Sat 26 July

08:04:00   8.7  / 156  Fasting   
13:29:00   6.4  / 116  Pre-Lunch 
22:32:00   13.1  / 235  Post-Tea  

Driving Totals:
* Anytime: 1445 mins of 2400 req
* Nighttime: 600 mins of 600 req (DONE)

Total Steps: 2745

Breakfast: 1/4 Bagel with blue cheese, plus cottage cheese
Lunch: 2 eggs, bacon and 1/2 bagel
Tea: Minute steak roll ups, salad

Notes: Worked on my personal site today, getting my photo album sorted as to how things are displayed and deciding on how best to set up my blog.

Fri 25 July

07:02:00   8.6  / 155  Fasting   
12:50:00   5.3  /  96  Pre-Lunch 
19:03:00   10.3  / 186  Pre-Tea  

Driving Totals:
* Anytime: 1445 mins of 2400 req
* Nighttime: 600 mins of 600 req (DONE)
30 Mins

Total Steps: n/a (lost the data)

Breakfast: half toasted cheese sandwich on low GI bread
Lunch: leftover lamb meatloaf on a roll with cheese and lettuce, cottage cheese
Tea: Fish & Chips

Notes: Had dressing change today. The wound is looking good. Did some grocery shopping with Rod, then back home again. I thought I finished up a project, but it has a few issues that will have be worked on on Monday. Went to Breastroke meeting with Jenny and we had a glass of bubbly each, chocolate, bickies, chips, crackers. Then came home and Jen stayed for Fish and Chips.

Link(s): On Peanut Shells and Email Archiving

Family Refuses To Turn Beloved Two-Headed Bearded Dragon Lizard Into A Freak Show (And good on them, I say)

Thur 24 July

Driving Totals:
* Anytime: 1415 mins of 2400 req
* Nighttime: 600 mins of 600 req (DONE)
50 mins driving time.


Total Steps:

Bike:
* mins after lunch
* mins after tea

Breakfast: half toasted cheese sandwich on low GI bread
Lunch: sausage roll and left over lamb meatloaf
Tea: kfc

Notes: I haven't done my stats today so those details will have to wait until tomorrow.

Just wanted to note that today is a very Red Letter day. I got a lot done on a website I've been working on, and I reached my night time driving quota tonight. Whoo Hoo! I've also added another set or two to my new online photo gallery on my new site.



Link(s): The 7 Types Of Bad Bosses According To Star Trek (And How To Survive Them)

Wed 23 July

04:05:00   8.0  / 144  Overnight 
07:57:00   7.6  / 136  Fasting   
11:47:00   6.7  / 121  Post-Bfast
23:29:00   7.2  / 129  Post-Tea 

Driving Totals:
* Daytime: 1380 mins of 2400 req
* Nighttime: 585 mins of 600 req
20 minutes driving to Flinders Medical Centre today

Total Steps: 1749

Bike:
* mins after lunch
* mins after tea

Breakfast: half toasted cheese sandwich on low GI bread
Lunch: leftover lamb meatloaf, half bagel w/ blue cheese
Tea: Yiros meat, chips, salad

Notes: Happy Birthday Ricky! My grandson is 6 months old today.

Had last laser and MLD treatment today. Buses have been packed lately. The first bus of mine that came through had a sign I'd never seen before 'Full Bus' and was only letting as many passengers on as what got off (two). The next bus was packed as well but I was able to squeeze in.

I finished the July Monthly Scavenger Hunt this morning, as I only had one more piccy to upload and took care of that. Phew! My set can be seen at: http://flickr.com/photos/flitterg/2693701629/


Link(s): Numb Skull.

Tue 22 July

07:08:00   8.8  / 158  Fasting   
19:04:00   4.8  /  87  Pre-Tea   
22:50:00   6.7  / 121  Post-Tea 

Driving Totals:
* Daytime: 1360 mins of 2400 req
* Nighttime: 585 mins of 600 req
15 minutes daytime.

Total Steps: 7439

Bike:
* 0 mins after lunch
* 5:30 mins after tea

Breakfast: bran pancake
Lunch: 2 eggs, 1/5 bagel with blue cheese
Tea: lamb meatloaf, mashed potatoes, veggies, salad

Notes: Had my usual Tuesday RDNS appointment this morning. As per last week, Rod went to the library and after having my dressing changed I took my walk at Colonnades. I felt very pleased with myself as I'd covered quite a bit of ground, but after coming home and having lunch instead of getting on with stuff I had planned to do, I ended up crashing and napping for an hour. That wasn't too bad, but it took me a few hours to get it together afterwards and get the cobwebs out. It wasn't the best of days as far as arthritis goes and there are times when my hands swell up and stiffen up quite a bit while I sleep (doesn't matter if it's a night time sleep or day time nap), and today was one of those days. After tea this evening, and once I'd had a stint on the bike, I'm now feeling more alert and stuff, but of course now it's the end of the day. Bah, talk about annoying.

