#ROW80 2ND QUARTER, WEDNESDAY CHECK IN, POST 12 – MUSINGS, WONDERINGS AND THE NON-SERIOUS SIDE OF LIFE

One of the other things besides music and computers that I find fascinating is this whole “Search for Intelligent Life Elsewhere.” Of course, we're currently running out of it here at home, especially in the US at a rapid rate, so I think we should quadruple our efforts immediately in our hunt for some entity that is a wee bit brighter than a door knob. To that end, I have dedicated some of my computers' awesome power to SETI@home.

When SETI@home is running, my visitors don't come. The last time they showed up, they pushed around a plate of symmetrically placed clementines I left out for them. I guess they liked them.

Fair enough. I've picked up 3 rather nice projects and since I know no borders or recognize no governments, unless they've pissed me off personally, I have picked up a project from Cambridge in the UK and one SAT, from Russia, along with SETI from Berkeley, California. Great, snazzy and all that jazz. I've processed some umpteen quadrillion petaflops worth of data just for SETI alone. We have our little glitches now and then, but knowing computers, I can work around the false-positives from this end.

Their Chamber of Commerce needs to get with the times. This is so 1947.

We just received a new version of SETI@home. V 7.0 and AVG will register it as a virus. There have been notes sent to all of us for about 2 weeks. I already knew this, when I saw the Seti signature in the AVG warning and ignored it. But, some poor shlubs have apparently decided their Boxes of Magic were infected and fired off notes to the Admins on the project. Needless to say, the support team is not supportive. It should be the “flog and public-shaming team.” They are not all like that, but there is a low tolerance for anything less than absolute wizardry in all of these disciplines. Most likely, the users are people who are just excited to be included in something rather cool. I just do my thing and hide. If something breaks, I fix it. That's why I belong to the ex-CIA team; those retired old bats up there in central Florida.

Still, there is a case to be made for approaching the “Box of Magic” as just that. Personal computers have been around for awhile and part of the domestic landscape for over a decade. Granted, tons of the documentation is less than easy to decipher and in fact comes across as a subset of what I call “Chinglish.”

Step 1. Please to open box forthrightly, as shown in pictoo. (no picture shown) Step 2. Please to remove CPU and place in upright fashion near floor, not wall as see in pictoo too. (picture of a monitor display, with cords) Step 3. Please to insert cable B in socket D, and cable C in socket Z as display in pictoo fore (picture of a set of pinochle cards) and so on. Please to go and drink yourself blind as show in pictoo 79. Yup, that I can do.

So, maybe it isn't the consumer's fault, but once on the internet, there is loads of good information available to the informed seeker. The key word here being “informed.” If your Grandma goes and googles “Delete Key, what to do with it,” the number one answer with a bullet is this:

I just started laughing all over again; picturing an Apple keyboard, with only a GIANT DELETE key. Less efficient than what? An electric brick?

I supported Apple products for all of 5 minutes at IBM; after I recovered from the terribleness of that experience, I swore off any and all Macs, and Apple-related gizmos and their stupid proprietary software. I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate it. Just hate it so much, it needs to all bleed to death, slowly. I tried to help some nimrod who was using Word 6.0 for his MAC, so help me God. He had me so flustered during the call, he asked me what a box was, and I shouted into the phone of this 47-hour long abortion of a call, “IT'S A THING SHAPED LIKE A SQUARE!”

There were times I wanted to answer, "ESP Help Desk." There were certainly days when pentagrams, divining rods, crystal balls, and Magic 8-Balls would have been useful. When a customer answers "It's broke," to your query of "And how may I help you today," (prior to open- and close-ended questions) you know you're in for a long, long ride.

Dead silence; 100 engineers quietly hung up on their own phone calls and turned their attention to me to see if I was going to catch on fire. I was standing, and bent over and pretended to tie my high-heeled shoe. For the ensuing 4 hours of this horrible, horrible call. As Agent Scully would say, “Never Again.” Give me OS/2 thinkpad platform calls, network, Windows, Lotus Suite, Lotus Notes, Mainframe calls. Fine. Come at me with a Macintosh call, you'd better be prepared to be hung by a headset from the highest cubicle wall (less than 5 feet, so I guess you'd better be really, really short, too.)

