wild Fire." Given how much I liked all of the previous books in this series, I am really psyched. Hopefully I'm not setting myself up for a let down. For me, this character is so masculine and funny it is always a riproaring experience to see what DeMille has come up with next four John Corey. I know, riproaring is a really corny word, but it seemed to be what I was thinking at the time.
Let me give you an idea of how funny he, the character in the book, is, at least in my opinion.

My wife is a beautiful woman, but even if she weren't, I'd still love her. Actually, if she weren't beautiful, I wouldn't have noticed her, so it's a moot point.
Her e-mail message read: LET'S KNOCK OFF EARLY, GO HOME, HAVE SEX, I'LL COOK YOU CHILLY AND HOT DOGS, AND MAKE YOU DRINKS WHILE YOU WATCH TV IN YOUR UNDERWEAR.
Actually I didn't say that.
It said: LETS GO AWAY FOR A ROMANTIC WEEKEND OF WINE TASTING ON THE NORTH FORK. I'LL BOOK A B&B. LOVE, KATE.
Why the hell do I have taste wine? It all taste the same.

For me this is just hilarious. When I read the first part of the e-mail message his wife sent, I said to myself "That's my type woman." However, I already knew it was too good to be true and there had to be something up. When I read the original message, I just laughed out loud. I guess it's a guy thing, but for some reason this character seems to think like me sometimes.

Well, I'm going to get going for now and hopefully I will be able to write more about what is going on in my life. There is quite a bit I am not including in this journal, however, maybe I will try to reveal as much as I can without getting too private. BTW, there has been no painting in my house in well over six weeks, so I decided to let my painter go and hire a professional. They probably will not want to start on the inside of my house until they get to do the outside work and I am not going to let that happen until I have a paper in my hand from the homeowners association saying it is okay to use the colors I have selected. Unbelievably this neighborhood is more strict than my last one, when it comes to painting. They only have about 37 schemes and I feel it is rather limited to say the least. Fortunately, I was able to find one I like, but I'm afraid it will be a little too striking initially. The house I have used as my ideal model is about six years old and the owner told me the original color was extremely strong, but has come to fade and become much more appealing as the years have gone by.

Why am I waiting to paint the exterior? One of my neighbors down the road didn't submit any paperwork and he ended up painting the wrong colors and is now being told he needs to repaint the entire house. At a cost of $1800, that is one hefty mistake. I just don't see the need for him to repaint his house. It doesn't seem to be too objectionable to me and I used to serve on a board which was so strict it became notorious in the United States. Well, I definitely better get going now.

The after affects of my cystoscopy

2006-12-03T17:49:00.000-08:00

I have not been getting much writing done, and frankly I haven't been able to get much of anything else accomplished. Don't know if I mentioned it in a previous entry, but my cystoscopy on Wednesday didn't go as well as I would have liked. They were not able to do much of anything other than go in the urethra only to discover that I have too many bladder stones to remove in spinal cord. Because quadriplegics are susceptible to (AD) autonomic dysreflexia (this is when a quadriplegic's body reacts to pain by raising the blood pressure to dangerous levels) they were unable to remove the stones without taking proper precautions. Therefore, I'm going to have to be scheduled to go into the operating room and have the same procedure performed with the aid of an anesthetic this time around. I have asked if it is at all possible that I'm not be admitted and they have said it should be doable, but there is some complications with how they are going to transfer me to the operating table. Unbelievably, spinal cord does not want to transfer me and therefore they would like to have the admitted. It seems absolutely asinine to think that it is justified to admit a person for one day to the hospital, instead of simply transferring them over to a stretcher so that they can easily be put on an operating table. The insane part of this is that in spinal cord were to transfer me the morning of the procedure, it would probably take 10 to 15 minutes and I would have my caregiver there to assist. If they do not and I have to be admitted, is going to require them to transfer me to a bed later in the evening, undress me, turning every two hours if I decide not to take a specialty mattress, feed me, and perform any other tasks which I might need. I don't even know what the cost of putting me in the hospital for one day is, but it is definitely much more expensive than using one or two people for 15 minutes. If they say I have to be admitted due to transfer problems, I am already planning on contacting my senator or congressman.

What also angers me about this whole situation is that if they would have done this cystoscopy last year, when I knew it needed to be done, I could have had this procedure simply done in spinal cord without the aid of anesthetic both times. It would have been much more cost effective, not to mention much safer. My fear of going completely under the control of an anesthesiologist has also led me to request that they do some sort of spinal block instead of using a general anesthetic. My urologist seemed to think it was no problem, but I will have to wait and see.

I will try to post an update on this particular situation, but I am trying to avoid thinking about it as much as possible. I know everything will turn out okay, but it's just not something I am eagerly anticipating. I am, nonetheless, excited about getting all of the stones out of my bladder. It will allow my caregivers to be able to put in new catheters much easier as well as cut down on the UTIs. Amazingly, from 1998 until 2005, suffered only two or three UTIs, and these were the result of some sort of medical procedure done to my bladder. In essence, if they do the cystoscopy on a routine basis (once a year) then I have much less problems with UTI and need limited antibiotics. During my normal years, the only antibiotics I need are for prophylactic measures to protect me from getting UTIs during bladder related procedures. I try my best not to use too many antibiotics, because when I really need them, I want them to work. In fact, I often know I have a UTI, but will not ask for any antibiotics unless I am terribly symptomatic. Ironically enough as I was doing the prep work for the cystoscopy, my nurse practitioner or discovered I had a UTI. After checking further tests, she also realized I had had this infection for at least one month. After answering all of her questions about my symptoms, which there were none at the time, she finally realized I was doing the right thing. However, knowing that I had an UTI prior to this procedure led them prescribing an antibiotic early enough to prevent a major infection that might require intravenous applications of antibiotics. Her exact words were, "it was very fortuitous that you decided to have your analysis taken just prior to this procedure." What's funny about that statement is it is their SOP and I was only following the instructions, unbeknownst to her. At least she was doing her fiduciary duties by checking on me prior to my appointment.

I was just now thinking that I also need to check and see how my bone density test turned out. It is imperative I discover whether the beginning stages of osteoporosis has worsened, or if I am maintaining my bone density. It is very unfortunate I accidentally observed, today as I was on my way into the shower, the muscles in my shoulders and back have atrophied significantly. It was not a pleasurable site. I don't even really want discuss how many new wrinkles I have been noticing. It seems I have been losing weight and this is something I wanted to accomplish, but it is having an unforeseen consequence -- I am looking considerably older. Maybe if I get a new haircut, color my hair, and apply more facial creams, I can feed the ineluctable aging monster, or at least placated for a little while.

Should I make my normal statement about voice activation? I guess not. I'm not going to go over it anyway and I don't plan on saving my voice profile right now. It seems to be working pretty well whenever I have my microphone positioned properly and I am enunciating as well as dictating properly. I had better get going. This is turning into a book, but at least I am putting something down which I will have the ability to look at later.

BTW, I am optimistic and excited about the future. Just in case I forgot to mention it.

Almost back

2006-11-28T16:08:00.000-08:00

Today hasn't been the best of days, but then again it hasn't been the worst. Things around my house have been so hectic, I have been able to get very little achieved lately, but there has been some progress in some areas. Thanksgiving day dinner turned out fantastic, despite the fact that my brother spilled peanut oil all over my deck and now I will probably have to be repainted. Oh well, I guess that's the price I have to pay in order to have a nice family dinner. Of course the bill at the grocery store was pretty expensive, but my mother and father have paid a bill for years and I have never once offered to reciprocate. So I guess it's my turn for a little while. Maybe one day my brother will get to where he can financially afford to do the same thing.

I have had so much on my mind, but really no time to write. It is too bad that I do not have my laptop so that I am able to write while I am in bed, but I don't feel like purchasing a new laptop and the last time I did, it seemed to be a large loss of money. I hardly ever used it and now it seems as if the children and my brother's family are the only ones that consistently use the thing.

We spent the weekend before Thanksgiving rescuing a dog from Orlando. Her name is Bella and she is absolutely wonderful, except for the incident yesterday where she locked herself in to one of my spare rooms and freaked out -- destroying a pretty decent size portion of my door frame by chewing at it. She hasn't chewed up anything or been bad whatsoever. She is unbelievably well behaved and a joy to have around. It is too bad I am not able to have her live in my house, but I really can't get people to mop my floors when I want to, so how am I to expect someone to feed the dog and take it out whenever it needs to go to the bathroom. Maybe one day.

Well, I'm going to get going. I thought I would throw a quick note in about the book I am reading, Die Trying, by Lee Child. For some reason I have not been able to get into this book and despite trying to read it for almost a month now, I have only managed to make it to page 245. The writing is good, but the character is entirely too perfect. I mean come on, nobody can do everything and look that good while doing it. The guy who wrote the book does not even comprehend that one of the critical elements of the back story, it is not possible. At least not since the 1970s. I would write to him and let him know, but he probably wouldn't appreciate it too much. Now I had better get going. Maybe I can try to get something on my other blog, before I need to go to bed and get ready for my cystoscopy tomorrow.

If I am feeling well enough I will definitely right about the procedure and all of the things I had to do to prepare for it. BTW, I'm not going to look through this to determine if there are any problems. Lately I have not been saving my voice profile, so if I make a few errors, it is not the end of the world. I do like the current microphone I am using, but I really need to look at making sure that it is adjusted properly, so I am able to dictate more effectively. Additionally, it would help if I made sure I was using good dictation principles. Man, I had better get going and stop writing.

Not my status quo, yet

2006-11-14T16:10:00.000-08:00

For some reason I have not been able to get hardly anything accomplished lately, despite feeling physically fine. I am behind in my reading and have not been able to write anything of significance within the last two weeks. It is sad, I am going to have to turn a book back into the library after having read only 49 pages. This is not like me, but I just haven't been able to organize my time as efficiently as I am normally capable of.

As you can probably see by my recent pictures, we had a mini family reunion at my house over the weekend. This consumed a large amount of my time, but it was definitely worth it.

Nice family visit

2006-11-12T17:15:00.000-08:00

The majority of last week was dominated by the fact that felt poorly, but I rebounded on Thursday and was able to shake off, what I now believe was a UTI. On Thursday I was still not able to get much done and still did not even get on the computer for more than 30 minutes. Friday, turned into a day of shopping and preparing for the impending visit of my brother from Pensacola. After purchasing a ton of food, we cooked out on Saturday and what amazed me was how fast everything went. These children nowadays eat much more than I remember eating, but then again maybe I don't remember correctly. Anyway, the visit was nice, albeit extremely short. We are hopeful they will be able to make it down in the next few months, but given that we have not seen them in at least three or four years, will not hold my breath. My nephew who normally resides in Biloxi, it's a long story why he's not living with his father, was able to come down with his father and visit for the first time in seven years. I need to find pictures of the last time he was down here and compare them to what he looks like now. Most people wouldn't believe it.

I am going to be posting some new pictures at my other blog. If you're interested, go take a look.
See all later.
Quadius

My has it been busy lately

2006-11-05T15:22:00.000-08:00

There have been so many things I've wanted to blog about, but I really have not had an opportunity to write about at all. Today is one of those bad microphone days. My nephew put my microphone on and I thought I had it positioned properly, but that is not the case. However, it is working and I am able to make the small entry. Lately it has been frustrating when I am watching television at night and all of these wonderful ideas come to my mind, but I have no ability to write them down, nor the time to devote to developing some of these inspirations. Maybe one day I will purchase another laptop or other computer for my bedroom so I can work on some of these, but right now I am committed to watching television or listening to a book on tape once I get to bed. I feel computer work and reading are best left in my office. Well, in all honesty I wish I had the ability to read in my bed or could curl up on the couch like able-bodied individuals, but that is not the case. I will therefore just stick with my current arrangement.

My entire last week was absolutely full of time-consuming activities. I made it to my physical on Tuesday, which also happened to be Halloween, and was elated I was able to get through everything by around 1 p.m., only to discover that I have a battery of follow-up appointments as a result. To look on the good side of this, at least I will be healthy. Many of the test turned out pretty well. The kidney stone which has plagued me for the last three years has seemed to pass, but it is now residing in my bladder and requires removal later this month. I am keeping my fingers crossed the stones will be able to be removed at my spinal cord clinic. If not, it is going to require a short hospital stay, and that thought is definitely nauseating to me.

I'm probably going to cut this short and tried to start reading a new book, "Die Trying," as I need to have it back to the library in a few weeks. Oh yeah, I just remembered I was able to get a good buy on a book which I am optimistic will be a fantastic addition to my daily ritual. It is called The Intellectual Devotional. Similar to the spiritual devotionals, is broken down into small amounts which you read every day. If it lives up to all the hype I have heard from some of the people I tend to respect more, it will be a welcome addition to my library.

Hopefully there are too many errors. At least I didn't say this voice profile, so even if I did make mistakes it will not really affect my accuracy in the future.

The cold is on its way again

2006-10-27T14:02:00.000-07:00

As the Mercury goes down, my pain level goes up. This is an unfortunate side effect of my paralysis. I wish it wasn't so, but it is. I guess I will have to learn to deal with it better than I have in the past, but it is increasingly difficult to concentrate on day-to-day activities, let alone anything more complex, when I am dealing with pain issues. One would think I would have this handled given that I have been dealing with this for over 11 years, but I seem to dread the impending winter more and more every year. I am grateful that the last two winters have been relatively benign and I am especially thankful that the pain for the most part subsides after I had been up a few hours. That is of course if I am able to keep my body relatively warm. God forbid if I get a bone chill. It takes me forever to get warm again. I am elated the brief cold snap we were experiencing for the past few days has subsided and the temperature is back up to 88 today. This is one of the reasons why I live in South Central Florida. The temperature usually does not get too cold for too long.

I have been attempting to read as much as possible and even right, but so far I am only getting some things read and very little of substance written. My writing has really not improve too much and this is evident by the same verbose rambling nonsense which I routinely produce, this notwithstanding. I am, however, trying to improve and I guess that is better than the majority of individuals out there. At least I give a crap.

