'Net connection has been restored.

In case anyone was wondering, I have been offline for the better part of a week while my cable Internet connection was down. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Comcast Sucks!

But in case anyone is interested, it is back up and running now and I have full 'net access from home again.

Of course, that doesn't mean that you are going to get much right now, as I have to get ready to leave for the weekend. Off to spend time with TWIL. Unfortunately, I am stuck at work right now waiting for someone else, which is how I have time to post from here, and will not be be able to leave for NY until the morning.

And as I write this, the 2-hour process, which was going to keep me here until 9PM, is officially 1 hour late getting started. and I am on a conference call listening to the others who are trying to get the process started. They are discovering more issues which are delaying things even longer.

This is SOOOO much fun.

Anyway... I need to go give some people a swift kick in the ... pants. Metaphorically. At least to start.

Don't expect much more than this out of me tonight. After I get out of here I still need to go home, pack a bag, call TWIL and get some sleep. I hope I can get all of that finished before midnight.

Who am I trying to kid... I hope I'll get out of here before midnight.

...

Update [12:50AM] : Well, I'm finally done for the night. Now to pack and get some sleep.

Sleepy Thoughts

I was doing a lot of thinking over the weekend, and some writing to go along with it. Unfortunately {for me} none of the writing is in a condition that I would be comfortable sharing. Fortunately {for you} I realized just how crap it was before posting it. I imagine that some of it will make it here once it is cleaned up somewhat.

However, it has been a while since I talked about the sleep test and results. So, let me give you an update on that...

As you may remember, I went for a sleep study {described here} and I briefly gave initial results from it in this post but haven't said anything else about it since.

I talked to my doctor and we discussed the fact that my sleep apnea is very mild at this point and "the machine" wasn't necessary, although it would be worth a try to see if it helped. Well, we contacted my usual medical supply store to see about getting setup with the machine.

It turns out that they couldn't give me one because I lived too far away. They suggested I find a closer supplier and get the machine from them.

So far I have had no luck finding a closer supplier and have not gotten a machine. And while I have looked, to be honest, I am not really concerned about getting one at this point.

I am sleeping better and getting more rest from it for a couple of months now. I may go back and see about getting the machine if my sleep problems get bad again, but while I am sleeping relatively well I am not going to worry about it since wearing the mask and having the machine running by my bed would disrupt my sleep as much as it might help at this point.

And speaking of sleep...

G'Night.

Another Year Older

What a week {2 weeks?} it has been. The end of last week was nuts and had me working ten to eleven hours days in order to finish a project I as working on.

I did get it finished and managed to leave a little early on Friday so I could head out and spend the weekend with my girlfriend. {Here after referred to as TWIL, at least for now.} You see, Saturday was my birthday and I really didn't want to spend it anywhere else.

I got out early enough that I managed to get there in time to spend some time with The Sprout {TWIL's daughter} before she went to bed. We hung out and made some balloon animals.

Of course shortly after The Sprout was in bed I got a call from work and spent over an hour on the phone troubleshooting and fixing problems. Luckily, that was it for the weekend. Once I was off that call we had the rest of the weekend alone together.

Well, there were the three of us until Saturday afternoon when The Sprout's father picked her up. The there was just the two of us.

We spent the weekend enjoying each other's company since we don't get to spend time together physically often enough. Much of the time was spent talking and holding each other. Including a very good neck rub TWIL gave me after the call from work Friday night {Thank you, Beautiful} and a walk in the park Sunday night.

And to celebrate my birthday on Saturday night, we went out to dinner at a very nice restaurant and went to the movies.

I'd write some more, but I have to go. It is time for our nightly call.

Peace.

Has it really been a month?

I'm not sure what to write, so I'll just start writing and see what comes out. Let's start with Pennsic...

I got to Pennsic on Saturday and my tent was already pitched, I had sent it along with friends who had gone earlier. So all I had to do was move my stuff into it and get my space set up which didn't take too long. After that I spent the rest of the evening (until almost sunrise) hanging out with my brother and a couple other friends. It was a good night.

Sunday afternoon was the wedding. I have been to weddings in the past. I have even been in the wedding party once or twice. But this was the first wedding I have performed. First time I have seen or filled out a wedding licence as well.

Have I mentioned that I don't like public speaking? No. Well, I don't.

I got several compliments on my speaking voice and my projection. One person was at the entrance to the space, about 30-35 meters from where I was standing, who said he could hear every word quiet clearly. A couple of other people said "I told you said you weren't any good at public speaking." To which I had to reply, "No, I said I didn't like public speaking, there is a difference."

