Officially out of the sling. Time to start PT. Also means I can start going back into the office, which is funny, because starting next week they're doing some renovations, so I'll be working from home again for I think a week or two. Not quite sure if I'll have enough space for all my monitors though in the new space. Not really cubes, more like desks. Had Lucy's 8th birthday party at the house last Sunday. 12 7-8 year old kids in the house. Tracy had some painting and cookie decorating activities, which went over pretty well. Still pretty crazy. Surprised that the dress up and costumes got the most play, which is actually pretty cool. And a bunch of the girls played with Jackson's Matchbox Ultimate Garage. Also, the cake from Dairy Queen was pretty good. Snuck away after to see Whitney at Piece. Also saw Leo and Con, which was funny because Jackson tagged along. Haven't been back there or seen Whitney in a pretty long time. Pretty much caught up on Billions. It's good stuff. Loved the Netrunner callout. Finally put all the LEGO away. Not well though, need to find a better display/storage solution for the built sets.

About 6 weeks ago (Wednesday, March 14), I broke my right clavicle on my bike commute home from work. Think I pedal clipped turning onto Clybourn from Halsted. Ended up on my right side. Got up, walked over to the sidewalk, shoulder seemed sore but seemed to be working. Bike was in good condition. Then biked home. Once I got through the door and felt the break, realized it was broken, and went to the ER. Had a great experience at Illinois Masonic, hardly any wait, everything pretty quick. Got a sling and x-rays. Took the next couple days off, got an appointment with an orthopaedic surgeon (Dr. Patrick Birmingham) at NorthShore Medical Group. Because of the displacement, went with surgery, scheduled for the following week. Had surgery at River North Same Day Surgery Center. Had a very cool cold therapy machine, (Game Ready), and used that for like 3 weeks. Originally was told I could probably be out of the sling in 2 weeks, but after the first post op visit, and seeing the x-rays, and the number of breaks/screws involved, I'd be in for 4 weeks. And then after the week 4 post op, I get another 2 weeks in the sling. I'm about ready to be out of it. Been working from home so I can support the arm while typing. As soon as I'm out, I"ll start heading in to the office again. Finally started helping more around the house, using the right arm a bit more. As soon as I can, I'll get back on the bike. Hoping I can actually do Bike the Drive in another month. Oh, started taking medication for high blood pressure, because my diet went to crap, and I wasn't really exercising. Recently got back on the bike trainer in the basement, which is good. Still totally into LEGO. In the middle of organizing the loose bricks by type. Actually have the Ninjago City waiting to get built. Started watching Rise, but there wasn't enough singing, so I watched the entire Glee series. Also really enjoying LA to Vegas and Deception. Reupped with Comcast in order to drop the cost a bunch, and got Showtime as well to start watching Billions, which is really good. Also watched all the Transformers movies. Also got and switched over to the Denim blue color case and watch bands.

Had a followup with my primary care physician, and got a decent blood pressure reading. So this whole diet/exercise thing is working. And that was after spending 5 days in Austin visiting my brother with the entire family. They preordered Franklin Barbecue 2 months ago, so I had to eat that, and it was good. But I tried to be as healthy as I could. Hoping I can keep this up. Spent the majority of the time, while the cousins played, organizing all their LEGO and putting together a few choice sets. A very enjoyable way to spend my vacation. Wish I could have put more of them together. And completely jealous of all the LEGO they have. Kids definitely had fun playing together. The iPhone/iPad didn't come out until the very last day. Thanks to Al and Nicole for hosting and organizing all the fun activities. Last night had a playdate for Jackson's classmates and parents. But I had to leave early to see David Robert King at Uncommon Ground and see Bryan and the gang. Special shout out to El for organizing. Since I'm trying to learn guitar, I was paying attention to the guitar playing, and David's stunning. Really really good. Good to see all of them, but had to leave early to help put the kids to bed. Really nice to just be able to walk over and back though. Had the last week off, which was really nice. Being on vacation is nice. On Friday after my doctor's appointment, met up with Tracy on the Brown Line since she had to get her expired driver's license renewed, had lunch together, then walked over to Magnolia Bakery to get some treats, then up to see the new Apple Michigan Ave store, which was pretty nice, then continued up to The LEGO Store to check out all the sets with my new found appreciation of them. Could easily spend thousands there. They had like 5 different Modulars, and the Ninjago City, and the UCS Millennium Falcon, and and and....

So I’ve been all in on the lifestyle changes to try and deal with my high blood pressure. Went ahead and got a Kinetic Smart Road Trainer so I can do my bike riding in the crawl space in the basement. Actually worked up a sweat yesterday, which is really something I don’t do when commuting. I installed and started using My Fitness Pal on my iPhone. Last time I tried using a food tracking app/service, there really wasn’t that much preloaded, but now? Pretty much everything is. Super easy to track. Also, a low sodium diet sucks. Kind of shocking how much I was probably taking in before actually keeping track. Also installed Gulps on the iPhone. Reminders and tracking for drinking water. Trying to stay hydrated. Haven’t quite switched to eating more often in smaller servings, but it’s getting tempting. Pretty much because when I do eat a meal, I’m still hungry afterwards. Not used to the smaller portions yet. In the midst of it all, did my double red blood donation on Monday. Apparently Red Cross doesn’t think I have high blood pressure. Crazy snows as well the last week or two. Wondering how much of it goes away as temps are above freezing and it’s supposed to rain tomorrow. I expect lots of giant puddles. Oh, speaking of food, my new favorite place to get it at work is Pret A Manger. Pretty healthy stuff, and a good variety for breakfast. Haven’t actually tried them for lunch yet, but I should. Lots of salads in my future.

