ProfessorTomoe

Grilled shrimp and part of a medium-rare New York Strip, thanks to my wife who brought it back from a high-falutin' git-together of the Garland Pet Adoption Center or something like that. She bought an extra plate for me at Saltgrass and brought it home. Nom.

I'm more worried about the Benadryl showing up in a drug screen. I have an appointment on January 4th, and I haven't declared Benadryl as a drug that I take to the pain center. I normally don't take it, but if it shows, I run the risk of losing my spot in the program without good reason, and if the welt goes away ... you get the idea. I think I need to call my pain management doctor tomorrow. P.S.: Took another Benadryl.

I am watching my Houston Texans (or what is left of them after so, so many injuries) lose to Pittsburgh. They're on their fourth-string quarterback now.

I don't know if it was a credit or a debit. It could have been in Bitcoins, for all I know. To make matters worse, I'm also on another "free" credit monitoring program through TransUnion due to another data breach, and I got a warning e-mail from it about something dated the day before ( Dec. 23). I can't check it because their online stuff only goes through October. At least they had the decency to put "Our system is closed for the holiday" on their support answering line. Anyway, I'm guessing it's the same thing Equifax is reporting.

I'm on one of the free credit monitoring plans from Equifax because my credit was breached in a mass breaching earlier this year. Well, last night, I got an alert on one of my accounts (I think - neither one of us can find a charge for this amount) with the following warning message: I spent 30 minutes on hold trying to find out what what happened this morning. No one picked up.

The welt's from the shingles vaccine's getting bigger. I've finally broken down and taken a benadryl, although I have no idea what kind of side effects it will give me, considering the fact that I just took my pain medicine and that I took a dose of Zofran for nausea before that. I could be knocked flat on my ass for a while.

I'm developing a reaction to the shingles vaccination. I've got a bright red welt under my arm that's over 2 inches in diameter and about a half inch high. It hurts. So much for the "no side effects" that the pharmacist said I'd have. Had more problems while down in Round Rock for family Christmas. The oxycodone made me pretty useless. I had stomach issues. Finally, when I got home, I took a bite of one of the candies I got (a Boston Baked Bean) and wound up breaking the BACK quarter of the tooth that I had repaired last week. I can't win for losing.

I just got a shingles vaccination. For free, thanks to insurance. First time I've ever had a vaccination shot under my arm (in the skin of the triceps area). Better than having the shingles, I guess.

A Night Hawk brand "Taste of Texas" TV dinner.

My puppy eyes are pouting. The ending doesn't quite work. I got feedback from my son on the song (now titled "Beehive"), and he figured the ending was too short. I agree with that, and with about 90% of his other suggestions. Not to despair—at least I know where to go with my song.

The piece of music I've been writing may have written its own ending. If so, I will be a very happy puppy.

Thanks! The sensation is odd - it's like my gastric bypass pouch is actually working for me now. If I eat too much, though, I get the infamous "Zofran emergencies." Just one bite too many can make me want to throw up.

Well, it's not like they work in a Cottage industry, and the wages in-curd can be small thanks to the butterfat-cats that churn the business and skim the profits.

Mrs. Prof arrives home. USB 3 slot found and plug shifted into it. ASIO drivers now functional! The 2i2 Gen.2 works now.

So much for the plug-and-play swap. I hooked up the new Focusrite 2i2 Gen.2 tonight. Reboot, voila! Sound. Play a random sound. Pristine. Try to load SONAR. Error - no driver that matches a sound device. I had to download new drivers for the new sound interface, of course, which meant I had to uninstall the old ones. I got a BIG full-page error message when I tried to uninstall. However, the process completed, as did the install of the new drivers. Reboot again. Try to load SONAR. No dice. Find and run the ASIO diagnostic - no device connected. [expletives deleted] I'm going to have to get Mrs. Prof to help me put the USB terminal into a USB 3 slot, I think.

There doesn't seem to be much hope for Cakewalk SONAR Platinum. I'm still using it, though, until something breaks it, and I'm not the only person doing this. There are a lot of loyal SONAR users out there. I'm one of them, and I'm keeping it on my computer. As of today, my computer will have a new sound interface. My generation-two Focusrite 2i2 USB audio interface arrived a day early—shipped from Walmart, no less! I'm going to try to slip it into the chain in all of it's 24-bit/192 kHz glory tonight. Should be a plug-and-play swap, since the outputs are identical and since the unit is sitting on top of my mixer box. I'm still going to wait until Mrs. Prof comes home before I get started, because the last pain medicine dose has me a bit cross-eyed.

*** TEA PORN *** Drinking too-hot Lapsang Souchong. You've got to brew the stuff at around 194°F, but then IMHO you've really got to let it cool to let the flavors have a fighting chance to be tasted. Otherwise, you're zooming the pleasant brew past the tongue, or burning it with it. Now going through a bit of a cool-down cycle.

Cow tipping is just wrong. They give lousy service. You're gonna have to help me with the pickles, though. They won't fit on my bun.

Third day back on the old 4am/10am/4pm/10pm med schedule. Mrs. Prof volunteered herself as Chief Pillcutter after cutting a week's worth without smashing a single one of the little buggers. (I always leave particulate matter behind.) As said earlier, Sunday was better than Saturday. Much more so. I was able to go and see The Last Jedi, although I came close to crashing after we got back home. A bit of football resuscitated me. Today, I've been able to write music for almost two hours and deal with insurance immediately afterward. I also talked to my son to get some help on my slow internet speeds (he studied that in college). Turns out the problem's on Frontier FiOS's end, but I'm still installing the neat new router they sent me (immediately followed by a call to Frontier to schedule a service call). I think I've said this before, but there is one upside to the pain and all of the medications: it's making me lose the weight I regained after my gastric bypass surgery. I started off at 356 lb. (161.5 kg) (25.42 stone) down to 275 lb (124.7 kg) (19.6 stone) before a pain doctor put me on gabapentin. That's an evil drug, people. It screws with your brain, makes you loopy, and makes you want to eat all the time. I went back up to 326 lb (Google is your friend) in just a couple of months and eventually wound up back at 356 lb. Well, since going on the Topamax for my back/leg/foot pain, I've officially come back down to 318 lb. Last night, I weighed myself at home and came up with 314 lb—that's a loss of 42 lb! This is a drug that my primary care physician has me on, so it's not under the control of the pain doctor. I hope he keeps me on it at least until I break 300 lb. I'd like to go even lower, but it's difficult when you can't exercise. My diet is doing that for me.

Typically that is my experience, too. Too typically atypical, too?

Saw The Last Jedi at at Sunday matinee at a Studio Movie Grill. I'll just say that the theater was awfully quiet for a Star Wars film. Either that, or the food was that good. Currently watching live cricket from India on the Willow channel until my pain medicine kicks in.

Thank you. Must have worked. I'm settling in better today. Woke up at 4am with just over a 6 on the pain scale, then went back to sleep and woke up with around a 6 at 10am. Tried walking - much easier than yesterday.

This is not working well. I wound up pulling an 8 before my 10am dose. I went to bed right after and woke up just after noon. Someone tell me what I'm doing wrong.

I've just taken my 4:00 a.m. oxycodone dose. Right now, my near-sciatic region is really firing off at me. I'm awake until the medicine kicks in.

Ninja'd! I've got that movie, downloaded from Archive.Org.