Things I've learned this week

1. I learned that Bluey is really smart about caring for me.
2. i learned that I'm not so smart about caring for me.
3. I learned that I must not scare bluey again.

The back story:
The individual we shall call "Bluey" had to go to Hervey Bay for business. "Bluey" (this may be an alias) expressed concern that her husband who she was carer for would be unable to properly care for himself while she was gone over-night. the husband "chris" (note he seems to not have any aliases, he is anti aliased)
-----that's a computer graphics joke......google it
----------remember we set up the five dashes as an aside, not part of the story?

"Chris" was a bit full of himself and tried to convince "Bluey" that "she'll be right". "Bluey" nevertheless obtained the services of their Bro-in-law "Mumbles" (This guy has a string of aliases due to extensive computer game playing) to stay overnight with the husband. Both "mumbles" and "chris" quietly celebrated the coming boys video night. Whoo Hoo!

This brings us to Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning...this is how it when down....
"Mumbles" arrived at or around 4:45 and they launched into video night with the first video. They then went up to a favorite resturant and picked up gourmet pizza and took it back to the unit. They proceeded through two pizzas and two more videos despite the fact they both were very tired....chris said yah we can do the last video... "she'll be right"...they finished the third video. It was way past "chris'" bedtime and he discovered he forgot to take his meds after dinner. They went to bed and "Chris" forgot to setup the fan and leave the bedroom door open (the aircond is not so good in the unit). Neither of these things did "mombles" know about, as "Chris" said "she'll be right".

The next morning they got up later then "mumbles" intended in order for him to get to work but they rushed through breakfast. Then "chris" did take his temperature.

Issue:
He had a temp of 38
------Now dear readers you may recall mention of various meanings or actions that automaticaly come at various temperatures. Like at 37.0 to 37.5 (warning chris olin warning) and 37.5 and above "I'm sorry Mr. Olin you can't have Panadol for the raging headache because it would mask your temperature that we need to watch". And my favourite... at 38 and above GET YOUR STUPID SORRY A** INTO THE CLINIC......NOW.

So Mumbles had to leave for work immediately and the brave/stupid (which one depends on your point of view) "chris" waited an hour for a cab then walked to the ferry and walked to the clinic. He knew by this time that the temperature was down to 37.5 so wasn't too worried.

What the authorities did:
"Chris" was checked out throughly and by the time his temp was taken again it was in the 36 range. They took lots of blood to culture up to check for infections.

The sentence:
Let off with a warning. Back home at 10:00am.

However that's not all the story... Consider for a minute the poor wife in Hervey Bay getting the news that her cute darling dashingly handsome man
------laid on a little thick, you say
had a temp, even if she was told it was dropping, and that her man was on his way to the clinic. She of course would be upset.... what's happening?... will he get to the clinic okay?......will they be able to save him? All these questions raging through her head. Then she gets the call that he's at the clinic and in a bed... A BED not the usual reclining chair! It must be serious! Then she gets the call that the temperature is down to normal and he's to be let off soon.......
LET OFF! Does he know what he's put me through for the past two hours? I'll let him off! Wait till I get my hands on him.

The preceeding is of course just a consideration of what she might be thinking....saying. In reality when she got back to the Unit it was reported that she calmly checked him out, ate the beautiful mexican pie he had slaved over for an hour and a half, enjoyed the foot rub she got after dinner and said.........."And what have we learned today?"

That's the story as it was told to me and I believe it.

more later
"chris"

Birthday Week a high point

Here we are with Lisa Mckay-Wright who came down from the Bay to visit us this weekend. We went on a big walk around the the south end of this reach of the Brisbane river along to southbank and then we took the ferry back. This was on Friday late afternoon. (more pictures on http://s152.photobucket.com/albums/s195/chrisolin/).

Peter and Marion came down to wish JC a big birthday greeting Friday night ans we all five went out to another local resturant that we had heard good things about but hadn't been to yet. We checked it out and the kitchen was visible and looked good and all the food looked like I could eat it. Except for the shellfish but that looked really good! It coud be because I couldnt have it but it looked good. we had a sort of meze/tapas platter and a gourmet pizza to share and it was great. We wil be going back to Ikons on Main again soon.