I think I'm getting the hang of the usb pedometer now. First, I've resigned myself that the program's calendar data is always going to be a day out. As in when I upload my data in the morning, it counts it as the current days totals. I don't always remember to do the upload before midnight, so doing it in the morning, and then pressing the button on it till the lights blink is what makes it 'work' for the rest of the day. So I can deal with that, as long as I know what the routine needs to be.

Link(s): I so need to give this advice a go: Inbox Zero: Schedule email dashes

Mon 21 July

07:24:00   6.5  / 117  Fasting
13:48:00   5.6  / 101  Pre-Lunch
16:54:00   4.6  /  83  Post-Lunch
20:28:00   6.6  / 119  Post-Tea 

Driving Totals:
* Daytime: 1345 mins of 2400 req
* Nighttime: 585 mins of 600 req

Total Steps: 5565

Bike:
* 5.15 mins after lunch
* 5.30 mins after tea

Breakfast: bran pancake
Lunch: tuna and low carb japanese noodles, salad.
Tea: black bean beef stirfry, pork in plum sauce, noodles (take-away)

Notes: This morning I had an appointment with Dr. Ling, as opposed to my regular GP as he's on vacation. She is so thorough, and gentle. I made the appointment because of needing scripts to be re-done, but as I had the sinus problems over the weekend (and for the last few weeks in general), and as she asked, I told her about it, and then the rib/side pain and that my breast still hurts, etc. She listened to my heart, my lungs (which are clear, so the gunk is all from my sinus'), checked my sides and reassured me that these are muscular pains probably from coughing, and checked my ears, throat and nose. I have a lot of fluid behind both ears. That explains a lot too. So I'm back on antibiotics, and she redid all the scripts that needed redoing. She asked if there was anything else that needed attention, and as you know I've been considering switching to her, and this appointment really showed me the difference, so I asked if I could be her patient and she was delighted. She went over a few notes about my history, and I'll do the full exam thing that they have which includes a full family history, etc. We'll schedule that for after I've had a bone denisity test, which she says I need as I've been on tamoxifen for the breast cancer and its important to get a baseline done. She weighed me, and I like her scales better than mine. (LOL). Anyway, I am pleased I made the decision. And yes, for family members reading this, I know... I was brought into the world by a Dr. Ling. No relation, though. :-)

While waiting to have my scripts filled, I browsed the aisles at Coles (grocery store) and as I was by myself, as I did a month or so ago with pasta's, I went on a label reading spree for low carb snacks. I actually found some too... but to my surprise, the rice crackers are NOT low carb, by a long shot. However, Pringles makes a 'lite' Rice chip that IS low carb... only 15g carbs / 100g. Compared to 85g carbs / 100g for any of the rice crackers. So I bought a couple of cans and had a couple chips with lunch. Very tasty too. MUCH nicer than rice crackers.

Lately I've had a knack for people, mostly of the 'senior citizen' age group, simply start talking to me as if they've known me for a long time. Saturday it was a 78yr old lady who sat down next to me as I was taking off my wind cheater and stuffing it into my shopping bag, if it weren't for her great-grandson offering a distraction, I'd probably still be there listening. Today it was another older lady looking for a whistling tea kettle, which I helped her find. And on the way home, I stopped to take a pic of a lost shopping cart (we call them 'trolleys' here), and a fellow walking by asked what I was taking a picture of, so I showed him the pic and explained about the Monthly Scavenger Hunt and that I had plans to use the pic as an example of something that's a '4Wheeler'. He was amused.

The rest of my day has been working on a site migration (no not my website, another one). My friend Patty dropped by with some clothes for me, via her Mum. Very nice tops all for winter, which I really really need. Well needed as I think I'm pretty well set now.
Rod had to go return something so I told him if the chinese place was open to pick us up some tea. Otherwise pick up some marinara mix so I could make seafood stirfry. Luckily the chinese place was open and so no cooking for me tonight. :-) And what with the exercise bike, I had an excellent after tea reading too. Very pleased about that.

And, the latest scratchy ticket out at the moment is a double crossword one for $5. Last week I bought one and used it for 2 days. I did the first game one day, and saved the next one for after my next walk, and I won $11. Saturday I picked up another one and after I got home today I finished the 2nd game. Another $11. Neat.


Link(s): Perfect Choc Chip Cookies - Just looking at the pic on this story, and reading the description... OMG, what a diet wrecker!

Sun 20 July

07:53:00   7.8  / 141  Fasting   
12:19:00   6.3  / 114  Pre-Lunch 
18:59:00   7.2  / 129  Pre-Tea   

Driving Totals:
* Daytime: 1345 mins of 2400 req
* Nighttime: 585 mins of 600 req

Total Steps: n/a

Bike: n/a


Breakfast: bran pancake
Lunch: scrambled eggs w/ bacon and cheese
Tea: 2 slices (thinner crust) pizza

Notes: Was 'ok' in the morning aside from a nasty sinus headache. Finally gave in to it after lunch and had a long nap (till 5!). Spent the evening napping, dozing and watching TV with Rod, then went to bed and slept through the night.

