Activities « Wheels within Wheels

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Travel photos to follow

Tuesday, September 16th, 2014

Well, I’m back. Been on a trip through eastern Europe for the last two weeks – started in Budpest, then through Romania and Bulgaria, finishing in Istanbul (not Constantinople).

It wasn’t the best trip I’ve been on, because I was ill for most of it. We’re blaming the Australians (two of the Australians in the tour group were ill at the start), but I don’t know for certain how I caught it. I just know that I got a nasty cough and congestion somewhere in Romania. I was satisfied to treat it with cough drops and skip some of the harder activities, but I woke up with my right eye bloodshot and gummed shut the first morning in Belogradchik, Bulgaria, and knew that I couldn’t get away without seeing a doctor at that point.

The group was scheduled to visit a cave and a hilltop fortress that day, so we had a local guide. The trip to the cave was delayed while the local guide took me to the hospital. Unfortunately, the doctor spoke no English, and the guide’s command of the language didn’t include medical topics. I did find out that I had elevated temperature, significantly elevated pulse and blood pressure, and was given prescriptions for the main infection and for my eye. We then went and found a pharmacist who filled the prescriptions, but she didn’t speak English, either.

I had to skip the trip to see the cave (and its paleolithic paintings) and the fortress, but I wasn’t feeling up to the effort, anyway. After a day or so, I could tell that the medicine was helping. Unfortunately, it wasn’t sufficient. I was only given a 3-day course of antibiotics, and when they’d run out, I relapsed. Sunday, our last day in Istanbul, I stopped eating, because I couldn’t handle it. Since then, I’ve had a small dish of vanilla ice cream on one of the flights, and some pancakes this morning.

I had other symptoms kick in on the trip back. I’m sure you don’t need details. In any event, the associated gas and cramping have made me unwilling to eat much, if anything. I bought some juice this evening, but it didn’t really taste as good as it usually does. At least I got new medicine to take with it – I managed to get an appointment at my doctor’s office on short notice today. With luck, I’ll be getting healthy again soon.

One thing – I lost about 10 pounds on the trip. I could certainly afford to lose that much (and more), but it’s not the best way of losing weight.

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Musical Evenings

Friday, August 22nd, 2014

Last night was the second anniversary of the Adrift Tiki Bar‘s opening, and the Denver Ukulele Community was invited to perform. It wasn’t a bad evening, but it could have been better. We were out on the back patio, and it was crowded, in large part because it was small. It was also noisy – I’m not sure how well we were heard, particularly during the solos after the group performances.

I did two solos: Three Dog Night’s Joy to the World, and The Vogues’ Five O’Clock World. At least one person heard me, and came up afterward to tell me how much he enjoyed my performance of the Brooks and Dunn song. He must have been thinking of some other group that covered one of the songs (Five O’Clock World has been covered by a number of performers), because Brooks and Dunn haven’t done either of those.

Tonight, we’ll be seeing Manhattan Transfer at the Arvada Center. Should be a good evening if the rain holds off, which is not what the weather forecast is leading me to expect. We weren’t able to get seats in the covered area, so we’ll be on the lawn. Might be a damp (or wet) evening.

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Seen on this evening’s walk

Thursday, August 14th, 2014

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Had dinner with my daughter this evening

Wednesday, May 21st, 2014

We tried the Kokopelli Beer Company, which is fairly new in the neighborhood. A bit noisy for my taste, but it was a good meal. They have a small “pizza and sandwiches” menu. The pizzas we had were tasty, and the drinks were good. I had an IPA (good) and a pineapple cider (not much flavor, I thought), and Cheryl had a regular cider (good) and a raspberry/chocolate stout (she liked it; I didn’t). I prefer the IPA at the Yak and Yeti, but I’m more than willing to go back to Kokopelli, as is she.

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Cold Weather

Monday, May 12th, 2014

So, we got snow yesterday and today. Not what I was looking for, but the average date of last frost is around the 20th, IIRC. It’s nice to get precipitation, even if it is cold.

I was out last night around 11pm, and the snow at that time was dry and hard – as it hit the leaves of the trees, it made a loud hissing noise. Long before morning, the snow had turned to large, damp flakes that stuck everything they fell on. Branches were drooping low when I got up, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there had been a lot of broken tree limbs in the area.

