I'm surprised I never noted in my recipe/note file which cap marking went with which cider; I guess I always figured it would be obvious ... but with my memory! Hah! I know better!
I'm PRETTY SURE I labeled them backwards, that the Mr. Blue Cider is the one I meant to label Ginger Bastard, and vice versa. Anyway, I really like the Mr. Blue Cider, but I'm not as keen on the Ginger Bastard -- and I think the heat was not necessarily kind to the Bastard.
However, Mr. Blue seems to have come through the ordeal just fine. I'm _thinking_ Mr. Blue is the spicy second batch, and Ginger Bastard the more mundane first. Hard to say. My notes, and journal posts, are not immediately forthcoming.
Yeah, my memory sucks. But I get compensation for it, via other skills and abilities.
Out campsite at Flipside was approximately 60 feet across, and a bit deeper than that. I need to decide if I want to design a toroidial shade structure for 50' or for the full 60'. With a 60' toroid, we get a 20' minor diameter, and a 20' center space. With a 50' toroid, we can slice it different ways:
20' minor with 10' center
15' minor with 20' center
Our shade tents were 10' by 20', to give a reference size (e.g. small carport size). Hmmmmm.
Things to ponder.
Technically, I'm doing nothing this week, this being limbo week. My house and yardwork and planning are supposed to start this weekend.
We'll see how that goes.
I started a Flipside post, I dunno, last night? But something happened, I got distracted, my computer froze, and I ultimately went to bed instead.
What is today? Wednesday? I've been home two days now and conscious, oh, about thirty seconds.
I tend to move at full-speed-ahead, but doing that in over 100F weather with 40% humidity is a recipe for disaster. I would have keeled over a couple of times if it weren't for the support of my friends. As I sat in the reclining camp chair during strike, trying not to sob from exhaustion, all I could think was, "I can't stop moving yet, I'm not done!"
I suppose in 20 or 30 years, that devotion to "getting things done" is going to kill me... I'll try to slow down some by then.
I found this Flip to be a tad less of a mystical experience than the first, but then again, it's never the same as your first, is it? The burn went weirdly (e.g. not according to expectations) and was shorter than I would have liked, but had moments of eerie beauty that we would not have seen if it had burned according to plan. The crowd was more passive this year, and for that I blame the brutal pounding weather. The fireworks before the burn were brilliant; there were things in there I had never seen before! Or, maybe I had seen them, but when put up with small lift charges, to be seen RIGHT ABOVE MY HEAD (as it were) and not five miles away, it was awesome. Very very nice. Who did that? Where did the pyros get their stuff? What did they use?
No -- must. not. begin. new. hobby.
Anyway, my garage is full and getting a pyro license takes more teamwork than flame effects, and I'm not so good at belonging to groups, going to meetings, and stuff.
Our camp, the Odd Ones, revolved around the emergency event transmitter ("this is Mad Spark with KFLiP 100.1, We Pump Less Thump, 40 watts at 40 feet from our all-natural Moso bamboo tower"). Of course, to be useful in emergencies (and we were), we had to keep people listening (we did). It was awesome! It's a tech job where I get to annoy and entertain people for hours on end! I was in heaven.
As for my own technology, it suffered some from the brutal weather. Did I mention it was hot? Behringer makes a fine piece of inexpensive equipment (hey, I'm not going to pay top dollar for stuff I use just a few times a year), but I found some limitations.
In the heat of the day, their mixer tended to get an intermittent buzz in the right channel. At first, I thought it was in the Fender amp, which I was using for the house speakers, but no -- it was in the mixer. Maybe if I get really bored I'll tear stuff down and look for, I don't know, ant bites or little six-legged corpses. Because ants were freakin' EVERYWHERE, and I killed one on my equipment every few seconds with my thumb.
The Behringer A500 reference amps sounded, I dunno, a bit soft and not terribly bright, coming out of my Fender 128W PA speakers. However, the Fender 128W PA sounded all kinds of bright and crisp, projecting out into the hilltop. Fancy that, a package system sounding better as a package. At home, though, I love the sound of the Behringer reference amps. The only difference being their location: the small confines of my living room, versus the great outdoors. Inside, the Fender sounds sharp and brittle.
Anyway, the A500 was a trooper! I drove it from half an hour to an hour at a time, in the red clipping zone, and until one channel after another turned off because of thermal overload. I doubt they really drive at 500W (250 per channel). Poor amplifiers. Amazingly enough, they both still work.
