F@$&!!

Get to go to 30mg @ day now :(

When the doctor and I discussed the meds that are normally prescribed for what they think is going on, I wondered if it was a coincidence that the 2 most common happened to be anti-depressant or anti-anxiety drugs - I think the answer is becoming much clearer...

Free shaping: crate training

When we first got Karma (age 6 months), I tried to confine her to a crate at night and when we left her alone.  I thought that was the safest place for her (and for everything else in the house).  She went into hysterical fits in the crate, though, shredding her bed and shrieking like a banshee.  I gave up on the crating and she magically behaves herself really well when she's alone.

When we started agility training, the instructors warned that by the third level (week 19) our dogs would need to be crated sometimes during class in crates along the side of the room.

I re-dedicated myself to the task of training her to accept being crated. I tried to lure her into the crate with the big guns of dog training: bacon, peanut butter, Velveeta. She would not put a paw in the crate to get to them, even when she was alone. When that didn't work, I figured our agility training would come to an end at week 18.

A few weeks before the deadline, it dawned on me to try free-shaping to get her into the crate. (The first behavior she learned by free-shaping was backing up onto an inclined plank. She's so pleased with learning that behavior that she does it all the time spontaneously during class.)

Step by step, over the course of days, in 5-10 minute sessions:

• I put the crate in the living room and stocked myself with treats (chicken, hotdogs, Velveeta).
  
• Stood in the living room.
  
• Karma started offering behaviors (rolling over, backing up, sitting...) which I ignored.
  
• When she looked in the direction of the crate, I marked (with a clicker) the behavior and gave her a treat.
  
• After treating her a few times for just looking in the direction of the crate, I withheld the click/treat until she took a step toward the crate.
• Then I waited for her to take two steps toward the crate before rewarding her.
• Then I waited for her to get right up to the crate.
• Then the big hurdle: I waited for her to put one paw in the crate. She did it!
  

Eventually (this is over the course of many days), she walked all the way into the crate.

Then I worked on increasing the amount of time she had to be in the crate before treating her.  I did this while leaving the crate door open.  I increased the time by one second at first, then later, when she was up to 15 seconds, I increased time in 5 second intervals. Then, I worked on stepping away from the crate. At first, just one step away, then two, then five, then turning my back and walking one step, etc. Eventually, I worked up to being able to turn my back, leave the room, go upstairs and come back down, while she stands quietly in the crate even though the door is open. Then I worked on incrementally closing the door. Voila! We did it! She can be crated!  Finally, we went through the same process (but much more quickly) at the training center.

I can't explain why she was willing to put a paw in the crate when we were free-shaping, but wouldn't do it when she was lured with bacon. Something about it was just fundamentally different to her. Free-shaping is a fun game to her.

Tonight we start Week 27 of agility training.

Dracula

We read Bram Stoker's Dracula for book club.  It was a fun read.  I pitched it but really had no idea what the story was beyond the fact that Dracula was a vampire.  It's considered a classic and seemed worthy of reading since it's the literary origin of an icon.

It was published in 1897, after the Industrial Revolution and about 30 years after Darwin's Origin of the Species.

In short, a group of Westerners (British, Dutch, American) defeat Dracula through use of Christianity, modern science and technology, and folklore.

Dracula is essentially pro-Western, pre-WWI propaganda. Its message is that "evil Romanians will corrupt our pure, virtuous women through sexual deviancy and our women in turn will corrupt our men thereby destroying Western civilization, therefore Romanians must be stopped; P.S. Romanians are Satan himself".

Happy (belated) Birthday, Scooter

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SCOOTER

LJ medical update

MRI was today. Nothing bad found. It was cool looking at the images with the doctor as she explained what they were looking for.

As for what is causing my problems, the new leader is something called Vestibular Migraine. There are many variations of this, the rarest seems to be the one I possibly have - the one without the headaches. There is an outside chance that this is all allergy related and that theory will be examined more closely if in the next couple of months my episodes do not stop.

As for treatment, it is a 2-pronged attack. First is medication that I start in small dosages and increase only if the episodes continue. The second avenue is food. While the causes of migraines are not completely understood, certain foods and food types are thought to be triggers. So I'm going through the process of eliminating certain foods, then re-introducing them one-by-one to see which (if any) seems to trigger something. I started this process back in early January and get to add something starting today. If after adding them all back and nothing happens, then the process starts over with a different type of food group (elimination, then adding one-by-one). I think there are 4 food group/types, so this could be a rather long, drawn out process.