Saturday we had breakfast at the local shop where Joyce personally checked out the kitchen before i got my bacon & egg muffin. she so looks after me! We had a good early start so went over to the city to do some errands and 'pooch about'. the second picture above. We took the ferry right around the river to the other side of the down town area to the far end of the local ferry route. Then we walked the length of the queen street mall looking around and trying to pick up things that Joyce had ordered but in the end we didn't get it all done then we took the ferry back across to our side so we could meet Jo and Gene. We had a surprise visit from Mary Ellen who just dropped in to wish JC a happy BD. we visited for a bit and after a quick trip to the store we had a feast of dips and cheezes for lunch. Mary Ellen lefta dn we all settled down for a short nap and then Bev dropped by to start our evenings festivities. We visited and then went up to Butter. We had arranged to sit in the lounge which is a little area with a surround bench seat and low table, very arabian nights. some sparlling wine and meze plates later we were all having fun. Just in case their are any double checkers out there I was indeed not drinking just laughing. We were pretty full but since much of the platters were not on my safety diet I qsked could we continue on to mains so we moved as originally planned to a round table outside under the sail where we continued the fun. Anthony and his crew looked after us very nicely. And everyone had dessert so they can't have been that full. We rolled home and into bed.

Sunday morning, this mornig we got up and got out to the Storey Bridge for their brunch early and got a good table. Then we ran out to Greg and Anne's to drop off wheels for Jo & Gene's new wagon, shinny is taking them on to the wheel wright for refurbishing. We played with Chilli and visited and had Cal's cake. Then back to the unit where we said good bye to J&G and Lisa who all went back to HB. Greg and Anne and Cal showed up at our place about 2 to pick up Sian who had been in town at a friends place, then they were going on to the opening of Pirates of the Carribean. Although invited, we declined as it will be too full of people as it is a weekend showing.

I think we are going out for another walk now so I'n drawing to a close. I created a screen shot from Google earth of our part of the river with some labels and the local ferry marked so you get a sense of where we walk. Find the same area in google earth and you can soom in to see better the cool trails available. http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s195/chrisolin/Ourwalks.jpg

more later
Chris.

Birthday Week Underway

Well it's that time of year. Joyce is celebrating birthday week in the lead-up to her big day on Saturday the 26th. So if you are around or want to call her to wish her Happy Birthday I'm sure she would appreciate it.

We have been having daily adventures to celebrate each day. Today's was a shopping trip into town and we hit David Jones and Myer Centre with a vengence! We saw the dog on Sunday. Went to the cinema on Tuesday. Monday I had the house professionally cleaned so she didn't have to do it. We may continue that one. Tomorrow we aren't sure what may happen but Friday we have a big day at the clinic so the afternoon adventure may get squeezed. Peter and Marion are down for the weekend so they are seeing us for Dinner. We have guests coming Friday (Lisa) and Saturday (Jo & Gene). Saturday night we are going out to dinner at a local but really nice resturant that looks after us.

Still getting some walks in but not big ones since we did 6 km around the west end last Saturday. We are going to take the ferry over and walk the Botanical Gardens soon.

Remember call Bluey re the birthday +617 3391 4338 or email to artsbase@cirruscomms.com.au

More later
Chris

hello

It's been a bit, but I have been out walking! I did 6 kms last Saturday after getting blood on Friday. Thanks again for nutrition advice from you all it has obviously helped. Oh and this is what i look like today, hair growing on head, beard filling in again and not so gaunt looking.

More later
Chris

Another Gatton Pic

Our very talented niece Alicia drove at Gatton and did well. Here she is behind Sommerville Just Brilliant. Belated Brithday greetings to Alicia in Takura and to Caitlin in Charlewood!

Another big walk today up along the cliff top south of here then down the big stairs and back along the river about 3.1 kms.

here's a little fun

my avitar in Meez

Big Weekend

Well It's been a big time here at the little world of Joyce and Chris. Gene and Jo called while we were at the clinic getting my top up of Intragam on Friday morning. They were on their way down to pick up a new little wagon they want to use for training horses. It's lighter then the current trianing one and more complete then the ten thousand piece puzzle that is their show wagon in it's current deconstructed state. Anyway it was in a town just north of Brisbane and we asked the doc and he said go for it so we settled on meeting in Eumundi about 1.5 hours north of us. We had lunch at Eats and a bit of a stoll. It was not a market day so was pretty quiet and safe for me. So another first, a big day out of town!

Saturday we were expecting Mary Ellen and Caitlin for morning tea but they stayed and we had lunch at the Story Bridge Hotel in the Outback open air area. Still not very busy and safe for me. We then took a walk over the back and around the point back to our place. We looked at Caitlin's pics of her school formal and showed them pics from Gatton that Anne left us. It was big fun.

