Specialists & Siggraph

Went to see the Muscle/Skeletal Specialist yesterday. Things are, thankfully, not as bad as originally thought. Though there is some joint degradation, it is no worse than someone of my age should have.

Apparently, the muscles in my neck are not cooperating! Physical Therapy is going to be performed and drugs administered to get the muscles to release their death grip on my bone structure. So, still some recovery to be done but not as much as we were thinking.

This weekend and next week is the Siggraph show, the biggest computer imagery show on the planet... in Boston and I'm a volunteer helping out a few hours a day in exchange for a free all access pass to the show!... so some reports from that should be upcoming!

Have fun...

Silk/Spence

Not a good weekend...

Karen and I spent all day sunday in the Emergency Room at the local hospital on sunday... let me explain...

On Sunday at around 8am I woke up screaming, my neck and shoulders were afire with pain, nothing no let up even breathing caused them to hurt. At first we thought it was just a stiff neck, but no amount of heat treatments or lack of moving was helping so Karen called the doctor and off to the hospital we went.

They saw me immediately and I was in a collar and IV morphine was given just to get the pain under control, then after being seen by many doctors I was sent for an MRI (the tube!).

I can't type long so, they found that I have a minor bulge on the disc between the 5th and 6th vertebrae and that a I have a degenerative bone disease in my neck (aka Arthritis). So I am on painkillers and a collar as needed and seeing a specialist about long term plans on Thursday.

Needless to say, not much email/computer work will be done.

Silk/Spencer

OK, that's enough heat....

Yesterday it reached 105°f (41°c). That's just silly.

So I went to see Pirates of the Caribbean 2 again, and it stood a second viewing very well. Also, the Cinema's AC was coping much better than mine.

Storms last night cooled things off a little, but it's heating up again now.

Maybe if I pant like a dog ...pant... pant...pant... oops dizzy, hyper-wotsit-olating... eek.

OK, that didn't work, try the AC higher... aaaah that's better.

Silk/Spence

Hot Hot Hot

It's hot and humid here ... not just uncomfortably hot and humid but ridiculously! 95f (or 35c for those of you in metric-land) with a relative humidity of 87% (I have no idea what this means I just know it's awful).

Currently, if you go outside the heat hits you then the humidity stops you breathing properly ... it's just nasty. But we have storms due on Friday, which somehow don't actually seem to help... :o(

So, to escape this horrendous situation we went to see Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and it's great, funny and action packed (and I will no doubt be seeing it again as I need to escape the heat again (and again :oP )). I will not go somewhere that does not have air conditioning (like anywhere in our house but my office or Karen's office where the A/C has broken again).

What else ... dunno, my brain is cooked ... hmmm, let's see ... Karen's Mini is broken (again), the gearbox got all stiff and it would stick in one gear for a while, not good (eagle eyed blog readers will notice that around this time last year the Mini did the same thing). Well this time they can't simply lubricate the system and all is fixed. We had the linkage cables replaced ... nope ... that didn't help and added to the issue by leaving a slick of transmission oil all over the place, leading to the car having to be towed (again ... hmmm maybe I should have titled this one 'again') and now we are awaiting the diagnosis of what is wrong and what they will do about it. Karen has a loaner, but it's not an 'S' and it's an automatic, but worst of all for her ... it's bright sunshine yellow ... oh well.

Chat again soon ...

Silk/Spencer

Whale of a time....

Hello there, how was everybody's weekend?

We decided to visit Mystic Aquarium where they have three Beluga Whales. So, we drive the 100 mile or so to the aquarium and watch them feeding the whales and seals (and sea lions I now know the difference ;0). We discover, however, that they have a contact program where you can meet one of the whales!

Any of you who know Karen well enough will know that she would be jumping at the chance to do this... and we did, BUT, all of Saturday's slots were filled up, so we booked in for Sunday....

