Gone home
By Derek | August 14, 2019
Did a bunch of walking this morning, got tired and laid back down around 11am.
When I woke up around 2pm, I heard that my doctor cut me loose.
Been home for a few hours now, resting in my great recliner.
Waiting on dinner from Ericks.
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Visitors
By Derek | August 13, 2019
Good day today, got up and walked a few times. Climbed fake stairs with the PT crew.
Nurses had me out of bed, and seated for most of the day.
Broke out the Bluetooth speaker, so that we could jam out for most of the afternoon & evening.
Had several great visitors!
Playing Minecraft with my boy right now.
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Surgery went well
By Derek | August 12, 2019
Surgery went well, started a bit later than we were originally told, but went well.
Spent yesterday late afternoon resting, and chatting.
Got dinner right before the kitchen closed at 7p. Good thing, too. Nothing since midnight, and I are a light dinner, as instructed, at ~7pm last night. 24h fast, I did not expect.
Got my headphones in last night, downloaded music playin’ (WiFi sucks here, what a surprise) and a new ebook to read. All set after my long nap yesterday afternoon.
Woke up feeling refreshed this morning, surprisingly little pain. Doing well.
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Surgery scheduled
By Derek | August 11, 2019
I will be going for surgery on Monday, Aug 12th, and will spend 2-3 days in the hospital. There will be a 3 to 6 week recovery period.
As you [may] know, I’ve had back issues for some time. A couple of years ago, I had a really bad episode and was down (bedridden) for about 4 weeks. Last October another episode happened, and I was down for about 3 weeks.
Since October, it has only gotten worse, and recently, it’s gotten much worse, despite the fact that I have been treated, and have had physical therapy, and have lost weight.
Since about 2 weeks ago, I have numbness in my left leg constantly, as well as occasional numbness in my right leg, which makes it difficult to walk even short distances, or exercise.
I have elected to take spine surgery, as my back issues are not getting any better.
The plan is perform a laminectomy [1] from L1-L5 and a spinal fusion [2] between L3 and L4.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laminectomy
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinal_fusion
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Upgrading my MacPro
By Derek | June 4, 2018
I upgraded my 2009 Mac Pro to High Sierra today. What’s that, you say? High Sierra only supports 2010 and up Mac Pros? Hah. The Internet delivers.
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Automating Handbrake
By Derek | February 4, 2017
Last night I wrote a script to automate HandBrakeCLI.
I ended up needing to rip a DVD with many chapters that were originally individual movies, that I had foolishly lost the sources for. (Always keep backups of your source files!)
Generally, when you rip a DVD, you want the Title to be one movie file, with individual chapters. This script instead creates files for each chapter of a VOB Title.
My chapter-ripper.sh script can be found here:
https://github.com/derekmoyes/handbrake-automation
Keep reading for an explanation of the script, what it does, and how it does it.
Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: Entertainment, Family, Me, Movies, Technology, TV | No Comments »
Home Automation with HomeBridge
By Derek | March 14, 2016
I found a cool project called Homebridge; it lets you bridge Apple’s HomeKit (and therefor Siri) to home automation items that aren’t natively HomeKit compatible.
tl;dr I have my WeMo lights and my Craftsman AssureLink garage door opener added to my HomeKit configuration, along with my HomeKit native Ecobee 3 (which is not actually discussed here).
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YouTube on AppleTV2
By Derek | March 14, 2016
tl;dr: To get YouTube working on your AppleTV2, Install Plex Media Server, then PlexConnect (or OpenPlex if you have a Mac), then the updated YouTube channel. Continue reading for more detailed instructions.
After Google & Apple disabled the YouTube app on my AppleTV2, I’ve just been sending YouTube videos over Airplay to it. My dad, however, was very upset that YouTube — well, a feature that was a major selling point of something he bought, stopped working. I definitely see his point.
Fortunately, there is a fix.
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Comparing Epiphany and Midori on the Raspberry Pi
By Derek | September 7, 2014
I wanted to play around with the Raspberry Pi again, and what better opportunity than the release of a new browser choice? Since I’ve used the rPi, there’s really only been one good choice for a browser, and that’s Midori.
I took the opportunity to run some benchmarks on both browsers, as I hadn’t seen any published elsewhere.
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Giving up our freedoms since 1776
By Derek | July 4, 2011
I wrote this post to say thank you.
Thank you to the jack-booted federal thugs who trample on Californian’s rights to medicinal substances.
Thank you to the local police nationwide who participate in “asset forfeiture” — i.e. property seizures of alleged proceeds of crime — even before anyone’s convicted of anything.
Thank you to the TSA for keeping us safe from 95 year old grannies with loaded diapers, and for inappropriately touching our children.
Yes, I’m feeling some sarcasm today.
I weep for our once great nation.
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