So, maybe I still should cut the people who post on the bulletin boards at SETI@home for help some slack, but they could at least read the damned notes. I've spent so much time around computers, that I think in Boolean logic. I'm certainly more comfortable around them, than some people. Trying to guess if people really mean what they say is a pain in the ass. Having lived with 2 people who were masters of mind games (one of whom was my mother, the other an ex-husband) has done nothing for my personality. Oh well. It is what it is.

Today, I went to the Byrd Center at USF, designated by the Parkinson's Foundation as a Center of Excellence and saw Dr. Deborah Burke, a Movement Disorder Doctor. She spent a lot of time with me and explained to me why she is not entirely convinced that I have Parkinson's Disease, but she is going to send me off for a DaTScan. My tremors have always been the least of my set of symptoms. Admittedly, I think because I spent so many years playing the viola, I have much stronger hands and forearms and a very strong right arm (my shoulders are broad for a woman, too) that I am able to work around or through the tremors, although they are slowly worsening.

What I've experienced is this; a lifetime of depression, starting at a fairly early age (around 16.) Ulcer surgery at a young age, 29, and bad choices. Father, an alcoholic, although not mean or abusive to my mother. He always had a job. My mother was manipulative and abusive towards me. I left home as soon as I reached my majority, but that is just escaping a bad situation; I had never developed any coping skills and continued to make bad life choices. In essence, a lot of crap, and I'm lucky to still be alive. Fast-forward to last year, after having been in yet, ANOTHER abusive situation, this one physical for a change, and I fought back. When JC and I settled in, all of a sudden I couldn't sleep. My father had died in his sleep, and I guess I had it in my head that this was going to happen imminently. Go figure. It didn't, but I woke up in the mental ward of St. Joseph's Hospital, having lost a month and found out I am bipolar. Oops.

I told Dr. Burke all of this and she nodded. We worked through the medications I'm on and nothing jumps out as a trigger, so we went back to my social history. Dr. Burke observed, “Kind of the chicken and egg scenario. We don't know where the egg and the chicken and then the alcohol and...” I started to laugh and she did, too. Neat lady and a terrific doctor, too. I can tell. Having worked in a teaching hospital for 5 years was a real gift. Doctors who wanted to teach and answer questions and didn't care who asked them, med students or music majors.

So, she launches into the mechanics of how dopamine is produced in the substantia nigra, that is located down deep in the old bean-aroo and that the main symptoms of Parkinson's Disease are caused by dopamine's non-production. The DaTScan will tell us this. However, if there is dopamine present, then we have to look elsewhere, for the cause of the essential tremor. Bear in mind that fully 35% of all Parkinson's patients never have any tremors. It is a truly elusive disease. The only other way to find out is by doing a biopsy of the brain. The good doctor said, “Unfortunately, you wouldn't know the outcome, because you would be dead.” I thought this was hilarious. I'm not too sure if she found my mirth amusing or disturbing.

The lizard part of my brain kicked in ironically enough, because the substantia nigra part of the brain is located in that general vicinity, when I heard the words "brain tumor." I still pulled it together in time for my uproarious response to the idea of a brain biopsy. Neither fear of mortality nor the idea of morbidity shall deter me in my constant search of mordant humor.

Imagine this in a 3-D form, and you can see how embedded the Substantia nigra is within the brain. That little sucker is responsible for making our dopamine, the overall "governor" of our autonomic functions.

The thing she is puzzled by is the fact that I no longer have any sense of smell, I drool (have been doing so, for about a year) and my voice is really hoarse and it's like some kind of weird anti-puberty. If I had just plain, old essential tremor, I should not have these other symptoms. Again, not everyone has the same PD. "Designer Disease," I call it. I used to have a pretty deep voice for a woman. Now, I'm not sure what it is. It gets squeaky at times, then, sometimes it's very hoarse. I will stutter when excited, and my diaphragm has become somewhat weakened, which makes it hard for people to hear me at all.

Today, I was at the Pharmacy trying to pick up some medicine. There's always got to be some idiot, who wants his shit NOW!

The hospital would have made a wonderful amusement park for this jerk. Wheelchair rides, physical therapy pools and the food is great! Whee! Dumbass!

There are 80 people it seems in line and I'm trying to talk over this asshole. He was talking to one of the other pharmacist's assistants, who had already told him his meds would be ready in 20 minutes, but he's still jabbering at her in Spanish, which she doesn't speak. I had been waiting and was told my meds were ready. So, I'm trying to make myself understood and talk over him. I finally lost my patience and said, “Sir? I'm trying to talk here. Do you see this cane? I may not have a strong enough diaphragm to speak over you, but I am sure strong enough to beat the shit out of you!” Standard Viola Fury response in public when assholes are present.

