Anything new ?

Clocker

Storage? I am Storage!
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Hi Guys- Long time no see. Good to see most of you are still around and kicking. Anything new going on around here these days? Guys get married, divorced, have kids, etc? Just curious how things have been rolling around here. Looks like uda is gone, how did you manage that?

Clocker
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
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USA
Hi Guys- Long time no see. Good to see most of you are still around and kicking. Anything new going on around here these days? Guys get married, divorced, have kids, etc? Just curious how things have been rolling around here. Looks like uda is gone, how did you manage that?

Clocker

Hey Kevin,

Udamanan was banned. He finally got on Doug's last nerve after being increasingly annoying and trollish.

I'm really messed up, but that is another post.
 

Chewy509

Wotty wot wot.
Joined
Nov 8, 2006
Messages
3,348
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Gold Coast Hinterland, Australia
Since last time, had a little girl, GG.

Our son is now 3yrs old, and our daughter is 1yr old. (They're 23mths apart).

Now at Uni full-time, studying software engineering, but otherwise nothing else has pretty much changed.
 

Tannin

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Huon Valley, Tasmania
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G'day Clocker! Not too much new. I've more or less retired, but I haven't done too much work for quite a few years, so it's not that great a change. Good to see you here!

And Bozo - bit of a surprise there. I suppose I think of all you guys as a bit like Tea - you know, she's a permanent, she's been the 7-year-old ape who lives on Storage Forum for close-on ten years now.

And in my head, you Bozo (like P5 and Merc and Dave and Flagreen and all the rest of you regulars) are a permanent twenty-something, or possibly 30-something people. Open heart surgery is not something that would have occurred to me! Still, better to have had it and be able to talk about it today than the alternative!
 

CougTek

Hairy Aussie
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I suppose I think of all you guys as a bit like Tea - you know, she's a permanent, she's been the 7-year-old ape who lives on Storage Forum for close-on ten years now.
Well, that's a change ; she used to be five years old.

And in my head, you Bozo (like P5 and Merc and Dave and Flagreen and all the rest of you regulars) are a permanent twenty-something, or possibly 30-something people.
Actually, among the regulars, there's probably more fifty-something years old members than thirty years old. With SSDrueding entering his fourth decade of roaming on this planet, there's no longer any member in their twenties I'm aware of.
 
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mubs

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Nov 22, 2002
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Somewhere in time.
Hey Kevin, nice to hear from you! I still haven't stuck in the two ram sticks I bought from you in fall 2007! There in a box somewhere...
 

Bozo

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G'day Clocker! Not too much new. I've more or less retired, but I haven't done too much work for quite a few years, so it's not that great a change. Good to see you here!

And Bozo - bit of a surprise there. I suppose I think of all you guys as a bit like Tea - you know, she's a permanent, she's been the 7-year-old ape who lives on Storage Forum for close-on ten years now.

And in my head, you Bozo (like P5 and Merc and Dave and Flagreen and all the rest of you regulars) are a permanent twenty-something, or possibly 30-something people. Open heart surgery is not something that would have occurred to me! Still, better to have had it and be able to talk about it today than the alternative!


For the record, I'm 62 :-D
 

timwhit

Hairy Aussie
Joined
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With SSDrueding entering his fourth decade of roaming on this planet, there's no longer any member in their twenties I'm aware of.

Wrong again Coug. I'm in my 20s for 4 more months. I think blakerwry is still in his 20s also, but I could be wrong.
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
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I'm younger than Bozo and older than JTR if that suffix the birthdate.
 

Clocker

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Glad to see you guys are all doing well! And Bozo, glad your surgery seems to have gone well too.