I recall mentioning previously how I really wanted to get a party planned here in my village, but it is getting late in the year and I am not so sure I will get too many people to show up. However, if we don't try, we won't accomplish anything. So maybe I will get my head out of my rear and try to get something planned out. I broached the idea to one of my neighbors and they seemed really receptive, but I have yet to talk to any of the others.

On a separate topic, I am trying to get into the Big Brother program. After listening to an absolutely heart wrenching story from my backup caregiver the other day, I quickly realized I have been remiss in not trying to be a mentor to some of the young men around here. There are too many young men out there that do not have a positive male influence and I feel I can contribute in that area. No, I am not the best individual in the world, but I do feel I have many attributes which could help someone be able to weigh all their options and possibly take the right steps when it comes time for them to make a critical decision on their own.
I'm going to cut this short and tried to fill out the application for the program, but it is pretty lengthy. It really should be considering all of the weirdos out there who are just looking to dominate children.

Death to liberty?

2006-10-24T13:04:00.000-07:00

I originally posted this on my other blog, but I decided to take it off because the majority of people there do not want to read politically slanted material. Since this particular site is where I share my views, I see no problem here. This is rather verbose for the majority of people, but hopefully it will enlighten someone.
One caveat, the first paragraph was intended or my other audience and this particular version of my blog is unaltered. I changed the other one to make it more readily readable.

I have repeatedly repressed my urges to write about anything remotely political, but have on occasion put some politically slanted subjects briefly on this site and then later remove them. I avoid the subject essentially because the majority of the people who read my blogs do not want to read about such nonsense. In spite of all my hesitancy, and the knowledge that the majority of people are not even remotely interested in this subject, I feel the Military Commissions Act (MCA) of 2006 is beyond politics and is much too exigent of an issue not to be written about. It also helps that the adoption of this Act just pisses me off.

When President George W. Bush signed the Military Commissions Act, he in effect abolished the writ of habeas corpus, not to mention that this law essentially renders our international treaty obligations under the Geneva conventions null and void. Our government has in effect reinterpreted the Geneva Convention and shown our disdain at doing the morally right thing. Therefore, October 17, 2006, the day this Act was signed, will probably be remembered as one of the blackest days in American history and it sadly passed with great fanfare from the extreme right. But what is even more tragic is that more than 90% of the rest of us barely raised a whimper or simply just chose to remain ignorantly bliss to this potentially monumental day. "This is how liberty died; with thunderous applause."

What is habeas corpus and why are these few Latin words, which the majority of us do not even remotely understand the meaning of, so important? Hell, to me, habeas corpus sounds like some poor Hispanic dude died. In reality the words habeas corpus mean to produce the body. The writ of habeas corpus is moreover a vital tool in preserving an individual's right not to be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, as it is afforded to us by the Fifth Amendment of the United States of America's Constitution. Yes, that pesky little thing which gives us all of the freedoms we still "somewhat" enjoy, and the same document which it seems at times the current administration has consistently tried their best to diminish.

The MCA does not merrily suspend the writ of habeas corpus; no, it wipes it out, much like one smashes an annoying fly. Habeas corpus has served as "the fundamental instrument for safeguarding individual freedom against arbitrary and lawless state action." With one fluid stroke of the pen, President Bush has squashed habeas corpus as if it was some ephemeral nuisance to his ability to successfully prosecute the War on Terror. The writ of habeas corpus was not some temporizing measure our founding fathers just arbitrarily threw into the mix we know as jurisprudence -- it was much more. Habeas corpus has also served and continues to serve as the bedrock of the English legal system since circa 1215. This is the same system which our fledgling country chose to use as its model in 1789. That is how vital habeas corpus was until last Tuesday.

Am I being too overly dramatic? I really do not think so. If the Supreme Court does not overturn this law, anyone the US president, or his appointed commission, deems to have provided material support to anti-US hostilities can be indefinitely detained without the ability to challenge this detention. Just for clarification, this law encompasses all US citizens, even those who have never left the United States. Perhaps I'd better be careful here or I might be one of the individuals sitting in a Gitmo prison cell wearing orange. And since I would not have the ability to contest my imprisonment, I am sure I would be there until hell freezes over. If you think this cannot happen, guess again. On three previous occasions the then president of the United States used similar acts or orders to justify the imprisonment of fellow US citizens. Franklin D. Roosevelt's interment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, under Executive Order 9066, was the last president to violate the writ of habeas corpus. I truly wonder which future president will have to apologize much like when President Reagan was forced to say sorry to the living internees in 1988.

It is sad how President Bush, with the assistance of a capricious Congress, has succeeded where the terrorists have failed. He has managed to eradicate one of our most cherished privileges without the majority of the country even realizing that he has done so. Those of us who are aware of this travesty and have done nothing, are allowing the fear of fear itself to govern their decision-making process. It is difficult for me to comprehend how our country has come so far in such a short amount of time.

Don't get me wrong; I am not endorsing amnesty for the terrorists or even suggesting they should be tried in a civilian court system. I am contending there are other ways this can be handled legally, without violating the rights of human beings, even if some of them are despicable excuses for one. All one has to do is look at some of the amendments proposed by the members of the Senate in order to get an idea of how we can preserve our integrity while concomitantly aggressively fighting terrorism. Speaking of senators, I am absolutely appalled Senator John McCain, who I admired and respected, knuckled under to pressure and not only allowed, but endorsed this monstrosity. On MSNBC's Hardball, while feebly trying to answer a question, proffered by an Iowa State University student, about why he relented on his steadfast opposition to this Act, Senator McCain contended he was given guarantees the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 would remain intact and therefore the rights of these individuals would be protected. He, however, failed to mention this act has been decried as the first step in eliminating detainees right to issue a writ of habeas corpus (address the courts as to the validity of their detention). If my memory serves me, and I believe it does, the US Supreme Court found much of The Detainee Treatment Act unconstitutional. This is why it became necessary for the President to have Military Commission Act legislated in the first place. I additionally believe the case in which the Supreme Court made this ruling has caused a very well-meaning naval lawyer his career. Unbelievable!

Well, if the abolishment of habeas corpus was not enough, this law was touted by the administration as necessary to clarify the complexities of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention, but it has done nothing except put a bigger haze on what is legal and illegal. Under the 1996 War Crimes Act, "violations" of the Geneva Convention's Common Article 3 were considered felonies. Now only "grave breaches" of Common Article 3 are considered crimes. To exacerbate the situation, the Military Commission Act is retroactive to 1997, thereby protecting anyone that is found to have committed violations of the War Crimes Act from prosecution. In other words, if the reports of water boarding (which most define as torture) are correct, those who committed or ordered those acts are now immunized under this disastrous legislation.

I am not going to get into this anymore. There is just simply too much more for a simple guy like myself to adequately cover everything. I will, however, give some of my qualifications for writing this particular entry. As a former military police investigator, I know the proper and legal way to interrogate suspects -- even enemy combatants. If the reports of alleged torture are true, this is definitely not the best way to get actionable intelligence. There are numerous techniques which do not violate some of the most essential elements of the Geneva Convention. We do not have to create "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment;" nor do we have to resort to torture. In fact, numerous studies have demonstrated the unreliability of information obtained through torture.

For those of you under the impression that water boarding is not torture, you obviously have not had the awful experience of feeling like you are drowning. As a person who has suffered with extraordinary bouts of pneumonia, I know what it is like to have fluid in my lungs. Believe me when I tell you not being able to breathe and knowing you are closer to death and life is not just uncomfortable, it is torture. Torture with a capital T!
Please, for the sake of our brave soldiers overseas and for those of us who might be victimized by this law, do not let this gross miscarriage of justice continue without voicing your opposition to it. If we, the greatest nation on earth, cannot follow the principles of our own Constitution and the Geneva Convention, how can we expect others to?

Click here for more

Rantings and more rantings

2006-10-20T20:19:00.000-07:00

It is amazing how fast a day goes by. To me it seems as if I only got a couple things accomplished, but at least I did get something done. I finished a blog for my other website and hopefully it will look as good tomorrow as it does right now. Granted, I know I am not the best writer, but I believe I have made my point.

My family came over for dinner today and we had a simple turkey meatloaf. This was my first endeavor making or possibly it would be better to say supervising the meatloaf. It came out okay, but I feel it should have cooked a bit longer and possibly had some onions and peppers. All in all, it was a nice day, except for dealing with the individual that is painting my house. I don't believe I am going to be working with people that are friends of mine too much more. There is one individual, who I consider to be a friend, that I don't mind working for me. This is primarily because he can take it when I tell him something is not exactly as I like it and he doesn't take it personal. He understand that I am simply telling them how I want something done. The person painting my house is a friend who is doing it for extra money. The unfortunate part is she is not exceptionally good at it and she seems to think she is. That aside, at least I'm getting my house painted, but it was the day when she once again began telling me how I should be decorating my house. I don't know what it is, perhaps it is the tone or her total lack of demeanor, but she begins to grate on me and then aggravates the hell out of me. Perhaps after she saw me blow my cork today, she might be treading a little more carefully in the future. She definitely seems to need to be petted about everything. I cannot tell you how many times she has bragged about how well she was able to paint the accent color in my kitchen. It seems as if she has some sort of self-esteem problem. Yes, I used to like to hear I was doing a good job, but I didn't need to hear it every day and practically every hour. She not only need this, but also loved having her own self on the back. "Do you see how well I painted here? See I was able to make everything look perfect here. Man, this melts in perfectly." This is just an example of a couple of minutes after I have gone into the room. Now I'm considering how I am going to manipulate the truth in order to let her know that I am not able to afford to get my house painted right now. It is sad, but I do not want to hurt her feelings, despite how badly she gets on mine.

Well, that's enough unloading for now. I sincerely hope she never reads any of my blogs, because she will definitely know who I'm talking about.

Doing great

2006-10-19T18:45:00.000-07:00

I haven’t updated this in a little while, so I thought I would take a brief opportunity to write something down before I forget. Today was extremely eventful. I spent large majority of the day purchasing items and even though I am significantly poorer, I feel that much richer.

I have been invigorated lately. For some reason I have felt compelled to write and I have been doing so, but it seems to be a little more political than I would like. Oh well, at least I am trying to write and feel as if I am accomplishing something, even if it is something trivial to most.

On a different note, my wheelchair seems to be working pretty well and considering all the driving I did today, I thought my neck or shoulder would be sore by now, but that is not the case. In fact, I am getting ready to go back out and take a spin around the block. Oh yeah, another thing I forgot to mention is we were able to get my garage organized well and I am now capable of getting my van in the garage and I am able to load into it without getting out in the elements anymore. The way we organized this also allows me to exit my house from the garage. It has been quite some time since I went over how I get out of my house, so I will briefly go over it.

I utilize my ECU, Ursi, which in turn activates a remote control and opens the door into my garage. I then use Ursi once again to send an electronic signal to open the actual garage door. Now I have the ability to leave my house and the door from my garage into my house automatically closes behind me. When I come back in, I simply run over a mat on the floor which opens the door into my house.

Well enough trivia. I’m going to get going for now and get back to editing a post I am planning on putting on my other blog. Strangely I forgot to mention that the electricity went out this morning and it was quite a scare when my air mattress rapidly lost air.

Just another day

2006-10-15T11:50:00.000-07:00

Thankfully my health is doing well and I am keeping busy. Right now we are preparing for a garage sale, but all I am trying to do is get rid of some major items. I do not even care if I give the items away. Therefore, my entries will continue to be short. I did have a rather long entry which I put on my other blog, so I will not even get into it here. Although, the wheelchair problems continue to plague me, but I am still able to operate within my house and around my neighborhood. I'm just hopeful I will be able to regain my ability to focus on a set long-term goal which has great meaning to me.

On a completely separate topic, I am switching out my reading in order to finish a book which I just received from the library and had to have it turned in in relatively short order. It should be a quick read, given that James Patterson is definitely not an extremely complex writer who requires a lot of analysis.

A shocking beginning for a book of any type

2006-10-09T16:26:00.000-07:00

I knew the present book I am reading, off and on, "Sundown Towns" by James W. Loewen is a very serious look at racism, but even I wasn't ready for the first words that hit me in the Beginning Chapter. You would think I would be prepared given his early warning in the Note to the Reader which said he was not going to minimize the language used by individuals, such as using euphemisms like the N-word, because "People said what they said and wrote what they wrote; their language is part of the story. Indeed, this language is part of what makes sundown towns distinctive, so I could not tell their story honestly while expurgating the language." However, I was not! Especially when I discovered when this conversation took place.

WARNING! THIS PARAGRAPH CONTAINS INFLAMMATORY LANGUAGE. IT IS NOT MY WORDS. It is the beginning of Chapter 1 and I have quoted it verbatim because it eliminates the hidden dimension of American racism which still exists and will possibly provoke some useful dialogue.

"It is true that 'Anna' stands for 'Ain't No Niggers Allowed'?" I asked at the convenience store in Anna, Illinois, where I had stopped to buy coffee.
"Yes," the clerk replied. "That's sad, isn't it," she added, distancing herself from the policy. And she went on to assure me, "That all happened a long time ago."
"I understand [racial exclusion] is still going on?" I asked.
"Yes," she replied. "That's sad."
-- James W. Loewen's conversation with clerk, Anna, Illinois, October 2001

Even though I have read other books by Loewen, I was still not fully prepared for this initial shock. I anticipated this book going into the history of sundown towns and eliminating the residual effects, not actually chronicling that many of them still exist, albeit without the signage. This book will continue to intrigue me for quite some time since I will be reading it off and on while I am reading other novels and writing other things. Loewen's writing is something which is provocative, but when I do not have two reader for school, I tend to take it in smaller doses. It does, however, leave you hungry for more intellectual books, but sometimes I like the escapist literature.

