White Lightning Axiom: Redux

Well, the last few days have been ... gone in a trice. Perhaps it's the TSD (taking a tip from Charlie on the PA Turnpike here) that is shortening my days and giving me the prepotency to ignore the less glamorous aspects of my engagement with reality. Work issues, although oppressive and unending (I am now on phone support duty for the weekend) seem to hold less sway over me. Perhaps it was my unparalleled planning (read: luck) that I mowed the pastoral expanse AND the back 50 last night before taking the kids to TSD practice. You see, it rained for 40 days and 40 nights over the last few hours. That would mean the spring growth would be nearly impossible to hack down to size next weekend and I would be slaving away on the lawn for HOURS instead of concentrating on the garden or flower beds. I could only assume that the genetically altered inhabitants of the blighted jungle would try to usurp the Haupertonian empire and conduct a putsch against me ... probably aided by the Twin Tyrants of Turpitude. Nope, the lawn is mowed so I need not dither with that nonsense. All the Mountains of Mastodon Manure have been leveled so the Weekend Doggie Dip Date has been obviated. Since I'm on duty, I'll not see much of the Ever Tolerant Mrs or the Tyrants. All the better to do lawn work till the inevitable signal flare from the Titanic is sent up. I'll be certainly quite circumspect when that happens.

Going back to the TSD class. Over the last few days, I'm fairly certain that I have punished every sweat gland on my body to a point where they have just about given up hope of ever being the same again. Nothing like a 500% turnover of body fluids. Part of this has to do with the intense scrutiny of my forms for the upcoming test in a few weeks. Yep, the Tyrants are going to attempt their Yellow Belt and I'm shooting for the Green. At that point, I'll start on my staff forms (Korean:bong) and I'll be eligible to be buffeted about the head and shoulders in sparring. Of course, not that I've managed to crack the code of higher kicks (rotate your back foot instead of twisting your knee-cap off, dummy), I'll have a slim chance of dishing out at least a tenth of what I graciously accept (thank you sir, may I have another!) My limbs are still quite stubbornly disobedient in many cases. I just cannot seem to get the precision down and that is more damaging to my unwitting partners. More than once I've given a hearty, swift kick to what I was envisioning as the Solar Plexus only to have the foot firmly contact the 'man junk'. The target is rarely amused. I've gotten two nicknames out of this ... one is the 'Steel Crane' for my jerky, robotic formality in which I grind through my forms. The other, is "Uggghhhhhh!". Well, that's what they usually call me when I'm asking the prone figure grasping their groin after I've walloped them in the twig and berries if they are OK. Yeah, I'm sensitive like that.

Technorati Tags:Karate | Children | Plumbing | Lawn Mowing

Labels: Karate, Lawn, Spring, Weather

It's been quite some time since I've had any time to make a pass at a roundup. The forces of the universe tend to act against me in ways that are completely undefinable. Of late, I've been feeling a bit glum. It took a turn in the weather and a bit of physical activity to snap me out of it. Sometimes, the mountain of responsibilities and unfinished chores crush your spirit in so many ways. Sisyphus seems to have had it easy in these times, he had only one insurmountable task in front of him. With these low times, we all seem to fall prey to the various illnesses and nasties (Read: MS Attack) swirling about us like a gossamer fog.

One of our own, Deb Grey, writes often about the vicissitudes of depression and she has a unique perspective being that she is a fellow traveler on the MS path. Run on over and read through her offerings ... they are quite extraordinary. A clarion of reason amongst the chorus of chaotic klaxon bleating out deafening defeatism and senseless clamor.

Out there in the cabal, there are some of us who could use a boost every now and again. Stephen at 2 Buddhas cum One Life has expressed his general opinion of the impediment that MS has become within his life. We, the members of the cabal, have a peculiar argot when speaking of our affliction. In general, we tend to chant the "MS sucks" line made quite popular by our contemporary bastion of witty quips at Multiple Sclerosis Sucks.

Another bastion of high spirits hit a snag of late. My dear compatriot over at WordSalads needed a boost for when times are tough. And tough times are laid out in front of her like dog poop on a sidewalk. She is not letting her typical gregarious nature become yet another victim of the curse though. No matter how many orifices may be in trouble, she tries to make sure to have a healthy rant every so often. Good lesson in mental hygiene.

Then there is Miss Suzy. If anyone is the antithesis of depression, it is her every bubbly, effervescent attitude in the face of adversity. It seems that no mountain is too high and no valley of darkness can bedaub her belief in the future. Nay, not belief, but faith. No matter what she says, her faith is like a rock for herself, her family and those of us lucky enough to know her. She even goes so far as to pass on her recipe (both written and in deed) to cure what ails you. Personally, I need to confer with her on the potential for substituting the apple cider vinegar with grain alcohol. Talk about high spirits!

