Revelation or Self-Realization?

This strikes me, not as funny nor as the oft quoted "Eureka!"

Rather it is of the nature of arise and awaken, you are needed again...

George Washington was faced with something similar when asked to be president... "Have I not yet done enough for my country?"

He rose again to serve his country.

I rarely seem to get called on like George Washington, or even Jesus to help or assist others... It seems to me that I have to go looking for opportunity to assist... That's when I'm in the mood to do so.

You see, I've been diagnosed with bipolar disorder... Since serving as a boy and cub scout leader, my headaches got worse, my arthritis more painful and my moods out of control.

It feels like a long journey from then till now.  I know the Lord puts things in front of us as we need them... I don't know why the mood disorder, but He did put a YouTube video logger's journal in my path one day.

After a day and a half of watching ALL of this person's videos, I really wondered if that wasn't the cause of my mood problems.  The first doctor I saw for the problem helped me a little, with antidepressants... The next and current, agreed that I was probably bipolar and added a mood stabilizer drug to the  antidepressants.

A week later I was working really hard again, I was nicer to be around, I wasn't staying awake for days and I wasn't often sleeping "all the time".

I still ride the roller coaster of emotions and mood but they are manageable for me and I'm starting to go look for things... Again, when I'm in the mood.

My younger sister and her husband sent me a video about a man named Ephraim Hanks.

Unlike me, he didn't grow up in the church.  Unlike me, he didn't have his name given to his mother prior to his birth, or as is oft seen in scripture "I knew thee while thou were yet in the womb."

I grew up being reminded of that all the time it seems like... Something I've never forgotten, and didn't really pay attention to until I was in my mid twenties.

My primary days at church weren't my favorite nor were the years that followed... Even after getting endowed in the temple, I don't think I appreciated anything so much as I did when I finally read the New  Testament all the way through. Which the Book of Mormon followed again quickly after then the Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of great a Price.

What wonderful and joyous books of Scripture I found! It only took me some twenty years to read and find that out myself.

After my divorce, and before this great revolution I under went

I don't write here like I used to.

When this was public, I used to write by all the time because I thought and hoped it would help someone.

Now it's hard to write anything here.

Last night Ellie and I got into things again.  This time it was over the computer... Again.

She always tries to do something on the computer without my help, then can't remember how to do it... Then it seems that she whines or cries when it's not doing what she thinks it should.  So she yells to me what to do... So I naturally try to be phone support for her as she's yelling for help... I don't use her programs enough to be of real help.  It then turns into a fight since I walk up look at the screen and know what to do.. Like I know Everything... I don't, I just know what she wants to do and I read the screen for what she wants... I don't know why i feel like it's stupid that people can't read the screen for help or use the help screen, feature.

I love her very much and perhaps I do feel that she isn't being smart about things.  She's the one with the college education, while I am just the high school grad. I didn't do college for several reasons... Finances, hating school and being a student and the college classes or types of classes I wanted didn't exist when I wanted them.

Now these classes are everywhere!

I'm at the top of where I wanted to be in high school and my salary reflects it!

Ellie and I agreed that if she needs help she'll all me to come to her instead of trying to ask me how to do it... I can only really help sometimes when I'm in front of a computer...

Sorry for disappearing...

Ellie and I had a discussion about how things might be perceived online regarding our relationship, family, etc.

We both decided it was best that things go under the radar from now on.

My Google+ and YouTube channels have both been shut down.

I will miss interacting with many of you through those venues.

Nothing personal with any of my followers.

Just tired of dealing with trolls and wasting lots of valuable work/personal time "keeping up" with everything.

God be with you till we meet again.

Things often change.

I'm not certain why it seems that things need to change so much.

Here I am now writing a blog entry that will never be seen by anyone else, but perhaps my family.  Not that I'm complaining about my family, but that Ellie and I decided that all of these blog entries should be unpublished.  This is for security purposes of our family.

Despite my long knowledge of cyber security, she was very worried that so much "information" had been published by me online.

No real names, places, nor general information about our exact location.  Only general information that was given was that we lived in the NW US.  There's a LOT of square mileage in the NW US.  Not to mention that there are TONS of employers for Software here this general location of the United States.

However, I started this blog mostly as what it is there for.  A journal, a place to write down my feelings and frustrations.  Mostly about my bipolar symptoms, troubles and what not.

Primarily it focused on that, yet it also carried on my general feelings and problems with day to day family life at times.

Not too negative at all... Usually, except where I got really frustrated, yet... what's the purpose of writing something like this if you're not going to be honest?

Last night, Ellie seemed to have a bit of a melt down for some reason.  We're not really sure what's going on, but when she thought about why she was really upset, she couldn't pin in on anything in particular.

What she figured was that it was her "diet" pill that's supposed to help curb her desire to eat so much food.

Ellie knows the ins & outs of various diets, as she's done many of them.  Her favorite is Weight Watchers. Yet, it seems hard for her to really just make the change(s) permanently to her diet to stay slender.

I'm not great at sticking fully to all the changes, but I am working harder at keeping my consumption down to serving sizes.  Yet, there are times that I do imbibe on multiple serving sizes instead of just keeping to the one I was given or picked out.

I suppose that the reason that I'm not always just eating a normal serving size recently or limiting myself a bit more is that I've felt more and more hungry instead of keeping myself feeling full.

Eating a bowl of grits in the morning seems to help hold me for multiple hours.  Then I proceed to eat at least one fiber/snack bar sometime prior to lunch time.  Yet, I don't always eat "lunch" that's actually planned out or healthy.

Well, I need to take that back... I don't eat a lunch because I don't prepare one for me to eat.  I tend to hit another snack bar, instead of doing a more fulfilling lunch meal.

Perhaps I'll start eating soup or chili or something else that has a more substantial substance to it, so that way I can, hopefully, keep myself feeling full and stop snacking on those "bars" or small bits of cookies or something else like that.

Right now, since we're preparing stuff for Christmas & bake sales, it's getting hard to say no to sweets.  I now understand what Ellie told me after we got married.  If you see it, you tend to want to eat it.

Last night, she and the kids made those "Haystack Cookies".  They're an addictive type of "cookie" that I really like to eat.  I had perhaps four of them, instead of just a single serving of one.

If we put out a tray of goodies everyday, I'd be into it ALL the time.  You know, if you pass by and see something that looks like it'd taste good, you'd stop and pick one up and eat it.  Or perhaps, for some who don't see cookies as a treat, it'd be something else.  Tickets to a game, or shiny objects, etc.  Everyone has something that they'd pick up if it was sitting out and permitted to be "free".  Perhaps like a pile of dollar bills.  You'd pick up one when you passed by.  The later on, if you passed by again, you'd pick up another one, or two.

My office chair sinks down too low in the seat, so that my tail bone hits the back piece of wood/frame.  If I don't pay attention to this throughout the day, it really hurts like a mother blaster at night or for several days.  I was thinking about it this morning while first sitting down and felt the chair's frame/design.  I decided that I could take the chair apart a bit, and put a piece of plywood or what not to span the frame a bit more.  It'd make the seat stiffer, but it'd also prevent it from sagging and having my tail bone hitting the dang frame in the back of the chair.

While getting dressed this morning, I looked up at my shelf of antique cameras, and noticed Ellie's opal ring.  I've had it up there for several years now, and keep meaning to take some of the opal we bought, just for the purpose of me to cut, shape and polish a replacement for it.  I'm taking resolve to work on it tonight after work, if I can.(AKA, if Ellie doesn't have something else that takes priority.)  It shouldn't take too long, as opals are a fairly soft stone compared to other stones that I've cut, shaped and polished.

I have some very pretty, raw opal stones.  Some of them are the usual white fire opal, while others are blue tinted fire opals.

So, I suppose, what I'll do is cut several stones to fit the ring's mounts and let Ellie choose which one I'll mount into the ring.

Well, I need to get to work as I have a meeting in another hour or so.  Meetings aren't bad, but sometimes, they suck as they interrupt my work flow/progress/funk.  :)

Mommy always said there were no trolls, but she was wrong

I'm done with Google+.

I'm tired of so many fuck heads out there.

I'm not a punching bag for anyone or anything.

Online or off.

I'm never going back because it's been a waste of major time for me to find that to many people out there will just not change enough to just be supportive.

Perhaps I stole this asshole's lime light by trying to respond and boost morales?

Usually he spent his time beating me down.

I'm bipolar, married, Father to 3 beautiful girls.
I'm successful as a programmer, earning over %90,000/year.

I'm very happy with

Happy with myself.

The only reason I went onto a bipolar group was to find other people that I could relate to.  People to listen to and to have them listen to me when I needed it.

When this ass of a guy wouldn't back down, I typed what I felt was appropriate to him.  Granted it wasn't nice yet, it was exactly what I thought of him.

I've stood on my own against worse things than bipolar and dammit, I'll keep doing it.

This ass only showed me that I only needed to stand up again, so perhaps I should thank him.

So WTF?

At least I feel at peace instead of worrying about what anyone may say.

And JStrider said, "Let there be School!" and there was School. JStrider rested for a day.

This time last week, there was three inches of snow everywhere and piling up fast.  School was cancelled, of course, and my family stayed home.  Temperatures since then have remained below freezing and school has not resumed.

While everyone else was going stir crazy with cabin fever, I was starting to go nuts because I couldn't work very well without someone bursting through my office door asking me to do something...

