5 Dungeon Masters

Wizards of the Coast recently posted three videos about 5 Dungeon Masters located either in Seattle or New York. The following videos are from that page. I like to post videos about Dungeons & Dragons because I think it helps people who have not played the game get a better idea of what all the fuss is about. So enjoy!

Not Fixing My Arrhythmia

I am back from Seattle now. Back to cold, wet, snowy Juneau Alaska. My trip did not fix my Arrhythmia like I and everyone was hopping. I have officially stumped the doctors at Virginia Mason and told that what I have was something that was not life threating and since I grew into this I could very well grow out of it. That is just a depressing answer to get from a doctor who specializes in hearts.  I will be doing some follow up visits with the local doctor and keeping in touch with the guy from Seattle. Will see what happens.

A few higlights from the trip are:

• I got to see my dad who I have not seen in about 7 years
• It took the nurses 6 tries to get my I.V. Started. (I passed out after the 3rd attempt)
• The doctor was not able to poke my heart in a way to get it do it’s Arrhythmia thing. Nor was he able to get it to go crazy with drugs. Only after I swallowed water could they see the Arrhythmia which caused my doctor to laugh.
• He called in other doctors to watch this who also laughed.
• I was told that out of all my doctors colleagues only one had see something like this before about 20 years ago or so.
• I was lied to about how much it was going to hurt.
• I shared a recovery room with an older guy who had a hearing aid that would keep going off.
• I was unable to obtain a video tape copy of the procedure to post to youtube.

Fixing My Arrhythmia

I will be heading down to Seattle next week to fix an arrhythmia of my heart. It was discovered a month ago during a doctors check up here in Juneau. What happens is that every now and then my heart starts beating really fast for no real reason. How fast is my heart beating? Well the doctors have clocked me at over 200 beats a minute. Not the best thing for your heart.

So my heart can go in to over drive for no reason at all. But it also happens just about every time i swallow. Which no doctor I have spoken with has ever heard of happening before. .

The procedure to correct this is called a “Cardiac Ablation“. It’s rather common and no one expect there to be any issues from it.

…ablation is a relatively non-invasive procedure that involves inserting catheters – narrow, flexible wires – into a blood vessel, often through a site in the groin or neck, and winding the wire up into the heart. The journey from entry point to heart muscle is navigated by images created by a fluoroscope, an x-ray-like machine that provides continuous, “live” images of the catheter and tissue.

Once the catheter reaches the heart, electrodes at the tip of the catheter gather data and a variety of electrical measurements are made. The data pinpoints the location of the faulty electrical site. During this “electrical mapping,” the cardiac arrhythmia specialist, an electrophysiologist, may sedate the patient and instigate some of the very arrhythmias that are the crux of the problem. The events are safe, given the range of experts and resources close at hand, and are necessary to ensure the precise location of the problematic tissue.

Once the damaged site is confirmed, energy is used to destroy a small amount of tissue, ending the disturbance of electrical flow through the heart and restoring a healthy heart rhythm. This energy may take the form of radiofrequency energy, which cauterizes the tissue, or intense cold, which freezes, or cryoablates the tissue. Other energy sources are being investigated.

Once this is all over and I am back on my feet I will write a follow up post.

I found the following links to be helpful for me when looking this up on line.

http://my.clevelandclinic.org/heart/services/tests/procedures/ablation.aspx
http://yourtotalhealth.ivillage.com/cardiac-ablation.html
http://www.sjm.com/procedures/procedure.aspx?name=Catheter+Ablation
http://www.hrspatients.org/patients/treatments/cardiac_ablation.asp
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/cardiac-ablation/MY00706

A Band Tryout

Today I posted on my Twitter that I had a band tryout. I was pretty exited about this. I moved to Juneau around four years ago and brought my drum set with me thinking I would be able to join a band. That plan turned out to be a lot harder then I thought it would be. I went around Juneau posting fliers and putting ads up on craigslist. Any responses I got were few and slim. Everyone who is in a band in Juneau seems to be only able to play folk music. And though folk music has it’s place in the musical spectrum, it’s not what I wanted to play.

Last week on a whim I checked out craigslist again and found a posting from a band who was looking for a drummer and that they played punk/rock music. I gave the phone number on the listing a call and left a voice mail. A few days later I got a call back from Jeff and set up a tryout for Tuesday (today).

