Death Cometh - With Stethoscope Or Scythe ?

17 years ago to the day, I woke up with a pain in the neck.

After she left to do some shopping, I enjoyed the rest of the day.

Oh what a wag ! No seriously, I did wake up with a pain in my neck. And I didn't feel too well either. It was actually a continuation of the previous evening when I'd returned from playing badminton and didn't feel good at all.

That was because on 22nd November 1992, a date that will live in infamy, I'd had a heart attack.

It wasn't your standard arm grabbing, chest clutching, staggering 100 meters to find a dramatic place to collapse type of heart attack. It was more a feel sick, back hurts, neck hurts sort of deal and so it was hardly a surprise that even for a self diagnosed hypochondriac like myself, the idea that I'd suffered a heart attack didn't come immediately to mind.

Just as well as the stress would've probably given me another one and finished me off !

Now ME not knowing I'd had a heart attack was one thing. My doctor not knowing it was quite another. And not knowing it for over 2 months while many of the symptoms persisted was enough for me, and others who are unhappily still his patients, to call him Dr. Death. Not because he's in the habit of killing people. Oh no.

He's just in the habit of not realising when death is approaching and doing much of anything about it !!

It was only after many weeks of having pains in my neck (probably a pulled muscle from excessive badminton, was the diagnosis from Dr. Death) that I decided to put my company membership of BUPA (private medical cover in the UK) to good use and go see a proper doctor.

One with a white coat and stethoscope so I KNEW he was qualified. After a few quick tests and a disturbingly brief run on a treadmill with a crash cart next to me (never a confidence builder), Dr. White Coat passed me up the fashion ladder to Dr. Black Suit who looked at my chart, gave a few tuts, mumbled "that's not good" which I can tell you is even less of a confidence builder, and immediately booked me in for an angiogram.

"An angiogram ?" I spluttered, feeling my heart beating a lot faster and sweat appearing from every orifice.

"Yes, an angiogram. We need to see what damage was done by the heart attack," said Dr. Black Suit in a rather casual matter-of-fact way.

"HEART ATTACK !!!!," I gasped, in true theatrical fashion.

At least that's what I said out loud. In my mind I was thinking.......WTF. I'm 40. I don't smoke. I don't drink and I weigh less than Kate Moss after a binge session at a Chinese buffet. Well ok that last bit isn't strictly accurate but the rest is.....was.

Well thank you, Dr. Death. Thanks a bunch. That's how we like to be informed we've had a major medical meltdown. Oh sorry.......pulled muscle. Silly me.

And so, thanks to BUPA, a couple of days later I had the angiogram and we all found out that I'd more blocked passages than a Swiss tunnel in February. I needed a quadruple bypass and I needed it...well about 2 months previously, if truth be told.

In stepped the magnificent Dr. Nair who gave me a 5 for 4 special BUPA offer :

"You only really need 4 bypasses but while I'm in there, I'll do a 5th." said the smartly dressed little cardiothoracic surgeon from some far flung outpost of the old Empire. Hoping he didn't moonlight in a Bradford call centre, I entrusted my life to him and his team and 17 years after my quintuple bypass, I think I can say with some degree of confidence, that he did a damn fine job.

As for Dr. Death, well he's still practicing and never was that word more appropriate. I switched doctors after my surgery and so he hasn't practiced on me for the best part of 17 years.

I suspect....hell I KNOW......that's why I'm still here.

Jack Bauer Would've Been Proud

This morning I got up at 6:15am.

I'm retired. I'm spending the winter in Florida. I have NO need whatsoever to be getting up at such an unearthly hour. I didn't do it when I worked. Hell the ISS crew don't get up at 6:15am and they're not even ON the earth.

you see, I thought it was 7:15am and even that is very early to be getting out of bed but I knew Deb was up and having coffee and I wanted to be sociable and join her. I even checked my watch twice as my bedroom was considerably darker than I'd have expected it to be at 7:15am - but I so trust my watch, that I rolled onto the floor, pulled myself upright in true Darwinian fashion and staggered out into the living area.

I was greeted with "what are you doing up so early ? It's just after 6am !! "

WHAT ? I looked at one of the many timepieces in the living area and sure enough, realised it was 6:15am. I looked AGAIN at my watch in case I'd mistaken the position of the hands but even if I had, it also has a digital display and there it was......7:15am. Ok 7:16am by then. What was going on ??

Now my watch was a lovely pressie from Debby last year. It synchronises daily with some atomic clock in Colorado and if it's more than 1.5 zanoseconds out, it emails Casio and they FedEx me a new watch and 2 technicians in Tokyo commit hari-kari. Not to be confused with Hari Kari who are an all female Japanese rock band who look like Kiss. It's all true. You think I could make up this stuff ?

