In lieu of an actual post, I’ll leave you with this link to the photo album. The pictures tell the story and at 1,000 words per image you can just imagine this is a 45,000 word epic post.

On a side note: I changed the underlying software of the site to not save my tweets as new posts. They’ve now moved to the sidebar to help reduce the clutter that is this page :)

To put some perspective on how far away the fire (and other dangers) are from my house I’ve included this handy map. Think of it as your guide to The Valley.

Where I live

Why? Because I’ve cut all the nerves that normally do that kind of feeling thing…

How? I put a scalpel through my finger… yup… through. I was cutting a prototype and the damn thing broke. Yes, I was cutting away from myself. Safe as can be. EXCEPT that when it broke I reacted by pulling my hands out from under the microscope and towards me (which was also towards each other) when all was said and done I had a big ol’ cut in my left index finger and a lot of paperwork to do (I did this little stunt at work)

I was looking at the blade a little while later and noticed a line of skin cells about 0.450″ up the blade (yes I was working on a microscope and yes I got out the calipers.. they were right there.)Now if you look at my hand that means it went REALLY deep in my finger. So I unwrapped the bandage and took a look and the first thing I saw was that It looked like I’d not only stabbed the side towards my thumb but I ALSO managed to knick my finger on the FAR side as well!

Except then I did th math and then it occurred to me that that wasn’t a little knick… it was an exit wound :) Yooray! We’re off to the urgent care!

So it had been about two and a half hours since I had stabbed myself when I ended up in the urgent care surgery unit. Everything was going as well as it could have, my finger didn’t even hurt! Then I got a tetanus shot and the world started to go fuzzy… black sparklies… the tunnel closed and I was sitting there in “darkness” fighting for consciousness for about a minute. Sitting there thinking “It’s ok… the pressure just dropped… the body will respond in about 5-10 more seconds… the blood vessels are constricting now… everything’s going to be ok” and everything was going ok until I let my mind wander to the fact that I was REALLY hungry and would kill for an in-n-out burger (and a durmal regenerator) and BAM I’m waking up…. stupid wandering mind…

Passed right the hell out….

The very accommodating doctor (he was still nice to me even AFTER I spilled a whole bowl of iodine mixture when I rag-dolled on him) said that I had what he called “micro-shock.” Essentially you’re doing fine and telling yourself you’re ok and it simmers and stews and then when you sit down and finally relax, something small (in this case a tetanus shot) sets you off and you get all the fun stuff at once….

So the wake-up thoughts were (in order):

1. Why are these people running about? What’s wrong with them?
2. My god! My finger! Smash Brothers comes out tomorrow! Oh thank god… I shield with my right hand…
3. Did I pass out?
4. Oh man did I just lose bladder control? (Answer: no. it was the iodine/peroxide bowl I’d dumped on the floor/myself)
5. I must have passed out

So yeah, I’m a nerd. A nerd with a bad day….

After waking up the doc came in and said “So you’ve lost feeling?”

“Um… no?”

“Yes you have”

“I have?”

“Sure… feel this?”

“Yes… yes… …. …. crap….”

“You cut the nerve package that runs to the top of your finger”

“Crap…”

“Don’t worry. I’d give you a 40% chance to get some or even all of it back.”

“Crap…”

Apparently, because I did it with a surgical blade, I have a better-than-most chance of getting the feeling back but still… this sucks…

In the end they taped and superglued everything back together and now I’m at home and full o antibiotics and pain meds (which I would have KILLED for when they were working on my finger. NO ANESTHETIC!)

Also typing with 9 fingers and a HUGE bandage sucks so I’m going to end this-here pain-med induced rant and go to bed.

Pictures when I download them off my phone…
Bah!

update:

No pictures yet (left the cable and a lot of my blood at work) but here instead are the funniest damn videos I’ve seen this week. Watch them in order. So you need to know: at the end of every Jimmy Kimmel show he says “My apologies to Matt Daemon… we ran out of time” So he bumps him EVEY show :) Here is how Daemon stepped it up:

And here is Jimmy’s response… priceless….

For the record that last clip features BRAD PITT, HARRISON FORD, JOAN JETT, ROBIN WILLIAMS, DON CHEADLE, MEAT LOAF, PETE WENTZ, DOMINIC MONAGHAN, MACY GRAY, PERRY FARRELL, LANCE BASS, HUEY LEWIS, JOSH GROBAN, CHRISTOPHER MINTZ, PLASSE, JOEL MADDEN, BENJI MADDEN, DICKY BARRETT, REBECCA ROMIJN, CHRISTINA APPLEGATE, and CAMERON DIAZ! AMAZING!

Why have I forsaken my dear little blog? I’ll tell you why, because I’m cheating on it. That’s right. I have another place to write. And this one is better*

What and where is this amazing repository of wordsmithery you may ask? It’s over at Robots of Joy.

“Oh no, he’s making interactive sex-bots… again” I hear you say, but no! Not only will I never tinker in the gray triangle region between a roomba, prostitute, and God EVER again** but this project benefits sick kids (although depending on how you take the word “sick”… never mind I’m straying from my point.)

Here’s how it works (shamelessly copied from something I already wrote)

The Robots of Joy project was conceived in early 2008 as an all-around-everybody-wins mixture consisting of a scoop of the love of technology, a handful of engineering, and substantially more than a pinch of helping out others who could use a boost.

The plan falls into five parts:

Stage One: Design of the actual robot project. This stage is currently IN PROGRESS down to the Solidworks drawings, component choice, etc. For more on this check out this article.