Sat 19 July

08:02:00   7.4  / 134  Fasting   
11:25:00   6.5  / 117  Post-Bfast
16:58:00   6.4  / 115  Post-Lunch

Driving Totals:
* Daytime: 1345 mins of 2400 req
* Nighttime: 585 mins of 600 req

Total Steps: 2800 (see note below)

Bike:
* 5 mins after lunch

Breakfast: half toasted cheese sandwich on low GI bread
Lunch: 2 eggs, bacon, mushrooms and 1 slice toast
Tea: oyster steak and salad

Notes: I really don't think I've got the hang of the new USB pedometer yet. I'll get there though.

Had walk (Saturday lottery). Sinus headache, but not too bad.

Fri 18 July

07:25:00   8.6  / 154  Fasting   
08:28:00   9.2  / 166  Pre-Bfast 
13:58:00   5.1  /  91  Pre-Lunch 
16:35:00   5.8  / 104  Post-Lunch
18:38:00   5.4  /  98  Pre-Tea   
22:17:00   6.8  / 123  Post-Tea  

Driving Totals:
* Daytime: 1345 mins of 2400 req
* Nighttime: 585 mins of 600 req

Total Steps: 2719 (but see notes below)

Bike:
* 5 mins after lunch, 1.8k
* 5 mins after tea, 1.4k

Breakfast: half toasted cheese sandwich on low GI bread
Lunch: sausage roll and cottage cheese
Tea: hot and spicy fish with a handful of chips

Notes: Had RDNS appointment for a dressing change today. It's looking good, but have an area of skin where the tape goes that's tring real hard to have an allergic reaction. My side is still sore today, but somewhat better than it was.

After RDNS, went to Woodcroft to do grocery shopping. We stopped The Warehouse (now called 'Sams Warehouose) and had a look at some speakers and I tried out the exercise bikes and one that was on sale ($79.95 off) was an elliptical one, that moves your arms as you pedal so you get some additional benefit from it, and as it's a good kind of movement for me in helping to reduce the fluid in my arms, I decided to get it. It wasn't in my plans for today, but it was a really good deal. Rod let me get a headstart on putting it together and I was doing well (albeit slow) but I was quite grateful for his help.

I want to use the bike on a daily basis and make it part of the 'routine of my day', but I also don't want to over-do it so I think 5 minutes after meals would be a good starting point and once I'm used to that, I can start increasing the time. The other thing I'm trying to do with it is interval training which is you work on it really intensley for a set amount of time and then cool down for an equal amount of time, and keep repeating this pattern. Apparently people loss more weight is they use this method. That'd be nice. I really really need to drop at least 10k.

I wore my pedometer on a lanyard today, so numbers might not be quite accurate. Worth trying to see how well it fairs though.

I put a few pics on Flickr - a couple new postcards from Angeliina in Finland and a nice pic of Kelsey and Lynn with a horse (Lynn's I think) because I needed a pic for the scavenger hunt ('horseback riding').

Wish I could say I've done more today, but alas, I guess it wasn't meant to be.

Link(s): bugger, I lost them when I rebooted tonight.

Thur 17 July

08:00:00   7.2  / 129  Fasting   
16:58:00   6.4  / 115  Post-Lunch
21:48:00   8.3  / 149  Post-Tea

Driving Totals:
* Daytime: 1290 mins of 2400 req
* Nighttime: 585 mins of 600 req

Total Steps: 2733

Breakfast: half toasted cheese sandwich on low GI bread
Lunch: sausage roll and cottage cheese
Tea: kfc - chicken and 1 whole wheat roll

Notes: Got up this morning and did my usual routine but had a sinus headache and my right side (where the hole is) was hurting and I felt a bit groggy so I went back to bed until 11:30.

Today I had my 2nd laser and MLD therapy. She noted that the area around the bandaging looked bit swollen and made sure the laser was directed on that whole area. There are actually a few areas that are laser-ed... my wound, the scars on my back and the scars on my reconstruction. During treatment I mentioned the sinus thing and she spent a few minutes doing some therapy on my face, neck and scalp. OOoo, nice. She said it wasn't a full treatment but I'm welcome to come in for a full one anytime. Nice to know. And it did help. It seemed like my side hurt more after treatment, but that could just be a perception thing. It was sore before I had treatment and is still sore tonight. And the weather sucks so my arthritis is being unhappy as well. Tonight it's my right hip aching. Tomorrow it'll be something else. I'm learning that this is just the way it is with me.

