Essay Ally

Dear Senator Mikulski,

I am writing this e-mail in response to your recent FISA vote and I would like to remind you of one thing.

   Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

That is all that I have to say as I believe it speaks for itself.

There are going to be an uncountable amount of diaries about the Potomac primaries today, but I thought I’d make mine more fun by adding some pictures.

I rolled out of bed at 1pm today, I love telecommuting. I started to head to the primary in my old college attire; flannel PJ bottoms, a t-shirt, worn out running shoes. But as I headed out the door I realized what a slob I looked like. I want to make a good impression on Obama, I thought to myself. I headed back inside and changed.

I put on some makeup, nice jeans, a new shirt, and my less-worn tennis shoes. I fixed my bed hair and then headed out the door. This time my cats wanted desperately to follow. They stood blocking the door. I thought about how cute they looked and decided to grab my camera. As I took several pictures of them meowing and staring out the glass door, I decided I would take a photo diary. I headed out the door this time with my camera, but was immediately pushed back by really cold air. It was about 28 degrees out and I headed back indoors to grab my gloves and scarf.

Then, as I headed out the door again I was accosted by my dog. “Please take me vote, please, pretty please. I don’t know what an election is and I am only 11 years old, but I KNOW I want to go with you.” She begged and pleaded. I decided instead to head back inside and put her out of the cold air. She would follow me to the ends of the earth but the poor thing just doesn’t know what is good for her. As I headed out the door once again, I realized I’d forgotten by voter registration card. I know I don’t need it, but it’s much easier for these elderly folk who generally run the polls then trying to look up your name off a license. And for some reason my name which is as common and as anglo as “Smith” seems to always trip them up. Maybe there are just too many people with my name out there. I grabbed my card and this time got all the way out to my driveway.

The day was terribly gray and cold. Most people in my area work, I didn’t expect there to be a good turnout in the middle of the day. In fact, in my area, I imagined a lot of people to be Republicans, it is a quite wealthy area, and somehow Wayne Gilchrist always gets elected as my rep, but maybe that is because of the Eastern Shore. Perhaps people on this side of the bay know what’s good for them.

I took a look at the Chesapeake Bay from my backyard. I could see the area where my voting station is, just across the water. But damn, no way to get over there without driving a couple miles around the Magothy.

Of course a lot of my neighbors have big boats in their backyards, but I’m just a poor renter. I don’t even have a water-facing lot. Hey I’m only 26, I still have college debt to worry about.

I admired a few of the boats and then got back in my car and headed to the polls.

I cranked up my Sirius Satellite Radio. Linkin Park “Shadow of the Day,” came on and I thought to myself how appropriate of a song to come on during such a miserable day. I turned it up and sang along as loud as I could. I probably looked and sounded ridiculous to people when I pulled up next to them at a light, but who cares, I’m happy, I get to be an American today.

I turned onto my road and the DJ Human Numan came on to the radio. “A 20,000 year old tooth was discovered by researchers in Greece, what do you call a toothless neanderthal?”

I wondered where the heck he was going with this stupid line. He is generally a crappy DJ and frequently says incredibly ignorant things.

“A Huckabee Voter”

I chuckled.

As I drove up to the school where I vote, I checked out the signs in front of the parking lot. A few signs for Wayne Gilchrest, McCain, and some other lesser known people. But ahh, the holy grail, a sign for Obama. Hillary had no signs visible.

I parked my card near the entrance and as I walked toward the school the only person holding a candidate sign outside of the school spoke to me.

“Are you voting in the Republican primary?” He asked me. I glanced at his sign. Wayne Gilchrest it read in white letters on a blue background. He was bundled up in gloves, hat, and heavy winter coat, but still looked cold.

“Nope, absolutely not. And I won’t vote for that cocksucker in the general election either.” I couldn’t believe I said that to the guy, but it was out before I could do anything.

“Oh ok, you have a nice day then.” He was as polite as could be.

As I walked into the school, I located my precinct (10). I headed up to the registration tables and presented my card. “Is this your first time voting sweetie?” an old lady asked me.

“Ahh, no, this is my first time voting in this district. I am 26.”

“Really? You don’t look a day older than 18?” the old man sitting next to her smiled.

After they struggled to find my name in the computer, I was finally presented with a diebold card. They had me sign a piece of paper saying I received the card and that I was indeed voting in the democratic primary. Another old man walked me to my voting machine. After I picked Obama and other various democrats, I got my “I voted” Sticker and headed out of the gym. I took one last look. There were 6 or 7 poll workers, all well over the age of 60, all white, men and women about equal in numbers. I did not see a single other voter. Of course it was 2 in the afternoon at this point. The precinct where I live is filled with relatively affluent families. There are not many elderly, most kids are under the voting age. I guess most of the voters must have been at work. But I did see a sign for Obama, and that’s the only democratic sign I saw at all. I couldn’t call where this precinct might go, but I’d say an event split would not surprise me.

Below are a few more pictures of an inlet of the Chesapeake on this gray day. I will be working for the next 8 hours, as I started my workday quite late today.

Well, I said after my first post that I’d put something educational here soon.  But clearly I don’t have anything put together.  And right now my following is so small, that it probably doesn’t matter what I put here.

