9/30 /06

My mind is gloriously clear today. This combined with the three days of hell preceding this wonderfulness has convinced me that the implant has completely dissolved. I think that getting within 2 weeks (my visit was originally supposed to be on Oct 12th) on a six month window is pretty well hitting the mark. I actually hope that they can continue this narrow window provided by undershooting the mark on subsequent cycles. Not only is this brief period of mental clarity worth the days of bodily dysfunction that accompany it, but even those bad days allow me to reflect on where I would be without the protocol (well actually I'd be dead, but assuming not) which helps with the frustration I sometimes feel at their ways and methodology. 

Of course when conclusions that eluded me for weeks suddenly come into focus it makes me reflect once again on the potential I squandered during my life.

Most of the morning I returned to "Gödel, Escher, Bach"; I am determined to conquer this book wholly before I go. Some things that had never previously actually clicked made sense today. But my mind has currently had it's fill and I am working on this site while my subconscious files everything away freeing me up to dig in again. While mental clarity does little for my recall abilities I will do my best to reconstruct  any interesting tidbits from the previous week.

Also, as many of you know, I have been concerned with having a rational for continuing on. This may strike some as a very frivolous or silly reason, but those of you that truly grasp how my mind works in patterns, or those that think it might be a symptom of organic failure (I'll accept either theory) probably won't be surprised. I like to surf the net, I like to study patterns and I love to make predictions based on those patterns and usually watch them come true. Whenever one searches through myriad patterns, coincidences are bound to rise up. Patterns on chaos, I refer to them as. Almost always they are meaningless and to be discarded as anomalies but very rarely they are indicators of a larger unseen pattern. Whether I am looking at economics, China's expansion, world strife, astrological phenomena, global supply and demand, religious studies, ancient prophesy or in several other patterns the year 2012 keeps rising up in general and where specifics can be pinpointed the date Dec 21, 2012. So as frivolous a reason as that might be, I'd like to see this day through.

It's an ambitious target but being both a Taurus under the zodiac and the Ox under the Chinese system (1961) I can be very stubborn...  

9/29 /06

It took everything I had to drag myself to the car and down to massage therapy. My body was not cooperating at all. Spent pretty much the rest of the day sprawled on the couch watching television, drifting in and out of consciousness. I had breakfast and most of my pills, but could not even manage to get dinner together, not that any hunger signals were getting through to my brain. I'm coming to realize that my mother and sister are right; I need to start developing a support system. Even though I'm almost positive this extremeness is from the implant running short, there will come a time when these situations are of longer duration.

The war on eBay continues. Friends, enemies and strangers dropping off daily. It's very scary out there. Shaun and I have discussed taking one last shot at selling the wholesale electronics. It's a proven tactic but it relies heavily on Shaun being able to function, which is far from a given. But I've only got credit to lose and I've got to try something.

9/28 /06

The price of gas dropped to $2.22 for a gallon of regular today.

This resulted in two events:

1) The newspaper and Internet conspiracy theorists that had been, just two weeks back, theorizing on  how and why Bush and Big Oil were conspiring to push oil to the absurd level of $3.13 a gallon for profit, to endanger the environment and/or satisfy their deals with Satan, were now theorizing that the rapid drop in price was an effort by the usual suspects to secure the November elections (see letters to the editor on both sides.)

 

2) One of my most liberal friends Jeff called me just to "neah neah" me about my oil price predictions for next May. I pointed out that if the price could fall 90 cents in two weeks, did he really think it couldn't rise $1.30 in 8 months? Math, facts and ideas are rarely useful in these kind of discussions. I invited him to call me back after next Memorial day.

Does no one understand supply and demand and market forces any more?

Thankfully the USA Today seems to at times. (column below)

9/27 /06

As long as I'm finally getting around to scanning newspapers I might as well clear this one out of the queue...

What caught me here, more than the article was question #1. Now, I realize that I had almost zero interest in history during high school, took no history classes in college and I have especially terrible retention when it comes to subjects like history and foreign languages, but that Saratoga, New Orleans and Yorktown have only the barest echoes of recognition and that I have no idea what these battles were is a bit scary to me. The other three were easy, 2 & 4 being ones I would have bet large sums of money on. I suppose it should shock me that less than 20% got #4, but I truly think I am beyond surprise when it comes to the average American's understanding of economics and all related topics.

I'm curious how anyone reading this did?

9/26 /06

Written on 9/30/06

Karen broke up with me via email today. That's not as cold as it sounds, that was our primary means of communication and we were rarely face to face. Also neither of us had any real claim on the other. While I realize how unstable a relationship with someone in my mental physical state can be, it still for some reason caught me off-guard. Rereading it now from a position of mental clarity I wonder if I was supposed to put up a fight. Regardless, I have no chase left in me, and it was rarely my pattern even back when I was whole.

Still her absence leaves a bigger hole than I would have thought. The basic point of the email was that while she felt that she was prepared for my physical limitations, my limited ranged of emotional response, left her nothing to cling to when she felt she was falling for my personality.

She expressed a desire to continue emailing (the online version of "let's continue to be friends") but I didn't really believe it and so far my cynicism has unfortunately been proven out by silence.

This now makes all four major possible permutations for some kind of limited physical relationship, I think it might be time to face the facts that the odds of creating a stable situation within such unnatural parameters just isn't feasible.

