Charlotte, NC: Criminals Welcome!

The owner of a billiards hall in an upscale Charlotte neighborhood was recently nearly murdered by a 20 year old career criminal. This scumbag has been charged with 50 crimes so far yet was still out on parole due to soft judges in a softer state criminal justice system. This is the same state that allowed criminals who were on probation to end two extremely promising lives in Durham recently (Eve Carson and Abdijit Mahato.)

Thankfully this pathetic governor is on his way out. Unfortunately his slew of crime coddling judges are still in office.

This state needs a governor with the guts to stand up for the law abiding citizens. Keeping career criminals on the streets is ridiculous! Criminals in this state obviously don't fear the punishments, and with good reason.

Let's make the punishments more severe and bring fear back to the criminals!

Write to your elected officials and let them know you are sick of such leniency!

"Can only access google sites"

Yesterday (or last night really) I was in the Las Vegas airport waiting for the redeye to leave and wanted to use my aircard to catch up on web-related stuff. However, after connecting with VZ Acess Manager, I could only load my google pages (either google main or news.) The news links were up-to-date but I could only see the google results. Trying to goto the source article didn't work; my browser timed out after several seconds of waiting (I have no patience for slow page loads.)

I was monitoring the throughput rate and it was zero for every page I tried except google. I thought it was a problem with Verizon's EVDO system and didn't have time to mess with it fully.

Actually a few hours earlier at CTIA some colleagues were using my computer to access webmail. IE seemed to work fine then. The terminal was too crowded to mess around with it then.

When I got to Atlanta (at 5:30 am) I tried it again and still no luck. So I ruled out the Verizon network. Just in case it was spyware/malware I did a restore to the prior day. I had time to determine that it still wasn't working. I tried running my registry cleaners (ccleaner and tune-up utilities) without any luck.

Finally I got home and after a short nap did some research on another internet pc. I searched for the phrase "can only access google" and found a lot of hits. However, there wasn't just one solution. Most of the solutions involved highly detailed malware troubleshooting which I just am not into.

I did a restore to an earlier date, about 3 days ago, and the problem was resolved. I'm not sure what caused it but it must be related to a webmail site or something.

Don't Phase Me, Bro!

I thought I was being original by coming up with my variant of the "Don't Tase Me, Bro" slogan. Turns out several people beat me to the punch.

However, I wanted to make my version of the tshirt so here it is:

www.cafepress.com/banksland

Almost 11 weeks

I've been walking without help for two weeks or so now. It's going pretty well actually.

Yesterday I walked .5 miles to the new Starbucks and back. I my hip felt pretty good although later in the day it felt like I had been pounding on it a little. I guess I'm still re-building strength in the surrounding muscles and the breaks themselves. I tried to speed up once or two into a slow jog but that seemed to hurt a little. I can't help feeling that I might crack something if I put too much pounding on it. Guess I'll give it some more time.

Recovery update

For the last few days I've been walking (waddling) around with a cane. I've generally been pain free, except when I stumble or trip, as in over the dog, and come down hard on my left leg. Then it hurts a little.

Yesterday morning I walked to the Starbucks up the road from our house. It is a little more than 1/2 a mile. I pushed the baby in the jog stroller (I walk straighter/better when pushing a stroller or cart.) I felt good for the most part. I tried to jog across the main road but that hurt some. Overall it was a good first outing since the crash. I got pretty tired and hot even though the temp was in the 50's. I would say walking with this injury takes more energy and effort than healthy walking. I also think my aerobic system has been reset to zero/square one.

I should probaby try and ride the stationary bike soon.

Condition Update

This weekend wasn't too bad. I used the cane all weekend and walked/stumbled around quite a bit without it. I worked on the fence on Saturday.

There is still some residual pain and it gets sore after awhile.

I can't walk without a noticeable limp without the cane.

Today (Monday) I went to the gym in the morning for the first time since the crash. I did a few weight stations (bench press, pulldowns, curls, abs, etc.) They didn't have any stationary bikes though (only in the spinning room.)

It still hurts after sitting down for hours. It feels sore right in the femur. Not sure why.

Bye Bye Crutch?

I bought a cane yesterday because I'm getting sick of the cumbersome crutch. It seems to be working OK.

My condition continues to improve day-by-day. It doesn't even hurt that bad to sneeze anymore. It will be 5 weeks since the crash today. I'm definitely coming out of the bad times. Even the memories of the excruciating first few days are starting to fade.

Now I can get in and out of cars with only minimal discomfort. I wouldn't even really call it pain. It feels more like soreness or tightness in the upper thigh area. Same for the bed, I can get in and out more normally now although it doesn't feel good to lie on my left side at all. There still seems to be some pelvic pain when I put pressure on the outside of the femur.

I can also still feel things moving around a little throughout the day. But it doesn't really hurt. I would say the most discomfort occurs after a lot of walking around. Then I feel like sitting down and taking a load off.

I've even tried walking without any support piece but that seems to twist my lower back a lot. I don't like the idea of putting weight on my lower back at a funny angle. It just seems like that would lead to future disk issues.