Stage Two: We acquire the needed parts through donations (physical parts or money to buy parts) ad-based revenue from the website, and good old-fashioned out-of-pocket expenses. To add a bit of incentive each of the donors’ names will be laser etched into the side of the final project and recorded here on the site. (Have a blog or a website? That’ll also get face time here)

Stage Three: The build is on! Machining time has already been donated to the project and some of the operations code is already in the works. Admittedly this is the fun part :) Pictures of the build and how it progresses will go out on the website and in the newsletter. Hopefully we’ll really build some excitement for this stage and get a good rolling start into…

Stage Four! The whole project is sold to a lucky bidder on eBay. That’s right the whole thing will get packed up and shipped off. For this first project expect to see somebody’s computer room get a blast of very awesome. As soon as we find a home for our little creation it’s on to…

The BEST Stage: After out-of-pocket expenses are settled we’ll be giving %90 of the proceeds to the great guys over at the non-profit organization Child’s Play (childsplaycharity.org) who supply over 40 children’s hospitals with gifts, toys, and all manner of great things for children in long-term care. Read some of the letters these guys get and you’ll instantly understand the great service they provide to a lot of kids who really need a pick-me-up.

So where does that extra 10% go? It becomes the seed money for the next project allowing us to continue this cycle. We may change charities from project to project or year to year but the end goal will always be the same: to help fund amazing charities and do it all while developing some great open source projects.

So there you have it. That’s where the time has been going.

On the life side of things: Work is good but classified. Apartment is good but lacking dishwasher. Health is good but… EVERYTHING. Megan and I have bronchitis or some such nonsense and I’ve been missing the aforementioned work and dragging myself around the aforementioned apartment. Lotta WoW and sleeping. About the only things these here cough meds let me do. Well that and write this post…

And with that I’ll let this here robitusssin and delsyn fueled rant come to an end. Kelly consider yourself re-mocked…ed… mockeded… THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!

* It may not be better and it’s not exclusively mine but it’s where my “writing time” has been going. Along with my “free time.”
** Not saying that I have, but damn if it doesn’t make for a good mental image in a blog post.

Why would we have done that? Why would we leave this life of heroic hunt-and-gather for a life of grinding heroic WoW instances?

I’ll tell you why. Cause it’s damn nice. And to top it off: I want some of that drudgery and sedation.

As those of you who know me (and let’s face it, you’re reading my post so you either know me pretty well or are just too creepy for words…) I generally like the outdoors, activity, the good feeling that accompanies true physical exhaustion, etc and normally do not write long drawn out paragraphs extolling the virtues of a sedentary existence. But that was before this last month….

I have moved (with Meg & Bird) to a total of four apartments in the the last month (one more coming up in a week or two) And I’m here to tell you why the nomads cashed in their sweeping migratory patterns and started short morning migrations to Starbucks: Moving. Sucks.

Hard.

The Full Story (a tribute):

Megan and I lived this summer in an apartment provided by Medtronic Diabetes (where I spend 50ish hours a week saving babies, grandmothers… and puppies) It was a nice place, but when my summer program ran out it all of a sudden became a $95/night place which is cool if you’re made of money in the exact fashion that I am not.

Sooooo we (meg) found a nice little apartment a few blocks away for a nice little rent. The actual apartment we were going to stay in was still being occupied so we saw the unit down the hall and were quite happy with it. Unfortunately we were not going to be able to move in until the current person moved out and they had time to paint and replace carpet etc

Dang internet cut out and I lost the rest of the post so here’s the short short version from here

• Our new apartment isn’t ready
• All of our belongings except one car load of stuff goes into storage.
• Friends Badier and Neel let us crash on their floor
• Apartment still not ready… continue to crash on the floor
• Still not ready
• FINALLY (2 weeks later) ready. Can finally stop living on the floor
• Not so fast… move one car load of stuff into the new apartment before making the decision that it smells too much to live in. Cigar+Cigarette+DEATH. Hence forth this dwelling will be referred to as the Apartment of Horror.
• It smelled so bad it made you close your eyes. I’m not even sure how this works, but ask Chris, it’s totally true.
• Dissolve lease on AoH (at least start the process)
• Find new (nicer) apartment (now referred to as teh Apartment of Joy)
• AoJ is not ready for another week or two
• Sleep on Chris and Megan’s couch for a night while sanity is restored.
• Go to Wired’s NextFEST with the Elder Donuts (Which was really really cool)
• Move everything out of AoH back into our cars
• Move everything out to Eagle Rock where Meg’s uncle has offered us a house for as long as we need it
• I hate being a nomad….
• No really I do…

So there it is. We’ve moved all over the valley and we’re going to have to move one more time before we’re done (hopefully)

As an overview here’s where we’ve been:

View Larger Map

The house we’re in right now is in the middle of a remodel and I just can’t wait for a real, everything works and doesn’t smell like the angle of death, place.

To those who have let us crash with them: thank you so much.

The rest of you: it’s not over yet ;)

~J

<NERD STUFF>

So get this: I’m on stolen interwebz… it’s the neighbor’s but you know how some wireless connections are ‘secured’ so others can’t share in their bounty? This one was like that. It took me a day of running a program to get enough data to crack the encryption but it TOTALLY WORKED! I discovered their WEP key and I’m on the ‘secure’ network as I type :)

Honestly it’s been a LONG time since I’ve had this much fun with a computer and for those looking for a good place to jump off: http://www.remote-exploit.org/projects.html These guys know their stuff inside and out. Big shout out to Chris as we went through the process together…. such fun :)

</NERD STUFF>

My God, what a long post….