Much better. Day two is always harder though.  Harder to stay awake.  Material is usually harder, as Day One is used to intro everything, Day Two comes on strong.  Day Three will generally wind down fairly quickly.  Todays schedule was until 7:50p, I’d be a bit over-saturated by then, so I skipped the Ask the Panel of Experts.  Since not many of you want to hear about programming languages and techniques, I’ll spare you and mention the things that might interest you: food.  It’s been lacking a bit.  The conference price ($1,500) includes breakfast and lunch.  Day One was a muffin for breakfast, and a wrap for lunch (no chips!?). And that mid morning snack, leftover breakfast does not count people. Today was a bagel… and blown circuits so no toasters.  Lunch, chinese.  Now I can find a few things to eat on a buffet, but this was slim pickings (for a meat and potatoes guy like me).  I really shouldn’t complain, I’ve ate well at supper time. One more day. I need to leave a few minutes early tomorrow to make sure I catch my train.

BTW, I didn’t eat all of this.

 

What is some of that stuff?

OK, not overly exciting today, or I should say, no time to write any of the code.  Mostly Keynotes and Javascript framework introductions.  Tomorrow should bring more opportunity to write some code and watch things happen.  Until then, all I have to show from today is a bad hair cut (a $40 bad hair cut)… really a desperate attempt to advertise your Javascript Library.  In this case, because I feel bad that BOTH of the guys had their heads shaved, it says JAVASCRIPT MVC.  There, I plugged it.  I don’t know what it is just yet, but I’ll look it up when I have some time.

 

It draws even MORE attention to that neck pimple.

Boston.  I caught a train today to Boston.  Drove to Portland and jumped on the Amtrak 696 to Boston.  I was going to go to San Francisco in November for the Adobe conference, but changed my mind two weeks ago.  I opted for the Boston Ajax Experience conference, more coding… more black tee shirts and jeans.

 

Amtrak Station

So five years ago today I was in a wedding.  The best man no less.  My best man got married (Cue music: So happy together…) and he gave me what ever best man (in Maine) should get.  A knife.  Or some variation of, a knife.  He gave me a Leatherman Juice CS4.  Sweet.  I carried pretty much every day for these past five years. Until, I lost it.  The day I bought the pellet stove, it disappeared.  I was bummed.  I was pretty sure it must have fallen out when I was in the store driveway in Massachusetts and I’d never see it again.  I looked about everywhere (obviously not) and it was gone.  Just a few weeks ago I gave up on it ever returning and went to LL Beans to get a new multi-tool.  I opted for the smaller Micro and its done well in the last three weeks.  Well, the pellet stove was put in yesterday, and I was cleaning out a clothes basket by my bed, when, I found it! (Cue music: So happy together…).  Five years to the day… weird! Lost on the day I bought the stove, found on the day (after) I installed the stove… weird! (OK, not so much) And yes, the basket “my second bureau” has been by my bed that whole time. So… now I have two!

 

Micro and CS4 Leatherman's on the book I'm currently reading.

I’ve vented. (Thanks Father).  It was a bit more of a job than I guestimated.  It was about 2 hours and I thought it would take about 1 hour, which is about right for me… under estimating by half.  But it’s in, and we’re all excited to see how well it works.  It does work.  We immediately started it up (turned the thermostat up).  The first burn had some smell, but that has dissipated now.  There were a few (5-6lbs?) of pellets left in it from the store, and I went through those and added a bag of hardwood pellets.  I’ll report back my findings on the hardwood vs. softwood debate.  I have a ton of each right now. I hope to get to burn several bags of each before I make pick up my next two ton.  So, without further ado, my pellet stove in action. (maybe I’ll post the video later)

 

Things are heating up in here.

No, not the get it off my chest type of venting.  And no, not the guys and that special beer can kind of vent. This is back on the Pellet Stove project.  It’s time to vent.  It’s not a chimney, it’s a vent.  Because the air is being forced through the pipe I suppose is why it’s venting (think dryer).  Anywho, I made it down to Ellsworth (BEWARE OF THE FINEST HEATH HEARTH AND HOME IN BANGOR!) to purchase vent.  Online it was going to be about $400, they walked me through the connections and sold me some quality stuff for $600. (That’s a lot of pellets!).  Note the o-ring seals in the left photo, this gives an airtight seal without messy silicone and allows you to take it apart occasionally to clean it.

I wanted the “special” vent that allows you to burn corn and other organic fuel, in the event the pellets are hard to come by, so that costs a bit more also.  But it’s onsite, so now I just need to hook it up! Father?

 

Before and after paint, Pellet Vent.

The last round of tests all came back negative.  Good, right?  This is the story of my “sick” life.  I’m never real sick (thankfully), but they never find anything wrong with me when I feel sick, ever.  Maybe I’m just sensitive?! Oh well, back to the Dr. office Friday to talk it over.  Anyone want to take a guess?  It’ll be as good as anyone else’s at this point.  Come on, play along… guess the illness, get a 1,000 points!

 

Taking more blood, but finding nothing

So anytime I feel miserable for any length of time, I juice carrots, it seems to help me rebound.  Several years ago I went on a vegetarian-like diet and one of the big components of it was to drink carrot juice daily.  I used to juice about 20 pounds of carrots a week.  It takes about 2 pounds of carrots to get 10 oz of juice.  It’s a lot of work, but it’s cheaper than Brain Toniq!  Since my liver is showing some “off” numbers, I thought some Vitamin A couldn’t hurt.  So, bottoms up, to my health.

 

Five Pounds of Carrots, liquid form. It tastes great!

Slowly but surely, I eked my way to 6,000 miles on the bike.  I’m still 400 miles short of 4,000 this summer, and I’m not sure I’ll make it.  I’m been too weak/tired to ride during this “sickness” which has been a pain, because we’ve had some decent weather.  I rolled 55 miles onto the bike Saturday and then Jess and I went another 65 on Sunday to visit some friends.  I was wiped at the end of it, but it lifted my spirits.  So here’s my 6K shot, I think it’s fitting that the TRIP shows 83 (Boulevard S83!? never-mind).

 

Six Thousand Miles of Smiles

Poke, prod, stick.  From all angles.  What have we learned?  Not a whole lot.  With my liver enzymes low, they wanted to do an Ultrasound on my liver/gall bladder.  So off I went to the hospital again for another test.  Surprisingly enough, I was told on the spot that the preliminary “report” looked good. A more complete report would be sent to the clinic and relayed to me.  All that actually came back in the same day. I believe the test was labeled STAT (latin word statim; immediately).  So my liver is cleared of any tumors and my gall bladder from any stones.  What’s next?  More blood work of course.

 

Ultrasound of Liver