Gee doc!? Is that all!? WTF!?

I spent a month getting all of the doctors to get x-rays, MRI's, medical notes over to this Orthopedic specialty center.

Today, I finally get to see one of their doctors, only to be told the same FUCKING THING!

I have fucking arthritis and the pain really hurts me, and to get "active" really fucking hurts, and usually results in more days not moving than days moving after I've been active.

Shit, I haven't been very useful around my house, except for puttering around doing various house hold chores.

I'm pissed and I'm not certain if I'm fully depressed over this.

So, what else is there to do?

What is it that they told me!?

LOSE WEIGHT (you FAT FUCKER!)
GET STRONGER!
GET ACTIVE!
YOU'RE TOO YOUNG for this!

 Granted, the doctors don't actually use the term fat fucker. I'm really tired of hearing the same shit.

 I hate that my body has arthritis already!

I hate being out of Ice Cream.

Ran out of ice cream several days ago and I haven't picked up anymore since.

I know it's comfort food, but there are times it does help my headaches & moods on occasions.  Perhaps, I just need to go back to Dark Chocolate Dove pieces?

Without going through a lot of technical Bull Crap, I'll sum up where I'm at.  I have been pursuing for several days, how to read through this XML formatted file using a native parsing call, so that I wouldn't have to write up my own parsing system.

Well, I wound up having to complete my own parsing system, because I'm just through wasting time trying to find a automated reader/writer for this dang blasted file.

Now, I'm not necessarily done, yet, but I'm at a point where I can start to design what I do with the information that I'm reading out of it of it's original file format.

This is all because the product engineers never designed any tools to do what I'm doing with it now.

See, I write tools that help support the actual applications my employer produces, sell and supports.

My tools are designed these days around a customer getting self-help for diagnosing common problems or complex issues.  They also double in providing the Technical Support team with internal reports and information about the customer computer.

The team I'm a part of, has a very unique position as we're doing things that the general software and technical support industry hasn't really been providing.

We're getting recognized from end to end in the entire employment organization. (AKA from the CEO to the grunt on the phone.)

It feels good to have the recognition, but it also places a lot of stress on me to perform, and with Bipolar, it actually starts to get harder and harder.

If you've ever seen some of my other posts, you'll notice the SQUIRREL! tag... It's where I'm trying to work, but cannot seem to focus on my work at all.  These are the days that I really should stop trying to work, take a nap and then try it again.  Instead, I keep trying to go, and sometimes, I take off like a rocket, other days, I go the entire work day without actually accomplishing anything.

Well, I have a bit of $ in my pocket.  I need to visit the local shop that I buy my stick incense from and resupply my aroma therapy stuff. (I call it aroma therapy, but sometimes, it's a nice distraction)  I tend to not use it when it's really hot, because I would rather have the smoke/scent just permeating the room at it's own pace, instead of having it blown everywhere by the fan/AC unit.

After I get incense today, perhaps I'll go and get me some more ice cream.

Almost went manic today...

Last night, after taking the upped dose of Lamictal from 100 mg to 150 mg, I thought I was going manic.

I slept for a while, then I woke up, pretty alert.

After a while, I thought to myself that perhaps if I cannot go to sleep soon, I should get up and start work.

Luckily, I managed to go back to sleep, because usually, if I get into doing that, I start into hypo-manic episodes that occur 1-2 times a week.  Not always two days in a row, nor just lasting one day.

Right now, I'm feeling a bit tired, from the sleep, but I also took some benadryl along with some no-doze, and then a pain pill because my head is bugging me.

Well, my family is also getting ready go with Ellie's parents & sisters' families on a camping trip and I'm getting left behind.

I'm happier being left behind on trips like this, mostly because I cannot keep control of my environment or emotions very well when I'm away from home.

When it's just Ellie and I, or the rest of our family, I don't have too many troubles with emotions or headaches.

Yet, it seems when you get the rest of the family together, all shit breaks loose, and then you're blamed for being the asshole who started it all, when you cannot help it.

I just finished watching a bit of comedy from Billy Connolly, and I'm thinking in Scottish for some reason, and I'm having a hard time trying to not type like a Scot.

So, I suppose, the rest of the day, I'll be in my family's Scottish mindset.  Although, I'm like 5th or 6th generation or so from the man who brought the family name from Scotland.

Perhaps, I'll celebrate and start playing all the bagpipe mp3's that I have in my playlist, and go nuts from there.

I feel nauseated today.

I slept well...

In fact, I slept several hours longer today, than I was on average last week.

So far, I've got this nagging sort of headache that's not going away, and I feel that if I took my pain pills, that they wouldn't really help it out.  It might be from too much use a few weeks ago, when my knees were really bugging me.

My progress towards the XML parsing process is going well.  I'm learning a lot of different things you can do with XML files, but also I'm frustrated, as some properties I'm reading from the files aren't documented hardly anywhere.  Other than other applications that make use of the files, but no one says how those files are generated/read/etc.

So, I've been left to either write up my own entire parsing modules or continuing my crazy search for the actual source of the data.

