Injury Update, Sunday 11/29

I spent Thursday, Friday and most of Saturday, intensely resting and trying to heal from last Sunday's accident. This meant no horse activities, no-computer, no cooking Turkey, very little phone and very little texting. Progress has been slow with a few setbacks along the way. I did make a second trip in to the Group Health urgent care on Saturday morning to get some new pains checked out and meds refilled. But this afternoon I finally felt improved enough to resume an almost normal activity level again. I still have some limits to range of motion in my neck and two or three specific muscles that complain, loudly, when overused. Still have a black eye. While the muscles for driving have recovered, sitting in a low-backed chair and/or typing is very tiring. Walking around is also fine, as long as my right arm/shoulder isn't too tired. I'm hoping to resume a full work schedule tomorrow, though with limits on a number of activities. I have an appointment late Tuesday morning with my Primary Care Physician, Dr. Zeidman at Group Health in Redmond, after which I hope to have a more detailed recovery plan / time-line.

Big thanks to Alison for keeping tabs on me and being a knowledgeable resource. Also thanks to everyone who has offered to help out.

QoD: Healing takes courage...

Norval Rhodes (NorvalRhodes) on Twitter:

Healing takes courage, and we all have courage, even if we have to dig a little to find it. -Tori Amos

Lame horse can be a real pain in the neck

Lena stone bruise continues to improve. She's putting more weight on her right front hoof today.


However we did have a bit of an accident this morning as I was taking the soaking bag off her foot. While I was hunched over unbuckling the bag, the stall cleaner asked if, when I was done, he could move Lena across the aisle so he could clean her stall. Unfortunately Lena took this an an invitation, proceeded to exit her stall and I got caught in a tuck position between her and the stall wall. While this could have resulted in a catastrophic injury, I was able to tuck and roll enough to not hit my head or break my neck.

After a quick self assessment, it was clear that I injured my neck, but that it was not life threating. However it was painful and that a trip to urgent care to get checked out was in order.

Big thanks to Alison for coming out to PCF, giving me a ride to the Group Health urgent care at the new Bellevue Medical Center and for hanging out in Bellevue until I was discharged. After checking in the triage nurse gave me a hard collar to hold my neck still until they could fully examine it. While I'm sure that this was the safest thing to do, my injured neck mussels really didn't like being immobilized. It took a few hours to progress through the system, get two rounds of x-rays taken, get some pain meds and be discharged with a soft collar and instructions like no lifting, bending or playing tug-a-war with horses. The best moments were when the x-ray tech let me take the hard collar off for the second round of x-rays.

Not sure yet if I'm going to go into work in the morning. Will likely depend on if I still need to that the prescription pain meds which are incompatible with driving.

This evening Becky came out and helped soak Lena's hoof, after which I took her out to the recently renovated Fall City Roadhouse for some dinner. Since I'm out of commission as far as horse care goes for the next week to ten days, we need to reassess how to give Lena her treatment and who will longe for the Tammy Clinics. Please, call or text if you can help out with either of these.

Update 11/29

Update 12/15

Update 12/20

Lena Update Friday 8:30PM

Vet visit:
1.5 hr, $211 (including meds)
Update e-mails, phone calls, text messages:
1 hr
Shopping for treatment supplies:
2 hr, $60 (including .5 hr timeout $20 for iSushi dinner)
Setting up treatment supplies and soaking hoof:
1 hr
Setting up stall at front barn for a week and shuffling horses around:
1.5 hr, $42
Knowing that the horse is resting well and will be okay:
Priceless!

Co-worker's Team wins $900k from NASA

Seattle team wins $900,000 in Space Elevator Games - Yahoo! News:

David Bashford is one of my co-workers at the toothbrush lab. In is off hours he's been building a climber(s) and support systems for LaserMotive LLC to compete in one of NASA's Centennial Challenges.

This past week they were the only team who's laser beam powered climber made it to the top of a kilometer long cable suspended from a helicopter. Their climber went fast enough to earn $900k out of the $2 million prize money.

My lake front view is back

My lake front view is back
Originally uploaded by TSayles

With the return of the winter rains, the low lying areas around the farm have filled back up with water. This particular patch of water will probably grow and shrink but never really go away until next May or June.

I really like being able to post pictures directly from my phone to Flickr and then a link to Twitter. It makes catching and sharing these kinds of images really easy. All I need now is an app for my phone that will allow me to edit (rotate, crop, tag, etc.) my Flickr photos without having to hit my PC.

I see that my brother, is posting similar photos from his phone too.

