On January 28th, not long after my last post, my wife and I took advantage of a break in the succession of California storms to visit a plant nursery and pick out stock for an ongoing home landscaping project. While hunting for the plants we wanted, I managed to slip on a patch of mud, came down awkwardly into the rows of pots, and fractured my lower right leg in several places. I was shortly on an unscheduled, opiate-hazed journey to our local hospital, which is fortunately only about a mile from home. (Thanks to the Half Moon Bay paramedics and the AMR crew for reducing the trauma of the experience as much as possible.)
I went through orthopedic surgery a day later and now have two plates in my lower right leg, which is still in a set of temporary splints while the post-surgical swelling goes down. To add to that fun, I picked up a spot of intestinal flu at the hospital, and that or some other cause of a post-op fever meant I spent four more days of kitten-weak, internally disrupted purgatory before getting to come home.
I've been back at Home-Sweet-Home since Monday (and you don't how good home looks until you've been involuntarily confined). Depending on which estimates I believe, I've now got 8-12 weeks of sitting on my behind waiting for the bones to regrow - they were 'shattered' - and I'm going to be a good boy given the potentially dire consequences of cheating on the no-weight-bearing-whatsoever edict from the orthopedist. There goes the whole spring gardening and hiking season. You just have no idea what can happen when you step out the door.
Given I've now got more time and energy on my hands, and a need to dissipate them without driving my long-suffering wife nuts, it's a good bet there will be more activity here, as I get some sort of routine stabilized and perhaps get off the Vicodins. I've been planning a deep dive into the robotics/semi-autonomous systems area, and of course the whole YHOO/MSFT thing heated up again while I was flat on my back. Back soon...