DanBailey.net

The Off-Season Plague seems to have vanished. By yesterday evening, all my symptoms except the swollen glands were gone. Today, those seem to have departed as well. This is a good thing. I’ll definitely be taking a spin on the stationary trainer for about 30 minutes today…but that has to wait until after I get some errands done. I need to go get some champagne for tonight, a new shirt-and-tie to wear to a job interview on Wednesday, and must follow-up on some email/SMS messages today.

So yeah. Hoping I can resume training shortly.

So, I think I’m getting better. The fever seems to be gone, as does the sore throat. These are both good things, as I am sick to death of laying on the couch, drinking 2-3 liters of Gatorade a day, and eating chicken soup. The glands in my neck are still swollen like hell and tender to the touch. (Note, despite the swollen glands, my tongue has not turned black, so we can rule out bubonic plague. I know this disappoints some of you, but whatever.)

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Woke up this morning with one of the worst colds ever. Not sure if it’s the flu, or what, but wow. High fever, swollen glands, nasty sore throat, and the beginnings of a cough. I’ve already taken steps to alleviate the symptoms — 600mg of ibuprofen for the pain in the throat, a couple of cough drop/throat lozenge thingies, and running the humidifier. I’ve also got a half-gallon of Gatorade and about 1500mg of vitamin C sitting here that I need to ingest.

I usually get like this once a year. Funny how it this year it actually waited until the off-season. I’m pretty happy about that, even though I feel like hammered dogshit.

It’s the “most wonderful time of the year” again, and wow. I’m just not there. I did hear Run-D.M.C.’s “Christmas in Hollis” on the radio the other day, and that put a smile on my face. And Eric Cartman singing “Swiss Colony Beef Log” still cracks me up to no end.

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On the writing front, I seem to have lost momentum via the day lost to the dead logic board in my Mac Mini. That’s kinda sucky, but I’m going to force myself to sit in front of the ‘ol text editing program for an hour tomorrow — either I’ll write, or I’ll waste an hour. One or the other.

On the bike side of things, Zipp finally got my wheels back to me. Only one minor issue — a dust seal on the cassette hub body was folded over onto itself, exposing the internals — and I was able to correct that in less than five minutes with a pair of 5mm allen wrenches and a dental pick. Tonight, I’m going to scrub the cassette clean before I re-install it, and get everything back on the Salsa. It looks awfully sad, hanging in the living room with no wheels.

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So minor items of import:

1. Yesterday, the logic board in my G4 Mac Mini decided it was time to shit the bed, and die. So today, my unemployed ass went out and bought a new Core 2 Duo Mac Mini, with an assist from mom, who called it my Xmas present. Thanks, mom! (And fortunately, I was able to recover the start of the novel I began earlier in the week!)

2. We’re in the clean-up phase of remodeling the shop I work at, and my lungs are full of dust. It’s pretty awesome when it hurts to breathe.

Started digging in to the novel I’ve had in my brain for awhile, and damn if I’m not having fun. Lately, it’s been tough to write. Everything I start, I hate — usually I feel like it seems somewhat contrived. Not today! Today, I enjoyed it. And even looking back on it, I’m not cringing or feeling stupid.

So I think I might be on to something here. No title yet, but off to a solid start of 672 words. I’m trying to not push myself too hard right out of the gate. I want to ramp to 1000 words per day as soon as possible, and then start pushing to do 2000 words per day.

So some searching around, and I finally found a Wordpress template I like enough to modify for use on this site. Some minor graphics tweaks are done, and the next step is to get that little pile of photos in the upper left corner to randomize. My PHP coding is rusty, due to some dalliance with Ruby on Rails, so that’s kinda back-burner for now. I did get Akismet up and running, so I shouldn’t be inundated with comment-spam anymore. Here’s hoping, anyway.

In the realm of the bike, I have finally gotten an arrangement made with Zipp re: the ongoing issues with the rear wheel in my 404 wheelset. I’m dropping that at the UPS store today so it can go and be fixed. I also started ordering the parts for my singlespeed mountain bike, which is going to have to be put on pause, as I (along with several others) lost my job on Monday the 3rd.

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