good evening.
It's been a while since I've written anything here.
My jaw is back to normal... on its own. and my elbow-nerve thing is close enough to normal that it doesn't annoy me. I did go to the doctor and talk to him about it. He checked it out somewhat and told me it was probably bruised. His advice was to take a couple of tablets of Aleve (anti inflamatory) twice a day. I don't know how much it helped but I did it until I ran out of pills. That means I did that for around 13 days.

Last Sunday I went water skiing. I wasn't very successful. It's been said that it takes most people around 5 attempts before they get up. I only attempted it 4 times. I was somewhat surprised I wasn't successful. I expected to do better. I'm out of shape so it was kind of tiring and somehow along the way I hurt my ankle. It doesn't hurt often and the pain is fairly mild. It's been about three days and I can still feel that something isn't right. Also, my ankle is swollen and there is a bruise there now. I don't know if it's some kind of sprain or a chipped bone or something. It doesn't bother me too much. I guess it's a good thing that I didn't go on with trying to water ski. Maybe it'd be worse.

Kara, do you have a boyfriend?

ah well, good night
Dana

A few websites that have stuff that makes me laugh or at least chuckle inside... except for the pangs of empathy for embarassing moments and broken bones.

stupidvideos.com
Engrish.com!
www.jedimaster.net


And on a completely unrelated topic. I woke up today (well, yesterday) and my jaw was back in its proper place. yay. I just hope it stays.

I know one of the stated goals of this blog is to not whine too much. Right now though, I'd like to say that I'm pretty annoyed with my misaligned jaw and my pinched nerve. My left arm still bothers me and the joint is aching, but maybe that's because I've been working more the last couple of days. For me work is sitting at a computer, pushing a mouse around with my right hand and pressing keys with my left hand. My name is Dana Burman and I manage pixels for a living.

I don't like bending my left elbow too much, or moving it too fast or straining it in any way. Basically I've been treating the same way I treat it right after giving blood. The nerve (I think) at the elbow is still sensitive. I can cause that little jolt by tapping it fairly lightly with my fingers. My right elbow isn't nearly as sensitive. I wonder if the nerve could be out of place. I'd think the pain would be much worse than it is if it were more serious.

As for my jaw... It'd be nice to be able to bite down and feel my molars touching. It's gotten to the point where it hurts a bit too much to try to force it into place. I'm also limited in how wide I can open my mouth. I have a DRs appt on Tues. Hopefully I'll be able to get back to normal soon.

On another note:
I've been tuning in to SomaFM.com's Groove Salad and Secret Agent internet radio stations fairly frequently. Nice stuff to work to. :)

I should be sleeping now.

Maybe you should be too.

'ello mates.

After consulting with webmd.com I self-diagnosed myself as having a pinched nerve in my left arm, possibly of the "Cubital tunnel syndrome" variety. Last week I vaguely remember banging my elbow on something. I still have a constant tingly, numb sensation primarily in my hand, mostly in the 4th and 5th fingers. The sensation increases sometimes with sudden movements, if my elbow is bent 90 degrees for a while and/or when I press it or rest it on something (like the window sill of my car). It doesn't really hurt, but it's uncomfortable and I definately don't want to have to live with it. If it doesn't clear up by Monday I'll have to schedule an appointment with a doctor. I hope it isn't something silly like a tumor.

I also looked up info on TMD, a disorder of the jaw joint. Mine's been out of whack for about a week now. My lower jaw is further forward than it should be. If I want it to be in it's proper position I have to pull it backwards and bite down several times. Eventually it's goes back into position. I've had this problem before. It usually happens a few times a year and it usually just goes away. This time, however, when I force it into position it seems to be putting pressure on my right ear somehow. I have to choose between a misaligned jaw or an earache. Yup, need to consult the doctor about that too. TMD is an umbrella term for a variety of jaw related problems. It may be caused by something simple like stress or bad posture. They don't know what causes it. Hopefully it'll go away soon and not get worse.

yay, that's the Dana health update
I hope you're feeling better than my left arm and jaw.

g'day
Dana

Now is one of those times I flirt with the idea of starting another blog, an annonymous blog. A blog where I can say exactly what I'm thinking (or more likely what I'm feeling) without worrying about people I know reading it. I'd use the blog to vent about people or confess stuff that's on my mind... basically, it'd be a public journal where the writer is unknown.

