Baltimore Diary

OK, That Stuff About Scratching Your Nose and Accidentally Buying a Car is a Bunch of Crap

Posts have been sparse lately because school's out and the home connection (Comcast) has been crap lately. So I called Verizon looking for DSL and arranged for service. The start date comes and goes and still no service. I call them and they tell me "Oh, well, your location doesn't qualify for DSL." Yeah, thanks for letting me know, Ass.

Anyway.

Today I went on a little bit of an adventure. I heard from my friend M, who lives in the Chicago area. She's in the market for a new vehicle and has been searching the government auctions. As it happens, she found a few in this area and asked me to go as her proxy. I'm off this week (summer program starts on Tuesday), so what the hell, I said yes. She sent me a list of vehicles to look for, express-mailed me her proxy and off I went.

Yesterday was the first part; they have a vehicle inspection period the day before the auction and again the next morning, right before it all starts. I took the time yesterday afternoon to check out some of the vehicles, figuring that it'd take awhile to look at all of them.

I was right, especially inasmuch as some of the vehicles she wanted me to bid on weren't even on the lot; they were still being detailed. She wanted me to bid on a large van (the 14-passenger type) for herself and a pickup truck for her son. I spent all of yesterday's session looking at the vans, taking notes and so forth. This morning I found the last of the vans and looked at several trucks as well. During a bunch of this I spent time on my cellphone talking to M and going over some of the details and junk.

10:00 and we're into the auction itself. It's bascially held in a big garage-type structure with several bays. Each bay can be driven straight through, and has a raised platform/counter area from which the auctioneer works. They have people all over the place to help either you or the auctioneer find each other when you need to bid, because things do move quickly. There were two auctioneers working at the same time, and of course there were some vehicles in each group, so I had to go back and forth to ensure that I was onhand for the auctions. I tried recording these guys with my PDA but the loud volume on their mikes basically made them sound like crap, so they were unintelligible (pretty much like the ones you may have heard selling tobacco and other commodities) and overmodulated as well. They're definitely tough to understand, especially at first, and I can't say that by the time I left I understood everything being said, but I at least had the idea.

In the end, I wound up putting in maybe two bids and not winning anything, as the prices climbed out of M's range. The big vehicles, they are popular around here and the bidding was pretty fierce a couple of times. The best deals I saw happen were on sedans and minivans. This might be where I get my next car from.

Rip it, Rip it Good

I have a horizontal tear in my meniscus. That's the official word.

When I asked the doctor how bad it was, he said, "Oh, you did a pretty good job; it's not a small tear." Nice, that.

He said that my options were:

1. Wait and see for another month or so (he would have said two, but it's already a month old). Maybe get some Physical Therapy in the meantime to see if full range of motion can be restored. If that doesn't work, go for Option #2.
2. Surgery. Just go in and get it done already.

I figure I can go with Option #1 until summer school is over. If I'm not more functional by then, I'll have most of August to get it fixed and get some "west and wewaxation at wast."

School's Out

For most of us, anyway. The kids in Baltimore City officially finish today, although attendance is WAY down because the County let out several days ago and they've already begun with summer camps and such (which some City kids attend). GF's school had seven kids in it yesterday. That's maybe a 2% attendance rate. My schools have had at least a few kids in each class for Monday and yesterday, but today the building looks pretty sparse. I think most of the students who show up today are going to get pressed into cleanup duties.

Me? I'll get the bulk of my stuff done today but there's at least one more full day of work in it for me. No biggie, though; this is what I usually go through because so much of what I do is dependent upon other people getting their stuff done. Plus, I'll be working during the summer so once in awhile I'll drift in, get a couple of minor things done, drift out again, and so on. If I get fired, it won't be for something like that. I think they'd have to actually catch me, on videotape, in the act of setting a child on fire before I could get canned. Yeah, tenure is a double-edged sword.

Into the Big Magnetic Donut

Today was the MRI on my knee. Not that they told me anything; that's not what they're about.

I did, however, find out why I couldn't get into the building on Sunday. I was at the wrong building, sort of. The address they gave me was basically correct, but there's a building BEHIND that one and that's where the MRI lab is located. So yeah, okay.

For the uninitated, an MRI is not really a big deal. At least, not when they do your knee. They ask you a bunch of questions about whether you've ever worked in welding, do you have any metal in your body at all, and so on. Then they ask you to divest yourself of practically everything and you put it in a locker. In my case, because it's my knee, I didn't have to take any clothes off, except for my shoes (metal eyelets for the laces, don'tcha know). They lay me on the table and encased my leg in this box-like form to keep it still. OK, now my leg is uncomfortable because it's extended straight and that hasn't been cool for the last couple of weeks. They tell you that the machine is noisy so they give you a pair of what they call "headphones". In my mind, headphones means I'm going to hear music. No such luck in this case. So they're really ear protectors. The tech tells me (with the protectors on already) that it'll be about 15 minutes and she leaves. A minute later the table starts to move into the main unit.

