Pair.com has screwed up for the last time…

2-3 times per year www.pair.com jacks up my email. Well, I’m tired of it, so I’m switching everything to dreamhost.com, as recommended by Alex. So basically that means that both my email, and this blog, are down indefinitely. If you need to contact me call me on my cell between 6:00pm and 8:30pm MST.

email to invalid.org and capture.org is also jacked until I can get the domains moved. Sorry.

Thanks-

Mark.

“No no no, It’s not you that’s crazy,
It’s the rest of the world…”

The Simmian wrote:

> Glad to hear your back has recovered so much so far.
> Please resume core-strengthening slowly, please. I
> know you know that, but I also know you’re crazy.

Well…

Right. She has a point. I do go overboard sometimes. Generally on healthy things, but all the same- I do go overboard.

Normally I would chuckle at the above implication that I could hit a core program with a teeny bit of enthusiasim, however she was actually not the only, nor the first person to say something simmilar.

I believe Erin said something to the effect of “No heavy construction until you’re at 100%. I worry about you.” Alex also said something to the effect of “don’t make it worse.” So like all times in my life when I have heard things I didn’t really enjoy hearing, it’s time to start listening.

So instead of installing the cabinets that are now waiting for me patiently a Home Depot, I’m going to have to take it easy this weekend. Of course I’m completely stir crazy spending so much time at home. Priorities this weekend are going to be going through several months of backlogged filing, taking the dog to do fun things, and relaxing. My back is at about 70% at this point, and with the exceptoin of the odd difficulty I’m pretty much back to moving. next week I’ll probably be back to 90-100%. We’ll see.

BackJacked

I blew out my back. How? I have no clue. Like really, this time I don’t know what I did. All I know is that last Monday night I was in more pain than I have ever been in, despite some pretty heavy pain killers. Tuesday I was carted out of my house on a stretcher, and that makes two ambulance rides in the last year. I could live without another in the next six months.

Actually, the whole ambulance thing was a little comical- The paramedics showed up (I could not get back into bed, I was in that much pain) with a stretcher. They tried to get me to sit down on the stretcher in order to wheel me out, but when my ass was about 3 inches from the padded surface I started howling in pain. One of the paramedics chose that very moment to let go of my arm, and reach for something else. The chorus of explicatives that left my mouth would make any child giggle, and the force of them would make the most determined dog run for cover. 100micrograms of some wicked narcotics later I managed to get on the geurney with a minimum of screaming.

The trip to St. Joes was uneventful, as was my visit there. Sooner or later a physicians assistant showed up, told me there was nothing he could do and that he couldn’t give me an emergency MRI because I show no sign of nerve damage. So they pumped me full of happy juice, prescribed some percocet, patted me on the ass, and told me to call a cab.

My friend Erin was a total trooper- She drove me back and forth to the hospital, she drove me home from emergency, she moved my bar-fridge from the den into my bedroom, went shopping, etc. She was really a trooper.

So here’s the disturbing story- Monday night I didn’t go to work. In the wee hours of the morning I got up to go to the bathroom, and ended up traversing the distance to the pot on my hands and knees. The dog, of course, is in a state of near frenzied panic, as most yelling in my house is directed in his direction. He had, of course, no idea what he’d done wrong so he simply hid. He showed back up late the next day- I expect he slept on the couch downstairs, but I have no idea, really… Anyway, the trip back from the washroom was white hot needles poked into my eyes. The pain was excruciating. I managed, somehow, to make it back to the bedroom, where I lay half in, half out of bed for two hours, waiting for the pain medication to kick in. It never really did, however I still managed to get back into bed.

At this point I am semi-ambulatory. I can get around, but I’m still in a bit of pain. I guess the word “stiff” would be accurate here- It takes me a few minutes when I stand up to actually get my legs back under me. It’s going to take a couple of weeks for me to get my sea-legs back I guess. Hopefully between now and then I can resist the pizza that seems to be ever present in the NOC.

Basically I just lost a week of my life to my back. I slept nearly the entire week, taking short breaks to read, and play xbox with Mr. Nosuch.

As far as work goes, I’m finally back. I have to get up frequently to just make sure that my back doesn’t get too stiff. Can’t wait to get home and go back to sleep! Ugh!

You can run, but…

I had a good run tonight. The dog was a little tired at the end, but that’s good. He’s been ornery lately, and he really doesn’t like my new schedule. He has to sleep in the mud room (the mudroom is heated, and has a doggy door to the back yard, but he does not have access to the rest of the house), then I’m at home when he’d normally be by himself during the day. It’s confusing to him why I don’t want to play when I am in bed. He’s learning not to wake me up though.

Last night I had a good spin. Slowly I am getting my lazy ass back into shape. This weekend I’m going to Kol Nidre tomorrow night. Thursday afternoon I’m going to sleep, then maybe a break-fast Thursday night.

