Looking back at my travel year…
14 minute read
November 28, 2024, 9:54 PM
As 2024 starts to come to a close, and plans for December have largely solidified, I thought it might be fun to revisit a Journal entry from January where I discussed travel for this year. At the time, I had some big plans, and in looking back, it shook out a little bit differently than I had anticipated. But I enjoyed it all the same.
Right off the bat, a January trip to New York was already booked when the entry was written, and so that went off as scheduled. That ended up being one of my more memorable trips to New York for a few reasons. First, the route that Aaron and I took going up to New York was different than usual, due to the roadgeek-like desire to complete I-78 in its entirety. I had been on most of it already, but was missing a segment in New Jersey. Aaron had never been on any of it, so this was entirely new territory for me. It was enjoyable, and we got to visit Allentown, Pennsylvania, which was new for both of us. However, due to time concerns, we spent very little time in Allentown other than to fly the drone around and check out the fire alarms and elevators at a random office building. However, the most memorable thing that came out of that trip was that I developed a nasty case of COVID-19 while in New York. I suspect that it was the let-down effect in play, where I had likely caught it somewhere a while before, but my body held off on getting sick until the stress was off and I was ready to go have fun. That led to a first day where I had some very mild symptoms that I was able to ignore and keep hidden, but then by the middle of the second day, I wasn’t able to hide it anymore, as it was clear that I wasn’t feeling well, and that running on all eight cylinders was doing me no favors. I also got a different perspective on COVID masks on this trip, since I was sick with COVID for part of it. I tried to do the right thing and cover my infection (because trust me, you did not want to get what I had), however, I soon ran into a significant problem: that mask was like a little greenhouse, and my nose was running like a faucet with thin mucus. Plus with my breath coming out into that mask, it created a very warm, moist environment in there. That was the most disgusting thing that I dealt with the entire trip, as the snot from my nose was running down my upper lip, into my mouth, past my mouth, around my mouth, and down my chin. Let’s also not forget that the mask blocked my ability to mop it up as I needed, plus became something of a snot bucket in and of itself, as it was quickly covered in snot from top to bottom. I think that I made it about 30 minutes in the mask before I said the hell with it because it was just too gross and caused more inconvenience than it was worth. I preferred to leave it open in order to be better able to blow and wipe, plus with exposure to cooler, drier air, it had a better chance of thickening and/or drying up some rather than just sitting in that warm, moist environment that kept it thin and runny. I really don’t understand these people that can mask all the time, especially when sick, because when I was sick with the Ronies, I couldn’t stand masking because it was just so nasty inside there. My getting COVID on the first trip of the year also made me start to wonder if this was going to be a thing for travel this year, i.e. I was going to get sick whenever it was time to go somewhere.
Continue reading…Categories: Harrisburg, New Flyer D35HF, New Jersey, Personal health, Schumin Web meta, South Carolina, Travel
Getting fixed…
7 minute read
October 22, 2024, 1:30 PM
On Thursday, October 17, I did something that I had wanted to do for quite some time: I got a vasectomy, i.e. I got “fixed”. That affirms my commitment to a childfree life, as this stops the little swimmers right in their tracks, more or less cutting off their path to the outside world.
It’s funny how these things happen. The first time that I had ever heard of a vasectomy was out on the road. I was out with Mom, and I spotted a car with a bumper sticker that said something to the effect of, “Against abortion? Get a vasectomy.” I didn’t know what a vasectomy was, and so the message didn’t make any sense to me. Both parents always followed a policy of answering questions from my sister and me truthfully and thoroughly, and so this was no exception. So Mom explained what it was, i.e. it was a procedure that, at the end of it, makes it where a man is unable to produce children. I already had a decent handle on female sterilization procedures, because my mother had a tubal ligation done while she was already in the operating room for my sister’s birth (we were both caesarean babies). So I already knew that such a thing could be done on women, but until that moment, I didn’t know that there was an equivalent procedure that could be done on men. Good to know. Then later on, there was an episode of Home Improvement that aired when I was in the ninth grade, where Tim Allen‘s character gets a vasectomy. It really did a good job explaining how a vasectomy works, and addressed a lot of the myths surrounding it, and it really made it feel like a normal thing that men do, and it doesn’t make them any less manly for doing it.
