My Deflated Dragon

By | July 23, 2009

Let me sweep the dust away from the WordPress admin. Do some moderation on a few comments, update some plugins, upgrade WordPress to its latest release and there we are. Everything is back in order. Where has July gone? Seriously, my last post was July 8th and I do not even know what I have been doing since now and then. My little calendar to the right looks so sad with only one date in blue, but that is about to change.

Left Over

A few weeks ago I came across this brilliant video about a photographer who was photographing people on the street. I love photos like this, and while I am still not comfortable with people photography this really encouraged me to get over that awkwardness.

Ice Dragons

I have been playing a fair bit of hockey in the last few weeks. Sometimes the schedule would have us playing three games in eight days. I saw a lot of ice in the last few months and it has been great. Sadly, the season has come to a disappointing end.

Ice Dragons Logo HeadOur Ice Dragons season started in May. The conditions in which the team came together was an eleventh hour situation. We did not know if we had enough players to meet the quota for having our own team and the final days of registration were hectic enough, and I was just a spectator as Gord organized it all.

Our team was born, we had custom jerseys made and we started the season off strong with two wins. Over the next month we were brought down a level with a series of losses.

Ice Dragons - July 22

By late June our team played stronger and started to play as a team. We started to learn our strengths and weaknesses and went on a six game winning streak to close out the season. The team was bumped down a division halfway through the season and we made the most of it by climbing from a sub .500 record to the top of our four team division.

Ice Dragons Team CelebrationAfter playing in several leagues this was my first time actually getting points on the board and it felt great to contribute to the team. I felt we were in a good position to advance in the playoffs and battle for the division championship. However, a 2-12-0 team (where one of their victories came against us) was our Kryptonite.

We always had close and tight games against The Flyers and on Wednesday night our incredibly short bench and exhausted team was no match for them. We gave up three goals and finally countered with one of our own before going into the final intermission. In the late stages of the third we made it 3-2, setting up for a fierce finish. We pulled the goalie and applied incredible pressure, but came up short. Playoffs are referred to as the other season and your season history means nothing. This is something we now know all too well as the lowest rank seed knocked us off.

It was a great few months of hockey, it would have been better to go further in the playoffs, but that is how it goes. I had fun, played a game I love with a good bunch of people and hope to play with them in the future.

Still, stupid Flyers. Stupid short bench.

My Power Picture Post

By | July 8, 2009

There is little to report, but like a presentation being better with PowerPoint, I decided to dress up this entry with some images to assist in my story.

Extreme Prize

I completed an online survery for Value Drug Mart and was quite intruiged by the prize they were offering me if my entry was selected.

Value Drug Mart Survey

I guess this could be an interesting prize.

Tube Steak Challenge

Canada Day marked our nations 142nd birthday, but it was the official end to my innagural Tube Steak Challenge. We celebrated this years holiday at work but enjoyed a BBQ for our troubles of working July 1. It was here that hot dog number 54 was consumed.

Of course when the Coney Island hot dog eating contest from July 4th has a record breaking 68 hot dogs eaten in ten minutes it puts my ‘1.03846’ hot dogs a week to shame.

Hot Dog Tube Steak Challenge 54

Still, I am proud of it all the same.

Months of Waiting

In March I lost everything to 1and1.com. In addition to losing blog posts and photos my domain was held for ransom by 1and1. I had to wait for my registration of the domain to expire, then wait the month for the redemption period to run out. Following that I entered an auction to purchase the domain.

seagurs GoDaddy Transfer

After winning the auction I had to wait 60 days to move the domain over to GoDaddy, and now seagurs.com is rightfully mine.

My Twenty One Day Report

By | June 25, 2009

Three weeks after PRK eye surgery I am pleased to say that things are getting better, albeit it is slow process. The differences I am noticing are not day-to-day improvements but I recognize the changes when I see something clearly now that was a blur last week.

I have returned my monitors to their original resolution and moved my work laptop from darkness to light. While it is great to have detail on things several feet from me I am still experiencing blurriness on distant objects. Driving is less of a risk, vehicles seem clear and I can see street signs as I approach them in daylight.

I find my vision is blurry in the morning and after a few hours the text on my monitors sharpen up. I return to the doctor the first week of July for a follow up and I hope that these small improvements continue so I can feel better about my decision for eye surgery.

Until I can see distant objects with detail I will have to leave CanSeanSeeYet.com as a blurry “No”. Even though I can partially see I want to wait until I can see everything as well as I could with glasses. And to have that condition written out under “Yes” would be quite cumbersome.

My Yearly Challenge

By | June 23, 2009

Because of the 1and1 incident from March all of my previous blog entries from the last four years were lost, including the one which announced the start of my Tube Steak Challenge, but that won’t prevent me from declaring that the challenge has come to an end.

Hot Dog Challenge 53

The challenge started when Jenna showed me a video of a medical show. The doctor being interviewed was given a coupon for a hot dog in the cafeteria and said something to the extent that he is only given one coupon a week.

