Category: General

Oy...

I'm supposed to know this stuff. I'm supposed to be good at this stuff. It is, after all, a large part of my livelihood. I'm a geek.

Sometimes, however, it's the simple stuff that comes back to bite you in the butt.

Yesterday morning, I was having some quirky problems with Internet access, I rebooted my DSL modem. The problem is that it wasn't actually rebooting. So I asked my son who was upstairs by the modem, to unplug the modem and plug it back in. That usually fixes the problem.

This time it didn't. As a matter of fact, from that moment on, I didn't have Internet access. The DSL light on my DSL modem kept flashing on and off. It's supposed to do that for a few minutes, then light up solid green.

I finally gave up and called Qwest. We went through several diagnostic steps before the tech asked me if I was using a green cable or a grey cable. I said I was using a green one. He asked me if it was plugged into the green "line" port or the grey "phone" port on the back of the modem. I looked. It was plugged into the wrong port. Problem solved. Apparently, my son had unplugged the data cable instead of the power cable. I should have noticed that. I should have checked that.

Boy did I feel stupid.

Then, when I got online, I noticed that my main domain had one of those temporary advertising placeholder sites instead of MY content. WHAT THE??

Then I remembered. I had received notices that the domain was about to expire. I must have ignored them, because, SURPRISE! My domain expired.

Fortunately, it was still renewable. But oy. I'm feeling pretty stupid today.

My stupid tooth.

I didn't take any kind of pain killer today.  Nothing.  Not so much as a single ibuprofen tablet.  I didn't NEED anything.  I think maybe it knew what it was getting itself into and decided that causing excruciating pain was tantamount to tooth suicide.

So I spent the whole day wondering what I was going to do.  I went outside and breathed in cold air just to see if that familiar pain would return.  It didn't.  I swished cold water around in my mouth.  Nothing.  I put pressure on the tooth.  No pain at all.  I tapped on the tooth.  It was tender, but strangely enough, the tooth pain I had been suffering through was gone.  Occaisionally, I would have a dull ache, but it seemed residual, not new.

Great.  What was I supposed to do?

I figured that the dentist would be a good person to talk to about that, and since I had an appointment, I would show up and discuss it with him.

We discussed it, and, refreshingly, he didn't push me to have the root canal.  I told him I was worried about the pain coming back.  He said that it was likely that we would still be doing a root canal treatment on that tooth in the future.  But if I wanted to wait and see if the pain came back, that he wasn't going anywhere.  We could take care of it when it needed to be taken care of.

It was my choice.

My fear of the pain won and I told him to go ahead with the root canal treatment.

Honestly, the procedure wasn't any worse than having a cavity filled.  Novocaine shots are novocaine shots whether you're having one or the other.  The same sickly smells come from the drill.  The same whiny vibrations penetrate your skull during either procedure.  The filing out of the pulp and nerves was a new experience, but to be honest, it wasn't a big deal.  It wasn't as bad as the drilling.

The dentist told me that I had made the right decision.  The root was nearly dead.  He said that the root canals usually bleed when they're being filed out and that mine were almost dry.  This pain would have only been the first in a continuing cycle of pain.

I have to go back in a couple of weeks.  They still have to fill the cleaned out root canals and put a permanent filling in the crown they had to drill through.

Now I know why people hate root canal treatments though.  The pain afterward is bad.  Much worse than with a filling.  I'm aching, even though I took lortab earlier this afternoon.  I'm aching and loopy.

But at least I know that this is the beginning of the end of the pain in this tooth.  *WHEW!*

A little over a week ago, my tooth started hurting.

No, actually, this story goes back a lot further than that. Before I lived in my current house, before I lived in my first home, before I lived in my "town home" apartment, before I lived in my basement apartment, I lived in a trailer park. Not just ANY trailer park, mind you. I lived in Wyview trailer park, the married student housing at BYU (Breed-'em Young University), fondly known as the "rabbit hutches."

I was a BYU student. I was young. I was married. Life was good. Rent was relatively cheap. I was studying electrical engineering and working as a teacher at the Missionary Training Center.

One fateful night, I was flossing my teeth and the floss caught on something. I pulled a little harder and the floss broke. Floss is NOT supposed to break! I got another piece of floss and tried again. This time, it worked. Whatever it was that caused the problem came out. It turned out that the "whatever" was a piece of a filling.

I was young. Life was good. I was also uninsured, so I hadn't been to a dentist for a while. Through word of mouth, I found a "good" dentist where "good," it later turns out, is translated as "good at selling you dental services, even when you're young and uninsured." He drilled out the old, broken filling and the decay that had gotten behind it. He said that the decay went pretty deep and that there wasn't a whole lot left of the top of the tooth. He would, of course, recommend a crown. It took us quite a while to pay off THAT dental bill of over $700.

But life, again, was good. I was young. Life went on. I left BYU and my Electrical Engineering major to take up Computer Science at UVSC. I moved to the basement apartment, the "town home" apartment, and bought my first house. I had dental insurance. Going to the dentist became a regular occurrence.

