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[Tad Eareckson]

Sorry to have been so unresponsive for so long. Diversions and a medical issue.

2019/08/05 20:04 UTC. I'm just about to head out to Annapolis for a historical group program and dinner when this near black whirling dervish apparition abruptly manifests itself at four o'clock at the edge of my right eye's field of vision. Uh-oh. Retinal detachment or tear scenario comes to mind. But in the hours out it disperses pretty well and I'm not picking up other issues.

Back home a bit before 21:00 local/EDT I start seeing this white strobe effect at right peripheral. At first I'm thinking it must be reflections off that area of the frame of my glasses but experimentation soon rules that option out. Two tiny strobe white rectangles running fast from high to low and low to high in the arc of the right third of a circle at the very edge of the right eye's field. They abruptly appear, rapidly orbit towards each other, cross over, vanish. I find I'm triggering them with quick left-right / right-left head movements.

But I'm still not seeing any distortions I'd expect from a retinal detachment.

But I google "detached retina symptoms" and...

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/retinal-detachment/symptoms-causes/syc-20351344
Retinal detachment - Symptoms and causes - Mayo Clinic

Symptoms
- The sudden appearance of many floaters — tiny specks that seem to drift through your field of vision.
- Flashes of light in one or both eyes (photopsia)
- Blurred vision.
- Gradually reduced side (peripheral) vision.
- A curtain-like shadow over your visual field.

And my vision's blurred but with the permanently dilated right pupil I scored 1978/01 when a tip of Kyle's boomerang slammed into that open eye as I went and looked up to catch mine that side sucks anyway. Also the cataract that developed as a consequence of the injury doesn't help matters.

But close fuckin' enough. Hello Emergency Room (for the second time in five months).

Emily looks in but because of the cataract she has some of the same trouble looking in that I have looking out. Inconclusive. Wants me to go to an ophthalmology facility where the gadgets are better.

Tuesday I'm thinking for a while screw it. I'm still not seeing distortions, things looking normal enough. But then I start picking up the strobe effect again. So late yesterday afternoon I head to the Kaiser Permanente facility at Largo - three o'clock on the DC Beltway.

Biblical thunderstorm for the second half, traffic slows to a crawl, I get half drowned getting from the parking garage to the entrance, make it to my 16:30 appointment four minutes late. But they're a helluva lot later than I am so it doesn't matter.

I get attacked with the proper gadgets, doc doesn't see anything either but confirms that I had a minor tear which will have fixed itself after a week or so. That's about the same as what I'd been thinking but it was nice to get some worries behind me. (The dervish was some kind of reaction going on with the vitreous humor.)

Sun was back out for the drive back a bit after six but now both of my pupils were majorly dilated. I could see the roads, traffic, patterns on my nav gadgets well enough but couldn't read anything on gadgets and road signs. So getting back on the main drag ended up being a lot less efficient.

Still getting the strobes but I try to take it easy with head movements 'cause they translate to pulls on the retina (and the strobes are the symptoms of the stresses). Just walking down the steps is enough to trigger them.

Barring any funny stuff from the air... A properly thrown right hand boomerang goes out and a bit up vertically, starts following a counterclockwise circular path an rolling towards horizontal, returns to above and beyond the thrower in horizontal helicopter hovering mode, stalls, autogyros gently back for the catch. That's what mine was doing.

We threw at the same time and Kyle's WASN'T thrown properly. And as I was fielding mine Kyle just stayed fuckin' STANDING THERE to my right making zero effort to field his. So I ASSUMED that his was also coming down on target. It had rolled back to vertical which meant it was dropping and spinning fast. Somebody - not Kyle - yelled "Look out!" as a tip hit. Too late - couldn't even get an eyelid down.

Iris torn, aqueous humor filled up with blood, totally blinded me on that side. But soon at the hospital the eye filtered the blood out, idiot doctor told me I'd fully recover. And I was pretty happy. But maybe a week or so later I started realizing... Nope.

If I'd just had any kind of glasses on. Hope things will get better one of these years when they tell me I'm due for cataract surgery.

[TheFjordflier]

You guys must be so proud

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsBOWSjOLsE

[Tad Eareckson]

For the past 2.98 years I've been telling people that I'm from Luxembourg.

http://www.kitestrings.org/post9776.html#p9776

[miguel]

Wow, waste no time getting tx for your eyes!

[Tad Eareckson]

Transit of Mercury tomorrow - 12:36-18:04 UTC. Disregarding clouds gonna be great for the US East, less duration for everybody else. Last shot until 2032/11/12-13 - and then you're gonna wanna be in southern Africa and the US will be totally SOL.

