A Minor Journey dot com.

I do try to be positive and not moan on my blog posts. It’s unfair I think to rant too much. But please let me moan today. And I’m a little scared too, to be honest.

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it on here but some of my close friends will know that I’ve been suffering for ages now with what can only be described as random muscle pains. Some days it’s a bearable dull pain in one or other of my legs or arms. Most days I get a dull pain in both my feet, like I’m walking on bruises all the time. My feet very often swell up and I get used to my feet hurting when I walk.

Sometimes my knees go strange and very often my upper arms and forearms feel like someone’s digging the occasional hot poker into my arm. Needless to say, while I’ve been suffering this for quite some time and bearing it in a typical stiff-upper lip style it seems to be getting worse.

My GP has been seeing me to try and get to the bottom of it. Blood tests have been done and while they have come back negative for Arthritis (a big relief) they’ve turned up a potential problem with my auto-immune system. I’ve had a set of LFT tests done which came back a tad high and so I’ve got to wait until Thursday next week before a second set are done. Then hopefully we’ll know more.

However.

On Tuesday night someone decided to chop my finger off. From the inside. I’ve never felt pain like it. Seriously, it was as if some invisible force was tearing each and every part of my index finger from my right hand. No swelling. No nothing. Just excruciating pain, the likes of which I hope you never experience. Now I’ve experienced pain before after major surgery, but this took the biscuit.

‘MeriKate took me to the E.R as writing around on the floor screaming isn’t considered socially normal. The doctors there quickly took me aside. When I held my arm up my finger pain became moderate to severe. Put it down by my side and it was hell. Apparently, according to my friendly doctor there, that is typical of some form of Neurological condition. Great.

Dispatched with the highest strength tablets I’ve ever seen I headed home, still in pain. Yesterday morning I had strict instructions to go and see my GP. I was signed off work for a week, much to my horror. I also took two CoCodamol Tablets. The 30/500-mg strength, as told to by the guy in the ER. As with my previous Codeine meeting I became as high as a kite. Apparently it is also not normal to dance around the house singing badly. Nor is it normal to put an entire bottle of conditioner on your hair in the shower to make it “really soft”. A college phoned me to see how I was and apparently had great amusement in having a conversation with me which consisted of a lot of random stoned mumblings and giggles from me and a lot of laughing from her.

But the really tough thing is being off work. Off work and feeling like I’ve been put to one side and ignored. I know that’s not true but I’m finding it really hard to relax and really hard to accept what I’ve got to do - rest. I don’t see how rest will help a condition I’ve been suffering from for quite some time. I do not also see why I can’t go back to work now. Okay, my right forearm is in moderate pain today, as is my right knee - But at least I can hold a conversation and think.

I’m scared. Scared and actually quite frustrated. Lots of snippets have been passed around by the doctors… Neurological disorder… something about smooth muscle condition… LFT levels being too high….. But no-one yet has given me a straight-forward answer because I suspect no-one has one to give me.

That’s the really tough bit. Added to the fact that I feel I’m letting those six students who have exams in 10 days down - and my colleagues. And my partner. And the dogs…

So cut me some slack, and give me a hug. Or something. I’m 29 (happy birthday to me on Nov 1) and yet I feel like I’m 129… At least, my muscles do.

Thanks for putting up with the overindulgent post. Meh. Time to watch some TV.

But this is a pdf made from data obtained from my car while driving from Wells to Bristol yesterday.

A large amount of the data I obtained was corrupt, but this is the data I managed to rescue and format from the car’s CAN bus.

Take a look!

drivehome

If you want to view the entire data file as converted by the excellent Can-Decoder software, have a look at this file: drivehome.

For the time it may not look like much, but my PHEV conversion is now well under way.

If you’re around at Half Term and in Bristol - and would like to help me complete my PHEV conversion then please let me know!

I am so exhausted with work that I just don’t have the energy to write any more. Sleep, unfortunately, comes first.

Nikki.

This morning I woke up bright and early to exercise. I have to be in work in about one hour and fifteen.

I exercised but wish I hadn’t. My right ankle was in agony when I got up and is in more agony now. Kate’s had a feel and can’t find any inflamed muscles. It hurts through to the bone.

In addition, my wrists and fingers hurt this morning so I shall make this post succinct. Yes, I’ve taken Ibropofen this morning to help with the pain. And yes, I went to the Doctors last week.