Crossposted from Charles's site as a service to mankind!

Technorati Tags:Multiple Sclerosis | Heros

Labels: Heros, Multiple Sclerosis

It's already Tuesday and I'm still trying to scribble about the weekend. I'm quite late to the dance here ... all that is left is the cleanup. Well now, I suppose I should grab the mop and get started. It all started with a fantastic migraine on Saturday morning. That little bastard pretty much wiped out half my sunlight hours. I'm not sure what triggered it, but it never bodes well when something like that crashes into your day like a tsunami of mind-bending pain. After 1300 hours, the vision returned along with my ability to stand erect without fear of loosing the phantom meals I had consumed in the 'dark times'. So, to stick my rigor mortis stiffened finger of spite into the eye of the universe, I crawled out of bed and up the ladder onto the roof of the Manor to clean out the gutters. By that time, the tar shingles were on fire and I was dancing about like a frantic tick on a match-head. It was a short task since I had installed gutter shields the previous fall, but some had come loose due to the elements and those damn squirrels. Destructive little varmints, they really did a job on my tulip bulbs too. All the bird feeders in the neighborhood keep them fat and happy so trying to get rid of them is a loosing battle. I used to live-trap them and them 'escort' them out of the area. More just moved in to live off the fat of the land.

Later on, the Mrs returns home from her weekend hunting trip at the various grocery stores around our territories. The Tumultuous Tyrants of Turpitude were happy to see their favorite target up and moving as well. Pummeling a prone lump of moaning flesh is not quite the challenge they are used to. Within minutes, the 7 billion cubic feet of triple ground hardwood mulch I ordered arrived and the mile-long drive was covered with an avalanche of the musky smelling material. That was the cue to start cleaning out the flower, herb and garden beds so that I could start with that unending task. I did get a bit of the leftover wood moved to the back-50 before the mulch arrived so I did have one bit of good luck.

While the ever helpful Mrs assisted me in denuding the flower beds, the Tyrants played in the sand-pit and demanded to be pushed on the swings every 15 seconds or so. After an extended lesson in 'please' and other niceties (lost on them was the understanding of this, just the mechanics were retained), I turned my attention to the Agricultural Sector. It was nicely tilled so I set to the task of getting the cucumber mounds pulled together and the seeds planted within. The Mrs disappeared inside with the twins and dinner was started. I was left to myself to shuttle tools and such back into the garage before the sun went down and the inevitable temperature drop freezes everything solid. Not quite the success story for Saturday as I would have hoped.

Sunday, however, was a different story. I still managed to wake with an inordinate amount of pain in my thick noggin, but I shook it off and we headed out to the local Home Depot Temple. The Mrs had it right when she insisted we take the POS SuperSaturn. She knew that the limited cargo space would keep me from draining the central bank of all funds. So, we just buy pansies, daffodils, snap dragons, wax begonia and 5 bags of top soil. After stopping at the local Produce Junction for our 2 gross tons of farm product, we made the command decision to have our lunch in downtown Hatboro. If you are not from the area, imagine Mayberry, without all the politeness and snappy dressers.

After frittering away half of yet another weekend day away, the clan raced home as fast as the fission powered fuel cells in the POS SS could take us. Zipped up the Mile-Long-Drive and unloaded the booty. For the rest of the day, we spent our time planting peas, beans, romaine lettuce, spinach, nappa lettuce, broccoli, carrots, potatoes, cabbage, pumpkin, tomatoes and such. The Mrs, being as helpful as she could with her allergies, purged the herb boxes of nonessential matter allowing the chives, sage, thyme and oregano to get some precious sunlight provided warmth while I plant parsley, rosemary, french tarragon, basil and lemon grass. All the while, the Tyrants play in sandbox ... persistently requesting 'higher' pushes on the swing. The rest of the week ... well, that's just plain frustration in a bottle

Technorati Tags:Garden | Spring | Weekend | Children

Labels: Family, Gardening, Spring, Weekend

Let's make this one quick, shall we? As the demons of unfinished tasks nip at my rear as I futilely flee, I take time to throw an additional albatross or two about my strained neck. I got little done at work yesterday, and I can not claim any growth in technical experience or basic fundamental understanding of the underlying architecture. Ghaaa, I detest the first few steps in a learning curve, it's so difficult to disabuse yourself of the belief that previous paradigms or methodologies are still valid. So much time spent in the 'design', so little time left for reveling in your success. But I kvetch too much, no? I have a job that many would sell their soul for and the opportunities that come with it.

