Not a heck of a lot. The thing I did to turn my cellphone into a paperweight is something I’m trying again. And this time I don’t have my old cellphone as a backup since I sold it to a co-worker today. No guts, no glory, though I don’t know what sort of glory I’m going to have from just making my cell phone work with some extra features no one will ever see.

I went to the gym today and didn’t do all that much. Dave the Trainer seems to think I need to get an MRI to see if my disc has slipped. All I know is that an MRI cost about a thousand bucks wholesale back when I was a receptionist at a clinic (in the 90’s, when I was applying to med school). It must be a lot more expensive now, and I’m never going to get one wholesale. If my back problems don’t clear up I’ll probably have to see my doctor, who refers me to a neurologist, who then sends me to an MRI clinic, and then I’ll have a radiologist (i.e. doctor who doesn’t like patients) look at it, etc. It’s going to cost a fortune. Good thing I still have a job (this week).

Oh, the new VP came by and said, “Your project is most likely cancelled, but we haven’t decided what to do with you yet so keep working on it.” I haven’t wanted to work on it for a while now, and these motivational speeches telling me that my dead-end job now has a dead-end project is not doing much for my motivation.

I’m supposed to help a guy who lives in low-income elderly housing with his internet connection, and I realized that I remember the guy from when I worked at an ISP. He used to come in every month and pay his bill in cash. If I go see him, his will be the second computer I look at this week. I hope I can fix it.

Other than that today was work, bills, TV. I have nothing more to say about that, because it’s not interesting to anyone, not even me.

You’re probably thinking I’m nuts, but I went to the gym. Fortunately, Dave the Trainer also does some physical therapy and had some weird exercises for me to do and basically did back rehab sorts of things for me. And Timmy’s trainer Dana showed me her microlaminectomy scar. You have to get your thrills where you can get them.

We’re still waiting around at Megacorp, but sadly a lot of marketing people didn’t make it. I’m surrounded by six marketing-ish people, and only one is left. Nobody — so far — in our engineering group has been laid off, but one entire group and my whole management chain is leaving for another group. OK, so I exaggerate. ONE GUY is left in my management chain, and it isn’t my manager. Kind of makes me wonder how hard I should be working on the projects I’m currently assigned. Enough about work.

My mom’s old car is sold, so I hope I don’t have to worry about that any longer. I even helped her get her CDs into her new changer. Now if I could only get her excited about her sunroof.

Maybe her car is too cool for her. Perhaps we should trade. HAHAHAHA. (Too bad I like my hybrid so much.)

I spent the entire morning talking to insurance agents about my mom’s car. When I finally got home, my mom couldn’t find the title to her old car and insisted my dad had it. He hasn’t paid the bills for over a decade, so I knew finding anything in the mountain of crap he calls a desk would be difficult. But I looked for two hours. And guess who actually had the title in her desk?

I haven’t been sleeping that well because my intolerable back pain has now shifted to a painful but much more tolerable leg pain. I’m hoping it finally goes away after I see the acupuncturist again.

And tomorrow we’ve been told is when the heads start to roll. I’m more worried for the guys in marketing, but it’s hard to know what’s going to happen until it actually happens.

P.S. I found several checks for hundreds of dollars in my dad’s pile that were from 1996.

My sister was in bed all day yesterday with a sinus infection. Today she ran the Portland Marathon, and when she went by a coach was estimating her time to be in the 3:15 range. She finished in 3:38, which is a lot faster than I could ever do.

I volunteered at Mile 12 again. The nurse who is usually at Mile 12 told me last year that it was her last time. Unfortunately, she passed away about a week ago. She was only 55 and I heard her second grandchild is due to be born soon. Kind of put a damper on things.

I finally fixed the cell phone I got from my sister. I was going to also fix a computer for Craig & Megan’s dad, but Craig forgot to bring it. It’s just as well. I probably would have broken it and torn my hair out for a day like I did with the cell phone.

Today my brother-in-law Peter dragged us out to look at cars. And since we needed a car I knew we’d probably end up with one. My mom wanted a grey Camry Hybrid, but they’re hard to come by. Camry Hybrids and Priuses are very popular here and there are places that charge a premium for them. Grey, for some reason, is also hard to find. My mom ended up with a normal silver Camry with a sunroof, another thing she didn’t want. But at least she has her own car again. What a pain it is to buy a car.

My sister is supposed to run the Portland Marathon tomorrow but she had something that sounded like a sinus infection today and slept most of the day. I don’t know if she’s going to do that well tomorrow.

We did end up trading phones. She got the magenta Razr and I got her silver one. I immediately tried to change the software on hers and turned it into an expensive paperweight. I’m such a genius.

I went to the acupuncturist at the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine (OCOM) today, after going to my primary care physician and making sure he didn’t have anything against acupuncture. (He didn’t have anything against chiropractors, either.) I didn’t get an acupuncture student but the instructor of the school. He was good. My usual acupuncturist, who was a student at OCOM, says, “Tell me when there’s a dull ache.” The instructor didn’t have to ask; he hit it on the first try. After the acupuncture with electric stimulation, he gave me a tuina massage. It was the oddest massage I’ve had, like being rolled from side-to-side. But it seemed to work on my back pain.