I’m looking forward to the weather warming up again, though.

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Happy Star Wars Day

Sunday, May 4th, 2014

May the Fourth be with you.

I went to the Denver Mini Maker’s Fair yesterday. Lots of interesting booths, including two Star Wars-related ones. One had various R2-D2 units, including at least one screen-used one. The other let you have your photo taken on Tattoine:

I ran into a number of friends there – one runs a company that was exhibiting, and most of the others were associated with the Denver Mad Scientists, who were also exhibiting. A couple others were just attending, like me. I acquired a couple of small kits to assemble, and there are a couple of things I talked with vendors about that I’ll probably pick up later.

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Happy New Year

Wednesday, January 1st, 2014

After returning from New York, I saw a doctor for my cold, expecting to be prescribed antibiotics. The doctor wasn’t certain if I actually had a cold or if I was suffering bad allergies. As a result, I’m on both antibiotics and steroids. Because of the administration instructions, I started the antibiotics a day earlier than the steroids, and was feeling better before I started the steroids, making me think that allergies are not the correct diagnosis.

Be that as it may, it appears that it will be a while before I’m healthy again. However, it’s New Year’s Day, and that needs to be celebrated. My parents had several traditions for New Year’s that were a mix; Mom was from England, and wanted the house to be clean before midnight on New Year’s Eve. At midnight, the front door had to be opened for a minute to let the old year out and the new year in, and it was hoped that the first visitor of the new year would bring a coin and bread.

Dad was originally from Philadelphia, but the only tradition of his was eating black-eyed peas, which he picked up while he was in the Air Force.

Me, I don’t do much of anything special. Marion and I like to go dancing, and had plans for last night that were disrupted by my illness. Instead, we watched That’s Entertainment, Part II on TCM, then turned to NBC to watch the time-delayed ball drop, then went to bed. I didn’t sleep well, unfortunately.

I’ll finish this post with someone else’s view of New Year’s, found here:

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Back from travel

Sunday, December 29th, 2013

Just returned this evening from a trip to New York. Part of it was fine, but I came down (hard!) with something on Christmas Day. Since then, I’ve been congested, unable to sleep at night, unable to stay awake during the day, and generally miserable.

On my return, I had a few hundred spam emails and pending comments for this blog, mostly trying to advertise sneakers, boots, headphones, sunglasses, drugs, shemale porn, surprises (“click the upcoming website”), and one for personalized Hanukkah pencils. They’ve been simple links, links with text in broken English, links in Japanese characters, in Chinese characters, and several in Arabic characters. At least my blog is so obscure and ignored that I can safely presume that any comments I receive are spam – the last valid comment came in over a year ago.

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A nice day

Sunday, November 24th, 2013

Spent a few hours volunteering mid-day, helping pass out food packages. Worked in the kitchen preparing dinner this afternoon – beef rib roast, roasted vegetables (sweet potatoes, onions, carrots, garlic, and chestnuts), Yorkshire pudding, and shallot gravy. It was a special dinner for my daughter, whose birthday is coming up. She also picked up her combination birthday/Christmas present: the Designer’s Edition of Ogre, which I backed on Kickstarter.

I don’t game, but she does, and she loved her present. She knew it was coming – it was supposed to be her present last year, but it took longer than expected to get everything nailed down for the release. Worth it, though. It’s an impressive package.

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Happy Halloween

Thursday, October 31st, 2013

Or Hallowe’en, if you prefer to maintain the older spelling that includes punctuation.

I haven’t done much fancy pumpkin carving in recent years, but I did two for decoration this year: one for me, and one for work. This is the one for me:

Here is the one I did for work:

The Darth Vader pumpkin was photographed in a dark room, lit by a candle. The Vesta pumpkin isn’t meant to be lit from inside. Unfortunately, despite the care I took in carving it, the QR code, which is supposed to point you to our website, isn’t recognized by my phone. I don’t know if it’s a matter of contrast, curvature of the surface, the grid not being sufficiently regular, or what have you. Disappointing, but I’m actually not that surprised. At least it looks sorta right.