Hermetic Physics

Below you'll find the wholly-remarkable (if only for the curiousity of why I wrote it down in the first place) ramblings of a, well... er, uhm, whatever I am. Yes, there are a lot of quizzes - consider it self-psychoanalysis... but you'll also find some gems of wisdom from yours truly.


Well, "gems of wisdom" a rough phrase meaning "rant against idiocy."


PLEASE NOTE SOME ENTRIES ARE LISTED (unfortunately) "FRIENDS ONLY," as a little more of my life has been spreading around the Academy than I thought was appropriate. ;-) If you think I could be a better person by adding you to my friends list, drop me a line. By doing so, you'll get the juicy, disturbing, frightening, and I'd-frankly-not-like-to-get-fired bits that are left out of the public version. :-)


In any case, remember the rules:
1) Read and comment all you want, but if you start throwing sarcasm my way, make sure you're prepared to drown in it.
2) I'll say some things that will offend you. I use LJ as a way to be honest with the world (one of the few venues I have available to me), and I can't afford to PC my way around the more thorny bits.
3) If you can't handle lots and lots of News from the World of Science - slowly back away now.


Fortunately, I started LJ late enough that I could retrace and add tags. As I add more to the journal, I'll include them here... so feel free to jump directly to what interests you.

Happy Birthday Week to:

piraticalintent
jackalsmischief <== today
drknspooky

::waves::

Hey gidster,
darknspooky cross-posted this on an email list I'm on... I thought you'd find it interesting. Of course, darkbobeep may drool as well. ;-P

Someone who knows Palin

I was talking to The Freak on the phone this evening... and an email came in - with an attachment. The title he sent with it? "Kid and rats"



Russ thought I'd like to see her looking at me while talking to me while I talked to her and looked at her while she was talking to me. (I think I'm missing a few "looked at"'s and "talked to"'s in there somewhere.) If that didn't make any sense, imagine it happening in real time.

Frankly, I found it ~creepy~.

In our case, I don't think "absence makes the heart grow fonder" (not wired that way), but it sure has hell does increase the chill up my spine on occasion. Sometimes I seriously wonder if I helped birth the Anti-Christ.

God I hope so.

Boy, it sure would be nice to sleep. :-/

N A V A N
To hell with Vicodin. Vanilla cognac works wonders.
(and no, I'm not operating on Navan & Vicodin at the same time... that'd just be silly)

Navan has some serious advantages over Vicodin:
1) it tastes better
2) it does what Vicodin is supposed to do, only better. And faster. And it won't lock up my intestinal tract.
3) it's from Madagascar. <-- that has to count for ~something~

Of course, I'm also playing "arcade" games on Webkinz so The Freak can have some extra spending "cash". Her pony does need a toilet, after all.
Although, I have found a new definition of gold-farmer: A 39 year old Physicist playing a math-based arcade game geared for 6 year olds. Cha-ching!

Damn my pathological aversion to drugs.
Why someone who has been known (every once in a while... generally whenever in proximity to lordlothair) to drink himself under a table, and also has a physiological addiction to Caffeine, would be so dead-set against narcotics of any kind is beyond me.
I guess that's my own little bit of hypocrisy: Someone else can take narcotics for pain, but *I* can't. Except it's goddamned backwards. ::grr::

By now I should be on my 17th Vicodin. I'm on #3.

And that little brown plastic bottle is looking pretty appealing right now. I hurt. :-/

Of course, it didn't help that I heard the phrase "genocide simulator" on a Warhammer Online podcast and couldn't stop giggling. Now THAT hurt.

( general whining - avoid if possible )
If I have spoken/chatted/texted with you in the past few hours and sounded like an asshole not quite like myself a bit gruff, I apologize.

Ooh! While I'm rambling... there are three problems that I'm supposed to look out for - all of them pretty interesting.
a) internal infection (of which I will only know about if my fever starts to peak)
b) a bile leak (which by the time I notice myself turning yellow (the only outward symptom), it's already gone a bit far down the severity scale)
c) internal bleeding (of which the first sign is me passing out. the second sign is me dying.)

