A few items of interest.

1. For the first time since before Easter, I went back to prison to lead a Communion service.  The guys were warm and friendly.  My reflection was on the way that we persecute ourselves through overzealous conscience.  I think it resonated well enough with the inmates.
2. It seems that I’ll be heading back to Southfield next weekend, to help move Pretty Pretty Queen and the Prince Consort into newer digs.  Nothing I enjoy more than schlepping boxes … than in schlepping someone else’s boxes.  🙂  (Just kiddin’, Em.)
3. Speaking of boxes … was the first “full” week in the new office space at the hospital.  I was forcibly relocated from my spacious sixth-floor office (with a dynamite view of the downtown area, including the Grand River) to the center of a butt-ugly cube farm.  Your gentle blogger is somewhat less than amused by this turn of events, and is protesting by spending the bulk of each week occupying hotel spaces at other hospital facilities.  On the bright side, the move — plus some very awkward internal office politics — has generated a detailed, open, honest, and direct conversation about my future at the hospital, with my senior director.  We’ve got a good understanding of where we’re both at, and will reconvene soon for some final decision-making. 
4. Well, I did get the official paperwork completed to be officially certified as an open-water diver.  I think I’ll do some diving again in a few weeks.  Fun!
5. Andrew had some car trouble earlier this week — I’m glad I had the opportunity to assist him.  Luckily, it was just a torn fuel line, but still, he did have to have the car towed, which isn’t exactly a barrel of monkeys.
6. Enjoyed a lovely dinner at Hop Cat last night with [redacted].  And to think … we didn’t even talk about how her Hillary got shafted by an unqualified black man.
7. I installed openSUSE 11.0 on the second major partition on Ye Olde Laptop.  I really like it, although KDE 4 is buggier than I’d expect for a major final release.  On the bright side, this version of openSUSE has the 2.6.25.x kernel, so getting Broadcom wireless working was a breeze.
8. Old people don’t know how to drive.
9. Fr. Roc seems to have learned about my Vegas excitement.  And Sharon knew about my ear thingy … I wonder if she reads this blog?  I wouldn’t be surprised; she’s surprisingly smart for being an RN. 🙂

All for now.  Happy first day of summer!

OK, so.  Yesterday, I finished the last two open-water dives necessary to obtain my initial certification.  Woo hoo, right?

Well, I had another little glitch.  At one point, long story short, I ended up sinking like a stone from the surface to the bottom, a drop of roughly 20 feet.

Doesn’t sound like much, does it?  A mere 20 feet.  Except that the pressure on the human body DOUBLES at 33 feet.  The first 15 feet of depth presents the most significant and noticeable changes to the body during a normal dive.  Plummeting just that little bit is actually a big deal.

So, I sunk.  And I went so fast and unexpectedly that I didn’t properly equalize my ears.  So, I had the sharp pain of pressure followed by a pop and slow hiss that normally accompanies the perforation of an eardrum.

Turns out, though, that my eardrums are fine.  My doctor (himself a diver) examined my ears today; I got a same-day appointment after minor hearing loss and feelings of fullness persisted 24 hours later.  My thought was that, with eardrums punctured, my middle ear filled with bacteria-laden lake water, and I’d prefer to just get some antibiotics to avoid a possible nasty sinus infection.

Nope.  My eardrums are fine.  My middle ears, however, are packed full of blood.  As are my deep sinuses.  It’s a condition called barotitis media — provisionally diagnosed pending review by the specialists.

So, I’ve got an ENT referral for next week, and I get to enjoy the weekend feeling as if I’m wearing improperly fitted ear plugs.  Oh, joy.  Looks like I get to pop decongestants to drain some of the blood into my throat.  Delicious!

That notwithstanding, the second set of dives was great.  We went to a max of 30 feet and got to experience thermoclines, decent visibility (roughly 20 feet, which wasn’t bad for an inland lake with boaters and swimmers), small-boat wrecks, and all sorts of small fish that seemed perfectly comfortable with divers getting close.

And, I successfully completed the required proficiency tests.  So, except for some minor paperwork, I’m now a certified scuba diver!

OK, so a bit melodramatic.  But here’s the story:  I was doing one of my open-water certification dives at Baptist Lake.  As the dive began, I found it increasingly difficult to breathe.  I even nearly started to panic — I just couldn’t draw a full breath.

At the surface, things didn’t get better.  I was so focused on getting oxygen that I took out my regulator and didn’t bother to inflate my buoyancy-control device (a jacket that holds the tank and an air bladder) to keep my head above water.  So, struggling to get air, I swallowed about half of the lake.  Yummy.

