Break It

Monday January the twenty-Fourth

1.24.11         156 pounds



New Years Resolution # 2 was to do more things around the community and when I saw that there would be FREE BREAK DANCE LESSONS I could not pass up that opportunity.

Scott Picked me up at 6:45 and we went on over the the Simms Center. Walking in the main entrance we heard music coming from the auditorium where we found a group of people jumping and dancing around. There was an eight year old doing a head spin in the middle of the group. I turned to Scott and said "I swear it said this was a beginners class." My work friend Kim Bob also made it to the class.

Me

We all got in a circle to introduce ourselves. We would say our name, what we did and how long we have been break dancing. Many of the people there were from the JMU Breakdance club, and a few people were from some of the local high schools. Everyone was saying they have been breakdancing for 3 years, 4 years, 6 years. Scott, Kim bob, myself and one other guy had never breakdanced before.

Kim Bob

Scott

We got into a Line with all the new people in front and learned the basic 'uprock' with a few variations. Each non-break dancer teamed up with someone from the JMU Breakdance club and learned the six-step. After what felt like an hour of sweating Scott informed me we had only been there for twenty minutes.

It was all fun and everyone there was really encouraging. The last half of the class consisted of everyone getting in a circle and taking turns going in to do a little routine. All the new people went in and everyone clapped and cheered regardless of how ridiculous we looked flopping around on the ground.

As we left I realized I could barely walk, my legs hurt for the next two days. The next class is the second of February and I'll be back to learn more.

Grandma Shirley

Shirley Mae Gronguist Bostrom

4.25.1926 - 1.10.11

weaving a craft

1.9.11        159 pounds








Craft project number two of 2011 has been completed. I saw this photo weaving thing and thought it was a really cool idea so I decided to attempt one of my own. I started with this photo of Erin and Mike dancing.

I printed two copies of the photo and drew half inch lines horizontally on one and vertically on the other.

Cutting along the lines wasn't too much of a problem and neither was sticking the first two pieces together.

After that it was very time consuming weaving each strip over and under and over and under. For this project I alternated going one to the left, one up, one to the right, one down. That way the weave started in the middle and worked it's way evenly out, which also meant the the farther out I got the harder it was to keep it matched up.

This was fun to make, and I'd like to do some more trying out some different techniques.

crack in the lens of time

Friday January the Seventh

1.7.11          160 pounds

Today in the news...

Last night my phone rang and I did not recognize the number so I let it go to voicemail. It was a automated recording from my optical department letting me know that my new glasses have arrived and were available for pickup. This was exciting news for me! The company I work for offers there employees a vision voucher every year that is good for one-hundred and fifty dollars towards a new pair of glasses so every year I get my eyes checked and take my prescription to them and pick out a new pair of glasses. My prescription is so weak that the total always comes out to less than $150. Too bad I do not get to keep the remainder. There was a special going on where if you get two pairs of glasses you get $25 dollars off, which meant I would have $175 towards two pairs of glasses! I picked out two I liked and ordered them.

Well the phone message only mentioned that one pair had come in so on my break at work today I went to the optical department to pick them up. "Oh Ben," Marsha, the optician said, "didn't somebody tell you? We had to send them back, they came in with a huge scratch on them." It will be another week until I get those back. I asked about the other pair and they said it hadn't come in yet.

After a few hours of being home from work my phone rang and it was the optical department again! Hooray, at least my other glasses have arrived, right? "Hey Ben, it's Marsha. I was going to tell you your glasses came in, but they sent us the wrong ones. We got a pair that was supposed to go to North Carolina and they got yours, so it will be about a week until those come in." Damn you! Not you Marsha, but damn somebody.

I had lunch today with L.T. after work and then we went and played pool which was fun. He is a much better player than I am, but I ended up winning almost all the games. I didn't ever have a real strategy, I would just aim and shoot, if a ball goes in, that is when I focus on the next shot. Most of the time the only ball I would get in would be the cue ball. L.T. could aim his shot, make the ball, and have the cue ball positioned where he wanted it. It must have been frustrating for him when he would make almost all the balls in 9 ball and then I would make the only ball that counts. We switched to 8-ball and he would have a pretty solid run at the table, be down to the last ball while my balls were still scattered around the table, and scratch. It was all fun, and I did not gloat too much.

I ordered mustache wax today! The 'stache is not quite long enough for the handlebar look yet, but the wax should at least help it stay out of my mouth, and my soup. Oh, and I don't work until tuesday. Yay.

not being a craft dodger

Wednesday, January the Fifth

1.5.86 1.5.11        163 pounds
(my natural instinction is to write 1986 after 01/05 since that is my birthday, I did that at work twice today)













Well I made those New Years Resolutions… The making something resolution was an easy start. I bookmarked plenty of craft ideas when I was sick and have already started some of them. I read about making your own envelopes from the pictures from old calendars and thought what better way to recycle the old 2010 calendar! The only problem is that, although I have two calendars, one is on my phone and the other is on my computer. I don't even have a normal wall calendar! I put a note up at work that reads "About to throw away your 2010 calendar? Don't! Give it to Ben in the office!" Hopefully people will not have thrown them away yet.

