Making a mess in the kitchen

The somewhat complicated process of changing the oil in Mrs G's brakes requires two syringes and five hands. The oil is a pretty colour though.

Two Forty Over One Twenty

I am still sucking air.  This is a good thing.

On Thursday night I stopped being able to suck air.  This was a bad thing.

One am and I went upstairs to bed.  Until this point I had been feeling absolutely fine.  No signs of impending doom.  And the stairs I climbed were not like the north face of the Eiger.  They were just like the stairs you climb to your bed.  Fourteen of them, rising eight or so inches per riser.  For someone who is thirty-eight and a bit, this is not something you or I would break a sweat over.

I performed my regular nightly ritual of reclaiming the duvet from Mrs Gerbil, lay down and stopped breathing.

fuck.

I had absolutely no will to breathe on my own.  I really had to force myself to suck air in.  I realised that sleeping at this time may have some pretty bad consequences. 

I sat up.  Going downstairs, breathing returned to something approaching normal, especially when sitting down.  I sat for ten minutes or so, then returned up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire, lay down and couldn't breathe again.  Imagine the feeling of being tickled to the point of being unable to breathe, without the enjoyable wrestling beforehand.  I just wasn't prepared to suck air without a pretty concerted effort on my part.

So that's the point that I woke Mrs G up.

Then we phoned the NHS. for a bit of advice.


They sent an ambulance, without me even asking for one.

And then two student ambulance workers saw some numbers on my blood pressure reading that made them wince.  The ambulance that had three on board when it arrived, left with four.

I arrived in casualty, was poked and prodded, before being relocated round the corner to "Somewhere Better." "Somewhere Better" turned out to be Resuscitation, where the wall behind me was adorned with the sort of medical kit that only gets used on you if the shit has seriously hit your fan.  They wouldn't even let me walk there, in fact the two nurses seemed to go a little pale when I made the suggestion.

The rest of the night was spent with my feet hanging off the end of an A&E trolley, wired to a machine that took a hissy fit every time an electrode fell from my chest.  Medical tape just does not stick to my skin, except where there is hair, then it sticks better than Evo-stik and removes hair better than waxing.

In the morning I was moved to "Somewhere Better", which turned out to be the Cardiac unit.  Amongst many questions, I was asked my mobile phone number (07777 777777) My wifes mobile number (07777 666666) and my Doctor ("They never gave me their mobile number..." "No Sir, just the name of the doctors surgery."   "Oh...  Sorry... "  (I'm not at my sharpest at that time.)  Best question of all, "Have your bowels moved recently?"  What's the answer to that?  "Yes, but they left a forwarding address..."

So for the rest of the day I was poked and prodded.  I have seen my heart on ultrasound.  I have met the hospital chaplain, and we talked pastoral care.  I even met Mrs G's new supervisor who was in visiting.

So it turns out I have blood pressure that is high enough to be measured in pounds per square inch.  240 over 120.  I now have some drugs to take, and a letter that is to go to my GP.  And they still don't know if the breathing thing is related.  Yet had it not been for the breathing problems, I wouldn't have known about the blood pressure.

While I am a little overweight, I never feel unwell.  No headaches, no strange symptoms.  Nothing.  So that is why you need to get your blood pressure checked this week.

Off topic.

Off topic.  Still awesome.

Zen And the Art of Automobile Maintenance.

Grudgingly, I am discovering that I am reasonably good at fitting towbars.  We fitted one to our old Polo, so we could carry the bikes when we went on trips/holidays.  We didn't get much use out of that bar, before we had the motorbike crash and then later traded the car. 

Then we didn't ride bikes for a couple of years before Mrs G got back into it over the summer.  So When I realised that I was missing cycling, we bought a towbar for the Skoda and fitted that in September.  In November the Skoda was written off.  We were hit from behind on the 3rd November, which was even more of a pain because we had just spent a reasonable amount of cash repairing the engine.  Ah well, it's only a car, and we've now got a nice Mazda.

