[I've not posted this partly because I don't want to jinx it, but at the same time- good news!]

Excellent news even- I have a non-drug remedy for my headaches.

It may have had something to do with:

- a bunch of physio appointments to un-stick a few vertebrae in my neck;
- a few (possibly ineffectual) acupuncture visits with same physiotherapist;

And it definitely had to do with:

- 9 days away at the Quaker confab, including some sort of "stress reset button" when I got handed an entirely different things to fixate on for the time there;
- five minutes with my friend Amy, who is an acupuncturist/acupressure practitioner.
- other factors, such as the very mellow massage I got from peaceofpie.

But the real biggie was Amy's accupressure points- on Tuesday morning I mentioned to her I was disappointed that the acupuncture back home hadn't had any positive effect, and she said, why don't you try pressing your thumb fingernail on your other hand right [here] in the web next to your thumb? On the right hand if the pain's behind your left eye, and vice-versa? So I did, and blam, the headache went away in under 5 minutes of pressing on my hand! Woah.

I got goosebumps. And the headache came back, and I did it again, and it went away again.

I had read about those pressure-points before, and tried them, to no effect, but I wasn't pressing hard enough, and I didn't have the right part of my hand.

All week I expected the migraines to come back just as bad. Instead they came milder and easier to get rid of. Like magic. And maybe there was magic involved; I don't know what all my friends were doing for me there... :)

All the old triggers are still triggers: not enough sleep, stress... But the pressure-points win over both of them. Wow.

Wednesday as an experiment I spent the afternoon in sun without sunglasses, and I got a dull headache. Yes, a boring dull headache- the kind I remember getting before the migraines took over a few years ago.

The other big factor is stress- on Saturday morning I was feeling quite stressed about travel and having to re-enter normal life again- and the migraine went away with the pressure points, but I found I could affect how it came back, by doing bits of meditation and by telling myself sensible things like "I don't need to do everything on my todo list on the day I get back." "I won't forget my passport again, I've already checked it's in my pocket." And so on.

This has felt like a successful science experiment- at this point I'm dealing with figuring out what I should do with the stress-factors so that they don't even get me to the headaches.

And also, it still feels like magic. And I have yet another thing to be grateful for.

It is still fairly unbelievable that I just wrote that.

Bonnie Tinker, Quaker Rabble-Rouser extraordinare, died yesterday afternoon after a traffic accident. Her bicycle was hit by a dump truck. Her daughter and granddaughter were here at Gathering, as were 150 of her extended family-of-choice.

She was rigid, she was impossibly idealistic, she made people intensely uncomfortable when she felt they were bowing to compromise at the expense of their ideals. She was loved, she was a force of nature, and she made amazing things happen.

Of course I'm very much looking forward to being home, but if I had to be somewhere other than home when something like this happens, it might as well be here with all these folks.

We were going to hold our regularly scheduled Cabaret and silent auction fundraiser last night.

We've done lots of grieving, holding each other, and saying our goodbyes. And now we're going to have the cabaret and silent auction. Not only would it be what she would have wanted, but it's the right thing to do.

I need a nap.

The last bit of travel today is a bus from Roanoke to Blacksburg VA. It's only an hour, but I really need a nap. And it's hot.

But there are fun hills. I'm fairly convinced I flew over the Blue Ridge Parkway for a while before we landed.

My bike odometer just rolled past 215 miles, which means it's gone a total of 6,215 since I put the odometer on the bike nearly exactly 9 years ago. As melted_snowball pointed out, that's 10,000 kilometers, so I'm going to reset to kilometers.

I wonder where the next 10k will take us.

Tomorrow, I'm off to IAD (Dulles) and ROA (Roanoke) thence to Virginia Tech for Friends Gathering. This year, as last year, I'm not taking a workshop, as I'm helping out the community instead. The week promises to be very full, very warm (Virginia! Summer! Oy.) and hopefully with surprises of the good kind.

