The Ångelus’ blog

On my way home from the Bats Day staff meeting, I took 'Drew to the park by the Haus. As he ran off to engage in social activity with people his own age, I took advantage of the workout equipment recently installed there. As a result, my back arms, shoulders, chest and rear waist are sore, but not overly so. I got a good workout, pulling, pushing, rowing and swaying. Did some leg presses out of boredom. (My legs are ridiculously strong.)

I think that's a big part of feeling good. The muscles aren't as sore as usual, and I feel better for it.

The boy is okay, so far. Unbeknownst to him, there's a funeral coming up that will keep him busy throughout the coming weekend. I think he'll be okay, though. There's a longer conversation we'll have to have when he gets back, but it should be just fine.

My Sunday is productive. I installed Eclipse on my Xubuntu box, and I'm learning how to program in C++, finally. Nothing more eventful than trying to follow the tutorial on the official website that has code flaws. Ones that WEREN'T included as examples.

Fending off Heather's plague. Holding back on a second cup of coffee for the day. I feel good. There's a lot to do, but that's par for the course. I won't let things overwhelm me today.

More karaoke CD ripping in my future. Tomorrow should be fun. :-)

I happened to tune in to DJ Merrick's "Aural Apocalypse" netradio show.

Wow.

She's amazing. Aside from her taste in music (which is pretty damned good), she has a great and refreshing radio personality. It's NOT what I expected to hear when I tuned in. She's very professional, while maintaining an air of casual joviality. And she has annunciation for days. Daaaaamn.

I think I shall try tuning in at the beginning of her show next week. You should too.

(Don't let the fact that Adrian is a douchebag dissuade you from checking out Merrick's show.)

Feeling motivated, sensible, and NOT BATSHIT CRAZY. Kinda nice.

I didn't get the full hammer to the head I thought I would by doubling up on the Wellbutrin. As a matter of fact, I feel a teeeeeeeeeeny tiny bit stoned, but ever so slightly. It's a wee little sprite of euphoria, gently drifting about the back of my head, like a dandelion in warm still air.

The week so far has been strange to me. I've been productive. This has been rendered a foreign concept since late December. Very poor health contributed to very poor emotional states, which contributed to very poor health. This could be considered a not-good place to be.

Last week hailed the lifting of the emotional veil. My health finally took a turn for the better after a begrudging visit to our rather wonderful doctor a few weeks ago. While treating my nasty lung infection, she doubled my intervals (yes, I heart Equilibrium). The mental wreckage started stirring in the middle of last week, and my health and motivation finally burst through. The weekend was more productive than any in the last year or so, at least to me. And since Monday, I've been a busy little beaver. Sleep has been more effective too, since I knocked the potency of my normal coffee brewing in half. I can still taste my coffee, but I'm not relying on it. Caffeine had started making me feel lousy in the afternoons, and the lowered dosage did wonders. Yeah, I'm still a little groggy, but not nearly as bad as normal.

This new sense of focus has marked some breakthroughs. I've been doing a handful of sit-ups and chair push-ups every day, increasing in repetition every time, since Monday. My lungs really got worked over during the last round of illness, and they haven't been the same since. Rather than abandon all exercise in frustration, I switched from cardio to muscle conditioning. Now things are moving around, and starting to look appropriate again. STARTING TO. And beginning next Monday, I'll be on a reduced-intensity cardio plan, back on the elliptical.  Connie-Lynne had been a big inspiration to me with her advice that a little was MUCH better than none. She was right. The little bit of exercise I've had has made me feel much better about myself on several levels.

Aside from health, things are things. I got some very good leads for picking up a second night of karaoke, which would be a life saver.  Heather has been getting the Haus in proper shape, inside as well as outside. Facebook has connected me with people I haven't really communicated with on any significant level in some time. I've made some progress on the karaoke label front, which is very important, since money has been spent with nothing to show because of all my personal issues. So I got THAT going for me.

Things have also been shaping up for me spiritually. There's some communication that hasn't been there in a big way for some time now. Things are stirring, and taking a form I can get my head around. And I'm able to see things more clearly than I have in a long time, as well. Plus the plain old communication through prayer and effect has been creeping back to "normal" levels. The ability to help others effectively has slowly been recharging as a result.

Starting on Saturday afternoon, I've been experiencing a general oddness in my health. The most significant issue had been feeling cold, no, chilled, no matter what the temperature or clothing worn. It wasn't a shivering chill, just a feeling that the ambient temperature was lower than the thermostat was registering, by 3-5 degrees. Now, yesterday afternoon, the Haus was actually colder inside than out, also strange. But the chill persisted.

Today, in the middle of my usual routine, it was suddenly NAP TIME RIGHT NOW, at about 3:30pm. I laid down in bed, and still felt chilled. Our bedroom warms up pretty good on a moderately sunny day, and by that time it's pretty warm. I was wearing a thermal shirt and pants under my Levi's and t-shirt. I should have been HOT. Instead, I had to get under the comforter and sheet to get comfortably warm. Mind you, up until I got sick at the top of the year, I had to sleep in next to nothing, half out of the blankets, with the window and curtain open, to be comfortable.

I nodded off at about 4:45. Finally, at 6:00pm, I woke up, feeling very toasty. There's still a general daze about me, but I feel mentally more acute. I think I just had to cook off whatever impending bug had tried to take root.

I hope that's the last of the potential sickness for now. There's too much to do as it stands.

I totally forgot, about 90% of the karaoke downloads are on the new tower computer I've been using to run karaoke. The loss of personal data, collected music, etc., is rather painful for me. However, I don't feel like I've completely failed the people who have spent hard-earned money to help build the digital karaoke archive.

Tossed and turned all night. Woke up at 3:30AM, worked on the drive until 5AM, slept and got up at 11AM.

I'm pretty sure I didn't lose EVERYTHING, but so far I can only read 9 out of 160GB. Not good. I think I can retrieve most, if not all, of the purchased karaoke downloads. So I got THAT going for me.

I waited too long to do a back-up, and now I'm paying the price. I don't feel totally horrible about it, though. I *am* very sad that the hard-to-find music I spent about 8 years harvesting from various places, very aggressively, will be lost. But to everything there is a season.

Trying a last desperate trick, since I don't have the $800-1000 to spend on clean-room data recovery. I'll take the harddrive out of the freezer in a minute and plug it in. :-P

New year, new start. :-)

To do today:

• Drop the Monkey off at skewl
• Run back up to NoHo, cash check, withdraw money
• Possibly stop at Frys, get new harddrive
  
• Pop in to WaMu and deposit money
• Stop at the Haus, pack up my gear
• Run to Doomie's, do radio show
• Head home, work on graphic and web stuff

That's just the stuff off the top of my head. Not a bad way to spend a Friday.

OH, I need to finish up a computer for a friend.

Let's try that again. The service didn't like the angstrom symbol.

Took my cue from bloodredrosev and made a Vox account.