Who Let The Spring Out?

     It is raining in Indiana, the kind of dull, disconsolate rain that weeps at a slow and seemingly endless rate.  No soothing white-noise waterfall, no spritzing, just the sky sobbing quietly.

     What it's got to be sad about, I don't know; perhaps, this being February, it had hoped to be snow -- several feet of snow, the kind of snowfall people talk about for years afterward.  "Where were you during the blizzard of '17?"  Robbed of fame (or at least infamy), the sky weeps instead.

      The weeds and flowers are delighted; I've got ditch-lilies breaking through around the house and garage in little clusters like crowds of tourists.  They don't know from the calendar; it feels like growing time and they grow.  A similar effect can be seen with the squirrels, leaping and chasing and generally raising six kinds of squirrel trouble.  We're liable to have a bumper crop of tree-rodents this year.

     What March will be like, I can only wonder.  Winter may have a trick or two left even yet -- but for today, it's rain now and possibly storms later.

Pruning The Time Sink

     I decided yesterday to begin ridding my Facebook feed of politics entirely.  Stuff I don't like and even the little bit I like -- oh, I may leave Reason magazine, their efforts to make lemonade from sour grapefruit and stones can be amusing -- but otherwise, it's all got to go.  Why?  Because it is entirely non-productive; most political postings there encourage and feed on rage and smugness.  They don't bring about rational discussions of important issues but instead run to shouting mobs of yes-men and naysayers.

     Well, to hell with that.  Y'all can have your grotty little civil war if you like but I'm not playing; just ring me up when it's my turn to be taken out and shot -- and don't expect me to go quietly.

     What, harsh?  If that hive of scum and villainy was the only sample you had, you'd be pretty sure bombs and assassinations were right around the corner.  The lack of faith in the structure and basic institutions of the Federal government is so predominant as to irk even my skeptical libertarian sensibilities.  While a lot of it is arrant nonsense, based on a lack of understanding of sheer inertia of the fed.gov juggernaut and a studied refusal to accept the Law Of Large Numbers,* it is nevertheless dangerous to the extent that a country's government runs on the faith people have in it. 

     Not even the Chicken Little media is doing a better job of undermining that essential confidence than the meme-of-the-moment fools on social media. 
__________________________
* Which I will render in simple terms as, "Sucks in detail, works fine in broad outline."  This isn't exactly right but gives the flavor of the thing.

Consider This Bars And Tone

     Or a placeholder.

Breakfast Report, Health Report

     First off: half of a "banger" sausage, cooked up,* split and served between two slices of buttered rye toast with a fried egg and a little horseradish sauce, is darned good.  Chimichurri might be interesting to try in place of the horseradish and butter.



     Second, after a fairly wretched Friday at work, in which I was getting out of breath from the strenuous effort of walking twenty feet down a hall or lifting a piece of equipment that might've weight an entire pound, along with coughing, sinus blockage, etc., I came home, slept like a very tired person, and woke up a bit stronger.  Still some productive coughing but I haven't had to use the rescue inhaler yet today.  After all the gastrointestinal issues (which, while controlled, have not gone away), I'm not taking anything; I had a serving of yogurt last night and will -- albeit reluctantly -- have more of the stuff today.  I'm getting to where I don't totally hate the plain version if seasoned with salt and pepper.  Don't judge!
__________________________
* I like to steam them in shallow, boiling water in partially covered skillet.   I added some rosemary to the water this morning, which I liked. YMMV.

Unsat

     Progress in the matter of my heath has not, to date, been entirely satisfactory.  Further description would be tantamount to whining.

Better Late Than....

     I had distressing gastrointestinal symptoms starting late yesterday, which I blamed on the two antibiotics.  Subsequent problems that evening resulted in my taking some saved prescription meds to control it.  And then this morning--  Problem came back.  More gut-quieting meds, and they are "do not operate motor vehicles" stuff, so I stayed home and mostly alternated sleeping, coughing and scurrying down the hall.

     Persistent chills haven't helped.

     In the awake time, I e-mailed and then called the new doc-inna-box (which does have the advantage of being run by the same doctor factory as my primary care physician's office), to learn that one of the antibiotics, the Z-pack, was prescribed due to, and I quote, "an error."*  Ooops? So no more of that, and I guess I will be trying to choke down some of the right kind of yogurt for lunch, well away from antibiotic-taking times.

     Until this very moment, my intake today has been limited to water, coffee, tea and crackers (and, okay Tam, some potato chips).  I'm now trying some soup and orange drink.  Here's hoping for the best.
______________________
* How can this happen, you ask?  In true modern-efficiency fashion, M.D.s and their nurses are required to task-nest. (Unlike the neighborhood doc of yore, they are, after all, supporting an office, a rather large staff, and a big ol' corporation.)  So, nurse does the intake interview and doctor reads it before she does exam; after seeing me, she adds her initial notes, starting with request for nebulizer treatment.  Nurse sets that up while doctor completes notes.  Nebulizer runs while they work with other patients.  Doctor returns to check nebulizer, sees it is not done and I am not looking as chipper as hoped, leaves promising to return in a few minutes, modifies notes to change antibiotic.  Meanwhile nurse is setting up prescriptions to be faxed or e-mailed, sees new medication, adds it to order, sends it off.  Doctor returns, hands me paperwork (listing only one antibiotic), and I'm surprised to be given two later at the pharmacy, but the right doctor's name is on them. 
     This goes unchallenged until I call, at which point the electronic paperwork is backtracked and the mix-up found.  I know that because I was on the phone with an admin type who talked her way through the process while she sorted it out.  Someone in comments is going to tell me I otta sue, but that just makes medical stuff cost more.  They may need better software -- and I need to question stuff that doesn't match the paperwork I was handed.