As I mentioned above, the albatross I just scooped up was about 7 yards of triple ground hardwood mulch that I'll be putting on the flower beds this weekend. Provided they manage to deliver it Saturday morning. If not, I'll spend my time pulling weeds and collecting last years dead leaves. I'm not expecting to have to mow since I scalped the lawn when I mowed last weekend. It looked awful, but I wanted to pull up all the detritus that managed to get pounded into the turf. The fertilizer/crab-grass protection and grub control that I laid down should work well too. After the NorEaster flooded the great pastoral plains in the front of the Manor, the marshy expanse certainly had enough moisture and growth-hormones to send up a massive Tropical rainforest. I'll pop the mower deck up a notch next weekend and reap what I have sewn. The clippings go right into the garden to keep the genetically modified, highly aggressive weeds at bay. I'll be putting in the drip irrigation system this year so it'll be that much harder for the Triffids to run rampant over the Agricultural Sector.

And gasoline ... I need to put another 10 gallons in the POS Super Saturn. It's at $2.76USD at the local station. Stupid ethanol blend switchover.

Technorati Tags:Gas | Gardening | Work

Labels: Banalities Work, Gardening, Spring

I'm a bit low today. Not sure why ... just feeling somewhat melancholy. The night before, I skipped the adult class and did not go swimming with the kids. They splashed about while I paced like some forlorn shambling drifter along the side of the pool. Last night, we had the Karate Demo at the local Middle school. Really nice place. The demo was for about 2 hours and it completely wore me out. It was not as aggressive as a normal practice session would be though ... it was trying to maintain order amongst the ranks of upstart lilliputians that drained me. The usual stuff went on ... board breaking, forms, defense moves ... nothing that was extraordinary for us. Before anything got started, all the twerps felt compelled to run about the gymnasium (they called it a Cafetorium ... wtf!?) like a heard of frenzied lemmings. We did have a pretty good time afterwards. I took the Tyrants to the Hibachi Bar - Mt Fuji - and we had dinner there instead of me spending all night trying to get them to eat at home. That's always nice ... but the down side is that we still need to trek back to the Manor and subdue the Tyrants so they will capitulate and go to bed. That is always a challenge. Getting up the next morning in a 'spoon deficit' is never easy. Not sure if this is a standard case of the doldrums due to the rather unpleasant weather of if it's some manner of male pms. Maybe it's the unsurpassed difficulty of my current project (I'm so behind the learning curve that Sisyphus's lot certainly looks attractive). But it's Thursday ... which means that Friday is within shouting distance.

Technorati Tags:Swimming | Karate | Children | Depression

Labels: Banalities, Children, Family, Illness, Karate

Yes, I managed to log on again. I've been so awful of late ... too many distractions. Especially the Haupertonian Agricultural Sector. I tilled and prepped the soil for another year of projected bumper crops only to be snowed out. Snow! Of all things I would expect the lack of energy or time to waylay me in my pursuit of veggie perfection. But not this. Alas, plans of men and mice. One brilliant point of light in all this bone-chilling cold and gloom is that I did manage to get my lawn mowed before the nor-easter cane down to lay us low. Sooo, that means I had to buy a new lawn mower. It has a KEY START! WOOT! Not more yanking my arm out of it's socket to get that warped old mower going again. Nope, it's 'Out with the old, in with the new' time here in the Domain Haupertonian. Of course, I had to buy some efficacious potted tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage while I was picking up the 'Lawn Machine of Reaping'. They are currently residing in the garage. The garage that only saw a car parked in it once. That was to discover that even the super saturn pos would not fit unless I sawed off the side mirrors. Along with the greenery, I also picked up a few bags of fertilizer, crab grass control and grub insecticide. And it lays there in 50 lb bags because of the rain. Cant put it down till the nonsense weather clears up. Oh, and I started a new fast-track project on Monday so my minute bit of time I have left in my life is whittled down to an atomic iota now.

Oh, and gasoline is at $2.78USD here. I need to get a more efficient car.

Technorati Tags:Gas | Gardening | Spring

Labels: Banalities, NorEaster

Wellp, I'm alive. Since I am a clarion of all that is sane, I was asked (rather: tagged) by my fellow GRWC member; 'Why I blog?'. Most likely, why have I not been blogging. So, why do the netizens deign to read my infantile scrabblings, I know not why. Why do I cavort and prance like a fool upon the blogosphere stage?

1) I am actually a 14 year old girl pretending to be a middle age man. You know, because that's totally hot!

2) It costs a lot less than court ordered therapy.

3) Being a toper and sybarite of unparalleled ferocity, I unleash my drunken fury upon the sober community through this medium instead of the general public during my month long benders.

