Endopolis

I screwed up my back a couple months ago, and while nobody (including me) really knows why (old age, a heavier than normal 3-year-old, demolishing my back yard, etc...), I finally know what's NOT wrong.

I don't have a major back injury. This is good. I have a couple of minorly herniated discs, which is something that tons of people apparently walk around with and are pain-free. I am not pain-free, but the good news is that I see a light at the end of my tunnel. I think.

Doctors, surgeons, chiropractors... all of 'em suggest lots of exercise, stretching, and physical therapy. I'm using the directive as an excuse to get somewhat in shape before the twins arrive. I can't run or play basketball or do anything jarring or jumpy or stupid. But I can sweat on an elliptical, ride a bike, and swim if it causes no pain. I've done some light weights, too. Lots of crunches and ab work (strong front = strong back). The elliptical is usually pain-free. The bike? I rode 12 easy/flat miles a couple weeks ago and was pretty damn stiff for a couple days afterwards.

Swimming? It's awesome.

I haven't swam laps in over 10 years. I used to be a really strong swimmer, lifeguard, swim instructor... couldn't stay out of the water. Now I'm re-learning how to breathe, tread water, breast-stroke... the whole lot. It's harder than I remember and not as natural as I recall. This last weekend (session #3) I had my strongest swim yet, going about 45 minutes (with plenty of stopping) with multiple 100 yard lengths mixed with lots of 50s and 75s. Michael Phelps I am not.

The best part is remembering how you feel after a swim. Loose. Tired. Heady. Euphoric. Kind of like a good surf, only with more intensity. It's a full-body workout and a good one at that. Also clears the mind.

The orthopedic doc wants me to be able to swim for 40-45 minutes straight with no stopping before I see a physical therapist. That's a lofty goal. My stages/goals are coming in lengths of 100 yards, so I hope to be able to swim a straight 200 yard length, working my way up to a straight 500 which is pretty respectable and something I used to be able to do fairly routinely.

My goals were put in check last weekend during my "strong" swim, as the guy in the lane next to me did a crawl stroke with one arm, breathing only every-other stroke, while doing an intermittent dolphin kick. That is kick-ass. I'm just trying to get back to 200.

Baby steps. 

Posted by senders at 10:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

While sitting inside a San Jose VW dealership this weekend, I posted to my Facebook account from my iPhone: "Steve Enders has test-driven a mini-van. Nooooo!" It drew an overwhelming 22 heated responses. Incredible.

Like all great debates of our time -- Republican vs. Democrat, Global Warming vs. Global Cooling, Giants vs. Dodgers, the decision to consider potentially purchasing a mini-van is not to be taken lightly. The decision to test drive one was intensely painful. Actually buying one is unfathomable.

We drove a Routan, the van that Brooke Shields pitches in what's really quite a funny ad. We also have driven a Mazda5, which is about as un-mini-van a mini-van can be. Still, it's in the vehicle class. It's actually in its own class: MicroVan! As if that makes it any better.

The pros: Mini-vans are roomy, spacious, roomy, they haul lots of crap and people, provide easy access to rear seats and around baby carriers, the doors practically open by themselves, etc. They're roomy and convenient and contain features that other cars can't provide because they're not as big or dorky enough. That's about it.

The cons: They suck every bit of manliness out of a guy, sap every bit of cool out of anyone, they're boxes on wheels, the gas mileage is worse than a lot of big SUVs, and... did I mention the destruction of manhood?

Mini-vans are anti-everything we've been told is cool, they represent everything un-manly. As someone said to me recently: You might as well chop your balls off and hand them over. To whom, I'm not sure, but I get the picture of the ball-chopping. Ouch. Mini-vans = pain and no fun. Chop off your balls.

A book we're reading, "Juggling Twins," has a short, two-page chapter entitled: To Mini-Van or Not to Mini-Van? That is indeed the question, and the author (a woman) sides with the men saying that no matter how convenient, mini-vans are the antichrist.

So WTF was I doing looking at vans? They're open to consideration. We're about to become a family of five, for chrissakes, and you know having one would be convenient. Most SUVs and crossovers don't have pilot seats in the middle row (some do), and we have a nearly four-year-old who is going to need to be buckled in and two infants who we'll need easy access to.

In Iraq, however, I'm pretty sure most families of five or more don't have a Routan. Somehow, they survive. I think we could live without one, too.