I did want to try out this craft though, and not having a calendar did not deter me. I went through my room looking for some kind of paper that would be heavy enough to be an envelope, thats when I ran arose my old collection of Playboys. I had about six playboys from 2006/2007 and the front and back covers are a good weight and size.

Taking a normal mailing envelope, I took it apart where it was glued and unfolded it. 

I placed it on the magazine cover and traced it with a sharpie and cut along the lines. 

Next you just fold the picture at the same points the envelope was folded and use double stick tape to secure it.

 

The first two seemed like a success so I made a few more. I wonder if these can be mailed.

Technology

Tuesday, January the Fourth

1.4.11       161 pounds






New technologies spawn the need for newer technology.

The internet changed how people communicate and gather information. Need to use your computer while you travel? Laptop. Now that you have a laptop you can't be expected to keep it plugged in just to surf the web, you gotta be able to take it from room to room so get WiFi! and now that WiFi is available why not have it at the coffee house? WiFi Hotspots! Before I owned a smart phone I thought they were pretty cool, not that I would ever need that much information at my fingertips. Now that I own one I am very thankful for some of the things it can do.

When Papa Bud died in December my mom and I went to Richmond to do all those arrangements that you really do not want to have to deal with upon the death of a loved one, but really do not have any other options. We also visited with Grandma Shirley at the nursing home. My aunt and uncle live in Richmond but went on a cruise a couple days before the death. The death was not unexpected, it was just a matter of time and aunt and uncle said that if it happened while they were away my mom and I could stay are their house.

Neither my mom nor I are very familiar with Richmond so when we got hungry google maps on my android was valuable in finding restaurants close to our GPS location without having to have social contact with other people and writing down directions.

When we needed to finish some paperwork with the crematorium and they gave us the website to fill out the forms we were in need of free WiFi (My aunt and uncle do not have the internet at their house.) Luckily for us I can just search on my phone for WiFi Hotspots and a list of places automatically comes to me with reviews and information about each place. We could get WiFi and coffee, WiFi and beer, WiFi and sandwiches. Push the right button and the driving directions to Panera is sent to my GPS. Pretty soon me and my mom are sitting at the restaurant eating a sandwich, both of us on our phones talking about obituaries, cremations and trying to contact all the right people while filling out forms online. Next to us is a teacher grading papers, a student writing one on his computer, and a couple walking across the room holding hands... each on a cell phone.

"And this just feels like spinning plates
I'm living in cloud cuckoo land
And this just feels like spinning plates
Our bodies floating down the muddy river" - Radiohead

Twenty Eleven

Monday, January the Third

1.3.11          158 pounds

Resolutions:

• Make something.
• Try some DIY home crafts, make at least something every month. I had made mom the blue bottle tiki torches for christmas and since I've been sick the past two weeks I have had a lot of time to look up fun easy crafts that would be fun to make.
• Become more involved in activities happening around the community.
• Every few months an activity book comes out from the Parks and Recreation department of this fine little city. There are numerous ventures inside many or which are FREE! things for all ages: kids, fifty and wiser, and the hooligans in between.
• Movies
• Racquetball
• Dance classes (break, jazz, tap, etc.)
• Music
• Formal Tea with my grandparent and me
• Soul Food Dinner (made by some of our communities lifelong residents)
• Maybe tone up the belly a bit.

Pokes and Prods, the End of 2010

Saturday January the First

1.1.11     160 pounds




So I almost made it an entire year without a trip to the emergency room, bummer. 

Monday, December the Twentieth I awoke at my normal waking hour of four a.m. feeling fine. Around nine while I was working I started feeling a little light headed feverish and exhausted so I sat down for a while. I got a disposable thermometer out of the safety closet and My temperature was about 100.5. I didn't think to much of it, slight fever, probably just coming down with a slight cold so I continued to work. The department I work in is pretty small so they all knew I was feeling a little ill but I told them I wasn't worried about it and I would be back at work the next morning. By the end of my work day I was feeling worse so I decided to just go home and rest. 

I took my temperature again at home and it had risen to 101.7 so I took some nyquil and went to sleep. at six I woke up coughing so violently that I began vomiting. About an hour of that went by and then I was able to drink a few sips of water and go back to sleep. At one a.m. I woke back up coughing and throwing up. My head was splitting and my throat was so raw and swollen that I could not swallow a thing without being in terrible agony. The lymph nodes in my neck were also very swollen and sore.