As an attempt to utilize the native components to read this data, I sent an email to the development team to figure out what sort of parser they're using, and I got back some information that should help.  The only problem with this is that, their data is targeted towards unmanaged code in C++, and I'm using .NET & C#.

I can write/read in either one, but many of the API calls & functions in C++ are not present natively in C#/.NET, so a lot of work goes into porting the functionality over.

Yesterday, I went to church for the first time in several weeks, and I felt good that my dress shirt fit me better than it did the last time I wore it.  This means the weight gain from Zyprexa is wearing off, and I hope that I can continue to shrink back down to my normal 270-290 range.   It's still heavy, but it's better than 330 or so, that I was.

I'm also bummed out, it looks like during the time that I spent helping Ellie after her hysterectomy that ALL of my miniature roses have died.

My orchid is still living, and I believe it's actually a heartier plant than roses are.

I can replace my miniature roses, one plant at a time, but I'm a bit bummed about it.  I was enjoying growing them.

Well, I also have a bromeliad that Ellie bought that wasn't doing what she thought it should, so I adopted it, and I'm keeping it with the orchids. (it's supposed to be treated like an orchid anyway.

I've thought about buying a pineapple to start my own pineapple plant, and growing my own little pineapples. :)

I saw a pineapple plant at the Oncologists office during one of my Uncle's chemo appointment.

Well, Ellie & the kids are going to be going camping with Ellie's family, and they're leaving tomorrow afternoon, and in some ways, I'm glad they're going for a while.  Although, I don't want them to stay away as long as they are. (12-13 days or so.)

I should be OK, I'm pretty stable, and I have all the medications that I need to survive.  Aside from possible mood changes, and if I can't control any sexual urges while Ellie is away, I should be fine.  Ellie really is good for helping control those urges, and since I've been going off of the Effexor, I'm starting to notice my libido starting to return. (w00t! but this can also be a problem too.)

Shoot.

I'm almost out of incense again.  Time to do some shopping at a local store.

I like shopping there for incense and books, as it's primarily a book store, but it carries incense and other general crap like plants & chocolates. (Hey, where's the need to knock a place that carries good truffles?)

So, instead of burning incense sticks today, I'm going to be burning my incense cones today... they're not bad, but I liked the new scents this store carries compared to where I used to buy my incense.

Why do I burn incense while I work?

I dunno, perhaps I like the scent while I work. Maybe it's because it helps me to remain calm or inspires me? (I honestly don't really know what it does, but I dig it)

 I cannot wait for fall, because at this point, the heat is starting to get to me pretty good these days.

My little AC unit works OK, but I'm kind of tired of freezing vs. melting.

I cannot seem to get the AC unit to get me to a happy medium/comfortable temperature.

Yesterday, I bought and installed a new power supply for my home system, as it wouldn't always start up.  It acted like was started already, but it wasn't.

So, if it starts to do it again, then I'll know I need to buy another motherboard and CPU.

It's got an x64 processor in it, and I like the extra speed/processing power that offers, not to mention that XP x64 actually uses the memory better than an x86/32-bit OS does.

I know I could use Windows 7 x64, but really, I want an older OS that's faster to load with less memory overhead.

If it wasn't for fact that XP was better with USB & hardware, I'd run Windows 2000 instead.  It's much faster on the newer hardware.

Well, I wish I had some sort of morals or bits of wisdom to impart with you today, but I'm a bit tired, and I cannot think of much else to type that might inspire anyone.

Well, I doubt he saw that coming!

I just got back from seeing my Shrink.

What I shouldn't have done was asked him about what happened to his beard, because he took like 5+ minutes trying to explaining it, rather than just saying, "I shaved it to look younger"...

I like the guy, but he seems to work very, very slowly.

With my Bipolar, that at times, I can talk and move very fast.  I've usually been like that, and watching someone else move so slowly is hard to watch.  Really tries my patience.

Watching people work/do things slowly applies to work too.. Remember when I said that a guy I work with is a great developer, but he's slow at typing and registering what's going on.

The only way that I equate this, is being behind some grandma at the grocery store, who only has a few items, but then writes a check by hand... very, very, very slowly, when you only have 1-2 things but decided that this line looked like a good one to get into.

Well, the Ogre, what I call my Shrink, didn't see it coming that I had stopped my Zyprexa after I went from 25mg of Lamictal to 50mg.

I thought, what the heck, either it's going to prevent me from only sleeping a few hours or it's not and I can start back up on the Zyprexa.

Well, it worked, and I haven't had Zyprexa in my system for several weeks, and my weight has dropped back down... to what? I don't know, but my clothes are loser again, and my belt tightens back to where I used to have it.

He also didn't expect me to drop my dosage of Effexor to 150mg instead of the 300mg I had been on.

I don't know if he understands that I really don't want to be on some of these other drugs.

What some of his surprise is from, is the fact that the dosage that I stopped Zyprexa was maybe 1/16th of the dose that I should be up on.

I suppose when I get to 150 mg of Lamictal, which is Monday, I'll consider dropping the rest of the Effexor. However, I'm not certain yet as it's been a heck of a stability for my depression.