That said, I recognized from a fairly young age that I didn’t want to have children of my own (I really could never imagine myself as being a father), and so it made sense to get a vasectomy. I had felt this way at least as far back as my early twenties, and it’s never changed. However, I also had no relationship prospects or anything like that at that time which would make a vasectomy necessary, plus Walmart insurance was laughably bad in those pre-Obamacare days (hello, $1,000 deductible at a job that only paid $7.00 an hour). But I knew that I eventually wanted to do it in order to permanently put any possibility of future children to rest.
Categories: Personal health
Nothing like making a weekend trip to New York and getting sick while there…
22 minute read
January 26, 2024, 11:03 PM
So as discussed previously, on January 17-19, my friend Aaron Stone and I went up to New York City for a weekend trip. We knew that it was supposed to be cold while we were there, and snow was in the forecast for the last day of our trip, but that was about it, and nothing that we couldn’t handle.
Our route up, however, was intentionally planned to be a bit unorthodox. Normally, for a trip to New York, from where I live, you would go straight up I-95 through Baltimore and then take the Delaware Memorial Bridge just before Wilmington, and follow the New Jersey Turnpike most of the rest of the way to the city. This time, we decided to be a bit more roadgeekish, taking US 15 up to Harrisburg, taking I-81 a short distance to I-78, and then taking I-78 all the way to New York. The goal here was to complete all 146 miles of Interstate 78 in one shot. It would only add about 45 minutes to the drive by going this way, and we got to complete a highway. I had previously traveled most of I-78 in the nineties and early 2000s, but I was missing a section in New Jersey, as well as the small New York portion. Aaron, to my knowledge, had never done any of I-78.
My memories of I-78 were never particularly pleasant, as I always associated it with family road trips in the nineties, where my father would drive. He was always very concerned about making good time on these family trips, and that meant some very long distances in the car along some incredibly dull stretches of highway, with nothing of any note to break up the trip. For an eight-hour trip from Stuarts Draft, Virginia to Fairfield, Connecticut, we would make maybe two stops the entire way, once around Paxtonia, and then another one somewhere in New Jersey, and those would be kept as short as possible. In other words, the journey was viewed as a chore, a necessary evil to be knocked out quickly, and not as a part of the adventure. And in those pre-Internet days, there was only so much that one could do to keep one’s self occupied. We would bring all sorts of books and such to read, but those only went so far before we got tired of reading. I-78 in Pennsylvania is largely rural, and while it does go through the Allentown area, it skirts it to the south, far enough away for there to be nothing interesting to see. It’s what led my sister and me to start calling Pennsylvania “the forever state” because it felt like it took forever to get through, and it was incredibly boring. About the only thing interesting on I-78 in Pennsylvania was the Delaware River toll plaza, and that was on the westbound side. I remember, at 12 years old, wishing that the toll plaza was on our side just to help break the monotony.
Categories: COVID-19, Friends, New York City, Personal health
A fun and memorable day…
24 minute read
February 8, 2023, 9:00 AM
Today marks twenty years since I made one of my favorite early DC adventures. On that day, February 8, 2003, I drove up from Harrisonburg and headed up to the DC area on a Saturday for a day of fun, photographing the area in the snow and checking out parts of the Metro system that I’d never been to before. It was my senior year of college, and was one of three trips to DC that I made from my dorm that year. I also feel like I shot a number of my “classic” DC area photos on this trip, since a lot of photos from this trip have made their way all over the Internet (i.e. you’ve probably seen some of them in the wild, and never realized that they were my work).
