About Doc

Just an old guy trying new things.

Well, That Was Interesting

I quit eating cereal (mostly Honey-Nut Cheerios or Frosted Shredded Wheat) and as much sugar as I was willing to let go last year and switched to having bacon & eggs for breakfast every day. Went from almost 260 lbs to 220 lbs in about 6 months.

So, last Thursday SWMBO and I went shopping at COSTCO ($130!!!) and WinCo, and I thought to get a couple of those single serving containers of Honey-Nut Cheerios (I don’t know why). Convenience? Laziness (cause I cook breakfast 99.9% of the time)?

Then, Saturday morning, usually a batch-it day cause SWMBO works the Genealogy Library and gets “something” on the way in, I had one of the containers for my breakfast.

I was NOT impressed. WAY too sweet. Mouth crinkling sweet. Got it all down and still felt hungry. Twenty minutes later I still felt hungry and wound up making some bacon & eggs anyway.

I’m ruined for cereal.

We actually did “date day” last Thursday. I managed to walk around COSTCO and mostly around WinCo before having to find a place to rest my leg a moment. Still aches a lot from the exercises I do all the time and our morning 1/2 mile walk. But I’ll get over it. At least I can now prop my left leg over my right knee to put socks on. Hurts, but I can do it.

Otherwise, not much going on.

Oh, Wx was REALLY nice yesterday so I got out on the tractor and turned the gravel on the upper driveway, dug out the bushes and small trees I wanted out of the “front” yard. Cleared some of the winter damage to the path around the back of our property.

Then the Dog and I took off all our clothes and just laid out in the sun for awhile. Take That Shiny White Ass Blinding All Your Satellites, NASA!

Today was nicer but I got busy doing Freeze Dryer stuff between getting X-Plane12 and MS Flight Sim up and running the way I want them to run. Lots of time downloading all my X-Plane 12 compatible stuff I’d already bought. And, of course, I HAD to load a flight (or two) to make sure it all worked. Everything worked pretty good until I tried loading the scenery files for the Grand Canyon West Rim that I bought last year. This computer just won’t handle it. CPU fan ramps up to about 90000k revolutions and sounds like an actual prop engine running out of control. Almost expected smoke …

So, I need a bigger computer to really run these right.

Damn.

Thinking Of Identifying As A 71 Year Old Lesbian Stuck In A Male Body. Any Government Money In That?

So, what the Hell have I been doing these past few weeks since that total knee replacement?

Not too much. Learning to walk in a straight line again. Learning NOT to limp because I think it might (will ) hurt when I take a step.

Which is the hard part really since I’ve been limping for over 5 years. My old knee hurt all the time and I limped all the time. Don’t have to do that now. Even if all the surrounding muscles & tendons are still sore (surgery was only 4 weeks ago) my actual knee doesn’t hurt and  I’m getting better. Goes way easier when I concentrate and step on my left heel and roll my foot like we’re supposed to. Things hurt more if I walk “flat footed.”

PT ain’t getting no easier. Decided not to use that “tens” unit anymore since the next day whatever part they use it on feels like the muscle has died. Really painful. Keeps me from doing anything. Including sleeping.

I’d kill for a good nights sleep. I don’t know if it’s the surgery aftermath or just getting old but I’ve been having to get up and go pee about every 80 minutes all damned night since I got home from surgery. I’m Fookin’ Tired. Damned Daylight Savings Time threw me for a curve too. Still haven’t adjusted to that. We need to stop that insanity yesterday.

Getting back into my daily walks with the Dog and he’s pretty happy about that. Making it up the first hill is a bitch but we do it. So far, we’ve gotten about 3/4 mile in before having to call it quits. My neighbor that’s about 3/10 a mile up the road gets on my case about over doing things when he see’s me. But, if I don’t “over do” it to some degree it’ll never get better. I got Canyon Lands to see! Can’t do that sitting in the truck.

Been raining like crazy off and on for the past week so even getting out for a walk is problematic at times. I just don’t feel like getting out in it anymore. Was fun when I was with the Grunts but that was 30+ years ago! Was going to burn trash today but it was way too windy (and freakin’ cold!) so that’s for another day.

Also reclaiming most of the “chores” around the house that I do. Oh, the joy. Not. But they gotta be done. Worked my way downstairs for a walk about of the Father In Law Apt just to check how things are holding up and that there are no leaks or animals that have moved in.

New computer and video card are working within their limits but still giving fairly good performance in MS Flight Simulator & X-Plane 12. About medium graphics for the former and a bit better for the latter. Which is ok for these 71 year old eyes. Still working on getting VR to work correctly (I can see things on my monitor but not in the Oculus) but that’ll happen. One day I’ll click the right button in the right order and it’ll work!

Running chopped onions and sliced mushrooms through the Freeze Dryer with a 10-lb burger load next. Took a selection of “stuff” to the PT folks and now they’re talking about buying freeze dryers for themselves. I should become a salesman for the Harvest Right folks! I’ve already sold 3-4 freeze dryers for them.

My Data Drive is starting to act “funny,” making a start up sound when accessed (which it never did before) and taking seconds to read/save things. So I’ve been making backups of my data daily. Bought a 12 TB replacement drive, which should be here tomorrow, but am thinking of using one of my 5 TB backup drives instead. We’ll see.

Mixed together a can of V8, some pork rub, salt, pepper and poured it over a couple of pork chops in the Instant Pot and let that cook for 30 minutes for dinner tonight. Added some baked beans (for me), rice (for SWMBO mostly) and reconstituted peas & mushrooms. I should have seared the chops before putting them in the Instant Pot but it really didn’t turn out too bad. Pork Chops fell apart if you just looked at them. SWMBO says it’s a keeper.

We have a “MacDonald’s” clause in our house. If either of us makes a dinner that’s so bad or inedible for any reason we can look at the other person and say “MacDonald’s” with no bad feelings. And off we go. So far, we’ve used this only once. And went to El Sombrero’s instead.

So, another exciting post from the worlds most boring blog.