Yet, it would be good to be off of that medication to get my libido back around the time of my 13th wedding anniversary.

Last year, it was quite a bit of work before things even got desirable for me to be with my wife.  Not that she's not pretty or desirable, it's just that Effexor really screws with your libido.

I didn't post yesterday... So sue me...

Don't actually sue me... I don't have much money, and I'm supporting a family with two children.

Ok, granted, if I'd had more children, you might actually feel sorry for me, and offer to give me money.

Well, not all of us can do what my parents had done.  There were six of us kids.

Even back in the late 70's & early 80's many people were shocked.

Of course, we didn't live in Utah or some largely Catholic community.  We were in the heart of Southern California, so a large variety of people, most of which only had 1-3 children anyway.

Hell, most of the kids I went to school with only had 1-2 siblings, while I had 5.

I don't know my older siblings as well as my younger sister, but then again, she and I stuck together during some pretty rough years for the family.

My brothers were off on Missions, and I was graduating High School.

I never wanted to go on a mission... Even as a young kid, the thought of going out and teaching people or knocking on doors, intimidated me and it was something that I didn't want to do.

As a teenager, I fought off everyone's attempt to coax me into going, and I didn't go.

Am I a different person for not going?  Perhaps.  Would my life be better off if I'd have gone? I won't know...  I took the route that I took, because it was what I wanted.

I probably wouldn't have been knocking around with my girlfriend at the time, and wind up marrying the psycho.  If you think Bipolar people are crazy, you need to meet my ex-wife and understand some of the crap that she did. WOW

Looking back on my life, I made my decisions and it appears that the Lord had decided to help me by putting the right sorts of things in my way.  Like my ex-wife.  Without meeting her, I'd have never come back to the church, nor would I have probably stayed out of jail or prison. (BTW, I've never been to either, although some crimes I've committed should've landed me there.)

Without going through the painful divorce, I'd never have ended up in the North West US, and married my current wife, Ellie.

I love Ellie, and our children are the best!

Does this mean that I'm always solid on my faith in God? No... In fact last year, while I was going through my big struggle with my mental illness, I challenged him many, many times.  I would cry and wonder where He was.  I would shout and swear at Him.

I never really understood why I was like that, until I was reading a news article one day that had a YouTube video embedded on it.  This video, of course, when it was over, had links to other videos.  Eventually, after wasting sometime, I saw this pretty young face with the description of something about Bipolar.  So I clicked on it, and wound up spending the next day and a half watching her videos, instead of working.

Now, if I was an employer, I'd be pissed that someone had missed that much time working and not taking it as time off.  But, I didn't necessarily tell my employer. ( I know, it's something that I've repented of, and my boss understood as I actually started getting the help I needed.)

Watching this young lady's Vlogs (video logs) about her Bipolar condition struck a cord with me, and I felt like she had been describing my problems.

Then through a subscription to her channel I met up with another bipolar guy, who's descriptions of his life sounded just like mine! (Hey, I was onto something!!!)

So, I finally started wondering if I was bipolar, since I'd slipped into a depression and was having uncontrolled rage/anger episodes. (Don't worry, no one got hit, but I sure swore and yelled a lot)

After telling my counselor that I felt I was going crazy, I saw a shrink.  Finally, I got put on Effexor. (I'm now working on getting off of it.)  It helped with most of the anger, but it didn't really help over all.  I got into arguments with the shrink and during the appointments he basically only talked to my wife.

I got fed up with that shrink and switched.  During the time that I was switching, I was "stable", but I was starting to get paranoid and have small break downs again. (Again with the crying, and arguing with God.)

So, my first appointment with the new shrink went well, and I thought I'd be OK... Well, I was still having my freakin' weird sleeping habits.  Where I'd know at least 1-2 nights a week, and it was sometimes totally random, that I'd only sleep 1-2 hours, if that, and I'd be awake and alert and ready to do things.

Then my wife went with me to an appointment when I was in a bit of a panic mode.  She finally said that my moods going up and down were really painful to watch and that I needed something.

I was put on Zyprexa and a few days later, I was doing my hobbies again, and starting to feel like I wasn't behind a large glass door watching my life.

These days, I'm off Zyprexa, but I'm also working up my dose of Lamictal and I'm also on half the dosage of Effexor.

Granted, the Shrink will probably be a bit surprised that I tapered off of these myself, but I had to do something.  My weight gain on those drugs put me well over 300lbs!  I usually weighed in around 270-290, and I'm well over 6'2". (As previously noted, but since this post is more recent and I doubt the reader will read ALL of my posts... I post it again.)

Lamictal was weight neutral, and didn't have the libido/bedroom problems that "side" Effexor has. (The new shrink to me that's what they called Effexor sometimes... "Side-Effects OR")

Well, that's my rant and rave for the day and yesterday.. I suppose...

It took most of the day, but I finally got going!

I admit, I got a bit depressed, I suppose, and I was getting a shit headache.

A shit headache is one of those that doesn't really hurt bad, but doesn't really help me feel any better.