We also looked at a Chevy Traverse (a CHEVY!) which is actually a really nice, large crossover with AWD and lots of bells and whistles and captain's chairs, and... holy crap it's expensive. And I thought GM was going bankrupt!? This is a pricy automobile.

I'm against mini-vans 100 percent. No desire. Zilch. Would I drive it much? Probably more than I'd like, which would be all but once. I'm pulling for the Mazda, actually, because it's super cheap, just big enough, gets decent mileage, and we've had good success with our current Mazda3 (great little car). I'd like to get the bare minimum for a couple of years, then re-assess when kids are bigger and surely the car companies will release awesome vehicles for families like mine with manly hybrid/biodiesel engines that get 50 MPG. Right?

We'll see where this goes, though I'm afraid I'm sitting in the passenger seat on this one.

Posted by senders at 07:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Everyone's all riled up about gay marriage, which I do think will be very legal in the next few years. And we straight people who think anyone should be married if they want to be need to do more to help out. There were a lot of problems with the anti-Prop. 8 campaign in the last election, and I admit to being one of the problems. Sorry. I'll try harder next time, and won't assume California's such a progressive place.

So I have a problem I'm trying to work out in my head. It's a little confusing, but goes something like this. Please bear with me as I work through this...

• Despite liberal use of hair styling products, I am totally hetero and am totally married to a woman. Together, we have a son (and two girls on the way). We're your classic American family, really, just trying to make our way in the world.
  
• We actually (really!) do have gay friends. Good ones, who are married and who have been in relationships with each other for far longer than I have been with my wife. We love and support them, friend to friend and one family to another.
  
• My wife and I were married almost nine years ago on a grassy hill overlooking the Monterey Bay. We didn't get married in a church. On purpose. Our officiant was non-denominational, as was our ceremony.
  
• I hear that lots of people get married in similar fashion, without any religious oversight. I've even been to such a wedding or two. I don't think these are anomalies.
  
• However, there are lots of very religious gay folks around. That's all good but kind of beside the point. 
  
• I wonder if the pro-Prop. 8 folks actually, really honor my marriage, which is about hetero-love, and that's about it.
  
• Yet for some reason, it's legal for me to be married -- I have a document saying the state approves of my marriage. I don't have any religious paperwork saying that I'm married. God certainly wasn't involved and didn't sign a piece of paper like then-Gov. Gray Davis did. OK, it was a rubber stamp but you get the picture.
• I ask the pro-Prop. 8 people: Are you really trying to protect my family from gay marriage, or do you think that since God wouldn't sanction two men to marry, therefore neither should the state? Shouldn't the two be completely divorced (oh don't get me started on traditional marriages ending in divorce!)?
  
• I know, lots of Prop. 8 support came from various churches -- Christian, Mormon, whatever. However, I think that the religious angle of Prop. 8 is being largely ignored, due to my next point and the crux of all my confusion...
  
• If God didn't sanction my marriage (and I didn't ask him/her to), why should my marriage be sanctioned by anyone or anything? Why should the state recognize my marriage? Is this a stretch in logic? I don't think so, really.
  
• Since I don't buy into the whole religious aspect of marriage, how is it that I'm married? If our hetero-only marriage isn't really valid due to lack of religious oversight, well, then I think you'd probably have quite a few invalid weddings and thus a lot of angry heteros in California, and boy would that be a pickle.
• I would prefer the pro-Prop. 8 people to cease trying to "defend (my) marriage." My marriage is not under attack. I'm very comfortable with my marriage, but thanks for trying to keep me safe. Really, my traditional marriage is not in need of your protective services.

You might say: Well, why did you bother to get married? Pretty simple: Because that's what people do (and we are a classic family after all) who love each other and want to be with each other for the rest of their lives. And, it just so happens that the state (the guys who gave me a document affirming my marriage) provides certain legal benefits to folks like me who are married.

So, sorry -- it's not logical that two people who love each other, like my gay friends, can't get the same piece of paper I have, and be "married," and get the same protection and benefits under the law. I doubt my logic would hold up in court, but it's one that I don't really hear being discussed in the court of public opinion.

Maybe it's something us hetero married folks who don't believe in discrimination can rally around.

Posted by senders at 03:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

The last couple of months have been a blur, but sometime around 15 weeks ago we found out we're having twins. This being the facebook age and all, things like this are tough to keep quiet. We've been trying to keep a low profile about it because we've been going through fetal genetic testing for the past few weeks, and we just wanted to be certain about everything before we started going around blabbing about it.