This trip had an interesting set of circumstances that led up to it, though. As I recall, snow had been predicted for Thursday night and Friday morning. That prediction ultimately came to pass, as it snowed enough to cancel classes for Friday. This was not unanticipated, so, the night before, as part of my duties as a resident advisor in Potomac Hall, I had posted signs on my floor advising people to check the JMU website for information on class status. In other words, make sure that you have to go out before you go out, because you might not have to go out if the university cancels classes. The sign was posted with the intent of putting the responsibility for checking the status onto my residents, so that I would not have to get up early to check the status and post signs to that effect, since I didn’t have classes until later in the day, and would not wake up before the first classes of the day would have started. So with the signs posted, I went to bed. Good. Now fast forward to around 6 AM or so. I vaguely remembered hearing the phone ring a few times while I was trying to sleep, but I never answered it, because I was trying to sleep. Then I’m awakened by a very loud banging on my door. Having just been rudely awakened like that, my first response was to shout, “WHAT?!?” It was Mecca Marsh, our hall director, i.e. the boss, so it must be important. I went to get up, and in my haste in getting up, I lost my balance and fell back onto my bed, landing on my left elbow. When I landed, I heard a series of four or five popping sounds, and I remember thinking, “That can’t be good.” Apparently, that popping had come from something in my left shoulder, and it now hurt very much.
So what was the big, important reason that Mecca came up and woke me up out of a dead sleep? Make a sign and put it on the outside door stating that classes were cancelled. Believe me, she was lucky that my arm was sore from the injury that I had just suffered, because I probably would have hit her otherwise. I was absolutely seeing red following all of that. For the amount of effort that she went to, making multiple phone calls and then coming up to my floor and waking me up, just to order me to make a single sign, she could have done it herself. And when I mentioned that I had just injured my shoulder in the process of getting up, and that it now hurt very much, she responded with a dismissive, “You’ll be fine.” Yeah, way to show some compassion after an injury that you played a part in causing. I expected no less from Mecca, though, because she had her favorites on the staff and I was not one of them, and therefore I was treated accordingly. In any case, I made the sign, and tried to go back to sleep, but I was now pretty mad about what had just happened, plus I was in a good bit of pain. You understand why I consider Mecca Marsh to be one of the worst bosses that I’ve ever had. I probably should have seen a doctor on a worker’s comp claim, and I also can’t imagine that the management would have taken too kindly to the whole situation had I reported it like I probably should have, and it wouldn’t have reflected well on Mecca considering that she precipitated the whole thing. She would have hated that, considering how big she was on propping up her own image (she had some major inadequacy issues of her own). But I was only 21 and didn’t know any better, so I just suffered through it.
Categories: Alexandria, Arlington, DC trips, JMU, Northern Virginia, Personal health, Washington DC
At last, it came to visit us…
8 minute read
January 29, 2022, 3:18 PM
Over Christmas, Elyse and I were in the bag, so to speak. We both came down with some pretty nasty colds. I had congestion that I could feel all the way down into my lungs, a headache, a fever, a general sense of fatigue, and not much else. Elyse had similar, as well as a loss of taste and smell, which I did not have. I ended up missing four days of work for it, which, along with my regular days off, had me out of play for the entire six days between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.
What we had remained a mystery. We suspected that it was probably COVID-19, or as we’ve taken to calling it, “The Ronies,” but we were unable to book an appointment for either a PCR or rapid test, nor were we able to purchase one online, because at the time, the recommendation was for everyone to get tested for any or no reason, and people were eating it right up. We also respected ourselves more than to wait in a line for hours just to rule in or rule out a diagnosis when we already felt as bad as we did. In other words, going out and getting tested wasn’t going to help us get better any faster, and would probably have the opposite effect, making us feel worse than we already did and causing a lot of unnecessary stress. I didn’t need that, especially when you consider that I had spent much of at least two of those days that I was out sick asleep in my bed. We ultimately decided that with a test for an active infection out of the question because of availability issues, we would get an antibody test via blood draw later on to rule COVID in or out after the fact.