My family was working upstairs in my daughter's room, which is just outside of my office door, and so the noise from them was very distracting, and I didn't want them to hear what I was doing/listening to.

I wasn't doing anything bad, but I wasn't really in the full mood to work.

I took a couple of pain pills and sat here trying to work, but wound up playing a bit of mahjong titans, and then turned to a backgammon game that I've been playing and tweaking for 13+ years now.

My buddy came back to me that I just needed to make a change, and things would be OK.

Even while he was typing to me, I wasn't really paying attention, as I just didn't feel like paying attention.

So, I started debugging it differently, and had to create yet, another class that inherited the object that I was utilizing so that I could set the before/after registry writing functions.

Now, I feel much, much better as it's behaving as I expected.

So far, no surprises, except having to creating that additional inherited class.  If you're not into C# / .NET programming then, this won't make a bit of difference to you, but it's pretty cool shit.

Well, I'm supposed to go to Ellie's folks' house pretty soon.

Hopefully her mom has thawed out and won't be such a icy person towards me anymore.

When I got up this morning, I thought it was going to be different...

As I posted on prior days, I've had a lot of ... SQUIRREL! ... days.

Today, when I awoke, after forcing myself to sleep later, I thought that I was going to get things done.

I believe I still can, but I'm getting into a bad funk, as I'm waiting for some assistance from another developer on my team... Unfortunately, this guy isn't the fastest working guy.

This guy is a genius, but he's not the fastest learning/typing understanding guy.  Unless you're speaking his exactly jargon.  I have had to break things down to simpler levels that I expected when I'm chatting with him.

Another guy on our team, understands what I mean when I chat with him.

So, I've been sitting here doing what I'd been doing on my... SQUIRREL! ... days.

Only today, I've decided to start organizing some files that I've been collecting for a while so that I can find things easier.

I also brought my Kindle into my office so that I could continue reading Vampire Academy.

So far, I'm only on book one of this series, and I like it.  Nothing stupid, and it doesn't go into great details about what's what in the book's world.  It does explain things as it progresses, but no boring chapters about what a dhampir or Moroi is.

Some books that I've read, Asimov's Robot stories/novels, Moby Dick, etc. have chapters dedicated to technology or the subject content matter that aren't really very entertaining to read.

Thinking about work, why is it that I'm not moving onto something else to code?

I could and I really should, but this damn thing I've been working on has been consuming me and my understanding of things is growing, but dammit, I'm getting tired of chasing down all these rabbit holes that this guy wrote to accomplish goals set by my boss.

The boss... Well, as I stated before, he's a good guy, and I understand his reasoning, but damn, there are certain things that others are better qualified for and it would be good for them to just get the work done... but as he also pointed out, if something happened to that person, then we'd be playing catch up on everything he worked on.

Well, I'm not certain what I'll wind up doing, while waiting... Either continue organizing files, or reading the book.

Another really bad .. SQUIRREL... day going on again.

WTF is it that I am going through these days where I can see what needs to be done, but cannot do anything?

For work I know what to do, but I'm not doing it.

Yesterday I knew what I was doing, and knew what I should be doing today.

I even left the code setup where I needed it to be when I started up today.

Now that I have everything loaded up, I cannot seem to pay attention to it, nor get even started.

I seem to be spending more and more time with YouTube than I really should.

Today, I got into a kick with "Who's Line is it Anyway?" UK episodes, as I used to watch that back in the early 90's on Comedy Central... Quite a while before Drew Carey did the same show in the US.  I loved the UK show, it was more impromptu, and everyone was required to sing/act etc.

The US show, I feel failed, as they always had the same people doing the same types of things.  Only one person would get into the singing the songs, etc.  Got rather boring.

I wish there was some sort of an herb or drink, or food or drug that would help me to get my focus back.

Usually, when I'm in my coding funk, it's very, very hard for me to break away, and there are times that I'll work for 10+ hours without hardly taking time to stop for breaks or to eat.

These days, I get into my coding funk fewer and fewer times.

Hell, I even got some "funk" songs added to my playlist to help me get into the mood.  Some of the songs that I used to listen to that helped me get into a working mood, I won't play with the kids at home during summer break.  Too many swear words or lyrics aren't for their age.

Hard being a responsible parent sometimes, as you want to do what you want, but you don't want, what you do to affect your children's behavior.

Like last night, my wife insisted on watching Spaceballs with the kids.  This show, if my kids were maybe 13-15, I would be OK with, but all the swearing and genital mutilation references bothered me.  Granted, I love Mel Brooks, but Spaceballs was not one of my favorites.  I showed the kids Men in Tights, and they got a kick out of that, and the inappropriate jokes there were beyond them, which was good.  The swearing, is so very, very, minimal.  I'd like to show them Blazing Saddles, but I'm afraid of them picking up some of the language from it that's considered very Taboo these days.

Hell, I grew up in the late 70's and most of the people around me used that language.  Ok, not most, but when a larger black population moved into the neighborhood, I certainly heard it lots and lots more.  From both them, and my brothers.

