Scattered Thoughts . . .

A Panasonic G3 in the micro four thirds format... As most of you know, one of my many hobbies is photography. As most of you probably do not know, there is no one camera that can do everything. Each camera has its strengths and each camera has its weaknesses. As a result, I have quite a little collection of gear, each piece sporting its own advantage. I have a very limited budget so I often pick up used gear at very tempting prices rather than buy new at unattainable prices.  A number of months ago I decided to drop my Olympus gear and upgrade significantly by getting some full-frame Sony gear.  "Full-frame" refers to the size of the sensor and this full-frame size is huge compared to most cameras. The sensor on this Sony camera is the same size as a single 35mm negative frame... hence the name "full-frame". By comparison, compact cameras have sensors the size of a pencil eraser... and higher quality cameras have sensors somewhere in between the two in

The past few days, my level of overwhelming fatigue was so...  well, overwhelming... that I couldn't help but wonder if I had enough energy left to recover. How low does one's energy level need to get that I actually wonder whether you can find the energy to recover? I don't know the precise answer to this question but I do know that it is exceptionally, frighteningly low. I sometimes forget that this overwhelming fatigue is also an active symptom of my illness and not simply a result of wearing myself down. This time, I did also wear myself down. Between the long rail trip and then some activity around the house, I definitely wore myself out. I definitely over-did it. History has proven that when I get worn out from this crazy amount of activity, it can take months to recover. This fatigue, however, can also be a symptom and a clue to impending poor health... a clue to a cascading mast cell degranulation event leading to anaphylaxis... this is what happened last night

In the couple of weeks that we've been back home, I have had some time while recovering to put together a few online photo albums.  I think I shot well over 1000 photos during this trip but chose just a couple of hundred to show online. We thoroughly enjoyed our trip! My only regret is that, although we spent more time in San Antonio than most families do for graduation, I am left feeling as though we rushed through this trip and didn't take enough time to just sit and enjoy. Spending an evening in a couple of pubs on the Riverwalk would have been really nice. Spending more time walking through San Antonio would have been nice. Spending more time learning and experiencing the rich history of this city would have been really nice. It appears as though Adam is about to get jumped on by his Instructor! In the end, we came home with a lot of really nice photos and some really nice memories. The memories we created also sparked memories of my own history in this city. I wa

Riding Coach on The Lakeshore LImited to Chicago Traveling is difficult with my health problems. Airline travel is something I avoid like the plague since procuring this illness for many reasons and the train has many benefits for me when it comes to managing my health. I could write a novel on why airline travel is horrendous for my health and yet train travel is much more friendly for my situation but this blog entry isn't about explaining any of this so I need to try to avoid getting sidetracked! I just wanted to write a few words about our cross country train journey... First, let me say that if you want to just view some photos and a short video of our journey with Amtrak rather than reading through all of this, skip to the links at the bottom of this blog entry.   For the most part, our experiences with Amtrak were good and I would definitely do it again. Some parts were outstanding, some parts were okay, some parts were fair, some parts were simply dumb luck, and, as

As expected, I am still struggling with my health after our long journey to and from San Antonio. What we didn't expect is for Sheila to be joining me this week! Sheila is home sick with a lousy cold... mostly sore throat, runny nose, stuffy head... and, some fatigue as well.  I'm still struggling with overwhelming fatigue, debilitating deep bone pain, and bouts with instantaneous dizziness so bad it knocks me over even when I am seated! This dizziness is actually a bit violent... Even when this dizziness hits me while seated, in an instant, I am trying to catch myself from hitting the floor. When I am standing, I stumble like my world has been instantly tilted to a 45 degree angle trying to grab ahold of something to keep me from losing to gravity.... gravity applying force in a very different direction from which my brain thinks.  What is really odd is that I am constantly falling to my right. In the past, I always fell to the left when these bouts would hit me. This

