Anyway, after a long process of finding a kick-ass orthopedic surgeon who specializes in shouders and figuring out how to get insurance to pay for it, I finally went under the knife to have the old bolts tightened.  10 days later and I can finally type again.  Technically it was a bankart repair which I’ll leave you to research if you care, but in my case involved drilling some tiny holes in my bones and tying some connective tissue back into place.  You might be able to follow along on this video he took while poking around arthroscopically before performing the actual repairs:

(my favorite part is when he pulls out the hedge trimmer attachment to get a clearer view.)

Anyway, now I’m left with a few nice clean cuts and one extremely weak arm.  Funny things I’ve noticed include that washing my hands is often quite painful.  I figured out this is because pushing your hands together requires using internal rotation, which uses the subscapularis muscle, that he had to cut through to get a clean shot at the problem.  Pushing light switches with the wounded wing has also nearly reduced me to tears.  But it’s getting better every day.  I think another month I’ll put my new cadillac sling on the shelf next to the others, and then a month after that I should be biking, and another month and I’ll be swimming.  And shortly thereafter, I’ll be biking through Vietnam.  w00t!

But as communist governments age they tend to become corrupt and dictatorial.  Why?  Unchecked power.  Without elections or a free press, there is essentially no way to remove a bad leader.  Highly secretive control structures like the politburo tend to select for leaders that can amass and wield power by any means possible.  These traits tend to become much more concentrated than any traits related to good governance.  This was the undoing of the Soviet block and hopefully soon will dismantle North Korea.  How China managed to avoid this state I won’t ponder here.

Despite what the US State Department would like you to believe, Cuba’s government has not (yet) devolved to this state.  Cuba is still highly egalitarian where top government officials only earn twice what a factory worker might make — not the wretched excess of a corrupt system.  They probably get to drive cars, but are required to pick up all hitchhikers since really it’s the people’s car.  For the most part Cubans trust their government and with good reason.  Cuba is not corrupt.  Of course if you’re smart and ambitious you have much more to gain in a capitalist system which leads to justifiably frustrated opponents.  While their lifestyles are anything but luxurious, Cubans are generally fairly happy, healthy and well educated.  Happiness is subjective, but statistics clearly show Cuba to be on par if not better than the US for healthcare and education in most measures.  It’s not a bad place to live.

The success of Cuban communism should not come as much of a surprise considering what we’ve discussed so far.  Castro was idealistic when he led the revolution, and he’s still on power.  Corrupt leaders have not been able to take control yet.  A problem with communism is that what happens next will depend very strongly on one individual.  Will they be more like Fidel or Kim Jong-Il.  We’ll have to wait to see.

People come in my office and say "that’s a cool keyboard."  My response is generally something like "that’s what it takes."  I don’t use a $300 keyboard because it looks cool.  It’s more like a wheelchair.

I have repetitive strain injury.  It’s not carpal tunnel syndrome.  My wrists basically never bother me.  It’s more my pinkies, more the left than the right.  I can think of 3 causes.  In high-school I took a 3-day bike tour from San Diego to Santa Barbara wearing gloves that weren’t well padded.  For about a week afterwards I had no feeling in my left pinkie.  Then in 1996 a marathon perl coding session of several 100-hour weeks left my pinkies pretty sore because of all the mixed-case variables in our code. 

Also, I suspect cubital tunnel syndrome might have some part of it.  I’m not expert but my understanding is that it’s a result of spending too much time with bent elbows stretching some nerves causing problems with pinkies.  I understand the easiest thing to help is to sleep with straight arms.

The ironic thing is that with a good ergonomic keyboard I can write English text day
in and day out, but more than about 10-15 hours/week of coding and
things start to hurt.  Writing code on a laptop in bed, fun as it is, will get to me after about 10 minutes.  Code involves tons more time on the special keys
than English.  You don’t need a lot of
[]{}()<>*=+-~&^_!#@$%/|\ in e-mail or in specs.  And you don’t
need to bounce around the arrow keys for editing nearly so much
either.  The Kinesis advantage keyboard helps quite a lot, because it moves most of the keys that the pinkies do under the thumbs.  But it’s not quite enough for me, because the shift keys are still the responsibility of the pinkies.  I’ve tried using a foot-pedal for shift, but haven’t been able to
re-train myself.  And I’m not sure I really want to limit myself by
having a job I can only do in front of a super-tricked out
workstation.  Screwing up (gee it sure would be nice to get
something done on this here laptop) means having to use a microphone
and eat grams/day of ibuprofen for a few months which I’ve done and really really
sucks.

So physical disability has sent me down an interesting career path towards middle management.  I have tons of fun in this capacity, but sometimes I miss making things work with my own hands.

Also, if any of you have hints of repetitive strain injury, I strongly encourage you to shell out the cash for a good keyboard.  It’s way cheaper than the alternatives.

