Psychotomy

went to my parents yesterday and took ‘em out to dinner. left k home so we could sit around and chat too

topics of conversation changed regularly as i bailed out of discussions to avoid arguments, since it was father’s day after all :)

there was the energy price increase (maryland deregulated in 98/99, cut the prices (the ones based from regulation and pretty rock-bottom in theory) by 5% or 10% or something, held the prices for 7 years. jul 1 the company we’re with was raising now that they could. 72%. my parents company was going up 39% or so). my dad looked at his new bill and the production cost (which is the only part that changed) went up 67%. so he was on a tear about the 38% being an utter fabrication and double books and shell games. i made a brief point about the fact that he has to pay the rest ANYWAY, so the overall is 38%. sure, its a little misleading, but the stuff i kept seeing was talking about total bill anyway.

then there was actual power consumption. b/c they have gas furnace, gas water heater, gas dryer, they have the gas price as the main in the winter more than energy. we’re all electric, so it’s pretty consistent. theirs was huge this last winter. my dad was on about the natural gas prices (which gas happens to be the same energy company as the electric) being a much higher rise than the electric. electrics only ~3c/kwh. of course, theres a lotta kwh’s in a month :o I think their bill was so high over the winter for the same reason their electric is relatively low in the summer. they like it warm. therm was set to 85 yesterday. i think it stays over 80 in the winter, too. we’re 78 summer, 72 winter i believe (with 75 just around bed, and sometimes 68 when no one’s home). so we’re pretty consistent. they use a lot more energy in the winter keeping it sauna warm :o

there ws of course some general abuse of my tendency for hellish long showers … sometimes two or three times a day :o when i went to college, the water co declared the meter broken, estimated based on past usage and charged that. b/c it went down like 75% or something :o what can i say, i like hot showers :)

discussed what they wanted to do for their 40th next year. i was thinking maybe taking them to broadway/nyc. turns out they have a wedding there in sept, but they’re staying in jersey the other side of the lincoln tunnel b/c the hotel in manhattan is 170$/night. and since they’re staying at a motel8 for 60$/night, they’re gonna make it a week trip and do same-day tickets to shows from the tkt booth. which works for them b/c they don’t really care what they see, whereas when we were there we had actual preferences :o so no idea what we’re doing for that at this point.

cajun for dinner, which was decent. i couldn’t taste any black pepper, but everyone else said the food, including the shared appetizer, was nice and spicy. so i’m thinking my tastebuds are broken ;o

but, i was succesful in not getting into one of my usual big arguments with my dad. largely b/c i kept bailing instead of going forward like i might. but whatever works :)

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last weekend at the wedding, the small digicam (b/c i wasn’t hauling the slr around for a couple pics) was in use. it was an indoor thing, and kiir took some pics beforehand (me in a tux and a couple family shots i believe). the flash took a while to recharge, i’d guess ~10s, but she said closer to 30

so yesterday we went out to look at a new digicam. looked at a few models, timed the flashes. 4s, 5s, 7s. we tried ours, and it was 7s. don’t know if the flash does variant light (as in, flashes harder in darker) or if it really was only taking 7s last weekend. talked about it some, and she decided she wanted the new one, even though it doesn’t have an eye-viewer like she wanted.

so now we have a new digicam. and the old digicam. and the slr. and some film cams. oi.

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Been working on cleaning up a bunch of entries I imported from another group for the visible earth, lately. where by lately i mean “a month working on before the import to try to minimize after import time” followed by (so far) “a month after the import cleaning up the bits from the automation scripts I wrote to make things ‘close’”

one week of that after was thrown away when i realized i was accidentally deleting relevant information (not actually deleting it, but it was no longer connected to where it had been connected to, making it meaningless and untraceable)

now i’m done the major portion, and doing a second round of cleanup. i could technically punt this round of cleanup and let it slide. And I’m thinking I might :o gonna finish up today’s roundabout and see where it leaves me and decide then. hopefully I’ll be able to push these updates live before we leave for NY this weekend

of course, when I get back, I need to open access to the administration tools, which shouldn’t be hard but I’m afraid of what these yahoos might do :o and THEN i get to start on the massive earth observatory suck and redesign. which redesign, of course, the graphics designer hasn’t even vaguely started working on yet. but i’m sure somehow it’ll become my fault.

