Rough week or so...

Been a hard last little while, between vehicle maintenance issues with our Westy in for some major repairs (all little things but a whole page of them), my motorcycle required new tires then found that the front forks were bleeding a little, so had them rebuild and reseal the forks. Unfortunately the only the upper bushings were available from the dealer (no I am not crazy the work is being done by Victoria Motorcycle Salvage on David Street, but the parts were only available via the dealer) but the lower bushings were not available from them. Yahoo's FJ1200 Club to the rescue! A company called Race-tech manufacturers after market suspension for my 86 FJ1200. They are also reasonably priced. So basically as far as the vehicles are going, we are down to the Tercel, and of course A's Honda Rebel, but with no insurance.

Then this past Friday things got a bit worse and more serious, as our youngest dog collapsed. I had just come home on Friday evening, and found her dazed, barely standing but not moving, she was staring straight ahead at the wall, then fell over. She stayed that way for a few minutes in a daze. Later that evening she seemed fine, but of course I kept a close eye on her. The next morning when I returned from a quick chore outside, she could not raise herself from the couch, and was in that "1000 Yard Stare" again. So I decided to take her to the Vet. After the exam the Blood work was run, this showed a very high escalation of White blood cells as well as a slight drop in Red Cells, the obvious assumption was an infection as the physical exam showed nothing out of place. A prescription of the Antibiotics and Steroids was recommended, as well as a close monitoring over the weekend. She seemed quite fine over both days with the exception of sleeping lots, I put this down to both the escalating fight her body was going through as well as the meds. Monday morning blood work was not positive though. It showed a startling climb in her White cells to nearly three time what they should be, again the Red cells had fallen substantially. Blood sugar levels had also shown a significant rise above the normal, as well as high levels of sugar in her urine. We had proceeded with Abdominal and chest cavity X-rays. A large mass was seen near the now enlarged spleen, but could not be identified as its proximity to the spleen made it hard, and the mass has pushed many of the organs away. So this Thursday we have a Ultrasound booked to try to ascertain our next steps to get her back to health, as well as an additional blood work this AM to keep an eye on things. As you can imagine we are both feeling quite upset and just hoping that we can get her all fixed up and back to full health.

Back up, Back up, back up! No I am not practicing to be a sign-person, or driving instructor. I am speaking about a catastrophic Hard Disk failure that took out a 200 GB Maxtor Drive, which unfortunately had the partition with all my documents as well as over 5 years worth of my Digital Pictures. Those of you asking when I was going to post my Vegas Pictures, may now see why the delay. Thankfully I had a back up of all pictures pre-Canon XTi, as well as all the ones since the XTi on separate discs. You can imagine the panic though, questioning whether I had backed it up or "just meant to"! Pretty much tore my Computer room apart in the search to find the safely stored DVD's or one of the copies. I had tried every trick known to me in order to resurrect the Drive, using everything from the freezer to all my utilities. OK don't laugh but when the drive is plugged in in makes a ringing sound like an old cell phone, then it almost sounds like a dial tone until it clicks off.. yes I found it on the web so it's not just me losing my mind. I have order a replacement Board for the drive, as this may bring it back so I can get any other data off of it, (although the pictures were the big thing,). I have ordered a replacement drive for this unit as it is out of warranty (figures). Do we have time to go into my Hauppage PVR, which at this moment should have arrived in Hauppage, NY for repair/replacement. It's OK, get all of these little negatives out of the way this month, then the rest of the year will be positive :-)

OK on a more positive note, when in Vegas I saw these little replica of the "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada" signs. Well I thought I have to get one of those for my computer desk. They have the chase lights running around the sign as well as the multi-colored flashing star. The issue was getting it back via airline luggage from Vegas to San Francisco then to Vancouver and finally Victoria (I figured it would be in many pieces by then). While in Vegas I went on eBay and sure enough they had them listed there. Well it arrived yesterday and it looks very cool, almost like being there ;-) Now just waiting for "The Deuce" "Ride the Deuce, Have fun!"
Wish I was back there now.

EOF - LC