A divemaster was near and helped me.  As it happened, my tank shifted, so the chest straps on the BCD also shifted, such that I couldn’t expand my chest enough to draw a full breath.  The divemaster re-adjusted my straps, and all was well.

Other than that little mishap, the dives went well.  I still can’t hear — my ears remain plugged with water — but everything else was great.  Another session tomorrow, and I’ll be a certified open-water diver.  Woo hoo!

I recommend a visit to the newly active blog of my friend Chris.  His focus is on fatherhood, and family issues from a male perspective.

I’ve known Chris since we were freshmen together at Western Michigan University.  He’s a “good egg” and I heartily endorse and support his new blogging interest — may it fill a void for other earnest fathers out there!

The week or so I’ve been back from The Happiest Place on Earth has not been without its own share of adventures.

1. Spent last Friday/Saturday with Andrew, watching more fun movies from his mammoth collection.  Nice getting to know him better.
2. Watched a series of major, unhappy changes unfold at the hospital over the last few days.  Corporate culture, when the facade lifts, can be unpleasant.
3. Intended to meet Duane in Detroit yesterday, but he missed his flight out of Sacramento.  So, having already made plans to head to the Motor City area, I went to dinner with Jon and Emilie instead.  Quite pleasant.  A bit different for the three of us to meet without Tony, but fun nevertheless.

Ahead:

• Will probably spend some time at the Festival of the Arts today.
• Have work to do on business development.  A growing sense of urgency to have a “plan B” in place.
• Doing my open-water dives this Wednesday and Thursday at Baptist Lake in Newaygo County.

In general … I need to collect myself and focus on what my real priorities are, and not stress about the tangential things that pop up.  It’s hard, with some strong distractions in my personal life, but — it is what it is.

Have you ever started downloading a large file, only to have the progress bar stop at 98 percent? 

I have.  And this forces a decision:  Abort and retry?  Wait and see if the transfer resumes?  Scream at your monitor?  Give up?

Feels lately like I’m at 98 percent.  A lot of pots are bubbling on my burner.  Have to wrap up dive training.  Need to finish a contract job that’s overdue.  Need to do the last of my prep work for the new business.  Need to get back to running regularly.  Need to finally leave the hospital.

And yet … I sit.  Decision time.

I returned this morning from another four-day extravaganza at The Happiest Place on Earth:  Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada.  And with what better company than Mad Cow Tony?

Herewith a chronology of the last seven days.