Which is more than I can say about the Pyle 8" subwoofers I had driving the dancing flame tubes. In at-home testing I noticed that one pillar had problems. It wouldn't always work; it worked when I _pushed_ on the cone, but not when a thump displaced the cone. That worried me. I marked it and went on.
During the trip to Flip, the pole pieces of one driver (the heart and core of the speaker!) just... fell out. I saw it laying there in the bottom of the pillar during unloading. WTF! It turns out the bolts arrayed around the bottom of the speaker were just... decorative. The pole piece is in fact epoxied into place, and that epoxy was NOT doing its job.
I managed to re-insert the pole piece into the voice coil, and it all worked again and it is now being held in by just the shear force of my frustration. And magnetism. I suppose the magnetism is doing most of it, since I'm kind of mellow today.
So, ultimately, one tube was only running one speaker, and I turned it off entirely when Tall Matt noticed that fire was coming out of the dead-speaker base, driven there by the other speaker. Not so good. I expect the silicon check valve is going to look a bit weather when I do my tear down and overhaul.
The other, recently built, tube held up like a trooper.
Next up: better subwoofer drivers (bigger than 600W I think) with more linear throw and better ::mumble:: rating to handle the front pressure. I need a subwoof that likes pressure, such as it might feel in a sealed box.
The pillar of fire was pretty, this was my new project in flame this year. I liked the lantern topper I made in metal class, and it helped keep the flame burning during the stupid big winds we had all weekend, but with it you could not see the vortex nature of the flame. After the first day, I took the topper off and kept the vortex spinning gently at all times the radio was running in the dark. It was beautiful, if subtle.
My color change for the flame worked fairly well, with the Red (Strontium Carbonate, terrifying though that may be, but only $4.50 a pound) being absolutely fantastic. Green started to work at one point -- I had several green chemicals in there, and I don't know which one was doing the heavy lifting -- choices are Copper Oxide, Barium Carbonate, and Boric Acid. Yellow was also fun, and it was basic ordinary baking soda. I used a carrier of pool filter powder (diatomaceous earth) as a carrier, so very little actual chemical was released. And I didn't run it much with people downwind. I do try to avoid actually killing or maiming with my toys...
I need to empty my tanks now and dispose of, or store, these chemicals safely. It is all just pottery glaze. But then again, pottery glaze is kinda dangerous stuff.
The pneumatic valves that drove the powder had an effect that caused my air to leak out too fast, so I couldn't run much color (since I couldn't recharge the compressor unless it was the only thing on the generator, something I will fix next year). When I exhausted the valve, powder blew back down the supply tube and clogged the spindle. Oops! It didn't do that in testing! I need to drop a check valve into the system and it will all be fine. Before then, I need to completely tear down those three valves and service them, because they are now small complicated doorstops.
Like last year, I loved being a DJ -- I was one of those DJs you hate on the rock stations. Who knew? But it was a blast. I'll try to collect better music for next year -- I had some new stuff this year, too, but I'll get more. I want a new playlist for the tubes anyway.
I really needed wind breaks (again, as always) because when we weren't being fried by the sun, we were being sandblasted by the wind. We rigged up some tarps, and it was not bad, but the wind was vicious. I made translucent wind breaks when I ran the tubes in the wind tunnel, er, horse barn at Maker Faire 2007, but those were made from temporary materials. I have a half-baked idea of how to make some permanent ones, that could transport and store, and be decorative, that I can use at Maker Faire 2008 and for future Flipsides. Have to do this. Yup.
I need more propane next year; I froze out about an hour before I was ready to, and I was running only one tube at low pressure for all of the last night. I want to run at the 10-20PSI range, I _was_ running in the 15-30PSI range which is too much, but I _did_ run in the 5-15PSI range that last night.
I need to get off my ass and make remote ignitors; I swore I wasn't going to run Matt ragged relighting, but I did anyway. I have the switch wired in and everything! He does enjoy policing the crowd, though, and he gets to interact with people and stuff, so it works out anyway. I just don't want to take advantage of his good nature needlessly.
The Tesla was cool, for the short life that it had. During packing, we essentially dropped a house on it. The four nylon bolts that hold the secondary column to the base all sheared off, causing the secondary to jolt onto the strike rail's support, lifting and snapping two loops of wire. It also made the toroid go all catywumpus, but that part was no biggie.