I am sitting in bed right now slowly suffocating.  Ever since I lived in California, I have had a weird respiratory problem two or three times a year.  I lose the ability to inhale a full breath of air, with the exception of an occasional yawn.  The doctors of course are dismissive because it is clearly not an acute asthma attack, my peak flow tests are virtually normal.  It does not appear to be allergies, as I can breath through my nose just fine, I have virtually no flem in my throat and I have been pounding all sorts of allergy medication every time this happens with absolutely no luck.

This time the problem started while I was out in California for work.  It has been going on for a week but I moved recently and I don’t have a doctor yet in the area so I have been hoping and waiting for it to pass.  I’ll give you a list of symptoms, diagnoses, and various treatments I have tried and you can make all sorts of morbid diagnosis.

Symptoms I have:

Shortness of breath
Inability to inhale completely
Mild chest pain (lower ribcage area)

Symptoms I don’t have:

Constricted airways
Mucus in throat, nose
Fever
Hyperventilating

Possible diagnoses:

Cough Variant Asthma
Why it could be: I have never had great luck with allergies and respiratory problems, I have had several nasty bouts with bronchitis and frequent allergy problems
Why it doesn’t seem to be: Albuterol inhaler doesn’t work, Singulaire doesn’t prevent or stop, Azmacort inhaler doesn’t seem to help cure it, peak flow tests are normal

Heart problem
Why it could be: heart problems can prevent themselves intermittently and shortness of breath could be due to an o2 deficiency
Why it doesn’t seem to be:  I’ve had my heart looked at numerous times, I can run just fine when I’m like this (well really no worse than I ever did run, which wasn’t too well).

Pleurisy:
Why it could be:  This is a new diagnosis for me.  Apparently a lot of people on the internet complain of a similar problem.  This is basically a swelling of the lining inside your lungs which could be caused by numerous things including physical stress, allergies, asthma, and various infections, it can be intermittent, spring up without warning, and while no other medications had an obvious quick effect on my symptoms, high dose oral steroids, used primarily for treating inflammation, did seem to make it go away last time.
Why it might not be:  Since I have not gone to the doctor every time this has happened, it seems to be that the steroids may not have done anything at all, it may have just gone away on its own.

Anyway, now that I have three likely candidates, I’ll tell you that right now I’m leading toward Pleurisy caused either by poor air in California and subsequent allergy/asthma problems, or due to physical stress from exerting myself after being physically inactive for a long time.

Now as a retort to people who are going to call me a hypochondriac, I have really bad luck when it comes to ailments.  I got Lyme Disease last summer and couldn’t do anything physical for 2 months.  I was on antibiotics for what seemed like forever.  Now Lyme isn’t all that uncommon in Maryland, but I was one of those lucky people that didn’t show a rash, so I had to constantly hound the doctor before they’d do a blood test.

I’ve also had food poisoning twice, mono-like viruses multiple times, and all sorts of other weird viral problems.  The funniest part is I rarely get colds and haven’t had the flu in years.  It’s not that I have a terrible immune system, I just always seem to be putting myself out there in a manner that makes me vulnerable to this sort of thing.  Call it a high stress lifestyle if you want.  I’m still here, I’m still functioning, and I’m pretty pissed with medical care and expenses in this country, so maybe I’ll just go back to self-diagnoses.

Ok, so now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, here’s a list of drugs and treatments I’ve tried:

1. Benadryl - makes me drowsy so I can sleep despite the suffocation feeling , doesn’t do anything
2. Prednisone  (oral) - seemed to do the trick in high doses, but have to try again to verify that it wasn’t just a fluke the last time
3. Aspirin - anti-inflammatory, hard to tell if this dose anything, but it does remove the mildy aching feeling in my chest
4. Ibuprofen - same as above
5. Albuterol (inhaler) - doesn’t seem to do anything
6. Azmacort (inhaler) - doesn’t seem to do anything
7. Singulaire - This gives me the most amazing dreams and night terrors.  I am a vivid dreamer anyway, but this stuff sets me over the edge.  Sometimes I scream in my sleep on it.  It doesn’t seem to help with the breathing issue.
8. Dietary changes - I tried cutting out nuts, dairy, wheat, non-organic, etc.. things from my diet at various times, makes no bit of different though.  Of course the diet changes help other things.
9. Weight changes - I had this condition  when I was  about 60 lbs overweight, and I have  it now that I am completely normal.
10. Hot tea - helps a bit, maybe, but makes me feel cozy, so who knows
11 Cold Air - seems to help for a bit, then makes it worse.  Any change in temperature or humidity level momentarily seems to distract me, but doesn’t seem to change it for the long term
12. Sleep - I always feel better in the morning, either because of the state of sleep giving my body time to recover, or the reclined position making it easier on my lungs/heart somehow

So now that I’ve ranted about my current health problem and given you the information the real doctors had, go for your own diagnoses.  If I ever come to a real resolution, I’ll let you know.

Ok, so it’s not a very original title.

I am hopping on the blog-wagon in hopes of generating some revenue. For those of you that know me, you probably wonder why I would even bother with ads, I have a decent job with a software company and my significant other is gainfully employed with some Press organization. I won’t ever give you more specific information than that because we both deal with confidential information. I wont ever give you pictures of us or say exactly where I live either. Years of being on the internet have made me paranoid like that. But for those of you who know me better than a little, you probably also know that we have insane amounts of credit card debt. So click on my sponsor’s ads.

If you’re interested in joining the blogosphere and more specifically, having me host you, drop me a comment. I might let you join, if I like you.

Anyway, that’s it for now. Next blog should actually be something useful. Toodles!