Saturday, October 31, 2015

Flight cancelled to Gulfport.




Steve Randahl
www.shrandahl.com
847-769-6285

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Friday, October 30, 2015

Tomorrow–Bay St. Louis . . .

Tomorrow, actually today, we head to Bay St. Louis, MS to visit some friends for a few days.  Hopefully it’s warmer down on the Mississippi gulf coast.  It’s 48° here.  Colder than I want it.  ■  I’ll try and do some blog postings while we’re down there.  ■  Think warm weather and sunny skies.  ■  TFB.

Thursday, October 29, 2015

Another yucky weather day . . . . .

Yup, it’s 42 degrees out, overcast and just plain yucky.  ■   Went to feed Abby this morning and she wouldn’t eat.  No Zoe to keep her company eating.  I laid down on the floor by her bowl and she just nestled into me.  Wasn’t interesting in eating.  Wasn’t interested in going outside.  She’s depressed and my eyes still have tears pop up now and then.  ■  I’m going to take Abby to the bank with me in a little bit.  We have to get some papers notarized, so I’ll take her inside with me.  ■  And the tissue paper is still on the floor….

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Zoe: Aug, 1999 – Oct, 2015

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Zoe, sweet Zoe.  I can’t believe you’re gone.  At night you’d use your head to poke my office door open, stick your head in looking at me until I opened the door and let you in.  Then it was the stare-down until I caved in and gave you the dog biscuit you desired.  After that you’d turn in circles for some time until you finally curled up on the floor.  This was our quality time.  Just the two of us together – our hour of quiet companionship.  You’re with me and I’m with you.  As I look around at my office floor I see a piece of Kleenex that you dug out of the waste basket.  Couldn’t keep your nose out of the garbage.  I think I’ll leave that paper there for awhile.  I’m not in any hurry to pick it up.  I remember that you used to sleep with us every night on the bed – until your poor back legs wouldn’t let you hop up anymore.  After that you slept on the floor on one side or another.  I can remember dropping my hand down from the bed and feeling you curled up on the floor.  You always wanted to be close to people.  Always wanted to please.  Oh, Zoe, I miss you.  This has hit me much harder than I ever thought it would. 

Friday, October 23, 2015

Out of breath . . .

Any exertion tends to put me (is that right) out of breath.  Walking up one flight of stairs – two is a killer.  ■  Rain today.  Maybe tomorrow we’ll be able to cut the grass.  It needs it as well as mulching up the leaves.  No more raking.  ■  Watched The Godfather tonight with my son Aaron.  Great movie.  Godfather Part II is on now, but not for either of us.  It’s time for bed.  ■

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

I’m still livin’

3 doctor appointments – dropped two meds, although one is being replaced with another one, cut the dosage in half with another one – endocrinologist’s meds.  Cardiologist appointment – ok, except they doubled the dosage on the new med they prescribed a few weeks ago.  Have another cardiologist appointment in 3 weeks.  ■  As it stands right now 102115_001the Cubs are losing 6 to 1.  Let’s go Cubs!  ■  I’ve got the drawing paper on my board right now (actually have had for a couple of days) that I need to not only start, but finish and ship to the customer.  It’s a beautiful home.  I hope I can do it justice.  ■  Time for bed.  ‘Night.  ■

3 Drs Appts – 1 down, 2 to go . . .

Had my appointment with my endocrinologist.  Is taking me off of one med, changing one med, and halving the dosage on another med.  That’s good news!  ■  Next appointment is to get my defibrillator/pacemaker read and checked.  The final appointment is for the eye doctor to check my eyes.  ■   Wish me luck on the last two appointments.  ■  And the fingers on both of my hands are moving by themselves.  I though maybe that was due to my not taking one of my hearts meds in a mixup.  But I’ve been back on the missing med for awhile now.  ■  Got to go.

Friday, October 16, 2015

Heart pain?