It would be nice if these symptoms gave me a bit more warning. Especially since I'm spending the next 30 hours by myself up here. ;-) Normally when littlebella1980 and jackalsmischief head out for a weekend, I crack open the booze and invite women-of-low-standards into the house. I don't think I'm really up for either right now.
What to do. What to do.

Surgery went much faster than expected, but then again, the techs don't call Dr. Cassel "Speedy Gonzales" behind his back for nothing. :-) The lap was all that was needed... no major incisions (of which I am grateful).

I had originally asked (nearly everyone I saw) if I could keep the Gall Bladder in a jar. Nothing like making a public example of one troublemaker to placate the rest of them. In the end, something was odd enough with the gall-bladder that they needed to ship it out to Pathology... but my surgeon thought that this would be a nice consolation prize.

Well, I now know why my back hurt so badly:

Try squeezing this through a duct a few mm in diameter.

I'll know more details next week regarding where (exactly) this monster was, and in what condition the surgeon found Mr. Wussy McFailfail.

I'll add more when I can actually see the monitor. The brain isn't working at peak efficiency right now.

I'll hide the next pic under a cut for the squeamish among you. ;-)
( Mmmm. Surgery wounds... )

One hour, eleven minutes until I have to stop taking in fluids.
Normally that wouldn't bother me, since I've been known to go over 36 hours w/o drinking because I forgot that I need to... but if this is like every other freak'n time, as soon as 12:01am comes around I'm going to have a craving for anything wet.

Say I can't have something, and I can be sure that it'll top my NEED priority list.

So... I'm staying up to midnight to down fluids until my eyeballs float. ;-)
____

This ride has been interesting.

I am fully aware that a laparoscopy is pretty much the safest, most complication-free surgery known to our species. But humor me for a moment. I've prepped myself for death so many goddamned times that it's started to become second nature whenever *any* chance, however small, the possibility arises. Hell, I've caught myself doing it when I'm driving on the interstate during a thunderstorm. You can call it a hobby by now. Granted, an odd, slightly morbid hobby, but a relatively harmless one. :-D When I held my dying father-in-law (long story there), I realized that I was with a man who did ~not~ prepare for that moment, despite months of forewarning in a hospice... and I think my subconscious, then and there, put in safeties that the same situation would NOT happen to me. No-sir-ee... I was going to have all my ducks in a row. Or is that "monkeys in a barrel." Well, whatever.

Well, so far so good. :-)

'bella doesn't seem to appreciate the topic of my recent fixation though. For instance, I tried to make sure that she would at least take a picture if she found me hemorrhaged on the bed once I got home. She pretty much ruled that one out.
Come on! How many times have you had a scene from Carrie unfold in your bedroom? Blood all over the ceiling? That'd be great! :-D
___

In any case, I'm 99.99% sure that I'll be on LJ tomorrow night blogging about how crappy I feel. Or bitching about a particular heavy-handed nurse, or the fact that I'm STARVING and not allowed to eat solid food... or something.

In the 0.01% chance that I'm not...
...just think of how much fun I'll be having when I'm unshackled from this meat-sack.
Don't be afraid. That nightmare is just me saying "hello." :-)
___

38 minutes - and back to the fridge!

Just got my invite for the Warhammer: Age of Reckoning Open Beta. :-)

Squee!

Garry... we found a new LJ icon for you.
http://www.funbumperstickers.com/images/Gary_the_snail_S.gif
"Meow!"

2 days to prep for the 2nd job at BSU.
4 days to prep for 13 new lab sessions.
2 days to prep for the "3rd" job of liaison for my archived distance-learning classes.
2 days before I head off for a weekend of judging (granted: I'm excited about this one).
9 days before surgery.
13 days before I need to be back at work after surgery.

And then things get busier.
Woo.

(lesson? be careful what you wish for... you'd think I'd have learned that by now)

Ugh. Tired.
Thursday I drove down to Indy to go to the GenCon spawned goth night. Made it back up in Muncie at 4:30pm just in time to get a few hours sleep before heading off for work Friday morning.
Friday I got home, packed up, and went *back* down to Indy to crash at darknspooky's place.
Saturday I found myself at GenCon (finally). I knew that I wouldn't have much to do there... seeing that I already play the RPG that I like, have not-a-lot of excitement about any of the upcoming MMO's, and already have *lots* of fun board-games that sit in my closet because I have no one around with whom to play.
But, the exhibit hall was certainly worth the price of admission (which was steep). I think from here on out I'll just consider GenCon a once-a-year unique mall where I can pick up new shirts to wear to my six-times-a-year goth night outings.
Thursday night I got the invite to the White Wolf party (mainly because littlebella1980 was being paid to cage dance there). Strangely, yet again, other people proved cooler-than-me by being further invited into the ever more exclusive back room. ::cough kesyrah cough::
We made it back to darknspooky's house around 4am and crashed long enough to leave in the morning for Muncie - where we spent *another* several hours playing Harn with the new group up here.

