It is most humorous to have a titanium humerus

I drove to town (Anchorage) today and I shot quite a few pictures with my new 5D, but when I went into the doctor's office I carried only my pocket camera. Right now, I have decided to ignore the 5D pictures in order to make this a strictly humerus post. Titanium humerus.

That thing in the x-ray is, indeed, my titanium humerus, the one that replaced my bone humerus after the fall that led me to pocket camera photography. It reaches from my shoulder socket nearly to my elbow.

It is expected to serve me for about 20 years and then, if I live that long, I must get it replaced with another.

How humorous is that?

My Doctor was pleased with this x-ray. I am doing very good, he says. Still some healing and mending to do, but now it is time to start strengthening my shoulder. So he gave me the rubber band you see here, plus a pulley, and as he demonstrated various exercises that I can do to strengthen it all, I could not resist the photo.

This Doctor, by the way, Dr. John Duddy, is a most excellent doctor and I am most fortunate to have fallen under his skilled and compassionate scalpel. Should any readers likewise injure yourselves, if you can, I would suggest that you skedaddle to Anchorage, Alaska, and let him fix you up.

Well, to be correct, the scalpel is not skilled and compassionate. Rather, it is the man who used that scalpel on me who possesses these attributes.

Thank you, Dr. Duddy!

And "thank you" falls very short of the gratitude I feel.

Two miserable days yield to nice night - but with a headache; a damned strange headache

I was home alone on Sunday night and did not want to cook, so I went to Piccolino's. I was a little reluctant, because, although their food is excellent, they completely saturate it in garlic and even though I like garlic, I must eat a minimum of it these days.

"Very light on the garlic, please," I told the waitress.

My order came back saturated in garlic. I ate it anyway.

Sunday night, the wind started to blow and grew to fierce. It whistled and roared about the house all night long. In the morning, I knew that it had been a warm wind, because it was not at all cold in our bedroom and if it had been a cold wind, it would have been.

After I got up, I noticed that my tummy felt kind of queasy. I figured it was the garlic, but the queasiness persisted all day, so it must not be. It must be a bug.

As for the wind, it hit 70 and keep causing micro-power failures. Each time one struck, my screen would go white and my computer would restart.

It happened maybe 10 times.

Very annoying.

I felt too miserable to venture out into the wind until night, when I had to. Temperature was in the 20's, but damn, it felt cold anyway.

Why do I ramble like this? Who cares?

As to the photo above, I took it tonight with my brand new Canon 5D MII, set to 6400 ISO.

All these photos were shot at 6400 ISO. I am pretty damned impressed.

The only things is, I thought I had set the camera to shoot RAW, but I hadn't. So these are all jpegs. If I had put in the time and work, I could probably still work up a better color rendition, but I wish I had shot RAW.

Tomorrow.

Wal-Mart, ISO 1600. The wind has died down and it snows pleasantly.

Pickup truck.

Reserved parking.

100 percent detail clipped from the preceding picture. No processing. It is the second sign from the left. Yes, really - 6400 ISO. A whole new world of possibilities has just opened up.

Cyclist.

We pass him.

A man crosses the highway in front of Burger King. 

For you pocket camera fans, don't worry - the G9 and G10 are still going to be my carry around cameras, but what a great tool this 5D will be.

My tummy still doesn't feel very good. And I have an exceptionally strange headache. I would describe it, but when one has a headache, it is hard to describe anything.

Kalib nearly loses fingers to IHOP fan;* gas war rages

After today's Sunday breakfast at IHOP, Kalib noticed the fan spinning over Dad's head.

Dad lifted Kalib up for a better look. Kalib reached for the fan blades, which were spinning at 532 miles per-hour. "Jacob! Jacob!" everybody at the table began to scream. 

Jacob did not appreciate the implication.

*I JOKES! I JOKES!

The new Valley Country Store at the corner of Seldon and Church continues its gas war. Elsewhere in Wasilla, the usual price seems to be $2.59. Curious, though, how this sign at the corner of Seldon and Lucille had been toppled. No wind, either. It has been quite still.

Undaunted, Valley has established a new front at the corner of Church and Spruce. This is all pretty earth-shaking news and it is happening right here, in Wasilla, Alaska.

Baby suddenly starts to dart about house, goes wild, wreaks havoc

All of a sudden, Kalib is able to scoot, crawl, and while he can't yet walk outright, he can shuffle about on his feet by grabbing hold of things like the edges of couches and coffee tables to support himself. Hands against the wall are a pretty good source of support as well.

And all of a sudden, today, he scurried all about the living room and the kitchen, raising hell.

He gets into a little pantry.

I leave grandma to deal with his mischief and retreat to my office. I step back in about ten minutes later and find that he has crawled onto the lower run of this end table. He has a Pepsi bottle and is shaking it vigorously. Margie is dumfounded. "Thirty seconds ago, he was on the other side of the room," she insists.

Again, I retreat to my office.

When next I step back into the house, he is getting into the cupboard beneath the microwave - far from the last position that I saw him in.

Everything that is in the cupboard, he pulls out. 

Kalib closes the cupboard door and goes for the broom.

He pulls the broom down.

He tests the bristles for texture.

Then he gives it a good shake up and down.

Grandma snatches him from the floor. While I spend all but a few minutes of the day in my office, he keeps her on the run continually. But I must tell you - she does not begrudge him. Margie delights in his company.

In the evening, we celebrate Jacob's birthday. He is much older than four, but four candles is what we have, so four candles he gets. As his dad prepares to blow out the flames, Kalib reaches out to grab one. Dad acts fast, and blows it out just before Kalib's fingers close down on it.

He put in a pretty darn good day.

Post delayed due to more technical problems with Squarespace

To anyone who comes here looking for my latest post, I have had to delay it. Squarespace is my bloghost, and, however good their software works in their own environment, about 30 percent of the time it proves to be an absolute nightmare for me when I access it remotely from up here in Alaska.

Tonight has turned into one of those nightmares. I spent a good amount of time editing and processing a dozen photos, and now I have spent the past 30 or 40 minutes trying to find a way to get a recalcitrant Squarespace to load them properly, but it will not do it.

I am giving up for tonight. Before I go to bed, I've got to put up a post on Grahamn Kracker's No Cats Allowed Blog, hosted by blogger, which is absolutely free and does things that Sqaurespace will not do.

I expect to have no problems making the other post on blogger.

I apologize. Sorry.