It's summer! Today was nearly the upper limit for what I find a comfortable temperature to be outdoors for long- 30C / 80-ish F. Last night neither d. nor I seem to have slept very well. Both of us were a bit groggy today.

To celebrate the season, I got my hair cut. Only I guess I'm a bit predictable- when I sat down, Collette asked me whether I had travel plans. I said, "actually yes," and she laughed, because she says I always get my hair cut before I travel. Huh. But she's right!

...And not only did I get 'hon'd, over the course of 15 minutes I was also 'dear'd, 'sweetie'd, and 'sugar'd.

It was a fun day, if a bit low on the brain power.

Just got back from Toronto, seeing Williiam Finn talk about his shows and listen to songs from Falsettos, A New Brain, Elegies: Song Cycle, and 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Makes me glad to be alive, hearing his work. As good show tunes will. ...Not at all fluffy, this show; nearly all the songs were ballads, sad ballads at that. Of the pieces I'd never heard before, I really liked two from Elegies, both which gave me a lump in my throat: "14 Dwight Ave." and "Infinite Joy", both sung by Barbara Barsky, who at the end thanked Mr. Finn for writing excellent songs for middle-aged women.

Thank you, Mr. Finn, for writing excellent songs.

I did say thank you to him, and he gave a very polite "thank you for coming." Just before a kid came up and begged for a photo, which he got.

And now, bed awaits, because tomorrow's a full day too.

My laptop is once again making a chirp sound every 60 seconds like the HD is trying to die.

I bought a new drive to fix this, just a few months ago. :P

I edited and uploaded my favourite photos from our trip to Nova Scotia. I think the slideshow looks pretty good if I do say so myself.

Here's a few to whet your appetite. They all have Alt/title text, so hover over a photo without clicking if you're curious.

Our water heater is apparently being replaced tomorrow.

It is a rental, as are most water heaters in this town, because the water's so hard people need to replace their heaters every 5-10 years. Or so I'm told. We've been here 8 years, never had a problem.

The puddle in the laundry-room couldn't be blamed on a rainstorm any longer... So I called the city after work tonight, and they sent someone around, who looked at the puddle, asked a few questions, and immediately shut off the gas and water to the heater.

He said, "the bottom's corroded. When the water is on, the pressure has a chance to blow out the bottom of the tank. I've seen it happen, and I recommend you keep it off until tomorrow morning. You have enough hot water for a couple of showers, and the contractors will bring you a replacement tomorrow."

So, right now we don't have a hot-water heater.

Our utility bill covers sewer, water, and gas. This week we've tested the city's response to the first two. I would like to leave the third one to 2nd and 3rd-hand stories, please? Thanks.

(The arrival of the guy who inspected our water heater was delayed by an hour for him to go across town and deal with a real gas leak; fortunately fixed with no explosions.)

Guess what!

The city misplaced our sewer pipe!

Apparently, their filing system involves relying on a stake that they drove into our yard last June, which seems foolproof to me.

Corollary: We're getting a big chunk of our lawn replaced, saving us the expense of doing it.

Second corollary: I am grateful that I could be home this morning, because they had to come inside to run another locate through the bowels under our house, after they had dug up a long trench from the road to where they thought the pipe was.

I think I'll just stay put, 'cause I've got a physio appointment down the street at lunch time.

In 11 hours we're off to Buffalo, thence to Denver. Looking forward to seeing friends there; back here late Tuesday.

Our Nova Scotia vacation was a success. We put 1,600 km on the rental car. [1]

I have something like 440 photos to weed through from the last week. As a lazy first approximation, click on the google-map link above, and anywhere our route took us, check out the existing photos. :)

There were many surprises on this trip, but possibly the biggest came in Mahone Bay where dan (and possibly me too) were caught by what looked to dan like a Google Street View truck. If so, that would be a fun birthday present to me from Google, as we were there on my birthday...