In the meantime, with no test to rule the Ronies in or out, we both decided to just treat it like we would any other cold, and drink lots of water, get lots of rest, and do what we could to get through it. Let’s just say that generic DayQuil and generic NyQuil were our best friends, along with Advil® brand Advil (because I like that candy coating on the name brand stuff). I also once again got to experience the joy that is “fever dreams“, which are even weirder than the usual dreams. The best feeling in the world, meanwhile, was when my fever finally broke. Post-fever perspiration feels awesome, not because of the sweating itself, but because it means that the worst is over, and I would be feeling better again very soon.
Categories: COVID-19, Personal health
Does this count as “over 40” problems?
6 minute read
July 18, 2021, 11:27 PM
FYI, this Journal entry discusses gross body functions in personal places. If you’re squeamish about such things, you might want to skip this one. Otherwise, here we go…
This past Friday, I went in for some minor surgery to fix a small problem. Back in April, I had developed what turned out to be an abscess on my backside. I didn’t quite know what it was for a while, and was doing what they say that you shouldn’t do, and looked up my symptoms on Google. It seems like every time you google your symptoms, it always comes back as a heart attack, and therefore, you need to get your tail to the emergency room right now. But I knew better. Even controlling for definitely-not-a-heart-attack, though, I still got inconclusive results, i.e. Dr. Google had no clue what it was. All the while, this thing was uncomfortable. At its peak, it was so painful that it was difficult to sit. And considering that my job is performed from a seated position, that point really made for a long day. At one point, I tried squeezing it, and pus came out of it. That made me feel a little better for a little while, but it quickly filled back up and continued to hurt. Eventually it started to drain on its own without any prompting from me. That felt a little better because there was no more pressure, but it was still painful, and now it was draining all the time and making a mess in my underwear, even soaking through my pants on occasion, which is not a good thing by any means. I don’t like having to choose my outfits based on thickness and color of material in order to prevent embarrassing abscess leaks from showing up.
I eventually went to an urgent care facility, and there, the doctor diagnosed it as a cutaneous abscess, and prescribed a course of antibiotics (Bactrim) for it. According to the urgent care doctor, the abscess should take care of itself without any further intervention. As it would turn out, the antibiotic took care of the infection in very short order, but the drain opening remained, and things kept on draining, albeit with less volume than before, which kept the leakage contained to my underwear and not going through my pants anymore. I figured that some drainage was normal, considering that I had just had a big abscess that was being treated. But then it kept on going, even after the infection had subsided, and after I finished up all of the antibiotics. I kept holding out some hope for a while that it would resolve on its own, but it never did.
Categories: Matthew, Personal health, Woomy
A weight loss update…
6 minute read
October 14, 2020, 11:18 PM
A friend of mine recently mentioned that I had not given any significant update on my weight loss progress since January, a month after I had my gastric sleeve surgery. So I suppose that it’s high time that I gave an update. After all, it’s been ten months since the surgery, and things have progressed since then. Compare the April splash photo (which was taken on February 3) against the October splash photo, and you’ll see a difference:
Categories: Personal health, Weight loss
I have been sleeved…
4 minute read
December 7, 2019, 7:50 PM
So it’s a done deal. I received a sleeve gastrectomy on December 6 at Montgomery General Hospital. Here I am the following morning:
Categories: Personal health, Weight loss
Excited, nervous, and so many other feelings…
5 minute read
November 17, 2019, 9:56 AM
This coming December 6, I will be going in for surgery at Montgomery General Hospital in Olney, where I will be having a sleeve gastrectomy procedure, commonly known as a gastric sleeve. This is a surgery that will help with weight management. This is done laparoscopically, and it removes a portion of the stomach, leaving a much smaller stomach behind that’s roughly the size of a banana. This one only reduces the size of the stomach, and preserves the original path of the digestive tract. Compare to the older Roux-en-Y procedure, which separates the stomach into two sections, and reroutes the digestive tract.
