TIA 2

After the usual ER bullshit temp, blood pressure etc. they gave me an aspirin and I was interviewed by the stroke doctor. 

By then, my little cubicle started to fill up. I don't really remember their order of appearance, but my son Dave was there my  godson Mike and my neighbor Andy May. By then I felt normal. It had been about an hour to an hour and a half since the event and the ER was taking on a Fort Lauderdale spring break party atmosphere. Without the booze and drugs of course. 

The doctor, a middle-aged Chinese lady, was not amused. I think that she wanted the place to be a bit more somber but having just laughed into the face of death, I figured that if I was still alive, all was well. Every time Dr. Chin asked me a question Andy, being Andy, would answer in my behalf. She asked me who this guy was and why he was here. Right after I told her  that I didn't know who he was, that I saw him rummaging through a dumpster out back and thought that he could use a meal, she blew it.

I remember her saying that I shouldn't fuck with her as she was trying to save my life and Andy stood down.

I spent the next two days in the VA hospital with two other vets in my room. One had cancer and the other was going to get a heart transplant. I then felt pretty good about my state of health.

While in the Kronkhaus I had a CT scan a MRI and an ultrasound of my heart plus a few other pokes and jabs. Every ten minutes some sweet person would come in ask me if they could do anything for me. My stock reply was to growl back "Yah get me the hell out of here". 

After two days, they had enough of me and I went over the wall. I've been a pretty good boy since I got sprung outta there. I've been watching my intake of Big Carl's and Bonus Jack's.  I haven't had a deepfried hog snout since the event and my BP and cholesterol are way down. 

I still feel a disconnect like my head is in a cardboard box with a hole cut into it and people are looking at me through the hole and I'm looking out. 

All in all, I'm feeling pretty good and at least I'm not in Cleveland.

TIA

In July, I had a TIA. A, so called, mini-stroke. 

I was sitting at my desk in the afternoon when I just felt that something wasn't right. Nothing more. 

I thought that I would get up and "walk it off". I tried to stand up using my right arm to push off the arm of my desk chair. My right arm wouldn't move. I then tried to stand up without using my arm and realized that my right leg was also paralyzed. It was, right then and there, that I knew that I was having a stroke.

I wasn't really in fear of dying, but I knew that this was pretty serious and needed some immediate attention. I then tried to tell Jamie, who was sitting at the next desk, that I thought that I was having a stroke. As I tried, I knew that the right side of my face was also paralyzed. 

At that point, things get a bit scrambled. An ambulance was to be called. I garbled that I wasn't getting getting into no fucking ambulance. It took three people to get me into my truck.

As we drove to the VA hospital, I got somewhat better. I could articulate and move my arm again. But not for long. It got worse again, for a bit. 

And then, it got better again. I actually walked into the Emergency Room entrance. As I was waiting to be seen, I had to whiz so I went into the Men's head. After completing my task, my right leg started to give out again but I made it to the door to call out for help. I was deposited into a wheelchair and the ER event began.

To be continued.

I've been busy.

I've been a busy guy this last year. 
I built a two machine Quartz Oven and Allen Bradley control package for Winnebago in Forest City Iowa.

We then flew to Iowa for the installation in April and stayed until June. 

While in Forest City, Amy my younger son Dave's wife presented me with a Granddaughter Sydney Marie who is as cute as her big brother Alex.
I no sooner got back in June and then had a TIA mini-stroke in July. So I decided to retire and sell the business. 
In August, we drove up to NoCal and visited with my eldest son Ed and his wife Cassy in Concord and spent a day watching the America's Cup Races in San Fran. 
I am now semi-retired but I'm trying to clean up loose ends for the new owner.  
The plan now is to head for Ohio after Thanksgiving to be at my sister's around Christmas and also see my cousins and Aunt  then visit friends in Ohio and Georgia. After that another Aunt and more 
cousins and friends in Florida. 
On the return trip, I intend to eat my way back through the South and New Orleans. 
When we return, I'll probably go back to work for some rest. Not.

Sadie Maru

I bought a 13 1/2 foot Whaler a few years ago. The magic number is 13.5' because the limit to legally tie up to the dingy docks at Catalina is 14 feet. We take the big boat, Merrymaid, about once a month but we take the Whaler, Sadie Maru, out two, or more, times a week. 

I originally named the dink Kline Nixe pronounced Klina Nixa, German for little mermaid. Little Mermaid because Merrymaid is the original term in Middle English which morphed into Mermaid. 

Because my Golden Retriever Sadie considers the dingy her boat, I considered Sadie Maru more apt. Whenever she seems to disappear and I start looking  for her, I invariably find her sitting in "her" boat waiting for her boat-ride.

Yesterday, I took her for a boat-ride in Alamitos Bay and it was a beautiful day. It was hot and sunny and the two of us were at one with the water. Just me and the water dog. Nice.

Further Travels With Sadie

We stayed on Johns farm over the weekend before heading for Sturgis. A good time was had by all, especially Sadie. There is a pond across the street from the barn. Very convenient for Golden Retrievers who can't stay out of the water. 

There was also a lot of work to be seen to. There was a big tom turkey named Floyd that needed chasing, plus a donkey named Lois. Cows, chickens and ducks rounded out the mix of unsuspecting barnyard critters that needed Sadie's attention Such a busy girl she was. We all took turns cooking, eating and, oh yah drinking a lot of cold beer. By Monday morning, we headed north to Sturgis vowing to return at our next opportunity.