I drove to the appointment, and then Rod drove himself home, and I took the bus home. I made a stop off at O'Halloran Hill to pick up some of the Asian noodles that are extremely low carb, and picked up some Vietnamese cold rolls for our snack tonight. I took a few pics of the beautiful green (because it's winter and rainy) paddock across the road, including a few shots with the sheep in it, but didn't cross the road and do a good job as it was really windy and it was a bitter cold wind. And there I was with a very heavy bag, no glove, no scarves, no jumper, no jacket. UGH! It seemed like a very long 15 minute wait. It took an hour after I was home before my ears stopped hurting.

Our plan was to do shopping tonight (Thurs nights the stores are open until 9pm), which would have given me the last few minutes I need for night time driving, but we decided to stay home instead. We can grocery shopping tomorrow after my RDNS appointment. I'm kind of glad of that since I was/am quite sore still and this allowed me to take a Panadeine Forte to help with the pain. And it has helped.

My evening has been spent going through my photo archives looking for scavenger hunt items. I only have about 4 more items/pics to find.

And, last night after I did my blog, I made a discovery -- the USB cable for my new pedometer ALSO happens to fit my freebie glucose meter - the small one that's a bit like a long thick pen. Now I just need to get the software for it installed. I've run into a little problem with that though, so I'll have another go with it tomorrow. Nice find though - it sure beats paying $29 for the cable.

Link(s): none today. Haven't had a chance to read all my RSS feeds today. Normally I do that in the morning.

He is SO cool.

100_2207,
originally uploaded by Katzilla_dances.

Isn't my grandson just the hottest coolest baby ever?? !!



I love this little guy.

Wed 16 July

07:21:00   7.1  / 128  Fasting
18:01:00   5.1  /  92  Pre-Tea
23:15:00   7.2  / 130  Post-Tea

Driving Totals:
* Daytime: 1290 mins of 2400 req
* Nighttime: 585 mins of 600 req

20 mins night time driving.

Total Steps: 5493

Breakfast: half toasted cheese sandwich on low GI bread
Lunch: thai curry tuna, lettuce and sprout salad. Yum.
Tea: Sausage and roll.


Notes: Spent the morning doing work related stuff, and had planned to work on my website this afternoon. However, after lunch my new pedometer arrived so of course I had to install the software for it - on my VMWare Windows because 'naturally' it uses %^&*& proprietry software. (GRRrrr). I think I may have solved the problem of why I couldn't get the USB TV thing working with VMWare a month or so ago while in the process. Turns out there were a couple lines in a file in /etc that needed uncommenting in order for USB stuff to work with VMWare. So, will try the TV thing on the weekend, for sure. There's pretty much nothing to the pedometer. Just a hook so it hooks onto clothing, and a USB slot. That's good as it means it doesn't talk at me, and it can't be accidently reset. The software's a bit daggy, but at least it works. I took a walk and ran some errands and when I came home it told me I'd taken 3982 steps, which is about right for where I'd walked.

I stopped at the medical centre and made an appointment with my GP so I can get some prescriptions renewed. I have been debating really hard on whether to change doctors or not, and even which doctor to choose for this appointment. Funny, it was a decision made for me. My usual GP is on vacation this week and next so I'll be seeing the doctor I've been thinking very hard about switching to. I guess we'll see how this appointment goes and I'll decided from there.

There was a computer meeting tonight and as the topic was GNU/Linux we decided to make an appearance in support of our favourite operating system. It was quite a good presentation, though I personally would have skipped a lot of the basic hardware related stuff and showed more of how it's not that different from what people are already using, but it works without crashing. Different strokes though. I won a couple of door prizes tonight too. One was a beautiful Azalea plant.

I really like knowing the history of my plants. Like this one will always be from the computer club, and I have some great spider plants going that our friend Erik gave me from his many hanging baskets of them. I'm not sure where I'll plant the Azalea, I'll have to look up what it does best with and any requirements. This one has beautiful double-pink flowers with white lacy edges. Really nice.


Link(s):

http://www.creativereview.co.uk/crblog/crap-idea/
http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/asimov-laws-robotics.php
http://laughingsquid.com/lightening-strikes-woman-as-she-is-shooting-video/

Tue 15 July

15:05:00   5.8  / 105  Post-Lunch
23:11:00   6.3  / 113  Post-Tea 

Driving Totals:
* Daytime: 1290 mins of 2400 req
* Nighttime: 565 mins of 600 req
30 mins daytime driving

Total Steps: 9987

Breakfast: half toasted cheese sandwich on low GI bread
Lunch: sausage roll w/ cottage cheese
Tea: Subway

Notes:

Am adding these notes the next day. Quite a busy day though. Went for my dressing change in the morning and then had a good walk at Colonnades (a bit chilly for outdoor walking) while Rod went to the library. On my 'walk' I picked up a 3 pack of yoghurt starter, had my glasses adjusted, and wandered around with a cup of cappuccino (bought more for the fact the cup would warm up my hands than for the caffiene). Came home, did the security upgrade for Drupal which wasn't as hard as I thought it'd be and then while typing an Email to my step-mom, I just couldn't stay awake and had to go to bed.