My brothers were my source of corruption.  I learned to swear from them, and lots about sex & seen lots of dirty/porn pictures because they'd walk up down the alleys looking for smut and junk.  Heck, one brother, if he knew of an alley or dumpster to look in, I'm certain he'd dive into it or go through the trash still today.

Well, I'm starting to feel the focus of work calling me, and that I should stop this nonsense and get things done.

"How's your day going???" "Oh, perhaps I shouldn't have asked..."

Today started very abruptly around 5:00 AM with one of my daughters shaking me awake.

Ellie apparently had been having chest pains for a bit and thought she might have a heart attack or a blood clot in her lungs.

She then proceeded to call both of her sisters, who are nurses, to tell them what was going on, and since they didn't answer, she called her parents and told them to get to the house to pick up the kids and that she was going to dial 911.

I told her to go ahead and call and that the EMT would look her over and let her know what's up.  Thank goodness for FireMed, as it doesn't cost our family anything to utilize ambulatory services.

So, the kids and I were scrambling to get dressed, so that I could follow Ellie's ambulance in our car, and the kids could go with their granddad.

Well, since I'd already gone through these types of things before and Ellie said that her left arm wasn't having any problems, nor her left leg, then I figured it was either a panic attack or something to do with a muscle in her chest.

So, the EMT's got there, hooked her up, checked her blood pressure, then asked which hospital to go to.  Ellie said the one in the bigger city up the road.

So, off they go, while the kids and I wait for Ellie's dad.

Ellie's dad gets there and I told him I didn't think that Ellie was having any sort of heart attack, but at least the ER visit would verify it.

So the kids went with him, while I hauled ass down the road to the hospital.

When I arrived, Ellie's sister was already there, and we finally got back to be with Ellie as we both got there close to the time the ambulance arrived and they were checking her in.

Ellie's sister, the nurse, didn't think it was a panic attack and that it could be something worse, to which I didn't want Ellie to hear, as Ellie has been going into crazy panicked states a lot recently.

First thing I asked the doctors & nurses was how the EKG looked.

NORMAL!

So, I immediately felt that I was right about my assumptions.

At this point it was pretty close to 7:30 AM, so I phoned the boss to tell him I was going to be there at the 8:00 AM call.

The hospital then took a chest x-ray and did some blood work to determine if there was a blood clot in her lungs.

NOTHING

Although it wasn't anything severe, they guessed that it was Pleuritis

The more that I think about it, the chest pains that I used to have many, many years ago was probably the same thing.

After the discharge, we went to pick up the kids, and the moment we got there, I heard my youngest asking for help.  When I found her, she was in the bathroom surrounded by puke that even the exorcist people would be amazed at.

Thank goodness Ellie's mom took over, and started to clean things up and our daughter went and changed.

So we managed to get the kids into the car, with Ellie, and get home.

I ran to Wal-Greens to fill Ellie's pain med prescription from the hospital, buying a protein bar to eat, since I was running out of time to make it to work today, so that I could also meet up with the boss's new boss.

This is also a late night, as we're going out to dinner as a work team with the boss's new boss.  So I wanted to be present to at least give a face to my name.


Well, since my day started out going from home, to the hospital, to a puke laden in-laws house, to home, then finally work, I think it should only get better.

After all, WTF not?

Work today.

Well, I did lift some weights today.

My head has been bugging me and I started to go into a major panicked state, so I took a Xanax.

Some ice cream helped me a bit, but not much today.

I followed up with everyone that I should've and got some good feedback/chat time in with one of the other developers.

My stomach feels very uneasy/queasy today.  Perhaps I need to take a dump that's not currently scheduled for delivery?

What I had been working on Friday, where I needed help from another developer turned out to be something that HE didn't even know how to fix and only fixed it by manually adding an event handler to my UI configuration.  Nothing that I wrote needed to be updated, fixed or changed, only added a UI handler to handle a misconfiguration/problem with WPF connection to the code. (Damn those bindings anyway.)

I spent time, while waiting/chatting with others watching more Bipolar related YouTube videos.

Do I have an obsession with my disorder?

Perhaps.

Perhaps I want to understand it better and look for better medications and ways to handle the problems I face.

Good thing I was working from home today, so that I could "silently" deal with my panic/depression problems.

I think I had a bit of depression today, although, I don't know over what.

Feels like a squirrel day again, but not entirely.

I feel bored, as I have things to work on that I was waiting on others to get back to me on.

I know that I should just send follow up emails to them, but I'm not very motivated.

At least my knees don't ache much today and neither does my head.

It seems that I'm taking my pain killers either because my head or knees hurt.  I rarely get a reprieve from both of them on the same day, unless I'm sleeping...

Even then that's not a guarantee.

So, what should I be doing, instead of nothing?

Working.

I've learned getting the motivation to get going is hard when you're bipolar, since you often find things that help your depressive episode(s), and then because you enjoyed them, you keep doing them instead of stopping...

For example, I enjoy playing Spider Solitaire and being distracted by watching YouTube videos.  Especially YouTube, as there have been so many bipolar people that I've met there that have helped me.  So I often scan through my subscriptions looking for updates on them, instead of just working through the day.

