I went to see my real doctor yesterday because my ear was still feeling funny. I figured it was probably because of flying, but I’d rather get the opinion of someone I trust. My doctor is a bit of a spazzy nerd, and he had all sorts of random questions that didn’t pertain to my problem (like usual). He wanted to know if he was right about his skin cancer diagnosis, since I ended up asking two other doctors about it. He said it didn’t matter that I asked for other opinions, but that he didn’t like to be wrong. I know the feeling. Anyway, he looked in my ear, told me that there really is a difference between Augmentin and amoxicillin (so the PA at Zoomcare was right), and then told me that he didn’t think the diagnosis was correct. In fact, instead of telling me I was a nutbag for looking in my own ear with a USB microscope, he asked what it looked like. He said if it wasn’t red, then he’s sure I didn’t have otitis media and just irritated my ear canal with the Q-Tip. He even told me not to quit using Q-Tips in my ear.

When I asked him if I should quit taking the antibiotics, he said he wanted to give me a prostate exam. I’m seeing him for a physical in a month, so he lightened up and finally gave me an answer and said I could quit taking the Augmentin (amoxicillin and clavunate).

You’d think I was home free, but I kind of hurt my back at the gym again, doing something incredibly minor. Sheesh.

I was in San Luis Obispo for my brother-in-law’s nephew’s wedding and it was great! My sister and brother-in-law got married in SLO and then later moved to Templeton and Paso Robles, and my brother-in-law’s sister’s family moved down to Atascadero. So most of them are down there now. I got to tag along with my sister and brother-in-law for their reminiscent journey to their old neighborhood and even spent an extra day just driving around down there and spent $50 in gas. They left for home early, because they were using cheap tickets. It was fun seeing all the folks down there.

Of course, I only took a couple of pictures. Three, actually, though two were of different Double-Double’s from In-N-Out. I figured there were plenty of other people taking pictures of the wedding. Oh and my other picture was of my ribeye steak at McLintock’s in SLO.

My old school motel room didn’t have reliable intarweb (I think I was stealing it from a neighbor) but even worse was that it wasn’t that quiet and I didn’t sleep for crap. So I should probably try to get some sleep before I go back to work tomorrow. That would make sense, wouldn’t it?

My ear was itching last night so I stuck a Q-Tip in my ear, just like they tell you not to. I’m not sure how many people use Q-Tips for any other purpose, but there is a warning on the package, isn’t there? Anyway, I went to town on that itch, and I ended up with blood on the Q-Tip. It didn’t seem to let up much, so I went to bed sleeping on the opposite side. I woke up a couple hours into the night and had to got to the bathroom. I held my hand by my head and got up and felt something wet; when I turned on the light I had a hand full of blood. I wasn’t about to sit in the Emergency Room in the middle of the night so I just shoved a tissue in my ear and went back to sleep.

I got up this morning and I had some trouble hearing out of my left ear but went in to work. I called my doctor’s office and they told me to come in. Then the realized they didn’t have anyone to see me and told me not to come in, but to go to an Urgent Care Clinic. I figured whoever I got would just look in my ear, see blood clots, and flush it out with a bunch of water but the PA I saw said I had an ear infection and told me I was getting a stronger antibiotic for a week. I’m not sure I trust the guy because the antibiotic he gave me was THE SAME ONE I got two weeks ago and he thinks there’s a difference between Augmentin and Amoxicillin.

So now I have an upset stomach, another weeks worth of Amoxicillin, and got no help with my ear. I was told to avoid getting water in my ear, but screw the guy. I just flushed it out and now I can hear again.

I walked up to my car the other day and there was a scratch in the fender around the wheel well. It was definitely new. I rubbed on it to make sure it was a real scratch and not just some schmutz on my car. It was disconcerting to find a new scratch. I walked to the driver’s side and there was another scratch in about the same spot. Again, I rubbed on it to make sure it was a scratch. And then there was a scratch on the door, with a door ding I’d never seen before. Again, more rubbing. I figured there’s not much I can do about it, so I hit my remote unlock button and I noticed that the car two spaces away unlocked. It wasn’t my car I was looking at.

