Still waiting for official orthopedic treatment

Jen's been resting in the house. Looks like we won't have an orthodepic appointment until tomorrow (at the earliest).

Nothing much going on. Jen completed a marathon session of Say Yes to the Dress, followed by What Not to Wear.

Jake got a smartphone (Motorola Triumph on Virgin Network), so he's busy with that.

Jennifer's Recuperation Blog...

OK- it's a family tradition. Jen fractured her fibula, and will be hobbled for the foreseeable future. That means she's gotta blog the recuperation. I'll get her set up to add content, and away we go...

It’s been a while

I’ve been solo for a few days, and livin’ the high life.  I decided to upgrade my lifestyle, and have a “supreme” frozen pizza instead of the regular one.  I’ve been listening to a ton of classical and jazz lps over the past few days, and hangin’ with the dog.  Right now I’m taking a music break and watching Kill Bill 1 and 2.  The movie introduction says that viewer discretion is not just recommended, but required.

Jake and Jen went to Gainesville for medical tests, and then to Jen’s parents house in Fernandina Beach.  They come back tomorrow.

Work has been very busy.  Some biking, but not a ton.  Two day, 160 mile bike trip coming up next weekend.

Back Home

Happy to be home, even though I have two big hearing days coming up.  It was an excellent trip-work wise.

I’m predictable, because there’s no pre-flight meal that’s good enough to keep me from also stopping at an airport Nathan’s for a dog with mustard and kraut.

I came home to start on a box of 90 old classical lps that I got for 9.00 plus 20.00 shipping. Today is the 1956 mono recording of some Vivaldi chamber concertos (Milan Chamber Orchestra led by Newell Jenkins) on “Washington Records”, which appears to have been the “educational” affiliate of the Riverside Jazz label.  While mono doesn’t stir the depths of the soul, it provides a minimum level of fidelity that exceeds a bad album or a staticy radio transmission.  It sounds darn clean if you play it back via mono (in my case, a pair of y splitters on my second turntable which cut the stereo signal to mono and then send it to both inputs) 

From the plane

The biggest problem with the Zune is that when you’re on the road, there’s no possible way to obtain a power cord if you forget it at home.  So I’m stuck on the plane with only the in-flight tunes, so I might as well do a blog update for later upload.  I’m on my way to DC at 10pm for an early morning meeting.  I hate leaving home overnight, but there’s no option.  On the other hand, I doubt the dog will call me up in the middle of the night to tell me he wants to go outside.  The family can’t have me gone for too long, because I’m the point person for fourth grade math homework answers.

I’m excited about the trip, because it’s a big new case with an interesting topic.  I got the call from the client on Saturday afternoon while I was in the middle of a 65 mile bike ride from Miami to West Palm Beach.  I had to tell him I’d call back in a few hours.

Between the work trips and the fact that I fall asleep around 9:30pm when I get home, there’s a backlog of vinyl lps waiting for their listen.   I need to bear down and put in the time, but the weekend weather has been so nice that I’ve been either riding or taking a drive with the top down.

We’re in varying stages of health.  Jen’s had some nagging foot problems, and Jake’s friends have been sharing the same head cold for two weeks.  I therefore have sworn to not complain about any physical maladies.  One weird physical development is that I cannot do floor exercises with my trainer because if I lay down for an exercise it takes me several minutes to lose dizziness after I sit up.  I don’t really understand this development, because I wake up from sleep just fine.  The good news is that I now do less ab crunch routines – which is nice.

Lazy Blogger

I can get back to blogging – for today anyway – because I have the house to myself.  That means hanging out on the couch in the position of honor and listening to records with the laptop on half my lap and the dog on the other half.  Jake and Jen are at a birthday party, and they left for the party before I got back from my long Sunday bike ride.  Normally I’m not couch-eligible, because Jake claims the main TV and the couch.  (My the last couple of classical albums that I attempted to listen to in the den had a Phineas and Ferb background track.)  I bought him a Mac Mini (he said he needed a Mac for his Multimedia class at school) and installed it in his room, so that may incrementally increase couch availability.

