Spectrum

I;ve got to tell you, every damn time I see one of these studies, it really does make me feel good that children and adolescents will likely have a better-adjusted future than I had. But the thing that still bugs the hell out of me is that if you're an adult dealing with a VERY late diagnosis, there doesn't seem to be much - if anything - that "the community" wants to approach. How the hell am I supposed to deal with a Klinefelter Syndrome diagnosis so late in life, particularly when I think about what my life MIGHT have been like?

Anyway, this is good reading. Hope it helps for anyone dealing with an EARLY diagnosis, but know this...

You're not alone.

The Spectrum of the Behavioral Phenotype in Boys and Adolescents

If I Am Silent...

Let's see... where was I?

Apparently, there's a blog here with my name on it. And it would appear that I have not done a single damn thing with it for over...

Jeez.

Over a year-and-a-half.

So why the sudden interest in adding a new entry? Let's see... since many of my long-ago posts were (not) about work, let's start with that topic.

I'd been employed in 2011 when I had to go on medical leave for glaucoma. Was off work for a time before finding chainmaille jewelry as a hobby which I hoped would turn into a long-term profession, but found it to be not profitable. Not surprising, since the market is quite flooded with maillers.

Which led to a stint with a senior employment program with the county. Which led to an actual job as an Animal Care Specialist - which unfortunately ended as money ran out for part-time employees. It was back to the senior employment program after only seven weeks.

Then, in March of this year, I found a sweet job with an A/V company. Great benefits, great people, great everything. Until...

Let's just say for now that I'm on short-term disability. Maybe if I get my ass in gear and I can get back in the "keeping my mind busy and update this thing more than every eighteen months" frame of mind, look forward to more entries.

In the meantime, yes, I'm still here.

Funny Random Crap

Cat playing a Theremin.

Apparently, I have a knack for finding funny, random crap. Finding someone willing to pay me for finding funny, random crap? I'd be set for life.

Still Here

Yeah, only posting once a year or so doesn't exactly want you to hang around, but I'm working on that. The following will keep you amused until I get back. Today in history

COSCO Step Stool Chair

Everything old is new again, it seems.

Occasionally, this thing shows up in my Facebook feed - usually as a "remember this" sort of post. Thing is, it's still being produced.

I'm sure the CPSC has a problem with it, but those who grew up with them understand the risk. Functional? YES. Something to let your grandkids play on? Probably not. But hey: just like that comfort food you eat to take yourself back to a simpler time, so, too, will sitting on this chair/step-stool.

Go buy one. Relive simpler times.

To Bead or Not To Bead

It started out innocently enough. I'd seen a beading/jewelry project that I knew Marilee would really like. Yes, I've spent enough time watching QVC and HSN with her, so I know what she liked. But this little project was different, not so much that I wanted her to make it; no, I WANTED TO MAKE IT FOR HER.

"Create Your Own Snowmen Earrings For The Season!" With only 14 parts for the two earrings, it seemed easy enough. To put together, yes.

I soon learned making the thing was the easy part - finding the bits 'n' pieces was the hard part. Nightmare, even. There's only two round beads for the body, two flat beads for the hat and scarf... but are they FLAT beads, or are they Rondelle beads, or are they discs...

I bailed on the project and just showed Marilee the picture and dropped the subject. But kept the idea in the back of my mind.

The beginning of Winter has come and gone, and so has Christmas. Now in the New Year, it IS still Winter, and plenty of time for snowman making, both jewelry-wise and snow-wise. But why make one which involves cold weather and one that involves staying inside where it's warm?

Anyway... so I kept the idea floating in my mind. I'd mentioned the project to a good friend who makes her own jewelry to sell - her store on Etsy is here - she suggested a few stores to try out, but most weren't local to the Salt Lake Valley.

 I tried looking online for the stuff, but quickly got frustrated. It was gonna have to be a dream.

Marilee had in the past gotten beads for one project or another, so I knew she had it in her to get going on jewelry making. Maybe I'd even be interested in it, to a point.

So the other day on a less-than-successful search for bead stuff on the interwebs, I found there was a store right here in River City. Called Heart Beads Jewelry, they're even in the same time zone.

Marilee and I went there yesterday. Yes, WE.

SO much to choose from. Beads, findings, chains, you name it. But there's a kicker.
They offer free classes in beading stuff.

So when I suggested that WE go together, the folks there asked when we'd like to come for OUR class. "Any day is fine." "How about Thursday?" "That works."

Marilee then says "Should we make it before or after your nap?"

You could hear an eye-pin hit the floor.

Giggles, even a whole-gut laugh was heard.

"After," said I.

This 'n' That

Yeah, I'm still here. This post begins and ends with the sound of hissing steam. We'll get to that in a bit.