So, all in all, a l o n g weekend of music and gaming. Can't say I can complain much.

Gaack. I'm just running words together. I ~may~ try to reword this tomorrow when my brain is running on more than 3 hours sleep.

( random updates )

Now things are making a bit more sense in the medical arena.

Doc called this morning to talk about a surgery date. Apparently the ultra-sound yesterday morning found some gall-stones that were too big to pass... which isn't surprising since I've had them for THREE YEARS. ;-)
The picture becomes more clear when you realize that these puppies have been causing an infection in the entire region, which caused inflamation, which is why the Sodium Naproxin used to work (keywords "used to").
It also explains why the scan yesterday afternoon couldn't find the little bastard. It's probably already necrotic (or well on its way). No blood flow to the area, no way for the gamma indicator to show up on the scan.

What confuses me is that gall-stones are supposed to be in the top three most painful 'illnesses' that a human being can have (right up there with kidney stones and childbirth). I'll be the first to admit that the past three years wasn't fun... but I'm not sure I'd agree with what I've been reading regarding the pain level.

Yes it was a constant 2-3. Twice a week it would sustain a 6.
Once a week it would peak to an 8 for several hours.

So, either I need to re-evaluate my pain-scale...
Or all of you mom types can send me cash, or I let your secrets out. Mwhahaha

So, surgery for me to keep the gangrene from killing me. (hooray!)
Missing a chunk of the crucially important first few weeks of classes. (booo!)

Thanks to jackalsmischief, I may have found a way pay for a new car:

I have until 7am to sell my body to North Korea. I'd better hurry, since the price will probably drop with my Becquerel count.

So... test 4 of 4 (round 2) of med procedures ended today, and what was supposed to be a "quick" (30-60m) imaging period, followed by another "quick" (30m) functional diagnostic ended 2 hours later with one bored patient and three exasperated lab techs.

It's hard to move on to the 'functional diagnostic' phase (i.e. inject a synthetic hormone to get my GB to 'work' on demand), when they can't find the damned organ in the first place.

So I spent two hours of "move this way please... now don't breathe for 30 minutes" and "lay on your right side please... now don't breathe for 30 minutes" and "just one more... we'll get it this time," etcetera ad nauseum.

With this in mind, I take back what I said about Mr. Wussy. He isn't a pansy organ.
If he is what is actually causing all my symptoms, then he's a damn good assassin, since my gall bladder is:
1) trying to kill me.
2) somehow can't be found in a 3D x-ray scan of my entire lower torso

So what I have to show for my day is a loss of ~another~ 3 hours (1 for the morning ultrasound and 2 for the afternoon fiasco) out of my life.
Okay, although the whole ordeal was annoying, some good things came from it:

1) The main lab-tech assigned to me was cute, tiny, and cute. Did I mention cute? She was also, to date, the smartest lab tech I've ever seen... which made her even more cute. If there is a word that means "more cute" than cute, I would use it for her. English sucks.
Her name was "Charity" though, for which I am grateful... since by a convoluted pathway of thought I was led in interesting directions during my 2 hour bore-a-thon.

(Make a fist with your left hand, thumb on top. Place right thumb and right fore-finger together, and move in circles approximately 2 inches from left hand. nightharbinger may be the only one to get this, but at least I took one person on this ride with me.)

2) The Technetium-99 currently running through my blood-stream has a half-life of 6 hours. So by international standards I'm a legal gamma-ray source until 7am tomorrow morning. w00t! Who wants a hug!

Oh... and I almost forgot.
CT scans and other unsavorables tomorrow! I *am* looking forward to the radioactive blood, but am *not* looking forward to the No Food Or Drink from Midnight to 3pm.