I took a nap then anounced that I wanted to do the next big walk. So at 4:00pm we set out. We climbed the stairs behind the Story Bridge Hotel up to the Bridge walkway and crossed the Bridge. Then walked down and under the bridge to the river then walked down stream on the new floating river boardwalk to the bottom of New Farm. We got to Sydney street and took the ferry back up and around the point to our side and walked home. I jumped on Google earth and calculated the path distance. Not including the stairs and level changes.... I walked 4.2 Kms! We got back at 6:00pm and it had gone dark and the city and bridge were beautiful in the lights.

Peter and Marion came down for a conference yesterday and they came and had breakfast at Butter with us this morning. Bluey made lovely cofee for us afterward at the unit and we had a good talk about the state of the world. We had a great time but they are off to HB now.

More pitures at http://s152.photobucket.com/albums/s195/chrisolin/

more later
Chris

Gatton Pic

Here's a picture of Sian on Costa and Anne on Leo as they wait to complete (or for results) in the clydesdale jumping event.

Some pics from last week

Here's Jo and Gene last Saturday at bButter for breakfast. We saw them ths past Friday but more later
Here's the Marbardis when they came to drop Callum a week ago Thursday. Aren't they cute!

An author in search of a tropic

He looked high..... he looked low .......no latitude was left unturned. Google earth was used extensively in this excercise.

Okay I did pick the title in order to add a little pizzazz. ...... its capricorn by the way........the nearest tropic.

What's been happening. Bev came for supper Saturday and Callum entertained us all with his conversation skills and his guitar skills. Sunday took us to Butter for Sunday brunch and then the big walk. I used google earth afterward to measure the distance but we walked a round to Southbank along the river and ferried back. A 3 km walk! I'm getting stronger everyday.

Monday we got up late and Callum got taken awayin the afternoon, by his mom after a bit of a visit. They all had a great time at Gatton.

Tuesday we were at the clinic early 7:20am! and had bloods and flushing Dr Schozenbootz called later and said my levels were all okay so that's great. My feet hurt and so we didn't go anywhere. Bev and Shinny joined us for drinks and dinner and we all had good conversation. My God Bev asked probing questions. Anyway Shiny was off early today to Uni. Joyce had an errand this morning and then we walked/ferried into the city to the bank to try to sort moving money from Canada and faxing things to the government. Were back home and snuggled in for the evening, its getting cooler in the evening these days droping to a cool 22 or 20 degrees.

Had a really nice Skype call with Clem Martini, the hugely suscessful Canadian playwright, author, editor and wrting professor. He may be coming to Australia next year and we can hardly wait. They used skype to stay in touch with their eldest daughter when she was traveling in Australia earlier in the year and I told him I thought 9 years old was way to young to be traveling alone and reminded me that the World has turned a few times since I last saw Chandra, and that it was okay for this 3rd year uni student, 23 year old, to travel! Very nice conversation for Bluey and I.

Peter and Marion are coming by for Sunday brunch this weekend, as Marion is here for an Ancient History conference, on Saturday. Ret is coming to visit next Wednesday and shinny next Tuesday so we have lots to look forward to. More long walks planned.

That's it for this Tropic. The next obvious tropic is Cancer but we aren't going there so I'll have to come up with a new theme for next blog.

More later
Chris

What to do when you get two bags of blood

How can the most boring thing, watching blood drip into me for three hours, also be pretty cool? Answer: because I have the technology to amuse myself. So while I watch the drips out of the corner of my eye I can type this blog WHILE at the same time listening to the ‘Bernadette’ instrumental by the Funk Bros from ‘Standing in the Shadow of Motown’. It’s an effort not to hum out loud along with the tune but that would be way to embarrassing.

I admit it I’m in love with my Macbook. It sings to me and listens to me. it takes my picture and records my thoughts. It’s intuitive and even makes fun of PCs …its true just go to http://livepage.apple.com/ and click on ‘watch the ads’. It’s a tool and entertainment. And it has so many cool features I’m so glad we came back to Mac.

I have my Mac smugness back. There is nothing you can say to me, Cory, that can take that smugness away.

Hey this week I got Skype up and running. So far I’ve had a video conversation with Dan in Calgary who was up working into the wee hours getting work finished so he was clear to attend a time management seminar the next day! That’s my pal! I talked to Lisa but the video interfered with the speed so we turned off the video and the sound was fantastic. And I talked to Lynn and Peggy in Calgary and it was very very satisfying except they don’t have a camera yet, but they hadn’t really used it yet so were quite excited by seeing our vision that they promised to go out and get a web cam soon.

