Foot Surgery

For the last year I had a lump/bump on the top of my left great toe. It didn't hurt if you pushed on it but it would rub on the top of my dress shoes. This was causing a callous and it was uncomfortable. It took a long time to work my way through the VA health care system to even get an appointment with podiatry. I got the referral appointment from my primary on October 3rd and after visiting with the Dr., he said yes it was something they could fix and it was not a super big deal. Well, he also said he was new and didn't know how to set the follow up appointments in the system but he would have another Dr. help him.  I guess that should have been my first red flag.  I was going to give it 2 weeks and then call to follow up. Well, on October 15th my Mom passed away and this immediately went to the bottom of my concerns.

I tried to call podiatry the beginning of November but the number the VA has goes right to the appointment line. I was in a yoga study and it was down the hall from podiatry, so I decided to pay them a visit. The very unhelpful lady said that yes I did see one of their Dr.s but he was not in on Wednesday, however he would be in the next day and she would leave a message for him. The following Monday I had not heard back so I called the bad number again and got the main appointment line. They said they could only make an appointment for my primary. Since I had already seen my primary (he gave me the referral) I asked to speak to him ASAP. I got a call back from one of his staff who said that I should call podiatry and proceeded to give me the bad number again.

The following Wednesday, I had yoga, and decided to visit the very unhelpful lady again. She again said the Dr. wasn't in on Wednesday (no shit) and said she would leave a message. I asked for a better number and she gave me her "personal" desk number. I waited till Monday and when I did not hear anything back (are you seeing a pattern) I called Mrs. Unhelpful's number where I received a voice mail asking me to leave a message and then I am promptly disconnected.  I went into orbit!!

My Gunny's wife works at the VA for the chief of staff and she got me the Patient Advocates number. I called, left a message, and the ball finally begin rolling. I had to go back to my primary so he could clear me for surgery (even though he gave me the referral). REALLY!!! I called the patient advocate again for some assistance. I received a call from the Chief Surgeon for podiatry who apologized and said he would do my surgery. However I still had to go back to my primary.

He had to shave down the top part of the toe where the bone had grown up and there was some type of gout paste that they cleaned out.

I will say that once I got the surgery date, did the pre-op and went into surgery, the staff was nothing but professional and very competent.  I had the surgery on January 28th and today I had the follow up and everything looked good. I am set to have the stitches removed on February 17th.

I guess I was overly optimistic (as usual) and thought that I could be back to work yesterday, when I told this to the Dr. the day of surgery he just kind of looked at me funny and said to wait until I had the follow up. So today I went back to work for a half a day and kind of regretted it. I will say that I did not expect the level of pain, it really hurt!!!!!

 Below are some photo's, several of them not foe the week of heart (like "A").

**********WARNING!! GRAPHIC PHOTOS BELOW. DISCRETION IS ADVISED**********

 **********警告！下の図の写真。裁量は通告されてい**********

Target Shooting

Last weekend some friends from the neighborhood went out to Ocotillo Wells to do some target shooting. Honestly, I didn't know there was anyplace in Southern California that you could go out and shoot that was not an "official" shooting range. I also had no idea that there were quite as many people in the neighborhood who owned guns and liked to shoot.

Getting there was an adventure, actually a scary adventure. The normal way is to take I-8 East through the mountains, and we did, but that weekend the Santa Ana winds were howling. We all rode in one of the guys RV and with the winds blowing around 40mph with gust hitting around 60-70mph it was all he could to to keep the RV on the road. In fact we almost turned around.  What normally takes 1 1/2 hours took over 2 hours thankfully, when we got in the desert, the wind wasn't blowing there.  But around 1PM the Highway Patrol closed the highway for a few hours. Going back we took the S-2 highway, no wind but it took us over 3 hours to get back. So the drive there and back sucked.

We had a whole mixture of weapons from the .22 rifle up to a 300 Magnum hunting rifle. One guy made his own AR-15 receivers and the little black gun I am shooting is one of them. Another guy had some WW2 rifles (M1 Carbine and M1 Garand) which were really cool to shoot.

(L-R) Mini 14; M1 Carbine; M1 Garand; don't know what the far right one is

Tonight's Sunset

Really nice sunset tonight. It has been a rough few months and I will work on putting up more posts in the future.

Rental Property number 2

We finally finished the renovations on the property we bought in September. I didn't document this one like the first because of many things going on over the last 2 months.

We bought this one in the same "complex"as the first. I use quotes because there are actually three different HOAs in this condo complex. Our first place is actually across the street at an angle but different HOA. Unfortunately we paid more for this one, however I did have a maximum amount that we could pay and still make money. Happily we stayed under that line and will make some money, just not a lot. But more than we could with it sitting in a bank account.