While I'd like to say I've been especially busy and unable to post an update, that would be quite a falsehood. As a good friend told me a while back, if nothing's going on, there's nothing to write about. So, yes, nothing's going on.

Well, other than coming to grips with having a disability.

I've had quite a battle in figuring out what to do with the rest of my life. Being unable to do what I was doing previously. And part of the battle is how, exactly, to write about it.

I'm on medical disability, that much is certain. But it won't last forever, at least from the source it's coming from now. Rather soon I'll have to figure out where my next source of income comes from.

And that scares the living sh!t out of me.

After two surgeries and drops for the rest of my life, the glaucoma has been arrested. But I cannot drive at night, and after today's activities of driving Marilee to a doctor's appointment, I found that driving in the rain is sketchy as well, what with the glare off the wet pavement.

Oh, and pay no attention to my driver's license coming due in January.

So Marilee and I have been keeping each other company for the last two-and-a-half months. Time which normally would have dragged on for-ev-er but now seems to fly by. We haven't quite driven each other too crazy; we go for drives, and for the last two weekends have given a dear friend some free time by taking her Alzheimer husband on day trips.

Yeah, we don't have it that bad.

Back to the sound of hissing steam. Actually, it never left.

As I write this - this, right now - it is midnight early Thursday AM. I've just been in bed trying to sleep for the last two hours or so. And now typing to you all.

That hissing steam sound has been between my ears for ever since my surgeries - aka ringing in the ears or tinnitus. I went to an Instacare a week or so ago; they said I'd need to go to a otolaryngologist - an ear, nose and throat specialist. My appointment is next Thursday. Most days it's background white noise, but tonight it's loud, Really loud.

Before I'd gone to the Instacare, Marilee and I agreed it was probably OK to go off my anti-anxiety meds, since I was no longer anxiety-prone; there was little chance of someone coming up behind me with a gun while working on [expletive deleted]'s ATM's. Yeah, I never mentioned that here. Didn't think it was necessary.

So I went off of them gradually, over a three-week period. And literally bit Marilee's head off with pointless verbal barbs. And promptly, gradually, went back on them. Asked the Instacare MD if that could be the cause, since I was on the downhill slide off of them at the time. "Not likely," he said, but more likely was the aspirin I take for cardiac health. Went off of those for two weeks without any difference.

Now, after poking around on the interwebs for a few days, find that any change in pressure - any pressure - can cause tinnitus. Grand - now I have a choice: loss of hearing or loss of sight.

I'll try to write more between now and next Thursday, but don't count on it.

Hopefully I'll soon be able to see through the steam cloud.

Blik

Neat little video done in the classic style. Really nice.

The Hunchcat Of Notre Dame

So I Got Lost On Youtube This Morning

I've got better, more important things to do today. But this particular losing of my mind made me ponder an almost imponderable notion.

The following video "explains" how MC Escher did some of his famous drawings. I'll be back after the video:



...me again. Yeah, that answers a hell of a lot. Could probably figure out how to do that in Photoshop and maybe win a few votes in an upcoming Fark contest. Whatever.

But back to that pondering of MC Escher - HE DID THOSE DRAWINGS WITHOUT A COMPUTER.

For You Wasteful Old Farts Out There

From Facebook:

At the store, the cashier told an older woman that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment.

The woman apologized and explained, "We didn't have the green thing back in my day."
The clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment."

The clerk was right about one thing -- our generation didn't have the green thing in its day.

Back then, we returned GLASS milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled.

But we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.

But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up a kilowatt or two -- wind and solar power really did dry the clothes. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.

But that old lady is right; we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief, not a screen the size of the state of Montana.

In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us.

When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used a wadded up old newspaper to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.

Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.

But she's right; we didn't have the green thing back then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.

But we didn't have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service.

We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.

But isn't it sad that the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then?

Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smart young person.

Why Did I Save That?

I was just poking around my hard drive, looking for cool pictures to use in Photoshop contests, and found one interesting text file that for whatever reason I'd decided to keep. On the desktop, no less.

[Yeah, some of you know what my Windows desktop looks like. As always, there's still room.]

Anyway, I think I saved the little tidbit below because it has everything to do with living in Utah. Or, rather, it just has to do with dealing with the other 60% of the population IN Utah.

In any case, the filename I saved it under was "Appearances."

Quite apropos:

"Mormonism is heavy on the appearance of conflict resolution, when in fact, it exacerbates both internal and outward conflict by emphasizing general "peace" at the expense of individual personality."

Space Shuttle: The Complete Missions

Asshole Is One Word

This morning had Marilee and I off to yet another eye appointment for me - a followup to my laser surgery for my left eye last Friday, and the surgery for my right eye today.