It is free between Skype users! The software is free! In the background I hear Joyce’s brother who is a fierce privacy crusader saying some objections to it but still…. I’m willing to give a little to get free phone calls. I mean I got to hear Lyn and Pegs new dog Boomer barking, and even better got hear Lynn baby talking to the dog and squeezing a sqeaky chew toy! I got to freak out Dan and Maree’s dog Maggie by calling her name….the computer has never talked to her before!

All that fun! Who knows what other fun we can have…..Get skype and phone me on ‘olinchris’

Research topic today is the word skype I’m pretty convinced that the last part, ‘ype’ is the sound that you pronounce if you say IP (Internet Protocol) but where does the ‘sk’ sound come from. Is it “everything including the sky available on the internet”…. sky_IP

My apologies to Mumbles who I failed to mention visited us on Anzac Day for several hours. It was a very nice visit we talked we laughed we joked, we punned, we fretted over the @%@#$#$% telephone answering machine date and time change. And I forgot to mention it later in the blog. It was very rude of me. Sorry Greg.

Gene, Jo, Alicia, Greg, Anne and Sian along with several horses are at Gatton Heavy Horse Field Days this long weekend. It’s the first time in many years that Joyce and I aren’t there and it feels weird but we have compensation! Greg and Anne’s son Callum is staying with us in the city for the weekend! So far we have hung out, listened to his excellent guitar playing, walked and went to the little Jazz Club on the river last night, It was a traditional jazz quartette with bass, guitar drums and trumpet. Cal picked it because he recognized the group from something his guitar teacher mentioned. Anyway Cal ran into said guitar teacher at the show and immediately scored brownie points for expanding his musical tastes. Other influences, on Cal’s music are Nivana, Heavy Metal, Emo, Punk, Led Zepplin, Pink Floyd, the Beatles, Jimmy Buffet. Yard Birds, Cream, Isn’t he eclectic! He’s a good boy! At 6 foot plus tall and 15 years he’s quite a sight but he’s so into learning and seeing and helping that he’s very cool. Puts me in mind of Nate and Cory. I’m a very lucky guy to know these young folks.

Don’t know what’s up for tonight but after the blood’s in I get to go shopping with Cal and Bluey for his new jeans and who knows what fun we will get up to.

The rest of my counts have been good the past week so with this extra red on board I should be rocketing around for a bit. Doc Schoozenbootz even said I was “going along sweet” so that’s got to be good eh? I couldn’t find it in the medical dictionary but it’s got to be positive.

Got a visit from Anne and Bec Maddern that was real nice. It’s good that Bec’s leg is coming along. Anyway she’s got all her pins out of her leg and now has to wait for the bones to fill in the holes. . She’s in a similar position in that she doesn’t feel sick but she’s not well and won’t be “well” for at least months and months so has to just be patient.

I still have no ANSWERS about my feet but I feel they are getting stronger and stronger and they hurt less and less, but it cycles so I will have bad days again no doubt. I keep walking through it! Its weird though cause one day I have a weird gate then it gets more normal then off again. I’m not sure how it looks to neighbours who are probably worrying about this poor disabled guy who’s limp moves from right side to left side and back from week to week! Anyway they are 90 % today so shopping is on.

My energy is improving! I can clearly note the change. The shower is not such an issue nor are tasks around the house and I’m getting longer walks in. I’m not giving up my afternoon nap though, that just too comfortable!

Looking to hear how the 60th birthdays for Jim & John went along with the celebration of Lauren’s grad and Sean’s birthday. I rekon he’s 23 but bluey thinks I’m letting a romantic timeframe cloud my judgement. We visited Ginger and Sean early in our relationship and he was a teenager then and that was 20+ years ago so ………

Anyway hope the weekend went well.

More later
Chris

mid week review

Hi folks,
Not much to report. Had bloods done on Tuesday and everything is down a little which is good except for red cells 'cause I'm lower than normal in that cell. The rest are all higher than norm so it's good to have dropped a bit.
Still feeling good and had a gym session Monday and a big two km walk yesterday. Walked all aroung the point and up the boardwalk to the opposite side and then over the top of the peninsula back to our side and then back home. Tired at the end but fellt good that I could do it. Had a 2 hours nap afterward though.

That's my life, a little excercise a little napping, a little video, a little shopping or errands with Joyce, a little visit to the docs....busy busy busy.

The Mabardis are coming for dinner and to drop Callum off. Hes staying with us for the weekend while the horse crasy rest of them go to Gatton. We of course weren't able to be at Gatton Heavy Horse Show this year. So this was an opportunity to spent some quality time with Cal. I rekon he will be my excercise for the weekend!

more later
Chris