A Knight's Tale

A long, long time ago in a land far away, a rogue happened upon a fair, young lass. Though neither of them knew it at the time, fate had set them on a long and troubled path. A journey fraught with dangers and dragons that would transform the rogue into a Knight and the lass into a Queen.

GO NAVY!!

Today, The U.S.S. Constitution, named by President George Washington in 1797, the U.S. Navy's oldest commissioned vessel set sail under her own power for the first time since her 200th birthday, in 1997.

This story was posted by jrcobbstr @ AOSHQ -

The U.S.S. Constitution, "Old Ironsides", as a Revolutionary War combat vessel carried 48,600 gallons of fresh water for her crew of 475 officers and men. This was sufficient to last for six months of sustained operations at sea. She carried no evaporators (fresh water distillers).

According to her log -

"On July 27, 1798, the U.S.S. Constitution sailed from Boston with a full complement of 475 officers and men, 48,600 gallons of fresh water, 7,499 cannon shot, 11,600 pounds of black powder and 79,400 gallons of rum. Her mission: "To destroy and harass English shipping."

Making Jamaica on 6 October, she took on 826 pounds of flour and 68,300 gallons of rum. She then headed for the Azores, arriving there on 12 November. There, she took on 550 pounds of beef and 64,300 gallons of Portuguese wine. On 18 December, she set sail for England. In the ensuing days she defeated five British men-of-war ships and captured and scuttled 12 English merchant vessels, salvaging only the rum aboard each.

By 26 January, her powder and shot were exhausted. Nevertheless, though unarmed, she made a night raid up the Firth of Clyde in Scotland. Her landing party captured a whiskey distillery and transferred 40,000 gallons of single malt scotch aboard by dawn. Then, Old Ironsides headed home.

The U.S.S. Constitution arrived in Boston on 20 February 1799, 7 months after she left. On landing, she was found to have no cannon shot, no food, no powder, no rum, no wine, no whiskey....

...and 38,600 gallons of stagnant water.

Anchors Aweigh, my boys, Anchors Aweigh!!!

YARRRRR!!!

And Now For Something Completely Different..

Just when I had convinced myself there was no new music worth a damn coming out, my niece turns me on to Black Veil Brides. They are a band in the vein of KISS and Motley Crue, and make me wanna rock out with my Glock out!!!

Here is their video for "Fallen Angels".

HELLO?? IS THIS THING ON??

OK, I know I haven't updated in a while, but when it's S.S.D.D., it gets kinda boring... I mean do you really wanna read, "Went to St. Louis, got Nuked, stopped @ Jack In The Box, came home. Went to St. Louis, got Nuked, stopped @ Jack In The Box, came home. Went to St. Louis, got Nuked, stopped @ White Castle, came home. Went to St. Louis, got Nuked, stopped @ Captain D's, came home." over and over again??

Yeah, that's what I thought.

I didn't feel like writing it either.

So here's a quickie on what's up - Meet with Infectious Disease Doc on Monday for I.V. antibiotics check. Only a couple more Nuke treatments to go, meet w/ The Wizard of Rads Tuesday A.M.. Meet with Gyno/Oncology and the Diabeetus (as Wilfred Brimley sez..) folks on the 22nd to get the 411 on if further cancer treatments are needed and to see how the new insulin regimen is doing.

Foot healing nicely. Doc Foot thinks it's better to continue the current treatment regimen and let it heal on it's own instead of doing a skin graft and having to have TWO places to treat while healing. She's still wheelchair bound and down for now, but we're gettin' the hang of it*. See him again on 05 SEPT.

So that's pretty much what's been goin' on, so now we start working on getting the rehab that Anna needs and I get to go back to school next Thursday. I hate sticking a sub bus driver with the last week of school, (not really, but it sounds good..) but sticking a sub with the first few days of school is inhumane.

Besides I got a BRAND NEW 2013 BUS this year!! To paraphrase TEAM AMERICA - "New Bus - FUCK YEAH!!!" Only 920 miles on it, and I'll have to learn where all the buttons are on the way to the first stop.

What could possibly go wrong ??? Turns out it's Bus #14 - Anna sez Dad drove Bus #14 back in the day, so I'll take that as a good omen.

Now for something completely different - I found this @ Ace Of Spades, and if you don't find something in this video that you think is beautiful and something that stirs your spirit, you are a soulless bastard that I prolly don't care to know. The girl, the music, the video it's ALL fantastic.

If your computer and sound system will handle it, set the video for Hi-Def 1080p and crank it up to 11...




(I want to thank Billy G. and his family for all they have done for us during this. Bill drives a Big Rig and took some of his limited time @ home w/ his family to come over and build us a wheelchair ramp for the front door, and has made extra on the grill and brought it over to us so we have had dinner waiting when we get home after an especially long, tiring day.

