So web 2.0 it makes babies cry.

As many of you know, I have a pretty gnarly case of ADD which at one time I was on medication for.   This would be even more evident to you if you knew that in the time it took me to write this, I’ve answered 4 emails, 3 text messages, poked 2 people on facebook, bookmarked 2 recipes for vegetarian meatloaf and followed  Levar Burton on  Twitter.  My point is I’m all over the place, and I’ve learned how to deal with that pretty well in my job (on the internet), and in most of my personal life.

Even back in the day,  I’ve never really liked to use the Full-Screen (F-11) option on my browser.   I had far too many Internet Explorer windows open,  icq conversations,  as well as terminal screens.   As a result, I became a big fan of the Opera browser after starting to switch over to Linux.  Of course once Firefox and IE both had tabbed browsing,  I dropped using Opera  like a bad habit, it’s always had a lot of “quirks“.  Now that all of my systems, minus one, have at least two screens, I have a bit more room to spread out.   I have learned to like the full-screen browser mode, well almost rely on it this week.   To some degree, it has been a life saver in that I really have very little choice of being distracted.  Unless I stop typing or doing what I’m doing to consciously goto look for something else.  Which I’ve been floating my mouse up to the top of the screen to see if I have any new mail, as Firefox covers the windows taskbar/gtalk client email alerts. So I just learned of a firefox extension called AutoHide, which has solved my taskbar issue,  I’m not 100% sure if this is a good thing or not as I can see the blinking chat clients now, but at least my obsession with gmail will subside.

News from the baking front: I made another batch of pita bread this weekend.   I still can not call them pita pockets, as only one really had a true pocket.  But I think I might have an answer for why they are not coming out properly, hopefully in the next few days I’ll be able to give that another shot.   My plain ‘ol white bread came out pretty decent, I think I left it in for a few minutes too long, there is a thicker crust than I prefer, but overall I’m quite pleased.

When I got home on Friday my head was killing me, my eye was really bothering me, and I was pretty close to beat  I think the long work week coupled with being out every night, and the lack of a good night sleep all week just wrote me out.  So to bed was where I headed.

As you may or may not know, one of my little pet projects that I’ve been working on is increasing my bread baking skills.  I woke up Saturday morning and decided to make another attempt into making acceptable loaves of potato bread. Even after my somewhat unacceptable attempt to make a loaf of potato bread,  I’ve already started to become a bit weary of the chemical taste in some of the commercial breads which I never noticed before.    The last time I made the bread, I thought it was too heavy, and did not rise enough.  So this time around, I used bread flour, and a different yeast. Well as you can see below, something worked.

My 2nd Attept at Potato Bread

In other news, I plan to increase my overall workout schedule a bit this week. Long term, I will hopefully get my cardiovascular system back up to where it should be. I am also planning on increasing the frequency of my morning yoga sessions, which have been helping a great deal with my overall health and flexibility.

So I went to Will’s Eye yesterday and as initially diagnosed, I do in fact have central serous retinopathy.  Which basically means that in 4-6 weeks it should clear up on it’s own. Otherwise, I have to get a laser treatment in about 2 months to seal the leakage.  The right eye and my brain are already compensating quite a bit, so during the daytime it’s pretty easy to ignore when outside, it just gets a bit more annoying at night.  I have noticed that I don’t catch as many of my usual typos, but that is something I need to work on anyhow.   So nothing super bad, no pirate patches, and as of now, no loss of my eyeball.  

It has been a busy couple of weeks so I’ve not really had the chance to do more frequent updates.  So here is a week in review of the past 8 days or so.  Most importantly, it would seem that my dream of donning a patch and becoming a pirate and sailing the southern shores of the Keys and the Caribbean must be put on hold for a while. As you may or may not know, my left eye has been “troublesome” since Wednesday morning. I went to the eye doctors Friday morning and after being tested and prodded for an hour and a half the doctor thinks I have central serous retinopathy.

The good news is that average Joe’s who comprise the wikipedia community, being much smarter than myself, claim that “The prognosis for CSR is generally excellent. Over 90% of patients regain 20/30 vision or better within 6 months.”.  I get headaches and fuzzy vision kinda sucks, but I am more or less fine. Moving forward,  I have an appointment at Will’s Eye on Monday morning to confirm that this is indeed what is wrong. As you can see, I’m fine:

Flashing back to last Saturday, I found myself at Bam Margera’s bar/club called the Note in West Chester PA for the  Peek A Boo Revue w/ the Billy D Light Trio. This was an awesome time despite the crappy seats.  Well the seats were great for getting my $2.00 PBR’s and Dave’s Victory Brewery Hop Devil, not so much great to see the show. Which was pretty awesome and at times quite tasteful. There were some funny entertaining acts, and of course, very sexy acts.  It’s hard to imagine that back in the day it was considered obscene.  All in all, a pretty great night, which would have only been better if Shambre was driving instead of me.

Sunday was really nice and in order to get out and blow off the stink,  two Geocaches were found.  I would have grabbed a quick third, but the parking area was a giant mud pit and it was starting to get dark.  I’ll get back that way soon anyhow.

Monday brought with it an informal meeting of the local DeMolay Chapter.  The MC has been making great progress with his ritual, and that’s always impressive.  Followed on Tuesday evening I ran my first business meeting for the Lodge.  Let me tell you, I’m not a ritualist I must work hard at it.  I made some mistakes, I learned from them. But I learned much more about running a meeting, and what it is like to be in the hot seat up in the East.  Of course, I didn’t have a friendly topic planned for the night so I was able to anticipate some things.  I have learned that when you are Master of the Lodge, you need to be prepared for anything and everything.

On Wednesday I awoke to about 8 inches of snow on the ground.  Thank goodness I now am the proud owner of a snow blower, that really made the job of clearing the walkway and part of the driveway much easier and faster.  That morning is when I first started to notice the issues with my left eye.  The night I headed south to Pennsgrove Excelsior Lodge for DeMolay Ceremony of Light.  They did an excellent job as always.   Thursday was pretty quiet, and there was a Craftsmen’s club meeting at WJMC then it was to Dom’s for a drink with Casey.  A couple of crappy snow pics from my phone. I’m not quite sure why I have not gotten a new digial cameara I can carry with me more often..

On Friday I went into work late because I was at the eye doctors,  I got a lot done, and some projects finished up a bit.   Then it was off to Joe Canal’s in the WD to get myself a few bottles of wine I’ve been wanting to try.  Now I was unable to get a couple of them, but a few they don’t carry.  I did some shopping, grabbed a few cheeses then came home for a tasting. I’ll be posting the reviews of those wines on one of the other sites.
Saturday morning came and was in a baking mood again.  As a result, I made some fresh Pita bread and then homemade pepperoni bread.  I’m still not happy with my pita bread, it’s not getting a pocket like I want. As of now it is more like a naan flatbread vs a pita.   I think I might have to tweak my existing receipe or look at a few others.  A side note, as of 8:00 AM, I had officially been employed by SIN for 9 years.

Today being Sunday I’m going to get my lazy ass off of the couch here and head down to the HD.  I have some plumbing issues I need to resolve in the basement, evidently my washing machine would rather over flow the sink than actually drain properly.  If I’m feeling really spunky, I might even make it to the attic for some rewiring and insulation.  I love having a house that is nearly 100…..