somewhere i’m supposed to develop a big calendar kindof damned thing. showing my tasks and delivery-dates for segments and crap like that. which could take me a month to fill out on it’s own. or, might, if the webapp i downloaded for it worked :/

maybe i’ll write my own. could be fun for a day or two (i already know the basics of how to write a simple app of that nature; i could try to clean up my questionable old java knowledge :o or just hack it out in perl more likely)

and on top of all of this, I’M BORED. busy as heck. forbidden to work more than a 40hr week. but bored b/c i know HOW to do most of what i need, and implementation is not interesting as design/theory :/

anyway. back to “work”, where by work i mean “tediously and mindlessly doing more cleanup of these 7000 new entries and the 3000 relaed bits that i have to parse up”

maybe i’ll just punt it :o

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k had a nice weekend.

friday he had a grooming appt @ 2pm, so he could be all clean and have a new bandana an’ stuff.

saturday we went to my parents for my dad’s annual memorial day beginning of cookout season cookout (really, these days we make it to memorial day 1st and labor day last, generally, only). took k with us and he spent all afternoon with people throwing his ball and telling him how cute he was and giving him treats from the table (during the actual meal, i tied him to a tree so he wasn’t begging, but then i went and pulled the meat off a drumstick for him so he could have barbequed chicken like everyone else (except me, of course :p))

get home and he’s real tired. sunday morning i’m cooking b/c i’m not taking anything with us sunday afternoon. determined that, while K does like pineapple juice and will eat small chunks of pineapple if accompanied by juice, he’s less enthused by big chunks of pineapple on their own.

took a few dishes of food over for the afternoon, and K got to play (outside in the oppressive heat, he wants to go on record with) with cleopatra (a ~4-6mo sheltie) and a bunch of kids. Turns out he’s ambivalent on both dishes we took, but the cornbread was decent he felt ;)

in the evening we put the corn-cobs in the big fire to cook … apparently that was bad. the side on the coals burned in every one. ones we turned burned all around ;/ but we had 6 people and 12 corn, so everyone managed to get almost one ears worth :o

When i finished my first piece, i held it up for K. who then proceeded to do one of those things dogs can’t do but k can. he started eating the corn off the cob like a regular person. I swear dogs jaws aren’t supposed to be able to do that :o so he got hisself some corn (admittedly, much of it was burnt)

came home, he went to sleep quickly. spent most of today sleeping, until about 8pm he decided he realllly wanted to go for a walk :o

go figure. sleeping again now though :)

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had my psych appointment last week …

doc feels i don’t have adhd. b/c i was never expelled for knifing a teacher in kindergarten or somethign.

according to the stuff i’ve read, apparently adult adhd “symptoms must have been present since age 7 or earlier” for a diagnosis in an adult. it also says “the fact that you’ve not been diagnosed until adulthood … a compliment to your ability to cope/hide the symptoms” …

so the fact that i didn’t get diagnosed means i don’t have it b/c if i did have it i would have been diagnosed, unless i hid it and didn’t get diagnosed, and do have it except i can’t have it b/c i didn’t. or don’t. or something.

fuck.

and i can’t really figure out how taking amphetamines is supposed to help me concentrate and be less restless …

not that doc’ll give them to me. damnit.

*sigh*

am i gonna need a new psych?

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took k for his evening walk when i got home. sat down to read for a bit.

and like 20 minutes he wanted to go out, where he wandered and explored and stuff and then came back inside. for 5 minutes, then he was very awake and ready for a walk. *sigh*

took him out again, and this time we met gelly (gilly? something like that). she was playing a bit with nelly and tater. don’t ask me, i didn’t name them :o

so k went to play. nelly figured out how to grab his leash to try to control him, so i actually took k off leash. and he ran around a bunch, i threw the tennis balls for k and gelly and nelly chased them.

important discovery: italian greyhounds might be marginally faster than K :o nelly kept catching him. gelly i think may be a mix, but she was pacing him on chasing the ball. but she kept overshooting/missing, so k would grab it. and nelly would be tearing along around them

spent an hour i think throwing the ball. everyone was well tired when i finished

‘cousre, that was 10 minutes ago, and k’s bouncing around the house. that might be b/c i’m eating ice cream (part of your balanced diet when used in place of food, right?) and kiir’s eating steak :o