A little bit of work on the kitchen, maybe frame out the last of the cabinet space and start on the drywall. The drywall is going to be the worst part of that whole deal. I’m going to have to put together some photos and post ‘em.

To quote Rob: “I can’t believe you’re tearing up your kitchen again, after all that.” Well, I think a kitchen is the kind of thing that’s never “done”. I’m sure I’ll sell the damn place before I really am truly happy with it. I need to tear up the back yard again. That’s going to be a spring/summer event since I plan on really tearing up a fair chunk of it, putting down concrete, and then re-doing the flagstone.

“Weeeekeeeeends Were Made for Michaloooooooobe”

What a great weekend. I mean GREAT weekend. I got so much done it was crazy.

I’m on a crusade to finish the big issues with the house so I can enjoy my winter training without feeling guilty that there are these huge jobs to do. A good example is the front of my house. It’s a large pile of dirt. Or rather it WAS a large pile of dirt. My neighbours wanted to re-do the aley between our houses, but in order to do it properly I had to excavate a huge amount of dirt. It stayed in a pile for a few months, but I just decided I’m sick of looking at it.

Thursday after work I couldn’t sleep. I drove to a landscaping place and bought 1/2 a ton of white unguaged rough stone. Yet again I’m piling landscaping materials into my SUV. I need a truck! When I got to the scale the woman weighing my SUV was wide eyed: “Did you get a lot of stone?” she asks. “Uh… I suppose… Maybe… Why?” Because normally people who pick up the materials don’t take so much. “As nice as you are,” I replied “I don’t care to come back for more.”

She then said: “You’re a contractor, right?”

I replied: “Uh…” I’ve been up for nearly 48 hours at this point. I’m spacewalking through life, and cognative thought isn’t my strong point.

“You’re a contractor… RIGHT?“

“Well… I don’t have an ID number.” I learned during the flooring fiasco that official contractors have official numbers. I don’t have one, however I was the General Contractor on my place, so I figured yea, sure, that makes me a contractor.

“All I need is a company name.” she replies.

In a flash of brilliance (Or perhaps the lizard-Jewish part of my brain registered: POSSIBLE DISCOUNT!!!!) it comes to me: “Mark’s Contracting.”

And the stone then drops in price by a significant amount.

So after that I spend the next day breaking stone. I figured I could go to prison and do that, however I’m betting Martha would advise against it. Breaking stone for my yard is probably more satisfying. I made a nice terraced bed that I think looks great. My neighbours were very happy that the pile of dirt now at least looked like it might one day add value rather than simply look like poo.

Then on Saturday I went to Torah study at the Wash Park Jewish Center (which kind of included Shabbos services). We all (two of us, plus the Rabbi) went to the Rabbi’s house for Shabbos lunch. It was a very nice croud, and a young woman from New Orleans was there that would simply not shut up. Nice person, but whoooodoggy can she talk. All in all it was a great time. The Rabbi had tons of great one-liners, but I did not write any donw. I was pretty foggy since I should have technically been asleep at that point.

Saturday night I went to the Denver Astronomy Day. There were a STACK of people there. I set up my Sphinx, as well as my ETX-125 UHTC, and since I had just received my dual-scope accessory plate I set up my 102mm vixen refractor side by side. I got to compare the two scopes a fair bit. I think I’m pretty much done with the Vixen. It has a lot of false colour, and is heaver than the ETX. As well, my binoviewer doesn’t really hold up all that well in it, and I won’t observe without my binoviewer.

It was a great show. I met a raft of people, and managed to make a trade with this highschool science teacher- She’d teach me to mountain bike if I showed her how to use the 3 telescopes she “inherited” from somewhere. Sounds like a great trade to me considering my mountain biking skills suck.

Then I went and had a drink with Trixi, who said, and this was priceless: “Hey, it’s this woman’s birthday! Mark, buy her a drink.” to which I replied: “That’s very kind of you to offer for me to buy her a drink, I’ll tell you what, I’m gonna leave that pleasure for you right now. Please, buy her a drink and while you’re at it buy me one too.”

Ok, so the last thing I got done was Sunday (It’s Monday now). I am putting in an additional set of two cabinets in my kitchen. I had to get a fair bit of demo done in order to get them in there properly, and I decided I’d get everything done all in one fell swoop. I built a cabinet for the cabinets so I could just slide them in when they arrive, no-muss-no-fuss. Then I basically had to remove a fair number of lathes and tons of other crap from the walls (including some trim). Basically when I was finished I looked at it and said to myself “The rest of this is straightforward. I just have to do this, this, and this, and this will work,” which was really quite important considering I didn’t really know if the cabinets I bought would fit. They will, and that makes me very very happy.

Once I’m finished the cabinets, and a couple of spots of drywall, the kitchen will be finished. After that I need to do one thing upstairs with the floor, and… uh… and then I’m mostly finished. The rest of it is basically busy work. I’ll finally be in a position where I can just enjoy the house. it will take several days of work to get this done properly, but once it’s done it’ll be done, and I’ll have a TON of space in my cupboards. The front yard is done till next year, and the back yard needs a COMPLETE overhaul. That’s the project for next summer. I’m going to gut the back yard and re-build it. I have a couple of interesting ideas for what to do with it.

