$12 I'm keeping!

07.18.2012

A couple of weeks ago I ordered from Amazon 3 monitor desk brackets so I could maximize some room on my computer desk. I ordered 3 because I was, at the time, trying to set up my old graphics card & monitor from the computer that's been sitting in a closet for 3 years as my 3rd display. Sure, 2 monitors is enough for anybody, but if I've got a 3rd why not use it?

I should have waited to place the order for the brackets until after I got the 3rd monitor working. It turns out that the old video card isn't compatible with my current video card, i.e. unless I want to buy another comparable video card, I'm only going to have 2 monitors. Ah well, lesson learned. I could have used 2 of the brackets and still cleared up some desk space, but the whole monitor fiasco took the wind from my sails. I logged into Amazon to process my return of all 3 brackets. Since there was no defective product involved, just that I no longer wanted it, it would cost an estimated $12 to ship the brackets back. Once again, lesson learned. I printed off everything, boxed it up in the same box the brackets were shipped in, and dropped the box of for return at my local UPS store.

Today I received an email from Amazon with the subject Undeliverable shipment received for Order XXX-XXXX telling me that A shipment from your order (#XXX-XXXX) for the following item(s) has been returned as undeliverable. It then listed the 3 brackets. From the email, it looked like they were telling me that they had tried to deliver the package, but it was returned to Amazon instead.

Roughly 2 hours later I received another email from Amazon, this time telling me that my refund has been processed on my order of the 3 brackets. I usually get an email like this when I return something. The email listed the price of the refund, which happened to be the purchase price of the brackets. They didn't charge me the $12 return shipping fee.

I'm going to chalk this one up to me getting lucky for once. Maybe my weekly orders from Amazon garner me 1 free return shipping fee?

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Return to Hobbies, Part 1

07.17.2012

While convalescing for the past 6 weeks, I originally had grandiose dreams of what all I could get done. Little did I realize how much I would have to lay around partnered with how little desire I would have to do anything but lay around. But times are a'changing.

I've had a hobby/things-to-do list for a while. It helps me stay organized both with the things I want to do and with my time. Over the past few days I've been revisiting my list. Actually I trashed the old list and started a new one. Right now the list isn't in a scheduling time mode, but instead trying to figure out what all I'm actually trying to do.

Case in point: Over the past year I've enjoyed painting gaming miniatures more for fun than for any particular game. Along the way I've started to lean more towards zombie/horror figures since I've seen times where they could come in handy. Part of the fun of any hobby is getting the supplies, and painting is chock full of supplies. Besides the obvious of paint and brushes, there are all kinds of little tidbits that make the process easier or better. I've gotten 95% of the supplies I can think of, so I'm ready to paint.

But what to paint? As is my way, I've amassed a lot of figures to paint. Just last week I ordered a batch that had been sitting in my Cool Stuff Inc Wish List, using "Hey, I'm feeling better" as an excuse. Right now I've got 4 figures in various state of paint that I last touched 2 months ago. Why do I need more? How much more do I actually have?

That question prompted me to count for my list. If I'm going to schedule time to paint, I need to know what I have and how long it might take. So after gathering up the figures from the various spots I was storing them, I made a list of what all I have to paint. 2 big groups of figures are from Dust Tactics and Starship Troopers, with the latter being out of production. I left these out of the count because I'm saving these for when my painting skills have peaked. When my count was done, it included 3 batches of boxed zombie hordes (which accounts for 84 figures) and some Colonial Space Marines from a start up (which counts as another 25). Even with that 109 of generic, mix-n-match figures, I still have another 85 loose figures for a total of 194.

194 is a lot of figures to paint. I had no idea I had that many.

Now to properly come up with a plan and timeframe to paint these little bastards. And pics, I need lots of pics. Not enough pics on the blog lately.

Permalink gaming miniatures hobbies

Back to the workforce - marginally.

07.16.2012

In June I worked 5 hours. So far in July, I have worked 3½

Today was my first "doctor allowed" day back to work since coming down with my post-surgical infection 2 weeks ago. My goal was to take it easy and work half a day. I'm going to round up and say I actually made it half a day.

