Rumors of My Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

Apologies for such light blogging recently; I`ve had a very busy late week/weekend, and have been experiencing some serious technical difficulties.

For the good news:

I probably DO NOT have Ankylosing Spondylitis! I tested positive for this potentially debilitating disease (in which your spine fuses together), or rather, I tested positive for the HLA B27 gene, which means I am suseptible to this illness. I also had a number of symptoms indicative of the onset of AS, so I was sent to a Rheumatologist, who drained me of more blood than Dracula could have consumed. These exhaustive tests showed none of the tell-tale signs, such as high inflammation, so I am probably out of the woods. If things look good next year I`ll be discharged.

I also do not have heart disease. Because of my age and health issues my doctor sent me to have a stress test. I passed with flying colors (look, ma, no clogs!) My wife rewarded me with an enormous steak, plenty of beer, and extra butter on my potato! Of course, those veins are probably clogged now...

I had work to do at the Ozark Hilton; as you all know, my hand-built cabin (read shack, hovel) has had a problem with the high-tech HVAC system. Whenever I use my fireplace I get smoked worse than a ham. I had built it out of cinder blocks, and had used an adobe mix to caulk the layers but had forgotten to chink the sides of the blocks, so smoke poured through the gaps, I tried to remedy this by caulking with fireplace caulk, but to no avail, so I threw a steel barrel with a hole cut in the top into the fireplace to act as a firebox-didn`t work.

So this weekend I decided to do everything the right way. I removed the chimney I was using, which consisted of an upside-down barrel adobe plastered onto the top of the fireplace with a furnace ventpipe coming out of the top and running out of the cabin (I used furnace pipe because I was able to get it cheap). I bought the larger, regulation black stovepipe with two turn pieces and built a new barrel fire chamber. I left some of the top metal hanging to block smoke from coming out, as well as left a bottom lip so red hot coals would stop sliding onto the floor.

The stove-pipe was a mother, let me tell you! The currogated end is supposed to slip into the non-currogated end, but they were the same size, unlike the furnace pipe which fit together easily. I would struggle to force these pieces together, cutting my hands on the sharp edges as I labored, then would be brought to fury as the piece I had just made fit fell off while I was working on the next piece. Word flooded forth from my mouth! Dark, forbidding words of a nature long forgotten, possibly used by Aztec Priests or Babylonian necromancers. I was speaking in tongues, possessed by the Norse god Locki, or some demon who hates construction work.

It was very cold and twilight was upon me when I eventually managed to make it work, sort of; I had to put the pipes in upside down to get them to reach out of the gable frame. Of course, since it had poured buckets earlier, all of my firewood was soaked through, and I only managed to get it going by using a huge amount of kerosene (at $5 a gallon). The fire smoked and smoldered out repeatedly, and I had to repeatedly relight it, wasting more precious fuel. Once it got going smoke puffed merrily from the joints of the pipe, since it was upside-down. Eventually I had a nice blazing fire-and smoke STILL poured out the front of the barrel to fill the cabin! I swear that thing is cursed! I probably built the cabin on some Indian burial ground or something...

Exhausted I lit a fire in the old weber to cook some hamburgers. It was pitch dark and freezing, and I couldn`t find my paper plates, so I used an old syrofoam one I found lying around. Stupid. The burgers collapsed the plate as I was taking them off the grill, and they all spilled into the leafy mulch and dirt. I scraped them off and ate them anyway, since I had no other food but potato chips and wasn`t about to waste them. I burned the left-overs in my smokey fireplace.

I awoke about 2 am to the rumble of my stomach, and realized I was on the verge of a nasty bout of diarrhea. Since it was late at night and freezing cold, I lay as straight as possible and hoped that it would pass. No dice! I spent the night laying still and straight, waiting for morning. I heard a mouse scratching on something throughout the night, and at first light found the little @$%@%% had ripped into my hamburger buns and chips. I didn`t have much time to reflect on this turn of events as I had to make a nearly disasterous 50 yard dash to the ``convenience``, my cinder block and toilet seat in the woods. While devoting time worshipping at the nature god, I had a wasp light on my shoulder and remain there (I`ve never seen less aggressive wasps). I wonder if it was my old friend, the one who used to sit with me on my futon? He didn`t bother me, anyway.

I made the three hour drive with great difficulty, thanks to my upset stomach. I was totally exhausted when I arrived home, and slept all afternoon. I tried to post some things last night, but was having system problems which erased a previous attempt to write this very thing. So I went to bed early, and slept like a stone through the night.

Then the real trouble began. Blogger thoughtfully switched me to their new and improved version (funny, I don`t remember signing up) and, sure enough, it didn`t work. To use the new version you must sign up for a Google account, which requires going through a secure server. I haven`t been able to do that for years, probably do to a virus which I forcibly removed. I still keep getting a ``this page cannot be displayed`` every time I try to get onto the Create an Account site, and have tried everything I can think of-including restoring a backup and downloading another web browser (Internet Discovery keeps giving me an error page demanding that I send a report to Microsoft) but to no avail. Firefox says my ssl is not enabled, but going into my security settings it is checked as on. I am at wits end, and have only been able to post this by using my computer at work. I pray that I can get in at my home site, or I may have to take drastic measures.

At any rate, I will hopefully be a bit more dilligent with my blogging. Thanks for your patience!