Month: November 2016

Hello ladies, gentlemen and otherwise. I plead guilty to my lack of posting lately. My attentiveness to EFD is so much worse since the last month or so, and much less so than a couple of years and much, much less than 10 years ago when I first started this endeavor.

I could go on and on explaining why I haven’t posted much. I use work as an excuse. Or perhaps I might try to use my health card. The truth is that both of those reasons make sense. The reason is probably more of a combination the aforementioned causes and maybe more than just one or two.

Lately, within the most recent few weeks to be exact, I have experienced very debilitating pain from my lower back. My cervical spine problems have also increased. These are just spinal conditions. Today, I visited VA ophthalmologists in Houston. These doctors and technicians went through a bunch of veterans who look much more bad off than I.

The truth is, there are many vets who are worse off than I am. But I have also found the potential for some serious quality of life issues that can only prove worse if they aren’t tackled as soon as possible.

Today, the residents and their head honchos, were in agreement with an optometrist visit I had at my local clinic a week or so ago. The O.D. said I had cataracts that needed surgery. Today, the medical doctors who deal with eye surgery, or ophthalmologists, confirmed the earlier diagnosis. That is, my left eye has some pretty bad cataracts and we scheduled surgery a month from today. My right eye will also need surgery but not until my left eye gets the repair it needs.

The resident with whom I talked and who ran a couple of eye tests, took me aside and told me that they had found another problem with my left eye. I am not certain as to its particulars. The doc did say this condition, which is a problem in the back of my left eye, could be acerbated by surgery on that eye for cataracts. From what the doctor said, the condition could be easily fixed with surgery, it is just a pain in the e*e,

I just felt the need to talk with my friends from this site, however few they might be these days.

If any of you folks who read this or have seen it before, I would appreciate a message from those of you all who so desire.

Be cool, all!

Mr. EFD

From Nov. 21, 2016

Yes I am still writing. But nothing tonight. I am watching the Texans. I’ll get back at you, amigos!

Today, Nov. 22, 2016

I wasn’t watching just any Texans last night. I watched the Houston Texans, known to polite society out there as a U.S. football team. Sometimes the Texans seem to be that.

Houston played the Oakland Raiders last night at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City. The Houston team could have won. They were beat by only a touchdown and an extra point. But the Texans did not win. Should I say any more? Probably not. But then again, screw it. All in football is fair, as does it seem in the “P” word. That is a “P” that rhymes with “C” and that stands for, well, kind of what the “P” word stands for and neither of those stands for “pool.” Unless … Oh well. Never mind.

Houston had a couple of problems in their way. First, they should only play when the whole team is fit as a fiddle playing “San Antonio Rose,” or better yet, the soulful-Western swing classic “The Maiden’s Prayer.”

All of that that Western swing from the days of “Willie, Waylon and The Boys” aside. What was I writing about?” Oh yeah, footsball.

The 30-year-old estadio can hold almost 110,000 people while those folks sit way up there at an altitude of about 7,200 feet. Swee–ee-t, right? Well maybe not so much if you suffer from altitude sickness.

Most medical material found on the internet usually gives an altitude of about 8,000 feet as where this sickness might begin. Like most medical information adapted for consumers, some leeway is often found.

A bit more than two years ago I visited Albuquerque, N.M. for a week. I flew out of my home airport in Nederland, Texas, which has an official elevation of just more than 15 feet above sea level. In between my take-off at Jack Brooks Regional Airport in Nederland and the George Bush Intercontinental in Houston was no more that 30 minutes, with that trip up to where the pineywoods and its gentle hills beginning. One who lives in the coastal plains might recognize the elevation increase at George H.W. Airport by some 80 feet.

Of course, when you’re flying … when you’re flying, the whole world flies with you … Nothing like a little butchered tune. La, la, la.

So here you are. You are flying from just lighter than sea level. You go up a great deal and then down you go for a landing … Wheeeee!

I first noticed in flying from Houston to Albuquerque, shortness of breath, when I walked up the jetway. I always try to diagnose everything away from serious causes: Heart, Lungs, Head Like A Golden Retriever. But to this day, I still have no idea what caused my breathing difficulties, as they returned on my journey home. Best I can tell, it seems to have a cause in my having become too fat.

So perhaps the problems with the Texans last night in Mexico? Surely a combination of more than a mile in altitude combined with very unhealthy skies would help not even the healthy breathe normally. It’s hard to determine whether some pro football players are too fat. Some players are certainly huge-sized big.

Then there were the lasers. Osweiler, had a Super Bowl last year after backing up legendary QB Peyton Manning in the nation’s only Mile High Stadium. He stands at about 6-feet-5 or 6. He doesn’t seem as if he had ever met fat.

So you figure out all those factors and what do you have left? Well, the Zebras.

Dressed in the black and white stripes, referees have helped the American public see that bad calls are less often than a fan might want to imagine. Still, the bad call exists.

But you be the judge! Did DeAndre Hopkins step out of bounds on this massive run off the Texans’ opening kick? It seems like the officials  must have sneezed during the opening drive of the game. Would it do any good to show an additional travesty?  Why would it?

Who are you asking? And what kind of Mexican beer do you like? The kind with that funny old man who is the most interesting man in the world? Or do you like that beer made in Texas?

It’s for another day’s discussion. But while I wait, it seems as if I am really thirsty as hell, my friend.