Yeah, completely missed a month. Whoops. Again. Happy New Year! Let's see, AT&T Fiber is great. Used way too much electricity the last month (hoping it was the extra heaters I put in the basement and the mud room). Christmas was good. Lots of in-law family time with the cousins. Started biking again. Joined the clipless revolution. Mostly because I wanted to be able to use my Japanthers without dealing with toe clips/Powergrips. Working well, haven't had my fall yet. Waiting for it to happen though, since everyone does. Got diagnosed with high blood pressure. Trying to control with lifestyle for now, and hoping I don't have to start taking pills. Otherwise, health is good. Labs all came back normal, except for the still elevated Creatinine. Still not sure what that's from. Maybe too much meat? Will find out if diet/exercise makes a difference. Been wanting to change the site to be more Micro.blog friendly, maybe update to using some posting standards. But haven't gotten around to it. Did switch to Micro.blog from Twitter. Just got too annoying and infuriating reading over there. I think I've successfully weaned myself off it. Been off Facebook for a while now. Seems like it's trending away from those, and especially Micro.blog might be reaching some critical mass. Works been crazy busy, rollout of a new product at the start of the year, lots of late nights. But getting better. Watched Patriot on Amazon Prime Video after a couple podcast recommendations. Good, but after a comment about it being Wes Anderson like, couldn't stop seeing it. Good, but not great. Been watching Happy Endings, now that is a good show. And started LA to Vegas recently. I like that one too. Marvel's Runaways on Hulu is one of my Best of 2017 picks. Pretty much the reason I got the subscription to Hulu. After Amazon Prime Video came out for tvOS, got a new Apple TV 4K to replace the old 3rd Generation I had as a source. Kids have been watching a lot of gameplay videos on it by Zebra Gamer, mostly LEGO City Undercover. Looks great, got LEGO City since Undercover isn't available on tvOS, but getting tempted to get a Nintendo Switch to play Undercover. It looks that cool. Also got a Steelseries Nimbus Wireless Gaming Controller for LEGO City; much better than the Apple TV Remote for gameplay. Tracy ordered up a rug and a settee for the parlor, so we've got actual furniture there now. Been practicing guitar a bit, remembered I should be learning Peter, Paul & Mary songs like Puff the Magic Dragon and Leaving on a Jet Plane. Lucy's been taking ice skating lessons over at Winterland at the Park. Jackson started up swimming lessons again.

Fitting, on the day the FCC decided to repeal Net Neutrality, I got my AT&T Fiber up and running. I had the SCI guys come out on Monday for a regular tune up, see if they could fix a couple issues, install some new hardware, see if they wanted to handle getting AT&T Gigapower installed. Turns out I could go ahead, so I chatted and got an install scheduled for Tuesday. Tuesday comes around, and they run fiber to the home. All the way into my data closet. Although I get an IP and a gateway IP, I get no further. Also the corresponding digital voice service isn't working either. So I get a tech to come out today to check it out, and after swapping the router/gateway, and cables, and so on, gets put on hold with the backend, and they get it up and running eventually. Took them about 3 hours to get it up and running. And running it is. Couldn't swap it out until Tracy got off working tonight, but it's fast. And symmetrical. So we shouldn't notice any slowdowns, anywhere. Not quite getting the full 1Gpbs up/down, and not sure how much tweaking I need to do, but just going to enjoy it for a bit. Will downgrade the Comcast line to something basic as a failover, since we'll keep it for cable TV. Wonder how long I'll be able to enjoy this unfettered access to the entire net. Plex users should hopefully have no issues streaming anymore. Next best thing from the SCI visit was the Lutron Connect Bridge install. Means the whole house lighting got hooked up into HomeKit. Which means I can control lighting by voice. And can trigger other lights via switches (ex: the Christmas tree lights are on a Lutron lamp dimmer, which is controlled by a nearby keypad. HomeKit automation triggers when the Christmas tree lights go on/off and turns the front outdoor lights on/off via an iDevices Outdoor Switch, as well as a string light in the family room on a railing on another iDevices Switch). It's like an early Christmas. Got accepted into the Apple Heart Study. Picked up an iPhone 8 for Tracy yesterday on my way home from work, she was tired of the battery running low on her iPhone 6S.

I went ahead and upgraded to an iPhone X (I say X, not 10) and an Apple Watch 3 when the former showed up as available (thanks to the iStockNow notifications) last Saturday. It's pretty cool. Nice going to a smaller form factor, the OLED screen is amazing, FaceID is pretty cool, and it is faster. The more amazing speed increase is with the Apple Watch, going from the original to the Series 3 is like night and day. It actually immediately responds to input. Very much worth it. And so goes my early Christmas, Birthday, and any other gifting occasions for the near future. And a future upgrade, when it does become available, will be AT&T Gigapower. Working from home last week I saw some AT&T guys installing a big box and cables in the alley, and earlier this week I asked them what they were working on, and it's fiber. It's FIBER! That actually got me more excited than any other tech related thing. Someday soon, my guess 6 months, I'll have glorious 1Gbs up/down service. More excited about the symmetric speeds than I am about anything else. And for my Plex users, this will be great news. I won't have to throttle you. And if you want Plex access, let me know. Otherwise, I have the Miyata 610 set up as my winter bike (BarMitts and PowerGrips. If it ever does get warm again I might get to use the Raleigh Carbon Clubman to commute with. Finally replenished my sock supply, so should be good for like another 3 years. I moved away from Google Inbox back to Apple Mail on iOS and macOS. Finished off Stranger Things 2. For some reason started up How I Met Your Mother again. Kids have been watching Superstore. Jackson turns 4 tomorrow. Been to a few kids birthday parties, Jackson has his on Saturday, Friendsgiving is Sunday, hosting Thanksgiving next week. Going to be a little crazy.