Things aren't that bad right now. I'm just annoyed by a thing or two. In addition to those annoyances I get annoyed with myself for being annoyed and for allowing the situation to develop in the first place.

Part of the reason I'm feeling a bit down is that I'm tired. I have a greater tendency to be blue when I'm tired. Also, I don't like losing and I lost a game of hearts. I wasn't trying too hard, but I still don't like to lose. I was tired then too. Thinking is slow. sleep good.

Now is one of those times I wish I had a soul mate of some sort. Preferably of the 'wife' variety, not that I'm ready for that. But who is?

yeah, tired. me tired.

Oh yeah, I should mention the outcome of my car adventures.
I got it fixed and it only cost around $1,450.00. I am owed around $2000-$2300 for the Brad Stine video I worked on, but I was hoping to do something else with that $$$. I guess operation debt reduction gets set back again. Operation save-money-for-this-years-taxes still hasn't gotten off the ground yet.

My car is in the shop. I'm borrowing a car from my sister who happens to live near by. I'm very fortunate to have family around. I'm sure I could get friends to give me a lift to and from work, but having my own set of wheels is better.

I really don't have anything I want to say right now. The other day I did but I don't remember what that was. Well, I have to go to bed. I'm trying to get to work before 8am because some of the staff is on vacation this week.

Hey there ya'll.

Well, Cornerstone was fun and enlightening as usual. I had an absolutely wonderful time in 1998, but this year wasn't so bad either. Attendance was down this year, though. Also, a guy drowned in the lake, which, of course, isn't cool. I didn't really get into any of the seminars this year. I when to a bunch of them but none of them really gripped me. There was one that could've been challenging but I figured I'd just read the book... as soon as I buy it.

I saw an old class mate of mine, a guy I know from here but didn't totally realize it was him until it was too late and a nephew of mine at the fest. That was pretty cool. I don't really talk to much of my family enough.

We were planning on leaving Sunday morning but a storm was rolling in Saturday night. We decided to hit the road then. Of course, by the time we had packed up the storm had subsided. We hit the road anyway. We almost hit a deer. I managed to miss it and retain control of the car. I drove a little ways and then made a U-turn. Usually deer don't lay in the road so I figured someone else had hit it before me. I didn't want anyone else to hit it like I nearly had so I went back and pulled it off the road. I then phoned it into the police. I hope they got enough of the message to act on. My cell phone was acting flaky out there in Illinois. I'd have a full signal and then lose signal a few seconds into the session. Anyway, things went smoothly on the ride home until the air conditioner in my car broke (in Kentucky). Even after that things were going okay(except for the sound of scraping metal) until we stopped in West Virginia and the belt broke. That was around 5pm? I called AAA and they took us to a garage. They looked at it and said they'd get to it in the morning, the car wasn't designed to have the AC compressor bypassed. They were going to replace it.

I rented a room a Motel 6. One room two beds... I probably should've spent the extra $50 and got separate rooms. We were pretty exhausted from long days in the heat and dust and staying up and driving the night before. My friend went to sleep right away. I took a shower and watched an old Doris Day movie on TV. The next day I called the garage and they still hadn't gotten to the car. The garage never called me, I had to call them a few times throughout the day. They looked up the car and found there were 3 different compressors used on my car. They had to pull off the broken one in order to see which one they needed to replace it with. They said the broken one they pulled off didn't have a part number or something on it so they couldn't order the replacement. They put it back together and put a shorter belt on it bypassing the AC compressor. They reassured me greatly when they said, "the book says it can't be bypassed but my eyes tell me it can." It got me home, but I payed them ~$170 (in cash... they don't accept credit cards) and it still needs to be fixed. I finally got home Monday night around 8pm.

Oh, and I had to totally switch my website over when I got back home. super. I'm still not in love. great.

