Getting the initial wrappings off after the required 24 hours (well, 23, but close enough) helped tremendously; they were pressing against the rising blisters. Followed that up by soaking the entire thing in warm water with epson salts and draining the blister while I was at it, and then my foot pain lowered to, and has remained at, a dull ache. I've repeated the "soak and replace the bandages" routine twice daily since then.

Visited DR. TRAN again Thursday to follow up; he cut off the blister's top layer and said to leave it elevated and exposed to the air (the better to dry/scab up the young skin underneath) whenever possible. He remained non-specific as to how long it would take. My current personal estimate, based on how the foot looks right now, is that I've got at least three more days before I can walk on it again. I think I may have been better off with the warts.

My landlady, Maud, has been several levels of awesome during all this. Have I mentioned her before? I don't think I have, beyond a brief mention when I first decided on the place that she "seems more personable". Well, turns out I had no idea at the time. Since Tuesday, she's been making meals for me, going out to buy bandages and other medical needs, preparing the foot baths, driving me to the hospital the second time, and generally making sure I only have to limp out of my chair to go to the bathroom (and she loaned me some crutches for that part). She is an adorably doting grandmother type and, over the past week, an utter godsend. Someone remind me, when this is all over, to treat her out to a meal.

I developed plantar warts last week, and the Dr. Scholls pads didn't work fast enough to keep one from becoming infected Monday. Tuesday I go to the hospital and DR. TRAN decided I need to amputate the foot. No, not really, but I think that would be less painful than what he did do, which was use cryosurgery to remove every last wart. I am wart-free but unable to walk right now because the cryo-treatment has caused my foot to blister.

It's throbbing. My mental processes sound like a Tourette's sufferer right now...

I'm up with family this week and the next: there's a mondo reunion for Mom's side of the family (although that part doesn't start until Sunday; right now I'm just catching up with the local family, etc.). Internet will likely be limited next week.

Those who remember my last trip up may think that was the reason I decided to take Amtrak this time, but while that might have been a factor, other issues included:

1) Gas prices. I don't need to say more there.
2) Had some Amtrak vouchers after canceling a leg of my law school tour.
3) Long-term parking at the local Amtrak station is free for customers.
4) I can't read on planes because it makes me nauseous, I can't read in the car because I'm driving. I can read (or watch movies on my laptop) all I want while seated on a train, so the fact that it's longer than either driving or flying doesn't bother me, since I can still keep busy.

Which is just as well, because if the Amtrak choice were just to avoid delays I would have been disappointed. The train had to stop for a full hour because some moron decided the train tracks looked like a good parking space. You heard me. There was a car sitting on the tracks that they had to tow off, then the inspectors had to check the tracks carefully to make sure there was no damage, because you really don't want 1000 tons of metal and 200+ people racing over damaged tracks at 60+ miles per hour.

There was no word on whether the car on the tracks was a Delorean.

Marty: Doc, Doc, why are we trying this again? We're in 2008, not 1885!
Doc: Exactly, Marty! There's no WAY we can afford to refuel!

Given that I've sent in my second deposit, I should probably mention it here already: I've made my decision, and in August, I'll be moving to Washington DC to attend George Washington Law School. Although both Cardozo and Vanderbilt put up valiant fights, GWU was the only one to offer prestige, an IP focus, and great local opportunities, and after I got their financial offer, I sent my first deposit and that was that.

Looking for housing right now... I'll probably sell both the car and my furniture, and look for a furnished place near a DC Metro line. Gas prices are just ridiculous right now and even if I can't find furnishings there, it'll probably still be cheaper to buy new stuff there than to drive a UHaul cross-country. Not like I had anything I was particularly attached to here anyway.

Next week I'll be heading up to a family reunion for Mom's side of the family. I kind of lucked out in that it'll be in Monterey, which means it's a quick Amtrak trip north instead of a long flight somewhere else. And I had vouchers from a canceled Amtrak run during my school tour. Be gone for about two weeks, but I'm taking the laptop with me (loving that thing) so we'll see if I can't duck on from time to time.