4) AlexC, master of 100 blogs, tried to distract me with this rivulet of tripe.

5) Going forward: Deb-Deb, Miss Chris, BrainCheese, Cottontimer, Very Preggers MaidInk.

Technorati Tags:Blogging | Meme

Labels: Blogging, meme, Snark

I don't have much to report today. The kids are off from school so the Mrs is staying home with them and getting all the supplies packed up into the Family Tank v2.0 for our trip to the FOB. Just a couple of days with the Grandparents over the easter weekend and then back again. I've already passed off the support phone so that albatross is off my shoulders. Now, I just have to ride out the day and attend a few meetings before throwing myself into the effort of fighting through 225 miles of potholes and insane drivers. Better prime the Plasma Guns and Particle Ray Emitters ... it's dangerous out there. That, and we have to stop at our favorite gas station along the way, I'll make sure to get a price report for you all.

Technorati Tags:Gas | Easter

Labels: Banalities, Children, Easter, Family

Okay ... it's snowing right now. SNOW. It's farging April. Global warming my ass.

Technorati Tags:Snow | Spring | WTF

Labels: PSA

So, the phone rings yesterday at 0230. Yes, that is 2 hours and 30 minutes past midnight. About the time when the gossamer sheet of sleep finally settles over my racing mind. No, not really. I guess it's more like a diethyl ether laden quilt really. But yes, the support phone rang and it was the worst kind of problem. Customers effected, systems down, communications off-line, full blown Pepsi Melt Down. Ghaa ... must wake up. On top of that, I was without Manor-super-internet at the time. For some reason, I could not interface with the facility systems from my computer. There has been some issues with our cable internet of late ... the effects were still lingering. This required that I schlep my way into work at 0300. Well, wouldn't you know it, the traffic was light and there were no red signals for me the entire way. Made the trip in about 13 minutes. Obeying the speed limit and all the entire way, no less. So, there I am at work somewhere near the beginning of the universe for the day. Long story short, I wake up a few people so that misery can have company. My day ends sometime around 1830. The Ever Patient Mrs had to drop off and pick up the Tumultuous Twins of Tyranny that day so her TLC of my gnawed up hind-end was muchly appreciated. I had a glass of Shiraz and promptly passed out till 0630 the next day. So, in the end, sorry for not posting yesterday. But you know what, tough shit. (yeah, I'm still cranky)


Technorati Tags:Work | Raw Sewage

Labels: Banalities Work

Yeah, yeah ... I've been lax in responding to your comments. Sorry ... still not quite on my feet yet. I've been plugging away at work resolving bugs in the new java/eclipse/j2ee/swing/hibernate/anything_under_the_sun environment. A big chunk of flash-bang is neat to play with so long as your hamster driven laptop can handle it. Mine cannot. I've been dumping more java memory heaps than my mastodonic cybernetic hounds of hell on the back-50. Oh, and I'm on support phone duty this week too. Yeah, it's all good.

Enough of my kvetching, lets talk about some good news. I'm coughing up less and less of my internal organs. I swear my lungs had a slice of scrapple lodged down in there. Out of the last 3 months, I think I've been well for only one week. Friggen overactive MS immune system. And I'm expecting a fresh crop of viruses and cruft since it is supposed to drop below freezing again this week. That this twists my nipples something fierce. I just got done tilling the Agricultural Sector and I'm all geared up to start the spring crops. Nothing like fresh lettuce and spinach for dinner. The twins actually ask for salad every night. I know, peculiar little buggers ... the admonish me for not waiting for the dinner prayers and then try to disabuse me of the idea that every meal need not have a full 4 course compliment. They are a bit agitated about the garden too. A full 3 days have passed since Daddy tilled the soil and still no green-beans, peas or carrots. What is up with that!? Since I'm on pager duty, I've been skipping the swim/karate routine ... no use in even trying since a call could come in at anytime ... and when it hits level 4, its always an emergency that needed attention an hour ago. So, the Turmultious Tyrants have been enjoying the sun-slathered evenings in the sand-pit ... busily digging up all the toys the buried last autumn. Little do they know that they have a karate test for their yellow belt coming up in 4 weeks. I'll have to work on this a bit with them so they don't get too rusty. Not that I'm all that worried. Just yesterday I had to ask Jake to STOP punching his teachers. For some reason, he things that the more robust ladies can take a few punches and not be harmed. It may be true, but it's not all that polite. He usually tempers the expected response by surrendering a hug and kiss before they have a chance to exhort a less violent greeting. Sly, he is.

Oh, and gas is $2.61USD, in these parts ... WTF!?

Technorati Tags:Gas | Swimming | Karate | Children | Plumbing

Labels: Banalities, Blogging, Mundane