dasgeek

So a friend and coworker of mine suffered an aortic dissection last week.  He was at his gun club last Thursday and told the people he was shooting with he really did not feel well.  They took him to the ER, and the next thing everyone knew he was off for emergency open heart surgery.  In spite of the best efforts of the surgeons, he  suffered complications.
Yesterday his family was told that there was a complete lack of normal brain activity, and was removed from life support as per his wishes.  Although he has not stopped breathing, the friend I known for 10 years is gone.  His family is now gathered around his bedside on a death vigil.
He is 10 years younger than I am, doesn't drink, doesn't smoke.. a pretty average Joe if you discount how frighteningly smart he is.  The world is a shade dimmer with his passing.
RIP, Steve.

Yesterday afternoon was a new and different experience for me.  L invited me to attend a Native American "sweat".  That's right, complete with red hot rocks, chanting, singing, drumming and a sweat lodge.  Although I'm fairly reserved by nature I found myself beating a drum and chanting along (Well, I do not speak Lakota, so not very well!).

Then it was into the lodge, stripped down to a pair of boxers to be nearly melted by red-hot rocks.  I have no idea what the actual temperature was inside, but it was way beyond "toasty".  Just about the time I thought I was getting used to the heat, the lodge master dumped a couple of ladles of water on to the glowing rocks.  Oh  My  GAWD.  The added humidity just about took away my breath.  Ten minutes of that and I was ready to ask for the door and take a break (Fortunately for my pride, someone else asked for it first!).

Well, to make a long story short, the rest of the afternoon was spent either gasping for air and guzzling water outside or inside the lodge pouring out sweat and listening to the Native Americans recount tribal history and legends.  The whole event was followed with a feast of Minnesota wild rice soup and bread with one very untraditional twist-  red wine to wash it down with.

No, I did NOT have any visions or great revelations.  No, I did not get adopted by the Lakota Nation.  Yes, I did get "smudged" several times.  Yes, I did gain a few new understandings of the Lakota.  Yes, I was invited back to the next sweat by several people and yes I will go again.

Interestingly enough I did feel pretty darned good when all was said and done.  I think that perhaps sweating out about a gallon of sweat may have done me some good!  I do know that I drank about one and a half GALLONS of water during the day and had no desire to visit the restroom until after I got home....

L wants me to put up a small sweat lodge here at home, out by the fire pit but I will have to think that one over.  I'm not that sure I want to have that many visitors (Most of whom I won't know.) here and building a sweat lodge is a non-trivial task as well.

PS.
Lakota is NOT a misspelling, in case you were wondering if I had lost the ability to use a spell-checker.

Read this please and protect yourself!  And be very wary about unsolicited "dream job" offers...
The link to the web page is at the end of the warning below-

 Monster.com and USAJobs.gov's databases compromised
Published: 2009-01-23,
Last Updated: 2009-01-23 22:55:51 UTC
by Joel Esler (Version: 1)
0 comment(s)

We got a tip from a reader (thanks David!), that apparently
Monster.com's database and USAJobs.gov's database was compromised and
information was stolen.  To clarify, USAJobs.gov's database is ran by
Monster, as outlined in their post here.

(Monster's press release is here.)

Quoting from USAJobs.gov's website:

"We recently learned that the Monster database was illegally accessed
and certain contact and account data were taken, including user IDs
and passwords, email addresses, names, phone numbers, and some basic
demographic data. The information accessed does not include resumes.
The accessed information does not include - sensitive data such as
social security numbers or personal financial data."

So I am sure some phishing attempts will come of this, as both of the
press releases allude to.

Monster states in their release that you will be required to change
your password on the site soon.  So I'd recommend that you go ahead
and do that proactively.  Don't use a password that you'd use anywhere
else. (For those of you that use the same password on Monster.com and
yourbankhere.com.  You know who you are!)

http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=5737&rss

Well, winter has officially arrived according to the Calender any way.  I spent the day shoveling the driveway and decks after 7 inches of snow fell yesterday.  Actually I shoveled yesterday as well but overnight winds of 25 to 30 MPH drifted the driveway over, and what was not accomplished by Mother Nature was covered nicely by the snowplows.  It was a refreshing -11 degrees below zero when I started, and warmed up to a sweltering 5 above during the heat of the afternoon.  Coupled with that wind, the wind chill readings were in the -25-35 ranges all day long.

