3/01/07

It's been a slow progression. I'm waking up a little earlier each day, which makes me fall asleep a little earlier, which.... Today I woke up a little before 4am. As "bad" days go this was a pretty good one. I was dizzy, and while there was pain in arms it was from my rabid attack of punching bag a few days ago to save myself from destroying very annoying computer equipment I could not afford to replace. While I could barely walk, once sitting I was functional. Unfortunately I had both Massage Therapy and MRI testing scheduled for today. I also had an order to ship to required designing four labels and making four runs. As I was up at 4, my trusty cane at my side, designing the labels and having the runs well underway were accomplished by six o'clock and was able to watch some TV and have some breakfast.

About an hour before I had to leave, I decided to move BitTorrant off the main computer and over to one of the largely unused computers. Unfortunately, this computer had been on by unused since my mother had last used it during her stay. Everything wanted to upgraded, updated or replaced and I wasn't even close to that when I had to leave.

Vanity still prevented me from bringing the "grandma cane" out in public and I slowly wobbled to the car, wishing I had made time to drive the 40 minutes to the truck stop that Mary K had told me about where I could replace the cane that had shattered at Megacon. Massage Therapy was not as painful as I expecting it to be. The arms screamed as expected, the thumb pads harbored the most pain, but the rest of me did not put up too much of a complaint at being poked and prodded.

As mentioned previously I am bartering for every other massage session by building a website for her. By stealing most of the look and feel of the JennyVision site, I've been able to get here site up and about half completed on an hour of work to hour of massage basis. I'm a couple of hours ahead of "payment" but that's good given my unreliability. The site is www.atouch4health.com. Well today she is hawking this product that a friend invented that she has mentioned in the past, but I guess is finally at the packaged and ready stage. It's actually a cool idea. It's pet collar with a tracking chip, so you can get on a website and find out exactly where your pet is. It also glows in the dark. It's less than $30 for the collar and the service is only $10 per year. This sounds like a winning product to me. Well Linda wants me to build the site. That will be seven websites I am building (admittedly three of them are mine, but that is where the bulk of my time goes) which seems a bit much for someone who is slowly losing the grasp of how to build these things.

After therapy, I return home and take the scalding hot shower that supposedly flushes up the toxins that Linda has worked at stirring up and then, while I dried, finished updating the computer and installed BitTorrant and started it downloading the files I wanted.

A bit later I repeat the wobbly stagger to the car, this time with Dan in tow, and off I went dropping Dan near the haircut place before I continued on to the highway and down to Winter Park. I must have caught a tail wind because I got there over a half hour early and thankfully was issued straight in. Now usually they inject a small amount of "dye" into me before shoving me into the machine. Today they hooked a rather large IV up and let a much larger quantity of ink slowly drip into my shoulder/neck area.

Now my position on red hot candy strippers has been pretty much my position of red hot lesbians - that being that they pretty much exclusively in the domain of Hollywood movies and TV shows. The young girl that sat with me while my brain filled with ink was possibly the most attractive girl I have seen, possibly anywhere, definitely in real life. Just super model, thought stopping, smoking hot. The 40 minute wait lasted simultaneously seconds and forever.

After that the test was quick. I asked for more Dilantin - I only have one left - but they refused.

Okay: It's hard to properly convey a sound gag on the radio, but I'm going to give it a shot because I almost drove off the road laughing. I'm half listening to talk radio on the drive home when a fake ad runs. One of the better impersonations of Al Gore speaks, not over the top mimicry,  just that usual drone. He says something like "One of our plans is that we have found a way to cut methane emissions from cows using simple natural bio-degradable 100% cork." He then continues to drone on in a long speech about how the cows are massaged to reduce stress "a major source of bovine flatulance" and so on and so on. Then, and of course I know it's coming, is the wettest sickest explosion sound. The sound is perfect, I'm laughing pretty hard. And then right at the end in small offside voice, you hear Al Gore go "Can I have a Handiwipe?" I damn near lost control of the car. I suspect you had to be there, but damn...

