The First Nine Months Were Great

A lot has been happening in my life, so I had to check out of the blogging scene for a while.

Highlights

1. ATTACK. I had my second (or third) "official" M.S. attack, which left part of my face paralyzed, and made eating solid food nearly impossible. I have dozens of mini-events similar to this every month, so I don't generally make a big deal of it. But this attack was particularly unnerving.

I use a lot of subtle facial cues when I speak (as if you couldn't fathom that from my style-of-writing), so I was having a real problem communicating-in-person. The defining moment was when my Dad made a joke about my slurred speech: a joke I didn't really appreciate (I used the term Corpus Callosum in a sentence, and he asked: "Can you say that in a public place?" It might have been funny, had I not been trying so hard to enunciate the words correctly--in a public place).

My neurologist, on the other hand, found the problem serious enough to order five days of treatment with Solu-Medrol (an intravenous steroid solution that reduces inflammation in the brain). This development really made my Dad feel bad, so I spent a few hours this last week reassuring him that he didn't have to torture himself over an innocent joke that collosally backfired. Thankfully all is well between us again, though I'm certain he'll be more gaurded about his jokes in the future.

2. INDEPENDENCE. Most Americans spend their Independence Day holiday drinking cheap beer and lighting off expensive fireworks. Under ordinary circumstances, I'd have done the same thing. But this year I did something far more important: I fixed my computer.

No, it didn't explode. But it was sure feeling out of sorts.

Generally I'd just fix this sort of thing myself, but the attack I cited earlier really kludged my hands. Fortunately my game-server counterpart was kind enough to donate a pair of tech-ready hands to the task, and we were up and running after only 5 days.

Sounds extreme, I know, but the problem really was complicated. First a worm, then a disk overload, then some question about the wherabouts of my fully-licensed software: I didn't go in with very high expectations.

But let this be a lesson to you kids: Years ago I helped my friend learn how to run game servers, and, sure enough, he helped ME when the chips were down.

The price was high, but the payback was worth it. I upgraded my machine to a 2.6 gig processor and integrated a new power-supply into the setup.

Now things are running PIMP-SILKY-SMOOTH.

3. ATTACK II, THE HERETIC. OMG. This month's SECOND M.S. attack turned out being worse than the first!

Not only did I suffer facial paralysis again, but my eyes went completely skewed. Oh well, I didn't really need them anyway.