Yesterday, this all came to a head, when I really got involved with my coding, and I was really starting to take off and just blow full force into my work.

Here's my take on how my work was going yesterday:

My ass was in its groove and I had no intention of getting out for fear someone else was going to come in and change the shape of the groove.

Shortly after that "groovy" moment, I started getting bombarded by things...

Honey, Do you have a spare mouse? I broke mine... (again)

Daddy, can you help me setup the small TV as a monitor for my computer?

Honey, could you help us move some furniture?

Daddy, mommy's keyboard isn't working.  Could you come and look at it?

In short, I was pissed.  Or maybe it wasn't short at all.  Perhaps, it was WTF did you expect me to do?

Since you've all been up, I haven't been able to work more than 30 minutes before getting interrupted!

Last night when I went to bed, the temperature had dropped to 34 degrees, and when I got up around 4:30 or so, it was at 34 degrees still.

w00t!

Am I ecstatic!?

You bet your (fat/flat/round/missing) ass I am!

Around 6:00 AM, I got the alert from the school alert system that school was in session.  So the back flips ensued.. that is if I could do a back flip or actually have space to do them in.

With over night temps going up, at least for the next 5 days or so, school should be open through the end of next week and I can probably get what I'm working on done.

I have a doctor appointment soon, so I'll sign out, drive there, drive back and really get some work done, instead of shitting away the day... again.

Enough with the school closures!

It's been a full week of my family being home!

I've had a bit of trouble working recently, as I have been blogging.

Today, I was really driving right into the groove before I started getting bombarded by my family peeping their heads in, and telling me their little stories of WTF they were working on today!

FUCK!

Ok... now that I've used that here, I feel a bit vindicated/De-stressed.

Ellie said she got frustrated when I first started working from home... but I wasn't bugging her every 5 minutes or hardly ever!

DAMMIT!

Ellie just did it again just now!

Popped the door open to my office asking me for another fucking mouse!

I'm going fucking crazy because they're not leaving me the hell alone to work!

Some of you out there might wonder...

Hey What's the Big Deal?

The big deal is that I'm writing code!  It's like writing a story.  If you're interrupted,  sometimes its really hard to get back on track again, once you're knocked loose.

Right now, I'm about to throw my hands in the air and just say

Fuck it all! Either get the fuck out of the house or ignore me for the entire fucking day for a change!

I would charge out the door and go for a walk, but I don't want to slip on the fucking ice/snow out there or to spend time putting on my fucking knee brace, walk and only to ache like a mother fucker when I get home!

I'm trying to hear you and I can't for some reason... (Part two of many today)

During Wednesday evening, Middle Miss was trying to continue reading "Gossamer" by Lois Lowry.

Middle Miss's vocal range is one, that if she doesn't project her voice and enunciate well, I have a hard time hearing, unless I have my hearing aids in.

When she started to read, I told her that I couldn't hear her for some reason and to speak louder, slower & more pronounced.  Then I told myself that I wanted to hear her and the story.

For some reason then, my body and mind finally melted back together after the day's over all FUBAR-ness.

I was able to hear and understand her while she read last night better than any other night before she was reading the story.

To help her, I did give her some suggestions for changing her voice a bit for each character that was speaking, so that it would be easier for someone just listening to understand the dialog better.

She did a REALLY good job after that too.

For me, I think the defining moment of this was that I WANTED to listen.  I WANTED to hear.

It was like making that choice actually made a difference in my mindset and being for the rest of the night.

So school was originally set on a two hour delay today instead of outright being cancelled, so the kids were sent to be around 8:30-ish.

Well, I couldn't sleep well or seem to shut down my brain's activity very well.

I laid in bed next to Ellie and couldn't sleep.  Got up, sat in my chair for a while, read emails posted/responded to things on +being bipolar.

Went back to the bed again...  Sleep still eluded me, so I turned on the Kindle, intending at first to continue reading a book.... Instead I left it at "Grid Detective", which is a Logic Puzzle game.

So, I played through several of those puzzles, which were easier for me since I'd spent so much time over the last month on the Puzzle Baron's site playing those puzzles.

After the 3rd or 4th puzzle I completed on the first try, I felt tired enough to sleep.... Turns out it was just after midnight.

I slept...

WTF happened? (Part one of many today)

Earlier this week, Monday I believe, I might've noted that I've been getting really, really tired.

Tuesday, wasn't any different as I got up early, took a hot bath because my back & knees hurt like hell.

Around 1:30 pm, I went to the dentist to get some work done on a tooth that I'd cracked pretty bad sometime before Halloween. (I think... did I log it here sometime?)

After the appointment, I came home did stuff with the family and after awhile, I really, really started to decline and around 9:00 that night, I took a regular dose of Nyquil (Two tablespoons?) Looks like a shot glass of stuff to me.

That night, I slept.. I think, but I really don't know what happened.

During the "sleep", I dreamt that I was working in a toy store... Looked like a Toys R Us...

I don't remember exactly what I was "doing" for work, but I needed to PEE really badly!  So I kept pissing into various toys that were like "jugs".  Like the plastic golf bags with those little fake golf clubs.

Really, it was anything that looked like it'd hold a quart of urine at a single release.

Eventually, I came close enough to reality to know that I ought to get up and go to the bathroom or I'd probably wet the bed.

This wasn't exactly an easy task... I got up, and wove side to side to the back bathroom, so that I could pee without anyone walking in on me, like Ellie or the kids often do.

I laid back down and immediately felt like I was back in that damn toy store pissing in various toys again.

Sometime around 9:00 am Wednesday morning, I "woke" up for a bit and sat in the front room.  I don't remember why or how I woke up, but I did...

After getting yelled at or sometime, I laid back down and went back into that stupid ass dream again.  During that time, Ellie came in and I think shouted.. "Did you call your boss?"  I think I shouted back.. "did you call him for me?"

Then I was gone/out again.

Finally sometime after 11:00 am, I got up, dressed, and tried to wake up more to understand WTF happened.

Using my phone's browser, I started searching for "Novocaine Hallucinations" and what not... I never had that type of reaction to anything like that before in my life.

Hell, I even called Walgreens and asked them if there was any sort of reaction to Novocaine or Lidocaine and Nyquil.

Nothing there, so I continue to sit there and try waking up.

Opening the front door to look outside, the freezing cold air washed in and felt REALLY good.  I turned down the heater and turned on the box fan I use to cool myself down.

Eventually, I turned the damn heater all the way off and continued to use the fan & often would wet my arms face & hands in cold water.

I didn't have a temperature... I checked with the bathroom thermometer.

During my wake up time and waiting for the family to return from where the hell they went, I watched/listened to Rudolph & Frosty, whilst I knitted on the second glove for Middle Miss.

I'll have to take some pictures of them soon, so you can see all the trouble I'm going through for my kids...

Then I have to start on a pair for Little Miss.

Yeah snow day! Oh shit...

Lucky me.

Tomorrow is yet another snow day.

WTF is the school going to reopen?

If they think they're going crazy, they need to think about what I'm going through with them here and their boredom.

Egads! Gadzooks! And lots of other old times swears.

It's like family that's visiting that doesn't know when to leave, but these live here.

Ellie is bugging me about shit online or her MP3 player and Christmas music.

I suppose I'll escape when I'm asleep... Maybe...

Kids are staying up late since we know the night before if school is canceled.
If I wasn't actually trying to finish this damn report code I might stay up and mess around with them.

I'll be off from work on the 20th for the year. Out should be fun, but I'll have to see if my sanity can hold out.

Snow days = Fun for a while = "Dad.. I'm bored."

Ellie and the girls have been home from school since Thursday afternoon.

It's Tuesday now and it appears that there might be a good chance of freezing rain or at least lots of ice everywhere over the next few days still.


Which means now, that they'll be home for several days longer, despite the fact that we live just a few blocks from the school.

The city we live in is small-ish. Population around 10,000.  It also has hills & other areas that are more rural than the downtown city itself, which we live close to.

Most teachers and many students live outside of the downtown area and have to commute a few miles or more to the school.  Which means that traveling through snow & ice, despite how little there is, warrants snow days.

I don't usually mind driving in the snow, but I hate driving with the some of those who really "know" how to drive in the snow.  This means all those guys with the 4x4's who try to do donuts & stuff, but wind up crashing into buildings and other cars.  It also includes those who step on the gas too much and spin their wheels, trying to gather traction and wind up wasting the green light duration just to get across an intersection.

This is another reason why I justify working from home...  That and my job isn't dependent on where I work.

It's the same thing as being a story/novel writer.  You work where it's comfortable, inspiring, and away from the eyes of those who'll spoil the fun of the occasional computer game(s).

On the subject of mood & bipolar, I'm surprised and not surprised by some of the individuals I come in contact with.

Many are like me, funny, a tad "crazy", etc.

Some though, have very fragile personalities and often aren't sure what to do/think because of all the negative types of experiences they've had in their lives.  If I didn't either learn or just become used to being alone or "shunned", I suppose I'd be in the same state of mind.

Actually, I was in the same type of fragile state after I first married Ellie.  She didn't make me that way, but it was due to the way my relationship ended with my ex-wife.

What happened with my ex-wife, was that she had "moved" here.  One day while I was looking for a job, I came home and everything she and Big Miss had was packed up and they were gone.