The dye upset my stomach. I had a cup of Cottage Cheese for dinner so that I could take my pills.

Dan and I watch a couple of hours of StarGate reruns and I'm getting tired, but I stall sleep by working on this entry (hence the verbosity).

Lastly earlier in the day I had received an email from Carl Johnson, an Ultimate Universe player from way back. He had stumbled onto my site and wanted to know if he could have the source code. Now Darklock had started buying the source code from me over a decade ago, but had made two payments (out of 5 I think) but then ran out of money. As far as I am concerned anyone can have the code now. Unfortunately I have very little idea where that source code might be. I suggested he attempt to contact Darklock. So, as I'm working on this day's entry, an email comes in pointing me to this blog entry.

Now I have to think. Is Darklock really working on it? Several things bother me about the post.

1. He makes it sound like he completed his contract to purchase the code.

2. This reaching out to community stuff and being rebuffed by it talk. If there was community talk, I should have been part of it, and while I remember that there was some sort of preRSS email ring, it was difficult to work with and probably alienated the audience. A forum or even a newgroup would have worked much better.

3. How much of a right would I have to complain if a bunch of people started working on their own version of UU? After all, I lifted the idea of UU from Galactic Warzone, which lifted it from Tradewars. Admittedly we lifted the idea not the code, but Scott (the coder of Galactic Warzone) had to give me one of the crucial routines that I was not able to come up with on my own (How to code the autopilot - which was really simple once I shown how).

So I think the basic question comes down to how much am I screwing Darklock if I release the code versus how much am I screwing myself if I don't?

My current feeling and thinking (and admittedly I don't do my best thinking after sundown) is to leave it up to whether or not I can locate the code. It is possible it is sitting on one or more of the hard drives that litter this house. It is also possible Andrue might have a copy.

Another question is do I confront Darklock before making this decision? He has made no move to contact me over the last decade. I pop up pretty visibly in any Goggle search of my name for the longest time so the fact that my email address has changed a few times isn't really an impediment. He stopped communicating when he stopped paying, so what obligation if any do I have to get involved in this? Interesting times, but I thing I might just be selfish on this one if the universe allows. I really would like something I did to survive on after me.

3/05/07

Bikers

Cane

Quiznos

These were notes for this day's entry. But that was way back then and it is now the 13th. I remember vaguely that we drove up slightly north of Daytona to pickup a walking cane to replace the one that broke at Megacon. I neglected to take into account that it was Bike Week, and that we would be driving into the heart of it.

Turns out the very truck stop I needed was also parking for some of the Bike Week events. Even with both ear plugs in, the noise was still pain ful, but having driven that far, I persevered.

3/13/07

Yeah, yeah, I haven't posted for a while. GoogleCheckout cut me off, I've been eating poorly, feeling worse and mostly lounging around watching TV, so not much to report. I'm working on getting a payment gateway (as I already had a Merchant Account). At first I was unaware of this step and naively assumed that I only had to get certain info from my Merchant Account Provider and plug it into my Shopping Cart System. HA! Now I find myself trying to decipher contracts written by some of the slimiest business practitioners this side of insurance and Used Car salesman.

Thought we had a nice one developing, until the fine print finally arrived today.

3/15/07

Somewhere back in High School, I learned "Beware the Ides of March." And it stuck. I'm always a little leery of this day of the year, and today I had to drive to Winter Park for my testing. I allotted extra time and headed out into a highway that ground to halt almost immediately. Some insane traffic later I arrived at MRI central about 10 minutes late. I didn't really matter as they had me wait an hour before I was led into a room - unusual as I am usually taken to either the CEEEG room or the MRI prelim room. But here I was abandoned for another length of time, no clock, no reading material, but eventually the supernaturally cute candy stripper from my last visit (who I remembered as being named Ann but she pronounced it Bianca) came in to tell me that they were waiting on something (my guess is orders from Protocol) and a nurse would be in soon.