[Tad Eareckson]

And for the US - 2049/05/07.

Got it - from beginning to end. A few small mild smudges hardly worth mentioning drifted across during the first fifteen or so minutes but after that things were clear as a bell.

Solar filter on the Swarovski ATX 85, there was always atmospheric turbulence apparent dancing on the edges. Tried some digiscoping shots but all I got was a big deep yellow disc with a little under-thirty pixel diameter orangish smudge on it - nothing like the neat little distinct, sharply defined, black disk I was actually viewing.

Stayed within a 1.22 mile radius to the west of the driveway to ensure a clear shot at beginning contact - 07:36 EST. Had cool transit views of a passenger jet on final to BWI, crows, unidentified birds. Lots of traffic and nobody pulled over for a view.

Relocated. Drove by a tight herd of maybe fifteen Black Vultures concentrating on what very little was left of a White-Tail roadkill. Observed alone at a much closer location to the west.

Relocated again. East to a county bike trailhead on a road rising to an I-97 overpass. Two county worker guys from a truck enjoyed views. Then a lone female jogger.

Now the sun's high enough for me to do the street up and down hill from the driveway without obstruction from trees so back home. And I'm starting to roast in my morning layers so went down to shirt only. And got some neighbors.

There's a little home school operation two doors down (I just found out) and a wide range of kid altitudes. Walked home to retrieve a two-step folding stepladder which worked out great. (Wish I could find something similar which would collapse and go into the luggage for birding trips.)

Not quite a total solar but a lot more convenient than the Idaho expedition was and everyone who got looks was pretty thrilled and appreciative. And this one will have highly probably been the last/only shots at one of these for most of today's participants.

[Tad Eareckson]

Busted on Thanksgiving - fifteen and a half miles WSW of Alice's Restaurant (Stockbridge). Well, not actually Thanksgiving. But the day before - 2019/11/27 15:04 EST - on the way to Thanksgiving stuff in south central Massachusetts. Taconic State Parkway, pulled over at a rest stop just north of New York 217 - 80 in a 55. Had a moment of hope at the end 'cause Obie had dropped off of me and was flashing another car behind. Nope. He was doing a twofer.

If you look at the Taconic in Street View it's a goddam Interstate - for all intents and purposes. And it's also a roller coaster. I'm not a fast driver - haven't had a ticket in decades - and/but low carbon footprint is always a really high priority on my list. And on a roller coaster going downhill I put it in neutral and let the speed build up so's I can make it up the next climb without having to use lower gears and lotsa extra gas. (Good thing he hadn't clocked me a few miles prior 'cause I'd gotten up to ninety. But I wasn't happy with that speed and DID put it in gear to moderate things.)

Had spent the previous two nights in Tarrytown, had done the Lyndhurst Estate grounds the previous afternoon. Clear, light air, comfortable temperature for the time of year. Different flavor of Chickadee up there. Carolinas cut out just over the Mason-Dixon north of here and Black-Caps take over. And you can hear the difference in the calls easily enough.

There was a small Woodchuck grazing in the afternoon sunlight on a sloped lawn area near the mansion. At first glance he didn't look right. Upon further/closer observation he was turning in tight clockwise circles, falling over, struggling to regain footing. Wasn't gonna make it. Pointed him out to a couple with whom we crossed paths a minute or two later. They weren't happy about it either.

Checked out the little Patriots Park at the north edge of Tarrytown where Major John André was intercepted 1780/09/23, checked out some Rockefeller turf up a bit to the northeast, picked up a beautiful pair of Hooded Mergs on Tarrytown Reservoir en route back to the motel.

Late morning before the bust did the Roosevelt estate at Hyde Park. Eleven o'clock guided walking tour was getting underway almost immediately. She'd gotten to the point at which the trees were to be discussed. There were several Tulips close in front and I noticed a first year female Sharpy preening near the top left of the leftmost. Leaves were all down and she was pretty conspicuous. People were interested but useless in locating her and I hadn't grabbed a laser before the herd had started rolling.

A short walk later we were at and in the Springwood mansion. Display cabinet in the entrance hall with maybe fifty mounted specimens. Sharpy in the bottom right corner - below two Screech Owls. FDR was a major bird freak and did a lot for conservation over his lifetime/career but as a young kid at the end of the Nineteenth Century was an enthusiastic "collector". Ditto for Audubon. Every bird you see in every painting he produced was something he'd shot and posed. But that wasn't anything he felt good about doing.

