I live on a pretty famous road. Mostly it’s renowned because of Jimmy Buffet. I was a Parrot Head from the early 80s and knew all of his best songs by heart. A misplaced Florida boy living in dreary Seattle!
Jimmy Buffett A1A
If you leave my house and head south (which is the only way you can turn because it is a one-way road at this point) you will eventually end up in Key West. It also happens to be the singular path south through Cocoa Beach. You cannot often get a selfie standing in the middle of the road!
South A1A
It’s been a foggy couple of mornings so there is no sunrise this new year. Looking forward to a healthy one if possible and the third installment of ‘Excellent Adventure – The Left Coast’ come spring.
Another year has gone by, and time seemly speeds up with every passing year!
Tis the Reason for the Season
Since we have now entered a post-fact era, I decided it makes much more sense for today to be the last day of the year as well as the celebration of last year’s trip around the Sun. It makes a lot more sense in light of the fact that it is the shortest day of the year (at least in the Northern Hemisphere where thing count 😂) and it’s all uphill from here. Plus it gets rid of all of those other wanna-be celebrations that are, in fact, all derived from the Solstice.
Mother Earth
So in our little corner of the space-time continuum, tomorrow will be New Year’s Day and 2023 will begin! And since we’re at it we should really append the age of the earth onto the date too.
After several tries, starting in August, NASA was finally able to launch SLS (Space Launch System) with the unmanned Orion capsule as part of the Artemis program (Artemis I). The capsule will orbit the moon and return in a shake-down run for sending astronauts there in the coming years.
Apollo 17 – December 19, 1972
I watched the last Saturn V rocket with Apollo 17 launch at night 50 years ago. My girlfriend’s father got us to Kennedy Space Center to view it. It was delayed but finally went up in the early morning hours. It lit up the sky and the roar was deafening. It was fantastic to see the successor launch all these years later.
Splashdown
I watched the splashdown and did some screenshots as it landed off the coast of California.
Interestingly, the splashdown occurred on the same date as the last lunar lander on Apollo 17 landed on the moon – 50 years later – during my senior year in high school 😵💫.
I was pretty shocked earlier this week to see an unheard-of November hurricane Nicole headed our way. It could have been worse but the beach is trashed 😔. That makes two this year after a couple of years off.
My power was on this morning but I may have lost internet (or both).
Before the cameras went offline I could see a lot of debris and my patio was flooded, but that’s not unusual. They experienced 50 mph winds overnight and the city issued a lot of updates on outages and closures, including the main causeway (link to the mainland) being closed due to flooding for a while.
I would not be surprised if the crappy fence on the southern side came down in places. I put up some heavy rope between 6×6 posts to help contain this. If so, it will be interesting to see how it worked. I doubt I got any flooding in the garage from what I saw on the front cameras.
Update Friday morning.
My friend stopped by and confirmed that the only damage was some debris and downed trees. He told me that the tennis court at ramp road on the lagoon several blocks away from my house was under several feet of water.
Track of Ian across Florida
Epilog Saturday morning
We leave Pennsylvania today headed for West Virginia – and right into the path of the remnants of Ian. Poetic justice I suppose 😆.
Although technically not correct, I like to think of myself as a cyborg now. Turns out that my left knee quit working this winter. I was surprised to learn that I needed to have the whole thing replaced. Not exactly high on my list of things that I wanted to have to do in 2022. Oh well. I’m one month into the recovery now and it still pretty much hurts like a bitch.
Left knee X ray from Kari
Here’s what happens: A incision is made about 8-inch long on the very top of your leg and then opened up to reveal the knee. Next, some of the elements of the knee that are in the way are removed to expose the bottom of the upper leg and the top of the lower leg. They use a high-tech machine to figure out how to cut these bones to accept the metal components. The cuts are then made. The metal replacement parts are then cemented onto the bones. The top part is rounded. The bottom part is flat with a stem that goes down into the knee. Between the two a plastic spacer is added. The knee is then sewn back up.
Artificial knee from Wikipedia
And just like that, you have a new knee. And oh by the way it hurts like a son of a bitch. The most painful procedure that I’ve done so far. But the results are good, after a month I can walk pretty well but the range of motion, especially trying to bend my knee, is still rather limited.
Rockledge Regional Hospital
5 Weeks
5 weeks
I had the bandage removed about a week ago. The knee is healing up fine. You can almost see my kneecap again. I can walk a mile now without stopping. it still takes a couple of strides before I can get my gait right. I can bend the knee about 90° now. A bit disappointed that I’ll not ever be able to get all the range back. Most patients can achieve 0–110 degrees according to Wikipedia. Normal range is 135°. The knee will extend to nearly a straight position. Still doing physical therapy for one hour twice a week including every day at home a couple of times during the day. Pain is pretty minimal now.
6 Weeks – COVID Time!
Yes – as an added bonus to my recovery I finally caught COVID 🦠 – likely from Physical Therapy. Symptoms included low fever (100.5F max), upper and lower respiratory gunk with coughing and sneezing, fatigue & muscle pain (I guess – hard to tell with everything else). I recovered mostly in 24 hours other than the congestion.
The good news is the knee is doing really well now. I can now generally walk without having to ramp up my gait. The back is much, much less sore. I can almost see my left kneecap again. Yippie!
8 Weeks
I added the latest x-ray at the top of the post. I can currently bend my knee 104 degrees – Dr says I should get 110 – 115 (120 is considered normal gait). Very little pain walking now – I can do 1 1/2 miles with no problem.
I remember as a young boy being enthralled with all things space. I found copies of old Buck Rodgers and Flash Gordon comics where they would take off and land in their spaceships. It seemed to make sense you would want to do that 😎.
I shot this video of the most recent Falcon 9 lunch this morning. The first time I can remember seeing an uninterrupted feed of the stage 1 landing.
This video was shot several days later showing a booster landing at the Cape.
