• Trouser come lately

    Today I reached another milestone on my road to recovery. Since coming home from the hospital, it was the first time I’d worn a belt.

    That’s right friends, you now know more than you ever cared to know about my waistband. Well suited to the relaxed atmosphere here at recovery central… it’s been all elastics all the time.

    Today, however, I laced up a pair of less casual pants with the leather and buckled down for my first follow-up with the oncologist. Even though I’ve lost somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 pounds in the last few weeks, it was still a surprise when the well worn groove no longer cued up the right hole on my belt.

    Oh, there was one more thing I found out today: doc says I’m in full remission. As expected, I start back to work part time on Monday. I don’t know if I was just in some kind of denial, but I wasn’t even worried about it until I woke up this morning. I’d just taken it for granted that I would be in remission. Now it’s a load off… a big relief… I can officially start to get back to my normal life.

  • Part-time optimist

    Here’s my second favorite story gathered from the news today:

    BBC News: Vertical farming in the big apple.

    Here’s an excerpt:

    Now though, scientists at Columbia University are proposing an alternative. Their vision of the future is one in which the skyline of New York and other cities include a new kind of skyscaper: the “vertical farm”.

    The idea is simple enough. Imagine a 30-storey building with glass walls, topped off with a huge solar panel.

    On each floor there would be giant planting beds, indoor fields in effect.

    And more:

    The plan is to make the whole complex sustainable.

    Energy would come from a giant solar panel but there would also be incinerators which use the farm’s waste products for fuel. All of the water in the entire complex would be recycled.

    My question is this: is this an example of thinking inside or outside the box?

    I kid the vertical farm… but it does sound interesting, if not wildly expensive and therefore extremely unlikely.

  • Part-time cynic

    If best intentions hold steady, I’ll be returning to work in some capacity in less than a week’s time. A week is an important psychological boundary for me. When I thought to myself, “I’ve still got a week before I need to go back,” I felt comfortable in knowing that no matter how tired I felt at the moment, I still had a significant amount of time to build up strength.

    I think it’s analogous to the $999 price point for computers… or maybe not.

    In either case, I’m down to less than a week; so I decided to put myself to a test, of sorts. I decided to see how my body reacted to a little stress… so I decided to read some news… politics in particular. I’ve stayed away from serious news since that bad episode in the hospital (when rigors of news put me into a fatigue induced slumber for several hours).

    I’m happy to report that so far all systems are still functioning.

    I also feel compelled to share my favorite quote from today’s foray. There’s a column in today’s Washington Post (by Dan Froomkin) discussing the stink over White House staffers using private RNC email accounts to conduct official White House business… a possible violation of the Presidential Records Act. He brings up the White House defense that staffers used the private accounts in an abundance of caution “… in order to avoid violating the Hatch Act, which prohibits the use of government e-mail for overtly political purposes.”

    Without further ado, here’s my favorite part, in Mr. Froomkin’s words:

    A cynic could even argue that Rove and his operatives have so intertwined politics and policy in this White House that it would be understandably difficult for them to determine whether they should be using RNC or White House accounts.

    Indeed.