I am doing this because I have been heavy for most of my life (I haven’t seen the underside of 200 since eighth grade), and diet and exercise alone haven’t gotten me nearly as far as I needed to be. Sure, I looked far better at 275 than I did at 384, but it was still too much weight to carry, and I still had weight-related health issues at the lower weight. Over the course of the past year, I have attended classes with a dietitian, had various evaluations and tests done (the endoscopy that I wrote about last April was part of that), and after all of that, the insurance gave the surgery their blessing.
I have to say that I have a bunch of different feelings running through me about this. On one hand, I know that this is a necessary step. My primary care doctor first suggested it to me about a year ago, and then I unexpectedly got a second opinion within a month or so from a specialist that I was seeing when they suggested it as well. As far as I was concerned, that was a pretty strong indicator about what I needed to do, when two out of two doctors, in their professional opinion, suggested it, completely unsolicited. I also feel like I’m ready for it. I know what I’m supposed to do to prepare for the surgery, I know what I’m supposed to do immediately after surgery, and I know what I’m doing during the healing process and thereafter on the maintenance diet. At the end of every dietitian class, they told us “Chew, chew, chew, sip, sip, sip, and walk, walk, walk.” I’ve also stocked up on my multivitamins and my calcium citrate, as gastric sleeve patients will take multivitamins and calcium supplements for life. This also has the potential to get me off of some of the medications that I’m on as well as the CPAP (for sleep apnea). That latter point is exciting, because while I’m used to the CPAP, it’s still a bother, and I would be more than happy to be rid of the device that I’ve described as “the most expensive fan that I’ve ever owned”. I’ve also spoken with colleagues who have had the same surgery, and they have generally had good experiences, which leaves me feeling optimistic. After all, if they can succeed with this while doing very sedentary work, then so can I.
Categories: Personal health, Weight loss
Seeing what my innards look like from the inside…
3 minute read
April 15, 2019, 11:18 PM
So on Wednesday, March 26, I had an endoscopy as part of a weight loss program that I’m in. That involved going to the hospital, getting an IV, getting wheeled into the room on a stretcher, and then getting knocked out while they did their thing. The good news is that everything looks healthy inside of me, which is what I was expecting to see.
What I found interesting was the difference in the experience in this procedure vs. the last time that I got sedated, back in 2005 when I got a pilonidal cyst removed. This time was just a diagnostic procedure, though, while it was actual surgery back in 2005. The endoscopy was done at Montgomery General Hospital in Olney, while my 2005 surgery was done at Augusta Medical Center (now Augusta Health) in Fishersville, Virginia.
Much of the process was pretty similar to 2005. Come in, check in, change into the hospital gown, put on the hospital bracelet, get all of my information, do vitals, and so on. The first big difference was the IV. I’ve had IVs in the hand before, but for some reason, this one hurt like hell going in. I don’t know why – I’ve never had an IV hurt like that. Then I met with the doctor, who was scoping me and then a second patient. I was told that it was good to be the first one to get done. Then I met with the nurse anesthetist, whose job was to knock me out when the time came. After she told me what was going to happen, I joked about hitting me on the head with a big cartoon mallet. I wonder how many times they hear that joke. I imagine that they hear that a lot.
Categories: Personal health
So now what do I do?
5 minute read
June 27, 2018, 8:30 AM
This exercise thing sucks. I recently came to the realization that I’m never going back to Planet Fitness, and therefore I’m cancelling my membership. No sense in spending $20 per month on something that I’m not going to use.