Then, one day, not long after Halloween four years ago, I was eating a piece of saltwater taffy and suddenly, the crown that Dr. Marketing Genius had put on many years earlier fell out! Fortunately, in the years since I spent time in the chair Dr. M.G., I found a much better dentist - one who actually (as far as I can tell) cares as much about his patients as he does about the money he receives from his patients and their insurance companies. Dr. Crawford examined the crown (I had bit down on it slightly), declared it free of defect, and re-seated it in its proper location.

I wasn't quite as young any more, but life was good again.

NOW we get to last week.

On Monday of last week, my tooth started hurting. It wasn't awful pain. It was more of an annoyance. It was a tingling, burning, itching sort of sensation that was more strange than painful. During the night, it started to hurt. The hurt worsened on Tuesday, so on my son's 10th Birthday, I went to see Dr. Crawford again.

The assistants took x-rays. The doctor looked at them. He showed me the x-ray and pointed out my sinuses and showed me that the root of the tooth protruded into the sinus cavity. He said that the roots looked fine. There was no abcess or infection to be seen. He thought that the pain was probably caused by sinus pressure on the root of the tooth. He recommended Sudafed (or some other over the counter decongestant) and ibuprofen. If it kept hurting, he said he would give me a prescription for antibiotics, in case there was a sinus infection that the antibiotics could help.

For the past week, I've been using Sudafed and ibuprofen during the day and Lortab at night. It has controlled the pain quite well... Until last night.

Last night, I went down to the basement to bring a bunch of stuff upstairs. The cold air from the basement hitting my tooth was excruciating! Flossing behind the tooth nearly brought me to my knees. I took lortab before I went to bed and STILL woke up from the pain. As soon as I woke up this morning, I went back to Dr. Crawford's office.

They took another x-ray, just to see if there were any apparent changes during the week. There weren't. Dr. Crawford looked at the tooth again and said that it looked good. He then tapped around on different teeth. When he tapped on the crown, it HURT. Other teeth felt just fine. He then told me that clinically, it appeared that it was time for a root canal. Sensitivity to heat, cold, pressure, and waking up at night are all the things that tell him it's time for this always dreaded procedure.

Of course, the first thing that came to mind is "But I don't WANT a root canal!"

However, as I sit here and type this and feel twinges of pain, I realize that a root canal is going to be a welcome relief.

It's under way! I played around with flickr over Christmas and now I have a place to post my pics that won't eat my hosted bandwidth.

http://flickr.com/photos/misterme/

Most of the photos will likely be pretty boring. I figure by taking at least one photo every day, I'll end up with a few very nice ones.

2006 was a year of large unexpected changes for me.

A year ago, we had no intentions of moving. We found our dream house, bought it, sold our first home, and moved in a matter of a few weeks. Then came the landscaping project. And now, thanks to the other big change in 2006, the next big change is already under way: Upscale Downstairs will start finishing our basement on January 22nd. This means that EVERYTHING in my basement has to be moved (temporarily, thank goodness) to the bonus room upstairs. We moved a bunch of stuff already. I thought when we moved in that we were DONE lugging boxes all over the place.

A year ago, I fully intended to stay at Symantec for another five or ten years. I was working on my Java certification so I could be in a position to continue working on the next generation of the product developed in my lab. At the end of July, that plan changed completely. Symantec was changing its plan for the product and I was told I wasn't part of the plan. Three weeks later, I accepted the job offer from Altiris and a new chapter in my career began. The severance package from Symantec will be paying for a chunk of the work in my basement.

Here's hoping for a more stable 2007.

Like I need another project to neglect.

I've been mulling it over though.  It could be a lot of fun AND it could be something that my son and I do together.

I can hear you now...  WHAT?  WHAT PROJECT?  What are you TALKING about?

I'm talking about something called Project 365.  I read about it yesterday.  For those of you too lazy to click on the link, it's simple enough.  You just take at least one photo a day for at least 365 days.  Then, at least one photo is posted on the web for each day.  It sounds like a lot of fun.  It could be boring.  It could turn into a tedious chore.  But it could go the other way and be something really worthwhile.  Especially if I have my son do the project with me.

He has his own digital camera.  He has a LOT of fun with it.  He makes stop motion movies for fun.  I'll mull it over for a few more days and talk with my son about it.  We'll see what happens.

Saturday morning, we had a Christmas breakfast at our church.  I took Alton Brown's overnight Monkey Bread to share.  When we got home, I was reaching into the back of our Subaru to grab the serving dish and didn't duck quite low enough.  I hit my forehead, just above my hairline on the hatchback door.

Heads bleed a surprising amount.  I had to hurry into the house before I started dripping all over the place.

Fortunately, it didn't need stitches, but I spent the rest of the day with an oozing head wound and a splitting, throbbing headache.

1) No, I'm not interested in product XYZ

2) If I'm not interested in product XYZ, why in the WORLD would I want to invite all of my neighbors over to my house for a presentation about product XYZ. ESPECIALLY since the presentation about product XYZ will surely turn into a presentation about how you can make a bundle o' money by marketing product XYZ.