On top of the House DVDs mentioned earlier, too many visits to the used game stores, that's where. Over the past two weeks I've hit several, and now filling in the gaps of my collection are:

• Viewtiful Joe 2, Gamecube (two bucks; how could I pass it up?)
• Zelda: Twilight Princess, Gamecube
• Okami, PS2
• Soul Calibur III, PS2 (new copy!)
• Katamari Damacy, PS2 (Teep loaned me a copy already but there were new ones for sale for $10, so I couldn't resist)
• Metroid Fusion, GBA
• Final Fantasy I&II: Dawn of Souls, GBA
• Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, GBA
• Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings, DS
• Elite Beat Agents, DS
• And all three DS Phoenix Wrights, which I'd already played through loaners, but I wanted my own copies already. They're used and therefore completed, so I can re-tackle the cases in whatever order later.

My Backloggery is turning into a losing battle...

I figure I should get some use out of my health insurance, so I called to schedule a routine physical. I'd never actually been to the local hospital for anything, so I didn't have a personal doctor yet. I also didn't know any doctors there, and the appointment clerk had no particular recommendation either beyond "these four work at your local hospital." So I asked him to list them off and I figured I'd pick one at random.

This area being what it is, three out of four were Vietnamese. "Doctor Li." "Uh-huh." "Doctor Nguyen." "Uh-huh." "Doctor Black." "Uh-huh." "And Doctor Tran." "Uh-h... what?"

Oh come on, given no other useful information, how could I not go with that greatest of action heroes?

I am also out 70 bucks.

But I have Dr. House goodness.

Coming out of my silence to remind everyone that Prince Reepicheep... err, Prince Caspian opens this Friday.

What? Reep rocks. He will kick your giant self all over the map. He's possibly the only one who could defeat Chuck Norris (who can't roundhouse kick that low). Worship the Reep.

Here's the entire first three seasons of Battlestar Galactica, compressed into eight minutes. Fun.

As is often the case with computers, I have fixed mine while having no real idea what I did. My last resort apparently worked, but since that was "pull everything out and then plug the essentials back in, then work up" I'm not sure which bit fell into place in the process. My best guess is that something important was loose and got properly secured when I shoved it back into place. Either that or it really did matter which RAM set went in which slot, as they wound up in the reversed slots when all was said and done. (Except that never mattered before...)

My graphics card fan is still making funny noises for about 20 seconds after bootup, but it's been doing that for a while without causing problems, and I eliminated it as a cause by trying other cards. So who knows?

My computer may be dying.

I will explain why it at least has good timing when I can keep it from freezing long enough to type more than two paragraphs.

Yesterday I made the long trek up California to my parents' house for the third time in as many months. The reasons I will save for tomorrow, because that's not what I feel like talking about right now; what I feel like talking about is what happened on the way. And what happened on the way is this.

The most direct route from the LA Basin to, well, just about anything north of the LA Basin is straight up Interstate 5 through that mountain pass. As I approached said pass, the alert signs on the road warned that there was snow in the pass which may lead to delays. I thought, "cool! (no pun intended)." I thought the same when I actually entered Tejon Pass (around 4:30pm) and the showers that had been keeping my windshield wipers busy stopped dripping and started flaking. Yeah, I had to slow a bit, but we SoCalers don't get to see snow under most conditions, so it was, at the time, a novelty.

But let me point something out: that article I linked earlier described the conditions at 1pm Wednesday. Around 5pm, still 15 miles from the north end of the pass, things started really slowing down. I gave Dad a call as we temporarily stopped, filled him in, and let him know I may be arriving at 10pm instead of 9, depending on how long it took to work through the gridlock.

That temporary stop? Wasn't so temporary.

The plows worked their way back to my place "in line" at 11:30pm. Despite the late hour and the whopping four hours of driving I still had to do, turning around wasn't an option, since the opposite direction was doing just as bad and by then they were turning away anyone hoping to add to the mess. Finding a route around to get back south would have taken just as long as completing the trip. So as soon as I got into the Central Valley, I pulled off to the nearest stop, got a very late dinner and a tasty dose of high-concentrate caffeine, and floored my way up the lengthy but flat and empty interstate at Delorean speeds.