One last note, that is a bit negative in my case - driving. While they didn't tell me to not drive, they did suggest I limit my driving, at least while I ramp up on the medication. Neighborhood and very local driving seems to be OK - anything more than that they wanted me to be cautious about. Bummer :(

How cold has it been in Dallas (NEW UPDATE)

Our pool system is finally up and running. No pool issues, no plumbing issues, no pump issues. The only casualty was the backwash value which malfunctioned and started the chain of events that resulted in our "frozen pond". The pool guys got everything fixed and the system was up and running yesterday. Yea!

Re: My lack of posting

As I posted about here, I've started my 2nd round of testing for my mystery condition. MRI is scheduled for tomorrow morning, with a follow-up with the ENT "team" after. Since my episode on the plane, I've had 2 more. One was last week when it appeared as if I woke up at my normal time having one. On the severity level, it was about a 4, but it was a very strange sensation waking up with a vertigo type thing going on. The other episode was Monday and it was a bad one. Not only did I have the nausea thing going on, but it was so bad I was actually over a sink...well you get the idea. That is the first time I've been that nauseated, so that was a bit freaky. This one lasted about 15-20 minutes and I was wiped out afterward.

All-in-all , not a good week. We'll see what the MRI results are tomorrow and go from there.

Whataya Want From Me and Daylight Breaks

Just released this morning, here's a new music video from Adam in support of his second single, Whataya Want From Me from the album:

VH1 TV Shows | Music Videos | Celebrity Photos | News & Gossip

And the question of the day is, who is the person behind the camera? There are several interpretations: 1) a lover; 2) fans/media/public; and/or 3) Adam himself (i.e. Regular Adam is in conflict with Star Adam).

Reviews/analysis: Rolling Stone (too safe; give us Ziggy Stardust), Jim Cantiello at MTV ("In fact, we're happy to get back in bed with [Adam].")

My perspective is so warped by adoration that I have no idea whether it works, whether it connects, whether people will be moved by angsty, lone-tear Adam, whether his acting is good enough to tug on heartstrings. It works for me. I want to make him some tea.

Speaking of angsty acting, yesterday Adam's buddy Cassidy Haley released a video for Daylight Breaks, a song from his EP Little Boys and Dinosaurs. He doesn't have a record deal. The video was produced with donations from fans. Conceptually, it's Edward Scissorhands meets Mannequin. I think it's beautiful. I love the color tint amidst the black and white. (Houston Chron's music critic Joey Guerra labeled it "gorgeous" and promoted it via Twitter.)

Athens Chuch Burnings...

Yikes. I even go to one of these occasionally (Grace, when I can't handle one of mom's church's substitute pastors). From the Athens Daily Review:

It was the third suspected arson reported at an Athens-area church in 11 days. Two hours before, AFD received the Lake Athens Fire report, Grace Community Church on State Highway 19 was in flames. The year began with Faith Church burglarized and scorched.

How cold has it been in Dallas? (UPDATE)

Last night it finally did not get below 32 and my pool/hot tub has completely thawed. Will be calling the pool tech guys to come check out my system to ensure no lasting damage was done before turning everything back on. I guess this means the great freeze of '10 is officially over.

Former client mentioned on The Corner

Ok, actually his firm was the client. Nordlinger makes mention here. Ouch. I can't believe that after many meetings and conversations with this guy, I never made the connection with his name.

Movie trailers

We've lamented before that movie trailers were not generally made available for legal embed. But I see Avatar's is, and I hope this means a shift in the industry.


Official Avatar Movie

McGwire

When I heard the story on the radio yesterday that Mark McGwire admitted steroid use, I was so confused, because I thought we already knew this. I had to have my memory refreshed that he had declined to come clean earlier.

The better headline is not that he used steroids, but that he's shown himself to be completely delusional:

Still, McGwire told Costas he “absolutely” could have broken the record without using steroids, pointing to his home run prowess going back to Little League.

I'll give him this about his prowess. It takes a special kind of douchebaggery prowess to wait until after the most recent round of Hall of Fame voting to make the admission.

As a North Dakota girl, I'm obliged to note that Roger Maris, born in Minnesota, grew up in Grand Forks and Fargo, ND. Maris held the single-season home run record prior to baseball's steroid period.