We still want to take the bikes places, so today towbar number three was fitted.  The purpose of this blogpost is so that some time in the future I remember exactly how to do what I had to do.

Towbars are bolted to the chassis of the car.  How this happens differs from one vehicle to the next, and for todays effort I was presented with a bolt on a stick. 

This has to be fed up through a hole in the bottom of the chassis rails, and should come out the side.  The hole that it goes in is not much wider than the bolt, and the stick, while being the thing that helps you maneuver the bolt out the side actually gets in the way.  It's at times like this I really miss my Dad, because he would probably have worked this out quicker than I did.

The solution, developed after an hour or more of barked knuckles is to the right.  I took a roll of masking tape, made a couple of turns round the bolt before making a paper rope out of a foot or so of tape.  The tape was firm enough to be fed up through the hole at the bottom and then out the side. 
I was then confident enough to put the bolt/stick into the chassis rail  and very carefully draw the bolt out the side hole.  The pic to the left is looking up from under the car showing the offending holes.  now all I had to do was fit a spacer, the towbar side rail, two washers and a nut, repeat four times and torque the whole thing up.  


Note to self.  When fitting bolts in confined spaces, masking tape is your friend.  Or gaffer tape, because like The Force, it has a light side, a dark side, and holds the universe together.

Public Safety

This is how a public safetyfilm should be made.


For the earworm that's now going round your head, you're welcome.

(Are there any other children of the eighties that remember the Balfour Beatty film that had a nerdy kid being obliterated by various bits of construction machinery?)

Conspiracy Theories

I discovered the most awesome thing today.  I was reading one of the conspiracy theory message boards, of which there are a plenty on the web.  Aparently there's a shady underground organisation that has infiltrated the top level of society with creatures that look something like lizards in human form.  Members of this organisation are out to impose a new world order by secretly infiltrating organisations.  Politicians, bankers, royals, they are all in on the act.  But the best bit of all, it includes ministers of religion! 

Cool!  I get to become a reptile! 

Or maybe I already am...

So you want to work In Cheltenham

From the BBC today, GCHQ has laid down a challenge to codebreakers in order to raise its profile and attract new staff.  The website, http://www.canyoucrackit.co.uk/ invites you to break a code, in theory leading you on to another page  where you can apply for a job .


And then once you've got your head around all those numbers (is that hex I see before me?),  the lucky winner gets presented with this page...

Yes, that is a screenshot of the real page. I would have carried on with the application process, but I'm still trying to get my head around the Kirk enquiry process.  And while it's a nice place to visit, I'm not too sure I want to live in Cheltenham.  If GCHQ wants to get in touch, you already know where I work.  (Sorry chaps, I cheated.)

Things that I learned today...

GCHQ's enquiry process is harder that the C of S.

Q would probably frown on Bond using Google...

Japanese Swordsmanship.

When the zombies rise up, I want this guy on my side...



I know.  You used to play rounders when you were in the Brownies and you think you could hit the baseball with the sword.  How about we shrink the ball a little...



Do you still think you could hit the ball?  If you'll excuse me, I'm going to watch The Seven Samurai.

P.S. Did you know that they are making a remake?  Hasn't anyone told the producers that there's already  been one?  But you know that, don't you...?

The rise of the robots.

Isaac Asimov stated three rules of robotics which are...

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

But there's a problem. You see these rules were created by a human, and in particular, a human that made his living selling sci-fi novels. When the robots rise up against us, a set of human rules aren't going to make a blind bit of difference. Feel free to stand in front of the oncoming independent robot army, waving your white flag on a stick. Rule one is definitely not going to apply.

Hopefully the robot ray gun will leave enough of your remains for me to sweep you up into a small pile. If you're lucky, your last journey may even be through my Dustbuster. I will let your family know that your last words were a brave but optimistic "Klaatu barada nikto", not the "oh shiiiiiiiii......" you uttered as you realised that rule two was no longer on the table.

The robots are on the rise. Come with me if you want to live...


Yes, I know this is meant to be a reflective journal. It's my blog, why can't I be reflecting on ray gun wielding robots?