Anyway, the wedding went well and my friends are now married. {I'd say it went off without a hitch, but then I'd have to get my coat.} The rest of the week was spent relaxing, hanging out with friends, and going to the occasional party. All in all, a good time.

And as it turns out I spent three weekends in a row driving for around ten hours. Driving to Pennsic one weekend, driving back the next, and then round trip to see my girlfriend the next. The third weekend being the best of the three.

Not everything went well the weekend I spent with my girlfriend. Don't get me wrong, everything went well with us, but I got an emergency call from my brother and had to leave for a while to help him out.

...

I just looked at the clock and saw how late it's getting. I'm going to leave it here for tonight and go get some sleep. I'll pick it back up later.

I still don't get to see and hold my girlfriend often enough, but we are still talking every night. I am going to be spending this weekend with her, and with her daughter for part of Saturday, and I am very much looking forward to all of it.

Walk in Beauty.
Peace.

Posting when I should be Packing

I can't take long to do this because I should be packing, but I thought I'd make a quick post while printing out driving directions.

I had a great time on Wednesday with my girlfriend and her daughter, we all seemed to get along great and I ended up spending every night with them this week. Until tonight.

All three of us wanted for me to go over and see them again tonight but I have to pack for my trip. I'm leaving in the morning, and will be gone until next weekend. I am heading to Pennsic for a vacation and for a good friend's wedding. I'll tell you all about it when I get back.

I will be missing my girlfriend terribly while I am away so it's a good thing I will have my cell phone with me. I expect to call her most nights while there.

If anyone else is headed that way {With 10 to 15 thousand people going you never know...} Feel free to ask around for Bjarni Bjornson. You best bet to find me would be around Casa Bardicci or Camp Rubber Duckie. Most of the people who know me are in those camps. But please, no stalkers. I've had two and that is more than enough. {If you ask nicely, maybe I'll tell you about them sometime.}

Anyway, my directions finished printing and I must go.

Be back in a week...

A Big Step

A while back I started getting seeing someone, and we have been dating for a while now. It is a long distance relationship, for now, but that is not a bad thing. It has ensured that we spend time talking, which we have been doing a lot.

When our schedules allow, I make the 5-6 hour drive out to New York state and we spend as much time as we can together, although this is usually just the weekend. We do have been doing this once or twice a month since May. When we can't be together we talk. Either on the phone or through instant messenger.

We have talked every day since May. Sometimes for 15 minutes, more often for anywhere from one and a quarter to three hours, but it has been every night.

Yes, it is serious. And last night we took a big step in our relationship.

I met her daughter.

Because her daughter is 9 we were being careful and my girlfriend didn't want to bring me into her daughter's life too early in the relationship. A reasonable way to handle things and one which I understood and agreed with. And then yesterday they came to Boston for their vacation, a trip which had been in planning before we started dated, and I met them for dinner after I got off work.

We had a good dinner with good desserts. {What else would you expect from "The Cheesecake Factory"?} And we had a good time hanging out and walking around a bit after dinner. Later on, when it was time for the daughter to go to bed, we went back to their hotel, the daughter went to bed and my girlfriend and I sat up and talked for a while longer.

It was a very good night.

And tomorrow I am taking the day off work to spend it with the two of them.

It may be time for me to come up with an alias to use for my girlfriend when I refer to her on here.

Pain is Temporary... and Repeating

[Editor: This was written on Wednesday and apparently not posted, so I am posting it again tonight.]

I was planning on writing about some of the good stuff in this entry, but then some more "stuff" happened. So I am going to talk about that stuff, and my tooth, again.

You'd think that a temporary crown would stay on for the three or four weeks until the permanent is ready, not just fall off after four days while eating dinner. And then come off again four or five days later while eating lunch. You'd think that, but you'd be wrong.

So this week, while eating lunch, the crown came off again. I had just taken a bite of a piece of boneless chicken breast and found myself biting into what seemed to be a piece of chicken bone. I proceeded to spit the pieces into a napkin and took a drink of ice water to clear my mouth. that's when the pain really started.

I mentioned last time that the uncovered tooth is extremely sensitive right? Well, it still is.

As soon as I could I called the dentist. I was in pain and already pissed off, a great combination... Their response was "We can get you in tomorrow afternoon." This didn't help me calm down.

After much talking, and surprisingly little swearing, I got them to fit me in that day, about 2 hours after the crown had come off. This time they said they used a stronger cement and that it should stay on now. I didn't go off about how it should have stayed on in the first place.

What I did ask was if I should make an appointment for next week already. Even though they chuckled I don't think they thought it was funny.

[Follow up: As of tonight (Sunday) it is still attached and holding.]