Whole Lotta Love (I know you're wondering what Adam's been up to, but you're just too embarrassed to ask)

I post this for the glory of the minute from 3:09 to 4:06:



This is a combo of fan videos and audio taken at the New Year's Eve Gridlock event in LA. (Specifically, this was compiled by terraj, using videos by alreference, intimations, sdljroller, with audio recorded by alreference, anthrogeekPF and edi5289.) Adam sang 10 songs from his album, For Your Entertainment, then sang Whole Lotta Love as an encore.

The guitar player is Monte Pittman, who toured with Madonna. The drummer is Longineu Parsons III, of Yellowcard. (Drum solo here sounds painfully dull, but I'm not sure we're hearing everything that's going on in this audio. He CAN play. Trivia: he's the son of Longinue Parsons, the jazz trumpet player.) Keyboard player offscreen is Lisa Harriton of Smashing Pumpkins. Bass player is Tommy Joe Ratliff.

Videos of Adam's set can be found at Hoopla Magnet (an Adam fan community site) which has left this post open to viewing by non-members. (I think it's open to the world, but you might need a free Live Journal account. Let me know.) This post offers an interesting peek into how diligent and thorough and dedicated this fan community is and how hard working its moderator is. This particular post is solely about stuff (videos, press, photos, reviews, audience accounts) related to the Gridlock performance and the list of its contents is about 14 screens long, not counting the pages of user comments.

Adam's album has sold almost 450,000 copies in seven weeks since its release on November 23. For context, Idol winner Kris Allen's album has sold a little under 250,000, and was released a week earlier. For further context, the highest selling album in 2009 (Taylor Swift's Fearless) sold 3.2 million, according to Billboard.

Of course, Susan Boyle is outselling everyone by a mile. Adam and Susan will be taping an Oprah show tomorrow, to be aired Jan. 19.

I'm sorry this is illegal because it's a hoot OR Ideas for what to do with frozen bodies of water

Two airplanes landed safely on Lake Calhoun, however such a landing is a violation of the Park and Recreation Department's ordinance.

This is taking place across the street from my office.

How cold has it been in Dallas?

We are over 90 consecutive hours of temps below freezing....not the best time for my pool pump/filter/heater equip to malfunction.

GUIs of 1990

Work today took me in search of information about graphical user interfaces circa 1990.  I came across this time capsule:



Search YouTube for "Computer Chronicles" if you want to shake your head some more at how things have changed.

My lack of posting

While I can, and will, use being in Milwaukee over the holidays as my excuse, there is another reason. As I mentioned here back in October, I was dealing with some medical issues....well, they have reared their ugly head again. I've had 5 more episodes since mid December - 2 of them rather memorable. Since the onset back in July, I've been worried about what would happen if I were driving. Unfortunately, I got to experience that the night before C and I left for Milwaukee. I was able to make it to the shoulder safely, but as C and I switched positions, I had to hold on to the side of the vehicle to keep from stumbling into the closest lane of traffic.

The other memorable episode happened on Monday, sitting on the airplane about to take off. We had just pulled away from the gate when it started. I was very close to having to say something to a flight attendant about getting me back to the terminal or letting me get on the floor - something, anything. I made it through take-off and being able to move about the cabin so I could get to the lavatory. After about 20 minutes, all was well (relatively speaking).

I'm seeking 2nd medical opinions, in fact I started that process today. I'm going to a vestibular disorder specialist and will start a new round of testing. Had the hearing ones today - next up, another MRI.

My dreams of motorcycle ownership are slowly fading....

Could not have been more wrong

I didn't think Favre would be effective: "He's old and he hasn't practiced," I said .  I was wrong; he's been plenty good.  Regardless of what happens during the playoffs, he deserves props for getting the Vikings there.

I remain ambivalent about this season.  The success seems merely purchased or borrowed.  That's probably ridiculous; all the teams' successes are purchased.  But winning with Green Bay's quarterback is just still very awkward to me.

Breaking in Mpls: Lindbergh terminal evacuated -- Updated: NEVERMIND

Can't get to the article on the Strib site due, no doubt, to too much traffic.  Bomb-sniffing dog detected explosive device in luggage.  Screencap for you of main page in the meantime:

Updated at 3:44 pm:  All safe.  No dangerous materials were found, and the airport has been reopened.

Update 1/6/10:  Strib's follow-up story here.  The bomb-sniffing dog alerted on an empty pink bag used by baggage handlers to signal the end of a batch of luggage from a flight.