Sinus/Inner Ear Infection, Bronchitis And Probably Yaws.

     I think that's what the doctor said, but you should never ask, "What's yaws?" unless you're willing to buy the next round.

     Ended up with prescriptions for two different antibiotics and a rescue inhaler, plus a nebulizer treatment right there in the doctoring-place.  It helped; I'm still wheezing and coughing but I haven't had a really bad out-of-breath episode since.  On the other hand, I haven't done much since, either, other than a stop at Panera Bread with Tam for a quick dinner while waiting for the prescriptions to be filled.  Went home, took drugs, laid down and woke up an hour later, overheated.  Laid on top of the covers and let the TV talk to itself (a series of declassified films about A-bomb tests in 1946, back when a poncho was plenty of protection from fallout) while I drifted in and out.  Finally pulled a sheet and blanket over me and fell asleep again, to sleep like an inert object until the alarm woke me, chilled, at 0600.

     Up now and I'll see how far I can get. To work?  To work would be good.  One step at a time, and I'm pretty sure the shower is my first step.  I'll see how things go from there.

     ETA:  Never got that far. Started coughing, can't seem to get it under control.  Sheesh.

     FETA:  (Mmmm, goat cheese!)  Eventually managed to stop coughing.  Laid down for a half-hour, decided I could be just as miserable on the clock and possibly slightly productive, and went into work. In hindsight, possibly not as clever an idea as it seemed at the time, but it worked out.

I'm Chilled

     ...Except when I'm overheated, which happens infrequently.  Then I'm not chilled.  Yeah, still sick.  Managed to do laundry yesterday, very slowly, but ran out of energy.  Today I'll go to the doc.  Probably after Tam gets back from work.

And, so

     I am sicker than ever.  Slept Saturday afternoon and most of Sunday.  Woke up short of breath and feeling as if I were on a forced march.

     Called in sick and promptly fell asleep again.  Just finished rustling up a meal, nothing much, and I'm going to get cleaned up, find enough clean clothes to to wear and get myself off to the doc, assuming I can find a doc-in-the-box that is both acceptable to my insurance company (the one I've gone to for years hasn't been since late last year) and still in business.  At my present rate of activity, that's going to take all day.

Hamfest Haul; Still Sick

     I did get to the hamfest, and picked up a bunch of connectors (PL-259s for RG-8 and 8X-sized cables) and a few books -- Rider on Resonance and Alignment, one of their "An Hour A Day" tutorials, a bit stuffy but packed with useful information.  Also Elmer Bucher's The Wireless Experimenter's Manual, a 1920 book aimed squarely at the then-burgeoning amateur radio community, with lots of late spark-era data and projects as well as very early vacuum-tube and radiotelephone equipment for the home constructor.  Better build that rotary gap quick! The next ten years would see enormous advancement in the field, as broad, noisy spark signals gave way to needle-sharp CW, clear voice and the beginning of radio broadcasting.  I found a nice reprint of the Hugo Gernsback 1935 Short Wave handbook, too, with equipment as different from the Bucher book as a laptop is from a portable typewriter.

     Other finds included a trove of Cannon "P" connectors, which are king-sized microphone plugs dating back to the late 1930s (and my house-standard for low-impedance, non-carbon mics); a collection of telephone-type lever switches for an ongoing project; a nice 0 - 1 Amp RF ammeter in a box with coaxial connectors that will be a useful gadget, if it works; and, of all things, a telephone dial mounted in a soup can with an L bracket so you can fasten the thing in a convenient location for -- well, I'm darned if I know.  The price was right and it was interesting.  Also, I have a nice old Art Deco phone with a seized-up dial that this one appears to match, so....

*  *  *

     Returned home after a couple of hours, very sleepy, and proceeded to do nothing much.  Nuked a lasagna (Evol brand -- not bad!), ate it, fiddled around a bit more, and went to sleep early, waking multiple times only to cough, sneeze, and eventually discover that sleeping on one side had caused my sinuses on that side to fill in a manner both horrible and not (you'll be happy to know) especially describable. So here I am, enjoying sausage hash with onion and egg (and a layer of flour in the bottom of the pan* with some paprika and pepper), and almost tasting it.  Going back to bed is looking better and better.
_____________________________
* Just a thin layer, fingertip-sifted.  This helps with the excess grease and forms a nice, crunchy crust.  I'm sure it's not good for you.

Saturday

     I still don't feel great -- yesterday afternoon was an exercise in willpower -- but there's a hamfest this morning.  So I am hoping to do a walk-through, get back home on time for brunch, and go back to bed.  Is this wise?  Probably not.

No Bench

     It turns out that whatever Tam's got is not what I had earlier -- and now I've got it, too.  I woke several times during the night, coughing, and had trouble getting back to sleep.  It's a nasty, insistent, near-dry, wheezing cough that tastes metallic, not easy to ignore.

     So, call in sick, right?  Wrong.  We've got a tech out on vacation, the third day-shift tech is only on days Tues-Thurs, and that leaves exactly one genuine Engineering Technician on duty after the early-morning tech departs: me.  So if I can possibly haul my wheezing self out of the house, I need to proceed onward to work.  It's not dedication -- I don't trust the technical managerial types* to not make a mess of whatever will break today.  Nice fellows, but they don't hardly sling solder and haven't for years.
_______________________________________
* From 11:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., there will be three (3) Engineering managers to one maintenance tech.  In fairness, there will also be one or two operating techs and a technical assistant, so at worst it's a 1:1 ratio.  I have absolutely no opinion to share about this.