Thanks. Sorry for vanishing for a while, but on the evening of November 26th, I came down with some kind of virus (a friend works in a clinic, she tells me it's been going around), and for nearly a week I had a fever fluctuating between 101 and 103.2. For a while there, even operating the TV remote was rather a mental challenge. The fever finally subsided, but the damned thing's been lingering on and rotating symptoms on me -- one day I'd be sneezing my brains out, the next I'd have a ticklish throat and coughing if I tried to talk much, etc. I've *still* got some of it hanging on and keeping me from feeling 100%, but I'm starting to feel somewhat human again.
Add to that a couple of outpatient surgeries during the same period to get rid of what my urologist tells me is the biggest kidney stone he's ever seen stuck in that particular location (8x14mm, woo hoo!), *and* then trying to make up for lost time at work after the health issues, and it should become obvious why I've been absent from Freeping for a while.
Meanwhile, I've got another item to add to the "suboptimal design" list -- what kind of idiot would design a drain system (the ureter) which *tapers* in a way that lets potential blockages enter the system, but not leave? That's a sure recipe for plumbing jams.
Does Darwin Central provide sabbaticals or something? Nobody ever told me about those.
If this was a sabbatical, you can have mine from now on, I don't want another. ;-)
If I'da known I'da wished you well. Maybe something like "hope everything comes out all right."
(Does this put the lie to "this too shall pass" ???)
Sorry to hear that,
Glad you're feeling better.