Gelaed » The Blog

Old TechTV blooper; posted for the guys at work.

Video after the jump.

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This has got to be the most traumatic way ever to wash a cat. The music selection is perfect, too.

Video after the jump.

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I had an appointment today with the dentist to get fitted for two crowns. To translate that, I went to the dentist today and had two teeth ground away to nubs so that in three weeks I can go back and get some really expensive porcelain teeth installed.

Now, these two teeth have already had root canals, but they were never capped. You’re always supposed to get root canals capped because once a tooth has had its root forcibly removed, the likelihood of it snapping in half while gnawing on a gummy bear apparently skyrockets. I assumed that since these teeth had already had root canals, there would be no need for a heavy anesthetic. I assumed a topic treatment to numb the gums would be sufficient. I was, of course, wrong.

Dentists love to break out that needle. Doctors get the boring disposable plastic syringes, but the dentists wouldn’t stand for that kind of modern medical equipment. They still use the big metal syringe, with the creepy curved needle nearly two inches long. The thing is clearly designed more for its effect in inducing fear than any medical necessity. I’m sure there’s a modern plastic syringe encased inside that metal monstrosity, but they do their best to preserve that 19th century look. Every time that needle appears, I have visions of it gently sliding through the inside of my mouth, and immediately popping out the back of my jaw. I’m sure it will happen someday, when the dentist “slips”.

Once I was thoroughly numbed, the drilling started. Of course, it wasn’t drilling so much as grinding. They might as well have broken out the dremel. That horrible burnt tooth smell filled the air, and I briefly wondered if the mercury in my fillings was turning into vapor as he ground on it. I stopped worrying so much about that after I contracted Korsakoff’s syndrome and briefly contemplated a career as a hatter.

I think the highlight of the day was when the dentist managed to send a drill bit flying into my tongue. Apparently, while drilling on one of my teeth, he managed to press the back of the drill into my cheek hard enough that it released the drill bit, which promptly left the drill and became airborne, striking both my tongue and the roof of my mouth. Honestly, I was pretty relieved when I found out it was the bit, because I thought he’d just broken off a big chunk of tooth on accident.

I’d actually never realized just how much damage the gums sustain during something like this. I finally figured it out when the dentist removed his little mirror from my mouth and I saw that the back was entirely covered in my blood and what I can only assume was tooth powder. (And yes, that’s the medical term.) Later when they were making impressions of my tooth-nubs, I was left with one of the molds in my mouth for a few minutes. I happened to touch my chin and noticed that it was wet, with reddish liquid. I managed to drool a fair amount of my blood-spittle mixture down my chin.

When all that was done, they brought in a little plastic tray that they’d molded from my teeth before the grinding began (picture an Invisaline tray). They filled it with plastic goop and had me bite down on it, making one final impression. After the plastic goop hardened, they actually used it as my temporary crowns, after some trimming for fit.

I’m now the proud owner of two plastic molars.

Yesterday I actually managed to run a full 2 miles, nonstop. I even tossed in a couple of “sprints”, where I upped the pace by 1.5 mph. On the first “sprint”, I managed to do a full quarter mile, but on the second, my stomach started to cramp so I only did an eighth of a mile. Still, 2 miles nonstop is a personal best so far, at least with this latest getting healthy effort. I’ve gotten up to 2 miles in less than three weeks, so I’d say that’s going really well.

The diet is going well, too. I think I’m probably eating a little bit more since Kristen got back. We’re cooking a good bit, so I don’t have perfectly-portioned meals every night. I’m definitely still dieting, though, so I’m not too worried about it, as long as the fat keeps coming off.

That’s pretty much all I’ve got as far as getting healthy goes.

So, it looks like I’m going to be enrolling in the PhD program this semester. I’m not enrolled yet because of a stupid financial aid hold, but I should be enrolled very soon. It looks like I’ll be taking Parallel Programming and Functional Programming, both on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.

I’m actually sitting in class right now, and we’re starting momentarily. Wish me luck or whatever.

Raise your hand if you know what lanolin actually is.

I didn’t. I kind of assumed it was some sort of gentle oil, possibly from a plant. Nope. It’s wool grease. It’s a product of sheep’s sebaceous glands, which is a nice way of saying “it’s funky skin grease”.

Good to know.

People rub this stuff all over themselves in the form of lotion. I wouldn’t rub myself all over a sheep to treat my dry skin. I don’t think I’m interested in lanolin now, either.

I’ll stick with aloe vera from now on.

