You are currently browsing the monthly archive for April 2010.
If you notice the dichotomy between the following two posts, well, that’s what life is like for us right now. Dealing with the bitch called cancer on one side, living life and having fun with the kids on the other. This is just what life is right now. So, try not to get whiplash flipping back and forth between the extremes.
It is what it is.
I thought about not writing anything, but if you don’t know Roberta has cancer by now, well, you’re heads in the sand.
Anyhow, she’s been feeling like absolute crap the last few days. Bad enough that she went in yesterday and had IV fluids again to try and break the cycle. She started a type of Chemotheropy called Gemzar two weeks ago. It’s actually a trial program that she’d on. This won’t cure her cancer, there is no cure, but it might slow things down a bit. That’s the hope anyhow. Her first dose was Wednesday a week and a half ago, second dose was Wednesday, three days ago, final dose is next Wednesday.
Gemzar has most of your typical side effects.
- Flu-like symptoms – Yep
- Fever – some, not too bad
- Fatigue – definitely
- Nausea – some
- Vomiting – yep
- Poor appetite – what appetite?
- Skin rash – nothing yet
- Low blood counts – don’t know
- And yes the possibility of hair loss - not yet. Fingers crossed.
Well, it turns out the worst of the symtoms, something called the Nadir period, occurs 10-14 days after treatment starts. Which she started 10 days ago, and she feels like complete dog crap right now. Semi good news though, is that most symptoms go away by around the 3 week point. Which is right before family gets here. So, hopefully she will be up and about again before anyone arrives. That’s the hope.
It’s time for the annual Good Old Days festivities. Every year Pacific Grove has a home town festival that they call the Good Old Days. Lynn and Chuck laugh and joke about being amongst the Carnie Folk. They run a Calimari booth. This year Megan was old enough to help out. Her first job.
 |
| From Family |
While she slaves away, Molly, Nora, and I went up and watched the parade. Roberta wasn’t feeling well, and couldn’t make the Parade.
 |
| From Family |
We were concerned that there wouldn’t be much of a turn out because of the cloudy weather and wind. Tomorrow it’s going to rain and thunderstorm. But, it seems like a decent crowd has showed up.
 |
| From Monterey Living |
Our semi adopted child turned 18 yesterday. Leecha’s birthday was the 9th of April.
Happy Birthday kid.
 |
| From Family |
I work for a pretty large contracting company supporting a lot of different government contracts. One of the annoying things my company does is send out spam notices to everyone. Normally I just do the normal “Look-Ignore-Delete” routine. Well, a coworker pointed out a funny mistake on today’s “You make the difference!”
Under the what would happen if you don’t follow the rules is the typical “Lives could be put at risk”, “Military Operations could be jeopardized”, blah blah blah.
Then we come to this one. “Relations between the US and foreign countries could be deranged.” Uhm… Deranged? Dang, I knew the world thought we were nuts, but Deranged? Ouch.
Remember all the panic and hoopla about “The world is going to end” because “the Polar Ice Caps are Melting”? All those cuddly polar bears were gonna die off and the oceans were gonna rise, blah blah blah?
I love when mother nature goes and shows us we don’t know what we’re talking about. We’re getting better at predicting some things, but climate has a tendency to thumb it’s nose at all those pretty computer models.
The grey area in the graph below is a 2% standard deviation from the 1979-2000 mean. “1979 on because that’s when satellites began measuring the Arctic and Antarctic Sea Ice Extent”. Not sure why they stop in 2000. The thing to notice is that the current Arctic sea ice extent is working itself back into the “normal” range. Normal being a couple of decades worth of data only. A blink in the eye of the history of man really, let alone the earth.
Arctic Sea Ice
Does this mean all those green peace loving freaks are going to shut the hell up about the poor polar bears? Ya, I didn’t think so. I’m sure they’ll come up with a “new” reason why we’re all going to die if we don’t jump on their freak wagon of anti humanity.Oh well. As long as I have a smaller carbon footprint than “The Al Goracle” I’m not going to worry about it. FYI, I can even increase my CO2 (oh that dirty word) footprint by ten fold and still be less than Mr Greenlover himself.
