One of these days

FOCUS ON THE POSITIVE,  STUPID!

Weird day.

Got a clean bill of health at the cardiologist in my follow up appointment following my ablation.   Everything looked good.   Plus I've lost another 5 pounds.  And that's after a holiday season of eating nothing but a 4lb. Bag of Sugar and a block of cheddar daily. 

Finished Candice Millard's Destiny of the Republic,  about the swirling destinies of Charles Guiteau and President James Garfield.   Shyam and I watched Death by Lightning,  based on Millard's book,  and found it excellent.  Her book is better.   Really enjoyed. 

So basically a good day. 

Maybe really good,  because there's a chance Shyam and I stopped ourselves from being taken.   

I'm kinda in the market for a new vehicle.   I've been driving my Camry for 12 years now,  and it's sniffing at 300,000 miles.   Is getting the job done,  and I think we'll hang on to it,  but we'd like to find something that's a little more useful for work. 

Got a hint about a car for sale.   Low mileage.  Older owner. 

But,  in communicating with the family member selling,  not quite red flags started blowing in the breeze.... which were ignorable until they brought out the red flag in needing a down payment to hold it until they got back into town Wednesday.  

I dunno.   Just disappointed.   Maybe in myself.   I'm 48, and I should know that if it's too good to be true,  it is. 

But,  we aren't out any money.   So,  that's good....

C'mon, Tommy.  You pretentious fuck.   You didn't fall for a scam!  Be positive,  stupid!

The Sunday Before Christmas

 Christmas is this Thursday.

I've long opined that one of the big milestones in the journey from childhood to adulthood when the march to Christmas goes from much too slow to entirely too quick.

This one's getting up on us in a hurry.

I spent yesterday morning picking out a couple last books to give this holiday.   I may still run out to find some cheese to give from Sweetwater Valley Farms, a local cheesemaking outfit in between Sweetwater and Loudon.  They do great work, but I'm fond of their buttermilk cheese, and I know there are people in the family likewise fond.

I took the nephew out Christmas shopping last Thursday.  I'd avoided most of the hustle and bustle of the crowded places this holiday, but he wanted to wander to Hamilton Place in Chattanooga to look in Dick's Sporting Goods and World Market for a couple things.  We grabbed a tasty Detroit Style pizza from Community Pie, and managed to hit a couple books stores.  Facebook memories popped up a memory from a previous year's wandering (I've been taking him out Christmas shopping I think for the past 8 years (he's 15 right now).  One such trip included a trip to Jersey Mike's for lunch, where young Thomas, thrilled at getting to choose his own toppings for a sandwich wanted nothing but salami and mustard on his that day.  This year, we went with a more traditional pepperoni and italian sausage.

Thomas has been working, doing some landscaping work with a family friend to earn some money.  This year, he brought his own money to buy Christmas gifts.  After a purchase at Barnes & Noble, he made the realization that many of us have made through the years (some of us, like your old pal Tommy, have to make the realization again, and again): Damn....this can get expensive in a hurry.

We enjoyed ourselves, though.  I don't know how many more Christmas shopping lunches he'll want to make with Uncle Tommy, so I'm always glad to squeeze one in.

I may grab him while he's off the next couple of weeks.  I have an old dresser in our spare room, a room that I'd like to get back to using in an office capacity.  I've had a couple sets of bookshelves to put into the room, that will help me get some of my shit off the floor, but I need to get the dresser out of there.  Prior to a couple of months ago, I'd have grabbed my Dad's old pickup truck from Mom's house, but with Thomas getting older, mom's given the truck to Thomas to learn to drive on, and eventually use.

Maybe we can make project out of it, have him help me carry this giant ass dresser out so he can use it at his house.....

Ablation Nation

 Back in the summer, my atrial fibrillation returned.  There weren't a lot of symptoms, aside from a little more sweatiness, and it being summer, I didn't think much of it, until I went to my cardiologist for a regular appointment, and he announced that I was indeed in atrial fibrillation again.

My cardiologist.  I guess I should say that in quotes, since the man I have thought of as my cardiologist since my trouble started in 2022 has left that pratice, and despite getting a referreal to his new practice, I haven't been able to jump over with him.  So, I've met my new cardiologist for a few minutes, and the rest of the work has been done by a nurse practicioner.  

Well, an EKG here, and a futuristic heart monitor that pulled out chest hairs there, and a meeting with a specialist, and then a transfer to a different specialist owing to that the first specialist's being out of network....

I got to go to Parkridge Hospital in Chattanooga on Wednesday.  There, I got to have my groin shaved, and I got to be put to sleep, and have probes run up veins so that they can dampen one or two of the centers of my heart that were sending errant signals.  

As of right now, my heart's beating normally again.  It may revert back and forth in the next couple months.  If it continues to go back and forth, they may send me for a cardioversion in 3 months.

Anesthesia was an interesting experience.  Apparently, as I wandered up out of unconsciousness, I took to talking to everybody who would listen about which dinosaur was their favorite.

It's nice to know that even groggy from anesthesia, I stay on benignly goofy brand.

It was a mostly routine procedure.  No issues.

Still.  It was scary.  

I wish I had words to elaborate on that.  On why it's scary.  It just is.  Knowing that I'm not immortal.  That I'm not as healthy as I've bullshitted myself to believe.

