Because I can

It’s seriously cold out there this afternoon, especially for the end of April. In fact the weather has called for snow tonight! This would not be n4ecesarily bad except I have to ‘man’ and information table out in West Jordan tonight from 6:00 to 8:00 PM and I bet it will snow on me as I am driving over to the high school after work or when I am coming home. The best part is that I am taking off tomorrow and then it’s the weekend so I have a long weekend and I am planning on doing the same next week—Why? Because I can

We Shall Endure

I got an email from my older brother—actually it was a text message now I think about it. It was not to me per se, but an email for the whole family which is cool to see him using technology. The family reunion is being held in Utah this year which is terrific for Dianne and me and family in this part of the world but this means those traveling to Utah for the event are going to have to be housed and entertained for the brief 48 hours or so they will be here. My older brother, Carl, who lives here in Utah seems to be incharge of organizing the event and thay js totally

I must admit even though I tend to portray myself as the badass family member, I like the reunions and the time spent with family and extended family, communal pictures, food and story telling. Mom has been gone now for almost a year so this is the first gathering since the funeral and I am kind of surprised we have decided to have a reunion as soon as we are. I thought the fam might take a couple year break—but this really delights me .Maybe we will endure.

Another test

Beautiful Day

What a great day! Sunshine after a couple of days of cold wet showers! Sunshine and warmer temps. Auni was over and I used her energy to go shoping--Auni is wonderful at shopping, she scouts all the deals, pushes the cart and loves to use the self-check-out, which I never would. She is pretty cheap, usually a couple of bucks and chocolate straws, fruit leather or candy...really cheap considering. Today she needed about $7.00 to get this weird bank she has seen at the drug store. So today I also had the grand daughter emptying trash and untying the wire spaghetti under my computer station and later her dad moved all the wires out of the way, when he came over to pick the child up to go home. The blossoms are just bout done now with fresh leaves replacing the fragrant temporary flowers of Spring.

Today's Broadcast

I know I have been lax again and I do not have an excuse but here is the latest Access Utah Now broadcast..Access Utah Now

I'm Glad That's Behind Me!

I really should have gone to work Thursday but I was so intimidated by the prep for this week’s colonoscopy that I took the day. I fasted all day as I wrote, but drunk huge amounts of liquid and again that is part of the prep possibly the worst part of the prep; having to drink four liters of cold, semi-sweet mucoid( I may have made this word up but I am going to keep the word meaning thick, slippery) substance. The wring on the outside of the bottle suggests the liquid is tolerated better if chilled but I doubt chilling would make much difference—it was like tying to drink four liters of Gatorade all at once. This of course was followed by literally sitting on the toilet all night long, mind you I started the process about seven o clock in the evening ( and I was late starting).. Dianne was great packing me with blankets, pillows and parkas to make me as comfortable as I could be.

Its just easier to stay there on the throne rather then having to make a mad dash for the porcelain all night especially if you have limited body movement, believe me. The night was long but survivable, the doc tells me I will have to do this again in five years and if I am still round then I am going to drag my lap top into the bathroom me and watch movies on Hulu all night long. The lack of food was not bad, I was food numb after the first six hours or so. I must admit I did have difficulty separating my butt from the toilet seat when it was time to shower and get ready for the appointment. My butt was “ringed”. We took a picture but good taste proscribes I leave the image out of this document.