I made a delicate surgical repair on the Tesla Saturday evening, and by some miracle that worked! Matt is going to help me make transportation cases for this Tesla and the big one when I complete it, which will be awesome.
When I fired the repaired coil up to validate it, the Singing Tesla guys (Arc Attack) heard me and came over, and we chatted and stuff. Those guys rock... they noted that my Tesla wasn't really in tune, which is true, and they made polite happy noises about the little guy. Its a sturdy and capable little coil, and I was pleased to show it off.
They kept asking if I'd blown a coil yet, and I hadn't which seemed to amaze them. Of course, Sunday night, I was tweaking my settings trying to set up maximum spark (for my untuned coil, with no decent ground, using air strikes) and it blew it's little brains out. Poof! No zappies for Sunday. I told 'em I blew the crap out of my coil, and they welcomed me to the big time.
Debugging the failure will be educational, though, and give me more fodder for my new coil's design. I want to make it bullet proof, if possible.
My camp mates were awesome, across the board. People just did what needed doing, there were some rough spots (I hear) but we also worked our way through them (as far as I know). It was wonderful to see neat things happening as a group! I could ignore aspects of camp and know they would just get done, by those more capable of doing them. It was awesome.
Plus, Sofia kept me alive Monday. I really appreciate that. It turns out that working in the heat until your arms tingle is a bad thing.
Who all was in there? I'm going to cheat and look at the list...
Marla (M2 on the radio) came too this year! It's SO not the type of thing she would go to spontaneously, but she enjoyed it, got to swim in the creek a bunch, and hung out with me some. She even DJ'ed and got good responses to her music.
Sofia is, I swear, the heart of the group, she is the central spinning repository of love that binds us all together. Dave is part of the Sofia and Dave (Dave and Sofia?) pair, and he's a solid, quite, nice, capable guy, with powerful big camping skills. I'm pretty sure his work was vital for keeping large bits of our camp from becoming airborn...
Silona has a catalytic role, and she is a scout and a gatherer of people, finding interesting folks and hooking them into our web. We got new camp mates this year, who were cool folks that look like they may integrate nicely.
With Silona came JRob (JRW on his LJ, so I call him JRob; someday I'll have to ask if he hates that) also called Robmumble, and I swear I heard him called silent Rob on the radio too... dunno. A quiet guy, but talented, into the video and graphic arts. He did our signs, and made our logo awesome, and did beer labels; tentative at first, he seemed to pick up on the ad-hoc nature of our madness, and his talent really added a touch of class to everything! He even spun a DJ set!
Tall Matt and Susan of course, to be thanked separately but listed together. Matt and I (and Jim and eventually Randy) did the load up and initial setup of camp. Matt brews awesome beers and got me started up in brewing again, plus the tie-dye, plus his mellow nature, plus all the effort he put into the camp with the work, the couches he built, the ranger work he did during the event; he's my good friend in Austin and a valuable core piece of our camp. Susan and Matt come as a pair, and Susan helps keep us alive, and has such a calming presence (I feel); it's always delightful to be doing things with them.
Michelle (just Michelle) is part of what I feel is my core friends group; from the haunts to flip to the odd ones, there is a core set that overlaps for me. She is the party person, which is funny as she is also an auditor and an accountant of sorts, but sadly was left to her own devices once the evening drifted into the deep hours and us fogies fell into our tents to sleep to the serenade of thumpy music. Michelle rocks, and I give her grief online, but things wouldn't be the same in the group without her. She brings party, food, and good times to us all.
Beth is new to the camp, and a fun lady; our worlds overlapped in distant ways back in the days of the SCA, it turns out. With Beth is Randy Z (or was it the other way around?), and these two launched into the entire event with great enthusiasm. Randy cooks masterfully, and takes justifiable pride in his culinary work.
Chris and Mindy made it too, long time odd people but first time to flip; alas, things did not turn out for them (for reasons to distant from me to have made it into my awareness) and could not stay. Mindy made a super nifty generator baffle for us, but our generators were so awesome we were able to put it around a dangerous bush in our camp where it served valiantly. Chris is quiet, like many of our group, so I don't know him well yet, but he is a nice guy.
