Some days, it feels like I’m going through life under water.
But in other news, I go to the doctor bright and early Monday morning and find out if I can finally wear a normal shoe on my right foot. It will have been over six months since I started wearing either the Velcro Nightmare, a cast, a post-op splint/wrap/ace combo, an ace bandage or the Strappy Terror.
My physical therapist did my “report card” that I have to take to Dr. Wilson on Monday, and my range of motion is greatly improved, and I took my first real steps on Friday morning outside of the boot. Not much pain, just a little tightness, and some swelling.
Oh, and I am now the proud owner of the home version of the electrocution machine they hook me up to after every visit. I think I’m going to see if I can make Max smile…
Month: December 2005
Things Guys Don’t Do
Guys don’t do grief. We don’t handle empathy real well either. Guys are supposed to be “tough”, like ducks, and let all of our troubles (and everyone else’s) roll of our back with a shrug of our mighty shoulders.
All this stupid manliness gets in the way of us connecting to those around us, those who might need us. A friend lost a child yesterday, and I don’t know how I would react to that. I don’t know what to say, or how to act. Whenever I try to imagine what he’s feeling, I can’t. It all breaks down. I can’t imagine losing anyone, Max, Brian or Jen. I’ve never really lost a family member that I was really close to before, and I’ve been spared that kind of grief so far, and for that, right now, I feel kind of guilty.
I don’t have much faith left, but what I do applies here:
* I believe in a place where we can live with God again.
* I believe all children are born innocent.
* I believe all children who are taken before their time are instantly given the highest levels of glory, because they didn’t get a chance to prove they deserved otherwise.
* I believe that I have no idea what it’s like to be a grieving parent, because every time I try to imagine it, I can’t.
* I believe that we will all be reunited with the ones we love after we die, and that any pain we feel in this life is temporary if we have a long enough view.
* I believe finding that long view is the second most difficult thing we have to do while on this planet.
* I believe the hardest thing to do is develop charity – charity being true empathy, being able to understand the pain and circumstances of others without judgement but with compassion and love.
Everything else is secondary. If you’ve got some time, please pray for them. If it doesn’t end up helping them, it might help us for doing it.
Most-Used Apps Of 2005
Molly did it, so will I. Plus, I need a break from writing about CSS. Why am I writing about CSS? You will know soon enough, my children, soon enough.
I’m a Mac person. I think everyone who knows me knows this by now. So, it’s not going to surprise anyone that this list is full of Mac applications (and a web app or two).
* Mail – It’s not sexy, but I get a ton of e-mail. Other than some quirks with the AOL IMAP servers, Apple’s mail app is awesome.
* Thunderbird – HA! Yes, another e-mail client! I use Thunderbird for all my personal mail (all umpty-billion accounts too). It’s a trooper and handles multiple accounts and the hundred or so filters I have with aplomb.
* iTunes – It’s on all day, every day I’m at work. I think I might use it even more than e-mail.
* Safari – I love how snappy it is (most of the time), and how intuitive and slick the tabs are. It’s my browser of choice for actually browsing the web.
* NetNewsWire – I read a lot of stuff that comes in through feeds, and there’s no better app on any platform for digesting a lot of feeds (442 at last count) quickly. It also does a fine job of grabbing podcasts.
* Adium – Yes, I work for AOL and I don’t use our own IM client. Adium just kicks too much ass, and our Mac AIM client is too damn old. Adium does everything, and like NetNewsWire, is the best IM client on any platform, hands down.
* Firefox – Yes, like my e-mail, I’m a two browser guy. For developing, there’s nothing better than Firefox. Between the javascript console and the web developer toolbar, it’s the best way to get my job done.
* A tie between Oxygen and BBEdit – I use BBedit for quick and dirty hacking, and editing non-markup code like CSS, PHP, Tcl, JSP or Ruby. I’ve switched to using Oxygen almost exclusively for writing markup. It has just amazing tools for writing markup, from in-place validation to code completion to attribute auto-complete, which is really nice. BBEdit was definitely the winner early in the year, but Oxygen has come on strong late.
* Transmit – Best FTP client ever, even better than WS_FTP Pro.
* Movable Type – Yeah, I use my blog a lot, even though you don’t see it all the time. I prototype a lot of stuff in MT that I would normally write from scratch. I just love the template tags.
* Instiki – I use it almost exclusively for presentations (with my s5 hack, but considering I’ve given over forty of those this year, I think it deserves a spot on the list.
There you go. That’s pretty much in usage order. I consume a lot of media…
Work
Kevin is at work, therefore I must hate work.