I had the colonoscopy at University Hospital. Hospital and staff were nice but strange—everyone and I mean everyone acted so sweet I could barely stand it. Staff acted like they had all just exited a staff meeting on how to make friends and influence people. Thankfully we were taken to Endoscopy where I was heaved onto a gurney and off I went. They had already put the tubes in including the mouth piece I was going all the way under. Actually I was having two procedures EGD Esophagogastroduodenoscopy and the colonoscopy. I of course was knocked out and soon I was “back” in recovery doing just fine at least I felt fine just a little bloated I thought was normal since part of the procedure is the docs fill you with air and the big joke is to have everyone fart as much as they can in recovery. I guess I did not fart quick enough and my doc as well as /Dianne were becoming concerned that perhaps the doc has nicked the side of my colon when she snipped the polypus and I had a perforated colon! I could not believe everyone was getting totally concerned and there was serious discussion of rolling me back into the OR for surgery to repair the colon!!! I was not concerned—I felt great and don’t think I would have felt as good if she has nicked something. Everyone was pushing on my stomach all stated how hard it felt! Luckily soon I ‘cut a big one” , and another and another, I felt like “Charlie” in Willy Wonka in the C Factory when he burped to lower him self in the carbonated drink section of the factory. I was A-OK and soon I was out of there.

So survived taxes and my two procedures, I should be OK for another five years. I need to live bigger.

Fast Thursday

So here I sit thinking of nothing but food, now that I can not ingest anything but clear liquids until tomorrow following my colonoscopy. There is food all over the house, brownies, potato chips, oranges, bread for toast, eggs in the fridge on and on and on. I am clear liquids until six o clock this evening when I start drinking the concoction which Dianne mixed last night and refrigerated. The concoction must be chilled so it can be drank—what the hell does that mean? The concoction can only be tolerated as a cold beverage? I don’t like the sound of that—but until then I can drink as much broth and other clear liquids as I want.

This fasting thing should not be that big of a deal, after all I can still take in liquid! I mean I was raided doing Mormon fasts. Mormons regularly fast two meals the first Sunday of each month, Fast Sunday! I always thought that Fast /Sunday was ill named because the lack of food seemed to make the time drag by there was nothing “fast” about the day or actually weekend. I don’t know about other Mormon house holds but we celebrated a ’hard fast’: no food or water from the Saturday midday meal till the Sunday midday meal. Granted, mom usually made a fairly large lunch to start the fast with but still not matter how much I gorged out I started feeling the pain of the fast by seven or eight o clock Saturday evening, usually just as Gun Smoke” was starting. I never did get used to having my mom not prepare a Saturday evening meal on Fast Sunday Saturday. Luckily by Sunday morning my stomach was pretty numb and I was just going through the motions of life then. When the little brothers and sister were little they, of course were fed usually some sort of cold cereal and luckily once the chores were done we dressed and took off to church which took up most of the time—and as church ended and drove home and entered the house we were thinking nothing but how good the meal would be. Many times mom would throw a roast into the oven before she left for church and the house were we totally permeated with the smell of roast beef when we entered the house following church. The aroma was so potent it was like getting socked in the nose, I instantly salivated and breathed as deeply as I could. We could not eat immediately on returning home but had to wait for the rest of the meal to be prepared which met potatoes being peeled and boiled and mashed, gravy being made along with any other vegetables which might be considered. Clothes changed and table set and wait from the meal and the fast to be finished. The pain of being hungry on purpose there is nothing like it.

I don’t fast regularly now except when medically necessarily and I hate it. I hate being surrounded by food and not being able to partake. I am not reminded of my fasting days like when I do a medical prep. I am glad those days are past and I do not have to do this but once every five years or so and that is 0ften enough for such memories.

The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo

I’m off work tomorrow, it’s a short week for me. I took off tomorrow to prep for a colonoscopy which I am scheduled for Friday. I was supposed to have had this procedure last month but I did not read the directions the doc/hospital sent me on how the procedure is supposed to be done and I did not know how much pre[ time the procedure took. I think I am OK and I am doing this procedure as a follow up to the endoscope that I had done last month or two months ago. Tomorrow’s procedure is routine so there is not necessarily anything wrong, it is just “TIME” TO CHECK TO BE SURE.

Mark A. gave me a gift certificate to Amazon and I had been having some problems getting Amazon to accept the certificate number but Mark intervened and yesterday my order arrived. Four new books, I am excited—I have already “jumped” into one and I am anxious to start the others in do time. But now, I have something to read and keep me occupied and I process through my upcoming procedure

So tomorrow I will be out of commission as I hang round the bathroom getting “cleaned out”, then Friday I get ‘scoped’ round 9:30 a.m. and I hope I will be done and eating again by noon Friday. In the mean time I have The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo.