9/25 /06

Pictures of my new grand nephew are now up on the web. It took forever to grab that picture of Lance Chown-Costa. The security on the site was pretty tight and I eventually had to settle for a screen capture. You can access more pictures by clicking on the picture. If it asks for a password it is CHOWN.

9/24 /06

It's hard to believe I have been away from posting for this long. Although in truth not much worthy of noting has happened. There are two important events to report:

• Lorne and Lisa have had another child, a son who has been named after Lorne's late brother Lance. There has been news that there will be a site with pictures. I will post a link to it when I get the information.

• I had a very small stroke. Strokes are an expected complication of CDS as it progresses. I was not even aware that I had had it, but it turned up in the biweekly MRIs. Most of my symptoms do not persist; they tend to vanish or change while I am asleep at night. But I had noticed that I have a persistent mild weakness or lack of coordination on my right side. I am assuming this is from the stroke.

I head up to the Protocol on Oct 4th; I'll learn more at that time.

9/23/06

9/14 /06

I watched "Path to 9/11" last night. It was on the TiVo for a few days and I expected to watch it in small chunks over a long period of time. Instead I was up until 2am. I know it was fictionalized to some degree, but the bottom line was that no politicians were willing to make any decision that they would end up being culpable for. The buck stopped nowhere. This makes me feel slightly better about Bush, although he didn't do anything either until the prodding of the tower attacks.

This levels me with a new political tagline. I'm unsure if it is more or less cynical than my previous feelings...

Republican: "It's more important to do the right thing than to do things right."
Democrat: "Doing the wrong thing for the right reasons is preferable to doing the right thing for the wrong reasons."

9/13 /06

I'm feeling a little bit better today. Karen used the phrase 'cautiously optimistic' to describe herself today and I think that is very fitting for myself. As of last night's auctions I pretty much have no income coming in and quite a bit going out, but now that I am faced with it, it is just one more fear that doesn't seem as scary when it actually comes to pass.

I am being to feel myself getting prepared to plan, and that's a very good thing.

I'm looking for an avatar.

Snorklefish will do for my current mood.

9/10 /06

A little after 2pm I had an auction kicked from Jenny's eBay account. I was sure the account would fall soon after. I strove to push eBay out of my mind. John called a little while later; Lou's eBay account had been suspended. That added to all the other trouble of late means eBay is on the warpath again. Shaun says they did this last year around this time, I don't remember it being like this.

I'll skip all my thoughts of my own personal end of days and fast forward to our planning over at Shaun's house. I'm going to shut down Jenny when the current auctions (4 days worth) expire, assuming the account is still alive by then. I'll live on credit cards and the little in my bank account while we try to get his business running. Luckily the bit he finds the hardest to deal with is the one aspect I think I can still handle.

It's still depressing and exhausting to think about, but at least there is a course of action beyond just giving up which I'm really not ready to do yet. I have offers from my sister to live with her, but once I've given up striving I don't see much point in continuing to take up space and resources. Hopefully this is a turning point and I'll have much happier news to report in a month. Either way I'm taking at least the next 4 days off and just completely vegetate. If I think of anything interesting to do, I'll probably do it.

9/09 /06

Depression came on hard today. When I went to post auctions on Jenny last night they make me take the tutorial again. Since nothing had been taken down, this made me nervous adding to the nervous I was already feeling. I did not sleep well. Fred came and I put my frustrations into my workout, but I still didn't feel any better for it.

I decided to push eBay out of my head as much as possible and just relax for a few days. I watched TV the rest of the day.

No word from Dan.

9/08 /06

I awoke to find three emails from eBay each one minute apart in sending date. The said the Lisa account was shut down and that taking the tutorial would get it instantly reinstated. The second said I was down for at least seven days and I'd have to jump through the hoops to get it back up. The third said I was permanently suspended. This sent a depressed panic through me, as that only leaves the Jenny account as my only source of income. I don't know what I'll do if that account is closed down.

As almost a symbolic gesture my wallet, which has been slowly dissolving for a month or so, choose today to completely disintegrate. I emailed Karen that I would be at Crazy Buffet at 7:30 if she cared to join me. I needed to get out of the house and so set about driving aimlessly first making sure I could find Crazy Buffet and then went into to Kohl's next door to look for a new wallet. after searching almost the whole store, I finally found the Men's wallet section. Like most things in the store there was a considerable sale going on. Buy one, get one free. Who needs two wallets? Well, I didn't it, but Shaun had described the type of wallet he needed either today or the day before and it stuck in my head.

After Kohl's it was 7:15 and I hadn't heard from Karen which was just as well as my stomach was starting to feel pretty bad, so I just drove home.

Still no word from Dan so I called him. He has broken up with his wife again. Sounded like he wanted to come this way, but also like he really didn't know what he wanted. It would be very good for me if came this way. He said he would call or email tomorrow.

9/07/06

I've had plenty of advanced warning that my DVR was in trouble, but I had so much programming into it both in terms of shows it was set to record, and shows that I had saved on it's hard drive that I was loath to have it replaced. Well today it died for the final time and would not come back no matter what I did to it. There is a lesson there in not saving the best shows for last to watch as I missed a few of the shows would have rather watched.

I took the unit down to Brighthouse and they quickly and efficiently gave me a new one. I do believe that they are the only cable company I have ever been happy with; dealing with them  is always a pleasure. The model number leads me to believe that there have been three upgrades since I last got a new unit. I like a lot of the changes, and other than having to get used to the feel of a different remote (I could work the old one in the dark) none that I don't.