3) If I'm not interested in product XYZ, what makes you think I would want to help you grow your *ahem* "business" by selling product XYZ.

4) No, I wil NOT be in your downline.

5) As a general rule, if I can't find it in a store or online, I don't want it. I'm not going to buy it.

6) If my friendship means THAT much to you, why did you completely ignore me, rarely responding to my emails and never calling me until suddenly there's this GREAT opportunity?

7) If something is marketed solely or primarily through a MLM and without it, I'll die a horrible, painful death, oh well. I believe in an afterlife.

8) Leave me the %@#&! alone!

9) AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This morning, we did the big 50-mile bike ride for the cycling merit badge. About 5 scouts came along as well as three leaders. We even had a truck that followed us the whole way, so we had plenty of water, food, and mechanical support.

BYU had there homecoming celebration today, so I picked a route that would keep us FAR away from Cougar Stadium. We rode all over American Fork and Lehi.

After about 32 miles of riding, we stopped and had lunch. I SO enjoyed sitting with my son, eating a Gandolfo's sandwich, and talking and laughing. He was REALLY enjoying himself, and it was obvious.

After lunch, we set out again to finish the ride. But my son's experience changed during the next few miles. At about 38 miles into the ride, he started falling back a bit. His legs were KILLING him. He was riding along, tears in his eyes. I was pretty worried about him.

We stopped for a break and he and I talked about what to do. He said his thighs felt like they were tied in knots and that someone was sticking needles into them. I had him drink more water and stretch out, which helped a little bit. We were only about 2 miles from home at this point. Our route would take us within a mile from home before heading away from home one last time. I told him it was his decision--that he could turn for home when we got to the closest point.

And then he made me incredibly proud. He told me that it would be a shame to ride this far and not finish. I told him that I would be right by his side the rest of the way. (I had been in front, setting pace and navigating the route up to that point.) I told the other leaders the route we would take for the rest of the ride and explained that I needed to be there for my son at that time. They completely understood.

The hard part ahead was a nearly-four-mile climb from American Fork all the way up into Highland. I rode by my son, encouraging him the whole way. He was in pain and we stopped a couple of times to stretch out his legs. But he kept pedaling. He made it to the top, and when we turned the corner at the top of the climb, I congratulated him and told him that he had made it and I told him how proud I was of him.

The downhill ride back home from that point was a triumphant ride for my son. He was laughing and joking and couldn't quit smiling.

I still haven't quit telling him how proud I am of him for the decision he made to continue.

It's what every parent hopes for--that their child will see the difference between alternatives and choose the better way, even if it's the more difficult path. It was a learning and growing experience for my son, and a wonderful experience for me to see him grow in that way.

On Saturday, I finished turning my back on something that I used to love.

Since I was in High School, I have loved barbershop music. I went to a party where the Northwesters, my High School's barbershop quartet, sang. There was something about 4 men ringing a chord that I loved. It was a unique sound, blended with fun and humor, that I had never heard before.

Later, in my High School choir, I sang with 15 other young men in a chorus that my choir director humorously called the "O.K. Chorale." We were better than okay. We scored a perfect score at the state music festival. I also organized a quartet of my own and we scored high enough to make it to the state music festival, but decided against it because we didn't really feel we deserved such a high score.

In the years since, I have tried again and again to organize quartets. Once in a while, I would succeed for a short time, but I've never been able to get a quartet to stay together. Someone would move or completely flake out. The last quartet dissolved when the tenor came out of the closet.

I sang for almost three years with the Saltaires Show chorus. I drove to Salt Lake every week for rehearsal. I traveled to Ogden and St. George for district competitions. I traveled to Anaheim, and Atlanta to compete in international competitions. I even went to Kansas City, just to watch competitions.

Later, I was even named the director of the Utah Valley Skyline Chorus, a position that I thoroughly enjoyed until bursitis in my shoulder made it necessary for me to resign.

I've spent countless hours in travel, rehearsals, preparation, personal practice. I've spent thousands of dollars on travel, membership dues, concert tickets, and recordings of quartets and choruses.

It's no stretch to say that barbershop music was something that I really loved.

In recent years, the disappointment of not being able to keep a quartet together along with the increased demands of growing boys have made me distance myself from barbershop music. I didn't have the time or the energy to invest in something that wasn't bringing the level of fulfillment that I hoped it would bring.

On Saturday, I finally reached the point where I have completely turned my back on barbershop music. I won't sing barbershop music any more. I won't listen to barbershop music any more. I want nothing more to do with barbershop music or the international Barbershop Harmony Society.

The cause? On Saturday, someone that should know better turned his back on his own family. He sang in a district competiton instead of going to a family member's once-in-a-lifetime event. There will be a district competition next year and the year after that. It's not like the group he was singing with had a prayer of winning the competition. (As a matter of fact, they came in dead last) But this event in the family member's life will never happen again.

Any group or organization that exerts enough pressure upon someone that they forget where their priorities should be is evil in my book. Any group that will pressure someone into choosing the group over their own family, especially on important occaisions, will have no support from me.

Now, instead of being music to my ears, barbershop has become revolting to me.