Zombies!!

I don’t know what it was or what was in the air on Saturday but I thought zombies were everywhere—Saturday you might remember was the day I had to sit on the panel discussion. People were strange! Perhaps is was because the majority were social work students and just not the students and really not so much the students as those folks who hang out at the public library. I am sure part of the problem is since the good city fathers have cleared Pioneer Park the home-less crazies have no-other place to go, once they are turned out of the Shelter or Rescue Mission in the morning. they have to go somewhere until later in the after noon when these places reopen.

There were homeless guys, sleeping in the library on every floor not only at the desks provided for library users but also in the stacks , hosing off in bathrooms and subtly harassing folks outside of the building. I move pretty fast in my power chair so it’s difficult for these guys to catch me and beg for money but occasionally it happens and I usually keep a couple of bucks in my pocket. This is great insurance and it never hurts to help someone if I can. But, I cannot do it all and all these folks have he “1000 yard” stare. It was a beautiful day, Saturday, warm and perhaps more folks then usual were out. If the library experience had been the only experience Saturday I would not have thought much about the event. But later in the day when I got off the train at my stop Dianne and Ani met me and the plan was to go out for an early dinner. So we went to the Golden Corral an all you can eat place we have been going to the past couple of months. A place where one can still get protein in large amounts much more so then any other type place in the city. Again, there were zombies everywhere carrying multiple plates of food, steak, shrimp, noodles, post roast and fried chicken gain with that !000 yard stare. Atleast the zombies were not staring at me they were just staring off in the distance—maybe it was not the zombieness of this place which was so weird as the number of seniors(sorta like me) or the number of lower-middle class with just enough cash to purchase their all you can eat ticket to food Nirvana. So I don’t know what brought the Z’s out this weekend but they were(I checked there was not a full moon either).

I ‘m really not an elitist even if I sound like one, I just thought it strange as to the number of the strange who happened to be out. Maybe I am the strange one and I have to get out more often and maybe the advent of better weather I will be getting out more. It’s hard to say. Either way I just want to be sure to stay away from the zombies.

And No One Even Cared

A couple of weeks ago, maybe even a couple of months my friend Ruth, who is the ED of the local Very Special Arts affiliate as if I would sit on a panel and of course I said “yes” and promptly forgot about the whole thing until week when I got a mysterious email thanking me for agreeing to participate on the panel for this Saturday. I checked my own calendars and sure enough I had the event scheduled 12:00 to 2:00 pm panel discussion and questions.

Panel discussions are typically Easy duty. You’re usually doing someone a favor so the person who asked that you participate in the panel is treating you extra special, then the people in the audience are usually somewhat impressed that you showed u for the panel—they figure that you would not been asked unless to were a special person and the best part they rarely last more then an hour or so and usually there seem to always be three other panelists beside yourself so you have other folk to hide behind if you do give a good answer and maybe the best part if there is food served the person who asked you to be o n the panel makes sure you get something to eat and then if you are really lucky you end up getting a cash stipend. They never call it payment always a stipend, something to do with accounting. The least I have gotten was the meal and that is OK and the most I have ever received was $100.00 plus which was totally unexpected but very welcome.

Yesterday’s panel was hosted by the local community college, some sort of a social justice/power thing-we were on right after lunch four people with significant disabilities. The four of us have been affiliated at one time or another by the local Very Special Arts program –which is` another blog entry entirely. I was the only male sandwiched in between three women with significant disabilities, a spinal bifida, head injury and another quad—very interesting group and I yammered as well. Easy duty. The hour went fast. I think I may have disappo8nted a little—I kinda of have a rep of being a rabble rouser in the are especially for disabled rights. And I was at another time. I was good, I did not attack, accuse or swear in fact I was fairly supportive of my counterparts with disabilities.

