Interesting. Thanks, Chris.


What up, Sic? Bidness, or pleasure, if it's any of our bidness?

Chicago is business, sorta. The Mrs is going to a painting convention, but the family is tagging along.

I'll be back home for a day, then I'm heading out west to see friends and see the country. I'll be sidelined for the summer due to surgery recovery, and the Mrs and I each take our own little vacations each year. I try to take mine earlier, but work has been crazy busy until now.

Hope the surgery thing is not too serious. Vacays are always cool. I guess busy is cool, too, to a point.

You have any music lined up in those towns or is this strictly a bbq run? :)

Surgery is...sorta serious.

We have great BBQ here in KC...I don't really need to go anywhere else. :)

Other than visiting friends in ABQ and Western KS, I don't have any big plans for the western piece. A couple of sightseeing things I want to do. Just going where the roads take me.

Keep on keeping on bro. You can do it.

Hoping it all goes well, Sic!

Best of luck. I have another friend who had the surgery last year. She couldn't possibly be happier. She looks fantastic and said she feels great too.

There's a thing (you know, those things?), where people who have that done, have an increased risk of becoming dependent on alcohol. More so for women, I think.

I have a cousin who had it done, went just as smooth as silk, worked, too, like a charm. She became a full-fledged, card-carrying alcoholic. Did more harm than good.

I think she pretty much ended up replacing one addiction with another.

I like alcohol. :drunk:

I've had two major addictions in my life: nicotine and food. Of course, we can't live without food. This surgery should help fix the signals that make me want to eat all the time, including right now.

We shall see. I'm 7 months shy of 40 and scared to death of dying. The benefits far outweigh the risks at this point.

The reverse phenomenon also happens: alcoholics who give up booze often develop a raging sweet tooth. Carbs is carbs.

The daughter of a friend had gastric surgery about 2 years ago. She's never been happier - she's dropped down to a healthy size, had a baby girl and has got used to eating much smaller portions and much healthier food. And she's enjoying physical activity in a way she never really had before.

Great for her, but that last part is being redundant.

ha! True enough:P

Here's my reason for Happy -

The examiners are recommending my thesis for a pass with minor (editorial) corrections :) (technically it doesn't count as a pass til the exam board passes it but they never go against the examiners' recommendations)

Which means I have 4 weeks to make the changes and assuming they all check out (which of course they will) it is a pass

*does the happy dance*

They really liked it. The first thing they said when I went in was that they liked it, thought it was a very good piece of work, and I should relax because they didn't consider that I needed to 'defend' my thesis.

Instead we had a chat about it - they offered some constructive criticism and advice about what changes might be good if I was looking to get it published (mostly stuff that's fairly typical of a phd thesis) - the intro was a little lopsided and the historiographical context could have been more thorough - a few places where I could have stated my findings more forcefully and made the implications clearer, conclusion could do with broadening out a little (again very typical PhD thesis conclusion) and a slight shift in periodisation might make it more appealing as a published work - but none of which would be required for the thesis to be accepted.
They talked about some of the stuff they liked and asked me to expand on some of it - asked a few questions about my methodology and choice of periodisation and so on.

They made suggestions as to what might be drawn out for shorter articles - they suggested the two chapters that I had already identified as the strongest and most original analysis.

The editorial changes are really very basic - errant commas/typos/formatting errors. Only two changes were content related and they were literally the addition of single sentences to contextualise the figures (e.g troop numbers serving in a particular location at that time).

They were very nice, very complimentary and most of what they said gelled with my own view of the work having read it back.

I have to say, it is something of a boost when someone whose work I've read and who is respected in my field tells me he enjoyed reading my thesis and learned some things from it.

Awe-some!

:celebrat:

Not necessarily, no one starts out huge.

GOOD ON YOU !

I know the anxiety.
It boarders on terror when some one else has your (professional) life in their hands.

Again, GOOD ON YOU !

Great job!

Thanks guys :)

Pretty pleased with myself right now.

Well alright. Glad to hear that

Congrats, Dana. That's gotta be a load off your mind.

Brilliant!

Now do this

Hahaha. Yes.

I've employed that tactic in local politics.

Congrats Dana. Does this mean you'll have to join the working world finally? :eek:

Dana, many congrats!! Fantastic news!
Do we call you Doctor Dana now? Maybe DD? :p:
All kidding aside, again, many congratulations!

Thanks guys:)


Working world soon, aye. Need to get the revisions completed and finish the article I'm working on while I still have off-campus library membership and supervisor advice.

