Dec 2005
The End (of the year) Is Nigh
So, Christmas is over and the new year approaches. The "no presents, only stockings" thing went over pretty well, although I must say I missed the fun of picking out presents for people (as well as opening my own).
Of course the stocking loophole is pretty big. We have big stockings for everyone, but there's still not enough room in them to store all the stuff that's supposed to be inside. We each probably ended up with about a cubic foot of small-to-medium presents.
I ate too much chocolate and now have a sore throat. I'm not feeling my best, so that explains any lack of substance or sparkle on this post.
Lillian did a great job with the house and the cats. Pike even sits in her lap now!
Of course the stocking loophole is pretty big. We have big stockings for everyone, but there's still not enough room in them to store all the stuff that's supposed to be inside. We each probably ended up with about a cubic foot of small-to-medium presents.
I ate too much chocolate and now have a sore throat. I'm not feeling my best, so that explains any lack of substance or sparkle on this post.
Lillian did a great job with the house and the cats. Pike even sits in her lap now!
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Christmas 2005 Prep
This year, Anna and I are joining our parents (both sets!) in not exchanging Christmas presents. It's surprising how much this has reduced Christmas stress. It remains to be seen if missing out on getting and giving the loot is worth the extra relaxation.
Tonight we're getting everything ready for an early-morning departure to my parent's house in Portland, where we'll spend the next several days with Mom, Dad, sister Charis, and both of my grandmothers. The cats stay home, with Anna's Aunt Lillian in residence to watch them and the house.
Merry Christmas, everyone! See you when we return.
Tonight we're getting everything ready for an early-morning departure to my parent's house in Portland, where we'll spend the next several days with Mom, Dad, sister Charis, and both of my grandmothers. The cats stay home, with Anna's Aunt Lillian in residence to watch them and the house.
Merry Christmas, everyone! See you when we return.
Starting the journal
Monday, 19 Dec 2005 Permalink
I've started the process of moving the Ghia conversion posts from my old blog to this new site. Check it out here.
Nope, no pictures yet. Soon. (Otherwise this has been a massive waste of time.)
Nope, no pictures yet. Soon. (Otherwise this has been a massive waste of time.)
Best migraine I've ever had
I get migraine headaches from time to time. As I've gotten older, they come less frequently and with less severity. They can still ruin my day. Around puberty, they were so bad that I'm lucky I never clawed out my own eyes. It hurts to remember.
We tried a lot of different remedies over the years. The thing that worked best was to take something that made me go to sleep, where at least I wasn't conscious of the pain. These days I've got three treatments - tincture of feverfew, niacin, and good old aspirin. Feverfew and aspirin make the head stop hurting, and niacin dilates the blood vessels in the brain, counteracting the constriction that apparently causes the pain.
So this morning I started getting "migraine sign", a particular vision defect where a spot in the middle of my visual field starts to flicker. Quick like a bunny I downed the feverfew, aspirin, and two niacin capsules. This is the first time I've taken all three at once. A few minutes later, I turned bright pink and began to tingle - the niacin was working. Then the feverfew and aspirin kicked in and I got severely nauseous for a few minutes.
But then I felt fine! Well, relatively, anyway. I spent the rest of the day with the vague hollow ache that tends to linger for a day after a bad migraine, but I never really experienced this migraine.
My thanks to our chiropractor, Dr. Bonnie Spatrisano of River View Chiropractic, for suggesting the niacin. It worked a treat!
We tried a lot of different remedies over the years. The thing that worked best was to take something that made me go to sleep, where at least I wasn't conscious of the pain. These days I've got three treatments - tincture of feverfew, niacin, and good old aspirin. Feverfew and aspirin make the head stop hurting, and niacin dilates the blood vessels in the brain, counteracting the constriction that apparently causes the pain.
So this morning I started getting "migraine sign", a particular vision defect where a spot in the middle of my visual field starts to flicker. Quick like a bunny I downed the feverfew, aspirin, and two niacin capsules. This is the first time I've taken all three at once. A few minutes later, I turned bright pink and began to tingle - the niacin was working. Then the feverfew and aspirin kicked in and I got severely nauseous for a few minutes.
But then I felt fine! Well, relatively, anyway. I spent the rest of the day with the vague hollow ache that tends to linger for a day after a bad migraine, but I never really experienced this migraine.
My thanks to our chiropractor, Dr. Bonnie Spatrisano of River View Chiropractic, for suggesting the niacin. It worked a treat!
New Website
OK, my shame at leaving my previous blog untouched since May has finally driven me to fix the deficiencies that was keeping me from working on it.
I originally set it up as a place to keep a journal of my project of converting a 1971 VW Karmann Ghia to electric drive, which I started a few years ago. I wanted to post copious pictures, and therefore wanted to host it on a local machine so I didn't have to pay lots of money for disk space. I picked Blosxom as my blogging platform. Free, open source, and I could probably add picture capabilities with a bit of Perl hacking.
Then came Gmail, and everyone started offering gigabytes of storage.
Meanwhile, I just couldn't seem to find the time to sit down and program the iPhoto to Blosxom interface, but I wanted pictures, so I basically stopped posting.
Finally we began to prepare to move away from Bend, so I started looking at things to get rid of. My eyes fell upon the old lime iMac that's hosting the old blog. Hmmm - it's time to migrate to remote hosting.
Anna has a .Mac account with tons of free space, so I finally settled on RapidWeaver and started experimenting. This evening I think it's in good enough shape for public consumption.
So enjoy. Let me know if you find any bugs or have any suggestions.
I originally set it up as a place to keep a journal of my project of converting a 1971 VW Karmann Ghia to electric drive, which I started a few years ago. I wanted to post copious pictures, and therefore wanted to host it on a local machine so I didn't have to pay lots of money for disk space. I picked Blosxom as my blogging platform. Free, open source, and I could probably add picture capabilities with a bit of Perl hacking.
Then came Gmail, and everyone started offering gigabytes of storage.
Meanwhile, I just couldn't seem to find the time to sit down and program the iPhoto to Blosxom interface, but I wanted pictures, so I basically stopped posting.
Finally we began to prepare to move away from Bend, so I started looking at things to get rid of. My eyes fell upon the old lime iMac that's hosting the old blog. Hmmm - it's time to migrate to remote hosting.
Anna has a .Mac account with tons of free space, so I finally settled on RapidWeaver and started experimenting. This evening I think it's in good enough shape for public consumption.
So enjoy. Let me know if you find any bugs or have any suggestions.