Everything is a-ok.  I still have some nagging pains, but I get to ride when I can.  Jen’s also got some nagging pains (arthritis, back pain) but things haven’t been too bad. Jake had a bit of a cold and swollen glands, but we’re watching that situation closely.  As long as we’re calamity free – I consider that a-ok.

I went to the velodrome yesterday, for the first time in two years.  It feels good on the track bike, but I have no power.  My calves are still very strong (I can lift the whole rack on the calf-lift machine at the gym) but my quads and glutes are fairly weak.   That means I can sustain enough pace for my long and enjoyable rides, but I don’t have the top-end speed of my friends/competitors/adversaries (i.e., the guys). In the old days, if I was a little slower at the top speed than a competitor, I would simply launch a half-mile early and see if I could drop them before the final sprint point.  Now, everybody does that to me, and I have no response.  I aspire to have enough stamina and power to make it to the final sprint before getting dropped.

Music of the Moment – I’ve been listening to some old Eric Dolphy albums (the “Out” series).  There’s a lot of variety.  I especially recommend “Out There”, which features Ron Carter on cello (instead of his normal bass).  I’ve also been listening to some Hillary Hahn violin works.  She’s exceptional.

Guilty pleasure music moment – Jen picked out a “Shadowfax” sealed lp when we went to the record store yesterday.  She thought it sounded familiar and that she saw them in Tallahassee 25 years ago.  It’s new age (they won’t list them in the jazz guidebooks), but it really does sound great on the main system.

Not much of a tropical storm

It looks like the threatened tropical storm won't do much damage. This is good, because I don't have the physical wherewithal to put up our hurricane shutters. We have the old "slat" kind, and we only have enough to cover 2 of our 20 windows. I guess we could have sprung for some nice roll-down shutters, but we got a pool and a yip dog instead. Now that we have a pool, I can threaten to throw the outdoor patio furniture into the pool as a hurricane precaution. Bryan Norcross says you aren't supposed to do this, but at least now I have the opportunity.

Jake had a good week. He didn't miss school last week (although he missed it yesterday). Jen was busy on a bunch of errands, but nothing that merits blog notation. I puttered about at work and did my morning bike rides. I would have blogged sooner, but there wasn't much going on.

One weekend disappointment. We took Jake and a friend to Tropical Chinese for dim sum, and he hated it. Very disappointing, because that takes it out of our arsenal for easy weekend food.

On the other hand, I'm always happy to blog about my battles with the stereo. The pre-amp section on the new/old McIntosh amp is dying, so now I'm using my old Pioneer receiver as a preamp. That means there's even more stuff hooked up, and more stuff lights up at night. Cool. I had to order some cables so I could string up a second turntable for mono playback. The McIntosh has a "mono" switch and two turntable hookups, but my modern (1990) Pioneer receiver has neither.

I have decided to skip/defer the two fall 70.3 Ironman events to which I had registered. I'm just not there yet. I'm switching my December Palm Beach Marathon entry from a full-marathon to a half-marathon, and even that is tenuous. On the other hand, I get stronger every day on the bike. I'm not recovered, but I still get mad if I'm not in the lead group. I started working with my trainer yesterday, and it hurt like heck. It's a necessary evil, at least until I get symmetrical.

New music pick of the week - Doobie Brothers, World Gone Crazy (2010). It just came out. It sounds like it's from 1975, in a good way. More Tom Johnston vocals, less Michael McDonald blue-eyed soul.

Old music pick of the week - David Oistrakh, Violin Concertos by Prokofiev, Leclair, Locatell (1955). Mono only, never released on cd (and never released in stereo). Excellent playing; works well in mono. I am always amused by the fact that the spelling of many Russian composers and performers has changed from the 1950's albums until today. Prokofieff?? Prokofief? Prokofyev?