H1N1?

I felt fine on Tuesday.

On Wednesday I woke with a sniffle, felt progressively worse through the day, and was running a fever by nightfall. For the next three days, between congestion, fever and sinus headaches, I felt lobotomized. The fever finally broke on Sunday and today, Monday, I'm back to normal. I don't even have much of a cough.

Of course, the question on my mind as I suffered on the couch was, what strain of flu do I have? I got the seasonal flu shot a couple of weeks ago, so it would be a little surprising to get hit so hard with one of those strains. I'll never know for sure, but a little research today leads me to believe that I probably had H1N1.

The CDC stats (http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/) are amazing: "During week 43, seasonal influenza A (H1), A (H3), and B viruses co-circulated at low levels with 2009 influenza A (H1N1) viruses. Over 99% of all subtyped influenza A viruses reported to CDC this week were 2009 influenza A (H1N1) viruses."

Yay Tom!

Yay Tom!
Originally uploaded by grwster

Tom just finished Ironman Canada, his first Ironman, in 11th place in his age group -- awesome performance!

We'll miss you at Burning Man!

Our new burningman tent

Our new burning man tent
Originally uploaded by grwster

It's a Kodiak, made out of canvas and completely seals up to keep out the dust.

We made some feet for the poles to keep them from sinking into the playa when we tie it down with guy lines.

I'm also thinking about fashioning some kind of bungle fastener where the upright poles meet the "T-bars" at the roof. Either that or just using a roll of duct tape to keep them from coming apart in the wind.

Garage door opener repair

Garage door opener repair
Originally uploaded by grwster

Had to replace the transmitter side of the safety beam on Dad's garage door opener.

I suspect a cheap IR LED that degraded until it was too dim to fully activate the receiver (even after careful alignment the receiver indicator flickered).

We diagnosed the problem by moving the transmitter and receiver closer together and noticing that the receiver indicator was solid at close range (and the door worked fine). I suppose we could have just mounted them next to each other, disabling the safety feature, but that didn't seem very smart.

Starting to feel like burningman!

Done!
Originally uploaded by grwster

Beth and I both got some color today. Hers is blue and green. Mine is purple and red.

Skunk 1, Rosie 0

Skunk 1, Rosie 0
Originally uploaded by grwster

We've had a skunk roaming the neighborhood and tonight it visited our yard. Rosie was on night patrol. Skunk 1, Rosie 0.

It got her in the face. Lots of yelping, rolling in the dirt, and a long bath with shampoo and then hydrogen peroxide and baking soda (nope, not tomato juice), followed by lots of rinsing.

She's sleeping in the kennel tonight.

Fortunately, the smell wasn't too bad. I guess it didn't fire everything it had. Or it's already had a busy night.

Augustfest

Augustfest
Originally uploaded by grwster

Since we're off to burningman in a few days we jumped the gun and tapped our Oktoberfest. Mmmm.