Can't remember when I'd previously seen/confirmed a Sharpy but it's been years. Every smallish accipiter that comes within range checks out as a Cooper's. (Also had one of those on the trip - and no shortage of Redtails. Black Vultures as far north as Tarrytown.)

That night driving back west after a holiday get-together through the heavily forested area to the east of Springfield, Massachusetts to the hotel in Springfield... Just as I'm looking down at a radio button a half grown possum decides now would be the perfect time to trot across the road from right to left. But I'm doing a good speed, hit the brakes, crossing continues without interruption. Too bad you don't get positive points for doing better than the average jerk behind the wheel in those situations. (And there was no shortage of road kills in that particular neck of the woods.)

Blew New England Saturday / two days ahead of schedule to avoid probable post Thanksgiving traffic - snowstorm disaster, made it back without too much trouble late afternoon.

[Tad Eareckson]

Got a halfway serious health issue going on.

For probably decades I'd been getting small, painful, localized skin lesions on my face or neck - one at a time. They'd make me a bit miserable, hang around for months, heal, disappear for maybe a year or two. Eventually figured out they were running a course of six months. Previous was about 2017/07-12 and went like clockwork.

I'd consulted my previous medical practice on that one, gotten prescribed Cephalexin 11/09, did zilch.

Then I was OK until 2019/02 (a month before I had to get hospitalized for the internal leg bleed - and, it just now occurs to me, I seem to be 100.0 percent recovered from that one). OK, shit, here we go again. Same spot as 2017 - right side of neck and low.

On 06/20 at a social event an Army doc notices and suggests a fungal infection. If so would that be treatable? Yep. Oh joy of joys. Get it cultured. (Would've been nice if one of these assholes had done that before.)

Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus - MRSA. SHIT!!! And so far that's all the use I've gotten out of Kaiser Permanente to date.

July - and August - come and go. And things are doing the opposite of getting better.

The lesion scabs over. But it's not healing. Nasty stuff still happens below the surface and a lymph volcano starts building pressure. That area starts burning, feeling like a wasp sting from two minutes ago. Endure the agony and leave it alone it just eventually dissolves the scab and oozes through. So fuck it. I scrape/rip the scab off; pain is astronomical during and for a bit after the operation; then it drains and I'm pain free for a while until...

The pain wears me down, distracts me from accomplishing half useful stuff, deprives me of sleep, saps my energy. As long as it's oozing, draining I'm OK. Sometimes I can go for a good chunk of a day feeling pretty normal. Other times it's the eternal center of the universe.

And the area has significantly enlarged and spread into the softer skin area at the base of my neck. I don't understand why my immune system isn't managing it as it apparently was before and what's stopping it from doubling its area every three days.

And I'm pissed off 'cause this beast is a product of antibiotics overuse/abuse - patients and doctors both and I've witnessed plenty enough of both firsthand.

P.S. I did the surgery in the course of composing this one and I've been feeling pretty not bad since.
---
P.P.S - 2019/12/02 12:34:56 EST

My maternal grandfather, Earl Robert Van Leewen, the one who'd been set to go over there in 1918, died of a heart attack in fifty years ago today - 1893/03/29-1969/12/02 - Saugatuck - Saint Petersburg.

He'd been an entomologist with the USDA and had his career substantially derailed for going whistleblower mode over corruption at a USDA experimental farm in Yakima.

[TheFjordflier]

Sorry guys, but I'm in a process of ending my paid subscription on Vimeo, and also Flickr. If I'm unable to pay for the subscriptions, they will erase most of my videos and pictures. Including the important ones. So on Flickr I deleted everything down to 1000 pics left. Then my important ones are secured for the future (for now).
Also for Vimeo I deleted mostly everything (YouTube will be my platform now) keeping the most important ones. Specially those embedded here.
But unfortunately I deleted too many, so now some of the links don't work anymore. I had forgotten how many links I actually posted here.
The ones with the hook-in, stomp test, and approaches are still here.
Now I don't even know which videos the links are belonging to.
Most of the dead links don't have a YouTube copy to link to in it's place.
It wasn't my intention to wreck this otherwise great forum. Sorry!
Any suggestions?

[Tad Eareckson]

I'm a bit snowed at the moment - gotta do a Christmas Bird Count Sunday and blow to South Texas for a most-of-January bird tour Tuesday - but with very few exceptions if a photo or video has been posted to Kite Strings I have it on my hard drive - along with links documentation.

Really sorry to hear about all the turmoil - you have a lot of really beautiful and valuable camera stuff and I hope you can get everything restored and back up properly. You're a Moderator so you can edit your posts seamlessly.