Apparently waking up in the middle of the night to discover walking is as painful as it possibly could be due to the sensation that my soles of my feet are bruised isn’t normal. Nor is the random limb pain. I’m coming clean. I’ve suffered this for as long as I can remember. It’s just got a lot worse lately.

Bloods have been taken and I’ll hear next week. And I’m Sh*tScared.

That is all.

It appears that I’ve not updated for about a month. Wow. I know that it’s been a while, but Jeeeeez…..

It’s currently 6:11 in the morning. That is a time that on a weekday I’d be just about finishing a 40 minute work-out on the exercise bike. On the weekend I should be fast asleep. However, I woke up just before five and I’ve not managed to get back to sleep. Once I’m awake and it’s close to 5AM then you’ve got a hard time to get me to go back to sleep. So yeah, bikes…I’ve been working out every day for 40 minutes now for about a month and a half. Has it had an effect on my weight? Not yet - at least not one that I can honestly detect. I have however, started to change fat back into muscle, so that’s good. Plus I’m feeling ten times better than I did pre work-out; My stamina has recieved a real boost and my skin is certainly feeling much nicer than it used to. Way to go, workout me. The only downside to working out is the extra 30 minutes missed in bed every morning and the fact that I don’t get quite as many early-morning cuddles from Kate. She however gets an extra lie in every morning and I get to slowly watch my way through our DVD collection on the eMac in the spare room. Not great compensation for missing extra snuggle time but then I do get to finally understand the age-old StarWars joke “That’s No Moon”, which my beloved angel loves to allude to every time she’s packing an unusualy large organe in her lunchbag.

Talking of Kate it’s been her Birthday since my last post. Her birthday was officially on the 4th, but on the 2nd she got an early present from yours truly. See, it’s a bit unusual and a tad large, so I wasn’t able to hide it for two days. Ever since Kate moved to the UK to be with me I have wanted to give her something truly special to remind her of her childhood and the beauty of the country she left behind to be with me. When we moved out of rented accomodation for the final time and into a house of our own, it felt only natural to name our off-white semi-detached house Denali, after that fantastic mountain in Alaska. Y’see, Kate spent several years there as a kid and it has left a lasting imprint on her.

So, with that in mind I thought I’d commission a painting for her birthday. The initial idea was to talk to local artist Rebecca Jelbert, whose two older children come to me for piano lessons. I had hoped Rebecca, whose work I already liked, would agree to paint a small landscape for me of that great mountin. However, I was completely unprepared for the converstaion which took place after she visited my house to view the space I wanted the painting to go in.

Becca:”I’d been thinking. After seeing the space, I’d like to paint three, one meter square canvases”
Me: “Errrrmm…. Okay…..” (Worries about the cost)
Becca: “Oh, I’m sure we’ll sort something out…”

And with that, Rebecca started on what must be one of the most beautiful paintings I’ve ever seen. One of the most beautiful and detailed and humongerific paintings ever seen, certainly in a small british semi-detached house in the ‘burbs.

At the moment an iPhone photo is all we have to share, but I promise as soon as our 14mm owning friend John comes over we’ll have a proper high res picture to share.

It’s transformed our living room. It takes up most of one wall but is well worth it. All our friends need to come and see it in the flesh…

Wow. It’s now 6:30. I’m taking my sweet time I guess. I am however, playing Spore in a window whilst also blogging and doing a 4.5 GB dump from my server to the new BVS server. (Yes, the BVS is finally leaving my paid sever, meaning I can move to one I’ve been offered for free… Whooo! No more £70 hosting bills!) So yeah… Spore. It’s highly addictive and well worth the £30 (or however much it is) to download. Both Kate and I have been playing it on our respective Intel Macs. On the Mac Pro it positively flies. Sadly however I can’t figure out how to run Spore on the Hackintosh downstairs. It’s a shame, because I’ve every confidence that it would look truly beautiful on the 40 inch HDTV. I have also succombed and purchased Spore for the iPhone. Bad move. Very bad move. It does however give me something fun to do when I’m in need of a few de-stressing moments at work. And thus, in my usual stream-of-conciousness posting style, my mind moves to matters of work.