Jim Radio, of course, is our Radio Guy, and an amazing experience in his own right. A force of nature, a nice guy, or a bastard, I'm not sure which, his family has been associated with Sofia's for, I dunno, generations, and also with Silona... that's some core group there! I'm thrilled to be doing things with Jim, he has passion and ... stuff.
Karen came with Jim this year, and she, the World's Most Dangerous Blonde, is thirty one flavors of awesome. The two of them together create some kind of event horizon of awesome, that once you have crossed it, there is no return. She works as a medic (a tame word, medic; she's a medic's medic I hear), was a PET at the event, and may well play with us in the haunt this year (and I may get to play moulage with her! Heaven!)
Sheilagh, neat lady! Don't know her! Had fun!
Tanjent, Sean, and Corprew -- new guys. All seemed pretty solid, engineer kind of guys, camped with us and did stuff around the event. I enjoyed my chats with them, Tanjent especially I think.
All in all, a great camp, a good time. It will be fun to see what next year brings.
What's done is done, and what's undone will have to wait until next year... pushed through a full rollout of my equipment yesterday, ensured I had enough cables and jumpers and whatnot (I didn't, I bought more), and then I put it all away again ready for loading Wednesday.
My garage, though, appears to have multidimensional qualities... it's a garage, not a clown car! It's amazing how much stuff I have crammed in there.
Running a watt-meter test, I'm going to take in the vicinity of 500 watts in the audio gear. I didn't do a full burn test, that would have been more work. Hope it all works!
Of the four dancing-fire drivers (e.g. speaker columns), one of them has a short or a break or a loose wire -- it doesn't work reliably. I may either just not use it at the event, or I may tear it down and find the flaw (which will NOT be easy or fun). Or I may hook it up and just swear at it a lot. We'll see.
Then last night I printed and then Matt and I cut and pasted labels on, I dunno, 7 or 8 or 10 cases of beer and cider.
The first labels I laid out at work, and did some things that made our life much more difficult than necessary. However, I did the beer labels in a more reasonable manner. And in general, I learned a lot about what is easy and what is hard in drink labels, so next time will be super easy!
Now to find a source of lightweight colored paper, the lightest stuff that can run through a laser printer. Preferably with water-tight colors.
Today I'm mostly just enjoying the sense of relief at not having to assembly anything more for the event. Well, I had to run some errands, and we need to clean the coolers and the new water containers. This and that, easy stuff.
I investigated the attics and found definite sign of rodentia. Judging from the spoor, it's a small rat or a large mouse -- most likely, the lowly Roof Rat, according to bad pictures of rodent poop I find online. Also, there are... pathways trodden in the insulation in the attic, and tunnels leading down into it. And poops. Did I mention the poops?
So... poison. Probably a bromadialone anticoagulant ::shudder::. Nasty stuff. I also poked around for obvious openings (lots of cracks, but nothing big) and tree access (yes, not touching the house, but close). And nothing that's easy to address. I hate to kill the little bastards, but I'm not sure other plans will work.
If Sparky the spare cat were still here, I'd just leave the ladder propped up in the attic, and I bet there would soon be nothing more than one chubby cat left.
Stoopid cat.
Some of y'all may have been noticing I've been a bit stressed-looking lately... or maybe I've just come out and said "I'm really stressed right now, sorry" and then sat in the corner and, I dunno, emitted stress lines.
I feel a tad better this morning after fighting some stuff out in my dreams last night (oh yeah, my favorite way to spend the night), but yesterday I reached a fever pitch of cranky.
Okay, so I'm working on this program that runs on a board that controls stuff. Here is the context for this program.
The hardware it runs on is designed and managed by my other team member, and includes OTHER hardware designed by ANOTHER engineer, plus a communications interface from a German company. This hardware was designed well before I came on board, and in that design there was a good big chunk of memory I thought I could use. I thought wrong, because when I went to the H/W guy to option its use, I got shot down... so I had to spend a significant chunk of time doing unnecessary and complicated memory management and optimization. That cost a lot of time.
The German company also defines the protocol we are communicating with. So I'm writing to a German spec, and need to conform to it to be called "good". Our company and this German company are the ONLY people with usable software under this new spec, so to test and validate my work I need to compare it to the German stuff. However, the German program doesn't work right (yet) and we won't have a functional version until.... June? Maybe? These guys are notoriously slow and late, and it's because they go on vacation, I swear, two weeks out of three. Every time I write, they are on vacation and then get back to me one or two weeks later. So that's useless.