The most remote location we visited by car was Meat Cove, at the northernmost tip of Cape Breton. Egads, that dirt road. And those cliffs. Whee!

The most awesome food was, of course, eaten on the hiking trails, because nothing tastes better than food you carried up a mountain. In this case: lobster picnic. Yes, that's right. Caught the same morning around 4am, sold to us on the dock at 10am. 5 lobsters for $20. Tossed in a pot by our B&B host and packed up as a picnic lunch. MMmmm tasty. And to follow it up, the next day we had the leftover lobsters in sandwiches, on another trail, just before we saw mooses.

Very grateful for my travel partner sweetie. He did every last bit of the driving in the rental car (rather than $100ish more to add me to the allowed drivers). And he had excellent suggestions, including taking the morning today to drive a long way around to the airport, which meant we happened across the lighthouse on the Bay of Fundy with the highest recorded tidal range in the world (17 meters). We were there at low-tide, and then 30 minutes later we saw waves lapping upward as the tide rose; I will have to look up videos or photos to make up for not seeing high-tide, which given the huge mud-flats, looks like it must be amazing to see as well.

And now that I've run out of superlatives for the evening, with a snoring dog at my feet and a now much smaller pile of email to go through tomorrow, I think it's time for bed.

[1] the google map only shows 1400 km, but we backtracked from our B&B in Pleasant Cove (in the NW corner of the Cabot Trail) a number of times. The squeaky-new white PT Cruiser they gave us came back just a little bit muddy. :)

See you all in a week or so; we're back from NS next Tuesday evening.

It's been a while since I've made a proper update.

Last weekend's trip to Philadelphia was fairly intense. I have a lot of respect for the organizers of the workshop; they packed a lot into our 44 hours on-site at Pendle Hill, yet it didn't feel rushed or overloaded. We learned more about the nuts and bolts of leading Quaker Quest training workshops, worked in small groups on articulating our own paths with regard to Quaker outreach, and talked about how the group of 30 of us can make the overall project work more smoothly. In the balance, I feel just as strongly that this is a worthwhile project and a good place for me right now.

The only parts of the weekend which were bad-intense were entirely my doing, because sometimes I'm a space-cadet who loses things wot aren't clamped down. *sigh*

One high-point to the trip was meeting some really neat people, some even roughly my age, from all over North America; and reconnecting with other 'Quakes who I've gotten to know and respect more over the last few years.

Another high-point was being picked up at the airport by Carrie G., who introduced me to Alma, who's now 4 5 months old. We went downtown and met up with her partner, Kathleen, and we had some wonderful time together (with ice-cream, plus also really cute sleeping infant) It was great to catch up for an hour; an hour which I thought I'd lost when I missed my first flight- making the meeting even more sweet.

But that was my 48 hours in the Philly area.

And when I got back, dan made us a lobster dinner, because he has an inside scoop with our favourite fish place, and heard they had excellent cheap lobsters. Yummy surprise, that. Go, dan!

Work has been rewarding, for the most part- I'm dividing my time between three software-design projects, and right now the balance is good. One project involves integrating our department's inventory system with the campus DNS, to simplify provisioning new equipment and make less work on updates. Another involves properly synching SSH keys so (among other benefits) instructors can more easily access their course-accounts from off-campus. The third is an Engineering Computing project of doom, which may be able to massage data from across campus into one place, in the formats needed by faculty to apply for grants, prepare their annual activity reports, and a few other creeping features. It may succeed, or it may collapse into a pile of brittle sticks; given the non-standardized data provided (and required) by the different faculties. We'll see.

I've just passed the one-year mark from coming back to CS, and I still like my work, I still like my work environment. Quite a bit, actually. The end of this calendar year will be five years I'm on campus, or more than half my time since moving here. Wow. I hope I can keep being as valuable to the U as I feel like it's been to me.

What else?