After only one mug of coffee, I decided to investigate. I'd been messing with the buttons yesterday to get to the stopwatch function and I thought I might have set the time zone to Caracas (as you do) but the display clearly showed I was on New York time and so it should've been 6:16am. Ok 6:35am by now. My watch was proudly, and somewhat stubbornly, displaying 7:35am. It was also displaying a little satellite dish icon next to the time, showing that it was currently in digital and atomic discussions with Colorado and both parties were firmly convinced that I was in the NYC time zone and it was jolly well 7:35am.

Time (pardon the pun) to call up the big guns and I surfed for and then downloaded the manual for the watch. Like most digital watches, when there is a lot of data to display, the important stuff, like the time, is given a large font and the small stuff, like the alarm being set, that it's on a 24hr clock and that it's set for DST, are shown in wee wee tiny fonts. Very wee. Hard to see wee.

By removing my glasses and positioning the watch so close to my face that I could almost hear time passing, I noticed DST was displayed off to the extreme left on the display. Ok, fair enough. I wanted the watch to sort out DST after all so what was wrong with that ? Well everything really. According to the manual, when DST is showing in the display, that means it's summer and so 1 hr is added to the time. Why would it have a 'feature' like that ? If it's summer, just DO IT.

The manual showed me that if I wanted the watch to use its lovely 500 year, built in calendar to automatically adjust for DST, then I should press a combination of buttons until an 'A' came up and then accept it by pressing another button. As soon as I did this, the 'A' faded away as thankfully it's not supposed to be permanently on the display and then the watch hands started off on their delightful trip back 23 hrs. It's fun to see and almost worth the time being wrong now and then to watch it happen.

So despite chatting with its big atomic brother in Colorado, my little watch was off by an hour just because I'd accidentally set it to DST yesterday ! See what happens when you introduce the human factor !

But I sorted it and I feel so proud.

After being unable to cook a baked potato in that combi oven the other day, my confidence in modern technology needed a boost.

This morning it got that boost. And in a timely fashion too !

Somewhere in Tokyo, 2 Casio technicians are chomping down on a large plate of fugu as it's their lucky day.

It's Going Back !!

I SO wanted to like this oven. I really did.

I mean I have a similar one at home and therein lies the problem. The one at home, a Sharp, does everything I want a combination oven to do....and this one, a Sanyo, doesn't.

I think the clue should've been that it never claimed to be a true combination oven, at least not to the level I was expecting. I just hoped from the reviews I'd read and the spec of the thing that it would be.

As a 3-in-1 oven it's fine. The microwave part nukes, the convection part cooks and the grill, well I'm not sure about that as a grill here is a broiler. So individually, we're fine.

But when we get to combining them, that's when we hit a snag. I wanted to fix a baked/jacket potato. Should've been simple and something that the Sharp does to prefection in about 10-12 minutes depending on the size of the spud. I use the unit's combination settings to nuke it (70% of full power) and convect it (is that even a word ??) at 350 degrees for 8 minutes and then have it on convection only for the last 4 minutes to really crisp up the outside so it comes out like a proper oven baked potato.....skin crispy and flaking off.

I have total control over the time, the power levels and the oven temperature at all stages and apart from turning the spud over part way into the process to stop it getting a hard spot from the extra heat of the turntable, it's a 'go away and forget about it' process.

Now to the Sanyo. I set the microwave to 80% (it doesn't DO 70%) and give it 8 minutes. Hmmmmm. But I want it to be combined with convection cooking. Nope...can't do it. I try another way. I press the combi button twice which puts it on the microwave + convection option. Great. Now what ? Well nothing actually as that's my lot. I get no option to set anything apart from the time. I donno the power setting for the microwave or the temp of the convection oven so how can I decide on the time ?

In the end I simply used both functions separately........nuked the spud on 100% for 6 mins and then used the convection for another 6 mins but the skin never really crisped up. The potato WAS cooked nicely but didn't look or taste much different to if I'd used a bog standard microwave. Not a happy punter.

The instruction guide (which didn't even have a recipe section so I've no idea how to cook most food items) tells me the following for cooking a whole chicken.

Open door. Turn rotary dial to the left to get A9. The microwave and grill lights will come on. Select weight by turning rotary dial. Close door. Press start.