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missed krav thursday. storm giving me a headache. bleah

went saturday, though. except they were throwing multiple punches and elbows and bryan was instructing … i’ve only learned one punch to date, and jeff was supposed to be running the level 1 course … so i decided that i had somehow ended up entirely in the wrong time slot (bryan was supposed to be teching the kids all day, so not sure how the time would matter, offhand, but i got nothing else going here) and left.

decided over the weekend that ‘m probably going to sell my car (probably ~6k for it at carmax; 8-10 if i sold it in the classifieds but that seems like it’d be so much more work; may still look into it) the money’d pay off a credit card and provide enough to cover the year’s worth of krav dues

pysch said this morning that i probably don’t have adhd. “it’s extremely unusual to develop adhd as an adult if you didn’t have it as a child” … well, i don’t know. i MIGHT HAVE, not like i have ever been tested. and, offhand, i’d say it’s more than ‘extremely’ unlikely to develop an allergy/reaction to meat … but i seem to have nailed that one. want me to talk to my parents see if maybe i was hyper as a child and always moving (duh; i was a kid, hello?) apparently being in the gifted program and not getting weekly detentions for trying to knife a teacher means i can’t be adhd.

ordered a krav book and a lockpicking book over the weekend, as well as picks. near as i can understand md law, it seems i’m ok as long as i own without intent. posession with intent to use or allow to be used in an illegal manner, that’s illegal (intent is illegal what? thought police!) but since i don’t , i should be ok

she’s got exams today. we skipped mother’s day at my folks yesterday so she could study (or sleep, depending on which part of the day; she hasn’t been sleeping well at night lately); today and tomorrow. i think she said …

may hit krav tonight. may go tomorrow after her last exam

apparently her mom’s coming this weekend, i’d forgotten. i’m disinclined to clean, ince i spent 3 weeks last time non stop cleaning, and both of htem said “wow, this place really needs cleaning” … it’s like in school. i can spend forever working and get a C. or i can spend 30 seconds and get a C. screw the work.

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whee

earth observatory won the people’s voice. again.

by the third time, it’s just not exciting anymore :o

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went to the intro session for krav maga today (Wikipedia entry)

it’s a heck of a workout, that’s for sure. And i figure it’ll give me a chance to maybe burn off some agression. and energy. and fat. and agression

it’s been suggested that i have anger issues …

and if nothing else, i’ll get a lot of exercise and learn how to kill someone with my bare hands :o

(well, actually, i think they teach primarily the self-defense component; but I’m thinking a lot of self-defense could be recycled. a huge ass kick to the groin, for instance :o)

we signed up for the year, we’ll see how it goes. hope it works out better than the gym. we still have a year and a half on the gym, and i’m only making it an average of once a week lately. maybe a little less, even, than that :/

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in the past I’ve been to the quack (“you’re lactose intolerant” “but it’s turkey that makes me sick. i can eat a lb of cheese no prob” “you’re lactose intolerant”)

I’ve been to the gastroenterologist (“it’s not bread or anything? try eating some whole grain for a few days, maybe that’ll make you sick” “nope” “hrrm. OK, lets take a look” “well, you’re perfectly fine and healthy. Except that whole meat thing”)

The new doc (“Huh. Well, OK. I guess as long as you’re not eating meat and that solves the problem, that’s fine”)

So today we finished the series and hit the allergist. After talking, he declared that it was HIGHLY unlikely that i happened to be allergic to 4 seperate thigns (it is?) (FOUR? wha 4?). And if it were a meat thing i should trigger off peanuts (where’s teh beef dude!)

But we ran the food allergy tests. My arm itched a lot, and i think i had some red spots, but only the positive test came up “positive” (and htey never told me what the rest of hte plugs were; i know one was a negative, but dunno which)

So, his verdict? Other than the fact i can’t eat meat, there’s nothing wrong with me!

Well, no. To be honest he acknowledged that I have what they refer to as a “adverse reaction” or something. Meat bad. But that doesn’t make any sense, have I tried organic meat?

Many dr’s later: I’m perfectly fine, except I can’t eat meat. Or I shouldn’t eat meat. Or I shouldn’t eat part of the meat. Or something.

Meanwhile, back to the fish :p

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