1. The festivities began in earnest on Friday.  I went to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull with Andrew.  We attended a late-evening showing, and agreed to get drinks after the film.  Of course, conversation over cocktails was delightful, so we went back to his apartment to watch movies until the wee hours of the morning.  I ended up crashing at his place, not leaving until after noon on Saturday.  We watched a great horror-comedy starring Vincent Price and the first half of one version of Ten Little Indians.  In all, it was a great time.  I enjoy Andrew’s company immensely.
2. From there, I went home to shower and change before heading to Lansing for birthday dinner for Tony with Emilie and Jon.  Dinner at Tropo was exquisite (although Emilie and I both enjoyed waaaaay too much alcohol beforehand with not enough food).  The only snag was the end of the night; Emilie ended up getting locked in a room in the bowels of the restaurant.  Tony found her hiding behind a wine crate in the basement of Tropo as Jon and I considered a street search downtown.  We escorted the Pretty Pretty Queen back to the hotel room they had rented.  I intended to return to Grand Rapids, except I had left my keys in Emilie’s vehicle and rousing her and her husband was probably not an option.  So I slept on Tony’s couch.  We went to a quaint little railroad-themed restaurant in Lansing for brunch on Sunday.
3. After leaving brunch, I went back to G.R., packed, and then drove right back to Lansing.  Luckily, gas prices for a Grand Cherokee are cheap.  [/sarcasm]
4. Sunday evening witnessed our normal ritual:  Tony and I watched National Lampoons’ Vegas Vacation before going to bed.
5. Monday:  We flew out of Grand Rapids (yes, GRR) on a 7 a.m. flight on Northwest Airlines.  We left his place at 5 a.m. and made the trip under quite peaceful circumstances.  I was worried about my health; some sort of infection had settled in my sinuses, particularly around my right ear, where I had some chlorinated water settle during dive training the previous week.  Nevertheless, I soldiered on, despite not feeling well and having had three consecutive nights of non-sleep in someone else’s home.  We had a four-hour layover at Minneapolis before heading to McCarran.  We arrived at one of the nicest hotel-casinos on the strip — Paris — and after settling in with an ambiguous room upgrade (the clerk palmed Tony’s $20, but we got a regular room anyway), we headed to the keno desk as per protocol.  From there, we hoofed it to Wynn to try to win two free buffets doing a trick Tony learned at LasVegasAdvisor.com.  The trick failed; I got points at Wynn, but no free dinner.  So after stopping by Venetian for Davidoff cigars, we dined at the Imperial Palace buffet instead, and then turned in early.
6. Tuesday:  Gamblin’ day!  We started early, playing Bonus Poker on the video poker machines at Ballys.  Even though I started off with less than the agreed-upon bankroll (a fact that made the Gambling Sensei cranky), I made up for it early by hitting a progressive royal worth $1,027.  So I self-funded. 🙂  Most of the day was spent gambling, with a trip to the breakfast buffet at Paris and dinner at the seafood buffet at Rio.  Oh, and it was Tony’s birthday, so it was fun.
7. Wednesday:  Gamblin’ day, again!  More video poker, after having the breakfast buffet at Caesar’s.  We actually played at Caesar’s Palace, which was fun.  Then we returned to Ballys for even more gaming, followed by dinner at Paris.  Actually, TONY gambled while I walked several miles from the casino to the Post Office to send a next-day-air package — talk about a comedy of errors.  We tried to do karaoke at Imperial Palace in the evening, but the place was stuffed with middle-aged people who wanted to sing (a) country, (b) Elvis, or (c) slow pop.  After an hour, we left, which is a shame, because Tony did look good for picking up the ladies.  He did, however, perform his usual rousing rendition of Piano Man before we departed.
8. Thursday:  Breakfast buffet at Ballys, followed by a grand tour of most of the MGM Grand casinos:  Monte Carlo, New York New York, Excalibur, Luxor, Mandalay Bay.  We gambled some at Monte Carlo — nice place.  And I wouldn’t mind staying at Mandalay Bay.  We returned to Paris in time to catch the shuttle to McCarran.  Our flight left at 10:15 PST.
9. Friday:  Arrived in Detroit around 5 a.m. EDT, with a four-hour layover.  Got back to GRR around 10 a.m., in time for Tony to drive us to Lansing so that I could drive back to GRR.  Please, don’t question our logic.  And the rest of Friday?  Playing catch-up.

The festivities are not complete; we still have the birthday gala at the lesbians’ on Saturday.  But the bulk of the fun is done, for now.  And although I enjoyed it, I’m ready to finally relax a bit. 🙂

It’s been a lousy 72 hours.

Some of it was great.  Yesterday, I finished the confined-water portion of my open-water scuba class — three full hours in the pools at East Kentwood High School, in 4-to-15 feet of water.  The open-water dives, at Baptist Lake in Newaygo County, will happen next weekend.  That’s cool.  And I did get the chance to spend some quality time with T-Bone on Saturday in Lansing.

But it’s been a frustrating few weeks, financially and emotionally.  It feels like lately, I’ve been making one shuffle-step forward and two giant leaps back, and it’s left me a bit off-kilter.

After the pool session yesterday, I went across the street to watch Prince Caspian.  It was a nice, if somewhat hollow, film, but the last five minutes really had an impact.  It occurred to me, as I drove around afterward, that part of what has motivated a good amount of my attitude and behavior over the last few years has been a sense of grief — grief over the loss of youth.

I don’t mean for this to sound like a bunch of whiny existential crap.  Nevertheless, I really did waste most of my 20s living a sedentary, solitary, obese existence.  Once I moved on from that, I just couldn’t set aside the rage I felt at my own bad choices.  I think about the experiences that most people take for granted that I’ve never shared, or about the lingering physical reminders of significant obesity, and I realize that I’ve put myself at a serious disadvantage as I try to rebuild a life from the ashes.

We tend to think of grief in terms of death, but we grieve any loss.  And that process of grieving has a series of steps.  I’m not at the end of this process.  Perhaps I won’t be for a while.

Maybe I have a different paradigm for understanding myself.  Maybe.

A little update:

1. Today was the first of two days of classroom training and confined-water diving, leading to certification as a PADI open-water diver.  The actual open-water dives required for certification will be completed on a weekend in two or three weeks.  The course is interesting.  I like this already, and am eager to do "real" diving and work toward divemaster status.
2. Next week, it’ll be Viva Las Vegas, as Tony and I spend four fun-filled days and three exciting nights in The Happiest Place on Earth — at Paris, at the heart of the Strip. 
3. Business development has proceeded well.  Everything’s ready to go, at long last.
4. Chiropractor services have been useful.  My long-running mild back tension has been noticeably decreased.

Other than that … same ol’, same ol’.