Another time after she "moved" here, she pissed me off, so I went out for a walk, and again, she and Big Miss were gone again.

Finally, on the final "move" here, she and I had been seeing a counselor.  What she stated was that she wasn't happy here and couldn't ever be happy with me.  She wanted to leave, but had pissed off her family so much that they wouldn't fly her back to California, "again". (They'd been doing this all of the other times she left.)

I told her I'd buy the ticket if she wanted to leave... so a few weeks later, when I had the money, I paid for their ticket and she left.

That was the last time she & Big Miss were here in the Northwest.

After marrying Ellie, I freaked out one night when she wasn't home from school/work when she normally was.  Neither one of us had a cell phone, so I couldn't call her to see where she was.

For the next few hours, I was totally flipping out because she wasn't there... I kept thinking that I did something to piss her off... "what if she left me?"  "what if this?" "what if that?"

Obviously, when she returned, I explained that I had been freaking out because of the way my ex-wife had treated me.

Now, I don't worry much at all if she's not here when I return from work & what not.

I learned to deal with my anxiety of that, but it took me over a year to get over.

Even now, I still wonder "what if"... but Ellie usually carries her cell phone with her now, so I can figure out what's up... :)

A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!

I don't really want a horse and surely wouldn't sacrifice an entire kingdom for one.  Obviously, Shakespeare's Richard III did.


Let me rephrase that quote to suit me:

Sleep, Sleep, my mania for Sleep!

This week, and part of last week have been very sleep deprived.

Aside from the headaches and cold/sinus problems, I'm having trouble shutting down my thoughts.

Feels like my hypo-manic episodes, but I'm getting more sleep than I did then.

At least once this week, I couldn't sleep because I'd relax my muscles only to have my entire body tense again.  I did this multiple times and eventually fell to sleep... perhaps from getting tired of trying to relax.

Last night, I was wide awake and stayed up till after midnight.  After climbing into bed, I don't think I fell to sleep until closer to 1:00 AM this morning.  Before sleeping my mind was just moving very fast, and it felt like I was seeing things at their molecular levels and I could see how things were put together on all sorts of levels.  I don't know if that's an accurate description either... Sometimes it felt like I was on a high speed train, and everything was just flying by at incredible speeds.

One good thing about staying up so late last night, was that I almost have the first fingerless glove made for Middle Miss.  It's green & blue.  The fingers are blue, green, blue, green, blue and then a maze pattern from there down to the cuff.  Then I'll add alternating blue and green stripes to the cuff.

Perhaps I'll post a picture of them when I'm done with them.

This morning, I had Little Miss try the glove on as well, and it fit her well, except the fingers were a bit long for her.  This means, it'll be easy to make her gloves.  I just need to use all the same stitches for the fingers and just add less rows.

At this point, I'm tired as hell, and after reading through some of my blog entries, I realized that I've been working on the same report for almost a month...  Not good... I normally would have this type of thing done long time ago...

I thought Microsoft would be past this by now...

I've been using Windows 7 x64 for over a year now with 8 GB of RAM.

At first, this was pretty fast and slick...

Then Corporate encrypted all the hard drives, except for my external USB drive. (Can't restore from an encrypted disk unless your restoration program can read the encrypted drive. I don't know of any good ones, yet.)

Encryption processes on disks, etc. usually takes a toll on processor usage and sometimes memory, depending on how good the developer(s) are with their memory usage.

The baseline of memory usage after reboot is just under 2 GB used.

After opening all of my apps, Outlook, Communicator, Firefox, IE, and several instances of VS 2010, I'm up to close to 3 GB used.

This is OK for me.  I've had as many as 5 instances of VS 2010 open, and when they close out, I usually get almost all the resources/memory back.

Over the past 6 months, I noticed that if I do not reboot the system every other week or so, my memory usage gets up to over 4 GB and almost stays there.

I've used "Memory Fox", and it's been better... Yet, the overall performance and usage of Window 7 still sucks.

Outlook eats a bunch of memory/disk & I/O.

Whenever I have all of my apps closed, the memory usage doesn't go back down to the post boot baseline of 2GB.  It stay somewhere around 3 GB.

If you're not familiar with how much data a GB really is, it's literally like opening Notepad and pressing the space-bar or any other key 1,073,741,824 times.

Every character/letter is 1 byte.  To make this even more comprehensible, the KJV of the Bible contains, 3,566,480 letters/characters of text.

The difference is 1,070,175,344 is still left over of that original GB.

What I'm driving at is that something is not letting go of the memory that it should.

So many people, today, only think of GB's in terms of give me most you can, without the thought of why.

Yet with a world where the "normal" user wants all the pretty graphics, pictures, effects and sounds, the Operating System (Windows or MAC) gets bigger and bigger to accommodate this demand.  Which means the computer system hardware needs to get faster and have more storage & RAM.

In many ways, I miss the days of my 386-40 with 8MB RAM... It could run Windows 95 if I wanted it to, but it could do just as much and faster with DOS 6.x. (Hell I'd run DOS 3.x if I could, but 6.x had CD ROM support and other cool features.)

I will say that editing documents where fonts, colors, effects are needed, then either a well written application for DOS was necessary (various publishing programs, etc did this well) or a Windows based OS with a graphical Word Processor.

• Wordpad worked, but had no spell checker or thesaurus.
• WordPerfect was great, as it had all the keyboard shortcuts as its DOS version did with spell checker thesaurus, etc.
• Microsoft Word was OK at the time, but it was bloated.

Obviously Microsoft Word/Office won out for the competition of Word Processors.

With all the processing power, memory and storage that I have now, I should be able to store the entire world on it and be able to search/use it almost like a human brain... It's not like that because of how it's being utilized, which really, really, really sucks.

Enough nostalgia, I'm back to work.. which I am doing and more successfully today than in the last 1.5 weeks.

What's the purpose of being an Aunt if you can't mess with your brother's kids? (Thanks Sis!)

Several years ago, my sister sent us this CD called "Redneck Christmas".

Of the odd assortment of funny & strange songs is a track title, "I farted on Santa's Lap".

Here's the first verse of the song:

Mom made beans for dinner
You know I ate 'em all
She said come get your coat on, we're goin' to the mall
Gonna visit Santa and sit upon his knee
But all that I could think about was how not to cut the cheese

What happened when the kids first heard the song?  Well, they played it over and over and over... dancing to it... Ellie got a video of them doing this, so I sent it to my sister... (Sorry, I'm not posting my personal family pictures/video online.)

It's actually a VERY funny song, in my opinion.

This homemade YouTube video is pretty funny to watch...

There's actually quite a bit of history around "I farted on Santa's Lap"...  I'm not going to cover it here, but you can look it up via any search engine.

Well, I'm off to code again.. and this time I MEAN it.

Wow, am I one tired Mother F...er...

Last night, I laid down and read a book on the Kindle for a bit.

Finally, put on my cpap mask and tried to fall asleep.

Instead of falling asleep as was my intention, I wound up coughing and gagging on phlegm being pushed out of my sinuses by the air pressure from the CPAP.

Ellie was dressed for play in bed last night, when I couldn't really do anything but wear away the inside of my throat as I was coughing.

I finally gave up, took some Nightquil... After 20 some minutes of not feeling better or falling asleep, I grabbed the Kindle and sat up in my chair reading for another hour or so.

Wound up sleeping in the chair for most of the night, only to wake up with my right knee in a LOT of pain.

That's what hinted me to crawl into bed, put on the cpap mask again and try to sleep...

Which brings me here today.

I'm tired from not sleeping well and Nightquil is kind of hard to get out from under its effects sometimes.  Heck, I didn't even wake up when I normally do because of all the noise from Ellie and kids getting ready for school.  I only woke up because Ellie turned off the fan... (I sleep with one on ALL year round.  Tinnitus sucks.)

Instead of lazing around today too much, I did research what the boss asked me to look at yesterday, but couldn't due to bandwidth/network lag issues.  Only one part of that tool is similar to what we're doing, but we're faster... :)

 I think I'm also calming/cutting down from getting into Google+.

Last night was almost a war between myself an a moderator... but now that I think about it there are two things that should've been different:

1. I need to continue letting crap slide off of my back and knock the chip off of my shoulder.
2. The moderator needs to not comment negatively about any of the posts, unless it's picking on someone else or offending them.  Especially since it's a Bipolar group.

Being bipolar isn't just highs & lows for those with it.  Some of us get FUBAR regularly.  Our emotions go up and down like a pole dancer on a greased pole. (Actually that'd be funny to see one of them try to do those turns & what not on a pole that's been greased up with Crisco or something.  I've never actually seen any of those shows outside of what's on TV or in different movies Ellie and I have watched.)

What I did this morning was go through and make a few edits and removed many of the posts that I shouldn't have done as a way of personally atoning for being an asshole towards anyone.  I've no idea if the moderator I was head to head with will do the same... I can only hope so.

I want to shout out to +Kimberly Ruse... Thanks for showing me that I was being an ass and not calming down & focusing on the purpose of the group & posts.

Take care, and I think today I'm actually going to finish this piece of code for this report finally.

It feels like a good day to...

code...

Why is the rum always gone? -Jack Sparrow

I don't actually drink any alcohol...

The few times I've had drinks, I found that I really wanted MORE!

So, I've been able to keep that desire curbed, and prevent myself from going into AA.