I hope whoever that is doesn’t mind that I was rubbing their car.

I remember my dad talking about being lightheaded or feeling sick to his stomach, and today I was feeling nauseous. Or is that nauseated? I think it probably doesn’t matter any more. In either case I wasn’t feeling so good. I almost felt good enough to go to the gym, but I figure I’m old and I could use the rest as well. For some reason I couldn’t get to sleep and I wasn’t at my best today. I felt a bit fuzzy. So now I may go to sleep before the fourth quarter even starts in this Denver/Oakland football game. And it’s not clear who is going to win and I’m kind of an Oakland fan. As long as they’re the Oakland Raiders, anyway, and not the L.A. Raiders. I may actually get to sleep at a sensible time!

When I was younger, I never did watch a lot of sports. Now I can’t wait for football season to start and I can’t recall doing much this weekend besides watching football. It was in the 90’s, too hot for a native Oregonian (at least one from this part of the state) so it was just as well that I stayed inside all weekend. Oh, I guess I did take some stats classes from http://www.khanacademy.org which is something you should check out.

It was my brother-in-law’s birthday yesterday so I got him a present off of his “list” and after that took him out to dinner. It’s funny how a meat curing facility has ling cod, polenta, and chicken for dinner (what my brother-in-law, sister, and mom had). I had the ribeye, which was almost as good as the last ribeye I had there.

Oh, and for anyone keeping track, 5000-6000 birds going in the chimney, 2000-3000 people watching. The birds are being counted, the estimate of people is just a wild-ass guess. The same guy was counting and estimating (not me).

A lot fewer people were at the soccer field dedication, but that’s a different story. $250,000 to let a bunch of rich kids play soccer but whatever. I’m all for kids getting more exercise.

I stayed up late last night trying to figure out how to program all my shows on my blank DVR. I found shows online or on my iPad app and told it to record the series but all I would get on the DVR is an error message. Really, do they want me to get rid of my TV and just download things like a bad person? I gave up last night but tried again this afternoon and finally figured out that the DVR needed to download the TV schedule before it knew what to do. Ugh. So you can go on the intarwebs and tell the DVR all sorts of things but the DVR won’t understand until it gets its schedule figured out.

Well, I overdid it at the gym, like I knew I would. My legs felt wobbly yesterday and today my ass felt like it was cramping up. But I went anyway, and now my back is sore and I may have to sit out a few days. What a maroon. Can I blame the heat again? I think it was 91°F or something similarly unpleasant for us mossbacks here in Oregon.

I felt fine today until I got home and fell asleep for five minutes. Then at the gym my legs felt rubbery and I thought they were going to cramp up a couple of times. I’m probably just watching too much early season football and seeing all the players cramp up thinking it’ll happen to me, but I sure couldn’t row like I usually do. I wonder if it’s the heat, or if I’m just plain tired. I’m guessing it’s a combination of both.

Of course I’m not getting to sleep early, like I ought to, because I haven’t been sleeping all that well lately. I can blame that on the heat as well. If I keep complaining about the heat, my sister will continue to call me a pussy. As she says, “It’s not even in triple digits, you <previously mentioned word>.” You know how it is.

I’m thinking I did almost nothing today, which is pretty good for a holiday weekend. I did finish my course of antibiotics and I was hoping I’d drink a couple of beers, a requirement for a successful Labor Day weekend, but I did not. I did go to the gym and I think one of the coaches is trying to kill me. But other than that I did nothing. I almost went out and bought a hoe because my collection of gas-powered string trimmers isn’t doing it for me, but laziness set in. I think the only accomplishment I can think of is my ability to figure out that the adjective form of “goy” is “goyische”. At least that’s what my failing Asian memory is telling me now. I’m not sure why I’ve picked up some Yiddish when I’m unable to recall the meanings of the words on the New York Times 100 most looked up words list. It certainly didn’t help me on any of the standardized tests I took including the SAT, the GRE, the MCAT, the GMAT, and the US Foreign Service Officer Test. I will admit to being hung over for the GMAT, and VERY hung over for the FSOT. I didn’t figure that either of those tests mattered for my future career endeavors.