I wondered if 52 hot dogs, one a week, was a lot or not. Jenna asked how many I ate in a year, and without having a good answer I decided to start counting. The challenge was announced in August but I included my July hot dog count since it was fresh in my memory, and so began my journey.

A majority of my hot dogs were on the BBQ, there was an unhealthy amount cooked over an open fire and even some from Mexico. I am proud to say that I never consumed a microwaved hot dog during the last twelve months.

Hot Dog #51/52

There you have it, hot dog number fifty one and fifty two. Not pictured was the fifty third hot dog, which means I will continue to count my hot dog consumption until July 1 and then begin counting for another year.

Can I repeat my efforts in the last twelve months again in 2010?

My Death and His Friends

By | June 19, 2009

Coldplay on Thursday night was amazing.

Coldplay Live

Go back and re-read that first sentence because there is no amount of italicization I can use to express how good that show was. It surpassed all expectations I had and thoroughly impressed me. It was more than a concert, it was a truly passionate performance.

Coldplay Live - Butterflies

I always considered myself a Coldplay fan. I own all of their albums and enjoy what I hear. They are my 30 most popular artist (which surprised me, I thought they would be top 15) according to last.fm but after last night there is no denying how much I enjoy this band. If they ever return to Edmonton I will not hesitate to see them live, and you would be wise to do the same.

The energy, crowd interaction and stage presence were outstanding. This reminded me of how good a concert can be. Older songs were performed with new intensity, favorites had a twist of techno beats, new songs from the album sounded brilliant and subtle things like the addition of beach balls during “Yellow” helped separate this show from others.

Coldplay Live - Butterflies

I have nothing but accolades to give to these four guys from London. They seemed to genuinely enjoy themselves and the Edmonton crowd let the guys know how much their effort was appreciated.

There were many memorable moments, like the fierce and high energy batch of songs to start the show, a techno version of “God Put a Smile on Your Face”, a set list that feels like it was made for me or the climactic end with confetti. However the one that stands out, and will rival any other moment at a concert I have attended was the performance of “Green Eyes”.

Coldplay: A Rush of Blood to the HeadThis was our first dance song at our wedding, so hearing it live was a treat. The way it was delivered made the song amazing. The band walked off the stage, to the rear of the arena and was escorted right in front of us. Then they walked up the aisle about twenty feet and performed the song acoustically. The larger than life band had brushed right by us and performed our song. Something like that is tough to top.

While the night belonged to Coldplay, they had a great supporting team. Snow Patrol, who I saw headline several years ago, was perfect in their middle slot. They played many popular songs and got the crowd nice and warmed up. I was surprised at how little they played from their new album, instead they opted to play songs that most in attendance had heard and it worked. Both times I have seen this band live I have never been disappointed and would be pleased to see them again.

The first opening act, Howling Bells, was another pleasant surprise. I knew nothing of their catalog and found myself getting into a groove and enjoying their music. This is a band I will have to listen to more of because they definitely caught my attention.

When the lead singer, Juanita Stein, stated a few facts that she learned while researching Edmonton I thought that was a nice touch, certainly better than the “your city is the best we have played in” standard talk bands say. Something Juanita said in her facts of Edmonton was brought back up during Coldplay’s acoustic set when they performed an impromptu song and name dropped Michael J. Fox. Just like a good Arrested Development joke, you have to wait until the end to get the punchline.

The Coldplay website was updated with a blog post from Edmonton, and said that they suffered a bizarre incident involving a windshield. Seeing these thoughts of an outsider to our city on events like that or the show itself was interesting and I hope the band returns in the near future for another memorable performance.

Coldplay Live - Chris Martin

I did bring my recording gear to the show. I had intentions of recording Snow Patrol and Coldplay. Unfortunately I only recorded Snow Patrol as nothing from Coldplay was saved to the hard drive, I believe I made the fatal mistake of not pressing ‘record’. In the above Coldplay blog post there was a seventy second snippet from “The Hardest Part”, which puts anything I would have recorded to shame, but it acts as a nice memory with the crowd giving it everything they had.

Sound IconWith that said, here is a song sample from last night’s Snow Patrol performance. The song is “Hands Open” and you can Right Click > Save As to download it.

My Joke on Vision

By | June 18, 2009

This could fall under the tag of ‘eye surgery‘ but it was more of a casual joke than anything that turned into a joke on me.

Last week I was speaking with Gord and jested that I would buy CanSeanSeeYet.com and have it similar to IsItChristmas.com or IsMacTFired.com. Gord talked common sense into me, got me off the ledge and basically said that registering a domain for a joke “3 people will get” was a waste. I thought it was a fair argument and that it was impulsive on my part. I gave up my quest for this joke site and did not think about it after that.

Wednesday morning I was renewing another joke domain, IReallyLoveTheMcRib.com. I selected the domain and went through the checkout process for renewal. I must have been too busy making sure no other GoDaddy ‘upgrades’ made their way into my cart to really see what I was buying.

I completed the purchase without error, however when I received an email notice thanking me for purchasing a new domain I realized something was wrong. I went back to my domain manager and saw the horror! I had purchased CanSeanSeeYet.com without realizing it.