Going with the quote thou, I feel more like "Why is it always ME?" whenever my family is home, and trying to do something, like hanging up the outdoor Christmas lights.

Dammit!  Ellie just yelled outside.

So I THREW the office door open, ran down the stairs and out the front door.

What did I find?

Only that she was frustrated with trying to use the drill/screw gun to put screws into the underside of our porch awning.

WTF would you yell like that when you're frustrated?

I told her to put the stuff away and when she got home from her appointment I'd help her.

Since I have the problems with my knees she's been doing more stuff like this, which is generally OK...

BUT

 This time, she bought some of those rope lights, for which we don't have nails/hooks setup for to put them up already.

That's why the screw gun and freakin' yelling!

Egads, how's a guy supposed to work & waste time?

I cannot do all of that AND help her do things around here...

Actually for work, I'm trying to load up a training system one of the other teams did and it's only about half way through the load process after a good 20 minutes...  How long is this thing, or is it getting hammered that bad?  Makes me feel like I'm on my original 1200 baud modem with a bad download buffer chip.

Well, I'm not sure if I should run out and get a burger while waiting for this module to load or get my knitting project and do that while waiting... Like I used to do when I was doing Tech Support...

For the past few weeks I've been winding up into a pissed off state more and more with the fuse getting shorter.  Last night, it started getting bad enough that I was starting to curse more around my family... when I realized it, I took a Xanax...  It worked and didn't make me sleepy this time.  I finally calmed down and was able to participate with the family better...

That's it for today folks... Check back again on the same Bat-Station at the same Bat-Time...

If I had bits of corn, carrots, or nuts on the outside of me, I'd look how I feel.

OK, the title is vague.... Unless you've seen/heard enough potty humor.

In short, I feel like shit.

Last night I was doing OK until I actually tried to sleep...

I felt like tossing cookies so hard Famous Amos might use me as their distributer.

I only felt better laying on my side and even then the urge to blow chunks didn't go away.

I finally fell asleep only to have Ellie wake me up asking me to put on my cpap mask.  I guess I was snoring and she needed sleep for black Friday combat shopping.

Right now I've been up since just after three am...  It's now just after seven.

I'm tired and still not feeling good.

I think what it is, is that Ellie shared her cold with me and I have some serious post nasal drip going on... Lucky me, right?

Aside from feeling like hell, I think I finally got through to little miss last night about her nasty way of treating me about the damn mummy movies.

She and middle miss were sent to bed after arguing for 20 some minutes over what movie to watch.

Little miss was upset, which was good because I hope it shows her that she can't always get her way and that movies/TV aren't the only things in life... After all she is reading the Percy Jackson series...

They're not bad books, but I prefer the Kane Chronicles by the same author.

Well I'm going to see if I can survive this nausea...

WTF is this world coming to?

Okay, it's not the WHOLE world, but my parents' & siblings' world(s).

Not my sisters, as they're like me and can take care of themselves.  Well, my oldest brother is doing better now too, but for a while there, I thought he was just a complete loser too.

If I hadn't mentioned this in a previous post, the brother of mine who's 4 years older than I am is living with our parents.  Along with him are his two little children. (5 & 3?  Maybe?  I don't really know.. My brother is a complete dick about how he communicates with me... which is not at all... and I don't really try to either.)

A little over a year ago, child protective services came to their house from a anonymous tip that the house was in really bad state of health for the children there. (I found out months later, my older sister made the call).

Last week, out of the blue, I get a call from my mom asking how we were doing since she hadn't heard from us for a while.  On that same call she told me that they got another visit from Child Protective services again.

She called my younger sister, Billie, about the visit... Billie and Thad, her husband, decided to go over and help them clean up the house a little bit.

Billie & Thad focused on the two upstairs bathrooms.  It took them about 6 hours to clean the bathrooms.  The bathrooms were in so bad of shape, that there was SHIT splattered on the WALLS & FLOOR!

I am completely appalled!

Earlier, I was texting with my older sister, Jill, and she said that it wasn't her who called.
I told her if I had known how bad it was, I would've made call to the health services myself!

My parents really need to get into different housing.  Walk away from the house & payments, etc and move into an apartment.  Then my brother, his kids and wife can move into another apartment.

I suppose then, we'll see who's the filthy mother fucker.

Sure, I don't normally use that language, but right now, I feel that it really applies...

Good thing I stay away from the rest of my family, and keep my family with Ellie away from them.

Oh, the weather outside is frightful... Oh, it's twue, it's twue...

Usually, when it's in the 20's & 30's over night, my home office is somewhere in the 50's - 60's to start off with and might get into the higher 60's.

Well, it was about 30 when I started work this morning, and now it's 50 outside, and almost 74 inside.

If you aren't aware, I have a real problem being in temperatures over 72 degrees these days.

For the past 3+ years, I've become a walking space heater.  I wear shorts all year round, except when Ellie tells me to wear pants to different occasions. Heck, I even own nice dress shorts to church. Part of the reason besides heat dissipation, is that heat triggers migraines, and for the arthritis in my knees, I wear a prescribed brace on my right knee.  If the brace is too tight or too loose, I don't want to drop my drawers in the chapel to readjust the brace nor do I want to run back & forth to the bathroom all the time to do it.
  I try hard not to adjust it while the various classes & services are going on, as Velcro can be very noisy.

Getting back to my heater attributes, my family loves it.  Ellie likes it when it's chilly at night, because she can snuggle up against me with cold feet and bum.  The girls like it when we're outside, practically anywhere, because they can warm their hands up on my arms or snuggle up against me when we're walking to warm up.

I don't mind my family snuggling up against me to warm up, but what I really mind is when they start to pet my arms & legs.  They are hairy and like a cat or dog, the need to pet them seems to come from almost everyone.  Ellie, the girls, nieces and nephews (when they were younger) and other younger kids... or the autistic children we occasionally watch at our home.

In some ways, I suppose being an attraction for people to pet is better than being put into a cage as an attraction.

Come see the amazing Jared Strider and his hairy arms & legs.  Aren't they plush!?
He's a native to North  America, eats a variety of food and might actually kill us if he wasn't in that cage.
Oh look, it's feeding time, lets see what he's going to eat today...

Since this is Thanksgiving Eve, I suppose that I should be thankful that today's my last day of work for the week and I won't have to spend all day in my little office upstairs.  Where the temperature raises faster than than a teenager on Viagra...

Get ready to RUUUMBLE! Or perhaps let the Christmas season begin!

I suppose that I finally got the itch to load up my Christmas music playlist in WinAmp.

On my Android phone, I'm not going to switch out the music to Christmas, as I do have some limitations to All Christmas Songs All the Time.  Many of the local radio stations started doing this last week.

The first song that I started off with was Mele Kalikimaka... Which of course reminds me of Christmas Vacation with Chevy Chase.

Knowing my music style, I also have kicked off Welcome the Piper by The McCallans from the Highland Christmas CD/Album. :)

Crap, I just realized I don't have any banjo/bluegrass Christmas Music... yet... :)

The Family is at school today. (Girls in class & Ellie working in her classroom)
This is a HUGE relief to me, only because I like to have the house to myself when I'm working, so that I'm left alone.

I like to be alone.  As I mentioned previously, my hearing loss often makes me feel alone.  Although, today I put my hearing aids which doesn't necessarily change my feeling of isolation, but does help me to enjoy sounds & music.

Speaking of enjoying sounds, I remember the first time that I didn't wear ear plugs in the shower.  I heard the sound of the shampoo in my hair as I washed it.  It was an amazing sound!  Ear plugs were necessary because of all the inner ear surgeries I had gone through before I was 6.

Since this is Thanksgiving Eve and my mother in law is doing all the cooking, I don't need to worry about baking pies, etc.  I do love baking, but tonight means that I can watch movies with the kids, like Son in Law.
Last night, we watched the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving specials.

It's funny, my youngest daughter, who as noted before was being a pain in the ass, was out in the front room to watch the specials just seconds after they started.  She didn't even miss all of the opening credits.

TV & Movies is a major part of who she is and her life.

Now, don't worry that it is all she does, as she reads a LOT.  In fact, she's part of the top readers in the school like her big sister.  In fact, I think they're almost the two top readers in their Elementary school.

They've been burning through the books over the last two weeks.  Her sister finished through all the Twilight books & Percy Jackson series.  The little one is burning through the Percy Jackson books now too.

You know, I haven't given them their own names on my blog yet.  Well, the little one is going to be... Little Miss & her older sister will be Middle Miss and my eldest will be Big Miss (She's the tallest of them so far at around 6').

Well, I should really get my report done, as I've been wasting so MUCH time recently that I know I'm a bum.

What I'm working on should've been done several weeks ago, and I should be on the next one in the list/series of this type of report.

Have a good Thanksgiving!

Knock knock... Dwayne the tub I'm drowning

I don't know why but I often feel like I'm getting drowned out by Ellie.

Often I want one thing when she comes up with another thing for me to do.

This goes beyond the honey do list type of things.

It's affecting what I do for work... where I work and when I work. I haven't been into the corporate head quarters in over a month now.

I wanted to go in several days this week.

She's been sick so I can't fault her for being sick but she doesn't even ask what I'm going to do that day. Maybe I just need to go in daily for a few weeks. Then she'll shut up!

