City of Memory

http://www.cityofmemory.org/

City of Memory is an online community map of personal stories and memories organized on a physical geographical map of New York City.

It's a great deal more but it needs a lot more people to add their stories. Please add yours!

So, home from Moorefield Eye Hospital after repeat surgery to reattach the edge of my retina. No tears is the good bit and it looks like that edge simply didn't reattach fully the first time. So extra careful this time to make sure all goes perfectly. 

Phoeey, hate this stuff.

LHC Compact Muon Solenoid Experiment Webcams

There are currently two webcams online

Camera 7: looking at the Underground Experimental Cavern from the Saleve side.
Camera 8: looking out of the window of the 1st Floor of the SCX building that houses the CMS Control room.


http://www.cyriak.co.uk/lhc/lhc-webcams.html

Just when you thought life was settling down it rises up and smacks you upside the head.

I came home from work today and noticed a few black specks in my right eye's vision. This is a bit frightening for me because that's the eye that just had a detached retina and I just had surgery to correct in July. At 2 follow up visits the doctors assured me it was healing beautifully, perfectly, I was the one who beat the odds and was going to get a full recovery.

Until tonight when I saw those specks. An hour later I suddenly saw a familiar shadow in my right eye's vision - that was it, game over. I knew that shape - it's the retina detaching again.

I did all the sensible things. Called the eye hospital A&E (emergency room for us Yanks). They said come down right now. So I grabbed a cab and went. Two hours and a lot of bright lights and eye drops, etc later, the eye doctor confirmed the retina was starting to detach again. So being a UK hospital they sent me home at 1 am. I have to be back at the hospital at 8 am in the morning when I'll find out if and when they'll re-operate. It's a queue here - who knows if they will take me right into surgery or make me wait days (while the eye gets worse).

I just can't believe this bad luck.

And just when I was going to post how life had settled down. Life was starting to go well. Work was going well, contract was going to be renewed. Who knows what will happen now.

Damn.

So it seems the world didn't end today ;)

Scientists fire up giant atom smasher
Deep beneath the border of France and Switzerland, scientists Wednesday fired up one of the most ambitious experiments ever conceived, firing protons around a 27-kilometer (17-mile) tunnel to try to unlock the secrets of the universe.
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/TECH/09/10/lhc.collider/index.html

Go Science! CERN rocks!

So much for the idiot-brigade doomsayers. The sky is not yet falling.

Three weeks now since I expected my agency to deposit my paycheck. Arrgh, what complete incompetence. This is wrecking my budget. It doesn't matter how much you make if you can't rely on them to deposit your funds promptly and reliably.