It's weird how fast I will suddenly feel fatigued, especially given that all I'm doing is sitting in front of a computer or sitting and talking to someone. Luckily I can feel it coming and manage to not overdo it. Maybe I'm paranoid about overdoing it? When I got home from my 3½ hours of work, the first thing I did was take a nap for almost an hour. After Gina came by and changed my bandages, I ate lunch and then proceeded to take another nap, this time for 2½ hours.

3½ hours of work. 3½ hours of nap. I'll have to see if this ratio continues.

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Civilization Here I Come. I Think.

07.13.2012

Over the last 6 weeks I've spent most of my time at:

• Home
• Gina's House
• Doctors Office/Hospital
• Publix
• Chiropractor

I also had an errand day at CVS, Target, and 5 hours at work. The point is, I've been home a lot. That's ok, I like home. The only shortcoming, to which I will admit, is that I don't move around much. I've gotten better to the point where it's ok to move around. With that in mind, I'm going to run some errands today.

It should take me about 3 hours to go and do everything. Nothing major, just dropping off/picking up a few things from here and there, but they all involve at the very least a trip to the Huntsville/Madison metropolitan area. So I'm loading myself up in the car in about 15 minutes and going to fund out how much of that 3 hours I can get through. Update to come!

If no update comes, check the news for "Large Athens man found unable to complete errands".

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Quick Update: Survived my errands and made it back home, but didn't have time to do everything within 3 hours. Oddly enough, after 3 hours I was hot and tired enough that I was ready to come back home. I may try to make up that Target run that got left out in the morning, thus completing my errands and hopefully avoiding some heat.

Permalink random

Time for another update!

07.09.2012

Yet another update to my surgical recovery that will never end. This update is not for the squeamish or anyone about to eat. Really, it gets nasty.

Sunday, July 1st I wrote that I was suffering from a fever and was planning on going to my regular doctor if I was still running a fever come Monday. I actually wrote that at 4:00AM. After writing that, I went back to bed.

5 hours later I awoke to find myself in the throes of a post surgical infection. When I went to bed I had a small spot on my right butt cheek that had been draining a little fluid. When I woke up, the left leg of the shorts I was wearing were soaked, as well as the sheet I was wrapped up in. I hopped up to take a shower to try and tell what was really going on, and the left side of my surgical incision was oozing. Not thick enough to really be pus, but something. In fact, after my shower I was oozing enough fluid it was dripping off of me. I was leaving a trail wherever I went.

I called Gina to come look and take care of me. We called the Dr office and got a call back within 5 minutes. The on-call Dr phoned in an antibiotic prescription and told us to show up at the office first thing Monday morning. I had asked about going to the ER, but Gina was against it, thinking it would be more likely I would pick up something else and they would just try flushing my wound out. The rest of the day we spent changing bandages and taking cool showers.

Monday morning at the Dr office he confirmed I did indeed have an infection. He pulled out a suction sucker from the wall and proceeded to suck out some fluid from me. A lot of fluid. And I mean a lot. When I looked at the sucker afterward, it was mounted to the wall about 4 feet high, and the tube went from the wall, looped fown to the floor, then to the actual sucker that was resting on the counter top (so, another 3 feet high). In that 7 feet of tube you could see the red pus/fluid/ooze he sucked out, and that's just what didn't make it all the way into wherever the wall takes it. Nasty.

He ended up cutting 2 holes in my butt. That's all I really know as I haven't seen it. Gina, on the other hand, got to see it, and has seen it twice per day since as she's come to change out dressings and just take care of me.

By Wednesday my fever finally went back to normal. By Wednesday Gina was able to change bandages without audibly gagging. For the whole week I stayed in bed except to go to the bathroom, fix/eat a meal, or sneak onto the computer a couple of times.

This morning we went back to the Dr and he said I was progressing nicely (I think I've heard that before). He wants me to stay home from work for another week. My right side needs more healing than the left (which didn't seem the case 2 days ago), so Gina has to keep changing out bandages and take care of me.

I feel sorry for Gina. She's seen a whole lot of my ass over the last 5 weeks. It's not a sexy ass. It's a post surgical scarred up ass. I'm going to have to start treating her better.

Permalink pilonidal cyst