Time dragged on, I cleaned out the contents of my wallet, and read most of the items in it. Eventually Bianca returned with a nurse who hooked up an IV to withdraw a huge sack of blood from me. While this has been done to me in NC - and I don't remember the bag being that large - this was new here.

It took a rather long time for the plastic sack to fill, and Bianca sat with me, while the nurse left.

Last time I was very much appreciative of her presence; this time it was much more like salt on a wound - an itch I couldn't scratch. It left me feeling pent up, old and useless. I also felt like I should have one of those collars they put on dogs to stop them from biting at their stitches wrapped around my crotch.

These were my thoughts on the way home. Although it alternated in and out with why they hadn't taken either and MRI or CEEEG. The only guess I have is that I only have one more visit before my next visit to NC and they wanted a total diagnostic on what my system was doing. Maybe?

The traffic was light on the drive home, and for some reason I didn't feel wiped out by the sunlight like I usually do, despite a total lack of cloud cover.

Once again I survived the Ides of March.

3/16/07

I had a handful of non-standard orders come in over the last few days through sell.com and iOffer. Dan and I readied these up in the morning before I walked down to Massage Therapy. It was sprinkling on and off as I walked politely waiting until I was safely inside before bursting into a full rain.

Afterward Dan met me next door at Gram's and we had a quiet lunch. A few easy errands later, I took a brief respite in front of the TV before finally deciding it was time to brave swimming again (being unable to face real walking was a large part of this decision.)

I haven't been swimming in Blue Springs since a couple seasons back from the water table rose about 6 feet and the watery trek to the fountainhead became impossible. The water at Blue Springs is always 72 degrees - a bit difficult to get into and then heavenly afterward. Of course to those that have lived here too long 72 is very cold. Dan did not have the right equipment (protective footware) and being from Arizona was also unprepared for the cold. The landing had been completely rebuild to be wheelchair accessible, which I find rather odd as the actual getting in the water would still be impossible.

Anyway, the topology of the river from the boil to the second landing has completely changed. What had been the difficult part was now barely knee deep and previously easy staging area at the first landing was now the biggest challenge. I whacked myself good a couple of times on underground log branches, but completely my old path - although I only did it once, where previously I had been doing it twice and with more gusto toward the end. I felt tired, but good tired, when I was finished. It really uses every muscle in your body. Hopefully, now that I have done it again, I will start going a few times a week if not more.

Five people have emailed me weighing in on the Ultimate Universe posting (although one of them I tracked down first, because I noticed he lived near me back in the days of UU). Also Caliban's blog now has 3 people weighing in (I suspect all are a subset of those that emailed me) and Darklock responded to each one.

There has been a lot of ego stroking (anyone caring to write after all this time was a true fan indeed) which has been very nice as my ego has taken a lot of hits over that last several years.

These communications have given me a good deal more information to play with and with the addition of a couple of lucid days I have reversed my original opinion.

Major factors were that Darklock paid me more of a percentage of what he owed me than I thought he did. His reasons for not contacting me are understandable. But most importantly, I don't think the code would actually help anyone. It's not well written code, and the language is obsolete. The idea is there, the device docs are there, and that should be enough for anyone to reconstitute the code in better form than the original code. And if you don't have that level of skill then my code really isn't going too help much.

I do hope someone takes up Darklock's offer to moderate a forum on UU because I think that would be useful, and anyone that wants to pump me for information about UU is free to do so. I'll help as much as I am able. But I don't have the code at my fingertips and I've stopped looking for it.

One thing I think I will do is outline the ideas I had for Ultimate Universe Unlimited. It was a truly massive project as I envisioned it and I now know that there is no way I will be working on such a project, so I will try to press the idea from my mind into printed form over the next few months. Free to the world to tinker with if they want. The one skill I always had wasn't programming but an innate sense of game balance. I don't think my deterioration  has effected that any, except perhaps in my ability to get the concepts articulated.

3/19/07

I heard for Caliban the other day. He is endeavoring to restart the Ultimate Universe project. Toward that end he has setup an Ultimate Universe forum. It seems slightly easy to overlook, owing to his originally clever use of the look and feel of my setup program as the interface for his Ultimate Universe website, so I post the link here as well.

