NaBlo Bloggin' PoMo Dude.

Well, this is the end of my first NaBloPoMo. I screwed up towards the beginning, but I did have a post everyday. Since I did screw it up, I'm going to try again in April. Not only for that reason. I like writing, but I'm afraid that if I don't participate in BloMo again, I will not write as much as I would like. I need that kind of discipline; I'm hoping that if I do it for another month I'll get into the habit. There are things I would like to write about in more detail, like taking care of my grndfather. When I was younger I planned on writing a book about that, but I still have not gotten around to it. If I do it in the blog, I can collect all those posts and go to lulu.com and make it myself. Much like I can make my own CD of songs I wrote when I was young. Computers are awesome!

I had some trouble expressing what I was thinking in my blog. Perhaps with more practice, that will come easier. I certainly hope so!

So you've got me for another month. Ha ha on you! It's nice to know that I have a couple of readers, even if I can't figure out how Sitemeter works. Oh well. :P

And to those readers, if you can figure out what I am paraphrasing in the title of this post, you will win the intertubes! Srsly! It's pretty obscure, but I'll give you a hint: it's a song title.

One last thing: I thought better of making tomorrow's post into an April Fool's joke. I think it just would have aggravated all both of you. See you in April!

I'm still warring against this stupid cold. I made it all the way through winter (wearing shorts for a good chunk of it) without getting sick, so I need to take extra precautions. I'm going to bed. My March blog came in like Stephen King, but is going out like Emily Dickinson. That is quantity, nowhere near quality, folks. Just so you know. :)

Today I have been fighting off a cold, so I've been pretty lazy. I don't usually take naps on Sunday, but I did today. The point is that this will be short, but I thought of a quirk I have at work (ooh, a work quirk!) that I would share.

I have blogged before about the fact that I work with mostly Amish, Mennonite, and Christians. I myself am not a religious person. I'm not really sure what I believe in yet, if anything, which I'm fine with right now. Anyway, I use a digital scale at work to weigh the ingredients. It of course is a decimal scale, which goes the the 100ths place (like 30.75, if I remember correctly). All of the ingredients for a few of the breads that I make sometimes end up being 6.66 pounds. If this happens when I am done weighing it out, I will add a little more of the last ingredient so it does not weigh 6.66 pounds. That's it. It's stupid, I guess. Would you call that superstition? Or respecting the beliefs of the people I work with?

How do you listen to music?

If you said "my ears," then ha-ha, you are a comedian. Scoot over, because I probably would have said the same thing. :/

When I was a wee lad, I was an active listener. I planted myself on the couch in front of my parents' Magnavox console stereo and just sat there and listened. Sometimes while I listened I would study the album cover and sleeve (if it wasn't a plain white one). Yes, albums are those giant black round things that sound crackly and archaic. At least you could see the artwork back then! Damn kids. :P Later on, I got my own stereo (from Sears with an 8-track tape player!), and I would spend hours in my room, laying on my bed, just basking in the music and the accompanying artwork. I knew the names of all the songs that I listened to, and sometimes I knew who wrote what, who the producer was, all that stuff. I preferred listening to music over any other activity back then (this was before girls of course).

CDs didn't really appear on my radar until they announced that the Beatles' catalogue was being released on CD in 1986. Once I got a CD player (which was well after I had most of the Beatles CDs in my possession), it was like a whole new world opened up. They sounded terrific to my ears, and I quickly started to replace a lot of my vinyl with brand new shiny CDs. A year later, my parents bought me a CD player for my car, and that's when everything started to change.

I had graduated high school by this point, I was a commuter college student, and I was working full time for my parents. Listening to music at home pretty much went down the toilet. My school was 20 minutes away, and it was a half hour each way to work, so listening in the car was it for me (I could listen at work, but there were way too many distractions, so I just listened to the radio there). I didn't have time to study the (smaller) artwork, so I began to not know the names of songs, which I cannot stand, even to this day. Then both of my CD players broke. I was able to borrow one from a friend for listening at home, but listening in the car was out. It wasn't until after Sarah and I got married that I got a new stereo with a CD player. I was working at Rutgers when we moved into our apartment, and I was home for the day before 12 noon. Sarah didn't get home till 6 or 10 at night, and for a little while, I enjoyed a revival of listening for pleasure, without distractions. But it didn't last long, because we got hooked up to the internet soon after that, and that's what's taken up most of my free time for the last 14 years.

These days I'm more of a passive listener. The bulk of my listening time is at work, where I am by myself for a good portion of the day, so I can listen to whatever I want. It's not ideal for listening to stuff I'm not familiar with, because I miss a lot of it, either because I'm thinking about work or because I'm out of earshot. I barely listen to music while I'm on the computer. Mostly I read blogs and forums, and I can't do both at the same time. I have an iPod, but I am usually listening to a podcast or an audio book when I am using that (sometimes I'll listen to music on the iPod when I'm cutting the grass). In the car I listen to the iPod, but sometimes I'll listen to a CD (usually because I've forgotten the iPod). If I'm cooking or doing housework, I do different things. If I'm moving around a lot or making a lot of noise, I will use the iPod. If I'm cooking, I will alternate between the iPod or music on the stereo. I still love listening to records, but they're a pain when you're cooking, because you have to flip it over. I wish they still made the automatic turntables. :)

I wish that I could get my priorities straight and get the hell off the internet and enjoy some music without using it as background. :sigh: Someday...