Just can't seem to lighten up

2006-10-06T14:26:00.000-07:00

Why is it I am unable to really write funny entries? I just don't know. When I come up with the ideas which seem to be bouncing around my head, I bring smiles to the faces of everyone to whom I explain what I planned to do, but for some reason when I go to put pen to paper, metaphorically speaking of course, everything turns into serious drivel. It is amazing to me. I had an idea to do a rather humorous entry about where have all the normal looking people gone in television and Hollywood. By the time I got done with my first ideas, it was so serious that I am now left wondering what the hell I was thinking. I just don't know what comes over me. As I am explaining my ideas to everyone else, I do so in a lighthearted manner, but for some reason I get so serious when I am trying to write. Even when I managed to come off as a little less serious, I am brought down to reality by the people who happen to read my writing. For some reason I have an extremely wry sense of humor. Man how I wish I could write like some of the other bloggers I have the privilege of reading.
It could be that I just read too many serious things. Right now, for instance, I am reading an extraordinarily serious book about how racism has been whitewashed from our history. It is a fascinating read, but it is definitely not fill with much levity. Well, speaking of my book, I better get back to my reading, but I thought I would let everyone know I am doing great. I am optimistic and looking forward to what the next days will bring.

Thinking about optimism, I was watching a video of Garth Brooks and I could not help but be inspired. It was his CMT video from 1993 entitled We Will Be Free. It gave me goosebumps, but I am much more emotional than a lot of people.
I wish everyone goodnight and good luck.

Tedium run amok

2006-10-04T14:31:00.000-07:00

It seems as if I will get nothing written unless I just write about things that are on my mind right now. So, I give you advance warning that this is going to be a little haphazard, but at least you will get an idea of what is going on in my life right now.
You know my life is becoming increasingly tedious when going to the barbershop is the highlight of a particular day, but that is the case today. My visit to the barber was also enhanced by the fact that I had a really beautiful woman cut my hair. Normally I have some redneck wanna-be, complete with dip in his mouth, that cuts my hair. This upgrade and barbers is definitely a step in the right direction. This trip would have really been completed I could have gotten my nails done in the same area, but time did not permit and I also did not like the fact that all of the nail technicians were Vietnamese. I do not have anything against Vietnamese and normally love diversity, but when I get a manicure I love to chat with the technicians and this is not possible with the Vietnamese I have encountered in the past. My situation does not allow me to do anything else while getting a manicure, and it is extremely awkward for me to just sit there and watch them cut my nails without being able to communicate effectively.

The new county I live in has unbelievable times for the children to be going to school. Why does this affect me you might ask? Well, my caregiver needs to get her children off to school, and given the climate here and everywhere else in America, it is not prudent to let the children go to the bus stop by themselves. If she comes here immediately after getting her son off to elementary school we have very little time to get anything of substance done after I get up and eat, because she needs to be back on her way home by around 2:15 p.m. to get her daughter. I try to save gas as much as possible and these time constraints only allow us to get about one small thing done each day, which definitely requires us to make more trips than I am used to. I am also having a much more difficult time getting to the movies and just going shopping whenever I feel like it. This is something that I did not anticipate when I moved into this area and I am hoping I can find a solution to this dilemma.

I must admit that I knew I was going to miss my other neighbors greatly, but I had no idea how much. While my new neighbors are nice, the atmosphere is just not the same. In my previous neighborhood, the ladies congregated at a makeshift bus stop every day and then allow their children to play outside for a short amount of time. This allowed all of us to enjoy a few minutes together and talk about what is going on in our lives. There is nothing like that up here. I am, however, considering organizing a party in early November so that everyone in my new neighborhood can get to know everyone else and me as well. Maybe then we can get people to lighten up a little bit. My life might also become a little less tedious. I really need to take the bull by the horns and start to get involved in advocacy once again. Reading Kenny's provocative entry on the current state of health care has made me realize that I really need to get out there and become more involved in what is going on in my society. Simply sitting at home and writing everyone for support on certain issues is really not enough for me. I need to start attending meetings and getting the contacts I enjoyed in my previous county.

BTW, if you do not feel you're getting an opportunity to be involved in your community, the one thing that everyone has a chance to do is VOTE. Make sure you become involved and have your voice heard. I could care less what particular party you tend to associate with, but at least have your voice heard. It really irks me when people complain and I ask if they voted in the last election and they respond in a negative fashion. At least when I bitch, I can say that I didn't vote for those individuals or that my particular candidate is not living up to the expectations I had.

I sincerely hope everyone has an outstanding week and I am really going to be working hard, well, maybe not that hard, on my next entry.

Normal weekend

2006-10-03T13:56:00.000-07:00

Trying to chronicle what I have been doing lately is rather difficult. For some reason I just have not felt like writing down very much of what has been going on, but I will endeavor to do so today. This weekend was relatively noneventfull, as normal. I am once again experiencing a very enervating sense of desolation. Company is what I really need or at least just a hobby.

It is amazing how I could not wait to get back to my normal living situation and now that I am living at once again, I am feeling a lot more in need of companionship. It's ironic how things turn out. Well, I'm going to cut that short today.

On second thought, I did make it to the movies this weekend and got a chance to see the new film Fly Boys. Although it is filled with some serious historical inaccuracies, it is a pretty decent film and well worth going to the theater to watch. Of course, it has to have the compulsory love story, despite its improbability, however, even this did not diminish the overall entertainment the movie provided.
Till later.

Bush did know!

2006-09-28T17:28:00.000-07:00

Since I have never committed to keeping this particular blog nonpolitical, I am going to post a link here which will definitely leave my political leanings obvious. This is an outstanding investigative report done on Keith Olbermann's Countdown. It still continues to amaze me how Republicans can continue to say we should have gone into Iraq when we did and in the exact manner. I personally would respect them much more if they would acknowledge we made a mistake and now we need to repair that mistake. It seems as if they are ignoring the "Pottery Barn rule" which former Secretary of State Colin Powell eloquently laid out for the current administration.

If I could figure out how to paste the video write on here I would do so, but I am going to simply provide the link and you can click on the video, if you so desire.
Make sure you click here.

My epiphany on the Geico gecko; not!

2006-09-27T14:58:00.000-07:00

Since I am feeling great and cannot seem to figure out what to write about, I decided to take something off of my "things I've noticed" list and write a little something about it. Number 9 on my list is "Has anybody else noticed that the Geico gecko now has an English accent now?" Thinking I was the only one with this unique insight, I decided to quickly confirm this by doing a quick Google. Man I love that word, just like Greg Ferguson does. For those of you who watch Greg Ferguson, you know what I'm talking about. For those of you who don't, he frequently jokes that he "googled" himself today. ;-) Know what I mean now?

After a quick search I discovered another individual was even more astute than I am. He identified the accent as not only being English, but being cockney. Man, now I feel really slow.

Blood pressure and optimism rise simultaneously

2006-09-26T17:41:00.000-07:00

Although I have got some things accomplished in the last two days, it has been rather hectic. Just yesterday I lost my television reception, Internet connection, and telephone all at once. I guess that is one of the problems with having one company provide all of those services. It seems a careless operator of a backhoe inadvertently struck a critical connection and severed service for more than 29,000 people here in my area. It isn't until you don't have those services, that you realize how much you rely on them for much of your communication needs.

I did, however, take the opportunity to draft a few letters that I needed to get done and sent them out today. The large portion of the day was spent at a doctor's appointment. It is unfortunate that I had to go since all they did was ask me a few questions and then set me up with another appointment in three weeks to have my stomach scoped. Oh well, at least I will know if the discomfort I was experiencing a few weeks ago is anything to be worried about. One more health-related issue seems to have been rectified over the last two days. My continuous difficulties with my blood pressure dropping were definitely the result of my abdominal binders (these are corsets which constrict my abdominal muscles and allow me to breathe much more effectively) being worn out. I decided to go ahead and carefully use the abdominal binders the VA had provided me, despite the propensity of these binders to scrape and cut my skin. My caregivers are having to be extraordinarily cautious when removing my binder or putting it on. So far, I am able to function much quicker after eating and my energy level has boosted considerably. Maybe now I will be able to try to find the ever elusive passion which I used to have when I attended school. This is the first time in my life I have not had a long-term, midterm, or even a short-term goal. I am definitely one of those goal oriented people and have been a hobby or passion is a critical aspect of being retired. This is something I need to regain in short order. Having my blood pressure under control and feeling considerably better should aid me in finding something I am more interested in. I simply cannot wait.

If you haven't noticed, this particular entry is much more upbeat. The only negative thing that happened to me today was when a nice gentleman from prosthetics (the individuals responsible for approving the repairs to my wheelchair) asked me if it was my old chair being repaired or my new chair the last few times I repairs have been done. I sadly had to inform him it is my older chair, since my newer one is still at the VA and I am refusing to sign for it until it is usable. Hopefully he will keep off the rising the necessary repairs and I am definitely going to try to keep these down to a minimum. All I need to do right now is get the bracket, which was temporarily well did a few weeks ago, repaired and make a minor adjustment to my new headrest and everything should be good to go.

Perhaps I forgot to mention that the problem I was having with my chair failing to go into gear once I had sat upright was the result of my older headrest finally giving up the ghost. Thankfully I had a spare on hand, but that is an extremely long story. I had initially thought it was $8,000 that the VA had wasted and even tried to get the VA to return the headrest once we determined it was not the problem, but they refused to do so. So, I kept the headrest in a closet for about four years and now it is getting its use.

Trying to stop procrastinating

2006-09-23T14:37:00.000-07:00

After reading some of these witty and delightfully funny entries that other people have written, it is difficult to think that many people would even be interested in anything I have to say. Frankly this particular journal/blog is more for me than anyone else, but it could possibly help some understand what it is like to deal with quadriplegia. I, however, have changed what I initially set out to do with this particular blog. I am hoping one day to get better at writing and possibly showcasing that with some good blogs on my other sites. There are other quadriplegics out there writing quite effectively and able to describe their difficulties much more effectively, but we are all different aren't we?

On a completely different note, I have't been able to write effectively, that is if I ever am able to, for the last few days. Yesterday I was having difficulty keeping my blood pressure at a reasonably sustainable level and therefore I felt considerably weak. To me it was as if my abdominal binder, which assists me immeasurably in keeping my blood pressure up and allowing me to breathe properly, was not tight enough. Late last night I discovered this was actually a fact. Today I am doing much better and just trying to fight off what seems to be my ineluctable (inevitable) battles with procrastination and lassitude. All I have on my table today is to watch my alma mater and then possibly read some of the new novel, Killing Floor, by Lee Child. Re: procrastination I read an interesting blog by Colin.

I need to get myself back in to my normal groove. I used to actively try to improve my vocabulary and I have been noticeably forgetting to check my vocabulary lists. I have about 75 words on the Word a Day program I still need to go through, in addition to the multitude of pages of words I have extracted from novels and books I have read over the years. Some of these words are things that do not come up in everyday language. One of these days I really would like to write a witty entry full of words that need to be looked up in order to comprehend what is meant by the entry. I have thought about making it something about people that love to show how intelligent they are by writing with such a robust vocabulary that normal people cannot understand what they are writing about. Don't know if it would really appeal to too many people, but then again much of what I write does not. There was one gentleman, who may not be alive any longer, that used to like to argue with me via e-mail and I literally had to look up at least 10 words in order to fully understand what he was saying. He was definitely well above my level of comprehension.

Hopefully I will get around to writing a letter about modifying my door opener, but I need to first read about how to properly frame the letter so that I can possibly get a grant to make sure this modification takes place. I had one door opener installed with the ability to use a remote control, but my garage door is now being opened by an electronic device which is activated by my ECU (Environmental Control Unit). In the event there is a power outage, I will not be able to open my garage door. Since I do have a power backup for the door going into the garage, it would be beneficial for me to get the actual garage door backed up and able to be open to my ECU via a remote control. I, therefore, need a draft a proper letter in order to get a grant to allow me to do this without costing me a fortune. I have many other things on my list of things to do, but this is probably one of the more important. Others I have been consistently trying to work off as time goes by, but this is a time-consuming proposition for the most part. For example, my office is still rather sparse and echoing like a chamber. I just do not want to invest the money into putting new cabinets into the walls yet and it seems a bit silly to try to put too many things in here which will ultimately be removed later. Well, perhaps I will begin reading about the grant process. Oh joy.
Till later,

Just another boring day

2006-09-21T16:56:00.000-07:00

I have been trying to write, but I just can't seem to get much in my mind that needs to come out. Two days ago it decided to rain like cats and dogs down here and my root decided they couldn't take it any longer. I now have a leak in my bedroom which needs to be repaired. Of course it is going to be costly and I may end up having to delay some of the painting I was having done.

At least I am feeling considerably better. Last night I was able to finish the novel Hit Man. For me it is nice to finish a novel. He gives me a sense of accomplishment, even though it really isn't that great. I have given considerable thought into what I'm going to do in the future, and I have decided to remind myself that I'm supposed to be retired. Therefore, I don't need to do anything I don't want to. I am thinking about writing something on this very subject, but as I stated earlier, it is difficult to get things to come out on paper.

Well, I better get going and make sure I update my to do list. I have managed to accomplish a few things today, but I definitely did not get what I wanted to get done. Oh well, there is always tomorrow.

Really back now

2006-09-18T17:09:00.000-07:00

I am back in the saddle again. I have full use of my chair, albeit temporary, and it even have my workstation setup in my new office or as some refer to it as my den. Anyway, today has been an extremely lethargic day with really nothing much going on. This is primarily because I have felt extraordinarily fatigued and had a really difficult time just concentrating on the normal things I needed to get accomplished, of which, nothing was accomplished. My "to do" list just seems to be growing without any resolution in sight.
My office has been freshly painted with some really vibrant colors and I am optimistic this will give me the enthusiasm and energy which I have lacked within my bedroom office. Perhaps now I will be able to do some more productive things. Maybe I will even be able to figure out what I am going to do with the rest of my life. Right now I am leaning toward trying to improve my writing and maybe even taking some courses to that effect. I used to have grand ambitions of writing a novel one day, but for some reason I have seemed to shelve that dream as unreachable. In the past, whenever I had some weakness identified, I was always able to garner all of my strength and overcome that weakness and make it into a strength. What happened to that drive? I need to regain that. Last night I took one step in that direction by going to a dinner which was celebrating the third anniversary of a group which is dedicated to getting disabled people integrated into normal society. Although I do not really need help in this matter, I belong to this organization in an effort to mentor as many people as possible, in addition to trying to bridge some of the difficulties in this particular process. Just some of the work I have done within my local communities has opened the eyes of many people to the fact that people of all sorts of disabilities can not only perform, but they can be a vital resource on which to draw.