Now I'm all for cookers being intelligent enough to take decisions for me but I'd like to be able to at least know what temperature my bird is being cooked at and even have some say in picking that temperature. Maybe I need to just trust this auto option but if it's as crap as the one for a potato, then trust wasn't earned last night. I put in a potato (the booklet never said if this would produce a baked potato in the first place.....just a potato), set the auto dial to the 'potato' setting, pressed start and stood back. The oven clock said it would cook for 10 minutes and 10 minutes later I opened the door and discovered a hot but still very hard potato. Hard I tell you.

So it's going back. Not up to the job.

I love my Sharp.

A Long Distance Affair

My combi oven is arriving today.....in less than an hour if the FedEx tracking site is accurate.

By the time it gets here, it'll have had a lovely 1455 mile sightseeing trip from its starting point in Keasbey, New Jersey last Friday. Once in the Keasbey depot, it pretty much stayed there all weekend as in FedExland, nothing moves on a weekend. Well not my oven anyway. Hopefully it wasn't turning out baked potatoes for the employees and instead was just sitting there, like most humans, just waiting for Monday morning to come along.

After a bit of a lie in, the oven left the depot at 8:45am on its long haul down the East coast. Passing the City of Brotherly Love, it took in the skylines of Baltimore and Washington before hitting Richmond, Virginia - not literally I hope.

Then the scenery will have improved as it passed down through the Carolinas and into Georgia, passing close to the good old Southern town of Savannah where it probably tried to make a break for the home of Paula Deen. It's a classy oven.

Leaving Georgia and entering Florida, the route took a bizarre turn as the oven continued down the East coast of the state and passed Sebring by 100 miles. If I'd known, I'd have waved. Obviously wanting a few hours by the seaside, it reached Pompano Beach, near Ft. Lauderdale, at 6:19pm yesterday and so just missed the sunset. So far it had covered 1227 miles and deserved a bit of a rest.

Almost 8 hrs later, at 2:10am this morning, it decided to have a look at the West Coast and crossed the state to Ft. Myers, a short trip of 150 miles. I'm sure it loved the calm waters of the Bay of Mexico as we all do but there was little time for sightseeing as less than 90 minutes later, it was off on the last leg back up North to Sebring, in mid Florida.

Now it's only 80 miles from Ft. Myers to Sebring and it set off at 7am but the sad part of all this is that I'll probably not be here to take delivery. I'm going to play bocce ball at 9am and although I'd normally pass up the game to be here for my oven, it's a Men v Women game and with the women outnumbering the men, my presence, despite my lack of bocce ability, is needed this morning. I've asked Dennis to be my stand in and as the oven weighs in at 52 lbs, I'm kinda glad he'll be doing the standing in.

And just what is a combi oven I hear you ask ?


Well it's an oven that looks very much like a standard microwave oven but is a little bigger as it's also a convection oven. It's also a grill/broiler and all 3 cooking methods can be used separately or in 'combination' to achieve the result you want. I have one at home in England and being able to cook a baked potato that is fluffy on the inside and crispy on the outside in 10 minutes is alone worth the cost of the oven. To achieve that I just set the convection oven setting to full power and the microwave setting to 70% of full power and that's it. The oven constantly switches between the two cooking methods to produce the perfect result.

Well that's the theory - I'll let you know how it all turns out after this oven has got over its journey. Coming to Florida from New Jersey can be traumatic even for an inanimate object.

UPDATE : It was delivered at 10am.........next door ! The neighbours then took it on the shortest leg of it's journey, 20 feet to our house and it's now in position with the clock set and awaiting its first chance to shine..........that'll probably be a baked/jacket potato and some reheated Mexican leftovers from last night for my supper. Nothing too strenuous for its maiden outing.

Oh and the bocce score was Women 8, Men 4. Obviously all the men were concerned about my oven !

Victor Meldrew Again.......

I may be 5 hours and 4,000 miles from home but thanks to the internet, I'm still reading about things that fire up the Victor Meldrew in me.

First up this morning came the news that Rolf Harris has teamed up with Status Quo to release a single which will join the annual fight for the Christmas No.1 position. Oh wonderful.

Now I quite like old Rolf (79 I think) as he has more talent in one finger than all the so called celebs who grace our jungles and dance floors these days. I even like a bit of Status Quo now and then even though all their songs sound the same for one obvious reason. That reason being they ARE all the same.

But we need another novelty song trying to get to No.1 at Christmas like we need another series of Crossroads. Enough already and just let Cliff have it !

Then I read on the BBC News about a man who threw a sandbag from a bridge in Edinburgh and was ordered by a sheriff to behave for a year. Wow !! I guess we've now found something lower down the chain of criminal punishments than a slap on the wrist. No doubt he'd have had that added to his 'sentence' if the sandbag had flattened someone. That sheriff was as useless as his fictional Nottingham namesake.

