busybee fluffy rambles

Today my first two slip-cast pots were unloaded from the kiln and I picked ‘em up. They came out great!

My mold positives are 60mm across, and the bisqueware measures just under 54mm after firing, which tells me exactly what I need to know going forward. Basically anything I model needs to be 1.11x the intended final size. Easy enough to remember.

I’ll be glazing these, of course, although I’m not quite sure what to use them for. I’d only intended them for calibrating my shrink factor and they’re not really a useful size for anything. Maybe they’ll become the world’s worst cortado cups.

Okay, so, I’ve been having a lot more frustrating issues as of late:

• Whatever my connective tissue issue is, it’s getting way worse
• My kneecaps love to dislocate while I walk, and after 1.5 miles or so my knees start to give out under me
• My toes also love to either dislocate or weirdly cramp at random, which is quite painful, and getting them back in place is challenging
• My other joints (wrists, shoulders, TMJ, and sometimes elbows and ankles) are also in pain a lot of the time, and are possibly getting inflamed
• I’ve been having frequent bouts of vertigo (which are especially troubling when I’m driving)
• My tinnitus has gotten a lot worse recently
• Also my GERD is back, and my usual dietary measures to keep it at bay aren’t working
• I’m also getting occasional unexplained itchy rashes that flare up and subside after a few days
• And I am fatigued all. the damn. time.

Yesterday I had a doctor appointment to try to figure stuff out, and while the appointment itself was pretty unproductive due to the usual crap with modern healthcare practices, the doctor did at least run a lot of labwork for me, including checking autoimmune and inflammation factors and the most common connective tissue disorder markers. It all came back negative.

She did at least refer me to a rheumatologist, but I suspect the rheumatologist is just going to look at the labwork and say there’s nothing they can do for me. Most likely the answer is going to be the usual “diet and exercise,” when my diet is already pretty decent and I have difficulty doing exercise because of the very problems I’m complaning about.

The only thing that was even slightly out of the ordinary on the bloodwork was a borderline c-reactive protein, which indicates either systemic inflammation or coronary artery disease, and given that I’m a bit overweight I can guess which of the two the doctors are going to assume it is (especially without any other markers indicating underlying causes for inflammatory disease).

There’s got to be something causing all this but the state of the medical industry means that it’s unlikely that anyone I talk to in the medical field is going to come up with ideas on their own, they’re just going to tell me “diet and exercise” and to do BPPV exercises. During the Epley maneuver the vertigo does get way worse, but completing the maneuver doesn’t resolve it.

And of course none of this even comes close to addressing my joints not moving the way they’re supposed to. I love walking but I sure don’t like the feeling of my knee bending backwards when I do so. Nowadays I need knee braces and a cane whenever I go out, if I want to have any chance of making it home without being in agony. And never mind playing DDR.

It’s just, gosh. I wish someone out there also has these problems but also knows what the cause is so that I can find some hope of understanding what I can do to make things better. There is so much more I’d rather be doing than what I’m currently capable of.

I wasn’t planning on getting into VR tonight but I ended up doing it anyway.

The Bigscreen folks suggested washing the facial interface gasket with soapy water, and that seems to have fixed the skin irritation. So there must have just been some residue left over.

I also printed a Vive DAS adapter so now I have a much easier time putting the headset on and setting up the audio and so on. It ends up not sitting on my head quite right, though, and adjusting the fit to my eyes is a little more fiddly. Unfortunately the design of the BSB doesn’t make it easy to put on a top support strap (the DAS adapter has a little dealybop for the DAS’s top strap but I couldn’t get it to stay attached with double-sided tape and I’m not yet willing to use permanent adhesive) so my choices are either off-axis lenses or having it so tight it gives me a headache.

I also ended up removing the lens inserts for now, and I’ll wait for the QC-passing ones to arrive.

Everything is just so sharp now. I like it.

I feel like I need to sing the praise of CarMax, the dealership I bought the Niro at.

First of all: They had amazing prices on things, and a no-nonsense no-haggle policy. You pick out your car online, make an appointment to test drive it, and get some time with it.

They also did an amazing job of getting it ready for me. They performed all necessary service, including replacing the tires, and did a thorough inspection.

The inspection on mine missed two points: It was missing its emergency trickle charger, and there was a small but concerning crack on the windshield. When I pointed these things out, they immediately bought me a new, official trickle charger ($300) and paid for the entire windshield to be replaced ($700) — no questions asked, no proof required.

And with both issues, I’d called their service number outside of their business hours, and their answering service forwarded my concerns along and I got immediate contact, direct from the sales representative I worked with, as soon as they opened!

They also gave me the best offer on my old car by far, and worked really hard to get me every possible tax credit on the vehicle (the best one being the sales tax credit from the trade-in to begin with), and gave me a clear and concise explanation for why the ones I couldn’t get weren’t available. Not that it matters — the original price on the Niro was already ridiculously low, and the fact they’ve paid an additional $1000 to fix the issues mentioned above is a nice bonus on top.

This is 100% my own opinion, unsolicited, and I earn no commission or affiliate fee for saying this.

I honestly feel that CarMax is how all car dealerships should be.

The only thing I disliked about the whole experience is that they still aren’t quite equipped for EV sales, and don’t list things like range specs or show the battery condition on the inspection report. (For battery condition you really should bring an OBD-II scanner and an appropriate app, anyway. My Niro was still at 100%.) This is such an incredibly minor concern that I feel like it almost isn’t even worth mentioning, and as EVs get more popular this issue will definitely go away anyway.

So, yeah. CarMax is such a good experience. They are absolutely the way that car sales should be.

I don’t have any new releases on my bandcamp but if you’re interested in a wide variety of music, it is there for the buying, and during Bandcamp Friday none of the money from that goes to Songtradr/Bandcamp.

This weekend, you can also buy anything in my discography, including my entire discography, for 50% off using discount code TOOMUCHMUSIC.

And as usual I’m also trying to hype up others. This month I’m planning on buying:

• A ska tribute to They Might Be Giants
• Patricia Taxxon’s latest
• Some weird abstract electronic stuff
• All of the music of Aran P. Ink