Life in general. Its pretty good. ☺

You go Dana!

Only until we start calling her, Dean Doctor Dana. ;)

Good for Dana, and Aliantha.

65 and a full tank on the scooter!!

I'm out.

heheh. Nice catch Lamp.

Had a gal contact me on FB had not heard or seen her since we were early teen partners in "crime", made me happy she thought of me. She lives in New Mexico and I am still I'm Indiana
.

Today I completed planting all the flowers I've purchased over the past several weeks. I've been pulling weeds and grass from my garden, and today I cleared the last patch for the sweet peas I plugged into the ground. I still have some grass and weeds to pull, and probably a lot more flowers to buy, but now my garden is more delightful than derelict.

Nice!

File this under bittersweet.
Signed the papers to make the separation official. She gets served on Friday, I sign more shit on Monday, then shit goes to the court.

It was turning a corner, no going back and I had to finally admit to myself I was never and will never get the love I wanted from her.

On the other hand my life is looking better and my stress levels have plummeted. I'm getting the back 40 in shape, baby steps, baby steps...

Everything gets better from here on out.

*I can see clearly now, the rain is gone...*

Fuck yeah!

Oh, and in other news I've dropped 30# and now weigh 190. My goal of 180 seems certainly attainable.

About those sit ups...

Whoa, nice job! Stress weight is a real thing, dump your stresser dump the weight.

Fantastic news.

Moving forward is good. Dropping stress/weight is great. FTW, foot.

I'm happy to have finished a week in Baltimore. I haven't posted in the Baltimore thread because everything I began to say seemed underwhelming. It was a significant week, however.

And I'm happy to have finished a week of networking and chatting at a national conference in spite of my hearing impairment. I'm not deaf enough to use signing but impaired enough to make every conversation a misery. I do lip-read as well as I can, but it's not just decibels. My hearing aids are ridiculously inefficient.

So, it's nice not to be embarrassing myself on a moment-to-moment basis. What I really need is a nice academic job where I don't have to hear people much. I don't know that the ADA will provide for me in my current job.

I've been wearing them for 34 years and I feel your pain. They just can't cope with crowds (3 is a crowd) and background like waiters or traffic make it worse. The increasing hearing aid commercials is I suppose a result of the boomers becoming a mass target. But the lying fuckers writing the commercials are real annoying.

absolutely. What I hate most ... missing the small things my kids whispered into my ears, or something a loved one says. They mostly know when I don't hear, but sometimes not, and I feel bad. It's so isolating, leaves you watching from outside a glass wall.

Like you, it's been a long time, since age 12 or before. Genetic, not noise-induced. Sometimes I'd rather be completely deaf ... just use signing and be done. It's like being severely myopic without glasses, but not totally blind.

Sometimes I think the damn things are only useful as a signal/reminder to people that I can't hear for shit. :haha:

That's only if they show. Modern types, if you have any hair, they don't show.
It was easier when I was bald.

The only ones that don't show are the tiny ones deep in the ear, unless you have enough hair to cover the ear completely.

I use the in the ear type... http://cellar.org/2015/ite_small.jpg now but for years I wore the behind the ear.
I was happy to switch because the behind the ear would quit when I sweat heavily.

That's interesting, that it can be a feature for the hearing aids to be obvious. Seems kind of obvious itself when you think about it. They have been working for so long to make them tiny and invisible, but that's not necessarily such a good thing.

I've long thought that someone ought to devise hearing aids that are intentionally visible to encourage people to face the wearer and be sure of speaking clearly. If glasses can be a "designer" accessory, why can't hearing aids?

In other news Mr Limey, diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in July last year, due to the changes he has made in his diet* has gone from two metformin a day, to one, to NONE!
:cheerldr::celebrat::jig::tuba:






* Okay, I helped a little but mostly it is down to him reducing the snacking/energy drink consumption which is beyond my control :p:

SWEET!

:D

Send congrats along... I hope to join him, next set of numbers come in June

Wow, even when you were off saving the Empire?
http://cellar.org/2015/HearObeyMe.jpgOutstanding Sir, well played.http://cellar.org/2015/hands19.gif

Good job Mr. Limey!

Yay Lemony!

Awesome!

That's outstanding news!

I looked up the side effect for that medication, and it sounded like not having to take it would be much much better than having to take it.

Good luck, Toad!

Way to go, Mr. Limey.

^WHS^