Also on the same web site came news of a woman who drove for 16 miles the wrong way along a motorway and how she escaped a driving ban. WTF ?

When we were in Pisa last summer, we did drive the wrong way down a one way street but it was only a few feet in order to turn around and we were only doing about 2kph. And it WAS in Italy so nobody cared !

But 16 miles.....on a motorway ! Hello ? Didn't she get some clue with everyone else heading straight for her !!??? Maybe she was looking for a shoe store. Maybe she was on the phone. Maybe she was applying some slap. Whatever her reason/excuse, she has no place on our roads - no matter in which direction she decides to drive on them.

Maybe the magistrate was from the same family as the sheriff. Useless pair.

I must stop reading about national news - it only upsets me. Time to move onto international news about the war...sorry...conflict in Afghanistan. Even news about the Somali pirates.

I'll just wait for the day I read about the pirates kidnapping a sheriff and a magistrate. Try telling THEM to behave for a year and see where it gets you, Mr. Sheriff.

On Safari In Sebring

After brunch at The Palms of Sebring, an independent and assisted living complex in downtown Sebring (don't ask - long story, great food), we were heading back 'home' when we popped into a Publix to pick up a few grocery items.

They told us to get out and use the car park like everyone else and when we'd parked up and were walking back to the store, we came upon this....thing.....for sale.


Normally you'd think it was a used vehicle from a local safari park but this is America, and the South at that. So I believe it's a redneck SUV (Shoot-em Up Vehicle) and the decals are reminders of some of the critters that the current owner has bagged over the years. Maybe some of them even fought back - checkout the disabled sticker in the front.

It's hard to tell from this photo, even enlarged, but the vehicle comes with dual horns. Here is a closeup of the front one.


I think the DVLA would have something to say about this adaptation back in the UK. Imagine the injuries caused to a pedestrian if hit front on. The twin puncture marks would have them scratching their heads in the hospital....or more likely the morgue.

On another topic, the other day when coming back from Avon Park, a small town just north of Sebring, we were at some traffic lights and I took this photo out my passenger window. I just liked seeing something so associated with Christmas (cold) on something so associated with Florida (warm). The name of the store behind it was a little bonus.


Oh and if you want to make an offer for a twin horn, 4 wheel drive safari jeep, just let me (and your analyst) know. There will be a place at The Palms waiting for you.

Fresh Air Ramblings

I'm just back from my exercise walk around the park which takes me about 55 minutes. Back home I'd have had to use the treadmill and today, I'd have been stepping off after about 5 minutes.

I've had a chest infection (self diagnosis of course) for a few days and although it's clearing up slowly, after about 5 minutes of brisk walking, I felt like there was someone on my chest. Now if you've ever tried walking with someone on your chest, I'd have to think it would be no fun for either of you. Highly amusing if slightly bizarre looking it may be for spectators, but definitely not fun for those involved.

But here I was out in the fresh air so when I hit that 'wall', I just looked at the palm trees, felt the sun on my face and carried on like the brave athlete I am.

There is just so much fresh air here. You step outside and within seconds, you're surrounded by it. And in a good way too. I mean it's not threatening or anything; it's just.....nice.

Ok I'm getting silly now. Too much fresh air maybe.

Once again I hardly saw a soul on my walk. The reasons......the heat and college football. When both combine, most people are indoors here in the park. Now I've been told I go on about the temps here way too much so I'm trying not to mention the weather..so I'll just say it's pleasantly HOT today and leave it at that.

I didn't see any gators. I didn't see any snakes. I didn't even see any park birds. Just a few turtles along the edge of the lake and some rustling from the undergrowth by the Nature Trail that might have come from a geographically challenged grizzly bear but was more likely from a tiny lizard.

I came back to watch the Ireland v France 2010 World Cup Qualifying Game First Leg (phew) but the best quality web site showing it is in French so I'm struggling trying to keep up with the commentary with my long forgotten O'Level French.

I'm desperate for a goal to be scored so I'll hear the French for "the ball is in the old onion bag".

Thankfully the Irish are in green and the French are in blue but with the grass also being green, the French seem to be the only ones on the pitch ! Despite this, it's 0-0 at the moment so the Irish must be out there somewhere. Great tactic though. Maybe they should be sponsored by Photoshop.

I know, I'm still blaming the fresh air.

I'll leave you with this definition of a party loving transvestite : a guy who likes to eat, drink and be Mary.

I thank you.