Some might remember me mentioning something about eBay, but I just don't know right now. I spent about 20 something dollars on a book which is supposed to be a guide on how to start an eBay business. Problem is I really do not even know if that is actually what I want to do, but $20 is better than spending an enormous amount of money only to find out later that I have wasted it. At least I will be able to sell a few items and maybe I will enjoy working in that industry.

At least I am feeling better and actually have been for quite some time. I believe whatever I contracted a while ago was some sort of urinary problem. Thankfully I was able to rectify the situation with an aggressive treatment of water and cranberry supplements. Now all I need is an infusion of Mountain Dew and I will be able to feel more enthusiastic about writing.

I was able to speak with one of my rather reclusive friends today. It was quite enjoyable, as it always is with her. My ex-wife also called and let me know she is thinking about coming in December. I will keep my fingers crossed, so to speak. Hopefully I will be able to begin to share some thoughts about what is going on in the world, but I am not too confident about that right now.

This has been rather jumbled, but it is the way things came to me this particular day. I know one thing is a fact or at lease I want it to be, and that is that I am going to try to read more novels in an effort to improve some of my skills as a writer. If I don't learn that much, at least I got a chance to read some really good things. Exercising my mind and being active is all that I can ask right now. I just need to be confident that I am enjoying my life to the fullest extent possible.

Almost back

2006-09-15T18:43:00.000-07:00

Due to a combination of many things, I have not been able to write in this blog lately. Hopefully I will be back in business tomorrow.

Not feeling well

2006-09-07T15:13:00.000-07:00

This sounds like a broken record, especially to everyone who reads my journal on blogger, but once again I didn't get anything accomplished of substance today. I had a specific blog I had intended to write, but I don't feel compelled to work on it right now. Yeah, I have the blues. Literally the blues... I am now more convinced than ever there is just too much blue in my bedroom. I have a bluish carpet and blue curtains. There needs to be more color in my room and this is why I have spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what colors I am going to paint my house interior.

The woman who is supposed to be doing my painting came by once again this afternoon and I spent about two hours going over the house with her and picking out colors that I thought would go okay in each room. I also wanted a specific type of painting technique performed in many of the rooms and now after getting me all excited, she has just informed me that she has learned this particular procedure takes quite a bit of time and therefore will cost a lot of money. If she didn't know what the heck I was talking about or how to perform the procedure, why didn't she tell me earlier. Perhaps she was afraid of losing the sale, but now I'm getting a bit aggravated.

Like yesterday, when I had difficulty with my blood pressure being too low following my meal, I spent a large portion of that time talking on the telephone. In case you're wondering, low blood pressure is a problem I deal with all of the time. In fact, I was not able to sit upright and talk to anyone for the first couple years following my initial injury. It took quite a bit of training and stamina building, of which working on the computer in an upright position has been a key element, to be able to talk with the force I am able to muster now as well as carry on normal conversations without stopping and lying my chair back.

Hopefully it is something minor and I am making more out of it than I should be, nevertheless, I do not want to have to take an emergency trip into the hospital ER lying in a recumbent position in one of our finest's ambulances, so I will probably go by tomorrow and see if they have any idea what can be going on with me.

Once I was able to get my blood pressure to the point I could sit up without feeling lightheaded, I began to work earnestly on my computer, checking e-mail and various other things. Unfortunately it only took a few more hours before I developed, what felt like, hunger pains. Given the amount I had eaten at lunch and the fact that only four hours had elapsed since that meal, I felt it was not simple hunger. Like a typical intractable quad, this was a conclusion which I did not come to easily. Last night I had a similar bout, which I also initially chalked up to being the beginning of a hypoglycemic attack, but when the pain did not diminish after I had eaten dinner, I knew it was not hypoglycemia. Now this has transpired twice in the last few days, I now believe this is more serious than I had originally anticipated. I had a similar problem a few weeks ago and the doctor changed my antacid. Since this has recurred and I am not easily able to pinpoint the problem, I believe I will probably go in and get checked out tomorrow just to be on the safe side. One of the difficulties of living a life in quaddom is that it is not always easy to identify what is causing specific problems or pains. Hopefully it is something minor and I am making more out of this than it should be, but I do not want to take an emergency trip into the hospital ER lying in a recumbent position being transported by one of our finest in a ambulance. I'll let you know more tomorrow.

Hopefully this is somewhat legible. I was trying to write this in a hurried manner, but I kept stopping to make sure I was making sense. The discomfort I am feeling is making it difficult for me to concentrate, so I'm going to get off the computer. When I started this, the pain had subsided some, but it has returned wholesale. Maybe after I am feeling better I will take this off spaces.
Until next time.
Billy

feeling better

2006-09-07T15:10:00.000-07:00

UPDATE:
I did get to the doctor today and thankfully he went over my history extensively. He is not quite sure what is going on, but has decided to up my dosage of antacid and also ordered some upper G.I. tests to be performed in the very near future. Like me, he is concerned and spent a considerable amount of time talking with me about what was going on. Just his dedication and concern makes me feel considerably better. That someone as thorough as him works at the VA may surprise many people, but over the last five or six years I have seen a complete transformation and am now feeling significantly more secure every time I go there.

When I first began writing this blog last night I felt fine, just a little pain, but by the time drew near the end I did not feel well at all. It was probably obvious toward the end of my entry that I was getting a little nervous, but that was mainly because I was fearful that I might have some sort of G.I. bleeding, since I have had this problem in my past. My first episode was when I was first injured and had to have three peptic ulcers closed with a scope while I was being infused with six life giving units of blood. My second was a lower G.I. I bleed which took place two weeks following a colonoscopy. Yes a simple colonoscopy, during which they were trying to remove a polyp that had been stubbornly resisting them for over a year. Unfortunately, the cauterization failed to hold and I ended up bleeding out rather profusely.

Thankfully I was able to get through those two difficulties, but they left me a little skittish about any type of unusual pains in my stomach. Although I still feel a little pang in my upper stomach, I am doing considerably better than I was last night. Personally I think last night's experience was not about the pain, but more about facing the probability that I may have a serious problem creeping up. Following my doctors visit today, I feel considerably better and that in itself is the most important thing right now.
Till later.
Billy
PS I definitely didn't check this over very well. My microphone was also a little too close, so my accuracy is not as great as it has been over the last week or so.

His first football game

2006-09-04T13:06:00.000-07:00

My nephew's first football game was a success, but of course it was a little costly to my wallet. However, that did not diminish my enthusiasm about the fact he was able to learn what a touchdown is an even became enthusiastic when USF scored right in front of us. All of this unbridled joy I was experiencing was nonetheless dealt an almost fatal blow when I realized he was more excited about getting his picture taken with one of the Chick-fil-A cows than he was about the football game. Oh well, what do you expect from an 11 year old that has shown no interest in football to this point? at least he didn't play tiddlywinks and look extremely bored through the whole game.

Today one of my perennial concerns was realized once again when my sister-in-law showed up feeling a little under the weather. She is coming down with a cold and even though I am emotionally do not want her to get sick because she is my sister-in-law, I cannot help but think about the possibility she might not be able to get me up in the mornings and set me up for the entire day for a short period of time. This possibility would necessitate having to make other arrangements for my morning daily care, but more importantly it would be expensive and a great burden on my already troubled patience. Even though I am in the process of training a fallback personal care attendant, the training necessary to get one completely take over is quite exhausting. While this seems rather self-absorbed, it is a reality of being a quad who is completely reliant on others in order to perform normal everyday functions which others take for granted. Personal care attendants or caregivers are the lifeblood of virtually all of the life's of quadriplegics. Hopefully she will be able to avoid coming down with a serious upper respiratory infection and be able to get back to 100% within a short amount of time.

My plans are not so grandiose for today, all I have on schedule is to try to write something and read some of the new novel, "Hitman" by Lawrence block, I just got from the library. We will see if I get anything accomplished.

Off to the football game

2006-09-02T13:57:00.000-07:00

I have had difficulty getting my blood pressure up to a sustainable level until now (around 4:30 p.m.). Oh well, at least it is up in enough time for me to get ready to go to the South Florida, or as the people around here called the team USF, football game this evening. My nephew, Austin, is extraordinarily excited. When his mother asked if she should go, he responded in the negative. It is obvious he wants to have an all male experience and since he doesn't often have a chance to go with only us men, I don't see any reason why we can't. Thankfully his mother understands and is planning to spend some quality women time with his sister. Although I am consistently trying to make sure he values all of the women in his life, I do not want him to turn into a mama's boy. I know that sounds male chauvinistic, but he does need to escape the trappings of her apron strings every now and then. Man, that doesn't sound right. Especially considering I have never seen her do anything which required her to wear an apron.

Well, I had better get going. I have a little bit more to do before we go. I'm supposed to be going over colors on the Home Depot site, so my painter will have an idea of what I want to do with the House, but I have not been too enthusiastic about this yet. I am eager to get the house painted, but I don't want to cement all of my colors in stone until I see a couple of rooms completed.

My list of blogs that I have been wanting to do for my other blog site is growing, but for some reason I cannot seem to get going on the writing aspect. Presently I am toying with the idea of writing about an experience I had with some rock bands back in the 80s and juxtaposing that with David Lee Roth in 2006. Additionally I am thinking about writing about my first marriage and the terrible experience I had with that. I have quite a few other ideas, but I need to get writing on some of them in order to get something decent now. There is one essay I did a long time ago, which happens to be in my boxes, that I really want to re-mold and get much more refined. It has a ton of potential, but I must admit I stole the idea or at least the concept from some other publication a long time ago. I guess as long as I take the idea and make it my own, completely divorced from his, it really isn't stealing. As I look back on what I have written tonight, I cannot help but notice all of the expository type of writing which I engage in. Maybe this is just my history degree coming back to haunt me. I know I should have taken that creative writing course this semester, but I didn't think I would have the time.

Not another boring day

2006-08-31T16:21:00.000-07:00

I had every intention of writing something meaningful today, yeah right I always say that, but I completely forgot about the Buccaneers football game tonight. Yes I know, every woman or a least a majority are rolling their eyes right now, nonetheless, football is pretty important in my life. I am excited that I have tickets to go see my alma mater USF (University of South Florida) on the weekend with my nephew. This will be his first football game and I am hoping the male bonding experience works out well. Even though his father attends the games, he absolutely knows nothing about football. The only reason he goes is because he is still a student. He was just never interested in football and I don't blame him, but it is definitely difficult for his son to get interested in something his father is completely ignorant of.

Once again today wasn't very eventful, but it seems like that has been the trend in my life lately and perhaps that is not such a bad thing. One thing of note did occur, I completely spaced that the cleaners were coming over and they showed up while I was still sleeping. Whoops! That hasn't happened before, but it explains how I forgot about the football game also. Maybe my memory is atrophying once again.

Although I am impressed with the accuracy of my new software, I am having some difficulties with the process of correcting words as I go along. I really need to take a little time out and look at the book, but that will probably have to wait until tomorrow. The high note of tomorrow is supposed to be my air conditioner getting repaired. Man my life is exciting. I should just go to a movie and take a break on reality. It seems I have forgotten the commitment I had quite some time ago to go to the movies once a week. I have been too consumed with getting my brother and his family moved over to their house successfully and have not concentrated on my own desires and needs too much. It's time to change that, unfortunately this requires one of them to drive me around. They are probably thinking it's time for them to consider their own interest more than mine.
Until next time.
Billy

No tropical storm Ernesto here

2006-08-30T17:01:00.000-07:00

This has been a blissfully noneventfull day, given that we were supposed to get bombarded by a storm. Thankfully I did not lose power or didn't get much bad weather whatsoever. I spent the majority of the day trying to understand, which I still don't, why my voice software will not give the proper audio response when I put it to sleep or tell the microphone to shut off. Almost everyone that visits me for the first time gets a kick out of the responses my computer gives when I tell it to "go to sleep." It actually snores back, to let me know it did go to sleep. Whenever I turn the microphone off it responds with an irritating "off" which would make your skin crawl if you had to listen to it constantly.

The only thing that audio response I was able to get to work was the audio wave file which lets me know the computer is active when I tell it to wake up. Since my computer, as I am sure I have blogged about before, is named Dr., I thought it was appropriate it should respond with, "Please state the nature of the medical emergency." I know it's corny, but you don't even know how much. I actually have a recording of Star Trek Voyager's Emergency Medical Hologram, played by Robert Picardo. For some reason I think it's cool, while others think it's nerdish. One would think I am a Trekkie, but that is really not the case. While I did enjoy the show and still consider the theme song of Enterprise (the original of course) to be one of my favorites, I really do not know the difference between different phasers and the different trirecorders (s) on any of the shows. See... I'm no Trekkie.

Even though I am not happy with my inability to know if the computer is actually off when I am not in the room, I am becoming more and more satisfied with the accuracy of the software. It seems to be pretty accurate if I keep a consistent tone and talk real loudly when I am adjusting the volume on my microphone. Otherwise, I almost blow out the system when I speak in a normal tone. Maybe now that I cannot complain about the accuracy as much, people will really see how terrible I am at writing.

Man, this day is even better than I thought. I am even getting an opportunity to look at a wonderful sunset as I write this. An inability to watch sunsets is definitely one drawback I will experience when I move my office from my bedroom into the room I had previously designated. It will, however, make me concentrate more on writing and reading. I just don't get the same feeling in my own bedroom that I do when I am in office which is designated as such. Even if it is one of my own stupid designations.