Pain is Temporary

In my last post I said "the vast majority" of the goings-on over the past couple of weeks have been good. But that still leaves a few things that weren't so good. And if you keep reading you are going to hear about one of them...

Last Friday night I broke a tooth, one of my molars to be precise, and while it wasn't very painful most of the time if I was careful, it was a bad break and had to be dealt with. They managed to get me into the dentists chair early Monday morning and they started work on it. Because of how bad a break it was (about 1/4 of the exposed tooth was gone) there wasn't much they could do except start work on putting a crown on it.

Lots of impressions, and much drilling and grinding later they had finished all the prep work and put a temporary crown on the tooth while we wait for the permanent crown to be ready. And we all know how pleasant it is to be a dentist's chair and have them drilling and grinding away on your teeth.

We also know what the word temporary means.

In this case temporary didn't even live up to the few weeks it was supposed to stay on. It came off last night while I was eating dinner, exposing the raw tooth and the "dental tubules" which act as open pathways to the nerve. Needless to say, IT HURT! And I had to deal with it being like that all night.

To the dentist's credit, when I called them this morning they got me right in and got the temporary crown reattached. Good thing they got me in that quick, too. Until the crown was back in place I couldn't eat or drink anything because it was too sensitive. I couldn't brush my teeth either because I couldn't even have water in my mouth without intense pain.

Hopefully this time the temporary will last until they put the permanent crown in place.

...

I'll try to talk about something pleasant next time.

I'm still here

So much for my plan to make sure I posted at least once a week, preferably more. I have had a lot going on since my last post, and the vast majority of it has been good. I'll fill in you in soon. For now I mainly want to like people know I was still around and I'm sorry I have been lax in posting.

Hopefully you will understand why once I get going again. In the meantime I will try, as I said above, to make sure I post at least once a week, preferably more often. I guess it would depend on whether you get lots of short posts or fewer posts, but each of which will have much more to say.

How about it, which would you prefer? I promise to read* all comments and suggestions.

* and quite possibly ignore

My "Happy Canada Day" post which doesn't actually mention Canada

Well, it is official, I have a bit of sleep apnea. It isn't too bad, but I still need to sit and talk with my doctor about what we can do about it. I'll let you know how that goes. I just hope that they don't want me to go through another night wired up. I'm pretty sure that someone other than me would end the night in a lot of discomfort.

If the techs put all the short cables on so there barely reach around me, let alone to the control box, I might end up punching someone in the chest.

But on to better things... I have been travelling a lot lately.

On June 11th I went to the southern edge of the state for a Powwow. (Not really that far, but I am only starting.)

The following weekend (June 18th) I went up to Maine for my friend Laurie's birthday party. I'll leave it up to her if she wants to say anything about it (or which birthday it was) in the comments. I will say that it was a very good time and it was good to see people I don't get to see often enough. It was especially good to see Laurie having a good time.

A lot of the evening and into the night was taken up with people just sitting around talking and having a good time hanging out. Although we did take a break from talking to watch the fire spinner playing with her poi. It certainly didn't hurt that she is a very cute girl.

Last weekend (June 25th) I went to New York (state, not city, Binghamton to be specific) and had a wonderful time. When talk of the trip first started (back at Rites of Spring, see earlier posts here and here) it was brought up as a chance to see Sol Dog but it soon became much more than that. And by the time the trip actually happened I was going to see someone specific and the two of us were going to go see the band together.

The only thing which could have made the weekend better is if my brother, Smulch, could have made it to the show as well. (He doesn't have a website or I'd link it.) Unfortunately thing seemed to conspire to keep that from happening.

And now this weekend I am travelling again, back to New York. If I can get in touch with Smulch in time I will be heading to see him on Saturday and then to Binghamton for the rest of the weekend. If I can't reach Smulch in time I will just head right to Binghamton.

I know I will see Smulch in August, but it would be nice to see him sooner if things work out.

I do miss you, brother.

...

A couple more quick things before I close this post out:

At least one of my readers should get a kick out of this... Somehow I am currently the number one result for "Ricardipus" on Google Check it yourself.

I found this out through StatCounter, which you may have noticed in my sidebar. It isn't a bad utility, but if anyone can suggest others I'd like to hear about them. I know I'd like to have the stats, but I have not settled on a particular service yet.

Last and almost certainly least, once I have the time I will be playing around with the site design through CSS. I almost have the template finished so that the layout will be completely controlled through CSS. It won't be the CSS Zen Garden but then again, what is really? So expect the look of the site to change drastically sometime in the foreseeable future.

Peace.
Your weary, but happy, traveller.

P.S. Is it any wonder my truck is in the shop? It least the rental is covered by my extended warranty along with (most of) the parts and labour.