Not even my family?
Wow, no one wanted to talk about heaven? Huh. I find that odd given the time of the year it is. I understand that religion is a sticky subject, since it is so personal and everyone thinks they are right. But come on, man, Heaven rocks!
BW’s special also included a snippet from a scientist who located a “mutated” gene in some people and these people are more likely to believe in a higher power. Because I am already a believer, this just confirms my belief rather than make me question it. Perhaps God has given some people the extra gift of believing easily through this unusual gene.
BW also talked about near death experiences. Some scientists claim these experiences are simply hallucinations caused by a dying brain. Having never had one, I can’t say. However, I am confused that some people would be greeted and welcomed into Heaven but then “returned” back to their bodies. Wouldn’t God know that these people weren’t really going to die? So what’s with the big unneeded “welcome”?
Just in case it wasn’t clear before, I don’t know everything. 🙂 But it is fun to speculate about.
Now then, on to the more pressing topic: who stabbed Felix?
Translation Needed
Ok, all my Russian speakers, I need a translation. What does “ti horoshi” mean? Really. It might be Ukrainian. I don’t have the Cyrillic form, just the phonetic English pronunciation. Help!
UPDATE: Do I have no readers who speak Russian? I got the translation, and it means “you’re good”. And it’s true. I am.
Gender differences
Look at what Kevin posted about <——– and then look at what I posted about below.
Sex is heavenly
Barbara Walters is pimping her “Where is Heaven?” special and just said that Christians don’t believe there is sex in heaven. Well then, I need a new religion stat!
ETA– I started watching the special and am disappointed she didn’t talk to anyone from the LDS Church. We have very different beliefs about Heaven and Hell, and who goes where. Including us would have added A LOT to the conversation, imo.
A follow up about the sex question: she asked a Catholic guy (some big wig from DC and the president of some Catholic college) and he said there wouldn’t be sex or any of the other physical pleasures in heaven. Later, she spoke to an Evangelical minister and he said there would be physical pleasures in heaven, like all you can eat bbq and cookies. But he didn’t specifically mention sex and she didn’t ask. What kind of journalist is she?
Merry Christmas, America
What have we found out this year?
* Our government tortures people because it can, does it without regard for our Constitution, our laws, international treaties or fear of punishment.
* Our government illegally spies on its own citizens without regard to the legality or constitutionality of the practice (more info from Salon and Josh Marshall
* Our President thinks the Constitution, the founding document of our country and the bedrock of all our laws, is a Goddamned piece of paper.
* Our President and Vice President have repeatedly lied to us about a whole host of issues from Iraq to torture to these new allegations of wiretapping, and no one is calling for impeachment. President Clinton was impeached for lying about an affair. President Bush and Vice President Cheney’s lies have violated your civil rights, caused innocent people to be tortured, killed our fighting men and women, and ruined our standing in the international community. Where’s the outrage?
* Our Congress doesn’t care about any of the above and is beholden to the wealthy and vile.
* Our Congress can’t seem to make or pass a law that doesn’t contain inordinate amounts of pork for wealthy donors in the home district. They can’t pass a defense bill without sticking in all kind of unread, unreviewed, unrelated measures meant to undermine due process and debate (like sticking drilling in ANWR into a defense spending bill at the last minute).
* Our supposedly independent press knew about the torture and the spying before last year’s election and sat on the stories. You think 51% of the country would have voted to keep Mr. Bush in office if they knew he thought the Constitution was a “god damned piece of paper”?
Merry Christmas, America.
Physical Therapy Works
Yes, physical therapy works, but boy does it suck! Three days a week, I go in to get beat up by tiny friendly women with the souls of medieval torturers. It takes about two hours each time as I go from heat and prodding to never-ending exercises to freezing and electrocution. But, I can see progress. I now have a hint of a calf muscle, and I got rid of the crutch on Saturday!!
Believe it, I am now crutch free. I can drive. I am almost back to where I was in September with the boot and walking. Unfortunately, I have a pronounced limp and by the end of the day, my ankle throbs and my knee is on fire.
This all has a purpose. In January, Jen and I are going to Austin, and then comes a trip to Northern California, NYC, the big W3C shindig in France, and then back to Austin for SxSW. I need to be walking without the boot for those, and able to walk without a lot of pain. In order to be out of the boot by January, I figure I need to be able to walk in the boot without crutches about now, even though it’s pretty uncomfortable.
It’s good to have goals, and it’s good to be able to see an end to all of this, even if it’s still a little ways off.