Oh, and before you believe we’re all going to die because the Antarctic is melting. Well, here’s the graph for that. Again, not quite equal to the 1979-2000 mean, but pretty darn close. Oh wait, that’s actually slightly “More” ice than normal. hmmm… My bad. (-:
Antarctic Sea Ice Extent
You can research some of this right from the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
I’ve been driving Wally for just over a year now. I’ve never had a reliable spare tire. So I figured I had better go out and get one, seeing as how no one carries a 165R15 skinny little beetle tire in stock, and as such it takes a couple of days to get one in. I could just see sitting on the side of the road for 2 days waiting for a tire to come in. That would have sucked.
So, last week I ordered a tire from the local Goodyear, $82 for one tire mounted and balanced. I did that on Thursday a week and a half ago. It got here on Tuesday and on Wednesday I had a good spare tire sitting in the boot.
Today is Sunday, 4 days later. I go outside and this is what I see.
 |
| From Wally the Superbeetle |
What are the odds? I mean after over a year of driving without a spare, I get a flat 4 days later. Sheesh.
Now, I’ve always had pretty good/bad luck with Wally. I suck a chunk of metal into #1 cylinder intake valve, and it nurses me home. I rebuild the motor and two weeks later I break a valve spring, it nurses me home again. Then I break a throttle cable, dead in the water, in the driveway. I buy a spare tire, finally, and get a flat 4 days later.
Update: Well, I changed out the tires and found out what happened. Not sure why, but the valve stem split.
Update2: I stopped at Goodyear on the way to work this morning. The new tire has to be ordered in from Phoenix for an additional $9. Total cost is now up to $91 a tire and won’t be in til Wednesday or Thursday.
I finally have a stereo in my super beetle, aka Wally. After over a year of no music, I can listen to tunes.
I found a Pioneer DEH-P770MP stereo. Single CD, removable faceplate, Ipod, USB options (Which I need to buy), and Sat controls all from the same head unit. Again, I’d need to buy the Sat system, but the head unit will control. It will also play mp3′s, AAC’s, and WMV’s off of either the cd or usb. (Accessory List)
Pioneer Stereo
I then went out and purchased wire, fuses, soldering iron, heat shrink, etc, and took my time and wired it all in properly. All connections soldered and sealed with heat shrink.
Yesterday I finally picked up the speakers from Best Buy. I ended up getting just a set of 6 1/2″ Pioneer TS-G1643R 2-way speakers, it’s a tiny beetle after all, not much volume inside for the sound. When I first picked up the speakers I set them in the back storage area under the valance tray, I was desperate to hear the radio. They sounded high pitched and tinny. Oh goodness, I ended up with the wrong type. That was my worry. I decided to cut them in to my back valance anyhow, hoping they would sound better once they had a barrier between the top and bottom. I had already purchased them after all, I might as well try them. Well, once they were installed properly the tinnyness went away and they sound great! Whoo Hoo!
Total cost for this adventure.
- Pioneer Deck from Craigslist: $80
- Wire, soldering iron, etc.: $35
- Speakers from Best Buy: $55
- Labor: Free
$160 final cost for a fully installed stereo system in the bug. Not too bad considering the quality.
I still need to either purchase the Ipod interface or the USB interface. I’m actually thinking about picking up the USB interface and not the Ipod one. The reason is I can get 2GB USB sticks for a few bucks a piece. If they get stolen, so what. An Ipod is a different story. That and the Ipod controls arent’ the best according to the reviews I’ve read. What I’ll do is epoxy the usb plug into one of my toggle switch holes in the dash, that way I can just stick a small, unabtrusive USB stick in the dash whenever I want tunes, and I can have a 2gb stick for each type of my favorite tunes. Rock, Country, Classical, Celtic, Punk, Misc, etc.
Time for the first ever Tap Handles Monterey house party!! Saturday the 24th of April the Tap Handles will be drinking and Jamming away in our living room! We plan on getting the boys liquored up and getting them to play some tunes.
Current plan is Friday they play Jose’s Underground. Saturday they party and Jam with us. Sunday they may or may not be playing the East End Coffee Shop.
A good time to be had by all!
Can’t wait can’t wait!!
We need to do this every year. That way when the boys become rich and famous it’ll be like having Van Halen come play at your house every year. Braggin rights!
Recent Comments