Category: A Day In The Life…

Warning: pictures and recounts of mildly gnarly wounds to follow

ANNOUNCEMENT

Remember when my hand got caught in a roller and my fingers got smooshed? Yesterday, the pinky fingernail finally fell off! Hurrah! This is exciting because until now there was a constant risk of it getting snagged on something and causing a frustrating zip of pain or a tearing of the nail bed. Now instead of risk of injury, it just looks really weird-sauce.

The ring finger is mostly healed. There’s a mega lump on the top and side of the front knuckle that is slowly going away, but otherwise it’s okay. And despite much concern, my guitar playing is mostly unaffected.

Fun fact: did you know the end of your fingers are officially referred to as the Distal interphalangeal joints?

Extra fun fact: In traditional scrabble, at 15 letters long “Interphalangeal” would span the full length of the board. That means it could potentially hit THREE triple word scores. The E and G would fall on double letters. You’d obviously have to build it off of conveniently placed other letters since your tile rack is only 7 letters deep, but the potential score is 648 points.

Recently I hit 100,000 miles on my 2012 Ford Fusion. Always an exciting event, these mileage milestones demand close observation in those last few miles. Jen and I were glued to the odometer as the tenths ticked by:

99,999.7
99,999.8
99,999.9
100,000

WOOOO!! EXCITING! Wait… what?

The tenths position disappeared. Ford chose to limit the digital display to six characters instead of allowing for seven. This is mildly annoying. I used the tenths place all the time. “Take exit 42 in 6.5 miles” Dang it.  Sander pointed out that I could still use the trip gauges, but I reset these at gasoline fill-ups and oil changes to monitor the car’s performance.

Ford sold about 250,000 Ford Fusions in 2012. If we guess that the extra character would have cost Ford 5 cents more per display (maybe this is high) then in 2012 alone, their decision to use one less odometer character saved them $12,000. BUT, that’s only one year. I bet they used the same display in proximal years and similar models. This four second decision by some random engineering manager in Detroit could have saved Ford $100k.

I think I would have made the same decision.

Good call, Ford.

We are officially 2 hours into T.I.M.E. Stories.

Wow.

Jen and I, who outside of a brief exploration of Role Playing Games as Thelonious the Monk in 2003, have never played any games so rich with plot and mystery. T.i.m.e. Stories (hereafter without the annoying periods of a weak backronym) has been extremely unique. The basic concept is this: You are something like a futuristic police officer who must travel to certain destinations in time to prevent Temporal Faults that ruin everybody’s fun. Each Time Story is one such mission.

The mission that comes with the box takes place in a psychiatric asylum (nice.) So far, the game play is fascinating and it’s been wonderfully immersive. The biggest complaints online were that for the cost ($50ish) you don’t get a lot of game play time. And since it’s a lot like a choose you’re own adventure book, once you know the plot line and the best path then you’ve pretty much exhausted the game –  the first time through the game is the best time through the game. Replay is unexciting at best.

As we’re only about 2 hours into the game, I can’t speak yet to how many hours it will take to triumph – but at least so far it’s been a joy ride.

I smashed up my hand in a pretty gnarly way last week. My ring and pinky finger on my left hand got squeezed between a roller and a metal plate – Ouch. After some grimacing and furious first aid, I zipped over to a local clinic where I got some stitches and care.

The ring finger had a shallow laceration about 30mm in length. Four stitches fixed that one up. Those stitches come out late this week. Total recovery time is a few weeks.

The pinky… that one got gross. The nail pulled out from its root and there was a short laceration at the edge of the nailbed that the doctor opted not to stitch because of its location. It’s pretty gross, but luckily there’s nothing permanent. The finger tip looks kinda like what you’d expect a mushed pinky to look like. Recovery is a few months.

Fun vs Funk:

Fun – only that the injury wasn’t worse.
Funk – Mostly the whole thing. Especially that its my guitar fingering hand.