Photos to follow.

Quote of the grave shift:

[Troy and I are talking about tripods]

Troy: “For not reading any reviews I guess I got a good [manfroto monopod]“

Me: “Manfroto and Bogen, you can’t go wrong with those two names.”

Dave: “Manfroto and Bogen, aren’t they hobbits?”

Stuck in the middle with…

My replacement got called to Jury duty, the guy that is covering for him has car trouble, and I’m stuck here until the person that can cover for him gets here. It’s sppooky being in the ops ctr. all alone with the monitors off.

There is a skylight above the ops ctr. The sun is streaming in through two small holes in the light fixtures.

It makes me think of escaping.

Tonight is Rosh Hashana. If I get out of here and manage to get some sleep it will be my first Rosh Hashanna services in probably 20 years.

There Is No Such Thing As Darkness…

There is simply the absence of light.

This was probably the biggest message I received from the latest seminar that Nachshon gave. We held it at my place, in my front living room which turned out to be a great place to hold it. The subject was “Know Yourself and Find your Soulmate” and based on the reaction of the participants it was a great success.

Darkness is merely the absence of light. I had to think about that for a long time before I started to understand that statement. In Jewish Mystical thinking the world was created first in a form where all aspects of the universe acted independently, and could channel the energy around us independently.

Chesed, for example, the sefira that represents the outpouring of love and kindness, could channel the entire power of the universe. Well, it’s basically like trying to plug a laptop into a 10,000 volt power outlet. They detonated. The shards of the sefirot fell, littering the universe. The broken shards generate no light by themselves. It is only when those pieces of the sefirot are rejoined (raised) together that they create light in the void.

When we do something good, like connect with another person, do something altruistic, or perform one of the 613 “good deeds” or “commandments” (Mitzvot in Hebrew) we mend the shards, raising them to the next world and making the world a better place. When you do a majorly good deed (an example would be having a child) it is called a Tikun.

Darkness is not something in and of itself. Darkness is simply a void into which light can shine. The darkness in our lives is not a creation, but a an absence of a creation. When we do even the smallest thing that will mend the universe a tiny light will shine in our darkness… As good actions mount the light slowly fills this void. Conversely, light diminishes when we cause a rift.

The most valuable thing about a cup, says Nachshon, is the void inside it. The potential it represents by this void allows us to fill it with water, or any other substance we choose. We are like cups, as is the universe. We start with nothing, and only by filling our cups with light can we slowly bring about the healing of the universe. Of course, when we cause a rift the light in our cups lowers, and we become farther away from our goal, as people, to become the best we possibly can be.

Example from this week-

A friend of mine did something that really… well, I admit it, it hurt me. She was pissed, and she lashed out in public. Personally abhore this kind of public display of laundry, and… Ok, I overreacted. I was pretty pissed, and told her so in private. Her response was reasonable- She acknowledged that she lost her temper and that it was not acceptable. Here was an opportunity- Normally I’d say “Whatever, you’re done.” I’m a hard ass about those sorts of things. This time, however, I decided to do something different. She offered to mend the shards, and I decided that instead of being a toughnut I would match her healing. Together we brought a tiny ray of light into the world. The world is one pico-step closer to perfection.

Yes, I’m blogging at 5:51am PST. Working in the Ops Ctr. Here in Denver is kinda weird because there’s no windows, the overhead lights are off, and we have no clue what it’s like outside. Sometimes we put the local news on one of the huge screen tv’s here in the NOC. The traffic reports show how light (or not) it is out. The world is a little different when you work nights. It’s like you see the underbelly of the world, the private time when everyone is supposed to be sleeping. Except, perhaps, for the Global Service Help Desk in Germany- Those guys are wide awake.

Working nights also has another strange component. When we take our mandatory lunch breaks we sleep. 15 minute break? Sleep. Head down at the desk, head down in the conference room, doesn’t matter. You get time to yourself, you sleep. A friend of mine in the Navy mastered the art of sleeping with his eyes open, standing up. One day he was on watch, on the deck of a destroyer in the South China Sea. He’s standing for 8 hours with a pair of binoculars around his neck, staring out to sea.

“Seaman, are you asleep?” comes a voice from directly behind his head.

The voice is so close it sounds like it might actually be inside his head. The funny thing is, why would the voice of the XO be in his head? The XO, or Executive Officer, the #2 officer on the ship- The guy that does the Skippers dirty work.

He has to think about the answer. There’s a right answer, and a wrong answer. Why won’t the right thing to say come to him? He thinks about the answer for what seems like an awfully long time and quietly says: “Sir, no sir.”

“Right answer, Seamen, otherwise I’d have to throw you in the brig.”

Thankfully, eBay does not have a brig here in the Denver office.