Q.o.D: "There are two schools of thought. Our boss and everybody else." -- an anonymous employee

Prophecy, Wisdom & Ambition

Prophecy is the ability to foretell the future.
Wisdom is knowing how to influence the future.
Ambition is acting to influence the future in your own self interest.
Altruism is acting to influence the future in the interest of others.
True leadership is equal parts of the above.

-- Tom Sayles

Enough is enough...

I'm getting really tired of the extremist propaganda, religious and otherwise, being circulated mostly by e-mail, but also in other media.

It's time that vast majority of moderate Americans stand-up to say that closed minded extremists (on both ends of the spectrum) are wrong and that we want a moderate, rational, inclusive government with progressive values that works toward liberty, freedom and long term prosperity for all humanity.

Hay truck!

Safe Trailering

Happy Horses
Originally uploaded by TSayles

As Fran pointed out, safe trailering is important skill for all horse owners and horses. And Tammy Denault (of Dreamswept Farm) is, IMHO, one of the best. Together we have hauled horses thousands of miles, and I have learned much from her. And this photo is a good example of doing things right.

The importance of good trailering skills, especially in an emergency, can't be under estimated. The farm, where I live, experienced this first hand last January, when our vaulting horse was evacuated during the flood. The last thing you want to do an emergency is spend an hour or more trying to get a horse into a trailer.

Sorry Hoof Blog, ...

Fran --

Sorry, but your Hoof Blog, is not copyleft compatible. So you may not use my Happy Horses photo or any of my images, until you open up your licensing practices. [I not a big supporter the whole uptight permission based culture.]



If you got with the future and supported the creative commons, you wouldn't have to ask permission.

-- Tom Sayles

Hello, Tom,

I wondered if I could ask permission to download and use your photo called "Happy Horses"...because it is just that!

I am a blogger who specializes in horse health and I need to show some well-cared for horses being transported. One need is for an educational series of articles on how to evacuate horses safely and sanely if a hurricane or forest fire is a threat. The other is what to do if you are already on the road and there is a disease problem, as happened this week to any horse that traveled through Texas or originated there.

You'd think such photos would be easy to find, but they're not. There is usually some little safety glitch or another in the photo, but yours passes all the tests.

We would be so grateful if you'd allow me to use it. It's ok to say no. I don't have a budget for paying for photos but you can know that your image maybe made people stop and read an article that they might have skipped over, otherwise.

And it might just save their horses' lives.

Thanks very much. I have never seen candid photos of vaulters before. Very interesting!

All the best,
Fran Jurga

Wow. Publishing from anyware is getting easier and easier. For example this was sent as an sms from my phone.

PropEle Marine

One of my colleagues, Joe Grez, is starting up this cool new company called PropEle Marine. Which has developed an exciting light weight electric boat motor that's clean and quiet for your kayak, canoe, dinghy, dink, inflatable, pontoon boat, or other craft. It's works kind of like an outboard engine, but it's portable and powered by a modern battery pack. In early tests the performance is impressive (and getting better with every design flip) and it's even been spotted in and around western Washington waters pushing small vessels at their actual design speeds.

Check it out at http://propelemarine.com/

Found on a Blog

I ran across this on a more or less random blog.

How does something like get organized? Was it, as it appears to be, a flash mob? Or did some group rehearse this prior to the preformance?

Cool Superbowl Commercials

One of the real innovations that the Internet has brought is the ability to find share things like super bowl commercials. Here are some of this year's best, IMHO.

FW: WA - Horse Farms Bills

For those that haven't heard about this issue, last year there was an administrative ruling in Olympia that reclassified equestrian facilities that didn't breed or sell horses (or some other agricultural product) such that they lost the tax breaks given to other commercial farms. 

The current effort in Olympia is aimed at restoring the long held position that horse boarding, training, and riding farms should qualify as Farm & Agriculture land for use and tax purposes.

This issue directly or indirectly effects many of the vaulting clubs in Washington. 

Please take a few minutes to call, write or e-mail your representatives in Olympia. Tell them about vaulting and ask them to support HB 1232, SB 5817 & HB 1733 (see below).

Thanks,

    Tom Sayles

----- Forwarded Message ----
Sent: Friday, February 6, 2009 1:33:50 AM
Subject: [WA Equest] Digest Number 2603

WASHINGTON STATE EQUESTRIAN NETWORK

Horse Farms Bills

Posted by: "Lori Lennox"

Thu Feb 5, 2009 5:03 pm (PST)

It's time to start contacting your elected officials about the following bills that will help ensure that horse boarding, training, and riding farms qualify as Farm & Agriculture land under the Open Space Taxation Act.