Link(s):
This one made me laugh out loud:
Vegan Zombie T-Shirt

Mon 14 July

07:59:00   6.2  / 112  Fasting   
11:23:00   7.1  / 128  Post-Bfast
12:39:00   6.5  / 117  Pre-Lunch 
15:37:00   6.8  / 122  Post-Lunch
19:17:00   5.4  /  97  Pre-Tea   
22:34:00   6.8  / 122  Post-Tea  

Driving Totals:
* Daytime: 1260 mins of 2400 req
* Nighttime: 565 mins of 600 req

Total Steps: 3620

Breakfast: half toasted cheese sandwich on low GI bread
Lunch: sausage roll w/ cottage cheese
Tea: Tandori / Portuguese Chicken

Notes:

Funny that yesterday I worked on my breast cancer web page and moved my chemo pics to the photo gallery as I noticed last night that once again, my eyelashes have disappeared. All the 'visible' ones must be on the same re-growth schedule since my having had chemo. I wonder if others have noticed this phenomenon?

Sun 13 July

06:24:00   7.4  / 134  Fasting 
11:44:00   5.3  /  95  Post-Bfast
13:48:00   5.0  /  90  Pre-Lunch 
16:43:00   7.2  / 129  Post-Lunch
19:46:00   4.9  /  88  Pre-Tea   
22:45:00   7.6  / 137  Post-Tea 

Driving Totals: Daytime: 1260 mins of 2400 req // Nighttime: 565 mins of 600 req

Total Steps: 3291

Breakfast: half toasted cheese sandwich on low GI bread
Lunch: Scrambled eggs w/ bacon & mushrooms 1 slice toast (Helga's Wholemeal)
Tea: Pizza. 2 slices. (thinner crust)


Notes: I'm pleased with the after lunch results today. Normally I have the low GI / high fibre bread, but as I knew my readings were at a quite reasonable level, I tried a slice of the thick wholemeal bread I picked up for Rod yesterday. I love wholemeal bread, and this is just excellent bread, for sure. And I had a touch (say maybe a teaspoon or less) of strawberry jam on the toast. Yum. And my after lunch reading was normal 7.2 - right in range. Yay!

I spent a pleasant day working on my own website and it's really coming along. Inadvertently the page I worked on today was the breast cancer one, and the old site had an additional page tucked away with photos relating to chemo and radiotherapy. Well, if you've noticed my recent Flickr uploads, these pics are now on Flickr and have been made part of my photo gallery, which uses Flickr sets. As these were the first gallery pics I've added it took a fair amount of time to get things displaying how I want them. It's not exactly what I'd like, but without hacking into code, it'll have to do. And I'm not 'dissatisfied' with the results - just I had something else in mind on how it would all look and fit together. This evening I copied the breast cancer web links to the new site's Links area. A lot of the sites were gone, but some of the most interesting ones are still available. And of course, I added the Breastroke.com site as well. Naturally! It just seemed quite a realisation that although I was working on 'other things' (photo gallery displays, web links), the back drop to this for the whole day was breast cancer. It's probably the most time I've spent on that topic for ages. And ironically, the link I have to share tonight is one that my son sent me, and was quite interesting reading.

Accidental fungus leads to promising cancer drug

Sat 12 July

07:25:00   6.5  / 117  Fasting   <br />11:42:00   6.6  / 119  Post-Bfast<br />16:41:00   6.8  / 122  Post-Lunch<br />19:19:00   4.5  /  81  Pre-Tea   <br />23:36:00   6.2  / 112  Post-Tea 

Driving Totals: Daytime: 1260 mins of 2400 req // Nighttime: 565 mins of 600 req

Total Steps: 6153

Breakfast: bran pancake
Lunch: 2 eggs, bacon, mushrooms and 1 slice toast (low GI)
Tea: steak, stir-fry veggies. Very few carbs


Notes: Had a walk today but forgot my pedometer. Took it off when I changed my pants and forgot to put it back on again. So since my usual walk up to the shops including a walk around Coles is a bit over 4000, that's what I'm giving myself, plus whatever's on the meter from before my walk and after. I ordered a new pedometer today too: [Have a look]

Got a good start on converting my personal website over to Drupal. It's actually gone very smoothly.

Tonight for tea I tried using bean sprouts as 'noodles' as well as made stirfry veggies. I found they're too crunchy to use as a pasta substitute, and for my tastes, they really need to be with other veggies. I didn't actually 'finish' my tea tonight as by time I got to finishing up the stirfry veggies and bean sprouts, I was quite full. I wish that'd happen more often. I'm sure it'd be a big help in losing weight.


Worth1000.com had (has?) a Photoshop Christmas movies contest. Very funny stuff.