CanSeanSeeYet.com was still in my cart from last week and I purchased that instead of renewing my intended domain. I had already paid a years domain registration for it so I might as well make the most of it.

I present to you: CanSeanSeeYet.com, in all of its blurry glory.

CanSeanSeeYet - No (thumb)

My Functional Fuzzy

By | June 17, 2009

This is my third installment about my recovery from PRK surgery on June 3rd, which was two weeks ago today.

Blurry Vision

A common question I get when I tell people my vision is still blurred is “How long is it supposed to take until it gets better?”. They ask exactly the same question I ask myself several times a day. I have seen recovery times of one to three weeks, or even as long as several months but the common theme is: have patience, it gets better.

I am currently in a stage referred to as ‘functional fuzzy’, where I can see objects, distinguish what they are but not see them in any detail. Some days the objects are clearer than others, and other times they have squiggles for text.

I am taking Flarex drops four times daily and Systane Ultra drops about six times a day. I do not find that my eyes get dry but I do not want to take any chances. In fact I notice the more time that passes after I blink the more clearly I can see. I blink and things go fuzzy before slowly sharpening up.

In addition to the drops I have started taking Vitaminc C supplements (500mg twice a day) as a forum I visited on recovery times suggested that it would help the recovery process. At the very least I have a little more Vitaminc C in my diet.

Still, two weeks after the surgery and things have been fairly consistent with their blurriness for the last nine days. My eye sight could be getting better, but it would be so subtle of a change day to day that I may not notice until it is all done. I find I am sitting further away from the computer than I was a week ago, but I am still on a larger 1024×768 resolution so it is no cause for celebration yet.

I am driving a vehicle and playing hockey with no problems. Night driving is a little more tricky since I am unable to read street signs if it is not a well lit area but I get by fine in daylight. This is a slow process, a little tedious at times, but I have to remind myself that I am two weeks into something that may take several months.

My Recovery From PRK Surgery

By | June 11, 2009

The days following my PRK eye surgery have been very frustrating. I knew that after the surgery my eye sight would come and go, there would be waves of pain and discomfort but I never imagined I would be without clear vision for several days in a row.

Even though you know that this is ‘how it is supposed to be’ there is still something aggravating about not having any vision improvements. I have started writing this four days after the surgery and even though the resolution on the laptop has been set to “Grandparent” I can see what I am typing, which is a big improvement and the first time I could accomplish this since the surgery.

Now that I have a chance to share my word, where do I begin? The surgery part was over in a matter of minutes. Every person had talked about how fast it would be, but I had no idea it would be that fast. I will back it up a step however.

Surgery Day
With the PRK procedure the cornea is removed prior to the laser and during this I could see the doctor scrape and brush my cornea away. It was like looking through saran wrap with someone using a paint brush with milky paint to obstruct your vision. It was a good thing I was sedated with Ativan, Tylenol 3 and several rounds of numbing eye drops because that would have been very uncomfortable to sit through otherwise.

The laser part of the surgery was not as strange but still intense. For something so advanced and high tech I expected it to last longer or require a little more effort but I guess that would defeat the purpose of it being advanced.

It took me longer to read my post op sheet given to be me before the procedure than my time in the reclining chair under the laser. The next few days were a blur, both literal and figurative. I slept a lot. It was not uncommon for me to have a several hour nap during the day and then sleep for nine or ten hours at night. I could not watch TV so I would listen to music in a dark room or progress through my Harry Potter audio book.

Recovery Process
The pain was never outrageous, but a Tylenol 3 and a cold pack of peas were always able to sort things out. Friday (two days after the surgery) was supposed to be the most painful day but I found that I was most blind on this day. Things held inches away from my face were still blurry and I had to squint, tilt my head or obstruct my vision with fingers to make letters out.

I would wake up most mornings able to see a photo on the dresser across the room clearly and think that everything was back to normal. Then as I went into a well lit room I was brought down to reality with a world of haze and blur.

Protective Lenses
The day I was to have my protective lenses removed I woke with a sharp and fierce pain in my left eye. No amount of blinking could make it stop. I did my regime of eye drops and the pain eventually subsided. I imagine the contact lens was out of place or sticking to something it shouldn’t.

In any case my appointment to remove the protective lenses later that day showed my cornea was healed fine and the lenses were no longer needed. The bliss I had on Sunday with good vision was brought down a notch as my world was blurry and fuzzy.

One Week Later
It has now been one week since the surgery and there have been mild improvements but they feel few and far between. I have been going through a fuzzy and out of focus world for four days since the protective lenses were removed and any time I think my vision is improving something else is out of focus.

I was cleared to drive a vehicle, but street signs from a distance would not be distinguishable. Until I feel a little more comfortable behind the wheel I will bike to work and get some exercise while I am at it.

As the recovery process goes on I shall post updates and hopefully be able to confidently stand by my decision for eye surgery.

Other posts about my PRK surgery and recovery can be found under the ‘eye surgery’ post tag here.