I often wonder if I worked from the office more, if I'd get back my ruthless drive to get things done that I used to have.

Previously, when I was working in Technical Support, I was a very ruthless person for getting things done, and I was damn good at getting things done, both for customers and my employer.

Now that I'm developing, I've relaxed a bit and I'm not as cut-throat as I once was, when I really should be as rigorously going after everything I do.

Well, I'm going to lift weights for a bit, then come back and start back on what I need to do.

Wish me luck!

So I start the day ... SQUIRREL! ... again...

Damn, I don't know why it is that I cannot seem to concentrate right away in the morning.

Granted, I awoke, first at 5:00 AM thinking that I was going to get up, and should have.  Instead, I closed my eyes "for a moment" and woke up at 6:30 AM instead.

I started "work", basically, I got everything ready.  Loaded my applications, web browsers, compilers, etc.

Then proceeded to watch some YouTube videos, read a blog and general web shit.

Now that I've wasted almost two hours, I realized that I still don't feel focused enough to work.

Yesterday, after my previous.. .SQUIRREL... post, I did kick it into gear and get a LOT of work done, and understanding of what needed to be done worked well and I expanded my coding knowledge.

Even right now I'm distracted... I want to stop typing and do something else... Damn.

The temp outside last night dropped down below 60 degrees, and I should've had the fan of the AC unit running to blow the cool air into the office.  It'd have felt great to get up here to a room that was very cool.

Well, I feel that I'm in the middle of the summer now, and in another month or so, things should start to cool off, and get into my favorite time of the year.  I love the fall.

I love the cool crisp air, the drastically shortening of days, and of course, Halloween!

I'm not a Gothic type of an individual, but I enjoy that Halloween was something that I managed to share with my oldest daughter before her mom took her back and forth across the states in search for the perfect frozen yogurt.

Ok, it's not for yogurt, and I really don't know why she moved from place to place, except that she was trying to find herself some sort of happiness that she couldn't find with me.  Unfortunately, my daughter got drug along for the ride.

I suppose part of the reason why I am not focused is that I feel tired.  I feel like I want to just go lay down and close my eyes, and see if I cannot sleep a bit longer.

Perhaps I'll do what my boss suggested.  Take some time to do something different and then come back to work.  As long as I get my time in for work.

My boss and our employer is great towards people with "disabilities".  I don't know if you consider being bipolar, being disabled, but I also suffer from migraines, and painful arthritis.

For the arthritis, I'm trying to get an appointment with a doctor that is part of the local orthopedic specialty group.  So that hopefully, he can finally help me do something productive about the pain and problems.

If not, then well, I'm going to be taking my pain killers regularly and often as I can.

Squirrel!

I am having so much trouble working today.

Rather, I'm having such a bad time concentrating... SQUIRREL!

Damn, this is irritating!

I know what I need to do, but I'm having a hard time doing it.

It's not like I cannot do the work, I'm just easily distracted.

So much so that I realized I spent more than 2 hours watching things on YouTube.

Great !?

NO!

 I really need to work as I am now several weeks into what I'm working on, and this week I'm actually understanding the technology and operations so much that I can actually write the code and understand the reason and logic for how it will work.

 If this wasn't my bullshit/bipolar BLOG, I might actually consider writing snippets of code out for people to utilize and understand.  It might make someone else's life easier...

No wonder I'm fat... I want to eat...  I suppose when I'm really distracted, that I think eating while I'm working will help... but it doesn't.  Just helps my ass fit the seat better.

If I had a memory foam seat cushion, it'd be in a lot of pain and have the perfect ass grove in it.

As it stands, I need a new seat cushion.  Not because I wore it out, it was already worn out when I bought the chair from Goodwill. (Thank goodness for Goodwill)  It cost me all or $7.00 and it's very comfortable except for a worn seat cushion.  But a few blankets are supporting my ass enough that I cannot complain.

Goodwill isn't as cheap as they used to be, they're now selling "new" furniture, which even at a discount is well over $180.

So, with this in mind, I was looking for another recliner as my wife claimed mine, and I was laying out on the floor to relax my knees and to stretch out.  Not good.

Since I wanted another recliner, and I explained about the "new" ones, my wife wanted to look.  What we found was that these new ones weren't going to fit my 6'2"+ frame very well.  However, a $10.00 (half off of $20) for a LARGE chair looked very tempting.  Sitting in it, made me feel like I was sitting in a chair actually made for me.  There is enough extra room that I could actually have room for another half an ass.

It's practically a miniature couch

 Well, I'm starting to get grip of getting on top of work again, so I'm heading back to the compiler.

Just how HOT is it?

Hot enough that I spent most of my day today freaking out after installing the AC unit in my office.

• Physically installing it wasn't hard to do.
• Plugging it in, seems easy enough.
• Turn it on and run it, hey cool air comes out.
• Try to proceed and work while it's running

There's the bitch of the day.

It's not as if writing code while it's cool is bad, it's great, it's what many of us with Monitor Tans look forward to during this time of the year.

What sucked was that everytime the compressor for the AC unit kicked in, the firewall server would pee itself and forget how to run and keep rebooting.

