how now brownpau
I was feeling well and non-swollen enough tonight to go with Amy to the National Gallery, where we viewed some new acquisitions and listened to the Washington Bach Consort perform a free concert of vocal and organ works by various members of the Bach family. On our way back home we were rained on by a passing twilight thunderstorm, and spotted a faint rainbow in the clouds over the Capitol, opposite a lovely golden sunset.
Saturday evening, we were eating dinner (cream of broccoli soup for my healing gums) and watching “The Hunted” when the fire alarm started ringing. After a bit of debate as to whether should actually pay it attention, we paused the episode and got our keys, wallets, cellphones, and cat (in carrier) and hurried calmly out, locking the door behind us. En route, we found the first-floor fire alarm glass broken and lever pulled — and no smoke or any other evidence of fire.
We live right beside a fire house and two engines were already out front with firemen gearing up outside as other tenants gathered. It all turned out to be a false alarm, of course; I suspect some of the local whippersnappers thought they could entertain themselves with some hijinks — or perhaps were hoping that the panic would leave a few doors unlocked for some easy access to valuables. In any case, the alarm was reset, the annoyed tenants flowed back into the building, the cat calmed down, and we finished our dinner and Star Trek in peace.
I’m getting my wisdom teeth extracted today. I’ve been putting it off for years, believing that my mostly-erupted wisdoms would provide extra chewing power while posing little inconvenience; but after much on-and-off pain and swelling, a few cavities, an operculectomy, and futile brushing at foul debris trapped in the gums of my off-margin lower third molars, it’s definitely time for these vestigial chompers to take a hike.
So I’m off to the oral surgeon in Downtown DC. The procedure should take an hour or two, and I asked to be knocked out under general anesthesia by IV — might as well get some sleep, right? I will request the remnants of the teeth in a bag when the surgery is done. Expect photos. For the not-squeamish, video of a similar procedure. There will be blood.
Update: All done. Home now. Hydrocodone-APAP is sleepymaking. More later.
Update: I am back and now it is time for photos of bloody extracted teeth! Here are the three that survived the procedure intact; I’m not sure what happened to the fourth. Check out the bent root on the middle one. I’m so glad that one’s out:
The operation started promptly at 9AM, with me sitting in a chair getting probes on my arms and listening to the beeps that indicated heartbeat. I concentrated on relaxing and hearing the beeps slow down while the surgeon stuck the IV for anesthesia in my arm. Funny thing: the dental chair faces a wall covered with diplomas, awards, and certificates, so scared patients can be comforted by numerous symbols of decades of dental achievement.
I remember that I started seeing a bit double and thinking, “Ah, that must be the anesthesia taking effect now oh hey the light’s different and there’s gauze in my mouth.” No memory at all of passing out, or of the procedure; just a blink and a change. Within five minutes of waking up I was feeling well enough to collect my post-op docs, walk with Amy to CVS to get my prescriptions and a cane to steady myself, and take a taxi home to collapse into bed. My lower right jaw was numb the rest of the afternoon, probably due to a bump to the inferior alveolar nerve, but feeling was restored by evening, and it was not bothersome at all. Pain so far has been tolerable.
So now I’m looking forward to a weekend of applesauce, pudding, ice cream, yogurt, mashed potatoes, non-chunky cream soups, and hydrocodone. I’ve got four jelly-like clots filling the spaces where my wisdom teeth used to be, and am hoping very much to avoid dry socket. Will sleep.
I wonder if the history books will mention how the first public announcement of this discovery went up on Twitter before anywhere else: The Phoenix Lander has found water ice on Mars.
At left, the animation which serves as evidence, two photos of a trench dug by the lander, taken four days apart. Note the little bits of material in the shadowy lower left trench which disappear; this is behavior consistent with frozen water ice sublimating to vapor in the low-pressure Martian atmosphere. The temperature is too far above the boiling point of CO2 at this time of the Martian year, and clods of salt would not disappear like that on a clear day without wind. More study is needed, of course, and Phoenix will continue to dig and test soil samples for water and organic chemicals, but the Phoenix team seems to be pretty sure.
If that is indeed water, then it has massive implications for Mars’ past and future — a liquid water past may have facilitated the evolution of life similar to Earth’s, and easily accessible water will be important to future manned missions to Mars. This has been theorized, and its secondhand effects observed in the past, but now there is evidence — literal solid evidence — that there is water underground at Mars’ polar regions.
I’ve been informed by a few people that posting a comment to my site is nearly impossible nowadays, usually resulting in Movable Type timing out, throwing an Error 500, and dumping core. I can’t trace the problem, but I hope it’s something that gets fixed when I can finally move the site to a more reliable web host and upgrade to Movable Type 4.
That move probably won’t happen for a bit longer, as I’m bogged down in all sorts of extra-curricular coding work, and when it happens I’ll be taking the opportunity to pull a massive reboot of site design and code, so I’m taking it slow and careful. For now, if commenting fails, drop me a line and I’ll see if I can’t add your comment myself.
Other stuff on my to-do list for this site:
All in good time.
(Department of the Interior uploaded by brownpau.)
Nice, sunny, breezy afternoon for a stroll. Passing by the Department of the Interior while walking home from work.
The Library of Congress on Flickr is, to me, without exaggeration, one of the awesomest things on the internet and in the world: scanned prints of historic public domain photos, uploaded for the community to openly view, tag, and comment.
This particular photo from 1943 especially caught my eye; a woman applying lipstick by a planter near the Senate Garage Fountain, with Union Station in the background. That’s just a few blocks from where we now live, so Amy and I couldn’t resist walking over and trying to duplicate the shot in the present day: (click the photo thumbs to see them larger on their Flickr pages.)
This was in February, so Amy is wearing somewhat heavier clothing than the Lipstick Lady (and no hat), and I was a bit off on angle and zoom, but it’s all close enough. The park between here and Union Station has since gained many more trees, and the grounds appear to have been repaved with a new pattern since the 1940s, but other than that, the area looks essentially the same — note the lamp post.
Any other DC scenes from LOC that you want to see as they are in the modern day?
(Oh, and as for the Philippines, so far they’ve posted these carabaos in Albay.)
Update: I sent this entry over to LOC’s Matt Raymond and he liked it so much he linked to it from the LOC weblog. The photos later also got a brief mention in USA Today.
Here we have Amy (in her painting clothes) on the couch, cuddling Pandora, who has become comfortably stretchy and amorphous.