Things at GM are OK for me. We took pay cuts for a while but got most of it back. My wife works for a company the services GM and she took a paycut too. Never got that back. :-( The Volt launch went pretty well although there were some surprises near the end & during launch that got pretty hectic in the upper structure area, where I own parts. It was my first launch after being on a number of programs that got cancelled before getting that far. I can honestly say, working the launch on a vehicle is probably the most difficult thing I could ever imagine doing for (white collar) work. It can be crazy! It was especially bad for me because the plant is only 16 miles away and I own the biggest Class-A part on the vehicle (the Body side) as well as parts that are in areas known to have issues, usually. Actually, I am the last EFlex man standing from the upper structures area...at this point I own the whole thing from an Engineering standpoint; my cohorts have moved on to other programs or were terminated during/before the bankruptcy. I'm working on one of our next-gen vehicles now too but I get to keep the Volt with the small number of changes to the body we make for product improvement and cost reduction etc. I'm a rare breed in the Engineering world; I actually Design (NX software) and Engineer my own parts. Works out good for me getting my work done but I, unfortunately, don't get to collect the pay for two people. :-( We have a massive onslaught of programs with not enough people working on them. Especailly in the small car/suv area where I work. So the title DE (Designing Engineer) has jokingly becoming 'Do Everything'. They gave us laptops so we can 'be more efficient' and work at home & while in meetings. I take it home sometimes but try not to Design at home too often (just email etc.). You really need a gigabit connection to our datafile servers to log in to Teamcenter in a reasonable amount of time.

My laptop is pretty cool, Core i7 HP Elitebook 8540w with 16GB RAM, Win7 Enterprise & some nVidia Quadro card. Batterylife is not great but I usually just bring the massive power brick with me. The weakpoint of this thing is clearly the HDD. Wish it had an SSD but I am usually working on the network anyway.

My son is 3.5years now. I can't believe how quickly it's gone by. He really kept me from worrying too too much during the downturn and bankruptcy because he's crazy. The boy is non-stop action. What a joy but he does drive me friggin' nutz sometimes! He's in a daycare directly accross the street from the Tech Center where I work. Love all the girls who work there...they are the best & he loves it there. It ain't cheap, either! He'll be starting at a real pre-school this Fall!

I have not done much with the home computer. No on it a lot. I did manage to play Portal (free on Steam). Loved that game! Also managed to play COD4 Modern Warefare ($5 on Steam I think). Really enjoyed that one. I only have time for single player stuff though and, when I doplay, I usually pay for it in the morning needing a lot of extra coffee!

Been working out for the past 8 months about 3x per week (about 1hr each time). I'm putting on a lot of muscle and staying lean. About 195lbs. and 5'10". Didn't expect to be doing that at 40 but once I hit that milestone I figured I better start taking my health seriously. I think the key for me has been protein intake. I have a double dose of Syntha-6 every morning as my breakfast.

I'm on FB if any of you guys do it. PM me for my info. if you want to connect that way. I don't get on there too much, I am more of a lurker. But everybody likes to look at pictures and I have some up.
 

ddrueding

Fixture
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Wow Clocker, good to hear things are going well for you. And congrats on the kid, sounds like tons of fun. Another single-player game that I really enjoyed that is available on Steam is Alpha Protocol.
 

CityK

Storage Freak Apprentice
Joined
Sep 2, 2002
Messages
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I had open heart surgery.

Did you mention this previously Bozo? If you had I completely missed it. Anyway, welcome to the zipper club! (Long, long, time member here).
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
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Great. :( How was the recovery and how long did you take off work?
 

Bozo

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Did you mention this previously Bozo? If you had I completely missed it. Anyway, welcome to the zipper club! (Long, long, time member here).

Thanks! I don't have a zipper though. No stitches in my chest. I think they used super glue. :-D
 

CityK

Storage Freak Apprentice
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Thanks! I don't have a zipper though. No stitches in my chest. I think they used super glue. :-D
the relentless march of progress ... I suspect that in a few years they'll have it down to a strip of gauze and some duct tape :p
 

Bozo

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My heart is great. There was no significant damage after the heart attack. :thumbleft:
I do need to get more exercise though.
 

paugie

Storage is cool
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Bulacan, Philippines
We all need more exercise. After the attempt to climb Mr. Kinabalu last February, I became pretty sedentary.
Glad that we are still around. Just turned 57 a week ago.
 