This messed up my day.  Of course, it took me a while to figure it out as my only symptom was that the VPN stopped working.

I could log out/in to the VPN and it would work, but not really...

Wasn't until I looked at a monitor attached to the firewall system to see that it was rebooting and looking like it was flipping out.

Last year, I had this running fine.  Of course, I had a different power supply and motherboard in the firewall server.

So, I turned off the AC unit and figured that work was more important.(HA)  What wound up happening was that I slowly started to melt, until I couldn't mentally do any work.  So, I finally broke down, looked through my stack of power supplies and found a larger one that should work fine.  Then I opened the Firewall cabinet, didn't even unscrew the old one, and put this one on top of the old one, wired it in, and powered it up.

Firewall came online just fine.  I started the AC unit, no problems so far.
Waited till the compressor in the AC unit kicked in, no problems.

So, now that I'm starting to feel & think better, I need to really power off the firewall on purpose, then physically swap out the power supplies.

At least I can do this while the AC unit is running, so I'm happy on that front.

The temp has dropped 8+ degrees down to 79, thank goodness.  And while that's still hot, I'm sitting in front of the blowers and my body is cool, even though the room is not fully cool.

I honestly don't know why the room wasn't cooler than it was when I started this morning.

The fan in the window was on, blowing the cool air from outside in, and the door leading out of the office was open, so that way a draft should go through.

Un-uh. 

It was 74 degrees at 6:00 AM when I started working.

Admittedly, it was cooler than when I left it yesterday afternoon at 85, but it wasn't as cool as it was outside or even close to it.  Granted it was 60 degrees outside this morning.

Well, the AC unit is working, the firewall is happy, and I'm happy, but I'm out of Ice Cream. :(

Shit, I'm fat OK! Get over it!

Ok, over the past 20 years, I've gotten bigger than I was when I was...

My current weight is over 320 lbs!

Part of that is due to Zyprexa & Effexor.

I know that.

Hell, they noted that I gained like 20 lbs from May to now.

"My Jared... can you make a commitment to lose weight!?"  WTF?

Like I wanted to gain the weight in the first way...

Granted, I love ice cream, but I don't eat it like I need it!   that much... anymore...

I know working from the office will help remove the temptation of eating too much, but last year, I was tanking in junk food, etc. and I didn't really gain a freakin' pound... then when I get on these meds, I start to pudge-up.

I don't know if this doctor really understands WTF she's talking about.  All I wanted were my quarterly pain med prescriptions then to go back to home/work, not get a lecture about how much weight I've gained.

I noticed!  How can I not?  My dress shirts don't fit me very well anymore, and I don't have any pants that fit!

Fucking A!

Oh well, that's my rant and conclusion from visiting the doctor today...

Although, the doctor I saw was my doctor's assistant, and she said to contact her if I had problems getting into the orthopedic clinic that actually knows how to deal with knees well, instead of the quackery office I had been seeing doctors in.

All those assholes told me was that I'm too young and only wanted to inject my knees with shit.

It Lives!!!

My home system is one that a buddy at work was getting rid of, but since it had an x64 processor, and he gave me a 200 gb SATA drive to go with it, I brought it home.

Put in 3GB of RAM, and it's pretty happy.

But I realize why my buddy was getting rid of it... The motherboard has a capacitor or what not that stays charged and the system thinks that it's still on, when it's actually off.

What I mean is that you can literally pull the plug from the power supply and put it back and it will still not turn on.

So, what I figured out was to unplug it for a good 10 seconds or more, then plug it back in and it'll fire up... When it's in this state.

It's a pretty good workhorse, especially since I don't take time to game anymore... I mean, I could, but I don't think Ellie would be very happy with me.

I go to see my general practitioner in a little while and I'll chat with him about my arthritis pain, as it's really freakin' nasty still.  Basically, I'm not getting any relief from the doctors that he's given me already.  No one really wants to look at it in greater detail or what not.  So I get a pat on the head, a bottle of pills and sent home to deal with the pain & problems.

Today, I cannot climb the stairway up to my office without assistance from my hands to help lift my weight.

Since I stopped the Zyprexa a week ago, I think I've lost a good deal of weight, most of it was water weight. (I took a really, really long piss one day.)

Well, the alarm from Outlook for the doctor appointment just showed up, so I suppose I better start getting ready, but I'd like to get a few other things ready prior to leaving.

I'll post an update from the GP when I get out and to the Corporate office and to my desk.

I'm still alive... Tired, but alive.

Don't flip out about the title, I'm good.

Nothing much has necessarily happened except that I noticed Ellie slipping into her funk state, where she was starting to yell again, and started riding me like a pony.

I swear that she's bipolar, but I don't want to bring that up to her, and I'm also pretty sure it's the hormones that are kicking her ass.

It's ugly when it happens, and I start asking her "why", when she's in that state,  "Why are you doing this to (me/kids/yelling/etc.)"

Normally, Ellie is the quietest and nicest person in the world, which is why I'm concerned about her.

Now, don't worry, she doesn't throw things or hit the kids or anything.