I don't have the words to express how much these things have meant to us other than THANK YOU and we love you guys.

BILLY'S DA' MAN!!!)

When It Rains, It Pours

There's a lot of stuff to cover, and I'm going on memory, so there may be some jumble and omissions -

The week prior to 04 JULY, Anna had a Trans-metatarsal Amputation, and spent about a week in hospital. She was discharged on 03 JULY and because there was no radiation therapy scheduled for The Fourth, we decided to come home.

We weren't even in the door when she lost her balance and out of instinct, stepped down on her freshly amputated left foot. Things immediately went FUBAR from there. An infection set up in her foot and by Thursday evening there was a foul odor coming from her foot. Dr. Foot worked her in between procedures on Friday and had her admitted and took her to the O.R. @ 0200 SAT to open the foot back up and clean out the infection.

Fortunately they only had to remove a small amount of tissue, so given proper care, she'll still have enough foot to walk on. The end of her foot is open, so I have to clean it out an change the dressing and give her Weapons Grade antibiotics via I.V. infusion twice a day in addition to an oral antibiotic 3X/day.

During that week we checked into and out of our hotel daily, so I was lugging luggage around and loading and unloading the wheel chair and generally straining my improperly healed kidney without giving it a chance to heal between exertions, so I wound up blowing a gasket.

BACKSTORY - For those who don't know, 2 years ago I had a Stage 2 Renal Cell Carcinoma, Clear Cell Type removed from my right kidney. In order to get clear margins, i.e. make sure they got all the tumor out, they removed about 1/4 of my kidney. But for some reason it didn't heal properly and every time I'd exert myself, I'd wind up passing blood and/or clots in my urine. But in a couple of days of taking it easy it would clear up.

This time it didn't have time to clear up, and proceeded to get worse to the point that the urine I was passing looked like bloody cottage cheese and I passed out in my S.I.L.'s truck and woke up in the E.R. of Barnes. I was informed that I needed a procedure to go in and close off the bleeders, or things would get worse on down the line.

While every emotional fiber of my being screamed that I needed to be on the 7th floor taking care of Anna, my Inner Vulcan told me this was the most logical time to have the procedure done because there were people to care for Anna while I was down and if I didn't do it and if this happened again at home...

As they say in Ebonics - We both be fucked. (My inner Vulcan is bi-lingual..)

So Logic kicked Emotion's ass and I agree to the procedure.

After a battery of tests I get an incision in my groin and a catheter fed up into my kidney. Shoot some dye in there, see where the bleeders are and close them off, and VOILA`, I'm down to 1.5 kidneys and not bleeding anymore. And I'm not supposed to lift anything heavier than the TV remote or a beer, or I could lose the other half of my kidney.

Damn the luck. I guess I'll have to hire a trash flunky, and a lawn mower flunky and a......

So anyway, We get out last Friday, 13 JULY, good thing I don't have Triskaidekaphobia, spent the weekend at home and have been going back and forth to The Wizard of Rads MON-THUR this week and internal radiation today. Now back home for a weekend of being lazy bums.

So I think that about sums up the last month. Sorry I haven't been more diligent in updating, but I've barely been on The Net at all recently...

When you are up to your ass in alligators, the last thing you remember is that you went in to drain the swamp...

ANNA SEZ HER SHOE BUDGET JUST INCREASED

I guess we'll be hittin' all the Payless Shoes BOGO sales now that she wears two different sizes.

They amputated the zombified part of the left foot this AM. The Doc took just about half of her foot, mid-metatarsal so there would be enough skin to completely close the wound so it will heal better.

So one less thing to worry about. She is already used to getting around on half a foot, so recuperation should be pretty quick.

AND WE'RE OFF...

The Wizard Of Rads called and said that they've worked overtime to get Anna's rocket seat ready and now we're getting ready to take off and nuke the site from orbit @ 1400 today.

It's good to be doing SOMETHING again. This sitting around on our hands stuff was getting old. So 6 weeks and 8000 miles from now, we should be at the finish line for the cancer. I figger the Yota and the Pony* are both gonna get new tires outta this adventure.

Somewhere in the mix is gonna be getting her foot fixed, Dr. This Little Piggy sez we should have a good idea how much is gonna survive in a coupla weeks. We have another appointment on Tuesday to see him.

(*Speaking of The Pony, I wanna say thanks to the folks @ Carmart for all their help in working with me on my payments during this time. I've been able to make my payments, but they've told me more than once to keep my money 'cause I have more important things to do with it right now. I don't wanna sound like a commercial, but if you need a good used ride, get it from them.)

Gotta go, more when we get back.