Back to the grind, but enthusiastically back

2006-08-28T16:11:00.000-07:00

It has been an interesting few days. I was able to contact a friend whom I had lost touch with or over four years and discover that he is getting along tremendously. We spoke for quite some time and I was thrilled to discover he has become an enormous success in his field. When he left the Army in 1994, I initially thought he might be making a mistake, but I knew how great an NCO he was and how he had basically accomplished everything he had set out to in the past, with the exception of getting promoted when the military thought he should have, so it should not have surprised me that he has become as equally successful, if not more so, in the civilian world. He was able to take a buyout settlement from the military and go on to do great wonderful things in the world of nursing. The Army made a big mistake in letting him go. After putting him in the impossible situation of being a recruiter when he had just made sergeant, he succeeded at that, but at the detriment of his ability to do promoted within a timely manner. Had he been in a normal job within the MP field, he would have easily have been a Sergeant First-class by the time he elected to leave the military. Well at least there are untold thousands of people which benefit from his expertise in medical knowledge.

I have been able to get out of my funk and I am just bounding with enthusiasm right now. The only thing that has been holding me back a little is my mattress pad has developed a small pinhole leak and I am now looking around for a replacement once more. It is amazing how small things to the majority of the world are huge items in the life of a quadriplegic. Of course, if you read this particular blog you know I have been having trouble with my chair, thankfully it has been acting quite a bit better since my brother disconnected the control module a couple of days ago. Perhaps I just needed to be reset. Hopefully it will continue to work until I can get a newer wheelchair to replace it. I have recently put in a bid on a new mattress pad, which I think may work out just fine. It is extremely high tech and the only thing I am apprehensive about is the fact it is a used model. However, my previous rotating mattress lasted well over 10 years and it was used. The Internet has opened up avenues which did not exist when I initially approached the idea of purchasing my previous mattress 10 1/2 years ago.

I'm probably going to close for now and try to read some of my current novel. I just ordered another novel from the library by Lawrence Block. I am eager to find out if he is as good as I have heard. Maybe tomorrow I will go over a few of the shows that I have watched over the last several days. I don't know, just go over what tickles my fancy right now.

The audacity

2006-08-27T17:41:00.000-07:00

This is just something I threw together in a moment of anger, but it does convey how important my wheelchair is to my life. Most people think a wheelchair is analogous to a vehicle, but that is not the case at all. Without my wheelchair I am unable to get out of bed and have any form of Independence. Being without a properly functioning wheelchair paralyzes my life more than a broken neck. Anyway, to my ramblings.

Just last night as I was riding in my van with my brother, I became agitated about the "so-called" wheelchair mechanic that I have come to despise in the past several months. I am more and more inclined to write an e-mail to the individual in charge of my new wheelchair fitting and demand this particular mechanic not be permitted to work with me during this process. His arrogance and condescension are too much for me to handle at this point. I have given this careful thought and consideration, but the way talks to me, let alone looks at me, is more than I can handle right now. Yesterday, as my wheelchair was experiencing more difficulties, all I could think about was how presumptuous this man was to be able to say there were no problems with a wheelchair, whatsoever. The fact my brother had to turn the system on and off in order to get me back in a position to be able to drive again yesterday evening is a strong indication there is a significant problem. The audacity of someone to tell another, especially someone like me who has been driving a chair for almost 11 years, that their chair has always been that way and they just weren't aware of it is unbelievable! It's more than that, it's unfathomable, almost bordering on unconscionable! I wonder if this mechanic or his boss had considered the liability this company could be under it's something were to happen to me as a direct result of their incompetence and implacability I could visualize this individual telling me it is impossible to move my armrests of my new chair up to the level they need to be at for me to sit properly in my wheelchair. He will see me sitting there in pain and say "I don't see a problem." The fact he has no regard for my personal safety is more than apparent to me. I've expressed, on more than one occasion, how extraordinarily dangerous it is for me to be by myself and have a wheelchair which is prone to breaking down, which this one currently is, to this individual and his boss, but despite my protestations he continues to deny there is anything wrong.
My therapist will be enormously upset with me if I decide to ask to be transferred back to my wheelchair once the actual fitting process has been actively recommenced. So, perhaps it is better for me to inform my therapist now of my other disdain for this particular individual. Maybe he can have another individual from the particular company come out and help with the fitting/sitting.

Aggravation won't get me down

2006-08-24T14:51:00.000-07:00

Today did not turn out as I had anticipated; nonetheless, I got a few things accomplished. I did manage to make it to the wheelchair repair shop and after waiting about 30 minutes the mechanic came out and replaced my front right tire. Now at least my wheelchair doesn't sound like it's crunching glass and ready to fall apart every 2 feet. However, my attempt to get a simple connection cleaned in an effort to prevent the precarious predicaments my chair continues to put me in was squashed by a rather arrogant and intractable mechanic. Knowing this individual to well, I simply tried to explain how my chair intermittently will go into the drive mode after I have reclined and then inclined back into a sitting position, but the gears will not engage. His response was to just look at me in a bewildered manner, but say nothing, whatsoever. Realizing he doesn't see anything wrong with this, I offer my observation that this frequently occurs whenever I hit the headrest to fast after I have inclined back up to my driving position. This time he decides to sarcastically respond by telling me, "hit it slower then!" Unbelievable! Doesn't he realize that I occasionally hit it fast because I am in a hurry? I guess not. As I started to explain the reality of my situation, I could see he wasn't listening and had already made up his mind there was nothing wrong with my chair. This is the same mechanic I referenced in a previous entry on my spaces blog. Yes... the incompetent one. I know... I wouldn't have gone if I didn't think it was a rudimentary repair, which even a modestly competent mechanic could fix.

One would think this "supposed" wheelchair technician would have simply cleaned the contacts following my detailed explanation to him about how in extreme cases, when I'm not able to get the chair functioning by myself, I have had to have people disconnect these connections in order to get it working again. His answer was, "that resets it. I don't see the problem." As I look at him all I want to do is beat his face in, but the straps holding my arms down, not to mention my paralysis, thankfully prevented that from transpiring. Is it possible this moron cannot understand that I am not able to physically turn the chair off and on because my arms to move? The answer is he does, but he just doesn't give a shit. Every time I deal with this idiot I come away feeling completely aggravated. The only reason I go to this particular shop is because the other one is over an hour away and costs a fortune in gas to get there.

In all honesty, there are more reasons why I do not go to the shop, but I'll briefly elaborate on only one. On one particular occasion, when I was only able to drive about 1 mph, I unremittingly explained to him and the owner of the shop that I have to cross a certain crosswalk which requires me to get across quickly or get ran over. His response was once again, "I don't see a problem." Seems like a theme to me. Why doesn't the VA listen to the numerous veterans who gripe about the shop's inability to repair what is truly wrong with their chairs? I know there have been made veterans complaining. It is amazing how many nonessential things are repair on wheelchairs without any questions levity. I really believe somebody is getting some backend funding.

Putting my emotions in check, I simply left the shop knowing what needed to be done, and determined to have someone else do it. Perhaps I will have my local handyman do the simple repairs. I should have let this “so-called” mechanic know I had already communicated with the competent mechanics in the next county, who told me to simply have the contacts cleaned. But, it would have infuriated him that I had the audacity to talk with them in the first place. I can just hear it now... "They don't know what the hell they're talking about!" Believe me, I have heard this more than once from him. What a professional!

Wouldn't you know my chair would happen to experience this occasional occurrence right after I got home and then again later as I was writing this particular entry. (Now you know why I sound so venomous today). The first time my chair failed, I was in a hurry and simply forgot I needed slowdown. It took me 10 minutes to get the chair reset so it would drive once again. I probably could have simply had my sister-in-law disconnect the connections, but I needed to see if I could find a way to reset the chair without her hands. It is an essential to my mental health that I I be as independent as possible. The second recurrence happened when I was all alone and I kept at it knowing it was more than likely I could probably get the chair going one more time. Thankfully I was able to get this accomplished so I could move around. I would have gotten my thirsty, not been able to get to my water.

Since I have been trying to combine most of my trips in an effort to save on gas, following my escapade at the repair shop, I also went by the VA hospital to get a few supplies. I was also able to talk with the individual in charge of getting me a new chair. The unfortunate part of this meeting is he still wants me to try the chair I have been dealing with for over a year and a half. And guess what? Since he can't seem to get the stupid vendors to come out and help adjust the chair, he wants the aforementioned shop I had just visited, to help out with the fitting. He seems to be under the dissolution that the owner actually knows how to operate the sophisticated headrest which is sitting on the new chair I have been trying. (I will take pictures in the next couple of days). After telling him my recent bout with this particular chair, he replied, "let's at least if you are able to operate the headrest before we do too much more." The sad fact is I have to be seated properly in order to operate this particular headrest. How I know this? I have taken time to speak to the technicians which built the headrest. Too bad no one else has that time or inclination. Well, that is enough venting for today.

On second thought... I also discovered the new voice software I would like to purchase is going to cost me about $100 more than I was originally told. It seems I didn't get the last upgrade and now they're going to charge me about half that amount in order for me to buy the new one. Don't these people understand that buying a new upgrade every year is a bit ridiculous?

To make matters worse, my local sales representative told me I did not have the correct serial number. "It doesn't have enough digits." What the hell? I explained to him this is the serial number on the sleeve which the installation software came in, but he doesn't seem to be phased by this answer. So, I call my brother, who happens to have the installation software, to determine if I might have possibly mouthsticked the wrong number. No, I was right. Now thinking perhaps the sleeve had gotten mixed up with another one, I e-mailed the software company in an effort to find out which of the numbers I have is the serial number. After receiving no response six hours later, I spent about one hour looking through the Internet before I came across a forum which tells me where to look for the serial number on my computer. The real kicker is when I opened this particular file and discover the number I gave him in the first place was correct. He is lucky I just e-mailed him and didn't call. I definitely would have given him a piece of my mind, not that I really have too much to spare.

One would think by all of the negativity in this particular entry my entire day sucked, but that was not the case. Despite all of the bad things which transpired, it was enjoyable to get out and communicate with some of my acquaintances at the hospital. My night simply ended with a sense of optimism. It is difficult to explain why, but my spirits felt buoyed and there was no way I was going to let these trivial things bother me too much. In is also extremely cathartic to vent how all of my frustration here.

After looking at the length of this particular entry, I think I will save it and review it tomorrow to see how many errors there really are. I'm sure I will miss quite a few, I always seem to anyway. Maybe this new software will be a much-needed improvement, but my inability to dictate without changing my pitch and volume, and not to mention my frequent tailing off at the end of a sentence, will probably cause problems with this software also. Being such a high-level quadriplegic does have its drawbacks. I just don't have the lung capacity of an able-bodied individual any longer. I, therefore, write with much choppier or sentences than other individuals. I also tried to talk to fast, but at least I am not on a ventilator anymore.

Update: The software salesman/technician just called me as I was looking through this rather hurriedly and told me he was wrong and apologize profusely. He even informed me that the software will probably not benefit me as much as some of the other individuals who use all this other complicated things. However, if I don't get this upgrade the next one will even cost more. I was also given the caveat that my computer will probably run slower, since this new software requires 1GB of RAM. Yikes!.

Minor problems

2006-08-21T18:38:00.000-07:00

This day has been extraordinarily hectic, to say the least. It started with an emergency catheter change, which almost went awry. My personal care assistant had difficulty getting the catheter into my stoma, suprapubic (a hole in the pelvis region which goes straight down to the bladder). Thankfully, she was able to get it and after a tremendous amount of work, but I have been plagued by bladder pain the entire day.

When shopping at Sam's and it took a considerably longer time that I had anticipated. I also spent an enormous amount of money, much more than I would have liked, however, at least I got enough food for the upcoming cookout. Once I returned home, I discovered my environmental control unit (ECU) was not functioning properly. There seems to be some sort of a short in the power supply. Thank goodness we were able to get it working, but now I'm going to have to call the technicians to see if they can get come out and replaced it ASAP. The aggravating part of this is it appears the damage was done by my house cleaners. Lately they are causing more damage than they are worth. They have been so nice to me and my family over the last several years it is almost like firing a family member if I were to let them go. This situation is also complicated by the fact that one of them has just contracted cancer and really needs the money to pay for their copayments.

As if that wasn't enough, my wheelchair has started making a horrible racket. I believe we have isolated the cause to my front right wheel. For the last several weeks it has made some noise, but now I am fearful it will fall off while I'm driving. Therefore, I am unable to go ride around the block, which is one of my most enjoyable things to do what I am at home for an extended period of time. This malfunction will necessitate a trip to the wheelchair mechanic, but I am definitely going to go to the closest one, despite the problems I have had with them in the past. Even though they are incompetent, when it comes to electrical problems, they do seem to be able to handle problems like this. It is also easier to get certain items replaced through them. They seem to have an inside track with the VA. I'm sure they're greasing the palms of somebody's hands, but of course I can't prove it. Since it benefits me, probably should keep my mouth shut.

At least my health is going well and my new mattress pad seems to be working very well. My brother seems to think it may be better for me in the long run that my older mattress. If this is the case, it would be the cheapest replacement I have ever been able to make for a critical item.

Note: I will try putting contact information on here later so anyone wanting to get on my personal site can e-mail me for permission. I have not established the site yet, but hope that will be able to get it done in the next few days.

Considering some things

2006-08-15T14:02:00.000-07:00

Over the last few days my house has been rather busy. I am currently having my kitchen tiled and the gentleman is also going to finish up my laundry room. Once this is complete all of the tiling that I desired will be put in. I still excited about getting into my office, but I am unsure when I'm going to be able to get my brother to move my desk over there. Additionally, I have ran into to a problem with my new office echoing tremendously. I guess I didn't think about that when I decided to tile the room, but my last office had carpet and I ended up tearing it up in a few years. Tile therefore seem to be the only option. I guess I will be purchasing an artificial tree to put in the corner as well as some other items which can buffer the sound. It is going to take quite some time before I am able to get this room completely set up the way I would like, but it will be worth it in the end.