I urge those that have been in connect with me to take part in the discussions that will develop there.

I had the first really mentally clear day I have in several months yesterday and made use of that to wrap up a lot of little computer chores. I finished up www.atouch4health.com for instance, and registered JennyVision officially with the State Tax And Use people. This is the first step in getting my commercial website restored to working order using a hopefully permanent solution.

Today I woke up at 4am, and as it usually the case on days like this, I had a productive first half and am now rapidly falling apart and will while away the rest of the afternoon and evening watching TV.

It's April 2nd as I sit to turn some sparse notes into the last few weeks entries. Lisa's visit, and then my growing obsession with the protocol news got in the way of posting. Hopefully my memories are correct. Some will be with the perspective of hindsight. (Well, this didn't happen as my became locked up with the indecision caused by not knowing what turn my life was going to take. March 22nd through the 29th ended up being written on the train to NC on April 11th, aided by cryptic notes and a surprisingly clear memory this day.)

3/22/07

On my calendar Lisa was scheduled arrive on the 23rd. There was a time I was rather attracted to her. She had a lot of qualities that bring out the lust in me, chief among them her being mildly psychotic and being aware and proud of that fact. She is unabashedly herself for good and bad. She rubs many people the wrong way, but Lisa is Lisa and if you accept that all is fine. To be honest I was far more interested in her when sex was still a possibility.

When she called a while ago asking if there was room at the inn (a phrase accidentally harkening back to the way my mother used ask people the same thing) I asked her "what was in it for me?" Lisa is pretty much exclusively looking out for Lisa and it's best to iron out these things first or otherwise end up feeling used. She's not a slacker, she's just always got a million balls in the air taking her attention. She ponied up back rubs and cuddling. Now Lisa is pretty terrible cuddler, but I'm pretty starved for that sort of attention currently and she can deliver an extremely good backrub being that she has done that for a living.

Lisa calls, she is in Maitland and will be up later in the day. Apparently she has given me the wrong date. No biggie.

She arrives later sporting a cough from weeks of huckstering. She decides it's best to sleep on the couch as I am a very light sleeper and lack of sleep has a dramatic effect on my health. My complete indifference to this turn of events depresses me.

3/24/07

As I made clear to her prior to her arrival I have no help to offer in her transportation needs. I find it best not to get involved in Lisa's plans as it just expands exponentially. I don't need the stress. And she is a pitbull; she will find a way - I just need to refuse to be the path of least resistance. She finds a bus line that fits her needs, only I have to get up earlier than I would naturally and drive her the few miles to the Park and Ride. I consider foisting this task on Dan, but decide I opened this box knowingly, I'll take the consequences. But because I have to wake up early I don't sleep well, waking up a few hours earlier than needed.

Once back at the house, I shower and get ready for Gram's. Dan joins me. Tired and a bit frustrated I sit down. Sheila has picked this day to wear pigtails. If I haven't mentioned it, some types of pigtails are another of those items that enflame my passions. Pigtails on Sheila almost turns a playful mild obsession into a painful wanting. In some moods this would have been a very pleasant experience - looking being my primary source of pleasure after all. Today I just felt old, irrelevant and pathetic.

This is tied in part to an incident that happened earlier in the week (time gets mixed up for me, the event might have been as much as a month previous.) Dan and I were at Cumbersome Farms buying some junk food (we really are bad influences on each other.) and there was a cute girl that seemed to be in a very bad mood. A few minutes later I'm waiting in the checkout line, just behind a guy who is taking forever paying his voluntary tax on people that don't understand math, when I become aware that the cute girl, who is now outside in the parking lot, is gesturing and yelling at me. I didn't get all of it, but the gist of it was that I was staring at her and it pissed her off. Now it is quite possible that I was staring, I have no idea what my face is doing when my mind is zoning, and I take into account that she might just have needed to unload on someone and it's easier to confront someone who is a ways away and behind a barrier. But what I took away from the encounter was that I had been yelled at for having the gaul to look in the direction of this woman. I was in her eyes, subhuman enough, that the very act of visual appreciation from me was an affront to her existence. It was another blow to my ego, and while it didn't impact on me at the time (as I was more intent on a: analyzing what the hell had just happened and b: not being there) but my mind would later pick at it at odd times during the week. 

