Things have been pretty busy here lately -- I'm lucky if I have time to check e-mail each day. We also had a bit of an accident last week that has kept the mood around the house a little sad...

Last Saturday (the 11th) I took the dogs out to Chatfield State Park to play in the large dog park. Once we were inside the park on the access road, apparently Lucy climbed up on the arm rest on the door with her back legs and squeezed her body through the window opening, which was only really open far enough for her head to stick out -- or so I thought. She lost her balance and fell out of the window on to the roadway. Luckly, I was only driving about 25 MPH or this would be a very sad story.

Lucy had some road rash on her head, nose and front right leg, but no apparent fractures. It's difficult to tell with puppies since their growth plates in their bones don't fuse together until 10 months of age or so, but a comparison to her other front leg didn't show any fractures. When I first stopped the car and ran up to her, although I knew an injured animal might bite me I still reached out to touch her head and comfort her. She bit the crap out of my hand and then realized who I was. She was in shock when I carried her back to the car and drove her to the emergency pet hospital.

Once the vets looked her over they told me there were no fractures but she appeared to have damaged the nerve bundle in the "arm pit" of her right leg. This nerve bundle controls motor function in the leg, and the reason she wasn't putting any weight on the front right paw was because she could not feel it. With nerve damage, there's not a good way to tell how extensive it is and they couldn't tell me if the feeling would come back at all. In fact, they advised me that in many cases the nerves are so badly damaged that they recommend amputation of the leg, since it is just limp and is dragged around. If the limp leg was injured she wouldn't even know it, and at the very least it would atrophy from lack of use.

Clearly, I needed a second opinion on this, so I took Lucy to her vet on the following Monday. The vet seemed to concur with the emergency vets' diagnosis, but she wanted to wait quite a while before we make a decision about amputation.

In the meantime, Lucy doesn't really act hurt at all. She does hop around on three legs, but I have seen real improvement in her leg and she even started reacting to pinches on the "dead" paw. We went back to the vet today and she was happy with Lucy's progress, too, but said she had consulted with a neurologist who said that in most cases if the dog cannot support her weight on the injured leg it would never be useful to her. That's our next milestone, then: to work with Lucy until she can stand with her weight on the front right leg and her rear legs. The vet wants to wait at least a month before we make any other decisions.

I just received an e-mail from my airline notifying me that my flight from Denver to Newark on Tuesday has been cancelled. I am now traveling from Denver to Houston, and then to Newark, before flying to Glasgow.

I leave two hours earlier form Denver, and make it into Newark only 50 minutes before my flight to Scotland is supposed to take off. Who's taking bets that we'll be on time? Or that the extra flight and connection will allow me to loose my checked bag? I may just have to carry my big backpack on the plane to make sure it arrives with me.

This is not the way I wanted this holiday to begin.

Heavy snow causes travel problems

Heavy snow falling over much of England and Wales is disrupting travel - as forecasters warn of the heaviest and most widespread snow for six years.

Thanks, BBC News!

update
Apparently, I should take a pillow with me, too, since I am connecting through Newark tomorrow:

“Heavy snow may cause delays in the following U.K. and European destinations: Amsterdam, Brussels, Birmingham, Edinburgh, London-Heathrow, Manchester, Milan, and Paris-Charles De Gaulle.

Newark-Liberty Airport may experience delays and/or cancellations on 3FEB09 due to snowy conditions. Customers scheduled to travel on 3FEB09 should confirm their flight status tomorrow morning.”

Guess which state had the highest percentage of support for McCain? It certainly wasn't his home state of Arizona. Not even North, South or Even Further South Dakota (Nebraska) could match the level of voting for McCain that our dear, beloved slack-jawed yokels showed last night.

Seriously? 2-to-1 for McCain? Let me know how that works out for you.

After a fantastic Sunday of agony and pain (and a trip to the emergency room), it appears that I have some kidney stones to pass. I can not describe the pain I felt -- words fail me. I had a very small stone about ten years ago that passed without much incident and it hurt like hell. Sunday's pain was one thousand times worse.

It makes sense that the pain was worse, as the stone is much larger (11 mm). X-rays and CAT scans show that I have at least six other stones in my kidneys as well. Seems odd that I could build seven stones in less than two years, as I was X-rayed and checked for them at that time.

SInce an 11 mm stone won't fit down the normal canals, I opted for lithotripsy to reduce the size of the stones. Lithotripsy is the application of ultrasonic sound waves to crumble the stones into small fragments. Sounds pretty simple, right? Unfortunately, it's fairly painful and requires anesthesia to make the patient unconscious, so it's more involved than in-zap-out. Since I can't be normal, I will require at least two sessions as they noticed an erratic heartbeat while I was unconscious this morning.

The most fun part of all is that to expedite the release of the stones, a stent is inserted into the bladder to maximize the opening of the canal. Yep, I have a tube running from my bladder to my junk, and I can feel it in there all of the time. Blood in my urine and a continual discomfort in my nethers -- what could be more fun?

After a little troubleshooting, it appears I may have a cable card that is flaking out on me. Now the fun part: getting Comcast to replace the card in less than a month, if ever.

I may be changing the blogging software soon. I am not exceptionally happy with Drupal right now. My latest gripe: you have to be logged in as a registered user to see comments others have left on blog entries. This doesn't seem the correct way to do things and I am not in the mood to hack up the PHP code to make it work the way I want.

This doesn't seem fair:

Economic Stimulus Payment Calculator

You do not qualify for an economic stimulus payment

According to law, the economic stimulus payment amount that you would otherwise be entitled to receive is reduced by 5% of the amount that your Tax Year 2007 Adjusted Gross Income exceeds $75,000. You would have been eligible for an economic stimulus payment of $600, but your AGI exceeds $75,000 by enough to reduce that amount to zero.

However, if your situation changes during 2008, you may be able to claim an economic stimulus credit on your Tax Year 2008 return.

I guess the administration doesn't want me to stimulate the economy.

Fritz, the Frontier Airlines mountain goat on the way to Kansas City (crappy iPhone photo)

The solution to the nerd problem in the Marriott -- Bushmill's at Pitcher's (seriously, the bar is called Pitcher's!) -- (crappy iPhone photo)

So here I am in Kansas City for a conference. Things that have already annoyed me:

• I am in Kansas City (sorry Eric and Pam)
• The Marriott is under construction and is covered in scaffolding and tarps that make it look like a giant fumigation tent.
• Super Shuttle did not know where the Overland Park Marriott is located. $85 later, a nice taxi driver had delivered me to this part of hell.
• This is a highly-specialized technical conference. I had to leave the bar earlier due to the high number of NERDS that thought they were cool (they were not).