Need help finding your Reps? Go to http://www.washingt onvotes.org/ The links below will take you to the full text of the bills and the public hearing dates. And if your representative is one of the sponsors then thank them!

HB 1232 & SB 5817

Defining commercial agricultural purposes to include current farming practices and activities related to the raising, harvesting, feeding, breeding, managing, selling, care, or training of a farm product.

http://apps. leg.wa.gov/ billinfo/ summary.aspx? bill=1232& year=2009 &

http://apps. leg.wa.gov/ billinfo/ summary.aspx? bill=5817& year=2009

HB 1733

Concerning the property tax current use valuation programs. This bill clarifies the eligibility of equine operations

http://apps. leg.wa.gov/ billinfo/ summary.aspx? bill=1733& year=2009

Quote: "Imagine a world ..."

"Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge."

— Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia

I do and you should too.

Hard Disk Rails from Pyramid Distributing

I recently bought a pair of high speed [7200 RPM] 1TB hard drives form TigerDirect. But when I went to install them, I found that I was short a pair of HD mounting rails, that allow 3.5" drives to fit the 5.25" bays in my big steel server case. So after asking the guy at the local PC Recycle center, I went googeling around looking for HD rails at a good price. They're not easy to find and only a few places seem to have them in stock. I did find an outfit, here in the Seattle area, that did have them.

While their site (and e-mail address) is hosted at Comcast, I decided to take a chance on them since I could pay using PayPal, and could fall back on their despute resolution process if needed. When I went to place the order however, i needed to use my "verified" address (a PO Box) for shipping but their site was only setup for UPS shipping. After a couple of quick e-mails I confirmed that they could ship USPS Priority, and placed my order. Their price was good enough that I ordered 5 pairs, enough to fill up all the bays in my server case.

The package arrived in a couple of days. The parts in the package were just as I had ordered, and even included the mounting screws!

So if you need HD rails I highly recommend Pyramid Distributing, and particularly Bill and the staff at their Seattle wherehouse.

Disappointment in Change of Address @ DOL - DL

Liz Luce
Director,
WA Department of Licensing

Director Luce --

    I'm writing to let you know that I am very disappointed in you're department's inconsistency in address change policies and procedures.  While our state's Vehicle License services makes good use of 24 hour online interaction and decent use of outsourcing, our state's Drivers License service is way behind modern expectations for an efficient and responsive public agency. 

    Licensing services are by their very nature are a retail operation in the way that your agency interacts with our state's citizens. I have repeatedly found it appalling that your agency managers and administrators have stubbornly refused to admit that the business practices of 1950s era banks are suitable in the 21st century.  The banking industry a decade ago acknowledged the realities of the modern world by expanding business hours into the evenings, providing comprehensive online services and for decades has offered kiosk based services [ATMs] that are available 24/7.  Even the US Postal services has opened up it's PO Box lobbies 24/7 and installed kiosk based services [Automated Postal Centers®] in most post offices and offers comprehensive services online.  The FCC even allows 24/7 updates to it's licensing databases. 

    Because your agency's Drivers License service doesn't offer convenient evening hours or online address changes, I am forced to take time off from work to sit in a Drivers Licensing Office to change my address as required by our state's laws. 

    Your agency's administrators and managers, particularly in the Drivers License services, need to take into account the costs of lost time of our state's citizens and lost productivity of the businesses we work for, in their decision making processes. This is particularly important in these hard economic times when many people are moving, changing jobs and even working two jobs.  I'd also like to see your agency track its impacts on citizens lost time not only in its own offices but also in those of your contracted agents.  Ideally your agency needs to staff it's retail offices more like grocery store checkout lines then like school classrooms. 

    I would strongly like to suggest that you demand that your agency's administrators and managers meet, across divisions and at all levels, to discuss and drive to implementation how they can work together to share data, expertise and public resources, to improve customer service, convenience and privacy while preventing fraud and abuse.  I truly believe that an integrated approach to all licensing services that is aligned with modern customer service best practices would allow your agency to do far more to meet it's goals with the same or fewer tax and fee dollars.  It's time to change for the better.

    Finally one additional thought, as your agency prepares for the requirements of the REAL ID Act, please remind your staff and colleges at DHS that facial photos, like those found on drivers licenses and passports, are a very well studied and understood form of biometric identification with False Acceptance Rates similar to or better then fingerprints and retinal scans. Furthermore facial photos would integrate well into automated services supported by escalations to a consolidated call center form of customer service. 

Thanks
    Tom Sayles
    Fall City, Wa.

BTW -- This e-mail is also being posted to my blog.