I love her very much, yet she really pisses me off when she doesn't talk to me and she just assumes.

I would never do that to her.

This afternoon is a good example. I got a call from Dr office about some blood work. I told her it was regarding my kidney function as they wanted to put me on a diuretic. Before I could  explain much she jumped into why and "I thought you were on something for your blood pressure already..." I didn't have a good chance to explain that it was a supplement to my current meds before she went into what about your current meds?

She got pissed when I said she doesn't pay attention to what I'm trying to tell her.

On her way out, after being home all day... "Could you make something for dinner?  Wait we'll have left over pizza..."
"Ellie, I had some for lunch so there's not enough for dinner. Perhaps I shouldn't have shoved any in my craw hole.."

Well she thought I was mad at her... I'm a bit pissed but not mad at her. Her reactions make me mad not what she does... If that makes sense.

I'm a bit beside myself, as this is the time of the month that she'd normally go through her cycle... I guess she does as she still has her ovaries.

Well I'm off to find something for dinner...

That'll teach her.

Ok, to set a background to this post, my youngest daughter is a LOT like me.  Feisty & what not.

Recently, she's been a bit "rebellious" if that's what you want to call it.  Perhaps it more like Sassy.

One night I was messing with her a bit, mostly going to give her a big hug and she punched me in the gut.  A little later on, she was trying to kick me with a few of the martial arts moves that I was trying to teach my kids.

Well, I grabbed her hands, and she was still trying to kick, so I lifted my left leg up into the tangle of arms & legs, and belted her across the ribs with a good kick.  Nothing so hard it'll bruise or make her cry or anything, but like a good swat on the bottom.

Her eyes got REALLY wide and she looked at me differently then.  Her big sister was there, and her eyes were almost as big too.

I turned to them and asked... "You believe me now that I was a trained fighter?"

So, she calmed down trying to hit & kick at me in a form of showing her sass.

Last night, she got back on her high horse again, when I asked her if she wanted to go with me to pick up the pizzas from Figaro's.
Her immediate response was "Only if you let me watch the Mummy Returns in my room".

I went to get the pizzas, when I returned home, I grabbed the Mummy dvd series and hid them in my room.
She can watch them when I'm ready to let her.

So far as I know, she still hasn't apologized for acting like a total brat last night.  If she keeps this up, I might keep her from watching all sorts of movies as its her favorite thing to do.  OR perhaps, the TV or DVD player in her room will be removed.

The biggest reason why she has a TV & DVD player in her room, is that she has space for them, and so that way Ellie and I can watch movies that we don't want the kids watching yet, in our front room with the decent sound system.

Well, I suppose that's All I have to say about that...

I know I bitched about Google+...

There are MANY things about Google & Google+ that I really don't like... Mostly because I'm a super power computer user, if I can toot my own horn.. (I suppose I just did, eh? Wait... or was that the dog farting?)

What I am starting to really like and appreciate is one of the communities I joined:
+Being BiPolar

It's a VERY active group of people, and we're actually sharing information and ideas about Bipolar, a LOT more than any other place/group that I connected to in the past.

I'm really looking forward to continuing my participation with this group of people.

Turns out that many of "us" have the same types of interests, hobbies and habits.

Now I really don't feel too alone in the world by learning how to do so many things and knowing that I'm not the only one who can read something then do/make it.

Hansel and Gretle better watch out!

Yesterday, my youngest daughter wanted to make "gingerbread men", but it turns out what she really wanted to do was make a "gingerbread house".

Thanks to Foxtrot, I keeping thinking of a gingerbread House, as this:

Well, she got REALLY moody when we said we couldn't do a house from scratch yesterday.

Although, the prospect of making one from scratch is interesting to me.  Since Ellie is going to be out for "Black Friday", I'll be alone with the kids, so why not attempt to make a house?  Not House.

 

Well today, I thought I'd look up recipes for building/baking a gingerbread house and it doesn't really appear to be "that" hard to do.

So I suppose, we'll bake up the walls and what not tomorrow night or probably Wednesday night.  As we don't have school the next day and the IMPORTANT things we have to do on Thanksgiving day are:

1. Watching the Macy's Parade.
2. Eating Chocolates while watching the Parade.
3. Literally going "over the river and through the woods" to my in-laws' house for dinner.

We haven't watched any of the Thanksgiving movies yet, so we'll have to start tonight... Like the Charlie Brown special, An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving and  my personal favorite... Son in Law.

I agree, I do find Paulie Shore to be extremely irritating in general, but this movie is one of his best, aside from Encino Man... Which he really didn't star in, although he was there...

Well, I'm going back to work, so wish me luck as I plan out my devious week... :)

Why am i still up?

I should be asleep.

I'm not awake because of mania... Ok not uncontrolled mania, but that I wanted a better MP3 player for my android phone... So far I found box as an OK player and will almost do what I do with winamp on the PC.

While messing around I figured why not see if there's an app for blogger...

Looks like it, eh?

Not as robust as a  traditional browser on blogger but good for mobile device. :-)

I'm going to sleep now...

When she's right, she's right... Why do I always hear a piper today?

The other day Ellie noted that the shower wasn't draining very well anymore and it was probably due to all the long hair between her and the girls.

I also suspect that it's from our sheltie.  He's got really long/wooly type of fur and Ellie gave him a bath last week.

After my shower today, I took the plunger to the shower drain, and it didn't help.

Next, I'm going try using Drano or some knock off.

If that doesn't work, then I'll pull out the drain auger/snake...  Then I get to run that for a while and pull out the clog.

Usually when I pull out the clog, it's a gag type of moment.  Sometimes it brings its own special odor or is a large hairball yacked up by a Yeti.

What's ever worse than the shower drain is the sink drain.  That ALWAYS has a stink to it...  And it's slippery/slimy.  ACK!

Being a home owner brings all sorts of fun like this.

As to the piper, since my shower, I have been in a better mood, and for some reason hearing bag pipe music being belted out at high volume is pumping me up.

Of course, so is "No Church in the Wild" by Kanye West and Jay-Z.

See?
When I stated that I'm a music lover, I mean it.

 I have a LARGE variety of different music styles, eras, etc. Classical, Heavy Metal, Rock, Rap, Big Band, Oldies, Cowboy (not country, which I usually can't stand), etc...

Well, otherwise, my mood is going up, and I hope that it keeps going today, but doesn't crash tomorrow.  Which would suck.

I'm supposed to help out my family & their girls club sell stuff at a church's bazaar. (Lucky me, eh?)  If I'm not feeling so hot, then I know I'm going to be a cynical asshole to everyone that I meet and I'll have to bite my tongue... Even if it's not my particular chapel & faith.

To make matters even more fun tomorrow, we're doing family pictures sometime in the afternoon.  After which, we're supposed to return to the bazaar to keep pimping the goods that were made.

I'm thinking about taking the Zombie Dice game with me, so that the kids and I can have something to play when/if things get really slow... (previous post about Zombie Dice & the other Zombie game I bought..)

That'll teach that religion/chapel a thing or two about my cynical nature, eh?

It's not that I want to disrespect any religion, as I have a strong belief that EVERYONE should worship God in the manner that they see fit.

I don't like it when you go into another faith's chapel and you start getting preached at.  If they really want to get my attention, they won't push their religion at me.  Instead they should show me courtesy and kindness.

Since I already feel that my faith is true, I really don't think that I'm going to switch anytime soon... :)

WTF can't I seem to work?

As a programmer, I know how to do my job and do it well... that is, when I'm doing it.

Recently, I just cannot seem to do my job.  I seem to spend my days playing Spider solitaire, Online Cryptograms or Logic Puzzles.

Feeling sure that I'm not the only one in this state doesn't necessarily ease my feelings.

What it does though, is make me feel a little guilty... but its not really guilt... it's more of I know that I shouldn't be doing it.. but I don't necessarily feel bad about it like many do who have that guilt feeling.

Perhaps I don't really have a "guilt" switch?

There are many switches/emotions that I know that aren't toggling both directions...

• Guilt
• Remorse

I thought there were going to be more, but when I sat here thinking about them, those are the only ones that really seem to really exist.

A person can feel Guilty about doing something bad, which is essentially Remorse.

If I cut someone off, it's usually on purpose.  In a situation that I had to kill someone for defense of myself, family, innocent person/child, I wouldn't feel guilty/remorse for it.  I know that already.

Where I do things that I do feel remorse is situation where there are children involve, but not always.  Usually it's the very young children... like those who're younger than kindergartener age.

Or splashing people when I run my car through water puddles... unless its teenagers... (I'm devious that way).

Circling back to work, I often want to be balled out by the boss, but I don't feel sorry for not doing things.  I'd rather be in trouble for not doing things than to feel bad about it.

Is that strange or unusual?

I don't think so, but again, I don't know.

Ellie called me earlier to tell me that the girls forgot their swimming bags here, and I promised her that I would meet them at the pool around 3:00 so that they could have their suits & towels, etc.

What the problem with that is, I really haven't done any work today... aside from going through an annual corporate standards training, which was really boring.  Now I have 1 1/2 hours before I'm supposed to meet the kids at the pool with their gear for swim team.

I suppose, I'll try to get more work done today... hopefully.

War instrument, folk instrument or instrument of torture?

I'm talking about BagPipes!

Myself, I'm a descendant of a Scotsman who was part of the Royal Guard in the 1700's in Canada.. (That's the century I believe.)

