|
|
|
hydrogen peroxide in my ear
Wednesday, August 31 2016
I finished up the deck bracing project this morning using additional hardware Gretchen had bought me yesterday. I was happy to have that all behind me without having fallen off the roof. The resulting braces actually looked good on deck, even completely unpainted. There's something visually-appealing about a pair of ganged two-by-fours fastened together every so often by carriage bolts (especially if they end in mitered angles that tightly butt up against other four-by-four lumber).
It seems I've been digging wax from my right ear a bit too enthusiastically using the threads of a bolt I keep next to my main computer specifically for this purpose. I say this, because there is clearly an infection in that ear, perhaps the first ear infection I've had since I was a very small boy. Back then, my parents used to treat such infections by pouring a small amount of hot oil into my ear. It would hurt for a terrible moment and then all the pain and congestion would vanish. I hoped to achieve the same effect with a hot saline solution self-administered with me lying on my side on the laboratory deck. Unfortunately, I didn't make the salt water quite hot enough, so it didn't have much of an effect. But later when I dumped a small amount of hydrogen peroxide solution, it boiled painlessly (if loudly) in my ear for a long time, and even if it didn't do any good, it sure sounded like it did.
I was on a 25 milligram recreational dose of ground-up time-release amphetamine salts towards the end of my shift, and, in addition to helping me power through the change of a boolean to an integer (and then changing a little PHP logic to handle the additional states) I added more logging to the reporting system, logging information about any query that produces a list of items. This is the kind of system one needs when one has a valuable database and there is a chance that employees will try to obtain it for their own personal use.
Meanwhile Gretchen and Andrea were out doing various fun things (including going to Rosendale on the wrong day to watch an opera teleperformance and getting falafel at the Wednesday Woodstock Farm Festival). When they returned, they had a falafel for me. As I ate it, I explained to Andrea how I came to work as a database expert without any education in that field. I attributed my computer skills to the fact that I am generally a lazy person who never wants to do the same thing twice (computers have no such hang-ups). Andrea was intrigued; she's worked all her life in the hospitality industry and only recently began pursuing a degree in business at an online college. Her course book, which she's been studying at our kitchen table, is an enormous hardback that cost her $300, and that was used.
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?160831 feedback
previous | next |