Fri 11 July

12:54:00   6.3  / 113  Post-Bfast<br />16:19:00   8.1  / 145  Post-Lunch<br />18:50:00   6.3  / 113  Pre-Tea   <br />22:42:00   6.3  / 114  Post-Tea

Driving Totals: Daytime: 1260 mins of 2400 req // Nighttime: 565 mins of 600 req
30 mins daytime driving


Total Steps: 3425

Breakfast: half toasted cheese sandwich on low GI bread
Lunch: sausage roll w/ cottage cheese
Tea: fish & chips


Notes: A friend of ours from the old Fidonet days (back before the Internet became popular) passed away. I wrote a little bit about him for the Homestead mailing list, website and the CBM Fidonet echo (such as it is these days). Here's what I wrote:

Russell Prater, Former CBM Fidonet Moderator

I received news today from Phil Heberer, a long time Commodore Fidonet member...

-------------------
It is with great regret that I inform you that another of the circle of e-friends from the old Fidonet CBM echo has gone on to meet the Lord. Former CBM Moderator Russell Prater died Monday, Jul 7, 2008, from complications of diabetes. He was 69 years old. May God rest his soul.

Phil
-----------------

Russell was the moderator of the CBM Fidonet echo for many years, back in it's hey day when hundreds of messages would flow through nearly every day. He often joked that moderating the echo was a bit like 'herding cats'.

What I loved most about Russell was his sense of humor, fairness, and his belief that 'what goes around comes around', which was part of his Commodore friendliness. He helped create a lot of little utility scripts - some that are part of Rod's QWKRR packages, and was always willing to help people with technical problems. I once spoke on the phone with him when he helped walk my former husband through adding additional drive numbering switches to my 1581 drive. He was as friendly over the phone as he was in the echo.

I'm very saddened to learn of Russell's passing. We've lost a wonderful soul.

--------------------------------------------

Today's XKCD comic, Good Morning, gave me quite a chuckle. I know I've used the technique described quite a bit. - Love this comic - it sure fits me to a tee. Though most of the time lately I've become a 'normal' !!! person and get up in the early morning and conk out around midnight or so.

In the 'things that make you go hmm... Dept. Box falls from sky outside a Saginaw business
It's the LAST paragrph.

Had a dressing change today. The skin still red (way above where the hole is - it's likely from the opsite tape that's used to hold the dressing on), but otherwise everything looks good.

The first Email I received upon returning home was about Russ, and that blew the wind out of my sails for a bit. I went outside and had a good think about the things I liked about him, and wrote it up when I came back in. Rod took the news hard as well, as he and Russ used to share a lot of mail with each other, and they really did a lot of 'work' on lots of little bits of programming code, not to mention a whole lot of humour and comraderie. We're both sorry we didn't keep in better touch with him.

This afternoon I couldn't get settled. I ended up tidyng up my desk, making up a to-do list, and then picking the easiest/quickest thing on the list to do so I could say I've done something. That seemed to help. I did a few of the list items and tonight added a few more ticks off the list. Nothing too hard, just stuff that needed doing. I didn't go to Breastroke today as I am quite sore in the rib area (left side this week) and had extra pain killing meds so figured I was better off taking it easy here at home.

Thur 10 July

07:50:00   6.0  / 108  Fasting   
11:32:00   6.7  / 121  Post-Bfast
16:32:00   5.9  / 107  Post-Lunch
20:12:00   4.4  /  80  Pre-Tea   
22:34:00   6.4  / 116  Post-Tea

Driving Totals: Daytime: 1230 mins of 2400 req // Nighttime: 565 mins of 600 req
35 mins night driving


Total Steps: 4749

Breakfast: half toasted cheese sandwich on low GI bread
Lunch: sausage roll w/ cottage cheese
Tea: KFC, about 5 chips and no green tea (pretty rare for me)


Notes: Worked on drupal site today, doing member lists via 'views'. Turned out quite nice, IMO. Then tackled the same with the files and particularly the minutes folder, but wasn't quite as successful.

Late night shopping tonight. We went to Seaford so I clocked up some extra driving time. What with price of petrol these days, I've limited our trips to grocery shopping @ Seaford to once every 3 weeks or so. I also reckon if we don't need that much in the way of groceries there's no point (aside from driving time for my logs) in going that far every week.

Had KFC for tea tonight as is our usual for Thursday nights. Was busy reading stuff and forgot to drink my tea after dinner, but it actually proved useful in that it just proves that if I only have chicken and very few chips my glucose levels are quite good afterwards -- even without any extra help from drinking green tea.

I'd hoped to do some work on my own website tonight but doesn't look like that's going to pan out since it's after 11pm and I'm yawning and quite sleepy.