I have been a little nurvouse since the phone call. I really have not drummed much at all since I moved up here. I am rusty and out of shape as far as drumming goes. I was really worried that I would just make a fool out of myself.

When I showed up at the band’s practice pad I was greeted with hellos and hand shakes. The two guys (Jeff and Jessie) where really nice and funny. The drum set they had for me to play was the same Ludwig set I play on just a couple of years older. The cymbals where ok and so was the kick peddle. I swapped out the High-hat cymbals with my own personal ones. I had brought with me my cymbals, kick peddle, and drumsticks because some of the few tryouts I went to when I first moved here I ended up playing on some pretty shitty sets. I figured it would help to have a good kick peddle and cymbals with me this time.

After we got done chit chatting and tuning up our instruments we played a few cover songs which I was happy about. We played Green Day’s “She” and The Ramones “Blitzkrieg Bop”. I played the songs pretty well. I was able to hold the beat. I was a little winded after we were done but all in all I was Pretty happy. It was so good to be behind a kit again and playing music. Jeff and Jessie where really good guitar a bass players. They where really tight when it came to playing these songs.

After we were done I was told that the band had not yet picked out a name but that they really wanted to play mostly cover songs. I think this really makes sense for a tourest down like Juneau.  I was also told they had another guy they where going to tryout but chances where sounding good to me that I could expect an e-mail with songs they would like to cover.

William Stanly

While I was at work last week, I came about an old Harper’s Weekly newspaper. The paper was framed and dated August 7th, 1897. I found on the back side, an article about an Anacortes man named William Stanly who went to Alaska during the gold rush. This peeked my intrest because I grew up in Anacortes. The artical reads:

William Stanly, of Anacortes, left his wife only $20 when he went north two years ago. Since then she has supported herself by her own work, sometimes by picking blackberries in the woods. As soon as he could reach  the telegraph office after landing he wired her the welcome news that he had brought back $90,000.

That the new fields are as rich as these miners say there can be no doubt . They pre sent incontestable proof of it in the form of nuggets that vary in size from a pin-head to a $5 gold piece, with occasional ones that are much larger. If there is finer gold in the gravel, they have not taken pains to save it.

Here are a couple of pictures of the framed paper I took with my phone.

Pepsi Natural

While I was in Washington last month I found a bottle of Pepsi Natural at Anderson’s General Store on Guemes Island. During the rest of my trip in Washington I could not find another bottle anywhere else.

This last weekend while at Costco here in Juneau, I found it! The reason I am so stoked about this is because Pepsi Natural uses real sugar.

Pepsi Natrual From Costco

Richard Proenneke

Richard Proenneke Building His Roof

The last couple of times I have gone back home to Washington State for a vacation, I have caught a film on P.B.S. called “Alone in the Wilderness“. It’s a film my mom and brother Abe, really enjoyed and they thought I would too.

This film is more of a documentary about Richard Proenneke, who retired in 1967 to Twin Lakes Alaska where he built his log cabin  home by hand, and all by himself. The film consists of shots of Proenneke performing tasks around his cabin, canoeing and walking, and views of wildlife, along with narration. For shots of himself (since he was alone), Proenneke fixed the camera in place, and then performed his tasks. This would necessitate him returning to the camera after walking or canoeing away.

Proenneke originality was creating this video intending to be used as step-by-step instructions for creating a hand-built structure. He lived in his cabin for 30 years, only returning to the lower 48 states occasionally to be with family.

In 1999, at age 82, Proenneke returned to civilization and lived the remainder of his life with his brother in California. He died of a stroke April 28, 2003. He left his cabin to the Parks Service.

Washginton Trip Pictures

I just got back from a week long trip in Washington State visiting family. I took some very random photos with my mobile phone while I was on Guemes Island and Anacorties. I thought I might share them.

Sarah Served You Today

Now that I have been back in Juneau for a couple of days, things are starting to settle back down into their normal routines. I was going through my receipts from our vacation last week and I came across this one from Lucky Jeans. It struck my funny bone so  wanted to share it.

Jingle Juice

I saw this while I was on vacation last week. Just sound funny and wrong to me.