There is about a 20 minute introduction to the program by one of the trainers (all the do's and don'ts) and getting you fitted into the waders so you can wade waist deep to meet Maku the 11.5 foot long 25 year old whale (weighing 1400 pounds!). Then you meet her, and she is incredible. She loves interacting with the trainers and guests. All of the behaviours she does that allow us to get close to her are done through "Positive Reinforcement" (i.e. she gets fish for doing it right, just like your dog with tricks), well all but one behaviour, she loves having her tongue rubbed. No fish needed and she will stay there for hours for it. Anyway, we got to touch her skin and fins and we were given a Beluga hug, here is Karen receiving her hug :


(click for a biggger version in a popup)

It was a great experience and if you have any wish to meet a whale that has an incredible amount of personality then you should do this.

Silk/Spencer

Films, Cars and well that's it ....

Well the holiday weekend (Independence Day in the US of A), was fun, mainly dry and HOT (not my favourite) so we visited the cinema three times....

Superman Returns
OK, too long but mainly dull. They tried to make Superman all dark and mysterious (like they have with the Batman series and to some extent the X-Men films) but they forgot that Clark is supposed to be clutzy around Lois, Lois is supposed to run rings around everyone except Superman ... but mainly by making it serious they forgot the fun. Worth seeing for Kevin Spacey's Lex and his gangsters Moll played to perfection by Parker Posy.

The Devil Wears Prada
This one annoyed me and I don't really know why! It was simply annoying and maybe that was it's goal. Karen loved it though. It is well acted (Emily Blunt as the first assistant Emily is really great!) and Stanley Tucci is as always brilliant, but I didn't get into it, it was just too fairytale for me.

The Lake House
Good film with a few moments of "Huh?, but how does that work?" but that's time travel movies for you. Sandra Bullock was great, dunno why people keep casting Keannu in things (rolls eyes).

I also picked up my new car, out went the Subaru Impreza WRX. The Subaru was a great car, fun to drive, but too expensive to insure here in Massachusetts and attracted too much attention from the Police (Who would follow me through and area to see if I did anything wrong ... what I'm going to do with them in my rear view I dunno) and the boy racers (Who would sit next to me at lights or junctions in their Honda Civic LX with a drainpipe for an exhaust (and most often bits of the car tied on with string) and rev their engines to race me ... which I wouldn't do). So, I got tired of the expense and wrong sort of attention and changed it for ....

A Mini Cooper S (JCW) ! What I hear you say... WHY!!? Well you missed the JCW bit then. John Cooper Works (JCW) is the WRX of Mini's. This car has 214bhp and goes like a rocket. With improved air intake, exhausts, limited slip differential, up-rated brakes, suspension and torsion bars ... the performance is fantastic!. I can park it anywhere and it gets lots of smiles and Mini club attention... better? maybe, maybe not. But certainly a little furious ball of FUN!

Holiday 4th, Penalties, Business and Sun

It's a holiday weekend here in the US. The Fourth of July! Independence Day, well the perhaps not the whole weekend (depending on whether you get the Monday off). Anyway ... Happy 4th it's a holiday ... yippee so what are we doing ... clearing out the old bathroom ready for gutting on Wednesday and relocating everything from the neighbouring closet. Oh, the excitement!, the thrills ;o)

Other big news is that the ground floor bathroom is finished (yes, Rik, where you and Karen slept is now a bath). This may not be exciting news to you but that's how big things get around here.

So, we just watched England get knocked out of the World Cup on penalties. Well done England for getting as far as you did, especially against some ridiculous dives and foul playing by the Portugese. I'm not sure what Rooney was sent off for, but it looked like he accidentally stepped on the guy's bits, but, BUT, he should not have pushed the other player and shouted at the referee (if that's what he got the red card for the fair enough, he has to control that temper).

Anyway, I think that after a week of staring at the computer screen ... one website launched, one PowerMac rebuilt (bloody harddrive gave out!) and finding some more work (web not 3D :0( ...) I think it's about time to enjoy some sun, as the weather has finally dried up around here .... hmmm what to do .... I know I think we'll go see the new Superman flick (indoors.... out of the sun.... DOH!)

Have a good weekend,

Silk/Spence