Sometimes a lousy night of health like I had last night continues on into the following day. Today is one such day. It is almost 24 hours since my latest transient health problems began last night and I am feeling just as lousy... extreme nausea, gurgling intestines, stomach pain, weakness, overwhelming fatigue (I slept all afternoon), and I am just feeling miserable.  I took some extra medications last night that target the gastrointestinal tract as well as a medication to help minimize the nausea. I added more extra medications today...  some extra mast cell stabilizers, more medications to target the gastrointestinal tract, and I'm about to add more anti-nausea medications.  Systemic Mastocytosis is unpredictable but after using up precious energy as I did during our trip to San Antonio, I know I should expect some lousy health. The problem is that I just cannot predict which problems I will experience...  which symptoms... how many symptoms... the severity of symptoms... 

I've never really been a big fan of poultry even before my illness. In fact, you would often find me in the backyard at the grill with a thick, juicy steak on Thanksgiving Day while my family was inside waiting for some tasteless bird to come out of the oven. Don't get me wrong, I love tasty grilled chicken... deep fried chicken... chicken parmesan...  chicken curry... and even chicken cacciatore... but I'm really someone who loves beef and pork. Poultry is rarely something I would order in a nice restaurant (and never something I order in a less-than-nice restaurant if I feel I may get bad poultry).  Even when I was healthy, before this insidious illness, chicken would make me feel slimey and I would be hungry again within an hour. Fish would affect me the same way. I always just figured that I am more of a hearty meat and potatoes sort of guy. And, let's be honest, I am, always have been, and always will be a meat and potatoes sort of guy. It turns out that perhap

St Louis Gateway Arch One of our many stops on our trek to San Antonio was in St Louis. We approached St Louis after dark and were hoping to catch a glimpse of the iconic Gateway Arch through our sleeper car windows.  This was not the start of our trip but I thought I would start with my most difficult photos from the trip. (I really want to get these problematic photos behind me so I can move on to the much more beautiful photos.) These nighttime photos are so poor that I have been hemming and hawing for the past 24 hours hours trying to decide if I should even share them at all. Needless to say, I decided to show a few of the best of these lousy nighttime photos. As we had hoped, we did see the arch as we entered the city but getting a nice photo of this sight was difficult at best. The arch itself was not illuminated so that posed some problems in the dark of night. The only illumination was ambient and reflected light from surrounding buildings. The city itself is rathe

Sheila celebrated another birthday yesterday albeit a rather subdued, quiet celebration. It was a nice evening though! We're still trying to renew our energy levels since our trip to San Antonio so we had no plans whatsoever for Sheila's birthday. I suppose that if we had a plan, our plan was to watch a little television and sleep as much as possible so we really had no plans for Sheila's birthday.  We did, however, manage to stop at Sheila's parents' house for a small birthday celebration with the grandchildren. Sheila's mom was kind enough to make some brownies... although, she was on the same trip with us so I don't know where she found the energy... so we visited for a couple of hours so we could see the kids and sing Happy Birthday to Sheila. Before we left the house, I had already given Sheila some of her favorite chocolates...  a box coconut and dark chocolate truffles... a Macy's gift card (her favorite gift card), and a Lila Mystique Or

We've been out of town for an extended cross-country vacation by rail and just arrived back home a bit exhausted, a little heavier (great food!), and happy about all our scheduled stops as well as our unscheduled stops. We had a great time in all the cities we visited and we especially enjoyed our five days in San Antonio. Adam graduated from Air Force Basic Military Training and we were fortunate enough to have been a part of this traditional military ceremony. We spent some time on the base and I had an opportunity to re-familiarize myself with this base as well as see many new facilities since my stay more than 30 years ago.  This is one of those bases I vowed to never return to again but I have to say it was an interesting visit. I should point out that all Air Force trainees make this same vow and we all look forward to seeing Lackland in the rear-view mirror. That being said, seeing Adam graduate was worth returning to Lackland and San Antonio.  Adam is happy... he ac