LunarMist

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the relentless march of progress ... I suspect that in a few years they'll have it down to a strip of gauze and some duct tape :p

That is what I keep thinking, but how long to wait? By the time the technology is great I'll be long gone.
 

Bozo

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I read some where that they can now do bypass surgury without cutting you open.
They use Borgs, err um robots.
 

Clocker

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Speaking of heart attacks. My 45 year old older brother just had one this morning. Got three stints installed today with some other work to possibly be done tomorrow. :-( WTF. They are even talking about releasing him tomorrow too. Huh? I guess the best way to get sick is to stay in the hospital but that seems kinda fast to me.

Glad I have been on meds. to control my cholesterol for a long time...he never was. Our family has hereditary high levels. Scary shit indeed.
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
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I read some where that they can now do bypass surgury without cutting you open.
They use Borgs, err um robots.

I don't know. I'm going to finally have more tests done in June.
 

Bozo

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Speaking of heart attacks. My 45 year old older brother just had one this morning. Got three stints installed today with some other work to possibly be done tomorrow. :-( WTF. They are even talking about releasing him tomorrow too. Huh? I guess the best way to get sick is to stay in the hospital but that seems kinda fast to me.

Glad I have been on meds. to control my cholesterol for a long time...he never was. Our family has hereditary high levels. Scary shit indeed.

Wow, that's really young. Hope he is doing better. :-D

I had surgury on Monday and went home on Friday.
 

time

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So apparently I'm not immortal after all.

Haven't had a heart attack yet - I think.

Felt light-headed walking up hills. Cholesterol very high, Systolic BP 147, local doctor gave me an ECG and diagnosed ischemia. Felt really unwell a few days later and spent 3 days in hospital (BP 152, abnormal ECG and a small troponin leak rang alarm bells).

I have a deep resting heart rate under 50, which kept setting off the alarm every time I fell asleep - now I have a better understanding of sleep deprivation torture, the following night my body went into a panic every time I drifted off.

A couple of weeks later, I underwent a myocardial perfusion test, which is where you're injected with radioactive isotopes and they take pictures with a gamma camera after rest and after a stress test (treadmill). As well as ECGs etc.

This showed I had a "minor" occlusion.

I had a Holter monitor (portable ECG) fitted for 24 hours, and exercised fairly vigorously for about an hour (for me, that's just walking fast up long hills, which kept my heart rate up to 142). The analysis showed abnormal results during the period of maximum exertion.

This all took a few weeks. Although I already had a pretty reasonable diet, I made some changes and aimed to walk more than an hour a day (it's fairly hilly around here). My total and LDL cholesterol have dropped by 20%, and triglycerides by a third. So far, I've only lost 3.5kg (but probably put on a couple of kilos in leg muscle).

I went back to the hospital cardiology department and the ECG was okay.

Unfortunately, the consultant pointed out that the accumulative evidence - although inconclusive - suggested I probably have atherosclerosis, and they'd really like to do an angiogram. That's where they stick a bunch of guide wires and catheters into your groin and pass it up to your heart.

That could lead to:

1. A regular cocktail of drugs to try to "stabilize" the arterial plaque, or
2. A coronary bypass operation, or
3. Insertion of one or more stents (angioplasty), or
4. The discovery that there's nothing seriously wrong with me.

There are risks associated with just having angiography, let alone angioplasty. Stents require a lifelong commitment to blood thinners, anti-coagulants, etc, and they tend to lose effectiveness after a few years. The cardiologist told me that outcomes were much better for bypasses.

WTF? I haven't even got chest pain! I'd love to hear other people's stories.
 

Handruin

Administrator
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Sorry to hear things aren't going well for you, time. I hope they can find some more-certain answers regarding your health.
 
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