I did not write about all of the problems I was experiencing with my computer over the last week, but it has now been rectified and hopefully I will be back to normal, whatever that really is, in a short amount of time. The last week has also given me a lot of time to think about some issues I have a my life. Previously I have written about some of the low points I have had and loneliness, but it is difficult to explain to people that are not in my condition or experiencing the same situation. I have often thought about getting a little more in-depth, but I don't know if I want to share that type of information with people who might know me personally. Some of my acquaintances and friends have this blog web site so they can keep up with what I am doing. Therefore, I am considering making a separate blog for those of you interested in hearing some truly in-depth and very personal experiences of a simple quadriplegic trying to be as independent as possible.

Let me know if you're interested via a comment. Otherwise, I'm not going to bother. Try to leave me some way I can contact you.
This may have some are errors, but I have tried to eliminate most of them.
Till next time,
BP

Family crisis

2006-08-12T15:26:00.000-07:00

Man am I really in a funk today. This state is probably because my sister-in-law's father had to undergo a quadruple bypass and it has thrown all of my lifestyle into disarray. I feel it is terribly inconsiderate of him not to consider me whenever he decides to have a heart attack. Of course, you know I'm just kidding. I was shocked by the news that he had suffered from a heart attack and required this serious surgery. He was just down here not more than a month and a half ago and was extremely healthy then... at least I thought. My entire family down here were on pins and needles until he came out of the surgery OK. Now we are waiting on my sister-in-law to decide when she is going to go up and visit her father.

Right now I am in a little to do the dilemma. My mattress is not working correctly and the new product I have purchased will not be until Monday. Additionally, I do not have adequate backup for my sister-in-law. It is very possible I will be able to get my former caregiver to come up here for a few days while my sister-in-law goes up north, but it is definitely be a change in my system.

On a completely different topic, NaturallySpeaking has been acting absolutely bizarre since I tried to install Internet Explorer 7.0 Beta. After I saw that it would not work properly with my software, I uninstalled it, but I did not solve all of my problems. Now, if I don't have enough other things to think about, I need to concentrate on seeing if I am able to repair the damage I have done to my software. I may just end up purchasing the newest version and retraining everything all over again. This, obviously, will require a significant amount of time, but perhaps I can read through the instruction manual and improve my dictation ability. Well enough of this boring stuff. I will try to write more over the next few days.

FYI, just began reading James Patterson's "3rd-degree."

Everyone reading this, please keep Leo in your thoughts.

August 7

2006-08-07T10:38:00.000-07:00

If I thought I was having trouble getting motivated before, I had forgotten what it was like over 10 months ago. This is the second day in a row that I have spent a large part of the day alone and frankly it has been so long since I have been afforded the solitude which I used to take for granted, I am almost at a loss of what to do with myself. There are tons of ideas for blogs floating around of my head, but I need to get in the right mood to be able to work on anything. I guess I will just have to get hopping on my "to do" list.

For me this is almost unprecedented. It's only 1:30 p.m. and I am sitting here metaphorically twiddling my thumbs.

Routine Sunday

2006-08-06T16:22:00.000-07:00

Another weekend has come and gone and once again I have managed to come up with new problems. Now my reliable mattress seems to have a leak and I am going to have to replace it in the very near future. Presently I am online looking at replacement costs, but it is almost like comparing apples to oranges. While I paid I considerable amount of money for the alternating pressure relief mattress I currently utilize, there seems to be quite a few cheaper alternatives I am going to attempt first. I am in no way under the illusion that I will be completely satisfied with these alternatives, but I am optimistic I will be able to eventually come up with a viable solution. Previously, perhaps well over a year ago, I mentioned that my mattress moves about 30° (although that has significantly diminished over the last couple of years) in order to promote circulation in my body. What happens is, a cell fills up with air on one side of the bed and tilts my body to the side for about 15 minutes. The air is then released and my body goes back to a flat position for 15 minutes. Once this time has elapsed, air is pumped into the other cell and my body turns to the other side. This is a continuous operation and I have become accustomed to it. Unfortunately, the newer or cheaper alternatives seem to complete this entire cycle within 10 minutes, instead of the hour of which I am accustomed. I am unsure of whether I will be able to get used to this rapid movement, but the price is right. We will have to be consistently vigilant of my skin to make sure there is no possible signs of a problem.

For some reason my microphone is having some difficulties also. The battery ran out pretty quickly today and I am hoping this is not the sign of a problem creeping up on me. I guess we will have to wait and see.
I was able to talk to the occupational therapist at the hospital on Friday. She informed me the new Dragon NaturallySpeaking is significantly better than the one I am currently using. She did, however, tell me it was on sale this month, but I have not been able to find the particular sale she mentioned. I told her about some of the problems I had with my microphone and she informed me that she used a similar microphone. It is difficult to understand why my microphone has somewhat of a muffled sound, but despite that it still seems to get pretty good accuracy. I really believe the majority of my problems are due to my inability to dictate at a constant tone and without emphasizing certain words. If I work on this I may be able to increase my accuracy even more. Well, enough of this boring chatter.

The children will be moving over on Monday evening and I will have to get used to not having them around 24/7. It has been 10 months since they moved in with me and it is going to be a considerable change in my life. Perhaps it will be a positive move for all of us. They are excited about starting school on Tuesday and I am equally enthusiastic about trying to complete many of the modifications or renovations I need to get done over the next few months. That is, of course, if the money holds up.

Another birthday gone by

2006-08-04T18:08:00.000-07:00

Originally I anticipated writing about how my life has turned out in comparison to what I thought it would be like, but when I first woke up this morning, I was not excited about the day at all. That, however, changed at about 9:30 a.m. when I was greeted by my nephew and niece with a large plate of eggs and toast. I had almost forgotten it was my birthday, despite the fact that the kids kept reminding me all week. No matter how bad it felt before, those children bringing in the food and the small gifts they had made really buoyed my spirits.

It was even more uplifting when my niece kept reciting the phrase, "I want ketchup on my eggs and jelly on my toast!" This particular phrase is in reference to a story I have told my family a couple of times, but my niece informed me today that it was more like 40 times... who knows, but one day I will definitely write about that particular story.

I'm going to have to keep it short. Too many phone calls! And that is a good thing.
Till later.
Billy

Something accomplished. At last!

2006-08-03T12:52:00.000-07:00

I was able to get something done over the last few days. Eureka! Although, now that I really think about it, I really didn't get too much accomplished, but something is better than nothing. My niece was properly registered into school yesterday and I went along to make sure everything went OK. Sure I am glad I did. It is possible she may not have gotten into advanced math had I not been there, but we don't have to worry about that any longer.

I did get some information on the company that made my rotating mattress and this may allow me to get some sort of repair parts. Oh, I probably did mention that the mattress has a slightly. If this deteriorates much more it will definitely affect my independence. Now all I have to do is call the company and see what can be done. I better get going on my "to do" list and try to get more accomplished. It seems like when I get something done around the house, something else goes wrong. That is probably what happens to everyone, but it is really aggravating when you're unable to do anything about yourself. I do know, however, that everything is going to keep improving and I am going to get this house exactly the way I want. I can't wait to find a particular occupation or trade to in which to immerse myself. It is definitely going to be something that I like to do. Well, I better close for now.

July 31, 2006

2006-07-31T18:01:00.000-07:00

My how I wish I would have adhered to the axiom, " if it ain't broke, don't fix it." I tried my microphone on the other side of my face and had to change the settings as a result. Now I am having difficulty getting the settings exactly back to where I had them previously. My accuracy has diminished significantly and it will probably take a few more weeks to get back my ability to dictate relatively decently -- of course this does not factor in my inability to talk properly. I am never short on self-deprecating comments, as everyone can plainly see.

Despite all my grandiose plans, today proved to be less productive than I had originally anticipated. I did get my hair cut; I did manage to get Austin's glasses adjusted, even though they aren't quite right yet; and I even managed to purchase some new tubing, which I absolutely desperately needed for any type of independence; although I didn't make it by the hospital to turn in my wheelchair or the office of my home builder. I just couldn't get my butt out of bed this morning. If all of the things that I have on my plate aren't enough, my mattress is just about ready to go kaput. I am now desperately asking people on the Quad list to give me advice on how I might go about trying to acquire a rotating mattress through Medicare. They should cover this cost, given that prevents pressure ulcers and is vital to my remaining healthy and independent.

The kids will be returning to school next week and this will mark when my brother's family is scheduled to be living in their new home. I have had them with me so long it is going to be a great transition trying to get used to being alone in my house all over again. Once they have moved I am going to be trying to get my office set up in a rudimentary fashion. I need to make sure that I keep everything away from the walls so that I can employ someone to paint the room in the very near future. Well, I'm going to close for now and hope that I can possibly get more done tomorrow. Perhaps my desk will be rearranged and cleaned. Maybe I might even be able to get the majority of my paper work sorted through and I might even be able to work on getting all of my account balanced out with Quicken. That is probably a bit too much to bite off, but I can always hope. It would also be nice to be able to get a decent blog written, but I just seem to say that the screen thinking about what I am going to write instead of actually writing.

Nonproductive Friday

2006-07-28T17:28:00.000-07:00

Once again, another nonproductive day. I don't know what is going on, but it is possibly the impending change in my living arrangement. My brother's family will probably be leaving next weekend I will have to get used to other accommodations once again. They have been living with me for eight months, so I have grown accustom to having everyone around. At times it has seemed to be a bit stifling, but others everything I seem to go well. Since I am living in a new house and neighbors around me are not as familiar as my previous once, I am a little bit more apprehensive. It could also be that I do not have my office set up yet and the prospect of painting and get everything done in there is not appealing.

I hope this thing is legible. I tried putting my new microphone on the other side of my face and I had to change my volume setting. Now I am back onto the other side, but everything needs to be retrained again. Argg. I shouldn't have messed with the microphone. Everything was going pretty well. I well, maybe I'll learn next time.

What the heck

2006-07-24T19:02:00.000-07:00

Today was another nonproductive and virtually noneventfull day. Yesterday, was another story altogether. Since I was staying down, I expected Sunday to be like most other Sundays -- in that all I do is watch television. This, however, was not the case at all. Early in the evening, just as I had finished eating, my scalp developed an inordinately horrific itch. At first I thought I was going through dysreflexia (extremely high blood pressure caused by some sort of pain producing affliction), but I wasn't experiencing the normal bladder discomfort. Like a good quad, I had my brother look my body over to make sure nothing was wrong and then take my blood pressure. Everything seemed to be OK. "What the hell is happening?!" And yes I did ask the question out loud. It was at this point my sister-in-law came in and informed me that my face was a dark shade of crimson. Of course she didn't use that particular color, but it sounds better now. After turning on all the lights we soon discovered my body had welts developing all over it. They were developing so fast it was difficult to count how many there were. I was having some sort of allergic reaction, except we could not determine what was causing this allergy. No new medication, my typical Sunday meal of pizza -- since every Sunday is "Pizza Sunday" --, and even the normal brand. My head and neck were itching so bad that it was painful. Two hours later, one tablet of Benadryl, a quarter of a tube of hydrocortisone, and all was better again.

Thank goodness I did not go into anaphylactic shock. At this very moment I still do not know what caused the problem, but I suspect the pizza may have gone bad when the electricity went out the other day. This supposition is supported by the fact that my nephew ate one piece of the pizza I had left over and became violently ill a few hours later. The only thing which diminishes this contention is my niece also had one piece and has remained unaffected. Except, she took off the olives and green peppers. Too bad I don't have Monk here to do that funny hand waving thing and proclaim what or who is really at fault.

BTW, we did check the refrigerator and freezer and everything did appear to be OK.

TGIF?

2006-07-21T19:10:00.000-07:00

Today has proved to be a rather not uneventful day, thank goodness. Many of the things I set out to accomplish were achieved, however, I continue to be bogged down with the enormous list of things which need to be done in my house before I will be satisfied. It is very difficult to wait until my office is ready, but I will have to just bide my time. This entry is going to be relatively short, as nothing really happened. I did get a chance to watch the movie "The Village" with my niece and nephew. It was extremely enjoyable to see them holding pillows over their face whenever any scary moments approached. Well, I'm going to close for tonight and probably will not have anything to write about or the next few days. I am going to be going to a friend's birthday party tomorrow, so I know I will not be on the computer at all on Saturday and I will probably end up staying down on Sunday. By how I hate to stay in bed, but my sister-in-law definitely deserve some time off.

Enthusiastic, but lacking power

2006-07-19T19:43:00.000-07:00

Please excuse me as I sit here in a state of desolation and reflect on my ex-wife's recent visit. My current melancholy feeling will dissipate rapidly as I become accustomed to the solitude once again, but let me share what you about what has transpired over the last few days. This has been an unbelievable weekend and the fact that I am writing on Wednesday should get some indication of how arduous it really did was. Let me see where do I begin? Initially I wanted to start by writing about how lucky I was to have moved when I did, but that seems to be rather trivial given some of the complexities I encountered over the last few days. Although... now that I think about it, I believe I will begin there anyway. The neighborhood in which I used to live, Westchase Florida, has been undergoing some much-needed upgrades by Verizon over the last few weeks and these improvements usually include extensive digging. It seems, the other day, some subcontractors of Verizon accidentally struck a gas line and this necessitated an emergency visit from the fire department and local police. One would think everyone would be evacuated, but that is not what transpired. All of the residents of the village were prevented from entering the potential danger zone and all of those who were in the affected area were required to stay put. The problem for all of my friends that still live in that community and especially the new owner of my old house is the gas leak was directly under my former driveway and this neighborhood is a series of cul-de-sacs which has only one entrance and exit. Many of the residents were therefore unable to get in or out of their houses. My first reaction was to giggle and feel tremendously sorry for the new owner, but later I begin to thank my lucky stars I was able to move when I did. If they, the fire department, had followed normal protocol and shut off the electricity, can you imagine what I would have looked like had I been still living there? Given my inability to sweat, my need for some sort of power source to aid me in exiting the house on my own, and Florida's harsh, unforgiving humid climate and you come up with a potentially deadly concoction. I would probably have been a clump of goo.