Everything went well, particularly since I didn't pass out this time.

When we'd gotten to the parking lot, there was one spot right near the door; at that moment, it hit me that...

"Hey! Maybe we can get a handicapped license plate!"

"I don't think you qualify for that... yet."

"I meant for you."

<crickets>

"...for putting up with me."

Talk about suddenly being put at ease with the impending doom of another surgery.

Later this afternoon, she turns to me and asks "What are we gonna do tomorrow?"

I'm slowly getting used to these questions, though only four days into my sabbatical, I'm starting to run out of ideas.

"...and are you going to be "normal Bob" or..."

She trailed off at that point, leaving it up to me to fill in the blanks.

"How many words?"

"Four."

"But asshole is one word."

Statistically Speaking

To this day, I still don't know what an "Earned Run Average" is. And I don't care. In my youth, my Dad read the box scores with aplomb; baseball was full of calculations. I think ERA pertained to pitchers, though I'm not quite sure. There was some sort of calculation involved, and that algorithm was set in stone YEARS before Visicalc and even Excel, though they're probably calculated in real-time now.

Anyway.

I just came from a world where people likely spent all day having algorasms trying to come up with a calculation that would pare down a statistic until they knew at a glance whether someone had taken a sh!t that day and whether it was affecting their performance. Really.

Yeah, I know at least ONE person who got a chuckle out of that one.

That kind of calculated performance tweaking only works for well-oiled machines.

IT DON'T WORK FOR PEOPLE.

Sabbatical

Marilee just asked me if I was bored.

"Not yet, but I'm working on it" was my reply.

It was about 7:45 when I'd just gone upstairs. She was still nodding off; I was playing with Bambi and Lexie when she asked.

You see, at 7:45am - every morning for the last two years or so - I'd have been leaving the house for my first call of the day. Wherever that was, as it depended primarily on where the great computer in the clouds decided I was to go. Except now, there's no computer in the clouds any more. Oh, I'm sure it's still there, but I have no way of seeing what's going on.

And that's making me a little stir-crazy. Part of me doesn't want to know what's going on. With one less person it's bound to get a bit crazy. Another body will be forthcoming, I'm sure, but when and for how long is still up to the powers-that-be.

Me? Oh, I'll stay busy if Marilee has anything to say about it. But I think I'll pace myself.

Right now, anyway, I've got all the time in the world.

Glaucoma Update: Day One After Surgery

Well, that was an interesting experience yesterday.

At the time, I wasn't nearly as anxious as I thought I would be. Maybe that was because a new chapter of my life was beginning. As I was having trouble seeing at night and my job on occasion requires me to drive after dark, I'm now on medical disability. And since Glaucoma is an irreversible disease, there's little chance I'll ever have another job doing what I did.

Anyway.

The procedure that was done is called Argon Laser Trabeculoplasty (ALT). An Argon laser creates tiny holes in the trabecular mesh that's supposed to let the aqueous humor drain out of the eye; if that mesh-work gets blocked, the eye's intra-ocular pressure builds, and Glaucoma results.

Only my left eye was worked on yesterday. I'll be having a followup exam this coming Thursday; if everything's cool, I'll have my right eye worked on the same day.

In the meantime, I'm still doing drops to lower the outflow for both eyes as well as some steroidal drops for my left eye.

Overall, I'm quite positive about the procedures. The outcome, of course, is that my Glaucoma won't get any worse. But the damage is already done.

Folks, if your eye doctor EVER says anything about Glaucoma, take him seriously. Don't mess with your vision.

I don't want to see you in my position.

Taking Things For Granted

OK, folks, this isn't BS. It's not even "bob's bs".

THIS is a protip of epic proportions.

I've battled depression, and still do. I've battled the knowledge that I have Klinefelter Syndrome, and still do. I've battled a lot of other things that don't come to mind just now.

But one thing I'm battling within the last twenty-four hours is that I'm losing my eyesight. Vision. Seeing things. Looking.

It's that one primary thing I think most folks take for granted. You're reading this? I bet you're taking your eyesight for granted right this second.

I was diagnosed Friday with Wide-Angle Glaucoma.

From what I got from informational pamphlets at the ophthalmologists' office, there's surgery. Considering those were likely written years ago, it figures.

Now there's drops. And surgery.

It's still so early in the sequence of events that I'm not sure what the "next" step is. I'm using Lumigan drops through Tuesday evening then another appointment early Wednesday AM. Taking Marilee with me since I probably lost some info in the process. Forgot much of what was said after he said "blindness".

Dammit. I used to kid around about "Not seeing myself going to work."

Didn't think that might end up as "Not seeing."

Amazing Color-Changing Card Trick