To verify that systems conform to their standard, the Germans are writing a conformance tool, of which we have a broken and mostly nonfunctional version. They say they will have the final version by end of June, two weeks or so after we are supposed to have been entirely done with the project. This tool WAS promised for Jan/Feb, but those dates are long past. So, July? Maybe. And I fully expect monkeys to fly out my ass too.
This is the same German company that changed the core, heart, critical aspect of the specification in radical and annoying ways during development. Twice. We still haven't entirely recovered from that chaos.
My device and software are controlled by a computer with its own big program, and our company of course is writing that, since we can't ship the German stuff with our label on it, that would just not work. Of course, the team writing OUR software is green, doesn't communicate well, and is primarily located in China. They do things "differently" there. If, by "different" you mean "badly". Not all of them, there's fine work coming out of some teams there I hear. No, it's just been our team. We won the crap lottery.
Certain critical aspects of this system that SHOULD have been working and tested six to nine months ago finally started working in shaky baby steps about one month ago. And things keep coming up from that team that surprise the hell out of me, things that have been in place in my side for, in some cases, a year or more, and in others, three to six months. Why am I getting feedback just now? What the hell are these guys doing? Writing a slave device in a vacuum is not a recipe for success. We are supposed to be bootstrapping, building this up together, and that requires lots of things that have not been happening until very very recently.
This project as a whole is part of a larger software and hardware platform, and a significant aspect of my system is that there are 35 or so modules that can plug into my device, in combinations of up to 8 at a time (you do the math). Which is tough, since my software has to manage all of these modules, and more in the future, with not enough memory (see above). But, with cleverness and hacks, I've made it work. Mostly. We're still testing to be sure.
These plug in devices have existed here for a while, and are nice little bricks of hardware, if a tad under-documented (don't TALK to be about internal deliverables and documentation, unless you want me to go off on a long and angry rant).
Our assumption, critical to our schedule, is that the wrinkles have been worked out in the controlling code for these modules, by the team that actually OWNS them (which, hint, is NOT US). This assumption is false, so now I'm finding serious flaws in the control code and parameters for this other team... because my team's testing is actually looking at the details and not giving it a quick eyeball from 10,000 feet up.
Of course, it doesn't help that the documentation and supporting details for these things is scattered all over hell and back, is inconsistent at times, and is sometimes just plain wrong. It doesn't give me the confidence I'm looking for when working on a project.
I'm not alone in working on these things, which is good, because this project is just too huge for one person. I've got a great testing resource who, what? Oh, some other team fucked up (again) and now the company is in a panic (again) and I'm losing my testing resource? Again? Thanks guys. Remember that internal deliverable and documentation rant? A lot of our recent panics can be traced back to our failures in that arena... do you still think that it takes too much time and resources to do the damned development correctly?
How about the guy writing our validation tests for manufacturing? Oh, right, he's on three other projects too.
My tech lead? I have a tech lead? Oh, there he is, yeah; he's a great guy, I honestly like him and he's bright and helpful, but he's also overloaded.
How about my resource for understanding and FIXING the interface code to the modules? She's great too! Very helpful, very supportive, when she's actually available. Too bad that everything else her manager owns is more important than this. Some of that is my fault; I think I had a brief window where I could have captured her attention on my project, but some panic or failure on my side took me away from modules for that...week. Nice big window there guys, thanks.
So -- yeah -- stress. Trying to squeeze success out of a project that is aimed about 30 degrees off target and is flying quickly and steadily into the weeds.
The lights in our ceiling fixture in the living room have been quietly expiring, one by one, over the years. Slowly they fade and go out, until there is just one dimly lit bulb and four dusty globes hovering over our head. The living room is dim and grey.
I could get some kind of A-frame ladder to replace them, but ladders that tall are expensive, and the ladder I _do_ have is too short.
As it turns out, Matt and I were going shopping together at Lowes, for Flipside supplies (of which I still have a number of odds and ends to pick up) and I mentioned I wanted to get a light-bulb grabber stick thingie for this. And he already had one! That he doesn't use!
Bonus.
So I retrieve it from the depths of his garage (well, Matt did the actual retrieving) and used it to extract the old bulbs. It did this quite nicely.