The guy said, “Uh yeah,” and scampered off. The pharmacist's assistant was a new girl and she giggled. I said, “you'll get used to me. I've been coming here for over 2 years.” I winked at her. The other pharmacy people asked me, “When is JC coming back to visit us? We miss him?” I said, “Pretty soon now. He's getting stronger. He misses you, too.” So, it was a pretty good day. I still don't have a diagnosis of PD, but I have the ear of a wonderful doctor, and I believe whatever this is, we'll figure it out, together. Last week, I walked a mile to the grocery store. I can't be that bad off, can I?

#ROW80 SUNDAY CHECK IN - POST 11 – RUNNING TO THE STORE, MCGYVER STYLE

As one of my readers pointed out recently, “I don't know that this qualifies as a check in,” therefore, you can certainly apply much the same to this post if not more. I must be a slow learner. I really try to write 750 words every day. I do, but they're usually comments, remarks to trolls, chat room conversations and I'm pretty sure all of that drivel is not going to add up to a lasting body of work. It's more like graffiti on the internet's bathroom walls, and usually not so polite.

I'm fairly certain this is NOT a contribution to Arts and Letters throughout the Ages.

Not to change the subject, but I hope these yahoos made some money from this post. I certainly didn't. "Playing the Violin, and How to Avoid It," was one of the funnier things I've written.

You can tell the folks at the Algonquin Round Table would have revoked my privileges, had they still been around and if I had ever graced their presence and this were 19__ whatever.

So, today, I had a mini-odyssey. There have been many changes here lately. Some good, some not so. With the death of Kevin, his ALF is finally keeping their residents close to home; it's just a shame someone had to die before they started doing their job. The new laundry is open, so we no longer look like refugees from the Eastern Front in WWII. The have installed a new Express bus line; the Green line and until June the 7^th, customers ride free. I was going to take advantage of this. We get paid tomorrow and our fridge turned up it's toes and died a slow and stinky death, so everything had to go.

We're replacing in stages, but we have to cut corners for a bit. I had a couple of prescriptions due today and I was going to take advantage of the freebie bus. Well, shit. The damn thing doesn't run on weekends, so I walked to the local Sweetbay, which is a mile. I can do this easily, in spite of all this hair-on-fire warnings about COPD, congestive heart failure, PD, blah, blah, blah. I am one strong, and tough ox. Seriously; even with the falling down and blindness. Seriously, I walk fast and easy and I can walk forever; it's probably metabolic or something. My knowledge of physical fitness is abysmal. Unfortunately, my dollar store shoe couldn't keep up, so I had to limp-hop across the HOTTER THAN HELL BLACKTOP.

How do you market this? Here they are in Pumpkin Gulag. They started out in the front of the store, scaring the bejesus out of the customers. I thought we'd wandered into Frankenstein's lab. They were a whopping 6 bucks a piece. They did not sell in time for Halloween. Over time, they kept moving farther and farther back, their prices dropping. First to 3.49 each, then the dollar you see here. They were so forlorn. I felt so sorry for them. Poor pink pumpkins. Jim, the produce guy and he of the shirt-and-tie now, said they just showed up on the truck and it fell to them to market them. People thought they were mutants. They tried to tie them in with "Breast Cancer" somehow, but that flopped. I was never sure if they meant, "these will give you breast cancer, or cure it, or we will donate to breast cancer." They ended up cutting one in half to show people they were "safe." I wonder what the geniuses at central distribution will send them this year.

Jim, the wonderful pink-pumpkin guy is now wearing a shirt and tie and works up front. I can think of no one better. He is an endless supply of enthusiasm and professionalism and one of my favorite go-to people, along with Casey, Paula and the Manager Josh Hamilton, who has known me from day one, when I went to the homeless shelter. Jim's solution, when I entered the store with my broken shoe, was to offer me a riding cart. I just looked at him. He said, “yeah, I didn't think you were going to go for that.” So, I shuffled off to the Pharmacy and got my prescriptions.

Sweetbay has just been bought out by Winn-Dixie, but the people at my store are going to stay. Yay!