The good news now is that we're about 23 weeks along, and we have confirmed two very healthy and normal twin girls on the way. They're fraternal. Due date is likely to be mid-to-late August. They're totally unexpected, and we're in for one helluva ride. Minivans are now suddenly on our radar (nooooooo!).

I'd write more about this now but I've got a website redesign to work on, a room to fill, diapers to buy, etc.

But there, cat's out of the bag! More to come...

Posted by senders at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

So I'm off the hard drugs and onto figuring out how to get rid of my sciatica via more natural means.

The chiropractor has been an interesting experience -- kind of a mix between physical therapy and what I expected with all the back cracking and such. They're stretching me out real good, and I think the last appointment where they put me in this crazy pretzel position on my side and gave my back a good crack did something positive. I haven't been in severe pain since then.

On Friday I went to the acupuncturist, and it changed my life. 

The first 15 minutes or so was all consultation. The doctor was very kind and easy to talk to. We primarily talked about what I think is the real reason I'm in such pain: stress. Life at a startup is nuts. And if that wasn't enough, we're about 20 weeks pregnant with twin girls. Yes, you heard it here first. The due date is probably late July/August. Suddenly we're thinking about diapers and minivans, how to work with two babies, etc. It's all enough to make a guy's back hurt.

So after chit-chatting about life and my back, she took me into a room where she tested my meridians on a computer. The thing about acupuncture is that despite the fact that it's a little hocus pocus, thousands of years of success and friends I've had who swear by it can't be wrong. So she's poking my finger with an electronic probe that's connected to a MacBook via a USB cable, and there's a digital graph that's going up and down, beeping, and she's looking at it, poking me in the finger and making "yes" and "hmmm" sounds. She discovers because of the stress and that I'm vegetarian, that I'm deficient in B vitamins and in Magnesium. She'll give me some supplements after the acupuncture session, which will also focus on curing the stress and pain. She says they'll probably help me. She's probably right.

Then we go into the acupuncture room and she lies me down on a massage table, face first. She shows me the needles, which look as I expect, and begins inserting them into my left leg, mainly along the "T-band" tendon as I ask lots of nervous questions. She puts one near my knee, a couple more along the side of my calf, and a couple around my achilles tendon. She puts electronic stimulation pads on my lower back, and another needle in the top of my head, "for the stress." I felt a slight sting as she inserted a couple of needles in my leg, but nothing severe. More like a pinch.

Immediately I broke out in a sweat. I got hot, and she said I was reacting normally. My palms were practically dripping. I started breathing quickly and while trying to relax with deep breaths, felt a twinge in my left side near my stomach -- there was no needle there. She said it was normal, likely my gall bladder.

OK. Weird.

She gave me an emergency escape button to push if I needed it, and left the room for a couple minutes as some relaxing eastern/meditative music played in the background. Mexican guys next door were working on a house and blasting their music. It was distracting. I wanted to push the button out of panic, but also wanted to see where this ride was going. I could feel my body doing strange things. A twitch here, a twinge there. I felt vibrations moving down my legs and out my toes. I felt a little scared, but also very relaxed.

She came back in after a couple minutes to check on me, and told me to "gel."

Over the next 15 minutes, I felt more of what I described above, laughed to myself a few times and nearly cried once. I slipped into a complete state of relaxation and deep breathing. I tried to doze off but I didn't really need to. I was asleep, but aware.

When time was up she came back in and extracted the needles. I felt a few sharp zings as she removed the ones from my leg. I felt really spacey -- like I was stoned but also similar to the way you feel after an hour-long massage. I took my time getting up and walked out of the office feeling incredibly different, if not slightly healed. The pain was still there, but I didn't care about it. There was a weight lifted from my shoulders. Cars whizzed by as I walked back to work and I didn't pay attention to a single one. I got back to the office and felt happy, trying to describe the experience to my co-workers who probably thought I was a bit nuts. Or stoned.

It's tough to describe. Am I better? Yeah. Was it because of the acupuncture? Maybe. It definitely helped de-stress me. I've been taking the supplements for a couple days now and feel good. My back is still really tight and my sciatica a little painful, but it hasn't woken me up during sleep since Wednesday. That's a good thing.

How much of all this is mental? How much is attributable to the chiropractor? My stretching and icing? I'll probably never know but I do feel like I'm on the other side of the hump now. I hope. I'm a changed person because of the acupuncture. It's powerful stuff, and I'd encourage anyone to try it.

Heck, anything is better than Prednizone. That shit is wicked.     

Posted by senders at 04:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)