Since that time, my ancestors have intermingled blood lines with other Europeans, Native Americans, and eventually someone from the Czech Republic, several generations before me.

This explains my fair skin and ability to sun burn easily.

As stated above, I dig the bagpipe music, and recently came upon a group called Clanadonia.

One of their tracks, Egyptian has some amazing drum work!

Even if you don't like the sound of bagpipes, but really appreciate drum rhythms, etc. I suggest clicking on the link above so that you can hear it.

The pipe playing is pretty cool, but without the drums to back it up, it's just boring & plain.

It's no use. I want to cry, but I'm just too macho. - Phillip J. Fry

When you don't know what else to say, turn to Futurama.  Lots of random funny stuff there.

I recently returned from seeing my shrink, "The Ogre". (His last name is similar to a famous animated Ogre)

When he found out that I cut my usage of Effexor back to 75mg of 150mg, he kind of flipped out.

Personally, I don't see why he seems to care so much about the Effexor usage.

While on 300mg for many months, I was still having so many various emotional problems before going on Zyprexa and then Lamictal.

I stressed to him today the reason for cutting back Effexor. "INTIMACY!" to get the DESIRE to get "Funky" or "Frisky" with Ellie.

That he seemed to understand.

I mean, not having the desire to lust after women & look at suggestive pictures, etc was nice... but it also hasn't been so nice when you feel you should get "Frisky" with your mate... but don't really have the desire to do anything with them in that manner.

The Ogre put me on a tapering off dosage schedule for the Effexor and put me on Viibryd...

Out of curiosity, I looked up effects of VIIBRYD & Bipolar... Looks like if this works "right", I'll be back on the manic side of Bipolar again...

I liked being on the manic bandwagon many times, but I didn't like the anger episodes & vitriol hate & venom that I often had/spewed.

Good thing Ellie loves me and if I tell her about this, she'll at least know to keep a lookout for problems with me.

"The Ogre" asked if I had further questions/comments/etc... I told him there have been times recently that I've been feeling good enough to start wondering why I took any of these drugs, aside from my pain pills.  That I often have been tempted to stop taking them, but I was afraid to do that.

I feel like my memories of how I was before the medication are fading.  Often it feels like I never had a problem at all and those problems were all just a "dream"...

Since I was only recently diagnosed with bipolar, I remember what it was like before my extreme emotional problems....  Now it feels like I never had the emotional problems to begin with...

Classic bipolar/depression type scenario, right?  You don't feel like you have any problems anymore or that you had any problems to begin with, so why take the meds... right?

I'm going to keep moving forward with my meds... but damned if I don't feel the way that I feel right now...

"Doc, It hurts when I don't do anything." Dr: "WTF?"

I haven't posted anything for a while, since I wasn't near my work computer all week until today.

Sunday night, I had a really bad headache.

I managed to go to sleep for a while before I woke up when the pain got worse.  Again, I managed to go to sleep, only to wake up again another hour or less later.

It still hurt like hell, and so I sat up in my chair eating a weight watchers ice cream bar, trying to cool down my pallet so that it might help get the pressure to go away.

Things still didn't go well, so I went to the hair dryer, and sat there reading a book, changing the temp & speed of the dryer to "hot as hell" to "hot" and "cyclone" to "stiff breeze".

My head & left eye were still in pain, which meant I next went to something hot/warm to drink.  I pulled out the orange drink mix and a hot teapot of water.  Mixing this stuff up isn't really something most people do or like, but I like it.

After the first mug, I still had the really bad pain, so finally went to the caffeine, Benadryl & another pain pill. (I'm only supposed to have 1 extra one a day, and I had used one before bed.)

30+ minutes later, my nose started running and the pain started going away.

Now, if my nose started running and the pressure/pain went away... Why does the doctor still say that it's not a Sinus headache?

I called into work, and slept for several hours before getting up & putzing around the house for the rest of the day.

Tuesday, I still didn't go to work, as I scheduled it off to begin with and went to the dentist for a cleaning.  Unfortunately, the damn chipped tooth didn't get worked on as it seems the dentist was more worried about other things with other teeth.

I still carry a flosser/pick with me so that I can get stuff out of that area of my teeth when it gets jammed in there by the gums.

Today is Ellie's birthday, and she asked me to send her flowers so that she could get them while at work.  On my way home from "The Ogre's" (My shrink) office, I'll stop by the local florist and send over some flowers to her.

I really need to get back to the report I was working on last week.

Currently, I'm listening on a Cyber Security forum, which is interesting.

Many years ago, I was heavily into Cyber Security while working with different divisions of the US military. 

So, I like to keep myself on the pulse of the Cyber Security world.

Today is mostly about how systems that are hacked and hackers really aren't just nerds in their mom's basements anymore.

Pretty soon, I need to get ready to drive into the Ogre's office, and I was going to work from the corporate office today, but decided after last night, I was going to just go in and come back from his office.

Last night!?  Well, about 10:00 PM, a friend called up saying that a resume that he was working on through a website was just "gone" and that it was an emergency to get the resume ready/done for today.

So, I got out of bed, got dressed and drove over to his place.

After a while of looking through the temporary files and attempting to log into the resume site he was going, I finally looked at this resume info.

Turns out that I was able to retype, format and print out the entire resume as he wanted it in less than 20 minutes, instead of the hour+ that I was working on to retrieve the existing resume.

On the way home, going down the dirt road from his house, I almost hit a skunk that was trying to cross the road.  Luckily, I slowed down and damn thing jumped into the small ditch alongside the road.  He just kept running in the ditch as I passed by, and I didn't get sprayed.

I know this was a freaking long post, but I felt I needed to catch up.

Somebody, help me! (Jump in the line, rock your body in time) - Harry Belafonte

Today is a good day so far...

EXCEPT...

Well, earlier prior to Ellie and the girls going to school, I mentioned bringing my Zombie Dice game with me to tonight's Bingo/Fundraiser for the girls' club.

Ellie went nuts on me!  All about how I would bring the Kindle or puzzle books or the game and just ignore everything else around me!

Well, I don't ignore everything around me, but I am just not very outgoing, so I tend to remain in my shell.

If my nephew(s) are there, then I'll play Zombie Dice with (him/them)... if Ellie doesn't jump down my throat or their moms' don't jump down theirs.

I'm a bit of a devious guy, and I can play bingo and another game or read a book at the same time...

Bingo is just a boring ass game, and if the people who're reading the numbers/etc are really slow, then I get REALLY bored.

Not even the "thrill" of winning stuff gets me to ignore everything else.

Although, there will be some cool gift cards & other stuff to win.  Perhaps I'll get a really bad migraine/headache before we need to leave, and I'll stay home and do what I want to...

Tomorrow, Ellie and I are going out as dinner for her birthday.  Her actual birthday is on Wednesday, so we're going out tomorrow instead of trying to do it on a work night.

I'm going to the shrink on Weds. anyway.  So if I get some crap from him, then I won't carry it onto dinner.

For the fundraiser, I'm disappointed with Ellie.  Several weeks ago, she bought a shit load of tomatoes and "alligator tails".
(What my dad's brothers used to call avocados.. Now that I think about it, he never referred to his brothers as my uncles...  I mean, that's what they are, but he never said "Uncle Bob" or "Uncle Joe".  Just "my brothers").

Getting back to the produce purchase, all of those food spoiled and rotted, obviously.  Since they were purchased several weeks prior to being used, they would spoil.

So, now we poured out a bunch more money to buy additional food stuff.

I'm getting really frustrated with Ellie in regards to money.  If stuff goes bad or she feels the need to get things, then she just goes "Oh well" and buys new stuff.  If it was me, I would actually wait to buy the food and say "Wait a sec.  Do we need to buy that stuff now, or can it wait?"

With my hypo-mania swings, I occasionally go into a bit of a spending spree or a "I want that" spree.  It's not a "HOLY SHIT, I got to spend!"

My "I wants" aren't very expensive, generally, but they can get frequent, which doesn't help preserve our cash inflow.

I worry, as we have several thousand dollars from my uncle's estate when he passed on, that will probably get spent REALLY quickly this Christmas...

Several years ago, when we didn't have much, we got various donations from people at church.  We had $200 cash and several $100 gift cards!  All of it and MORE was spent like water!

I'm very disappointed that we couldn't just curb our spending, instead of just spending and spending!

Ellie gets very mad at me for being so cautious with spending/saving process.

She wants to know why our bills aren't getting paid off faster and why we don't always have excess cash... well that's why!  Ellie just spends too much.

With how her "monthly" mood swings go, I wonder if she isn't bipolar too.

You know.. this week as I've been reading posts and interacting with other bipolar people, I often wonder if I really am bipolar...

I also wonder what would happen if I stopped my meds...

It's a scary thought and I know that Ellie would totally flip out if I stopped the meds and my mood swings returned and my sleeping went ape shit again.

Falling to sleep is getting harder and harder these days...  As I noted yesterday, it's hard to fall to sleep due to my body going tense after I relax it.

Last night, I couldn't really sleep and I was going to read for a bit, but I had my cat, Long-Tail, laying on me.  If I turn over, she jumps off and goes away.  I like her enough to just "hold still", plus her fur is very luxurious and soft for a shorter haired cat.