We were happy that this place did not need nearly as much work as the first condo, or so we thought. In the end we spent 3/4 in renovations on this one as the other. We didn't have to replace most of the floor, kitchen appliances, kitchen cabinets/counter top. However we did have to replace carpeting in the bedrooms, washer and dryer, closet doors, remove the popcorn ceiling, bathroom counter tops, and spend a fortune in trades (plumbing/electrical/painting).

We installed the closet doors (yep they didn't have any), paint and reface the bathroom cabinets, install the bathroom lights.  We had to get creative with the master closet doors because the opening was GIGANTIC. We installed two 96x96 mirrored doors and then use a 4x6 on either side as "trim" to fill in the gap. It looks really nice.

None of the electrical boxes were centered, so I had to MacGyver the bathroom lights. Speaking of MacGyver'ing something, when the plumber pulled off the guest bathroom shower handle the previous owner used a 14mm socket to fit into the cartridge stem. Pretty ingenuous, except I had to have it fixed.

"A" was the designer and most of what we did were her ideas. At times I thought we were over spending and doing unnecessary work but in the end it did pay off and she was correct, as usual. We put it on the marked and in less than a day we had it rented out. There are two other places that have been listed for over a month. One is $80 more and the other is $155 more but they both have garages while ours does not have a garage. In the end it was "A"s design and willingness to put in good quality work that made the difference.

Kitchen

Guest Bath

Master Bath

Refacing all the doors in shaker style.

MacGyver the lights

4x6 "trim"

4x6 "trim"

4x6 "trim"

4x6 "trim"

This was how the shower handle was "fixed" by the previous owner.

HOT HOT HOT!!!

When we got our air conditioner I was wondering if we would have a cooler summer, we didn't. And we are entering our warmer months in September and October. Today was one of the warmer days and it was super muggy with monsoon moisture in the air. We didn't get any rain here but the mountains did.

While it was a muggy 95 outside it was a cool 76 inside.

New Fridge and Dishwasher

Last Saturday we finally had our new Liebherr Refrigerator and Bosch Dishwasher delivered (we now have the axis powers in our kitchen, German fridge and dishwasher and Italian range). We were promised to have the fridge in 2 weeks, but it actually took 6. I wasn't real happy about the whole experience. But finally, delivery day!!!!

AAANNNNDDD it didn't fit. So I had to take out the trim on the right side. No big loss but now I also had to finish the wall as well as the space above the fridge.

One of the biggest anticipations was that I finally got an ice maker. I have lived the last 5 years with making ice with 1 ice tray each night. I know, right?!? But alas, I had to wait one more week to install the water line. This weekend I did and it was quite the adventure.

Installing the line wasn't that bad. The hard part was pulling the fridge out. You see, we could not get any old run of the mill fridge. No, we had to get an abnormal one, that is 78" tall and hard as hell to move. I had to use a crow bar to lift it up in front to raise the front feet and lower it enough so that the wheels could reach the ground. But I think that is actually impossible. We finally used furniture movers. Oh, and did I tell you that we only have like a 1/2 inch on each side? Oh, did I also say that this fridge is so tall that we had to rip out the top cabinet? Oh, did I tell you I had to finish the space above the fridge now?

It took one hour to pull the fridge out. Yes that is 1 hour, 60 minutes, 3,600 seconds. It took a while. And a day to finish the wall and paint.

But now I have ICE!!!

Yardwork and Rain

Our front landscape was beginning to look a little sad. Basically it has sat untouched since we planted it, well almost. We have done a little work but basically it has had the freedom to do what it wants. Apparently it wanted to die more than anything. We have lost quite a few plants, namely the fan flowers and the flax. I contribute this primarily on poor irrigation and drainage.  In the case of the flax it was too much water. When I removed it, the root was completely rotted. I think it was not enough water with the fan flowers.

When we had the irrigation installed it was a one size fit all with drips for everyone. The problem was that we had a great variety of plants/succulent so this did not work well and the casualties were high. So now we have the hardy/just right bunch still around.

Our blue chalk sticks are doing OK but some parts shriveling up and dying. I think once again it is poor irrigation/drainage.  I pruned back the Mexican Sage and cleaned up the blue chalk sticks throwing away the dead parts and propagating the healthy parts.

I really need to address the Lions Tail but will wait till this fall to do some dead heading, I learned this from YouTube.  No it doesn't mean I will sit around smoking weed and listening to the Grateful Dead. Dead heading plants is to cut back any dead parts/flowers so that it will stimulate growth. I learned how to do it with the Lions Tail and will also figure out the best way for our Pride of Madeira and Licorice Plant. Both of those are out of control.

One thing I MUST  do in the next few weeks is to re-work my irrigation. There are a few other plants that are hanging on but for how much longer I am not sure.

We actually received some rain today, IN AUGUST!!! OK, for most everyone else it was a light sprinkle, but for us it is RAIN. We actually got more than what is in the picture, that was the beginning. Water actually came off the roof, we take what we can get.