Then fiddled a bit but it would not put in the spiral fluorescents that I had. Sure, I could buy flourescent bulbs that were in an incandescent envelope (I think), but where's the fun in that?
So a little bit of hemming and hawing, and some fiddling about, and I was able to modify the bulb grippy thingy to work on spiral fluorescents.
Double bonus!
And now there is light. And it is bright, and nicely spectrumized!
Well, Saturday was the final art welding class! I got MOST of the welds on the steel donut done, and it's not a bad piece of work. Impressed some class-mates with my ability to weld the thin sheet metal without blowing big nasty holes in.
After that, an LoTV board meeting (I'm secretary for TWO boards of director, more fool I). Got those minutes on the wiki, got the Scare minutes on the wiki... I don't remember if I sent my scare notes or not from that last meeting but I think I did.
Sunday, finished the construction work on the second dancing fire tube, and even painted the stands! I removed the old coupling from the old stands and put in a new, sturdier one as well. Only cut one finger and scraped another.
Was going to do a full test burn, but by then I was getting pretty tired, and has to move on to household chores.
Did some yardwork, did a MINIMAl amount of indoor work (e.g. fixed Marla's sink). Set up the tent in the living room (hooboy that was interesting) and then realized that I couldn't remember where I put the seam sealer. Hopefully I find it before flip and then I can seal up the rain fly seams on setup Wednesday. Keep your fingers crossed for dry weather the 21st!
Next weekend is ALL MINE! Bwahahahahahaha! No Saturday lost to class!
I intend to do a full system setup/test, including color tests, and watt testing, over the weekend.
Oh, this week, before then, need to get the Honda EU1000 generator working. It needs some maintenance. Going to work with Matt on that Tuesday.
Wed is the makeup dance class, for when I skipped due to having put my eye out. The eye, by the way, is fine now; dusted it off, popped it back in, took a few painkillers, and I'm good to go.
(kidding! Read back for the real details)
Okay, work beckons. But damn, it's Monday. And I am not enjoying Mondays like I used to.
Quick update while food is cooling....mmmm... King Ranch Casserole. Yum!
My eye is doing fine now, my work is being worky, and things are all generally moving in a forward direction.
Two weeks from RIGHT NOW I will be sitting under a tent, setting up.. equipment. Art. Science. Fire.
I have all of my propane hoses and harnesses and manifolds hooked together now. Three of my six POL fittings, it turns out, have check valves built in! Neat! Internally, the tanks also have overfill prevention valves, so generally, things should work out okay wiring the tanks together. We are looking at #300 of propane here, to burn off in a few evenings. I'll do a full test this weekend and have next weekend free to do full panic in.
I wired up my new 3,000VA variac to a nice 12ga extension cord (which required some cutting and fiddling). It's a lethal device, with 110VAC hanging out where it could conceivably be touched (mostly shrouded, but I'm paranoid) -- I need to get a nice high-voltage-danger sign for the console table.
Right now I'm putting some salt through a... ball mill... of sorts (it has balls in it! stainless steel balls, and some conical abrasive media)... in an attempt to make sodium chloride powder (vs. crystals) to act as a chlorine donor for my copper oxide and/or barium carbonate, to make a better green flame. I hear boric acid works too for green; I have some! I will have to try it.
I wonder where I can get some potassium iodide cheap and locally... hmmmmm...
Anyway, I aint'nt dead yet, and rumbling towards some grand finale soon.
So, yeah, ummm... hydrocodone will be kicking in soon, nice to have those leftovers from an unrelated problem I had late last year.
Saturday I was in a mist of grinder grit and steel dust as I converted large quantities of sheet steel into sharp buoyant satellites, most of which were absorbed into the ventilation system at ACC. Most. Not all.
A little bit of eye irritation occurred during my two hours of grinding, but I though little of it. Dust in the eyes, big deal, been there done that, familiar territory. The annoyance passed and I went on with my day.
Sunday evening, though, my eye got a bit more irritated. Annoyingly so, but also easily dismissed as tiredness and a residual scratch from the previous day. During our shopping trip Sunday night I picked up some red-eye eye-drops.
As it turns out, red-eye soothing eye drops do very little good when you have a golf-ball-sized chunk of grit/steel/whatever embedded in your eye.
