Intermittence

So, Barack Hussein Obama will be our next President. I can’t say how proud I am that our country elected this person to its highest office. Here are a couple of eloquent people, saying the things I would say if I only had their skill with words:

• John Gruber
• Roger Ebert

Now for something a little less jubilant…

My lovely wife teaches in La Vega Independent School District, which serves the city of Bellmead. Her school, La Vega Intermediate School H. P. Miles Campus, was built in 1963, and is in horrible, horrible shape. It desperately needs to be renovated or rebuilt entirely, but nobody appears to really care.

-The 2000 census shows Bellmead’s population at 9,214. 29.5% were under 18 years of age, leaving 6,496 voting-age residents. Last night, just 1210 votes were cast for four school-related issuesless than 19% of the voting population of the city.-

Correction: The 2004 General Election results for Bellmead indicate that there were 4,847 registered voters. That means that 25% of the electorate turned up to vote yesterday. That’s a pitifully low number, but it positively dwarfs the 212 individuals (4.4%) who voted in 2004. By comparison, 59% of McLennan county registered voters participated in the 2008 election.

All four ballot issues were voted down.

• Bellmead won’t be building a new athletic facility.
• Bellmead won’t be building a new administrative building.
• Bellmead won’t be building a new intermediate school.
• Bellmead won’t be increasing taxes to pay for teacher raises or expanded school programs and services.

Finally, gay rights activists didn’t fare very well across the country, either. State amendments to ban gay marriage were passed in Arizona and Florida, and Arkansas voters approved a measure banning adoption or foster care by unmarried parents (backers of the measure made it clear that they were targeting homosexual couples).

So, here’s my analysis: The racial barrier has been broken. Children raised in low-income cities (and the teachers who essentially raise them) continue to suffer due to voter apathy and ignorance. We still discriminate against people based on what they do in their own bedrooms.

We have a long way to go.

The crisis is over, and I’m now emotionally composed enough to report that Tully is fine.

What? You didn’t know she was sick? I guess it’s because I’m a big crybaby and can’t manage to deliver news about an ailing dog without losing control of my faculties.

In any case… We were facing the possibility that Tully had developed a malignant tumor in her stomach, but the biopsy results ruled that out. She’s now being treated for a bunch of symptoms collectively termed Inflammatory Bowel Disease. She might have parasites, or she might have severe food allergies, or perhaps none of the above. What we’ve been told is that she doesn’t have cancer. That’s good enough for me. I wish we could have learned this without spending $1,700 on exploratory surgery and diagnostic procedures, but that’s okay. I get to spend more time with my puppy.

Quickly:

• Allergy treatments are going well. I totally skipped my traditional mid-Spring sinus infection (which is usually brought on by a surplus of…well, let’s just say that allergies contribute to the incubation of a sinus infection, shall we?).
• Robotics dabbling is not going so well. I can’t bring myself to solder a bunch of relatively expensive components together, and I seem to be unable to place an order for the sockets that would ease my fears. Also, I’m paralyzed by my inability to formalize plans for my first real ‘bot. The solution, of course, is just to do it and see what happens. Once I get sockets, I’ll do this. An order will be placed today. Maybe.
• Donnell is attending her Teacher-of-the-Year luncheon today, and I’m heading over to her school in a bit to send her off. I’m so proud of her!

That is all.

By now, I should be less allergic to, well, almost everything than I once was.

Last Thursday marked the first big increase in my allergen serum concentration, and I weathered it with no major side effects (my arms itched for a few hours afterwards, but there were no welts at all—hooray!). I’m still struggling with being stabbed in the back of the arms once a week, but I’m not as lightheaded when I feel the stick as I used to be.

Furthermore, thanks to my almost total inability to remember to take my Zyrtec, I feel confident that the immunotherapy is having a positive effect. My eyes don’t itch, my nose doesn’t run, and I sleep more soundly now than I have in recent years. If there’s more improvement coming, and I’m assured there is, then I am definitely on board.

I visited the allergist last Tuesday, and went back in Thursday for the report (and then some).

There is no short list, so I’ll hit you with the big list of things to which Chris is allergic…

• Birch
• Mesquite
• Black Willow
• Grasses (Bermuda, Johnson, Timothy, Bahia, and Rye)
• Lamb Quarters (a weed, apparently)
• English Plantain (another weed)
• Russian Thistle (tumbleweed!)
• Aspergillus Fumigatus (a fungus commonly found in the upper respiratory system of healthy adults)
• Mucor Racemosus (another fungus, found in soil, plants, and decaying fruits and vegetables)
• Penicillium Mix (a generic term for the airborne penicillium fungus we all know and love)
• Dust Mite Mix (that is, the mites and their poop)
• Chicken, Duck and Goose feathers
• Cat Pelt
• Whole Eggs

The good news is that the egg reaction was very minor. The bad news is that reactions to the rest were pronounced.

I’ve started my course of allergy shots: two per week for the next 30 weeks or so, followed by monthly injections until…well, I don’t know.

I’m not entirely pleased about the situation, but I did score a great vacuum cleaner to help the household allergen situation.