Well, on Saturday I had planned to completely rearrange my garage since my brother is moving in the near future, at least that is the plan, and I was expecting a shipment of furniture to arrive on Sunday, which meant I needed more room in which to temporarily store my old furniture. After working in the hot garage for a few hours and taking periodic breaks, we, my sister-in-law and I, decided to make some pizza for dinner, mainly because it is extremely easy and doesn't require constant supervision. Just as the first pizza was finishing the electricity when out. Thinking this would only last a few minutes, I did not panic. After 20 minutes, however, I began to become concerned and decided to call the electric company. When I was informed, via an electronic message, that they were aware of the outage and anticipated having it repaired in just under 4 1/2 hours, I knew I had to do something. Being one for thinking on my feet, I decided to collect my brother and the rest of his family, and head off to the movies. At least there was air-conditioning and something entertaining to watch. To say was a madhouse is a bit of an understatement and I won't even get into the stress involved in just getting the tickets and making sure my family had a seat here. Although, based on the number of people I continue to see at the movies buying a multitude of snacks, I would have to say our country is well on the way to a healthy recovery, in addition to the fat farm. My how I can easily digress. Anyway, just as the movie was about to start I had my brother call to see if the answering machine was working yet -- this is how I determined if the power has been restored. Low and behold, my voice filled his ear. While this was good news, I was infuriated that I had just spent a tidy sum to see "Pirates of the Caribbean" and I had not even really wanted to watch the movie. It was the only one we could get into which was remotely kid friendly, so watch it we did. (By the way, this movie isn't worth all of the hype).

Thinking Sunday would be a day of relaxation turned out to be the wrong thought. While I did get a chance to sleep in for a while, I was surprised later in the evening when the power went out once again. I couldn't believe my luck or lack thereof. Sure I had escaped a gas leak, but after talking with some of my new neighbors, I had now learned that this was not an isolated electrical loss. It seems this has transpired six or seven times over the last couple of years. And the culprit seems to be the transformer next my house. We had a similar aggravating situation at my last residence. Believe me when I tell you there is nothing more aggravating than paying a lot of taxes for a good infrastructure only to learn the cheap ass electric company is using old-fashioned aboveground lines to tie in your new "high-speed low drag" underground system. It is even more frustrating when only a portion of the neighborhood is affected and it is your part that is suffering. Thinking I had moved away from these problems only to discover the electric company had installed a substandard transformer next to my house, was infuriating to say the least. After calling and learning it would be at least another five hours until they could restore power was even more angering. Why did it have to happen on a Sunday? Hardly anything is open! Sitting in a dark house illuminated by candlelight can be romantic in the right situation, but with the thermostat is rising and with my wife having already departed, this would not be one of those moments. Once again I was loaded into my van with my brother's family and off we went, only this time to do some shopping at Wal-Mart. Knowing we were unable to open the refrigerator, we refrained from purchasing anything cold. So, despite the $70 worth of merchandise I purchased, this trip was still not as productive as one would like. With the electricity still out and the clock pushing 11 p.m., it was decided we could procrastinate no longer -- we had to get home. Arriving a few minutes later to the site of a large electric truck with yellow flashing lights produced euphoric whooping and yelling -- and that was just the adults. The children were ecstatically bouncing up and down in their seats. This unbridled enthusiasm, however, was short-lived when we discovered the electricity would only be one for about an hour before they would be replacing the transformer. Knowing I had some SCI procedures to complete that night only complicated the situation. Even though I didn't get much sleep, I am breathing a little easier now knowing that I have a new larger transformer. Hopefully the electricity will remain on indefinitely now. It is amazing how much we take things like electricity for granted until you are without. Then again, I have read so many entries on the Internet which remind me of this daily. If you are in need of a reminder, just look at Keith's blog. All of this has been a wakeup for me. It is giving me the catalyst to look at how I can possibly exit my house via some sort of battery backup. I guess it is time for me to do some creative thinking once again.

Given the length of this entry, I believe I will shorten up the remainder of it. Monday wasn't bad, but thunderstorms prevented us from utilizing televisions or computers the entire afternoon and evening, therefore no blocking. On Tuesday, as I started this post, I experienced one of the worst cases of hypoglycemia I have ever had. I ended up in bed for the remainder of the evening, but I feel great now. Yes it is tricky for me to keep everything in check, but that is what I must do in order to keep driving on. And rest assured, that is what I intend to do. All of this being said, I am glad to be back on the computer and writing once again. I do have quite a few ideas, but I am not sure how quickly they are going to flow into anything remotely coherent. My gosh this thing is a monstrosity. Now I have to go back and check to see how many errors I had made. I know I'm not going to catch all of them, I'm sure everyone will understand. If not, tough. Just kidding.
Spater,
Billy

State of carelessness has returned

2006-07-14T18:18:00.000-07:00

Well, my ex-wife has left and I am once again in a state of melancholy. Hopefully this feeling of desolation will not last long and I will be able to get a little done in the near future. It is often difficult to take your mind off other people when they are gone, but I am normally able to do this by keeping myself focused. Right now focus seems to be something I am seriously lacking. I really need to be concentrating on some sort of career or on finding something to take my mind off negative things in my life. There is still quite a bit to be done around my house and this will probably consume a large amount of my time, but eventually money constraints are going to put a crimp on this and I will eventually have to start looking elsewhere. I am seriously looking into getting a business started, but I really need to find a good idea. It is still upsetting when I think about the opportunity I had about five or six years ago to open a copy shop in an unbelievable location. I could be raking in the bucks as well as keeping my time completely occupied. Oh well, water under the bridge.

This journal should become more active now that my ex has departed and I have a little more time. Once again I am planning on using this as a daily Journal to chronicle what is transpiring in my life and possibly allowing some people who are not familiar with quadriplegia to have a glimpse of the life of an average high-level quadriplegic, as well as a glimpse in to my often convoluted and desultory mind.

A little better, but still upset

2006-07-09T13:55:00.000-07:00

Since my last entry I haven't really done too much, but I feel considerably better than I did a week ago. I'm just extremely pissed off that a virus decided to invade my body while Lydia was visiting me. It is amazing how I can go for years without really becoming ill, this doesn't really count my bowel problems which have seemed to diminish over the last few months, only to get sick while she is visiting from Germany. What a bitch! Oh well, I will make the best of the time I have left. I have not really been able to do much blogging lately and this is primarily because I have not felt up to the task. I haven't written anybody nor have I really been doing too much at all on the computer. Once again I am considering taking a class this next semester, but I am really not sure whether I really will or not. After reading all of these inspiring blog lately, I am more amenable to attending a creative writing course, but I don't really know if it will improve my creativity. Stay tune or don't, it's your choice.

I had considered doing a blog on my other site, From the Mind of Quadius, but I am trying to make that area more creative, so I guess I will wait until I am inspired or until the ideas I currently have written down can be thought out a little more thoroughly.

A little under the weather

2006-07-01T15:28:00.000-07:00

I have come down with a virus and have not been able to get on the Internet much lately. Even though I have aspired to do more blogging, have not been keeping up with those aspirations. As I am writing this I am already feeling a little weaker than I did a couple minutes ago. I will, therefore, not go to much further. I should be back in the saddle again within a day or two.

The US's last game

2006-07-01T15:27:00.000-07:00

Despite all of the optimism I tried to maintain, something deep inside me told me the US was not going to perform well today. This unfortunately came to fruition. I could try to get upset about one of the best officials in the world making a really bad call that resulted in a penalty kick been awarded to Ghana, but that blown call wasn't really what decided everything for the Americans. It was plain and simple that they did not perform as well as expected. This definitely did not look like the team I have been watching for the last two years. Oh well, I guess it's time to just simply get back to watching the World Cup for the pure enjoyment.
I was, however, touched by how important this game was to the Ghanaian nation. The federal government there gave a half-day holiday to everyone in the country and even required their gold mine, one of their chief moneymakers, lower their use of power so everyone in the country would have enough electricity to be able to power the televisions and watch the game without any hindrance. That type of fervor is what I miss most about not living in Europe and I am watching soccer. I can still recall a 1990 walk down and unseasonably warm street in Nürnberg Germany and hearing the same television channel, which happened to be showing a 1990 World Cup, emitting from all of the open windows (they do not have air-conditioning and normal houses in Germany). I was able to follow the game play-by-play until I descended into the subway entrance. I will not even go into the celebrations I witnessed when Germany one that particular World Cup. After seeing all of this dedication to a sport, I think it's ironic that people here believe the Super Bowl is watched by everyone and thus the most important game in the world. I know, the NFL executives claim the Super Bowl is watched by over one billion people every year, nonetheless, I believe the figures are definitely not even close to these claims. I have seen figures as low as 93 million and as high as 300 million watch the Super Bowl yearly, but all one has to do is look at the 1.3 billion which watched the opening game of this World Cup and the projected 1.5 billion that will have the pleasure of watching the final game and even the greatest skeptic will understand that the World Cup is truly the most important single sporting event and the most watched in the world. Well, perhaps not the greatest skeptic, but the majority of people would concede this point.
Perhaps if total ratings worldwide were considered for every game, 64 of them, then this would give some idea of how important this sporting event is to the remainder of the world. Enough of my soapbox rantings. To bring these ramblings to a conclusion, I would simply like to say that I was extremely disappointed with the performance of the US team. People can blame their defeats on many things, but it is simply that the players did not perform when they really needed to.

Angry, but still enthusiastic

2006-06-18T16:06:00.000-07:00

I consistently write about what I have done lately and I am always asking for others to be forgiving or patient of my inconsistencies and inaccuracies, but tonight I am telling everyone in advance this is rather verbose and really not to substantive. People have told me not to worry about my writing, but I guess that is one of my problems... I consistently worry about things which I perceive to be a weakness of mine. I understand I do not have the given talent of others, but if I invariably try hard enough I will eventually become better and better at my weak points. Anyway, the following was written last night, but it took me quite some time to go through it and pick out the majority of the errors. I was in a hurry and a little temperamental. These factors are definitely not conducive to good dictation with NaturallySpeaking, but I am hopeful it will at least be legible to those who can stomach this long diatribe.

Saturday was once again a relatively nonproductive day, however, that is mainly because I centered everything around the USA Vs Italy World Cup game. I decided, because I am extraordinarily superstitious, to watch the game in my living room, instead of in my bedroom where my nice new high-definition television sits. I do have a large projection screen which is capable of showing high-definition, but it does not have the clarity of my new television and despite being actually larger, the picture is about the same size. None of this daunted me as I tried to make everything amenable to the football ("soccer" in America) gods. And before you ask... no I do not think there are really deities which truly control the outcome of all sporting events. Now that I really think about it, it pays to be safe... right?

With everything set up I began watching the game with such eager anticipation, that I probably would have been chewing off my fingernails, like I used to, if I had the ability to get my fingernails up to my mouth. I knew deep in my heart the US would come out strong and really take it to the Italians, but I was even more delighted when I saw how offensive they were playing in the first few minutes. My heart sank as a beautiful cross was sunk in the back of the net by the head of one of Italy's many talented strikers. I was, nonetheless, still optimistic that the Americans, having learned -- the hard way -- firsthand about how to handle an early goal in the World Cup, would tenaciously continue to thrust forward at every opportunity one. When an unlucky Italian defender happened to inadvertently kicked a very lively American pass across the middle of the goalie box into the back of his own net, I would have jump for joy, but I had to be satisfied with bouncing my upper torso back and forth as vigorously as I could. My chair definitely does not like all the punishment I put it through during these games, but what can it do? Enthusiastically I continued to rock back and forth in eager anticipation of what laid ahead. My bubbling spirits were fueled by a well-deserved red card (this means an individual is kicked out of the game and the team must continue on without any replacements) which was shown to an Italian player who elbowed one of our players in the face. I initially I thought the red car was a bit premature, but when I saw the replay I discovered it appeared to be malicious and this was compounded by all of the blood flowing from the American players face. It took only a mere seven minutes, until my bubbling optimism turned into an expletive laced sentence directed at the referee, who had just thrown out one of our players, for what I considered to be a yellow card offense (this is a stern warning, which if a player receives a second one he has subsequently shown a red card and ejected from the game). I knew this could happen whenever a red card has been shown previously, but this knowledge did not diminish my ire.

Now with my blood boiling, I began to bounce back and forth even more vigorously. If only my poor chair could speak, it would probably curse me out, but the moans and creeks did all of the speaking for it. During halftime I tried to remain optimistic that the Americans would continue to be offensive minded and not let this latest setback hold them back. It only took a few minutes of the second half, before I was wanting to jump to my feet and scream profusely at the television, which happened to be showing that same terrible referee issuing a second yellow card and then a red card to one of our defensive players. I guess I had to be satisfied with slamming my head back into my head rest and yelling throughout the house, since standing is not an option any longer. Why was I glad there were no children in the house; I am sure they would have definitely been holding their ears in pain. Perhaps not at the tremendous volume, but more likely at my choice of vocabulary. The rest of the game was extremely exciting, definitely the best of the World Cup so far, and had me yelling at the television more than sitting quietly in my chair. In the end, the Americans pulled off an unbelievable feat of holding the Italians to a draw after playing almost the entire second half with nine men against the Italians ten men.

Well, all of this excitement was probably a bit too much for me. I'm usually somewhat stoic, or at least a tried to be, when I go to football games. This is largely because I have a tendency to get overly excited or angry at sporting events and when this occurs I am prone to becoming emotionally drained and in desperate need some sort of rest in order to get recharged. I additionally become fatigued whenever I yell too much, or as others might say talk too loudly. The reason I am unable to produce any really significantly loud noises is because I rely on my diaphragm to breathe and it does not permit me a note here to really get out aloud bellows, but that is beside the point. Following the game I was so warm and completely exhausted I had to go to my room, turn on the fans, and lied back in my wheelchair for about an hour trying to regroup. My ex-wife called from Germany called just after I had come out to eat to ask how I felt about performance. Still enraged at the referee's performance, I began to explain to her how I felt, but she rightfully pointed out how well the Americans had played and said I should be satisfied. Once I give it some serious thought, I decided she was right and I was sadly mistaken. In the end, I was buoyed by the fantastic play of our American team against a very formidable Italian team. When the US lost against the Czech Republic, did not take it is badly as I did this particular game. I really need to learn not to take these things so seriously. Most of the time I am able to distance myself from disappointment, but for some reason this particular game meant more to me than most.