Every time I would get back into bed I would feel nauseous so I made a pile of towels and clothes on my bathroom floor into a bed so I could lay down for a few minutes  before having to heave my heavy head over the porcelain puke tub. Four a.m. came and that at least gave me something to: call work and tell them I was not coming in. But then it was 4:02 and all I could do was lay down, cough, puke, repeat.

I wasn't able to reach my doctors office until 9 tuesday morning and they told me to come in at 11:30. I was really dehydrated and every time I stood up I felt dizzy so my dad drove me to my doctor appointment. I really thought I'd be in and out; he'd look at me, look down my throat tell me I either have strep or the flu, give me some antibiotics and I'd be on my way. I didn't leave the doctors office until 2:45. The nurse took me to the examining room, took my vitals and I tried to tell her all the symptoms I was having. Speaking was very difficult because of how raw my throat was. My temperature was 103.5, I was sweating like a fat man in a sauna but I felt so cold. As she asked me the rest of the questions she has to ask before the doctor comes in I laid down on the exam table. 

It took 30 minutes for the doctor to come in and I had already fallen asleep on the table. I was given a strep and flu test which both came back negative so they took some blood to do a white blood cell count. Because of my dehydration the nurse had a pretty hard time getting my blood, I started to feel like a pin cushion. A normal white blood cell count is 10,000 and mine was 25,000. They did a chest x-ray and decided I had pneumonia. Doctor gave me an antibiotic shot and a prescription for promethegan, an anti-nausea suppository, and told me to come back the next day.

I didn't sleep well Tuesday night but had not been throwing up since I had taken the anti-nausea medicine. Wednesday, although I had stopped puking, I did not feel any better, in fact my head hurt even worse and my neck was so sore that I could barely turn my head. When I mentioned this to the doctor he feared I had meningitis so he sent my to the Emergency room to get a lumbar puncture. On the drive to the ER from the doctor I look up meningitis on my smartphone and get a little nervous. There are two types of meningitis, viral and bacterial, the only way to test for it is a spinal tap. For viral meningitis there is no treatment but it is not too severe, it just has to run its course. Bacterial meningitis is deadly even with treatment.

When I got to my room in the ER blood was drawn, which again took several sticks before they could find any, both arms were stuck and then eventually blood was taken from the back of my hand. They gave me a few IV's was given to me which I desperately needed, I had not eaten or drank anything since Monday morning. I also received a few bags of antibiotics through my IV. They also did a throat culture for strep and a few other tests before the spinal tap.

I was bent over so my spine was fanned out and they first stick a little needle into your back to numb the skin and first layer of tissue, then they stick a bigger needle into the lower tissue and inject more numbing solution. After all the numbing they stick a needle in the is going to extract some of the fluid that surrounds the spine. I had been given some pain medication into my IV so I was a little lucid, but I could feel the needle when it was around the nerves of my spine. The Doctor had to try twice because he could not get any of the spinal fluid so they sent me to radiology so they could do it under an x-ray.

When I was in the x-ray machine I started to have doubts about the procedure when I heard the doctor ask if anyone knew how many CC's he was supposed to get and if it was going to bleed when he took the needle out. I was under so many pain meds at the time though that I just laid there silent. I was eventually diagnosed with viral meningitis. I was given a prescription for oxycodone and was sent home.

I started feeling a little better the next few days except for my back. After the lumbar puncture I have been having really bad pain in my back, the oxycodone helped with that though. Christmas weekend all I could really do is lay around doped up on pain killers and the doctor said I could return to work on Monday the twenty-seventh. I was not prescribed many of the pills because they said the pain should only last a few days. At work monday I had to leave early because of the pain I was in so I called to make another Dr appointment. That evening the hospital called me to tell me my throat culture had come back positive for strep. Tuesday I only had one pill left which I took before work and by ten o'clock was in so much pain I had to leave. My appointment was for two o'clock so I laid in bed after I got home from work until 1:30 and then drove myself to the doctors office. He prescribed me another weeks worth of oxycodone and said that if I am still in pain by the Wednesday the fifth of January I need to call him because they might have to do work on my back. 

My throat still hurt a bit, but other than that I had been feeling a lot better. Thursday the thirtieth it started hurting to swallow again. Friday morning I woke up with all my symptoms back. I couldn't swallow, I had a fever, I was coughing so violently that I was throwing up, and my headache was back. I took an oxycodone and promethegan and called my doctor. I had to leave a message but they got back to me within half an hour and told me to go to the ER.

Back at the ER they gave me more IV's and a CT scan of my neck which revealed that I now have tonsillitis! The doctor at the ER gave me Clindamycin, an antibiotic, prednisone to shrink the swollen glands in my neck and tylenol with codeine for pain and to help ease off the oxycodone. I slept right through new years eve, I did not get to watch the ball drop.