For the last hour, or so I’ve been having little, sharp pains mostly underneath my left breast.  My first thought minor heart attack.  I don’t think so, but I don’t know.  I went to bed with them, but got back up.  Pains have disappeared right now.  If they start again I think we’ll go to the emergency room.  As you age it seem you get pain in different areas and then it goes away.  ■ ■ ■  Ok, I went back to bed with no pains and slept until 10:45 am.  Now I’ve got to go and try and get blood drawn for my appointment with my endcrinologist  next week. ■

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Cubs win and fall is here . . . . . .

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That’s Abby deciding if she should come in from the outside.  Looks like she’s giving it a second thought.  The other picture is the view from our patio.  Those couple of trees are some of the first to start turning.  Very pretty.  ■  Bought a 12 watt charger for my iphone.  It’s purported to charge the iphone/ipad much faster than their normal charger.  I tried it last night and it did seem much quicker.  My iphone’s battery is down to 58% at 7:27 pm.  I’ll check it in a bit to see how it’s doing.  Patience.  ■  The Cubs won tonight so now they advance towards the World Series.  Could this be the year?  ■ 

iPhone charging:

58% @ 7:27 pm    ---    84% @ 7:55pm    ---    94% @ 8:14 pm

Went downstairs for awhile and when I came back up it was 100% charged, but I don’t know when it actually hit 100%.  Not exactly scientific, but I think it’s definitely faster that the old charger.  ■   TFB.  ‘Night.  ■

Monday, October 12, 2015

A quick neighborhood pic . . .

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Just a quick pic for Roxanne and Bob.  I’ll try and remember to take more neighborhood pictures in the next few weeks.  ■  TFB. ■

Saturday, October 10, 2015

Turkey breast . . . can’t be beat . . .

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Delicious.  6.7 lbs done on a Weber charcoal grill in indirect heat; smoked with hickory wood chips.  Tender and moist and most definitely delicious.  ■  Tomorrow (Sunday) is supposed to be a nice day.  A Warm and sunny 78°.  Got to get the hose disconnected and the grass cut.  ■  I should take some pictures of the neighborhood before the leaves turn (some have started turning) and then when they’ve turned.  Gotta remember to do that.  ■

Friday, October 9, 2015

Recent visitors to my Pen & Ink website

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Always fun to see where people live that look at my Pen & Ink website.  Most of them are in the US, but there are a few from different places in the world.

Update . . .

My fingers/hands are definitely shaking.  Went to the cardiologist’s office today to have my pacemaker/defibrillator checked.  The doctor had prescribed a new blood  pressure med for me a couple of weeks ago.  I thought that it replaced the current blood pressure med I had been taking for quite some time  - so I stopped taking that one.  It turns out that it was a blood pressure med that I should take in-addition-to my regular blood pressure med.  By stopped that med I probably sent my blood pressure up and that’s when the defibrillator kicked in.  I’m now easing back into the old med.  Let’s hope that’s the cause of the shaking.  ■

Saturday, October 3, 2015

The Fire is On . . . . .

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It’s officially fall – the fireplace is on.  That’s Holly sitting in her chair watching the Notre Dame/Clemson game.  ■  Did some pork on the grill.  Slowly smoked it, and it was delicious.  As usual.  ■  Went to the guitar store that I used to work at to add some more weeks to a spreadsheet that the owner uses to track his daily sales.  He used to use Excel, but now has a Mac and uses Apple’s Numbers spreadsheet to track the information.  I started using spreadsheets back when Visicalc came out.  Then onto Appleworks; a DEC Vax spreadsheet; then Lotus 1-2-3; Javelin; and finally Excel as Excel pretty much became the industry standard.  Apple’s spreadsheet doesn’t seem to follow any of the common spreadsheet conventions.  Ok, that’s not true, but it seems Apple had to simply do something different so differentiate their product from standards.  What a mess.  ■■  In adding rows to the spreadsheet and trying to format dates correctly I saw that my hands weren’t steady.  My fingers now have movements of their own.  Just holding up my hands I can see my fingers move – without me moving them.  Just one more thing to add to health issues.  ■  Ok, it’s time for bed.  ‘Night.  ■