I managed to get to sleep Sunday night, but my eye was kicking up a fuss, and throughout today's fun at work (Monday, my favorite) it get more and more irritated. As did the rest of me. So I called my eye doctor, Lester Kitchen (a great guy), and made an appointment for 4:45 today.
I soldiered through the day with no joy and lots of squinting. People averted their gaze, or stared horrified as I wandered through my tasks, my red rimmed eye aflood in tears.
Leaving work, I discover that bright light makes my eye hurt even more, as the pupil contracts. Ouch.
The always friendly Dr. Kitchen set me up in his machine, made my eye fluorescent, and then proceeded to use bright lights and various filters to highlight exactly what was up in my optic center. That is when he took the picture of the golf ball previous mentioned; a sizable chunk embedded in the lower-medial octant midway between the pupil and sclera.
It would have to go. Imagine my excitment, for a moment. Sure, my eye hurt. But now I would have the doctor doing who-knows-what to it to remove this vile intruder.
That "who-knows-what" began with a soothing (well, stinging, but it self-correctly quickly) application of numbing eye drops. Two or three times, in fact; the Dr. was quite good about the pain management.
Once I was good and painless, he propped my head back in his infernal machine, had me fixate on a distant point, and then he started golfing in my eyeball with what he called his sand wedge. To no effect, the particle was too deep (into the second layer, it seems).
Next up was a device he says he's had little chance to use, just a few times in recent memory; it looked roughly like an 8-gauge syringe needle mounted in a noise-hair trimmer, and made roughly the same sound (once he replaced the dying battery).
It took a few minutes, and quite a few jabs with the spinning needle of DOOM, before he managed to dig down to the particle and send it packing. Or flying. Or whatever it did.
It is now gone, with nothing more than a sizeable crater (I assume) to mark its passing.
I am now the proud wearer of a contact-lens "bandage" which I get to irrigate regularly with antibiotics and, between those doses, lubricating eye drops, as my poor abused cornea heals.
On the bright side, he said I had the steadiest eye he's worked on in a long time... and the third he has worked on today!
It's a busy season for eye cruds, apparently.
My litany of grief or, as we affectionaly call it, "Monday".
Saturday I spent a couple of hours grinding my toroid piece edges so they fit correctly and made the correct diameter, and as part of that process some grind crud flittered into my left eye, a minor annoyance. Except I think I scratched something, and it still irritates me today, it's annoying, especially since my left eye is the one that can actually read (my right eye has a weird distortion in the lens). Red-eye drops do nothing much, the constant tearing makes my glasses spotty, and it's impossible not to run it... so the lid is bitching at me now too.
My tendinitis is really getting on my tits, up my nose, and torquing my twinkies.
I wanted some comfort tea but I lost my beautiful mug at work and I need to search other break rooms for foam mugs for crappy work coffee because...
... I left my go-pills at home, the ones that keep me from going into a coma after I eat lunch, so coffee instead to wind me up and harass my stomach.
And to top it all off I forgot to bring chocolate. I bet if I go to the cafe to buy a bar, they will be all out.
Working in the shop Sunday, I made good progress doing a test setup, running all my tubes and wires and careful notes, and antiquated notions... need a few more brass Tees and a couple of 3/8" MPT to 1/4" FPT adapters, but overall, it's going to be lovely. But working Sunday, especially after lunch, was a slog through random free-floating anxiety, and that takes a lot of the fun out of it. It was better when mongo was there, though by the end of the day I was pretty worn out anyway.
If I survive this day (which is a dubious notion at this rate) I have dance lessons tonight... which will either be a lovely joy or very very difficult. At least Richard is used to my brain coming up broken at these things, and I don't get as cranky and bitchy as I used to.
Nothing really to say here ... everything is in progress... nothing new is done.
Had my blood drawn this morning for my physical, which is early next week. No coffee today, a condition that left me less than fresh by mid-day... my head still aches from the lack, though dosing myself with chocolate after work helped for a time.
I turn 44 tomorrow.
I want to complain about all of the external factors that made/are making my project at work horribly over schedule. But there's not much point to that! I mean, I can't really go into the fun details -- and the generics aren't interesting. Not enough RAM from an early decision (that I fought against), costing me time via implementation complexity and debugging. Core spec changes... twice! Poor spec to begin with, underspecified. Poor communication between the two teams, poor and late integration, and on and on...
My body is tired and sore, I need to do more Taichi, but I'm spending that time in projects until June. After that, we'll see.