I'm going to be trying acupuncture. I met with my physiotherapist last week over coffee, and she pointed me in the right direction. I'll schedule it just as finish as I finish with the next bit of travel in May. I will be sure to report back, since I know some of you are practitioners. (or practitionees?)

For my birthday (which is next Wednesday), melted_snowball and I are going to Nova Scotia. We're leaving on Tuesday, back the following Wednesday. I'm very much looking forward. The plans are: two nights in Halifax, one night in Baddeck, three nights on the north side of Cape Breton in Pleasant Bay, one night in Truro. d's been patient with my impulse to arrange EVERY LITTLE BIT TO SEE IN THE ENTIRE PROVINCE in just a week. And I'm... actually quite OK with dan's desired agenda of seeing a few sights, doing some road-tripping, eating some excellent food, taking some hikes, and mostly relaxing. (Relax? How's that work?... Heh. Anybody have any tips here? Is there a class I can take on it?... Um. Joking, I think.)

I won't have my laptop, so don't expect much from me next week, even if 3G from my phone happens to work. I'll be too busy eating seafood to post, anyway. :)

The following weekend we're off to Denver to see The Three Bears, and also Other People. Long-planned trip, finally happening. I've never been to Colorado!

And a week after, with a weekend at home again, I'm taking a 3-day Project Management course, way far away at the University's extension office just a few blocks from my house. It should be useful, and there will be two colleagues in the course to trade ideas with also.

I have been keeping up with my friends-list, even if I'm not posting or commenting much. I do appreciate hearing what's up with you all; you inspire me and also give me great stuff to think about; as well as grounding me a bit. So, thanks.

In Detroit airport for the next hour... Hey, wasn't I just here?

I'm returning from a workshop on Quaker outreach held at Pendle Hill, a retreat center which I've learned was started on the cusp of the Great Depression, on the heels of a prior attempt by the same Quakers who'd 'not thought big enough.' The neat thing is how vital and eternal this center feels.

One thing I was reminded of this weekend is that historic quotes in archaic language that Quakers use... sometimes overuse.. were once contemporary language. And 50 or 100 years from now, our language will be quaint (if it is quoted at all...) So we might as well use our own language now, and be relevant not quaint.

Very full, rich weekend. Lots to ponder.

Looking forward to being home in 3 hours!

Passport? Works much better in pocket than desk at home.
On plane, 3h late, But underway.
(From a different airport. That was new, for me...)

it is too early.

That is all.

The cab to Breslau International Airport is picking me up in 5 minutes, I hope.

See you in Philly, maybe. :)

[I should have fbook access; I figured out my data plan, only $6/mb in the US]

I'm such a philistine lush. I just left a concert in intermission for a bar.
(In my defence, the second half looked looong, and I hadn't had a real dinner... And the Grad House was RIGHT THERE.)

My bike odometer just rolled over another 1,000 miles. I expected it to happen in the middle of the park, and I briefly considered taking a photo of the llamas/swans/bridge/whatever was in sight at the time, then decided it was unnecessary; I'd remember it well enough as I remembered the last 5 times and that was sufficient.

Probably that choice was for the best, because it rolled over on University grounds, just at the first path intersections where you've got loading-dock on one side and shopping-plaza Bank Machine on the other, with a side-helping of advertising signs. I'm all about the urban photography, but if you've seen one mini-mall you've seen them all.

And equally valid, if you've seen one odometer roll from 999.99 to 0.0, you've probably seen them all, too.

The university exams continue this week. Students walking singly or in groups into the buildings, with palpable energy/fear/resignedness. I've been there and done that countless times as well; still have dreams about it, and who doesn't? Grateful for the opportunity to swing past, hold the door for them, go up to my office and do the work I can to make their profs' jobs easier.

lim-i-nal \ˈli-mə-n^əl\ (adj) Latin limin-, limen threshold 1: of or relating to a sensory threshold 2 : barely perceptible 3 : of, relating to, or being an intermediate state, phase, or condition