LIVING WITH MCL

Deep down, I must have always known stretching was a waste of time, since I've never stretched on a consistent basis, and I've never been the worse for it. I'll admit I did believe some of the hype that it prevented injuries, but that still never provided enough incentive for me to do it on a regular basis.  But now this 2004 report [how come it took so long to get this out?], by the National Center for Injury Prevention Control (part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), seems to confirm there is very little, if any, benefit from stretching. Warming up before exercising [something I do] is important, but there is no evidence stretching pervents injuries. It may increase range of motion [which is a good thing], but that's pretty much it. WHEW! One less thing to worry about. :)

Yesterday, I went to see my primary care physician at the VA hospital. But before getting in to see her, I had to see the nurse to take my vitals, and ask me a few questions. The first questions were related to whether I had PTSD. Since I've never seen combat that was an easy one to answer.  No! But then came questions concerning depression, e.g. in the past 2 weeks have I felt depressed, down, not feeling like doing anything? I snickered at first, not sure how to answer, but then I thought, Yeah I'm depressed, down, and sometimes don't feel like doing anything. Why would you even think that wasn't the case? I've got a terminal illness, which I monitor on a monthly basis, waiting for the moment when something changes drastically, for the worse, and I have to start treatment. I may hide it well sometimes, but that doesn't mean I don't feel like that  most a lot of the time. Then there's the fact the company I've worked at for the past 20+ years (and

It all started Monday morning, when all of a sudden, as I was surfing the net working on my computer (a Mac) at home, the hard drive froze. Nothing I did could bring it back to life. So I took it to the Mac repair facility, where I was told the hard drive was no good. And I hadn't backed up all my data. Fortunately the repair was covered under warranty. Then there was the email from Becky which I alluded to yesterday , about changes to the quality policy manual at work, which hopefully has been mostly resolved. Becky, after confirming with PCC, has agreed to put all the changes in the export manual we already have. Then yesterday I pissed Becky off, because I was in a hurry [to go home], and screwed up two planning documents which the shop needed, so they'd have something to work on today. (I was hoping to stop by the hospital  early enough to get the results of my monthly blood test before the end of the day, which didn't happen.) Becky fixed the error, but she shouldn

After 20+ years working for a small company, I just don't think I'm cut out working for a BIG company. Yesterday, Becky forwarded me some revisions to our quality policy manual suggested by our new owners, Precision Castparts Corporation (PCC). Now normally changes to our quality policy manual aren't a big deal, but in this case it involves export and foreign national visitor policy, which I don't think belongs in our quality policy manual. By including that in our quality policy manual, it provides additional fodder for an auditor to find fault with our quality system. Why not just have a separate export and foreign national visitor policy outside of the quality system? Well, what a surprise! We already have one of those [and I didn't even know]. Still Becky thinks it needs to be in our quality policy manual because of this and that which I'm not going to get into here. She also said Carlton Forge Works (CFW) is putting it in their quality manual. So? What doe

Maybe I shouldn't have gone for a bike ride this morning, after a relatively hard ride yesterday [but not overly hard], and a pretty fancy dinner last night, consisting of two especially good bottles of Pinot Noir (2006 Dumol Ryan's Vineyard, and a 2005 Frédéric Mugnier, Nuit St. Georges, Clos de la Marechale), and just rested instead. But I'm a glutton for punishment I guess, and I refuse to let this feeling of malaise, I have been experiencing lately, continue. So I ventured out anyways. I didn't go with the club, since I got up late (remember those 2 especially good bottles of wine) plus there wasn't a scheduled ride today, as the club was putting on a cyclocross race. Instead I went out by myself, and did my favorite ride, Turnbull Canyon. I knew I wasn't feeling that great, but I was able to make it up the first climb (Colima) struggling only slightly. It wasn't until I started up the back side of Turnbull, that I realized just how badly I was feeling.

In case you hadn't noticed [or cared], I haven't posted anything in over a week. Not that that's anything earth shattering, but I have noticed that many of the other blogs I occasionally read (seemingly less and less as time goes by), haven't been posting for an even longer time. One of my favorite bloggers, and fellow MCL'er, Susan C hasn't posted in over two weeks, and it's been over three weeks since she posted on her other blog,  Open Mouth, Insert Fork . Even Becky hasn't posted since 9/27 , and I've never known her to be at a loss for words. Plus there are others who have been just as lacks, which I won't even mention. [If you're interested you can click on the links to the right to see what I'm talking about.] Now I don't know about the others, but as for me, I just don't seem to have the desire to post that much any more. I know I'm posting something today, but that doesn't mean much. It's just too damn freak

I learned I don't like going on vacations. Of course that's really nothing new. I've always known that, but I can't help myself. I just love the anticipation of going on vacation. It's just that once I'm on vacation, all I can think about is getting back home. [Is that what happens when you get old, and set in your ways, or is it just me?] I also learned October is probably not a good month to go on vacation. While this is supposed to be the warmest month of the year in San Francisco, it was anything but that on Saturday and Sunday. When we arrived on Friday, the weather was actually pretty nice. It was sunny, warm, and there was very little wind. Of course that all changed when the sun started to set. Not only did it get colder, but the wind picked up, making walking to dinner a little trying. And it didn't get any better the next two days, including the drive down the coast to Monterey on Sunday, where it was even colder and windier. We spent one night in