So, for work today, I'm in a good mood and I'm starting to turn out the code I need in good spurts and I can see what I need to do in my mind.

Most of that is that I spent & wasted time this week researching all the various cases that I need to code around.

So, I'm going to stop here and get back to work, since I've been wasting enough time this week.

That's just wrong...

I cannot believe this...

Just a few moments ago, I was working on online Logic Puzzle and part of the paring/solution was the Jewish Holiday, Rosh Hashannah.

Then the pet that goes with the owner who is preparing for that holiday was a Pot Belly Pig.

I suppose it's not going to be a Kosher Rosh Hashannah?

Or is it that the person celebrating Rosh Hashannah is a gentile?

Lastly, could it be a Jewish person who loves pigs is celebrating the holiday?

Who knows???

Well isn't THAT special?

Today from work, the same type of bullshit is happening, which is why I added the previous post.

Someone from the product team that we're working with came back with what WASN'T working for them, versus what IS working for them.

My boss responded what we do, and basically EVERYTHING wrong with their process and existing tools.

Now, the boss didn't mean to send his reply back like that, but DAMN, it was "face-slappy" is how I termed it to him.

He felt bad about the email, but it was needed.  So instead of us cowing down and saying "Yes... you're right, we're not doing that", he back with "we're doing more than you and we're more comprehensive than YOU are."

Moving onto my personal life, I had a strange way of falling to sleep last night.  I was trying to relax my body, as I'd done in the past and usually fell to sleep. Yet, last night it seemed like I kept relaxing, only to become tense again after 1-2 minutes.  This went on for several hours, or at least it felt like it.

As for my mood, I'm feeling pretty good, and that's waking up around 5:30-ish to the sound of the dogs barking to be let out.  At first, I wasn't sure what it was, so I grabbed my revolver, and cautiously walked to that part of the house.  When I established that it was just the dogs barking,  I let them outside, used the bathroom, let them back in, put the gun back and laid down next to Ellie.

Well, laying next to Ellie, I got frisky, so things escalated and then she got up to get ready for work, and so did I.

One of the reports that I'm working on for our diagnostic tool at work, is looking for just one event log error ID, but it has additional information in the main body of the Event.

What I found out earlier this week, when I was starting to write the code, was that many of the tech support, solution docs didn't list the Event ID error code and only the additional error codes in the main body of the event.

Since I was being thorough, I documented which Error Codes went to which documents/solutions I found already and now I have to search the solutions by the Error Codes, so that I know I have ALL the causes/solutions/etc so that this report won't generate False Positives nor ignore errors.

Talk about a DAMNED type of work on this report.

I also get to deal with the idiots who are using the tool, but still don't realize what's going on with it.  (Bunch of dumbasses)

One thing that I might've already posted about earlier, that I really enjoy, is listening to music on my new headphones.

What I do, is remove my hearing aids, put on the headphones, and turn up/down the music as needed, and enjoy the various "STEREO" effects that I couldn't from previous headphones or listening to the same music from speakers/stereo.  As there isn't any sort of audio isolation.

I'm getting off my soap box for now and getting back to work.

and if you think you've heard bullshit, then you haven't heard a cow with diarrhea... -JStrider.

Don't ask me where that came from, aside from my own mind, or why I'm posting the following either:

When your climbing up a tree and it trickles down your knee
Diarrhea, diarrhea
When your sitting in the gutter and your eating bread and butter
Diarrhea, diarrhea
When your climbing in the the loft and you tread in somethin' soft
Diarrhea, diarrhea
When you think your having fun, but you got a smelly bum
Diarrhea,diarrhea
When you are driving in your Chevy, and feeling some something heavy
Diarrhea, diarrhea
When it's coming out your bum, like a bullet in a gun
Diarrhea,diarrhea

Oh I love diarrhea,
I really love diarrhea,

When you're stomachs feeling wavy and you're making anal gravy,
Diarrhea, diarrhea
When you're sliding into first, and you're pants about to burst,
Diarrhea, diarrhea,
When you're walking down the wall, and it splatters on the wall
Diarrhea, diarrhea
When you're in a Jumbo Jet, and you're booty starts to sweat,
Diarrhea, diarrhea

Oh I love diarrhea,
I really love diarrhea,

When you think you're friends are joking, but you're pants are brown and soaking,
Diarrhea, diarrhea,
When you're on the seat for hours and it doesn't smell like flowers,
Diarrhea, diarrhea,
When the feeling's not that nice, and you have to flush twice,
Diarrhea, diarrhea,
When you're walking in the attic and you're butt goes automatic,
Diarrhea, diarrhea

Oh I love diarrhea,
I really love diarrhea

http://diarrheasong.blogspot.com/

I'm blue, but not depressed right now.

Ellie wanted some frisky attention last night, and I tried to accommodate her, but I had a hard time trying to get my desire started.

I still take 150mg of Effexor, which is known to cause these problems, and have actually caused these problems for the past year that I've been taking it.  Also, I am taking 300mg of Lamictal.

Obviously, for my marriage, I need a change.

Today, I only took 75mg of it, hoping that it won't effect me as much tonight as it has been.

What I found when I was at 75mg or none, I had more problems getting depressed.  Although, at the time that I was on low/no dose, my uncle had just passed away and I was REALLY emotional/blue.

As previously stated, I see "The Ogre" (shrink) next week, and I'm willing to try any medication that won't give me the side effects from Effexor & Zyprexa.

It feels as though, I'm heading towards a plateau of sorts where I'm going to stop getting relief/help from the meds, and start going through my weekly hypo-manic & depressive episodes again.

Zyprexa caused me to gain so much water weight, when I took off my knee brace, I had some serious water weight lumps!

Nowadays, when I take off the brace, I don't really have any bumps on my leg.

Also, my weight loss is working well.  Even after all the emotional eating I've been doing recently.  This morning, my weight was back down to 293!  Where yesterday, I was up at 296.

Well, last night I also peddled my exercise machine for more than an hour.

While peddling, I try to change positions of the machine so that I can work out different parts of my legs.

My left leg has been really sore, and by changing positions, I can feel the muscles where it's been sore getting a good work out.

Unfortunately, this morning, it feels like I aggravated the bakers cyst behind my left knee.  There's already a HUGE one behind the right one that hasn't gone away yet.  It is so large, that it's bigger than a golf ball that's sticking out of the back of that knee.  I wonder if I took a Xacto blade/knife and stabbed/cut it, it would drain all the way out???

I've thought about doing that many times, but won't.  I'm a bit squeamish, but almost don't look forward to the pain and the look on Ellie's face by doing it.  Not to mention the kids will probably freak out.

This morning I have a meeting with the rest of the development team to discuss the status of the various parts of our projects.

I feel like I need the boss to give me some more serious stuff to work on...  I don't know if he'll do that or not.

Right now, I kind of feel like a floating guy.  My skills aren't being used as heavily as they could be.

Tonight, we are watching a friend's children again, where their oldest daughter is autistic.  So, it'll be interesting to see what she is interested in tonight.  I'll try to be more of use to Ellie tonight during this time, but it's hard to be involved, with a girl, since she'll often want to go to the bathroom...

Well, I am going for some breakfast... Most likely grits again.  They're a good diet/power food, and I actually like them, despite the fact that I've only been eating then off/on for a couple of years.  I never had them when I was a kid or anything, and I'm not from the south.

Ok... So I'm down... Pfizer, pass me the emotional Viagra.

I suppose that I'm feeling pretty darn down & blue right now.

For some reason, I feel like I fell sometime earlier today, and am just now realizing that I'm in a hole.

It's getting so bad that I'm back to emotional eating and I'm eating up another bag of candy corn.  The stuff was on clearance at Wal-Greens for something like $0.35 a bag.

For work, what I'm working on will be pretty darn awesome.  It's a very comprehensive report based on a specific error sequence generated in the Windows Event Log.  There are multiple error conditions saved in the events that need to examined and looked at to determine which solution(s) will apply.

Ellie is home early to take the cats to the vet.  Long-Tail & Grumpy won't like this very much.  Grumpy has been in the mood for the last week to curl up with me every chance he can get.  Long-Tail is still being herself, and doesn't like to be held, but will still insist on being near me.  Either sitting on the arms/back of the chair I'm in or on the bed when I'm going to sleep.

The dogs go to the vet next week.

I schedule next Tuesday off, so that way I can go to a 2 hour dentist appointment without worrying about returning/interrupting work.

Which reminds me that I have an appointment on Weds. the 20th with the Shrink/Ogre.

I don't know what's going to happen.. If I'm in the same state, I suppose he'll want to change the medications.

I wonder if Lamictal is the right medication for me...

Back when I was taking the Zyprexa I was more up than down and blue.

Maybe it's time for a change?

I'm in the emotional mood to cry.. but I don't feel like it's going to come out spontaneously.

It's not because I'm a dude trying to "suck it up" or not to show weakness, but I just don't feel like it's going to happen.

Well, WTF? I think I'm going to stop trying to work and just sit down and do puzzles or read a book...

It's not the squirrels I'm worried about.. It's whose nuts they're eating...

Today isn't a full squirrel day, but I'm very easily distracted by working on logic puzzles.

I want to be able to solve/work on logic puzzles better, as it should really help me develop those skills that might help me improve my work capabilities.

One thing that is getting cool for me these days is that I'm talking with my oldest daughter more and more.