It's pretty much like you see on TV, where you move into the tube and there's a terrific racket and all that. I'm tall so I didn't go all the way inside; I could see the display counting down the times of each exposure. Mostly what I did to pass the time was close my eyes and practice Vedic breathing. Except I kept forgetting where all my chakras are. So my mind would wander and next thing I know a cycle is over; I'd move a little (or, more accurately, the table would move and me along with it) and the next one would start. Lather, rinse, repeat. I think it went maybe four cycles of this; I didn't really count. Move me out, take me out of the leg box and give my shoes back and I'm pretty much on my way. They gave me copies of the films to take to the orthopedist. I've peeked at them but hell if I know what I'm looking at. So until I see the doctor, the mystery continues...

Em Are Ay-yi-yi

Friday, I finally got to see the orthopedist. He sat down with me and I started telling my tale of woe, and you could see the "hm, this isn't so good" expression cross his face a few times. Then he handed me one of the "Fancy-Schmancy" (his description) gowns to put on, and he left the room for a bit.

The gown was made of plastic, and it had long sleeves with these little holes in the end that you're supposed to put your thumbs through. So yeah: hot day, feeling a little sweaty already, let's wrap me up in long-sleeved plastic. And, for the record, it's the thumb loops that make the whole thing art. I predict everyone will be wearing them in the future.

First he manipulated my right leg to figure out what my "typical" range of motion is. That, he was impressed with. If you've seen me then you'll agree when I say "So was I." He then took hold of the left leg and did some manipulating: "Does this hurt? How about this?", etc. Every once in awhile I'd get a pain and he'd put on that "yeah, this ain't good" face. Finally he said that he thinks I have a meniscal tear, but I'll have to get an MRI to be sure. Get the MRI and call him back for a new appointment.

So I call the good people at Advanced Radiology and tell them I need an MRI. They set me up for Sunday at 1:00 ("come at 12:45 so you can do the paperwork"). They're open on Sunday? Okay! Later on, I get a call that they need to move me to 10:00 and I'm OK with that.

Sunday morning and GF decides that she's going to take me in because sometimes an MRI disorients you a little. (It does?) We get to the place and it's closed up but tight. The only sign indicating hours has no mention of being open on Sunday. Yeah, that's odd.

I called them today (there are several locations so when you call it's to a central phone number) and they sounded as surprised as I was that nobody was around. So now I'm re-scheduled for Thursday afternoon, right after school. I hope I don't pass out on the way home. Heh.

Dem Bones

I picked up the X-rays of my knee yesterday afternoon so I can bring them to the orthopedist tomorrow. While I was in the building, I decided to make a "new patient" appointment with my new doctor, so instead of heading right back out of the building, I took the other doorway into the building's lobby and waited for the elevator.

There were several people waiting for the elevator, including a mother and her two kids, one of whom is still a baby in a stroller. When the elevator arrived they got on first, then a few other people got on as well. At first I declined to get in, saying I could wait, but everyone waved me in. Do I still look that lame? My knee doesn't hurt nearly as much as it did last week.

Here's a fun game: When you get on the elevator, don't turn around to face the doors. It really weirds people out. You don't have to make faces at anyone; don't necessarily stare at them but don't look away either. Yeah, it's the little things in life.

Off the elevator at the third floor and I have to wait a minute for the receptionist. So I got curious and pulled the films out of the envelope and held them up to the light, as if I have any idea what I'm looking at. There is one detail that startled me, and it occurred to me just as the receptionist asked what I needed. I blurted out: "Are these life-size? Cos I've got some big honkin' bones!"

"Um...I don't know, sir."

Yeah, they'll be thrilled to have me for a patient.

Famous!

...yeah, well, not really. But it's still a little bit exciting, since it's the first time it's happened to me.

I was quoted on BlogCarnival a few days ago. An excerpt from my post on Deep Throat was posted to the site there.

It's one of those infrequent moments when you realize that people are actually reading your stuff, not just waiting for the timer to click down (or searching for prostitutes in assorted parts of the country), and I thank you for that.