Wed 9 July

07:26:00   6.3  / 114  Fasting   
11:45:00   6.4  / 115  Post-Bfast
17:16:00   5.7  / 103  Post-Lunch
23:07:00   7.3  / 131  Post-Tea

Driving Totals: Daytime: 1230 mins of 2400 req // Nighttime: 530 mins of 600 req

Total Steps: 4426

Breakfast: half toasted cheese sandwich on low GI bread
Lunch: sausage roll w/ cottage cheese
Tea: ham and cheese on foccia bread, cottage cheese, salad


Notes: Was up early this morning and finished doing stats set up for breastroke.com, and managed to add a recipe to the breastroke site as well. I had ordered a battery powered electric sweeper a few weeks ago that showed up the other day but required several hours charging before it was ready to be used. I tried it out today and it works very nicely. Cheap - only $20, but as the battery died on my old Electrolux 'The Boss' cordless vacuum, this is an inexpensive alternative. The battery for the other is half the price of a new model and there's no guarantee on the dang things. Anyway it works great on some of the rugs there are around the house and quite nicely on tile and plain floors too. Good buy.

We had some errands to run this afternoon and just before we were about to leave, Wayne from Oncara dropped by with the most
gorgeous framed certificate of appreciation from Oncara Inc (Old Noarlunga Commercial and Residential Association Inc) in appreciation of our services to them. Blown away! Was totally unexpected and wow, it's great to be appreciated. :-)

Late this afternoon, I finally found a nice way of importing and showing Flickr images to Drupal sites. It's the "Embedded Media"
module, which includes several additional modules packaged with it. Now I'm just learning how to create views on the images it imports. And it has what I wanted - the title of the image, description, and tags. Working on this has taken up most of my evening and I hope to be able to do some great stuff with it for my personal site.

I found this link in the 'news' today: Baby's smile 'like taking cocaine' for mums. Gave me a smile.

Tue 8 July

08:17:00   7.5  / 135  Fasting   
12:18:00   6.1  / 110  Pre-Lunch 
15:55:00   7.2  / 129  Post-Lunch
23:28:00   8.4  / 151  Post-Tea

Driving Totals: Daytime: 1230 mins of 2400 req // Nighttime: 530 mins of 600 req

Total Steps: 6180

Breakfast: half toasted cheese sandwich on low GI bread
Lunch: sausage roll & cottage cheese
Tea: satay pork & veggies, 1 slice low GI bread


Notes: Returning to regular updates because Chris asked me to, and I promised I would. I had a dressing change this morning. The hole hasn't shown much difference in size since I started going to the RDNS clinic (I think I started there in April), but it is drying up a bit and looking better. Had a cough the other night that made my whole right side where the hole is hurt, but it is getting better now. It didn't seem to have any visible effect on the hole. Starting on Sunday, I had some odd redness show up on the skin but it looked like irritation from like my last dressing change, so the nurse put some extra barrier wipe over that area today.

On way home, stopped at discount chemist for allergy tabs and decided to get the bare minimum and go home and order these online. 30 for $25 when I can get the same stuff online for the same price, but a quantity of 50. Ordered 2 boxes as I'm tired of running out of the stuff. These are 24hr tablets that due to my skin allergies and the bandaging I've had for the last 16 months, I have to take twice a day to keep from having bad rashes with the bandaging. Expensive but worth it as a skin breakdown would be really bad news.

A few weeks ago I ordered a small ceramic heater to use outside that finally arrived yesterday. Love it! Much nicer than the old heater we were using. It's tiny and looks like a pair of speakers. Good week for it to arrive too. Yesterday morning was the coldest morning in 3yrs. We're having a whole week of rain, which may seem gloomy, but it's really needed so I won't complain.

Had lunch out on Saturday with the 'Lunch Group' - we get together on the 1st Saturday of the month. This time we went to the Old Noarlunga hotel for lunch. Was quite nice. Rod and I had the 'Salt & Pepper Chicken' which was excellent.

On Monday, I had lunch out with the Breastroke girls at the Marion Hotel. This is a rare treat as it's not something we do very often, maybe once or twice a year. One of our members is caring for her elderly mother and rarely gets to come to the meetings, and was able to have some respite time on Monday so we got together with her, and farewelled another member who's off to the UK for the next few months.

Oh, and before I forget it, y'all get on Twitter and then you can follow my occaisonal comments and daily BGL stats. Here's a link to get you started: http://twitter.com/gaelyne

I wanted to start work on converting my website to Drupal, or at least work on adding views to another site, but neither happened. I got stuck trying to find some way of showing Flickr pics as a slideshow or gallery and have the titles and descriptions show. I never got any further.... I did, however, write a blog entry. That's better than 'nothing at all'. Anyway, tomorrow will be better.

3 July 2008 - Commodore Homestead migrated to Drupal

It took a little over a week, but I've finally finished migrating the Homestead website to Drupal and moved it to it's new home on the web. You can see it at homestead.vcsweb.com

The older site was being heavily web-spammed - in the last few days I'd rec'd over 140 news submissions that were totally bogus. The new site has a few things in place to stop those types of shenanigans.