When we had finished a rejoined the audience and hung round for a couple of the speakers presentations but there was not a whole lot of reason for me to hag round, after all I was not being graded for anything. I essentially turned and rolled away and no one even cared.

Hey it’s another broadcast day! I am pretty excited. I am interviewing Dr. Justesen from the DLC Disability Law Center, another person with a disability, one who has and has had real power in their adult life. I still don’t know which direction to come from in this interview because this guy is so accomplished—I don’t know if want to talk about him and his career or he being the managing attorney at the DLC. Either direction I think I’ll have something to fill up the thirty minutes I want to devote to this interview. I am hoping if nothing else the interview will be fun and entertaining.

I have picked a pain in my back this morning. The pain is intermittent and in the right kidney area—great, sunshine, warmer temps, a Thursday Friday and I am coming down with a kidney infection of some sort, just my luck.
Anyway looks like Spring is finally getting here. Here is today’s broadcast

Caught in the Cross-Fire

Its Monday morning and its cold and rainy and even snowy at times. I am sitting here drinking coffee returning calls and emails wondering if Spring will ever arrive. I really need to learn more patience. I mean I have done the work, I know, KNOW, that the weather is very unsettled this time of year—it’s Equinox, I have studied it fo0r decades, since my days at the University. But still I wait and pine away by my windows wishing for warm dry weather where one does not have to crawl into a coat every time one wants to go out side. The Equinox weather just seems to be more sever this year, more rain and snow and driving wind until it occurred to me that it was Easter as well as Conference weekend!

Easter and Conference weekend, that would be LDS Conference weekend. Spring Conference is renown for having foul weather—it sort of an ecclesiastical joke. Bring hundreds of people, no, make that thousands of people together in what has become a rite of Spring and then dash them with cold biting winds intermingled with shards of ice disguised as snow. Maybe because this year General Conference fell on the same weekend as Easter or maybe it was because Easter is one week a head of schedule or so it seems, and fell on General conference weekend. So two major events for the local culture populations to be out and about going to Easter egg hunts or milling round Temple Square between sessions, perfect, ZOT!!

So that is the problem about living in a city which is the fountain head of a world religion one has to realize that Supreme Beings must too have their fun and what better way then to focus the faith promoting experiences on their chosen. And I should not mind, too much, I know where4 I live and I know that eventual the seasons will be called, or they will remember their calling and bring the weather I so desperately covet but until then I keep getting caught in the crossfire.

Ink

I have been talking about going out to get another printer for at least two weeks now and I have not yet gone and it’s driving me crazy—I think because I know the printer up by my lap top is still functional—it just may need ink. The printer may need ink or it is broke as many printer do after a year or so of service. I guess I 1. one do not want to go out in the cold gray spring day and 2. I think will get the ink, install the ink into my printer and the printer will still not work…at least as the printer is supposed to. What is really pathetic is I actually bought a new system a year or so ago and have never got round to installing the system—I need help installing the system but never have any one to help me with project…Actually I don’t have any room to put a new printer which has to be close enough or down low enough that I might be able to use the printer especially the functions I am most interested in which is the scanner. The printer I purchase3d w2as a “floor model” out of its box so I am not really sure if the parts are still all there—the parts were ,supposedly when I purchased the product but that has been sometime now. We’ll just have to see. I really need a printer, I think so I had better go.

Happy Easter

I cannot believe it is already the third day of the month and I have not written word one to my blog. And today's entry will not be much better , but atleast I have written a word or two.
the weather has been miserably cold for April, Easter is tomorrow and the mountains are covered with snow all the way ti t5he floor and the weather man is calling for more snow tonight. I should be out doing stuff but I cannot bring myself to get bundled up to go outside--but I do need to get some ink for my printer or another printer entirely. But the way I feel right now, this could wait till tomorrow or even later. Anyway happy Easter if i don't get round to writing today or tomorrow.