She does get upset and yell a bit when she's like this, but I seem to take the worst of it.

Don't think that I don't love her, but it hurts when she thinks that I'm not doing anything around the house or helping with things.

Her mom is already pissed as hell at me, and is like dealing with an ice cube.  This pisses me off, but I'm trying really hard to just forgive her and let it go.

Uncle Update... Lock 'em up!

I haven't written an update on my uncle for a while.

There really wasn't much to tell after he broke his hip.

You may recall that he's been having memory problems and going ape-shit crazy recently.

Well, I finally got him setup in the Memory Care wing(s) of his assisted living facility.

He cannot leave the place without an escort who'll be responsible for him. Which will most likely be me.

Yesterday, a friend and I moved his bed, dresser, entertainment center and recliner to his new room. Today I need to move the rest of his smaller nick-knack stuff to his new room.

Notice I said room and not apartment. He doesn't have his own personal fridge, microwave, etc. Which to me, isn't as important as having his room setup to be cozy and nice.

The memory care wing he's going to be in, is very light and cheery feeling compared to the nursing home he's been staying in.

I only pray that this afternoon when I go over there to finish the rest of the moving of his stuff, that he's not going to go fuckin' ape-shit crazy on/at me.

I hope he understands that I had him put there for his own safety. Otherwise, he could wander out on the streets or out onto the interstate.

They have activities and things scheduled that they try to accomplish with the residents in this wing too, so at least it's not like the nursing home where they really don't do anything with their residents.

He even has a patio that they can let him out onto so that he can sun himself like a lizard on a rock.

I dunno, I'm really torn right now, because I'm trying to get things done, but the resources I want to use aren't readily available. So I guess I'll go back to work.

My mom shouldn't call if she doesn't want to hear the truth, eh?

I love my mom, she's a great strong person.

She was a cub scout and boy scout leader. A strong woman's leader in church.

She gave birth and raised 6 children.

Now that all of us are grown, her three oldest children are a bunch of weenies and morons.

My eldest brother spoiled his kids so much that my nieces and nephew are all weenies... Ok, one niece isn't a complete weenie, but his other kids are. His son is in a heap of financial trouble that will probably take him 10 years to get out of, while his oldest daughter cannot have custody of her child while her boyfriend does and sells drugs.

My older sister, is good. She made good choices, married a dude who worked for Rockwell and now works for NASA. He's a bit of a jackass in the personality department, but other than that, he's a good husband and father to their kids. All of their kids are smart and with it.

My next older brother is a dumbass. Married a gal that he hardly knew, that was verbally abusive to him. She divorced him several years later... Mostly because of his porn addiction... that and he wanted to know what it was like to swing both ways on the sexual preferences, so he slept with his best friend at the time. (ACK!) His oldest son is a complete waste of a human being right now. Smokes, drinks and does who knows what drugs.
This same brother did remarry, and their offspring all seem to suffer from ADD & who knows what else. Hell, they have to leash the kids to keep them from running off. My brother cannot even work, because of some sort of "medical" problem. I have "medical" problems too, documented disabilities, and I'm not living with my parents.

The final brother, who's just two years older than I am, is pussy whipped. He pretty much doesn't do anything without his wife's approval. Their kid is starting to seem like she's not as FUBAR as her parents, but she'll probably have some sort of problem. This brother has a HUGE weight problem. He's close to 600 lbs, and needs hip and knee replacements.

My little sister... Well she's a sweet thing and I love her dearly. She married an older guy who treats her very well. He's getting closer and closer to retirement and they're not going to try having kids anymore. Which will probably be OK, but I know my sister will be sad... She'd have made a great mother.

What am I driving at? Well, I don't like talking to my family anymore, as you can see above, that they're all screwed up and when my mom tells them that they can all have the state they live in and I'll keep mine, they might be pissed.

No one likes being told the truth that they suck and are losers.

My brothers? They all fall into that category.  So I'm going to stop here, and get back to work.

Oh WTF?

I don't know why I cannot seem to work today.

I know what I need to do, and I have a good resource to help me get it done, but I'm just not in the freakin' mood for it today.

Due to the 90+ temps we're in right now, I'm up late at night, because it's too damn hot to sleep.

Even right now, Ellie is still sleeping, and I've been up for 3 hours, and trying to work for the past 2 of those hours.

Not trying too hard. I mean, I watched/listened to several YouTube channels/people that I've been following.

Then I've been playing Spider Solitaire...

Busy day coding so far, eh? Did I mention that I also put 20 some minutes into sorting through a lot of Ebooks that I have. (Thousands of them that I want to read or have read.)

My hands feel swollen, most likely from Zyprexa. I wonder if I stopped taking it if I'll be OK... I mean, I've been on Lamictal for two weeks and have started taking 2 Lamictal pills as directed by the doctor.

I know that Zyprexa can add water weight, and that's most likely why my joints hurts so much and why my hands are so swollen.

Perhaps I'll have ice cream for breakfast, as I haven't had anything else to eat so far.

Well, I'm headed for the freezer, and will try to work whilst eating ice cream.