It should be a pretty quiet week for me at work, as almost the entire company is pretty much GONE until next year.  Unfortunately, I still have some things to get done before I can call 2008 over so I will be in the office Monday and Tuesday and working from home on Friday.

Dull entry, but I am just too tired to be witty and entertaining.

Long time readers will remember a previous entry about the syncope episodes I have been experiencing of late, and the resulting battery of exams and tests that I have undergone to try and find the cause.  After nothing but negative results my doctors decided that the most likely cause was a moderately advanced case of CVI in my left leg, and after three months of no results with conventional therapy decided to go with a surgical solution.
So, Thursday was the day I was scheduled for both a aambulatory phlebectomy and a saphenous vein ablation. 

First step was to go into a pre-op room where the nice nurses gave me a fashionable hospital robe, had me strip below the waist and proceeded to map the veins in my leg with a high-tech ultrasound scanner, and a LOW-tech sharpie marker and inject anesthetic at the incision points.  So far so good, although the nurses had a pretty good chuckle when I blushed like an idiot during the "upper" mapping stages.  "Dale, can you please hold 'The boys' out of the way while I connect the dots?"".  Sheesh.

Next I had to stand around and walk for a few minutes to encourage the veins to make themselves expand and present the best possible target for the procedure, clutching the robe closed as not to flash anyone.  WHY do hospital robes close in the back anyway???  Fifteen minutes prior to entering the operating area, the nurse gave me three tabs of Valiums and warned me that I would start feeling them in about ten minutes.  Sure enough, ten minutes later and I was a very happy idiot!  Off to surgery I went.

The vein ablation procedure was actually pretty cool, as well as fairly painless.  The surgeon let me watch the screen as they ran a laser equipped catheter from an insertion point just above my ankle and ran it all the way up to my groin, injected a local anesthetic into the vein and then started zapping with the laser as he withdrew the catheter.  There was some minor discomfort, but it was bearable.  I'm guessing that the whole procedure was finished in 30 minutes or so.

The ambulatory phlebectomy began next.  Not so fun.  Lots of pulling and snipping accompanied by the surgeon muttering that they really should have made the incisions a hair less "micro" as he was having a hard time getting the veins out of my leg and into the light of day where they could be snipped and removed.  This part of the adventure went well past the time that was projected, and was decidedly not pleasant. The high point of this procedure?
"Hey Dale, want to see what a vein looks like?"  Folks, there is a REASON that skin is opaque!  Ewww...  In any event the surgeon eventually called his work done, told me to have a nice day and hastily departed leaving me in the care of the nurses who cleaned up the incisions, used some surgical version of Krazy Glue to close them and promptly wrapped my legs up in surgical dressings, two double length ace bandages and a layer of self adhesive wrap from foot to thigh.

Still feeling pretty good, I was walked to the recovery room, laid down on a table for about half an hour while they wrote up my post procedure sheet and (Damn it!) told "L" what I was and was NOT allowed to do.  Finally I was allowed to get out of the accursed robe and dress for my ride home.  On the way out, the nurse handed me prescription for some pain killers, and told me I should be sure to fill it on the way home, as I would be in some "significant" discomfort in a few hours after the local anesthetics wore off.  No kidding.

Three hours later I felt as if I had been hit with a Louisville Slugger wrapped in barbed wire.  I had no qualms whatsoever in popping two of the oxycodones, two ibuprofen and limping off to bed to put my leg up and whimper quietly for the rest of the night.  Friday was a bit better and I was able to work from home most of the day, other than a trip to the doctors office to have the dressings changed and the ace wraps replaced by the accursed compression stocking.  I did manage to get through the day without taking any of the narcotics, but it was definitely an extra-strength Tylenol day in addition to the ibuprofen.

Still feeling some discomfort today, but I hope that a shower will help, as well as some moderate exercise.  Photographs and such will have to wait for a bit, but I will remember to take a snap or two before the shower.
Post Op1
Pincushion
X Marked the Vein

I guess it had to come- but I had hoped to use the Weber a few more times this year!

This is SO apropos of how I feel about the election results:

http://userfriendly.org/

But I for one am very, very annoyed with the automated calls from various committees,  all with the same damned message.  I am tempted to just turn the ringers on the land lines off until after the elections.

I think I have determined why my basement office tends to be the warmest room in the house.  But when I am really playing/working hard, it gets even warmer.  Let us not go into details of the server closet!  I suspect that the local power company will be sending me a Christmas card or something....
I also suspect that just maybe I have a bit of a geek in me.