I can go 2 days w/o food or water because I FORGET to eat or drink, but I can pretty much guarantee that at 12:01am I'll suddenly feel ~~very~~ thirsty. :-(

Hmm.... only 8 hours of meetings today. Not 11. (I was able to avoid 3 hours worth - w00t)

3rd hour in = best meeting (General Faculty/Staff)
Did you know that I shouldn't accept lingerie from a child? Really! It's true. I learned that today.
I also learned (granted, I had an inkling of this already) that exposing a colleague's breasts in the middle of a meeting can get you fired.
Granted, I didn't see either of these, but it was ~assured~ to me by _experts_ that both statements are indeed valid.

I was also assured that a 17 year old girl walking naked into my office is NOT a reason to engage in sexual relations with her. That, fortunately, I knew quite a few years ago. ;-)

___

7th hour in = 2nd best meeting (Science Division)
Science Division Chair: "I was told by certain parties that Steve did an upstanding job on the Professional Affairs Committee, and that we'd be doing the Academy a great service by electing him to it again for the next 3 year term."
Me (a bit surprised): "Huh. That's a far cry from what 'certain parties' said when I was elected to this post 3 years ago."
::general laughter from division::
Science Division Chair: "That's what I told him."

It's nice to see that I finally won over the Executive Director... and I did it without giving in, dammit! w00t! Goes to prove that even 60 year old alpha-males can be broken. ;-P

...okay well not *that* high energy. I'm in no immediate danger of turning green and spilling purple dye on my underwear, but photon wavelengths in the Angstrom range shouldn't be disregarded either.

X-rays, my old buddies.

I had a lot more today... despite:
1) 2 months ago I had a 45 minute long X-ray session (with contrast, hooray).
2) I get more than enough x-rays teaching in a room across from the BSU coal-plant (you should hear the Geiger counters scream when you point them at it).
3) If #2 wasn't enough, I live in front of the photo-copier at work - and CERTAINLY get my daily allowance of x-rays from that (again, fun times with Geiger counters).
4) 20 years ago I sat in front of a 50,000 volt concentrated x-ray crystallography beam (long story) for ~TWENTY MINUTES~. That should get me out of every gods-be-damned x-ray session for at least five life-times.

It turns out that lab-techs are terribly interested in your x-ray history.

I also got poked a few times and have a bit less blood at the moment than I woke up with this morning.

And on Wednesday I go back in for Ultrasounds and a (w00t! More x-rays... only this time it'll be my ~blood~ that produces them. Ooooh...) CT Scan.

I suppose this is what I get when I finally go back to the doctor about that nasty back-pain I've been having ((4/16/08)). I gave him the run-down on all the new symptoms (I'll do you all a favor and not embellish on 'em - lets just say they've gotten a bit more irritating), and he started talking about Gall Bladders.

Gall Bladders.

If this is truly what my issue has been (hence all the tests), I certainly lost out on the "Masculine Disease Lottery." Gall bladder? Come on... it's a squirt gun for slime, and a wussy one at that! I would have settled with kidney function, or liver disease... I would have even been happy with stomach ulcers. Hell, with all the damned x-rays I at least deserve cancer.

Gall Bladders...

In any case, after we pieced together the fact that most of my symptoms would be explained if that wussy organ was dying on me (literally), I told him that my mother had a lot of issues with her's... and finally had to have it removed a few years back.

He made some comment about "you'd think you would have told me that already"... it wasn't worth the conversation to explain that my mother had been moved into the non-relevant closet of my head years ago. The idea that something about her may actually be relevant never really occurred to me.

So, if this line of research runs the course, I'll be saying bye to ice-cream.
And greasy hamburgers.
And cheese. <== ::oh god no::

Oh, and I'll also be saying bye to my ~GALL BLADDER~.

"Good Riddance," I'd say.
__

Of course, it may not be the puny-squirt-gun-of-ineptitude. But it would be nice if this series of tests would find **something** (other than my wallet much much MUCH emptier).
___

Strangely, other than the heap o' money I'll be paying for my "share" of the procedures, I'm pretty blase about it. As I said in an earlier post: life itself isn't too bad at the moment. I'm just looking forward to not hurting all the time. ;-)