I can’t say that I didn’t try, though. I signed up, and I went as I planned, i.e. after work, during the overnight hours. I tried all of the equipment, and while the elliptical and the recumbent stair climber seemed like possible winners, the whole Planet Fitness environment intimidated me too much. How ironic for a company that markets itself with a slogan of “No Gymtimidation”. I got the specific feeling that they were more interested in their “No Gymtimidation” and “Judgement [sic] Free Zone” image than they were about fitness (and a few people seem to agree with me). The presence of that stupid “lunk alarm” gimmick also sent off the wrong vibe, and I never even touched the free weights, nor did I have any intention to ever use them. It’s allegedly the judgment free zone, but they’re constantly watching and judging everything that you do, and that made me feel less at ease with it than I preferred. I just want to go in, do my thing, and leave. Too much emphasis on individual conduct makes me uncomfortable because it makes me feel somewhat on edge, and that creates a sense of hostility, like I’m being micromanaged. Perception is reality here, and that perception negatively affected my enjoyment of the club.
Additionally, I couldn’t find a location that I liked. I found out that some locations were de facto closed on Sunday nights because they dismantled the entire facility to clean it on those nights. However, because one of Planet Fitness’s big selling points was being open 24 hours, they couldn’t actually close the facility to clean it. They had to remain open, even though none of the equipment was available. So on more than one occasion, Elyse and I got dressed and went out, only to be turned away because all of the equipment was offline for cleaning. That just speaks of poor planning on the facility’s part, since they could easily split the work and clean in sections over the course of a week in order to maintain full access at all times. Other locations were better, but too far from my house. I halfway liked the downtown Silver Spring location, but it was just too far away to be practical.
Categories: Companies, Personal health, Recreation/Exercise
I feel like I’m irrationally angry about this…
3 minute read
February 10, 2017, 4:00 PM
I am currently am experiencing a bout of tendonitis in my left wrist and hand. For someone that blogs as much as I do, it happens, and so you deal with it. It started on Tuesday, and by Wednesday, it was bad enough that I decided to go to an urgent care facility to get it looked at. I went to Patient First in Rockville. There, after they took all of my vitals, the doctor came in and looked at my hand. Turned out that it was tendonitis, and the doctor recommended that I take Advil for it, and gave me this wrist brace:
Categories: Personal health
Now, about that boot…
9 minute read
December 23, 2015, 5:12 PM
You may recall that this past September’s splash photo showed me posing with a broken merry-go-round at Pentagon City Mall, i.e. this:
Note the choice of footwear. I’m wearing a Crocs shoe on one foot… and a massive boot cast on the other. It was posted without any explanation other than a mention of its presence, but clearly, something was up, because I don’t normally wear a boot around like that.
Categories: Elyse, Personal health, Work
I never thought that could happen…
4 minute read
April 5, 2015, 3:20 AM
Among things that I never thought could happen, I never thought that throwing up could cause blood vessels in your eyes to break. But take a look at this.
This is what my eyes looked like on Friday night:
Categories: Food and drink, Personal health
Two days, two eye exams…
4 minute read
October 11, 2012, 11:58 PM
So this week, I had two eye exams on consecutive days. And that means getting my eyes dilated twice. Yay me. The reason I have two eye exams is because I also see a specialist for a retinal hole, which is stable, but the specialist wants to observe it to make sure it stays that way. Thus two eye exams – once for the retina doctor, and once for the regular eye doctor. It wouldn’t be that bad if not for the dilation. That means that after the eye exam, I’m going home and hiding in the house with the shades closed for a few hours until the drops wear off. And it would of course be my luck that it would be sunny on the days that I had my eye exams – and this isn’t even Philadelphia (where I’m told that it’s always sunny). But it was cloudy on Tuesday, but then yesterday and today, it was a beautiful day, which is exactly what I don’t want when my eyes are dilated.
One complaint about the eye exams is that there’s not enough diversity in eye charts. I’ve done this enough times, especially since I get two eye exams a year, that I’ve got the eye exam chart just about memorized. The eye chart is done with a projector, and then they use mirrors to get the full 20 feet in the exam room. This is the projector, seen here at my regular eye doctor’s office:
Categories: Personal health