My girlfriend’s condition has gotten worse in recent months, to the point where immuno-suppresents seem reasonable.  But instead, she’s opted to do something much more difficult and follow the advice of a naturopath.  She’s agreed to eliminate basically all tasty foods from her diet for some unreasonably long period of time.  After weeks of eating nothing but rice and steamed vegetables (I’m exaggerating, but not much) she’ll slowly start adding foods in one at a time to see what might be causing an negative reaction.  It’s an elimination diet — a fairly common practice which is pretty easy to visualize but takes care and dedication to do properly.

Why suffer through this process instead of just taking some pills and getting better?  Because it promises
to understand and solve the cause of the problem, rather than just cover up the symptoms.  I admire her strength and wisdom in this choice.  Until then, we’ll be making lots of use of the veggie steamer.  (My veggie steamer actually looks a lot more like this one, but mine has the fabulous retro-luddite feature of a knob to set how long to cook for instead of digital controls.)

I bring this up because a one of my favorite people just got testicular cancer.  I’m impressed but not surprised by my community’s reaction to the news — a  hugely generous outpouring of support.  An online support planning forum.  Scheduled hang-outs and food delivery.  The works.

For more information, the online Testicular Cancer Resource Center is fabulous.  My friend is journaling his experience, themed as the uni-baller (pictured above).  He writes both as a therapeutic measure for himself, and hopefully to provide support to others.  It’s also chock full of TC humor.  If you ever find yourself needing some orchiectomy jokes, read his blog.  (Like this orchiectomy survivor theme song.)  I hope y’all never do.

"Hang in there."

First off, if you don’t have a fair amount of rock climbing
experience and mountaineering experience, or have a lot of experienced friends who are
willing to babysit you, go with a guide service.  This year I
went without a guide service and I’m really glad I did it.  But 3 of
the 4 of us had been up previously with RMI.  RMI used to be the only officially licensed guide service, but the NPS just opened up to allow two more: Alpine Ascents and International Mountain Guides.  How all this pans out remains to be seen.

Going with RMI had some fantastic benefits:

• Lighter pack
• Don’t need to carry safety gear b/c the guides carry that for you.  (lighter pack)
• Don’t need to carry a tent b/c RMI operates a building at Camp Muir.  (lighter pack)
• Don’t need to carry a stove or a rope or a bunch of other stuff.  (lighter pack)
• More likely to summit b/c you’re carrying a lighter pack
• Don’t need to learn crevasse rescue skills
• Really just need to haul your body up the hill without much thinking

As for training and preparation, I have some specific advice as well.  Get in shape.  It’s really physically draining.  Get in really good shape.  Stairmaster, bike, run, whatever.  The best thing you can do is to hike to Camp Muir a lot.  Camp Muir is the 10,000′ base camp for most people trying to summit Mt Rainier.  It’s a 5,000′ vertical ascent from Paradise, which makes it a really solid workout.  IMHO it’s also a fantastic way to spend a sunny Summer day.  Plus you get experience at moderate altitude.  If you do that a half dozen times in a summer with increasing weight each time, you’ll be in pretty good shape.  And you’ll get to know your gear pretty well, which is also super important.  I like to load my frame pack up with several gallons of water as ballast.  Get to the top, and make some friends by giving it away to the thirsty climbers, and save your knees the effort of hauling it down the hill.

Wear lots of sunscreen, especially on the bottom of your nose.  I recommend Aloe Gator 45 Gel, which has the physical consistency of crisco.  You might need steel wool to get it off, but it’s one of the only things that can really protect you from the super-bright glacier-reflected rays. 

Also, talk to your doctor about getting some diamox (acetazolamide).  It’s an altitude sickness drug which can both cure a case of AMS ("acute mountain sickness" — no, really, it’s a technical term) and will also help you acclimatize to the altitude faster so you’re less likely to have a problem in the first place.  It’s generally quite safe unless you have sulfa allergies.  The first time I went up, the stupid RMI guides advised one of my climbing partners not to take it (because drugs are bad and they’ve never needed it), and he didn’t summit because of AMS.  The worst thing about it is that it makes you pee more, and the benefits are marked.  Be sure to try drinking some coke when you’re on it.  It’s truly bizarre — no matter how fresh the bottle, it tastes flat and you can’t feel any bubbles on your tongue.  Diamox’s mechanism is to crank the CO₂ thermostat in your blood-stream to keep your blood’s pH neutral as you ascend, and a side effect is that carbonated beverages taste flat.  Go figure.

You’re gonna need a lot of gear.  Much of it can be rented.  I don’t really feel like going into it all here — maybe I’ll write more later if y’all want.

Be prepared for a really long hike.  We took 34 hours from car to car and of that 21 hours were spent hiking with a heavy pack on.  Our packs were about 55 pounds each getting up to base camp and probably 20 pounds up to the summit.  It took about 4 days before I didn’t feel constantly hungry and thirsty.  It’s intense.

And of course, like the lawyers say, use your head.  If you have to read this, go with a guide.  I’m really no expert, and people die up there.  But when you’re standing on top of the world at 14,411′ it all feels worth while.