Anyway, just thought I'd note another site update and now I'm going to go celebrate with a sugar free hot chocolate. :-)

Remember me?

Sorry I've sorta gone underground for awhile. I've been very active with working on websites and learning new stuff. It's probably the most my brain has been 'engaged' in a long long time. I just don't seem to be very good at switching tasks lately so I've been rather dogged with the stuff I've been working on.

My upgrade to Ubuntu Hardy Heron went very well. Probably the easiest full upgrade I've done yet. I stayed with KDE v3 though as from all that I've read, v4 still has quite a few kinks. Probably the hardest thing was sorting out how to print from VMWare Windows, a necessity as an order came in for a CD and the only program I have that has the labels I make for these is in Windows. Bah! Once that was sorted out (I spent all evening on it and then Rod told me an easy way and it worked first time), everything else just fell into place.

OOhh, I see my download of pics of Ricky has finished. I had to hassle Terry for these so I better go look. :-)

Gee, I want more. He is soooo cute. I will have to put a couple pics on Flickr and there's one I've picked out to put on my phone for the background as well. Shame about all the red eye pics though. I'll be having to fix those.

The Commodore website I started a zillion years ago is getting spammed - not that the public can see it, but so far in a weeks time I've receive 141 Emails to approve news stories that are nothing but junk links to crap. So, since Drupal is a perfect system for a community website, I started moving the site to Drupal and will finish with it in the next day or two. It also has some built in things to keep spam from web form abuse to a minimum which is why I've pushed to get this move finished. All seems to be going well with it and it looks quite nice.

I finished the June Monthly Scavenger Hunt on Flickr, with only a few days to spare. This month's is interesting. Anyone have a pic of a Power Ranger toy I could use??

Rod's finished this semester and is home until the next one starts in a few weeks. This is good because once he 'catches his breath', I have lots of honey-do's for him.

I'm just about recovered from having the crud a few weeks ago. My RDNS nurse seems to have it now. We both commented on the fact we've had flu shots this year too. This had to have been a strain that slipped through the cracks.

Rod fixed the new pedometer - I think I wrote in my last entry that it had been really annoyingly going off constantly talking at me. He had fixed it so she quit talking, but unbeknownst to me until that night, it turns out it also wasn't counting steps. It's taken care of now and she does speak, but only when I want her to, so that's good.

A few weeks ago I ordered a ceramic heater for the patio. It's multi directional - so half of it can point in one direction (like towards where Rod sits) and the other half can be pointed towards me. I only paid $29 for it, but have been hanging out waiting for it to arrive. Today the place I bought it from Emailed me to let me know that they found out it was a different model to what they advertised and they tried to get the right one from the manufacturer but haven't heard from them. They offered me the one that they do have (it's not a lot different but apparently the controls aren't in the same place) or a refund. Hopefully by tomorrow it will be on its way as I'll take this one. It's still multi-directional, small, same price and ceramic.

Last week was the last week the lady who normally delivers my parcels was working. She officially retired on the 1st. Shame as I really liked Kathy. And the new one, which I haven't met, didn't impress me today. We were home, the door bell isn't broken, the shutters were up, the car in the drive, but instead of delivering my box (batteries I ordered cheap), there was a card in our letterbox - they couldn't have come to the door at all. Grr. And I'd been looking forward to meeting the new delivery person too.

In case you're wondering about all my stats, well I'm still doing the glucose readings, which have been pretty good, but as far as journalling stuff goes, I have taken a rest. I'd much rather spend my energy at the moment working on creative stuff as I have no idea how long this burst of creativity will last and I just feel like I should give it everything I have as it's been so long since I've felt creative. I haven't been walking as much, but I also have to work with the weather, and when it's super cold and rainy I've been more inclined to stay home rather than risk having the 'crud' return.

My back/side is doing very very well. The last 3 dressing changes have been excellent with dry bandaging. The size of the hole hasn't changed, but the fact it's no longer draining is a very good sign that it shouldn't be long now.

OH - last week we had a near disaster. I had an appointment we were getting ready to leave to attend when there was a huge hissing sound from the loo. Turns out a pipe in the wall had corroded and water was spewing everywhere. It only took a couple minutes for Rod to run out and turn the water off, but in that time there was at least 2 inches on the floor. Thank god it travelled into the bathroom and didn't touch the carpet for the back bedroom. We had to have a plumber come in to fix it. The pipe that corroded was a galvanised pipe, which is odd because the rest of the piping was all copper. The plumber wasn't as dear as I anticipated ... phew. We had lots of realisations though. Rod just happened to be home that day, and if he hadn't I'd probably sill be running in circles trying to figure out how to turn the water off. We were also running a bit late -- to our advantage -- if we had left earlier, we would have come home to a completely flooded house. So, disaster averted. PHEW!

I think that's about it as far as catching up goes. I'll be looking into DA to see what's new there tomorrow.

Cheers!