Mermaid Girl

There's a story in the news lately about a little girl in Peru who was born with a congenital defect (because that's when the congenital stuff happens, y'all) wherein her legs were basically fused together from top to bottom. Only her feet were separate, for all the good that does her. Because of this situation, the press has dubbed her the "Mermaid Girl", probably because it's the easiest way to describe her, and also because "Mermaid Syndrome" is how it's often described. Not that it has to be described especially often, but you get the picture. Technically it's called "sirenomelia."

They performed the surgery and initially they were going to do it in two parts; first they were going to do the calf area and then the thighs. But it was going along so well that they did the whole thing at once. So the girl (her name is Milagros, which is Spanish for "Miracles") is healthy so far. She'll still need more corrective surgery to repair her digestive, sexual and assorted other organs but basically all is well.

The bad news, of course, is that she'll never be able to return to the sea...

It Doesn't Always Pay to be Smart

I'm learning that one slowly. I don't have to be right all the time anymore.

Sometimes that works out and sometimes it doesn't. I have one example of each and they're related to the same incident.

On the one side, I visited a school to observe a student. I was told that the student has a taxi arranged as part of her educational program. All well and good, but the taxi wasn't documented appropriately. When I pointed this out, I got a hand wave and a complaint of "Oh! Those forms are so redundant, so what." Yeah, maybe they are, but this is how you fill them out so why invite grief doing them the wrong way? I said nothing, instead saying, "Ah...okay." Now, this is the closest I came to a confrontation with anybody there that day, so I can only assume that this is what they were talking about when they later complained that I was "pompous" when I was there. So I guess it didn't work that time. I didn't get sucked into the argument but it was probably clear that I'd cut short a debate.

I knew that these people weren't going to like what I had to say (because they'd done several things inappropriately), but when they did it was such a big deal that I commented to my boss later on that there was "weeping and gnashing of teeth and rending of garments," which is a cliche at best and a mixed metaphor at worst. Maybe (probably) I shouldn't have put that in an email, since he thought I was talking about him. Oops. But the other thing that he says upset him was that the phrase was both Biblical and sexist.

Huh? Biblical, sure: "weeping & gnashing" comes from several places in the Book of Matthew (and once in Luke). None of them are gender-specific as far as who's weeping (or, in one case, wailing). "Rending of garments" appears throughout the Bible and again has no specificity; it's simply an expression of grief. I'll let you do the lookups.

But am I going to bring this up? No, sir. When you're on the carpet you can NOT appear to be smarter than the guy yelling at you; it'll just make him angrier. Plus, it's really kind of beside the point. So, for a change, I managed to keep my damn mouth shut and took the abuse. The only thing I said was that I was going for a cliche rather than a sexist remark and let it go at that.

Nevertheless, the leadership maxim stands: If you're dumb, surround yourself with smart people. If you're smart, surround yourself with smart people who disagree with you.

At least, I think it does, anyway.

The Last Great Mystery

W. Mark Felt has come out of the shadows of the parking garage and revealed that he is, and was, Deep Throat.

For those of you who are under the age of thirty, Deep Throat was a highly-placed source of information for Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein as they investigated the Watergate scandal in the mid-1970s. President Nixon and many of his staff in the White House engaged in a series of criminal actions, including wiretapping, withholding of information, witness intimidation and misusing the CIA and the IRS to get information on their perceived enemies.

Side note: I just finished reading a book called I Heard You Paint Houses, which is an oral history of mobster Frank Sheehan and his relationship with Jimmy Hoffa. In it, a relationship among Sheehan, Hoffa and Nixon's Attorney General John Mitchell is briefly described. Apparently many thousands of dollars passed from hand to hand in this relationship. Go to the library and check it out. It doesn't have my Money-Back Guarantee but you'll probably find it pretty thought-provoking.

Anyway. So the identity of Deep Throat was something known only to four people for decades: Woodward, Bernstein, Felt (duh) and W&B's editor at the Washington Post, Ben Bradlee. Bob Woodward has long maintained that he would not identify Deep Throat until after he'd died. Well, statistics have a way of catching up with people and as the survivors of the Nixon administration kept dwindling without an identification, Felt looked more and more likely. Granted, he was a suspect almost right away, but was always ruled out somehow. As recently as 1999 Felt was tagged in the role and publicly denied it.

So now, at the age of 91, Felt has come out and announced to the world, via Vanity Fair magazine, that he is indeed Deep Throat. Bob Woodward has likewise confirmed this account.

Are there any great mysteries left from the last century? D.B. Cooper, maybe. But are there any great mysteries for this generation to ponder? We can all have ourselves a macabre chuckle about Robert Blake and OJ Simpson on the golf course, looking for the "real killers," but I don't think that there's been anything as tantalizing and stimulating to the imagination since the days that helped wind down the Antiestablishment movement in the way that Watergate did.