28 day update

Hi Everybody:

I received a few emails last time with the same theme:

"Doug, please tell me who can help set up a spam filter" or
"Doug, I receive messages from somebody I don't like - can you help?" or
"How can I move messages directly from my Inbox to my Trash automatically?"
or

The short answer to all these questions is .... you can't. You must read all
your email. Especially email from me. Anyone who says otherwise just wants
to access your bank accounts, and is likely a convicted felon.

This sounds trite, but I can't believe it's been four weeks. Four weeks of
living in somebody else's house, eating somebody else's food, and enjoying
somebody else's air conditioning. Again, BIG thanks to Mike and Brenda for
letting us stay with them, and to John and Mo for letting "Bo the Pee Dog"
live with them. Another big thanks to everyone else who's been so kind, so
generous, and so damned polite to me. I wonder when I stop getting treated
special? I'm holding out for March 2010.

OK - enough of the grovelling. Here's the update:

Food - getting better week-by-week. Red wine still tastes off ... not awful,
but $40 wine tastes like $4 wine. I hope this is a sign that things are
improving. I'm not a big fan of $4 wine. Strangely, coffee has always tasted
like it's supposed to....

Exercise - I'm up to about 10km (6 miles) a day. Tried to do a steep hill
yesterday, and found that it was really hard - had a tough time catching my
breath. I'm hopeful that when my chest fully heals I'll be able to run and
bike again. This should be after 8 weeks (another month). A whole "herd" of
friends have decided that doing the Vancouver Half-Marathon in May'07 is a
great idea, so I guess I'm in. I wonder who will carry me?

Frankenstein Scars - The chest scar is healing nicely, with some help from
the Dermatix that Kelly recommended. I (foolishly) went for a long walk with
Dave K on Tuesday wearing jeans, and it irritated one of my leg scars - I'm
hoping that it isn't infected. Photos of the scars are available for $14.95
each - no refunds.

Sleep - I've been sleeping on a futon at the Diack's - it's soft and I've
been sleeping well. Tried to sleep back on a regular bed the other night and
it was a disaster - too painful to move/roll/sleep. Back to the futon!

Pain - I take a couple of Tylenol at bedtime if I've had a really active
day, and feeling quite sore. The chest is still really "tight", but it is
getting better with the exercise. Brenda offered me the use of their rowing
machine. I declined. Wouldn't want to break their equipment.

Concentration - I read "East of Eden" (600 pages) in 5 days. I think my
comprehension is really improving. "East of Eden" is the story of young Luke
Skywalker and his friend Obe-Wan Kenobi, who live in New York City and write
a newspaper column about Sex.

Driving - I can drive today!! Laura couldn't be more pleased......

Plans - We'll continue to hang around Vancouver until October .... likely
with short visits to Vancouver Island and the Okanagan Valley. We hope to
start the trip south after Canadian Thanksgiving. We're going to try and get
the Airstream parked someplace where we can live in it and start making
preparations for the big trip. If anybody has a large backyard with 30 Amp
service, water and sewer, let me know. Mike and Brenda said they'd pay
"anything" to have us live in the trailer.

That's all I can think of for now. Hope you're all having a great summer.
Stay cool!!!

Platonically,
Doug