It turns out that dieting can cut down on food expenditures. Now that I’m eating less than I used to, I’m getting a lot more mileage out of my food. Used to, I’d eat half a frozen pizza and throw the rest away. Now I’m eating 3 slices, and saving the other 5 for later. I can get almost 3 meals out of a single frozen pizza now. For the last two slices, I can just throw in some hummus and pita. And of course, I’m not spending money on desserts or anything like that, either. I’m looking at something like three or four dollars a day for food, total.

The budget issue is totally separate from the diet issue, but I suppose it’s nice that they’ve got some synergy going. Now I just need to find a way to save money when I’m exercising.

Also, I changed the “favicon” for my website today. If you’re not viewing this via an rss aggregator, you should be able to see the new icon in your URL bar. If you can’t see it yet, it might just take your browser a while to update it. You can also view it directly if you want. Not too exciting, but there you go.

It’s kind of depressing to put together a budget, to see exactly how little discretionary money there is once all the needs and shoulds are taken care of. Once I pay my recurring bills, including double for student loans, and put away savings, I’ve got very little “junk” money left. The student loan payments (which just started a month ago) and my initial savings estimates take well over a third of my take-home pay.

The more I work on my budget, the more sure I am that I can set good goals and reach them. However, I’m also learning the difference between good goals and unrealistic goals. It’s looking like my initial savings goals are going to be a bit too far reaching. I can still save a good bit, but not as much as I’d initially hoped. Of course, the amount I can save will go up after the student loans are gone, but that will be at least 3 years, I’m pretty certain.

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I love running. That’s still the official party line. I tell myself this over and over again when I run. I say it in my head while I’m huffing from the exertion. And it seems to be helping. I ran 2 miles total tonight, including 1 straight mile with no breaks, 2 quarter miles, and 1 half mile. Counting the warmup, cooldown, and breaks in between runs, I also walked another mile, covering 3 miles total again tonight. Progress is going quite well.

The whole watching what I eat thing is going well, too, I suppose. It’s less fun to cut back on calories, but I’m convinced it’s a necessary evil. I need to lose the pudge I’ve picked up, and the fastest way to do that is to diet and exercise. It seems to be working, which is good. I’ve lost a bit of weight, and I think I’m starting to see the fat thinning. It’s too soon to really see much, though. I’ve still got a bit to lose. Hopefully in another month I’ll be pretty close to my target fitness. After that I might consider lifting weights again. One thing at a time for now, though.

So, I posted my resolutions the other day. Here’s what I’ve learned so far.

1. The bank will not cash 29 savings bonds at closing time.

   As part of my whole financial improvement resolution, I plan to cash all my savings bonds and deposit them into my recently opened money market account. I’m pretty sure that I’ll be getting better interest there than I will with the money tied up in bonds. I took them all to my bank today about 15 minutes before closing, and they basically said, “no, I’m not going to do these now.” Fair enough. I should have gotten there earlier.

2. I love running.

   That’s what I’m telling myself, at least. I was supposed to run yesterday, but didn’t, so I made myself go run today. It was the first time in a long time. Turns out that no, I’m not magically still in good shape after being sedentary for the last year. However, I did cover three full miles, including time spent both running and walking.

   Since I just started, I did a warm up, a cool down, and in between those two, I did 8 sets of a 2 minute run followed by a 2 minute walk. Next time I run, I’ll push myself a bit harder. Either I’ll shorten the walks, or increase the length of the runs, or both.

3. Skipping dinner is not an appropriate way to get in shape.

   I did that yesterday, kind of on accident. I pretty much just completely forgot about dinner until it was about 9:30, and by then it was almost bedtime. I thought about eating something, but I wasn’t actually hungry, so I figured it’d be better to just skip it than shove down a bunch of calories right before bed. Bad idea. This morning I felt terrible. My blood sugar must have completely bottomed out. I was shaky and weak. So I ate one of those breakfast bar things. It was actually pretty good, I assume primarily because I was starving. It helped a little, but not enough, so I had a snack at work. And my lunch was too big.

   Skipping dinner last night encouraged me to eat poorly all day. I ended up cutting my dinner down quite a bit to kind of restore order. But I definitely had a dinner tonight.

4. Bonus: WordPress hates me.

   WordPress simply would not let me edit this post to look the way I wanted. It kept taking my perfectly normal code and perverting it. I actually completely changed the style because WordPress was fiddling with the source even if I used the direct HTML editor. Even with all my tweaking, I had to edit this post half a dozen times to get it to display correctly. WordPress also managed to add the lovely <strong /> tag, which isn’t even a real tag (which caused it to screw up the rest of my blog).