I liked the acupuncturist a lot. He asked about my medical history and he had a good idea of what was wrong. I think he even diagnosed the opposite of what the chiropractor did as far as the difference in my leg length. The last part of the treatment was him yanking on my leg to try to even the length. That also made me want to laugh, which put me in a pretty good mood.

We’ll see tomorrow if I’m able to walk or not, but I enjoyed my traditional Chinese treatment.

The day after going to the chiropractor are the worst, but I’m sure he’ll say it’s part of the healing process. Well, today I was getting ready to go to work with a very sore back. I got in the car and realized I forgot my cell phone. I had to crawl back to the house, and that hurt so much that it was a very slow crawl.

I have nothing good to say about chiropractic now. Making my back pain a little worse is something I would have put up with, but incapacitating me and keeping me from work (a place where they’re probably looking for reasons to can people anyway) is not a viable option.

In any case, the pain must have kicked off my endorphins, because I got inside, took two Advil, and slept until 5:30PM. I got up once to call my manager, and twice to go to the bathroom. I’m feeling a little better now, but I doubt I feel better than I did before I went to the chiropractor.

Damn. Now I’m one of those guys with severe chronic back pain.

So I read up on chiropractic today. Unfortunately for my narrow mind, I like to have thing proven by the scientific method and don’t take much on faith. Basically the pointers from the research said that spinal manipulation can help back pain a little more than following the instructions in a brochure on back pain. That’s fine. However, all the fruity stuff that I didn’t like about the, “benefits of chiropractic,” were unproven and taken as articles of faith by chiropractors. That means it’s kind of a religion of cult. Also, manipulation of the neck is correlated to stroke risk in older patients.

In any case, I wasn’t going to tell the chiropractor that I didn’t believe in his religion. I’m just going to cancel any future appointments. I think he probably did me some good, but I just don’t believe.

And now for my display of cognitive dissonance, I’m going to see an acupuncturist for my back pain. Not my usual guy, but one of the instructors from his school. I know quackwatch has nothing good to say about acupuncture, but I’m hoping that he won’t tell me that my chi is blocked and just stick some pins in me. Since I haven’t seen any scientific literature promoting acupuncture, I must jut be taking things on faith (the cognitive dissonance I was referring to earlier.)

My buddy thinks the only reason the needles work is because they’re coated in Fentanyl. I figure if they were, I’d be jonesing for a fix, and I’m not.

Night after night. You might as well just write it on a post-it and hold it in front of a browser:

1. I go to the gym.
2. My back hurts.
3. I’m afraid my job at megacorp is ending.
• Sometimes I go to a chiropractor/massage therapist.
4. Sometimes I feel lonely.

I’m kind of bummed lately and I know the best way to cheer myself up is to hit the gym. Unfortunately, my back pain precludes that plan. And besides that I got nothing. Oh, and the weather got nice again, in the upper 80’s. (No surprise, Septembers and Octobers here are quite nice.) That’s keeping me from sleeping well because it’s too warm for comforters when I go to sleep and too cold without in the morning.

And for a another list:

• I introduce myself as Todd because my second grade teacher didn’t want to try to pronounce, “Hisashi,” and she was probably racist as well.
• People who know me through my sister call me, “Sashi.”
• The guys at work, for some unknown reason, call me, “Brian.”

I suppose it beats being called, “Toad,” or, “Retodd.”

I’ve been going to a chiropractor and I suppose it’s a good thing. This morning I sneezed and had a back spasm and had to lie down. Of course, today was is the day that our VP was supposed to tell us if we’re all canned or not, so I went in to work anyway. Apparently he’s still leaving us to our doom, but he’s only telling us that he’s telling us about our doom in a couple more weeks. Typical. They’ve been pulling this stunt for months.

I did go see the chiropractor today and I hope he’s doing some good. In any case, I’m poorer for the experience and I’m supposed to see him indefinitely. Yeah, like that’s going to happen. I do have to see him a bunch more times, though. I blame Dave the Trainer for referring me to the guy.

So, a few weeks ago, my friend Megan told me that I had to go with her to her friend Kelly’s wedding. Kelly was one of the people who always hung out when Megan came back to town, so I know her and I’ve met her husband. But I was really just filling the seat. I’m really happy for Kelly, but the wedding was a bit weird. There were pauses in the ceremony for cheesy music to be played, she danced with her dad before dinner, and we had a strange sherbet between the salad and the main course. It was all for Kelly, but I heard she just wanted to go home and take it easy. I believe their daughter is only three months old (and adorable) so I can understand that sentiment.

Did I mention that Megan had to kick me during one of the cheesy songs because I was trying to quietly stifle my laughter? After several minutes of, “God has brought you to me,” my shoulders were shaking with the effort.

Afterwards, Megan and I went to the Portland City Grill where I got even more loaded, and we badgered this poor young couple into holding hands. (We were spying on them and they looked like they really wanted to, but were afraid to.) Megan paid for their drinks before we left.

So today, in atonement, I ran the wood chipper, mowed the lawn, and washed my car. I also forgot to take a nap and watch football. What fun is that? I should probably stop drinking.