Having written all of this was pretty cathartic for me. It has made me realize once again that I have allowed events which I have no control over to cause the great anguish. There are too many things in my life of which I should be seriously concerned and really do require an inordinate amount of attention, to be focusing so much energy into one particular game.

Alberto can't squash my optimism -- at least not yet.

2006-06-12T15:39:00.000-07:00

This week and was relatively slow and therefore I did not accomplish much. I was, however, thrilled when my high-definition reception was connected to my new HDTV. To say that I was thrilled to pieces is a bit of an understatement. The commencement of the World Cup coincided with the arrival of the service man and this really was no chance of happenstance. Now I will have the opportunity to watch all of the games, or at least as many as I can, in high -definition. And let me tell you it is well worth the price. It is amazing how vivid the picture is on my new television.

Initially I had thought my microphone was working considerably better, but now I really think it is probably working about as well as it was a week ago. I am hopeful it will get much more accurate and I will slowly but surely begin to enunciate and dictate much more effectively.

My ex-wife will be visiting me on Friday. She is coming in from Germany after having not been here in two years. It has been difficult not seeing her in so long, but I am sure it has been equally difficult for her going through all of the changes in her life during those tumultuous years. I should have a few minutes to jot down things which are occurring. I'm going to try to commit myself to keeping this up as a journal, but I have said that numerous times previously and never been able to keep up with my commitment. Perhaps if I don't concentrate as much on correcting my errors or listening to my dictation later, I might be able to get more put on the Web. I am, however, committed to try to improve the dictation and this necessitates looking over what I have written so I can get the best accuracy possible.

I have quite a bit of phone calls to make over the next few days, but I am sure I will not get much done given the impending storm brewing off the West Coast of Florida. At least it is only a category one and it appears to be going north of me, right now anyway. I don't know if I can take many more insurance hikes. Yikes! Please keep your fingers crossed for all of us. It reason history has taught us anything, it has instructed us that a storm during the inchoate stages of the hurricane season does not bode well for the rest of the season, especially the Gulf Coast regions, including Florida.
Better get going tonight. I have at least one more game to watch. Now I promised myself I would not cry about performed in their initial game of this World Cup. I can only hope this poor showing will be an anomaly and not indicative of the rest of their play. I have several changes to the team in mind, but the majority people probably do not want to read about my views, especially given the fact that I really have never played this poor myself.

Things are beginning to look up

2006-06-06T14:36:00.000-07:00

Despite all of my grandiose intentions today, I did not do very much. I am hoping to start getting more accomplished in the very near future, but I am cognizant of the fact that my ex-wife will be coming to visit in approximately 11 days and I will probably spend a large amount of my time with her and rightfully so. I'm really excited about her visit and equally hopeful everything will go as well as possible. Right now my house is a busy place to be, but I am functioning well and still looking for my little niche. I'm toying with several ideas, however, I am leaning toward starting a store on eBay or possibly getting into some sort of journalism endeavor. I'm going to research all of these options and will probably start looking at becoming more active in disabled advocacy within a month or so. I really need to get a long-term goal and get started on achieving the. Right now it is rather difficult to remain positive about what I am accomplishing, when it seems like all I'm getting done is getting my house in order. I know that is extremely important, but I must have something to drive me forward with a more optimistic attitude.

On a completely different topic, my microphone seems to be working considerably better and my mood has changed significantly toward a more positive outlook. I think this may be the answer I was looking for in the long run and if I can find a good telephone program to work with my computer, I will be even more belated than I currently am. Today I spoke with my wife utilizing a telephone program and it was so liberating to be able to move around my house while speaking to her and listening to her in my ear at the same time. It would have not been possible without the aid of this new microphone. This is the first time I have been able to have a private conversation. And let me to you when you are a quadriplegic privacy is something that has few and far between. Normally I have to either speak on a speakerphone or use my ECU, which involves speaking into a microphone and listening on a large speaker that anyone within earshot can hear. It is becoming more and more apparent how much I really need a good program which will work effectively with my present voice software. This particular telephone will ring in my ear and if I can only figure out how to answer the telephone utilizing voice commands, I would be more enthusiastic about future prospects. As far as dictation goes, all I really need to do is calm down and tried to enunciate all of my words as clearly as possible and continue to write and train this computer so I will be able to work and write more effectively. I may end up taking a class in creative writing or journalism at the University next semester, but I have a few months to decide on what I am going to do, if anything significant.

Massage day

2006-06-03T18:52:00.000-07:00

Following more than a year without a massage, I couldn't take it any longer. I finally scheduled an appointment and went into day to get one. It was more than enjoyable. I am able to move my neck back and forth with a flexibility I have not been able to achieve in quite some time. The pain in my shoulder has significantly diminished and I anticipate tomorrow my shoulder blade may have receded even more back into my back, from whence it came. Well, I'd better get going to bed. I hope tomorrow will be as good as today.

New microphone, old problems

2006-05-31T17:11:00.000-07:00

Many things have transpired since I last posted an entry, some good, some bad, and some are still evolving. Right now I am training my new microphone and I'm not as happy as I thought I would be, but that seems to be the story of my life. Everything I buy which is supposed to be fantastic and make my life easier, seems to make my life a little more difficult initially. I am hopeful this microphone will turn out to be a fantastic addition to my everyday life. I do love the way it feels for the majority of the day and freedom it gives me. So far I do not like its inaccuracies, but it may be my inability to dictate properly that is the majority of the problem right now. I am, however, trying to calm down a little bit and make sure I enunciate words more than normal. Perhaps I might even be able to speak English better in the long run. I have written blogs before about how difficult it is for some people to use voice activation and I believe this is pretty much true for the majority of individuals that do not write for a living or have the oratory skills of a Cicero. I still have the desire to let my fingers waver over the keyboard and give me inspiration as I write. For some reason I have not been able to embrace the concept of simply dictating and then later looking at what I have done so I can edit it has a piece of work. When I do something like that it takes me longer to work out all of the corrections and change the syntax than it does if I watch it the entire time.

This particular entry I am trying my best not to look at the screen while I write. Therefore, much of the writing is probably just as I am speaking and I can only hope the computer is more accurate than it has been over the last few days. Sometimes I believe much of the problem is also caused by my inability to speak in one tone. I love to get excited and talk loudly and at other times I seem to be short of wind. Oh no, after simply glancing at the screen I have discovered there are a ton of errors and I feel compelled to correct them. (In actuality it was not that many, but that particular line at about four or five major ones). One good thing about the microphone is I have the ability to listen to music in my ear while I am writing. The bad part of this is I am unable to hear what I have just said when I do the corrections. Oh well. Older music does lend itself to nostalgic feelings which might possibly inspire better thought.

One really great tidbit of information is that I was able to get the problems which have been plaguing my wheelchair corrected. It is still not the best thing in the world, but at least it is not losing power consistently. It is considerably faster than it has been and in fact it is a little more difficult to handle on the smaller sidewalks on which I usually like to travel pretty quickly within my neighborhood. Well, I'm going to go for now and look this over rather hurriedly and try to make the corrections. I don't believe I am going to change the syntax of this, so I guess everyone will get to look at how I speak. Although, this is not indicative of how I talk to people on a daily basis. My speech is much more laced with slang words and jumbled together.

One other thing I have a little bit upset about is the speed at which my computer is working. I pay the considerable amount of money for fiber-optic cabling and so far it is not living up to the advertisements.
See you later,
Billy

Starting to get more optimistic once again

2006-05-26T11:05:00.000-07:00

I know I have not been doing much lately: at least as far as blogging is concerned. I have been waiting on a new microphone, as well as concentrating on getting my wheelchair repaired, getting my floor tile installed, in addition to having new carpet placed in my bedroom. All of these activities have consumed me and I have not been able to really do too much other than try to catch up. I am now getting more and more excited. My new microphone arrived today and I am hopeful it will be considerably better than the one I am currently using given the circumstances -- a whole house full of people. The new microphone is supposed to eliminate ambient noise and be considerably more accurate. All of a sudden, after almost a month of delays and disappointment, everything seems to be coming together. I was able to get my chair repaired yesterday (that is a very long story). It is still not 100%, but it is considerably better than it was. Well, I am going to close for now and seriously consider writing more and more each day in order to keep up a sort of Journal. I believe once I have the microphones working, this will be much easier. The only bad news has been regarding the continued delays in the final construction of my brother's new home and the fact that we try to hook up the power source for my old microphone and it blew up. Oh well. Good bye for now and I sincerely hope everyone is doing well.
Billy

Another house, but still a lot of stress

2006-05-14T16:14:00.000-07:00

Despite the best intentions of wanting to write as much as possible and read a ton of blogs, this seems to have taken the bottom shelf to much of what is going on around here. I will give a quick overview of what simply happened today and maybe that will give everyone an idea of what I've been going through lately. Well, knowing my writing skills as of late, this will probably not be the case, but I will endeavor to give an overview of what took place today. I know almost everyone else has experience moving at one time in their life, but mine has been complicated by the problem that I have to oversee everything and unable to perform any of the work whatsoever. The word "frustrating" doesn't seem to do justice to what I feel on a daily basis now. My day started at 8:15 a.m. when the plumber showed up to repair the three toilets, you got it right that is all of them, in my house. Normally I am virtually unable to function that early in the morning, but because I had been suffering from a fever for the entire night, I was awake and fully cognizant. After explaining what was wrong with the toilets and trying to make the plumber understand that had just recently purchased a house with all of these problems, the plumber set about getting everything in order. At around 9 a.m. the plumber has completed all of his work and I think I can finally start to get up, when the doorbell rings and in walks the tile guide. At least he didn't acquire any explanations as to why my house is in complete disarray, however, is early arrival did seem to delay my daily rituals. Once I was in the chair I began making some quick phone calls in anticipation that I would have two make an unscheduled visit to the VA hospital to have my blood and urine check. As if I really have the time, but health is a priority.
After spending about three hours at the hospital and still not knowing what was causing the temperature and enormous fatigue, which racked my body over the weekend, I stopped off to do some really quick shopping at Wal-Mart. Has anyone ever really been able to do quick shopping at Wal-Mart? I don't seem to be able to. Anyway, one hour and $60 later, finally leave for home only to learn that many of the instructions I gave had been misinterpreted and the majority of things I wanted to get accomplished would need to wait for another day. Oh well! At least I feel better and I know tomorrow will be more improved.
Till later.
Billy

Still stressing

2006-04-01T19:17:00.000-08:00

Once again I have taken quite a bit of time off in order to pursue other activities. Lately I have been concentrating on getting things ready to move as well as trying to definitively identify what is causing my wheelchair to intermittently short out. We thought we had the problem identified as a bad power supply, but after a week and a half have no problems and then deciding to get one of my other microphone power supplies repaired, my wheelchair shorted out once again with my Dr. Max microphone power supply being the only external thing on my chair. I guess I'll have to take it off once again and determine if the chair will short out. I thought it was just a temporary thing, but tonight I decided to short out, but thankfully it has returned to his normal ability to drive around the house. Yesterday I was not even able to use my microphone because it seemed to be having so much difficulty, but the wheelchair did not short out. Today my microphone has returned, but my wheelchair decided to short out later in the evening. At least it waited until after our block party to crap out.
Anyway, I know I will not have hardly any time to be writing much lately. In around 10 days I will have to disassemble the computer, so I know I will not get much done, most people understand what is involved in moving.

Things are still progressing

2006-03-23T17:21:00.001-08:00

After a long absence I thought I would take the opportunity to quickly write and let everyone know I am beginning to get many things accomplished. Although my wheelchair is still pulling occasionally it now appears the shorting out issue is a thing of the past. My house is still under contract and everything is progressing well. Right now I am simply checking with title companies, movers, and financiers, as well as packing things up gradually. I was able to get the power supply for my PC microphone repaired, therefore, I will be able to do a little more on the computer. The power supply for my ECU is still kaput and since this was what was causing my chair to short out, I will continue to use a battery until I can find a replacement. Healthwise I am doing really well and hope that I will continue to do so.

Now I have to work with my computer more often make sure that my dictation continues to improve.

The Rantings of Quadius

Just too long

Just barely back

Great viedo

It's been forever

Back

Back shortly

One of these days

Why it is aggravating to be a quad sometimes

President Bush must go!

I guess it's just another Saturday

Can't seem to get anything accomplished

Just one of those days

A brief respite

Need to read a little more

No good titles in my mind right now

Don't have a good title right now

One of those days

One of those days

A productive Saturday

Today's chuckle

Something is better than nothing

Not much going on

A successful day is... successful

Muddling about

My enthusiasm was a bit premature

A little lost

Not much getting done

A small look at Reign over me"

What a bummer

January 11, 2007

Just another day

Soccer or no Soccer

The painting progresses

Plain confused

Random ramblings

Feeling better

Getting stronger every day

Minor surgery without hospitalization, what a great feeling

A Wonderful Tribute to Our Troops.

The frustrations of voice activated software

More chair problems

Warm weather leads to a shiny outlook

Sluggishly still plugging along

Busy times make good time for me

The after affects of my cystoscopy

Almost back

Not my status quo, yet

Nice family visit

My has it been busy lately

The cold is on its way again

Death to liberty?

Rantings and more rantings

Doing great

Just another day

A shocking beginning for a book of any type

Just can't seem to lighten up

Tedium run amok

Normal weekend

Bush did know!

My epiphany on the Geico gecko; not!

Blood pressure and optimism rise simultaneously

Trying to stop procrastinating

Just another boring day

Really back now

Almost back

Not feeling well

feeling better

His first football game

Off to the football game

Not another boring day

No tropical storm Ernesto here

Back to the grind, but enthusiastically back

The audacity

Aggravation won't get me down

Minor problems

Considering some things

Family crisis

August 7

Routine Sunday