Work rules. I’ve never worked so hard in my life. I’m up every day around 5:20 for the biking (see above) and then my day tends to go at at least 70 mph until about 7:30 in the evening. As usual, I won’t discuss specifics here because it’s unprofessional, but I’m working for two different LEAs now as well as a few private schools and a whole slew of private pupils. I’m now teaching upwards of eight oboists a day and fitting in various piano and saxophone pupils in between. I’ve also got the largest ever number of students sitting exams this fall, one leaving for music college and one hoping to go there next year. I had a little cry on Thursday when I said goodbye to my now undergrad and hope that he has a great time next year. He knows who he is

The funny thing is that teaching oboe was something I almost reluctantly adopted on graduation six years ago. I really didn’t want to be a teacher. I didn’t think I had it in me. And now? I live to teach. I love teaching. Being my own boss and being able to liase between all the different schools, LEAs and clients is an interesting and ecclectic experience. For the most part I’m also enjoying the driving, although I have decided that unlike my first teaching gig (when I used to bomb down the A1(M) at 90 mph with a sandwich in one hand and my headset in my ear between schools) I am going to be rather pednatic about ensuring that I have more than enough time to travel between schools without a) getting stressed about being late and b) loosing my licence. Besides, smooth and relaxed driving with a chilled out Nikki is so much better for my car’s fuel economy than a stressed out one. Proof? Well, on Wednesday my car was getting an appaulingly bad average of 52 mpg. Yesterday evening I had pushed it back towards a more repectable 57 mpg. Over the summer I was consistently reaching 62mpg plus…

Which brings me on to Velma. She’s doing great. I’m so pleased that I was able to find a cheap Prius. I’m even more happy that I’ve been asked to take part in the second phase of testing of a new piece of Plug in Prius kit. Of course, I’m tallking DIY PHEV here, not OEM. As soon as I’m out of the exhausting douldrums of the first month back I hope to start in earnest on getting the batteries installed. I also need to find a spare £1,300 for the charger… Next weekend a local EV friend of mine, who has just finished his fantastic electric Trabant…

…is helping me fabricate the charge door for Velma. It’s going to be put on the spare front wing I have. Then it’ll be a case of finding a local spray booth who will repray the completed wing and two new indicator mirror housings I won on ebay. I have a cunning plan to also make some mirror heated pads which I hope to tie in with Velma’s rear window heater switch. Of course, there’s going to be an approrpiate relay in there somewhere. I’m not stupid enough to risk blowing my nice Prius fuses…

I also need to figure out where and how to make the battery box for the boot and if I should include the space-saving spare wheel post conversion. In the UK it’s a legal requirement to have a road-legal spare wheel if you carry a spare wheel. It’s not a legal requirement to carry one…

Anyway. If you see Velma and I out and about please wave… or perhaps comment a “Hi” here

And now I’m off to snuggle. I’m starting to feel tired again. I guess the idea to get up and blog did the trick. Problem is it’s now gone 7am… I shall leave you with two facts.

1) I have a really irritated and red right eye. No contacts for me today. I think perahps a trip to the doctor if it gets worse. (Pooh on both counts. I hate wearing glasses)

2) I’ll finish with another badly taken iPhone photo.

An elderly Powerbook 5300, with only 16 MB of RAM, googles itself…. Slowly…

Hi folks,

Last Friday I posted a question to you all to see if anyone could tell the difference between the John Packer 081 oboe and a 10-year old Marigaux 901.

As most of you seem to have noticed after listening to this recording, the two oboes in question were played in the following order:

After a week I’m increasingly impressed with the 081. Yes, it’s no professional instrument but it isn’t meant to be. However, I did manage to successfully play several fun pieces on it including the Hummel Theme & Variations and the Kalliwoda Morceau Du Salon. In order to make a nice sound I had to work a little on the higher register but the intonation was spot on. A lack of trill keys makes for a little bit of nifty fingerwork and cross-fingerings but I was able to play the pieces.

Would I buy one?

Hmmm.. Tough. I’ve got this for another two weeks. I hope to make my mind up by then. I’m often doing workshops and demonstrations to children as young as four years old. Naturally they want to grab the instrument. Having a cheap £320 instrument to play at that point is a big draw for me. I could leave “my baby” at home and kno that it would be safe from roaming hands! So ask me in two weeks’ time.

Would I recommend one for a young student?

Certainly. I only wish all of my schools would buy some new instruments like this and get rid of those terrible 40 year old, barely working, instruments that they insist on servicing in a pointless attempt to improve the instrument quality. Of course, the instrument is crippled through a lack of keywork but if you’re looking for an instrument for the first year of learning it is a fantastic candidate.

Could it revolutionise oboe takeup?

Maybe not, but one can hope…

I’d really like to follow this with some more discussion. Please do post comments!