Sturgis was to become a seemingly never-ending marathon ordeal that still continues.

Homeward Bound

On Monday afternoon 16 April it was snowing pretty hard and the last thing in the world that I wanted was to do was drive a RV through the Canadian Rockies during a snowstorm at night, so we stayed another night.

By Tuesday morning 17 April a lot of thee snow had melted off of the ground although there were still a few flurries coming down so we decided to make a run for it. 

The trip was really pretty uneventful.We drove across a few Indian reservations and got to Crow's Nest Pass while it was still light outside. Being we came over the pass on our way in while it was dark we really got to enjoy the scenery, which was spectacular. We cleared customs into Idaho just about dusk and made it to Spokane about midnight. We spent a little R&R time in Spokane and got on the road again on the 22nd. 

On the way up, I had elected to stick to the Interstate Highway system being I was a novice RVer. By now after logging over 2000 miles, I was an old hand and ready to cut a few hundred miles off of my trip by taking US97 back through Bend and Klamith Falls,OR. As it turned out, US97 was an easier drive than than I-5 to Portland. Late Sunday night, we holed up in Weed, CA. Sadie was so cute, she was sitting up in the passenger seat when I went to sleep. Early in the morning when I got up, she was still sitting up. Keeping watch. She really is the ideal traveling companion. If you talk to yourself while driving, you're considered to be a nut. If you talk to your dog, you're a sweet guy. She hangs onto my every word and she doesn't yack too much. Expensive restaurants while on the road aren't even an issue and she always a potty break when we stop for gas or to stretch our legs. 

We spent Monday with my older son Ed and his wife Cassy which is always fun. Ed and I watched a film called Who Is Harry Nielson and Why Is Everybody Talking About Him which is excellent. A few days later, I found out that Cassy has been accepted into the Chemical Engineering Program at UC Berkley which makes us all happy and proud.. 

I didn't want to deal with East Bay traffic in the morning so Sadie and I left town about ten and made it to Santa Nella, my go to stop when transiting I-5. We gassed up and slept amongst the big-rigs. 

Tuesday morning, we moored Bullwinkle in the marina parking lot and I settled down for a long winter's nap.

Life Amongst the Hutterites

For the last four days, we have been living on a Hutterite colony near Granta Alberta Canada. In case you haven’t had any close encounters with Hutterites lately, allow me to splain myself.  There are apparently three kinds of Anabaptists. The first one who we all and love especially if you are from Pennsylvania, Ohio or Indiana are the Amish. Almost everybody knows of the Amish. Secondly are the Mennonites. Most everyone has at least heard  of the Mennonites but few know much about them. Lastly are the Hutterites. Until a few weeks ago, I hadn’t even heard of them. Now I are practically one of them. Not quite. 

I came here to replace the Programmable Controller on the above Rotary Vacuumformer that they had purchased in Rochester NY. I tore down the machine in June and shipped it to Alberta. After trying to get it back in running condition, I got the call from the Colony to come up and make it work. Which I did.

FYI the Hutterites are much like the Amish but live in “Colonies”, mainly on the northern plains of the US and southern Canada. They own absolutely no real property and very little personal property. The married men all have beards with no mustaches like the Amish and wear black trousers and jackets with black hats but do wear colorful shirts. The “boys” are not married and do not have facial hair. Most of the older boys wear a Panama type straw Cowboy hat and the younger ones sort of a Trotsky style tall black cap. The women all wear colorful long modest dresses and a mesh type bonnet indoors and then don a head scarf or babushka over the bonnet when they are going outside the house. If they are going in and out much, they leave the scarf on while indoors.

The colony that we are at here in Alberta grows a lot of grain and raises livestock. All of the colonies are as self-sufficient as possible. About the only things that they buy outside for everyday living are cloth, coffee, margarine for some strange  reason and some cleaning products. They are very clean and friendly and love to joke and kid around a lot. It took me a bit of time to realize that this guy who looks like he just stepped off of American Gothic is actually pulling my lanyard.

They dine in a communal dining hall that is segregated by men and women  first and then the kids eat at a separate sitting. We didn’t actually eat in the dining hall but in Mike’s home. I’m not real sure why but that’s the way it was. We’re still here watching the snow fall so maybe I’ll ask Mike why. With dinner, we also had homemade Rhubarb wine. The food is very bland and every now and then my system screams out for a taco or something Italian.

On the last night, to reciprocate, I made spaghetti with Italian sausage and fed Mike and his brother Joe who has been a big help with me on this project. I popped open a few bottles of TBC, Two Buck Chuck AKA Charles Shaw wine from Trader Joe’s.  They usually drink their own home-made rhubarb wine so this was an obvious treat for them.

I’ve been practicing speaking my rusty German which they mostly speak here. It’s been a challenge because they speak an archaic sort of Pennsylvania Dutch Amish dialect and I speak a very rusty Swabish which is a dialect from the Schwartz Wald or Black Forest.

Apart from the snow and the cold which was a shock to this Ohio to So. Cal.  transplant the whole stay in this Alberta colony has been a good experience and I do hope to return again.