So my co-worker who tested positive on the rapid strep test got a different antibiotic than I did. He got cephalexin, which sounds like it comes from reclining octopi, when I got amoxicillin. I looked them up and his is good for pneumonia and mine is good for that and also for gonorrhea. Unless you can get catch nasty diseases through a web browser, I’m not likely to need it for anything beyond possible strep, though.

I did notice that there are a bunch of anecdotal stories of people rupturing their Achilles tendon doing box jumps while being on amoxicillin. I found it on a bunch of Crossfit sites. The general posts were about the dangers of box jumps, especially for old dudes like me, and it made me a bit wary of them for a while. But now I’m wondering why all these Crossfitters are on amoxicillin. I’ve met a bunch of Crossfitters and I’m guessing they’re taking the antibiotics for the thing I’m unlikely to have, not the thing that I’m most likely treating. I think you know what I’m talking about.

Well, I guess not everything is a disappointment. I was expecting the antibiotic I’m taking to upset my digestive system and it’s doing that quite nicely. At least antibiotics come in horse-pill sizes so you feel like you’re getting something for the money you pay.

My biggest disappointment of the day was going to they Dairy Queen near work for lunch. They used to have the old-school menu (Queen burgers, King burgers, and a giant “Hillsburger”) but now they have a much more corporate-looking menu. The hamburgers were awesome in the past, like they’d used fresh meat, and they were served on real, though chipped, plates. Now it’s all fast-foodish paper and the burgers have that cafeteria taste. I described it as the same taste as the burgers in my high school. I thought the meat was actually fake until I showed up too early once and smelled them grilling. Somehow they pre-grill, let them sit, and then reheated them before they served them and that made them taste funny. My co-worker described it as the “rest stop Roy Rogers drive-through taste.” Oh how the mighty have fallen.

Another disappointment was getting the external hard drive for my DirecTV DVR. Sure it’s bigger and will hold more shows, but it completely replaces the internal hard drive and it’s like resetting the whole thing. Nothing is set to record and all the settings were deleted. I was all set to re-enter all the shows to record but the DirecTV web site was down. Ugh. Time to put that all off. Besides, I have a bunch of “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives” recorded and I don’t want to lose those.

I just realized that I have nothing to talk about except how poorly I’m feeling. And I bet if I actually read my past postings, I’d find that’s all I ever talk about any more. And I’m feeling like I’m going to just continue this nonsense with another report on just how poorly I feel today.

I’ve been sort of sick all week. No sore throat, because to me a sore throat means I can’t swallow at all, not that I can feel there’s some irritation. But I still went to the doctor. My ears are plugged, I feel lightheaded at times, and last but not least, MY G*DD*MN co-worker told me he has strep throat and has had strep throat for a week. I called my doctor with my symptoms and he wanted me to come right in. I had to see “the new guy” and I liked his diagnosis. “It’s probably viral, but your throat is looking pretty grody back there. Those white plaques are most likely bacterial. With your pre-existing condition, I’m going to prescribe antibiotics.” Whoop-de-effing-do.

I should feel better soon (whether or not the antibiotics work) but the antibiotics will certainly make me feel worse for a few days. I am not looking forward to not drinking beer on Labor Day weekend, nor am I looking forward to the digestive problems that antibiotics bring forth. Ah well, I hope it makes me feel better in general.

Oh, and my neighbors don’t seem to like me questioning their M.D. ways. I told them I thought the rapid strep test had significant false positives (it doesn’t in the study I found) and significant false negatives (it does). I also told them I thought there were cases of influenza reported already (couldn’t find an Oregon report, but I did find a confirmed case in Washington). Good thing I know how to use the intarweb and how to search for primary sources.