Previously, the only time that I talked with her a lot was when she was 2 years old. :(

Back then my ex-wife would page me and I'd call to talk to her, whenever she wanted to talk to me.

Then as time progressed, my ex-wife got so darn acidic against me, that I stopped trying to call, as I usually got yelled at for one thing or another.

Thinking about how nasty my ex is, I just texted Ellie that I loved her.  Hopefully she'll get it soon, instead of getting it way after her work day is over.  I had to turn on the vibration for her text messages, since she didn't always know when the text alert went off.

Well, I slept mostly OK, but I was tired enough to sleep till around 8:00 AM, through all the excitement of my family getting ready for school and leaving.

My dieting has started reversing, as I have started eating more junk and not thinking much about portions as much as I was previously.  For example, in less than a week I finished off two bags of candy corn.

Last night, before Ellie fell to sleep, I got her to watch several videos from Jeanne Robertson.  Her videos are hilarious, and at 6'2" and aged at 62+, she's a great speaker and person to listen to.

Out of curiosity, I went to NetFlix to see if they had any of her DVDs, which they didn't.  Looking at her website, you can order ALL of her DVDs for a paltry $140.(This knocks the price from $25 to $20.)

I'd like to support her, but wow... that's a lot of money for a DVD these days.

With all the work that I should be doing, you'd figure that I'm going to get fired for not doing enough work.

Well, I suspect that perhaps I should... but the boss understands that sleep, migraines and bipolar can really screw a person up.

Yet, I still get good raises.

I guess that during my "normal"/rush times I make up for my down times.

My dreams keep revisiting me, and they're starting to link up with each other more and more to form a full story.  I suppose, I need to start writing this down.

Perhaps it'll be a best seller?

Due to the dreams, I'm still concerned at times whether they happened to me or not.  I cannot always distinguish between reality & dreams sometimes as they're merging together.

Well, I'm losing concentration on this blog entry right now too...

I think the tide is turning...

Despite my oldest daughter leaving college to return to her mom's house, she's been calling me and talking to me for longer and longer periods.

Today, she typed up and shared some of her poetry.

What I did back, was to read & edit/improve them and returning them to her.

When she read the amended poems, she thought that they were much better than before.

As for my "little" girls, they're doing really well.

Ellie was getting on me about the dishes not being done, but it's a much her and the kids as it is me.

No one was doing the dishes as we were all busy after dinner.

Like last night, I was grooming my sheltie he needed to be brushed out after Ellie had bathed/showered him the night before.

He had so much extra fur, that I could probably have spun it up into a ball of yarn about the size of my fist.

Some of the places he had lots of extra fur were close to matting into hard lumps.

Today, work has been good and I've gotten what I was working on this week all done in 4-5 hours, finally.

It's another saturday night and I ain't got nobody...

Ok, it's not actually Saturday, and I do have somebody...

Yet, today is another day after a really crappy night's sleep.

I wasn't waking up wide alert, but I was waking in pain around midnight and not going back to bed until after 3:00 AM.

Prior to laying down to sleep, I was starting to get one of my sinus migraines.

Trying to use my O2 didn't work as well as I'd like it to.  Breathing it in via the mask I have only made the pain the sinuses worse. :(

Using my CPAP seems to help more than anything with this pain.  I wish that I had the O2 connector for the CPAP mask.  This would allow me to get O2 along with the moisture & forced air at the same time.

I wouldn't sleep with the O2 on, but it'd help me out so that I could get the O2 without the discomfort caused by trying to breath with the O2 mask.

Today, despite being really tired, I'm not depressed/blue.  In fact, I'm a bit stoked, my weight is down to approximately 293 from 320-330 earlier this year.

Perhaps it's not the daily LARGE serving of the Ice Cream that I love so dearly...

Last night, I went with Ellie to run some errands.  One of the places we stopped at is the shop that I buy my incense from.  I finally loaded up again, as it's been about a month since I've had any stick incense.  While at Wal-Mart last night, I bought some of their cone incense too, just because it's cheap and seems to burn OK.

Well, that's not really it.  I think it's more that I buy it from Wal-Mart because it is cheap and when I run out of sticks, the cones work well.

It's raining today, so wonder if the barometric pressure changes is what caused all the pain last night?

Well, I really need to get work done, as the boss sent me a direct email.  These I usually try to answer ASAP, so that way he knows I'm actually working and alive... :)

Sir, are you aware that you're leaking coolant at an alarming rate?

The only thing that's leaking is a post nasal drip.

Lucky me.

It's causing me to feel really nauseated.  Which is really fun, because I really don't want to lose my breakfast.

Sleep last night was much better.  In fact, I don't remember any problems sleeping for a change.

Yesterday afternoon, I sort of stopped working to look up information to help me solve those darn logic puzzles that are in those variety puzzle books that my uncle left me.

I figure that if I'm going to have lots of those books, I might as well learn how to solve all the different puzzles that they contain.

So far I'm pretty good at most of them.  Some of those puzzles are really stupid, so I just skip them.

I wonder if I'm going to order a box of them when these run out?

A bipolar gal that I met through YouTube has a blog which you should probably check out.

+almostalice84.blogspot.ca

She's a pretty neat gal with parrots.

Some of her videos have helped me and I hope that some of my blogs or comments to encourage her have helped her.

Ok, so I'm starting to feel tired.  Mostly, my eyes feel really dry.  If I put eye drops in, the ones I have blur my vision for several minutes, so I usually don't use them.

Well, I really need to show progress on my coding work, so I'm going to stop this blog post here.

If you fell down yesterday, stand up today. - H.G. Wells

Yes, I am feeling better today than yesterday.

Although, I have had less sleep last night than the night before.

I didn't really fall sleep until after to 11:00 PM.  Woke up around 1:00 AM with a headache and stayed awake playing word puzzles till 3:00 AM.

The pain still persisted, so I took one of my pain pills and laid back down.  I Didn't fall asleep again until closer to 4:00 AM I think.

When I woke up around 7:00 or so, I was feeling better.

Is it the use of the pain pill that's changed my mood?  Perhaps.

Today, I've already done a few things that I needed to and felt good doing them.  One of them was to drop off payment for the girls' swim team membership and the other was the car to have the oil changed & transmission fluid exchanged.

Now I'm picking up where I left off yesterday from work, and really trying to get it moving.

So far so good.

If you ever get bored go to Justin Biebers Instagram and find a desperate girls number...

Ok, that quote I found online when I went searching for quotes about being bored.

Right now I am feeling really bored.

I have unleashed myself a bit from what the boss had me waiting for.

What I'm working on, is something that I simply need to create notes for to determine my next steps.  Easy, right?

I suppose for the average "Joe", who doesn't struggle trying to get motivated for work.

Now that I think about it, I'm bored with lots of things.  Even my hobbies.

The music I'm listening to is boring me heavily, which is saying something as I have thousands of songs to listen to of all sorts of genre. (Rap, Heavy Metal, Classical, Big Band (20's-40's), Oldies (50's-60's), Classic Rock, Funk, Cowboy (not Country Western!), Blue Grass, etc.)

So, for me to be bored of all of those, what's left?  Not much or rather.. nothing of all of my music.

However, I will admit, listening to this same music on my new headphones, without the hearing aids makes me enjoy it again.

Why do I enjoy it again?  It's the dynamics of the music that I'm listening to.  It's something new to hear.  Like hearing stereo, where the musicians/mixers move different sounds from side to side in the stereo tracks.

I don't want to go read a book, or sit and do word puzzles, etc.

For whatever reason, I'm just flat out bored.

Perhaps I'm down right now?

The desire to just lay down and sleep is very, very alluring.

This is one of the times that I wish the kids were home from school so that I had someone to talk/play games/watch movies/etc with.

Since my wife works at the same school as the kids, it's probably not a good idea to think about pulling one or both of them out of school early due to my boredom.

I just texted my 18 year old and told her it was my turn to be bored.

Now that I'm thinking about things, I'm out of incense... Rather the scents that I really like.

Actually I am totally out of stick incense.  I have a partial box of Orange Vanilla sticks, but they smell like hell to me, so I'm out.

The incense cones I have are OK, but they don't burn very long and the scents that I have here and where I buy them are limited.

If I buy the sticks, I buy lots of Opium scented sticks.  I don't expect to get a buzz from the scent, but it's just a scent that I really like.  I also like floral scented stuff, but mostly rose scents.  Some of the other floral scents just piss me off or trigger a headache.

Dang.. I just feel like I can't completely wake up still.

I'll probably fully "wake" up sometime after the kids are home, and then I'll be fully alert until 11:00 PM or so.

Perhaps Ellie is right, and I do need to adjust my work shift, so that I work later in the day and sleep longer in the morning.

No response from my oldest daughter so far.

Shoot, I need to call the dentist due to a cracked tooth.  It'll probably need a root canal and crown.

It's badly cracked.  Like the first 1/8th of it is gone from the top all the way to the gum line.

Got the appointment with the dentist for Tuesday @ 2:00 PM.

Well, I suppose I'm not completely "blue", as I started a shopping list for Wal-Mart with the girls... I sure don't feel super happy/gung-ho though.

I can really see why some of my bi-polar brothers & sisters often stop taking medication... It's nicer to be up on that manic high than to be pretty flat lined.

With that thought though, I really HATE the downside depression that comes/follows my hypo-mania.