I picked up the few other things we needed, and while I was in the line to pay, I had a brainstorm. I saw Jim and Josh and said “Hey, do you guys have any duct tape?” They looked at each other. “For my shoe.” I explained. Jim rustled some up and I took my stuff up to the front of the store and bent over. Here I am with my underpants hanging out, bent over. I stood up. “I am so going to end up on You Tube.” These guys have seen me playing “Air whackamole guitar” in the rice aisle. I was getting' down, lost in the moment, but got that eerie feeling you get when someone is looking at you, but you can't see them (I ignore cameras) and I turned around. This guy was standing behind me, grinning. I said, “Oh, I am so sorry.” He said, “I'm in no hurry. Party on.”

Wrong clan and wrong instrument and wrong number of people, but too cool to pass up. 

So now, I managed to get my foot up on the newspaper stand and wrap duct tape around it a few times and tear it off. “There! Now, I'll be able to get home, without dragging my foot like Igor, Dr. Frankenstein's assistant. Now, Jim you just keep being great.” Jim, ever the comedian, says, “First I have to start being great.” This is seriously the best grocery store, ever. Because the spice aisle is jointly run by the CIA and the KGB and the whole place treats all the bizarros with complete aplomb, I feel right at home. I took the regular bus home, and had to beat feet, to avoid one of the many neighborhood Lotharios. Ick. JC is watching the SyFy "Piranhaconda" movie. I can't miss that.

#ROW80 POST 10 – LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, IT'S SHOTIME BOXING!

Here is a little-known fact about me. I love boxing. Love, love, love it. I think it is perhaps the purest of sports; you not only have to be physically at your best, you have to be able to out-think and psych out your opponent. You also have to study your opponent and take advantage of your opponent's weaknesses, and be able to study yourself and mitigate your own weaknesses. It's a whole lot like music, in fact.

Playing any instrument professionally is about showcasing your strengths and hiding your flaws or mitigating them. There's also a pattern to everything; scales, 2nds, 3rds, 4ths, 5ths, 6ths, 7ths, octaves. You drill yourself over and over until it's instinct. Boxing is just like this. Playing a piece of music, especially a solo, has a beginning, middle, and an end. There is a period of feeling it out, or introduction, a climactic section and then a coda. Boxing also resembles this.

Well, boxing doesn't look like THIS, but you get the idea.

One night, I went to a boxing match and ran into the conductor of one of the orchestras I was playing in at the time. I said, “What are you doing here?” He looked at me, and said “I could ask you the same thing.” Oops. We agreed that we were both rabid boxing fans.

My father's mother lived for boxing, or so she told us. This was back in the days of Howard Cosell and Muhammad Ali, and I was more captivated by their traveling sideshow: Cosell: “You are being bellicose, Muhammad, you know that right?” Muhammad: “Well, if I'm that, it must be good!” and on and on. Great stuff. Then, he stepped into the ring and I was transported. My father watched the fights on Saturday nights. “We used to listen to boxing on the radio.” I just thought that was stupid, then, but I can understand how he could imagine it now. I've listened to many a summer baseball game on the radio and enjoyed the hell out of it.

This pretty much sums up their relationship.

The thing is, boxers are a really different breed of cat. They are probably the most accessible of athletes, and will talk your ear off given half a chance. They are also very, very smart. I've talked to Antonio Tarver, shortly after he took the title from Roy Jones, Jr., who at the time was my boy. But once knocked out, Roy was extremely easy to knock out from then on. It is almost axiomatic, that once a fighter has been downed, they develop that “glass jaw” and it pretty much stalls their career.

Like anything I'm fascinated with, I studied it carefully, but won't bore the daylights out of you with all the various minutiae I discovered. There's tons of it; stats, history, schools of fighting, blah, blah. Favorite fighters and favorite coaches. I met Angelo Dundee, a former trainer of Ali, who was working a fight in Tampa and he very graciously talked to me for a few minutes. He signed my “Heroes” book, along with Antonio Tarver and Mark Biro and several others. These people are amazing.

In researching this, I found out they've had 3 bouts together. Jones lost every one of them. Stop, Roy. Just stop.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the ring walks by the combatants. Probably the most memorable was the ring walk of the bout between Marco Antonio Barrera v. Prince Naseem Hamed. MAB is a CPA in Mexico City, with all the flash and panaché of a CPA. But damn! The man could box and he could hit and brawl and there was no quit in him.

