Checksum Arcanius

First of all, Happy New Year! Its hard to believe that we are getting pretty close to the end of the first decade in the 2000s. For me, last year was full of tremendous blessings and exciting times, and I look forward to another good year.

I have been very busy since Christmas, hosting several parties and attending several more, visiting with friends and family, and generally avoiding real responsibility for a while. Among my activities:

• Christmas Day with my parents, sister, and nephew. I was tremendously blessed this year.
• Hosting the TRC Alumni Potluck — I brought together a few people from the olden days of the TRC at my place for good food and good company.
• The arrival of Ben and Kaylee, my brother and sister-in-law
• Attending the McElroy Family Christmas Party — With the traditional visit to a theatrical venue — this time it was Seattle Children Theater’s “Neverending Story.”
• Hosting a spectacular “Friends and Family” dinner where I acted as sous-chef and the food came out incredibly perfect. Perhaps the best ever overall dinner I’ve had at my parent’s place.
• Two new year’s eve parties — the first at the Marsh’s and the second home at my place. The former involved a Wii, and the latter involved fireworks, the Great Dalmuti, and a few too many drunk people for optimal enjoyment.

All in all, I had a great time, and I was especially grateful to see Scott and Maneesh again, as well as catching up with Amy, Kat, and a few other people from the International School days.

And I still have Christmas gifts to deliver, but I’ve always been a bit slow that way.

May your holiday season be filled with many fond memories!

LAN party today, 1-whenever, and I fell asleep at 3:30 or so. Just got home, and people there are still going. So much for youth!

On Thursday I promised my physical therapist that I would make it into the gym before our next visit. So, while taking a brief break from The Project on Sunday, I headed to the IMA for a little bit of a workout. I was pleasantly surprised with how far I’ve come in just the couple of weeks.

Not long ago, my hamstrings could barely lift my own lower leg at all. A week ago, I couldn’t curl even 25 pounds. Sunday, 25 pounds was difficult, but I was able to curl it 10 times for three sets without overexerting myself. Now, two days later, I’m feeling the first “good pain” that my legs have felt in a long time — the achy muscle pains of gaining back muscle tone and strength to my atrophied right leg.

It has been a good start to the week in other ways as well. My CSE partner Remington’s work last night and this morning secured a 4.0 for us in our CSE class, and my physical therapist cleared me for riding my bike today. So for the first time in a long time, I rode my bike to school. It felt good, but next time I’m wearing my long fingered gloves :-).

Tomorrow: Interview at Google

Wednesday: CSE ABET Lunch (Major Accreditation)

Thursday: Physical Therapy

Friday: Lab Due

Saturday: FIRST Lego League Edmonds Regional

Also, running out of time on the big CSE project and two new BioE projects are just starting…

We all have much to be thankful for. For starters, could you ask for a more perfect, beautiful autumn day? Wow!

Yesterday I went into work at Microvision for the first time since my surgery. I only remained for a little over two hours, but it felt good to get back into the swing of things.

I can now drive, walk fairly well (I still take crutches along for longer walks), and do most activities without assistance. Stairs are still a little interesting — I still go down with the bad, up with the good — and biking is still out of the question — my right knee doesn’t bend enough to go all the way around yet. I also am having trouble getting my right knee straight, though I have an exercise that I am doing to work on this issue. However, I am thrilled with the progress I have made so far. By next quarter I should be biking, and then its all downhill from there (at least on my way to class)!