It's funny when I am focused on Sheila as the pleasant person she is, I'm mildly flirtatious, on some days witty and occasionally charming. On the days when I am fixated on her form, wishing I was cuddling her in a bed or on a beach I am withdrawn, stoic and taciturn. To the outward eye it would probably appear exactly the opposite.

3/25/07

Insomnia strikes hard. I awake at 3am and can't go back to sleep. I can't seem to focus on TV. I spend most of the day working on Lloyd's site.

3/26/07

There was a time that the money was flowing in faster than I needed it (seems so long ago and so hard to get back to) and during that time I gave money to various causes that I cared about - probably canceling out many of my mother's <g>. Unfortunately due to this generosity I now get at least  six to ten calls a day asking for money, not only from these groups but from whoever they sold my contact info to. In other words I'm on the sucker list. For a while I stopped answering the phone if the caller ID came up without a number; the money beggars all seem to hide behind caller ID blocking. This did not slow the rate of calling any, and I still had to take the time to find the phone and see who was calling. I was already on the Don't Call Registry, both state and federal. Then I tried picking up, waiting for them to identify themselves and hanging up. Still not a deterrent. Then I started answering, and when they asked for me, saying that there was no one of that name here. After a few weeks I added an air of exasperation to my tone. This seemed to work so I kept it up.

That was long explanation for why it was weird that when I received a call from someone I did not recognize at 8am asking for me, I answered that I was me. Lucky that I did, as it was the State Tax Woman. She was calling to say there was a problem with me Tax Use Cert and Fictious Name. The problem was that I had never closed out Dream Share Vacations, and therefore had never filed my zeroes (Shaun swears he filed the paperwork to close the business, but his mind is as Swiss cheese and revisionist as my own.) I went into song and dance mode, which was actually a recitation of the truth: we had gone out business before any taxable revenue had been generated. She required a fax from me reiterating words to that effect. I procrastinated for a few hours and then typed out and faxed the form (to their credit I had my cert the very next day.)

This call threw my mood; I was a deepening part of the system. No good can come of this.

My notes say this became "a day of eating", sadly I don't remember the details. I'm sure it wasn't pretty.

3/29/07

A couple of weeks before I'm due for Protocol I always get a call from Caren saying where, when and how long to expect to be away. The length of stay has always been "4 to 7 days." This time she says "1 to 2 days.' Given that they screwed up the implantation procedure last time, I would think this stay would be longer if anything. Knowing her answer, I still ask why; she doesn't know.

I can only think of one reason; the Protocol is coming to a close. I have known that this would occur at some point. I had been warned at the onset that at some point a drug trial would begin and that I would not qualify for it. I was also warned that by law once the drug trial started they would not be able to continue my treatments. I wrack my brain for some other reason for the change in time period. I have a few long shot possibilities, but I don't like the odds.

I try to push it from my mind. No point in obsessing over things you have no control over, especially if you don't have all the info yet. I've always lived by that, it has saved me so much stress in my life. However, this idea refuses to be banished. I have the Tax cert, but I can't work on getting the site working. Too many unknowns involved and my mind is not dealing with unknowns right now, period.

I retreat, I'm just going to enjoy myself until I get the news: Lots of TV,  lots of food, some spending I can't afford. Anything I can do to avoid thinking (ironic as I live for this time period when my mind is functioning well.) I'm stuck in a cycle of indecision. How can I make decisions when I don't know which path my life is about to take? I feel more or less prepared for either direction, but not knowing which way is hobbling my ability to act. The timing is really bad as I need to have funds coming in, and even though I need them for either path, I can not act. For the first time since my emotional range was clipped I am grateful for it.