At 4:30 am this morning, I arrived at my destination, dragged a couple essentials out of the car and let myself into the house, then crawled into bed and slept until past noon.

I suppose, however, I should thank God for the following small blessings:

1. I had brought both water and a bag of nuts. Originally so I wouldn't have to stop as often. Now they made up for my delayed meal.
2. I also had books in the car. No, the intent wasn't to read them IN the car, but that's what I wound up doing; got through the last two volumes of Sandman while we sat there.
3. My car's near-final resting place was five minutes walk from an off-ramp. There was no getting my vehicle out of that grid-lock to reach it, but hey, not like my car was going anywhere, so around Hour 3 or 4 (after the snow stopped) I got out, hoofed it back there, used the facilities at the gas station, and bought some jerky to supplement my nut diet.
4. I had packed for several days, so there were socks that weren't soaked in the trunk when I got back.
5. My car still had more than half a tank when we stalled out, so I was able to keep my motor -- and the heater -- running most of the time.
6. I wasn't even further back down the pass.

Sorry, I know there's been nothing but dead air as of late. Things have been kind of dull for me and I haven't been able to pull together the energy to report on what's been happening.

( But for those who care... )

CORDELIA: What just happened? Can someone explain to me what just happened here?
WESLEY: I believe we were fired.
GUNN: Canned.
WESLEY: Let go.
GUNN: Axed.
WESLEY: Shown the door.
GUNN: Booted.

Anyone else not getting email notifications when someone replies to your LJ comments?

I've made a list of 10 characters and assigned them all numbers. Ask me questions about them ("Is 3 human?" "Who's smarter, 4 or 5?" "What would 2 and 7 do if they discovered buried treasure?") and I'll answer. Your mission is to discover which character is which.

1) Uryuu Ishida, Bleach (guessed by westmarked)
2) Yuffie Kisaragi, Final Fantasy VII (guessed by imaginari)
3) Gregory House, House MD (guessed by westmarked)
4) Mikuru Asahina, Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (guessed by westmarked)
5) Noah Bennet, Heroes (guessed by chime)
6) Daniel "Oz" Osbourne, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (guessed by imaginari)
7) Luna Lovegood, Harry Potter (guessed by westmarked)
8) Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation (guessed by westmarked)
9) Eowyn of Rohan, Lord of the Rings (guessed by chime)
10) Calvin, Calvin and Hobbes (guessed by pretzelcoatl)

You can get some ideas of other good questions (and pump pretzelcoatl for information about his own ten) here.

The fire in the area is still largely restricted to the hill, although I'm told a couple houses on the outskirts have burnt to the ground (no casualties). But my car was covered with light levels of ash this morning. And I can see a solid bank of smoke over Irvine from the office window...

There's this fun weather pattern in SoCal known as the Santa Anas. Basically, in mid-fall, we start getting these huge winds, sometimes "you can feel it trying to shove your car off the road" huge, that go from the hills to the ocean in fits and spurts. This year, we started feeling them over the weekend.

Although it's all part of the circle of life, these winds have an annoying tendency to arrive before we've gotten the first real rainfall of autumn, which means all that sage and grass in the hills to the east is nice and dry. This year is no exception to the rule. So into that equation, toss in a knocked-over power line (not unexpected given the wind), or a carelessly-thrown cigarette, and you end up with those winds pushing all this mess around.

Orange County has only one to worry about: it's in Santiago Canyon to the east of Irvine and Lake Forest. It has yet to actually reach inhabited areas, but my manager went home about an hour ago because it had gotten within eight miles of his apartment and he wanted to pack his valuables while it was still safe to do so. My place itself is at no risk; the fire would have to cross 15 miles of suburban and urban areas, including four freeways, to reach me. UC Irvine and my church are both also okay for now.

The fire started last night. This morning as I left the house for work, I saw clear blue in one direction, and a massive grey cloud covering the sky in the other. By the time I left the office for lunch, you could taste hints of ash in the air, blown in over the the county.

What bugs me the most is that all evidence suggests this particular fire was set deliberately.

Comment on this post. I will choose seven interests from your profile and you will explain what they mean and why you are interested in them.

For westmarked, ( My answers )