June 3rd, 2004:

I don’t associate my real name with this website. I also don’t associate my employer (or any previous employer) with this website. This way, I can complain about whatever I want here, and not worry about who reads it. Additionally, I don’t have to worry about my employer becoming upset with having my name, thoughts, or opinions associated with them. However, I haven’t always been this diligent about maintaining this separation.

A few days ago a got an email from an “Investigator” with my company’s “Security” department. The email was blank except for his name, telephone number, and position… basically, his signature. I’m sure the email was sent as a mistake, since there was no text in it. However, I immediately wondered why someone in my company’s Security department would have that email address. I checked my web server logs at around the same time and found the IP address of one of my company’s proxy servers hitting my site from a search result from google images with my company’s name as the search terms.

Three years ago, I got a new badge at work. Through a huge accident and misunderstanding the words “PROPELLER HEAD” were proudly writtein above my name on my badge. I scanned my badge in to show it off to my readers. I didn’t consider this a huge problem since, search engines don’t (usually) read words in images, and, even then, the company name is a logo which would be difficult to detect the words from. Unfortunately, not thinking, I named the file with my company’s name, hence the reason google’s search engine found it.

I took the image (and the entire post) down immediately. I also did a few extra searches to make sure there was no additional screw ups that would link my company’s name to my site. I didn’t think anything bad would happen, as it was a simple mistake and I meant no harm to anyone. Regardless, today, my boss was contacted by security and informed of the offending material. It was already down, and my boss isn’t too upset by it, so that’s good. Security is only asking that it be removed and nothing more. I’m not sure why it’s a problem for them. Apparently, the logo on the badge and the look of the badge itself is copyrighted.

I don’t think any more trouble will come of it. As soon as google’s cache forgets about it, the problem will go away. However, because of this, our “Security” department and my boss now know about this site. That’s not entirely bad, but it also means I may get paranoid and go through a run of mass censorship.

So… again, I’m stuck. What do I do? Should I drop the site all together? Continue my plans for separations of all personal content from this site? Or, just not care and keep on posting? I could block all access to this site from IPs owned by my company. That would at least force any “snoopers” to have to do so from home on “their” time. But, I don’t think that’s the answer.

I’m not usually one to talk about my ailments, and I certainly don’t like to whine about all of my problems. However, I know that many of you are concerned about me and my health. Therefore, I will mention this now, and give updates as they come, and try to keep the complaining to a minimum in my day-to-day writings.

I had my appointment with the ENT today. After describing my symptoms to him, he told me that his initial suspicion is that I have what’s called “Meniere’s Disease”:http://www.menieresinfo.com/. After doing some research when I got home, I can say that my symptoms do indeed directly match the symptoms of this disease.

Meniere’s disease, in a nutshell, is excess fluid in the inner ear. You’d be surprised how much trouble such a simple thing can cause. The symptoms are Tinnitus (ringing in the ears), Fluctuating, progressive, low-frequency hearing loss, a sensation of “fullness” or pressure in the ear (like you’re descending in an airplane), periodic episodes of rotatory vertigo (dizziness, the bed-spins).

The Tinnitus is easy. So my ears ring. Fine. The low-frequency hearing loss could be very annoying, but, at this point, mine isn’t too bad and it doesn’t affect me less often than it does. The “fullness” in the ears is very annoying, but doesn’t really stop me from living day to day. The vertigo, however, is unbearable. Sure, it would be far worse if it was constant vertigo. However, the fact that I get almost no indication that I will be having an “attack”, only to find myself in the middle of one minutes later is difficult to deal with. To make matters worse, the vertigo is very incapacitating. I can’t walk, I can’t see, I can’t hear. If I move my head in either direction, I’ll throw up. I’ll probably throw up once or twice anyway. Drugs don’t help on the rare case that I can manage to keep them down. This lasts for at least 2 hours, usually more like 6. After which, I can do nothing but sleep, which is followed by two days (or more) of feeling as though I’ve been run over by a train. Not fun at all, let me tell you.

Meniere’s isn’t something you can test for. Instead, it’s simply the diagnosis given when all other possibilities have been ruled out. Therefore, even though 99.99% of the time these results turn of negative, I will be undergoing three tests in the near future: an “MRI”:http://www.cis.rit.edu/htbooks/mri/, an “ENG”:http://www.tchain.com/otoneurology/testing/engrot.html, and a “ECOG”:http://www.dizziness-and-balance.com/testing/ecog.html. What these tests do, is rule out any other possibilities.

The MRI will rule out any brain disorders.

The ENG will rule out any problems with the acoustic nerve which provides hearing and helps with balance.

The ECOG will search for increased inner ear fluid pressure, which is a present in some cases of Meniere’s disease.

The worse part about Meniere’s is that there is no cure. There are some things that can be done to help relieve some of the symptoms, but, in the end, it’s only slightly better, and certainly not “fixed”. The fact that the vertigo attacks can come on quickly with no indication make it very difficult to be normal. Every time my ears feel like they need to pop, I worry if I’ll be throwing up the next minute. Every time I drive home from work, I wonder if I’ll find myself half way there and unable to drive. Every time my ears ring a little louder than normal, I wonder if I should just stay in bed.

The funniest thing is that I lived the majority of my childhood, and all of my adult life scared to death that I would some day be diagnosed with what my mom has: Cerebral Ataxia, a degenerative and hereditary disease of the brain and central nervous system affecting the cerebellum resulting in uncoordination, lack of balance, and poor motor skills that has no known cure. I went through periods in life where I would walk the balance beam once a week just to see if I was getting any worse. And now, after all of that, I end up with something entirely different, also incurable, and almost as incapacitating.

Regardless of all that, I’ve never been a whiner, and I don’t intend to start now. I’ll make do with what I have, deal with my problems as they come, and live the best life that I can.

So I cleaned my sensor. That’s right, I cleaned my digital camera sensor. Reluctantly, I popped the lens off, opened the shutter, and wiped the $600+ sensor clean.

I take very good care of my camera. To some people, $1,000 is just another business expense, but it’s quite a bit of money to me. So I do what I can to make sure that that $1,000 is going to last me as long as possible. I would say my parents use their camera “normally”, while I use mine “cautiously”. The difference in the amount of dirt in the chamber between our two camera was incredible: mine was much cleaner. Yet still, somehow, a tiny hair, or the smallest piece of dust found its way into the chamber, behind the mirror, in back of the shutter, and on to the sensor.

“Competitive Camera”:http://www.competitivecamera.com/ was the only place in town that sold the materials I needed for this operation. If you’re in the DFW area, and you need camera equipment or supplies, once again, I highly recommend these guys.

I had to clean mine twice to get all the dirt off. And it looks as good as new know. My dad’s was really dirty. Yet, after only about 5 attempts (and, we did his first, so, maybe we didn’t do the first 3 or 4 “right”), his also came out very clean with no nasties in the images.

If you want to see just how bad yours is, my dad and I worked out a test that seems to show the most dirt. Put your camera in aperature priority mode. Set your aperture to f/11 or f/16. Direct your camera to overexpose by 2 stops. Set your focus mode to manual. Focus at close to the camera (furthest from infinity) as your lens will allow. Point the camera so that a white piece of paper completely fills the frame. Press the shutter release. Now, examine the image on a pixel to pixel (100% zoom) level and look for dust and hair. That’s it.

If you do find dust or hair and decide that you, too, want to clean your sensor, I followed, roughly, Nicolas R’s “CCD/CMOS Cleaning Instructions”:http://www.pbase.com/copperhill/ccd_cleaning.

Good luck, and happy cleaning.