Okay, I decided to go to Cornerstone and go to the beach for a day or two. At work we record classes for Liberty University's Distance Learning Program. They scheduled a class for us to tape that week and neglected to tell us. It's possible that I won't get to go to the beach at all because there already are 2 people from my dept. going. We'll see.

I thought about posting a rant about Apple Computers, or at least about the hype surrounding their new G5's and a few technical issues relating to it. I'm sure it's a decent machine and a huge step up from the aging G4 line, but their hype just goes too far. Yeah, I thought about ranting about that, but I've already done that elsewhere. Other people have done so as well. I do hope it's 3/4ths as good as they say it is. I remember the announcement of the PowerPC based MAC that was suppose to revolutionize the world, and who can forget that the G4 is a supercomputer on a chip. Now the dual G5 is the "fastest personal computer" and the "first 64-bit personal computer"... a "personal computer" that costs as much as (if not more than) an AMD opteron workstation/server computer that's 64-bit and actually shipping. Oops. Ranting... I didn't mean to do that. Sorry.

It's a dumb thing to get worked up about. I just don't think it's nearly as revolutionary as they make it seem. Truth: Who needs it?

This is shaping up to be a busy weekend. A friend of mine is getting married in SC. There's a small group of us going down tomorrow. I'd like to avoid spending money on a Hotel room, but if we don't spend the night somewhere, we won't be getting back here until the wee hours of the morning... Bummer. Then Monday I get to drive 15 hours to IL. yay.

I'm now definitely leaning away from going to Cornerstone this year (http://cornerstonefestival.com). What changed my mind? Umm... I guess a sense of loyalty to my friends. A group of them are going to Myrtle Beach, SC the third week of July and. If I go to c-stone, I don't think I can do both unless I want to use up all my vacation time for the whole year halfway through it. If I go to c-stone it'll be like saying I'd rather spend a week alone with strangers than a week with friends. There's the possibility that the beach trip will be cheaper than a c-stone trip and was very important earlier this week when I thought I had overdrawn my bank account. It's cool now. Of course if, at the beach, we rent jetski's or go parasailing or something the cost for that trip will go up. I do know a girl who's going to c-stone so there's a possibility of splitting fuel costs. If we went together it wouldn't be so lonely of a drive, but I'd probably have to stop more. Plus, she wants to go on Monday and I'd prefer to leave on Tuesday. Tuesday is Tooth and Nail Day and I'm not a fan of a lot of the bands on that label so I'd be pretty bored. I guess I could read all day or something. Patti is working for a label at the fest so she may NEED to be there then.

It's perhaps a negative quirk of my personality that I kind of like long drives alone... or just being alone in general. OTOH there are a lot of times that I wish I had a girlfriend or wife just so I'd have someone to share experiences with. That happened a lot when I lived in Lititz, PA. I lived on Main St which is an old (by American standards) section of the country. The town was founded in the 1700's. I lived a few doors down from the site of the first pretzel bakery in the US. There are antique shops and art galleries (and a couple of pizza places) lining the street. On one of the corners is a restaurant/Inn that was founded by General Sutter in his later years, after he left his home in California. I little thing known as the California Gold Rush caused him some grief. His home being the point of the outbreak of gold fever. I'd go for walks down the streets in that section of town when the weather was nice. It was very relaxing and enjoyable but I always felt like something was missing. I had no one to enjoy it with. sigh.

I wonder if I could do both the c-stone and beach trips. I'd have to save up money to cover time off from work without pay (or work extra days). I'm just not totally psyched up for either trip. The beach is much easier to get to but c-stone holds one of my favorite things in life... sitting under the stars on a warm summer night listening to Over the Rhine play their beautiful music. Most (if not all) of my favorite musicians play there and there's a ton of good seminars, and discussions and esoteric films and art and interesting people. All of that and the sweet but sad melancholy of seeing all that beauty and not having anyone to share it with. *sigh*

If I get bored in SC I guess I could visit my brother in Greenville. It might be a long drive, but probably shorter than leaving from here. Nah, I looked it up. It's a 4.5 hour drive... 1 hour less than from here (Lynchburg VA).

Good night.

http://cornerstonefestival.com
http://toothandnail.com
http://overtherhine.com