I've been losing weight.  About 30 pounds since the end of July.  I don't have a target weight.  Maybe a target shirt size.  Maybe I can get down to a 2xl.  Get one of those nice Cubs starter jackets that pop across my suggested ads every year or two.

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Healthy food talk aside, I think I'm gonna have to wander out toward Middle Tennessee at some point after the initial furor dies down.  But In n Out Buter has opened franchises out there, and I'd like ot get my Lebowski on after visiting Larry Sellers about some homework.....

Star Trek and Whatnot

 Apropos of nothing, I've started going back to the Star Trek channel on PlutoTV for my default background noise when I don't have anything specific in mind to watch.

And it's been just grand.  Inasmuch as I've found some really good stuff to revisit, but not so much in terms of productivity:  the stuff is good, so I end up stopping what I'm doing as often as not to watch.

I haven't divined the schedule completely, but it feels like they're reserving the weekends for The Original Series, with The Next Generation playing largely during the week.  Either way, it's been good.   I don't think I've done an actual watch-through of either show since before Covid.  In fact, I haven't watched much of either show since in disappeared from random reruns on BBC America.  (It seems like one of the supplementary digital channels still show them, but we don't wander to the digital antenna very much).

Anyway, a few thoughts about a few episodes I've watched since the middle of November, give or take:

The Original Series:

"The Galileo Seven"   For as much as Roddenberry didn't want there to be conflict between crewmembers, this one was always one of the better episodes.  And it's amazing how much Nimoy could do with even the limited facial expressions he was able to use.

"Journey to Babel"  Mark Lenard really is an unsung hero for original generation Trek.   I always want more Tellerites and Andorians in my Trek.  (I know they get play in later series....but I always thought there was more you could do with them....)

"the Gamesters of Triskelion"  There's a good meme where Kirk says he's suddenly in the mood for baked potatoes while standing next to Angelique Pettyjohn's Shahla.  An interesting discovery in the last 10 years, for yours truly, was that Pettyjohn later had a career in adult film.....

"the Enterprise Incident"  This one's been my favorite that I've watched, in this new batch.  I guess I'm drawn to Spock episodes this time around.  I like the look at the Romulans, here.....

The Next Generation:

"Conspiracy"  I really wish more had come of this episode.  Season 1 is never closer to finding its footing than it is right here.  Coincidentally, Conspiracy is among the first episodes of Next Generation that I ever saw.  I can't say that it was the first, necessarily, but I only found the Next Generation near the end of the first season.....

"Elementary, Dear Data"  I have nothing against Dr. Crusher, and how Gates McFadden lost that job is complete bullshit, but I really did enjoy Dr. Pulaski, especially in her animosity towards Data.  Pulaski was an HR issue waiting to happen, I have to admit.  I really like Daniel Davis's Moriarty.

"The Royale"  The most original Trekky of the Next Generation treks.  Stands to reason since it formed out of a scrapped Phase II script, if I'm remembering correctly.  Definite Kirk/Spock vibes in Riker/Data here.

"The Survivors"  This one was sadder than I remember.

"The Most Toys"  Saul Rubinek is really fucking good in this one. 

"Best of Both Worlds"  I think I was 13 the spring that Best of Both Worlds part I first aired.  And somehow (maybe through Starlog?) I had caught wind that it was possible Patrick Stewart wouldn't be coming back.  If ever there were a cliffhanger that was "Who Shot JR?" to a nerdy kid from East TN, it was the cliffhanger end to Best of Both Worlds.  It still holds up.  One of the best episodes.....

"The Loss"  They never did give Marina Sirtis enough to do as Troi.  She's really quite good in this episode.

"Redemption" parts 1 & 2.  I know this is right on the verge of blasphemy, but I can get worn out with Klingon episodes pretty quickly.  But I really like how this one is put together.....

"Cause and Effect"   Somehow I've caught this one twice.  Shyam hates "Groundhog Day" episodes.  I really dig this one.  Although, in all honesty, it probably should have been a Troi episode, instead of Crusher experiencing Deja Vu.....

"The Inner Light"  Probably tied with Darmok for my favorite episode.  I have nothing to say here, except that Picard probably should have had to take a couple weeks off after living an entire lifetime in the space of a few minutes.  I mean, I couldn't go back to my job 30 years ago and just remembered how to do everything I was doing 30 years ago.  Could Picard?

"Suspicions"  Good episode.  Crusher should still have been brought up for insubordination.

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It's a fun watch.  And my late-stage Gen X brain still likes the idea of turning to a channel and just watching what's there.  As if the pressure of finding an episode to watch is just too much to bear.

I have also watched a couple episodes of Deep Space Nine over on the channel dedicated to it.  I like DS9.  And on some days, I might even call it my favorite Trek.  But its more serial nature than other Treks sometimes limits my enjoyment, in terms of just jumping in.  Not always....I watched the baseball episode "Take Me Out to the Holosuite" here recently, and enjoyed it very much.

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Addendum:  Here's that bombass meme I mentioned:

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A Trek admission:  I have not watched all of Voyager.  The bulk of its run came while I was in college, so between work and school, I didn't always watch.  In fact, I'd say there are great chunks of the show that I still have not seen.  Giving some thought to rectifying that......