Twev1701.net 2002-2012

My amazing weekend has continued into the wee hours of Sunday nights. It’s been such an amazing weekend that I feel words will be unable to express how awesome it really was. But alas, I will try to sit down tomorrow night with my laptop and accomplish that goal.

For now, it’s mini corndog bite time with my wife and bed in a few minutes. Back to work for us all tomorrow. ‘Night!

I just had an amazing 2 days with my family including a very retrospective evening with my son last night walking the halls of my old high school. We just back from New Jersey about 30 minutes ago, and I’m ready for bed with my wife. a post detailing everything will be forthcoming tomorrow.

Since I have been sick and unable to move, I have gotten a chance to catch up on quite a bit of media that has been sitting around on various hard drives for too long. Here’s what I’ve caught up on and my thoughts on it.

• Linkin Park: A Thousand Suns. I originally listened to this album in simple iTunes preview form after the first single was released. Back then I believe I called the album ‘pure shit’. What’s my opinion now that I have listened to the entire album from beginning to end? It’s a decent album if you you’re not interested in listening to a Linkin Park album. It’s very electronic and has a heavy tribal beat influence. It sucks as a Linkin Park album, but succeeds as an album to listen to in the background while doing work. Oh yeah, J.J. Abrams wants you to stop using his poster from Star Trek as your album cover.
• Phil Collins: Going Home. I love Phil Collins. Always have, always will. That being said, this album is a total cop-out. His first album released in 8 years is nothing more then a cover album. 2002′s ‘Testify’ was a disappointment, but to wait 8 years for cover album is just a smack in the face.
• Sting: Symphonicities. Coming off of the release of 2009′s ‘If On A Winter’s Night…’ is essentially Sting covering himself. He’s taken his hits as well as his hits from The Police, removed his band, added a symphony, and tried to pass it off as ‘new’. Sorry, this is not new. While he did manage to brilliantly re-image quite a few of his most popular songs on 2001′s ‘All This Time’, the new version of these songs are quite dull. The only standout is ‘I Burn For You’. My advice is to buy that single and leave the rest of the album.
• Dexter: Season 5. What can be said? This was one the most anxiety ridden season of Dexter to date. I won’t give away any spoilers, but you’ll be in for a shock when you see how it ends!
• Californication: Season 2. This was a ho-hum season at the start. It was really slow to get going a looked like a watered down version of the brilliant first season. It’s not until we start getting to know Lou Ashby and see what his influence can do on Hank that we really start to see this season shine.
• Californication: Season 3. This season instantly found the energy that was left of from season 2. Rolling along, we start to see what is the real problem in Hank’s life — Hank. And nothing, I mean nothing, can prepare you for the ending.

Not this time.

I have been off from work since Sunday with pneumonia. Since getting sent home on Sunday by my store manager, I have been to the doctor’s office twice, the hospital once, the pharmacy twice, and have slept a total of 16 hours. I cannot walk further then about 7 feet without getting winded, and when I start to cough, I almost pass out.

My hope is to return to work on Monday, but I have a lot of mending to do between now and then. I can live with the high fevers, congestion, and ear pressure. What I cannot deal with is not being able to breathe. Unfortunately, this is what is going to take the longest to get rid of.

I’ve been saying for a few weeks that I need a vacation. I just wish I had a week off where I was able to go do some things with my family, and not lay on the couch gasping for air. Suckage.

While I was making my last post about a great Doctor Who graphic I found, I had to stop and laugh at myself. WordPress has a great set of posting tools that allow you to effortlessly post images. Hell, you don’t even need an FTP program as it will automatically upload your image to your server.

So why did this make me laugh?

Because to this day I’m still old school. I still manually name and thumbnail all my images. I manually upload them to my server using a standalone FTP program (FileZilla for Windows, Cyberduck for OSX) and still manually put in the HTML to post said pictures. Even though the built in WordPress tools are indeed easier, I still prefer to write my own code manually so I know 100% how this picture will appear. It’s an old habit I doubt I will ever be broken of.

Found this great infographic online today. Maybe now some of friends won’t be so lost when I start talking about Doctor Who.

Click Picture For Larger Image

After weeks of ignoring my wife’s heed to go see a doctor, I finally did today. What finally pushed me to go? Two factors really. One is the fact that I cannot laugh, talk, or walk to the bathroom without gasping for a breathe. Second was when I dragged myself into work on Sunday morning only to be sent home by the store manager because I looked like ass. Personally I think my store manager and my wife are in cahoots here. Just a theory though.

So what did my brand new physician from the West Side of town think of me? Truth be told, she wants to put me in the hospital. I have a bad case of pneumonia. I am currently on a very aggressive regimen of steroids with an antibiotic, inhaler, and a cough syrup with codeine. I am on complete bed rest for the next 24hrs. I have to call their office tomorrow around noon. If I do not feel better by then, they are going to send me for a chest x-ray which may indeed lead to my being admitted into the hospital.

I had something very similar to this almost 10 years ago. Although the doctor I saw at the local clinic at that time never used the word pneumonia. The only difference between now and then was that my throat swelled to about 80% closed, limiting my food intake to soup and applesauce. That same doctor wanted to put me in the hospital but instead put me on meds and made me take a week off from work during Christmas week while working at a video games store (Electronics Boutique). Ironically, it was for similar reasons that I did not see a doctor. Back then, I was working 6 days/48hrs per week. I simply did not have time to go to a doctor until I could not stand for more than 10 minutes at a spell and hadn’t eaten solid food in days. This time, it was a combination of no time and ignorance…with maybe a little bit of ego.

I have literally been sick since the beginning of November. I have just learned to ignore it and medicate only when absolutely necessary. With that philosophy, I managed to get myself through the all important Holiday season without too much discomfort. I thought I could beat this thing.

I was wrong. My wife was right. Not the first time, and likely not the last time.

On a side note, I took the cough syrup with codeine about 2 hours ago. Other then a light headed feeling and some tingliness, I am not sleepy. Not one damn bit. Curse my body and its weird reaction to sleep inducers.

Once again, all 3 of us in the house are sick. This is really getting old. I have literally been sick since October. It seems that as soon as a new bug is brought into existence, it automatically latches onto me and begins its invasion of my body. This time, Jackson has given me his current virus. I started going downhill yesterday while out chopping up 1 inch+ of ice we have out there. By the time nightfall came, I was on the couch and down for the count. This morning I was greeting with congestion, severe coughing (accompanied by lovely wheezing), body aches, and a nice sore throat. Lovely….

Back to a nicer subject, I did end up getting that snow day I had been so hoping for. I have to call off from work no later than 2 hours before my shift begins. On Tuesday, I was closing, which meant I was to be in at 1pm. By 11am, our alley had still not been touched and the highway was nothing short of a disaster. Not wanting to either crash my car or die, I opted to stay home. This was fantabulous since Jess and Jack were home, and I was off Wednesday and Thursday.

Today is sadly my last day off this week and I am spending it sick as a dog. I actually had such high ambitions for today, but alas, they are not to be. On the brighter note, at least I didn’t have to take a day off from work because of illness. That should count for something, right?

Right now I am off to write an article for Growing Up Geek and relax some more. Hopefully in a few days with some heavy medication I will be well enough to be infected with a brand new bug!