Three (six?) day weekend

It was a three day weekend (Friday) off. Maybe it's a six day weekend for me, though I'm not inclined to count M-W of this week as vacation.

Friday we didn't do a whole lot. I went for a bike ride, first one since the stent came out.

Saturday we had a 4th of July party/BBQ thing. Pat and Minh Chau came, as did Trevor and Dave. We've never had that many people over at once. It was nice to have people over. We're basically shut-ins the other 90% of the time. We had all sorts of food that my mother and sister wouldn't approve of. There were shrimp, a flank steak, hamburgers, and franks. I was the only one who ate franks because I wasn't really all about the rest. I hear it was good, though! Minh Chau is very good at cooking things. She was in charge of the shrimp (which I did have a few of) and the steak, which came out a lot better than the hamburgers which I was in charge of. It was good fun though. Amazingly Emily didn't take any pictures though, so nothing to share graphically!

Dave brought over his extra software-defined HF radio, the FlexRadio SDR-1000. I've got a stack of cables and stuff now. I need to fashion an antenna. I'm thinking a T2FD antenna, or perhaps an inverted V/sloper. I also need to open my computer up and install a card and get a bunch of software installed and working first. Dunno when I'll finally get around to doing all of that! I also am not allowed to transmit since I've never bothered to upgrade my Ham license above Technician. I've been reading the question pool for the General class exam so I'll probably take it at some point in the future. Then Dave and I can talk to each other without the use of any infrastructure, even though we only live about 30 miles away from each other ;)

John is a guy that I've never met, but Emily met his wife at a yarn store and it came out that both of their husbands are young and have colon cancer. He has a blog which I have been following. He's been dealing with it longer than I have, and his had metastasized to his lungs (and maybe some other stuff as well). I think I will have to do without dairy and start Xeloda eventually because I can't really return to a somewhat "normal" life if I have to spend half of every other Monday getting infusions and then haul a pump around for 2 more days, then go in and get it removed. Unless I take up working on Saturdays, I'll never be able to work full time again.

I wouldn't say that it was particularly painful (other than the last 2 seconds of it) having the stent removed. It was just very uncomfortable and after 10 minutes of it you get all jittery. My urinary tract has returned to normal though.

On Sunday Emily and I walked the #9 Trolley Trail from Catonsville to Ellicott City and ate lunch at the Bean Hollow. Then we went home and both of us didn't feel all that well. She thinks she is sick. I just didn't feel good. Later that day I went out for another bike ride.

As to bike riding, wow, I've lost a lot of muscle. I pretty much lost most of the muscle in my legs and I especially feel it in my quads. On Friday I did about 15 miles and on Sunday about 8. Both times I averaged about 13 MPH, a cadence of 75, and a heart rate of about 150. My average heart rate is about 15 bpm higher than what I used to consider normal. Which is problematic because my max heart rate is about 178, so I don't have all that much wiggle room between maximum exertion and average. Aerobic fitness will decrease average heart rate though, so hopefully in time it goes back down. I also discovered that I just don't have any leg muscle every time I hit a hill. It wasn't so much an issue of being tired as it was just not having the strength to do it. Oh well, just have to stay at it. I remember it wasn't that long ago that I couldn't get up most of the hills around here thanks to my weak Florida legs!

I'm sitting at COHA now getting my infusions. It's a blast. I have all the wood I need, mostly, to make a big workbench. I just haven't bothered to build it yet. I also need to put in some outlets in the basement. I haven't done this yet either. I must have several hundred dollars of stuff just sitting around unused because I never feel like putting in the effort to utilizing it.