Ow, my back. :(

Last July I noticed that my leg was giving me some pain, but I didn't know why. It hurt a lot getting in and out of the car, and I started to limp. It got bad enough that I asked my sister Missy to help (she's a doctor of Physical Therapy). I feel bad asking her, because she should get paid, but she likes to help. She said it was probably something in my lower back, and she gave me lots of exercises to do. It wasn't getting any better, so I went to the doctor. He sent me to physical therapy, which I went to 3 times a week. They basically had me doing the same exercises that Missy prescribed, but they were also bending my leg back and other stuff that I couldn't do on my own, or shouldn't, because I'm not a licensed professional. I went back to my doctor after a few weeks, and it hadn't gotten any better. He gave me Naproxen to take, and boy oh boy, did I ever love Naproxen. The pain almost totally went way, but only if I stayed on the meds. Otherwise, it still wasn't getting any better.

I ended up at a neurologist, and they gave me an MRI. It turned out that I had a protruding disc at L5, which is your lower spine (even though it sounds like a video game title). It was affecting the nerve that goes to my right leg. He gave me some Neurontin for nerve pain and said to come back in a month to see if I needed surgery. I had to stop going to PT because my work changed their insurance plan, and I was forced to take their insurance as my primary, instead of using Sarah's. So of course, my new insurance no longer covered my PT. My PT Wayne told me to keep doing the exercises and stretches at home that I had been doing, which I did.

I went back to the neurologist, and he said I was not a candidate for surgery, and that most back pain went away after awhile. He told me not to go back to PT, and not to try traction (which Wayne really wanted me to have), because he "didn't believe in it." He said it could make you worse or better, there were no guarantees (my sister agreed with this, so I didn't pursue it).

I was okay to work, because I stand all day, and I am usually moving around (if I stand in one spot for too long, my leg falls asleep). But sitting for long periods of time was a problem. My co-worker also has back problems, and she brought in a spine cushion that she had for me to try. It's basically a seat cushion with a hole cut out for where your spine goes. It kind of looks like a briefcase. I took one look at this thing and had my doubts, but I'll be damned if it didn't work! I started taking it everywhere, and I was surprised at how unselfconscious I was about carrying it around (I'm almost 40, I guess that's when it kicks in).

The holidays came and I got busier and busier at work, and the exercises fell by the wayside. I am still taking the Neurontin though, I would be in a lot of pain if I didn't. I was in a lot of pain one day this week, and I realized later that I forgot my medication 3 times, consecutively. I was fine the next day. I have done the exercises at times, but not regularly. I need to go back to the Y too, I haven't done that in months. I think that I was suffering from some post-holiday/winter depression that I seem to be finally breaking out of. I was able to get some stuff done this week, so I'm hopeful that I can keep it up. I just have to make sure I get enough sleep, because I'm pretty tired today.

All the doctors and PTs asked me what caused my protruding disc, but at the time, I couldn't remember. I think I finally figured it out: I helped a neighbor move a couch sometime in the summer. It was one of those heavy ones with the recliner on each end. I know it was before my leg started hurting, because I wouldn't have been able to help him. It was very, very heavy, and there was only two of us. I believe he is in his late 60s, but he is in better shape than I am.

The moral of the story: if you want to move a couch, hire a mover. :)

Yay!

I feel pretty good today for a change! I'm not horribly tired, and my leg doesn't hurt at all today. I'm taking advantage of this by getting some stuff done today, so I'll see you tomorrow. Sorry!

International Waffle Day!

Wednesday is my usual day off during the week (the store is closed on Sunday). I usually have all these elaborate plans of things I would like to get done on Wednesdays, but they almost never happen. Maybe because my sleep schedule is interrupted. Since I don't have to work on Wednesday, I stay up later on Tuesday nights to spend time with Sarah, and I sleep later on Wednesday mornings. I really don't want to get up at 1 am if I don't have to go to work, you know? I could get up earlier on Wednesday morning, but that doesn't work either, sleeping in is too much fun. I know, whine whine whine.

I did get some stuff done today. Today is International Waffle Day and Pecan Day, so we celebrated both holidays by having pecan waffles for breakfast (I had to go to the store beforehand, because I didn't have enough flour or pecans for said waffles). We are going to have the leftover waffles for dinner as Chicken and Waffles, which is cooking right now. I am also in the process of doing some laundry and clearing out the DVR (which is hard work, let me tell you). My leg is really bothering me today, and I will tell you about that sometime. But right now, I'm going to celebrate International Waffle Day by waffling just a bit more. :)