Marco Antonio Barrera, staring at his shoes apparently; looking rather amused.

The Prince Naseem was some jumped-up Arabian guy from the U.K. who traded on his Arabian ancestry; he was like something out of "Scheherazade" or "1001 Arabian Nights." Every fight of his was bizarre, tingle-tangle orientalism. Dancing harem girls, camels, guys with scimitars. But, he had one every fight up until this night, due to the fact that he had the most non-traditional boxing style I had ever seen. He punched people backing up. He switched to south-paw in the middle of combinations. There's no denying that he could punch like a mule, he was just and elusive boxer. He decided to try and start his head games on ol' Marco with this entrance: 

This was on HBO and Larry Merchant became even more catatonic than usual when he saw this. Marco started laughing and shook his head, which is not a good sign for the Prince. This has got to be the most hilarious ring walk I have ever witnessed. And oh yeah, Marco beat down the Prince in the 4th round, when Naseem quit on the mat. It was his 1st loss, and he wasn't heard from again.

The broadcasters are something else again. I always listen carefully, because I know I'm going to hear some kind of shit that is hilarious. One night on HBO, Roy Jones, Jr., as color analyst, said “How do I know why this guy isn't up to his game? Maybe his eyelashes are tangled.” Roy was quickly replaced with George Foreman, he of the 8 children all named George. He was barely understandable, but funny as hell. I'm surprised he didn't try to sell his George Foreman grill. He was also the oldest man to hold a Heavyweight Belt. He didn't fight so much, as just lean into his opponent and slug him in the liver a couple of times a round. It must have been like hitting a tank.

I still think he was a little better than Larry “Prozac” Merchant. This guy could put a crack addict to sleep in about 2 sentences. “I... think... we... … can... safely... say... … that... Lennox... Lewis... … is … … one … … of …. the … … sport … … kings ….... is... the.... finest... exemplar... ever. Okay, is Lennox a horse? Are we talking about Polo? Horse racing? My God, what in the hell are we talking about? He gave a eulogy on the death of Princess Di and I think he's still giving it.

Larry Merchant. The drugs have either worn off, or are just kicking in. Anyway, what has been seen cannot be unseen.

Over at SHOtime, they had the notorious name-botcher (Ring Magazine's description, not mine, but apt) Dr. Ferdy Pacheco. The late Dr. Ferdy lived in Tampa, as did the late Angelo Dundee. Dr. Ferdy painted and he painted quite well. Too bad he wasn't so good with boxer's names. He was Muhammad Ali's doctor at one time as well. A nice man, but boy, the fighter Betthavean Scottland became “Beethoven Scott” or something close to it. He was usually in the ballpark, so no one ever complained.

There's a new batch of folks over at SHOtime, sort of. Brian Kenny, Al Bernstein, who's a retread and 2 other guys I never heard of before. Tonight I heard something that I just live for. Once upon a time, several years ago, on the old USA Tuesday Night Fights, a guy, last name of Clancy and Sean O'Grady were calling the fights. I can't remember who was fighting, but one of the fighters had on these hideous plaid trunks and they were truly hideous. Clancy just busted out with “Boy, he looks like he jumped through a couch!” Mirth and hilarity ensued.

O'Grady supposedly went to Medical School and then boxed. He was a much better color commentator than a fighter. I don't know about the doctorin'.

Tonight, we were watching a championship fight between Canelo v. Lopez and Canelo was just hammering on Lopez. Lopez was taking it with aplomb, hardly backing up. Up pops Al Bernstein, with this pithy observation: “I really like how Lopez is showcasing his composure.” WTF? Well, Canelo displayed awesome ring generalship, cutting Lopez off and keeping him in the corner. Canelo also threw several brilliant combinations. The fight was stopped in I-forget-what-round by referee Joe Cortez. A good fight and Canelo retained his belt.

Canelo, on the left, is from Guadalajara, but he has the map of Ireland on his face and can't speak a word of English. His record stands 43-0-1 after  this fight, on May 5th, 2013. Lopez is managed by Oscar de la Hoya's organization, GoldenBoy.

Canelo is scheduled to fight Floyd Mayweather, Jr., who is pretty tough and is trained by his uncle Roger in September. I do love the sport. Were I any younger, I'd train and spar. I might still, who knows. I've been fighting as an amateur for years. Maybe I need to step up and go pro.