XYMer's Home away from Home

I hear ya there. I had to actually tell my physical therapist I couldn't continue with the PT for my back because of the chronic pleuritis I've got. Turning the wrong way triggers it bigtime.

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LOL! I had two weeks of “vacation” between gigs, wherein I was going to replace a motherboard on a known-problematic 800MHz Quicksilver for a friend, as well as resurrect the Beige G3. My how time flies. Lately my focus has been on riding with emphasis on racing fitness (only one more race scheduled for this year in October). The new gig came up unexpectedly– honestly I did not believe it would come through, and now I am going to be super busy; can money buy happiness?

-he who stacks pork

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Powerbook 180, System 7.1, 100MB HD, 8MB
Surly 1x1, 9:zero:7 Whiteout, Chinese 29er, Gary Fisher Rig SS, Surly Troll SS, Santa Cruz Chameleon, NS Eccentric, Frankendale Cannonstein 650b
I enjoy picnics on the beach with hot and crazy women

Not really, but it can prevent misery.

Though to be honest all the people I knew who made 6 and 7 figures were mostly pretty miserable SOBs.

The only one who wasn't was a geek.

Leo, I thought you gave up racing?

Me too. Realized at age almost 50 that I am still as fast as dudes half my age, so I’m sticking with it. Mostly doing singlespeed races though; they start us with the pros, and we usually end up spanking everyone else (except the pros) on the climbs.

-he who stacks pork

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Powerbook 180, System 7.1, 100MB HD, 8MB
Surly 1x1, 9:zero:7 Whiteout, Chinese 29er, Gary Fisher Rig SS, Surly Troll SS, Santa Cruz Chameleon, NS Eccentric, Frankendale Cannonstein 650b
I enjoy picnics on the beach with hot and crazy women

Ya know, I kinda thought this would happen.. you dedicated a lot to it in the past.

I’m out of commission unfortunately. A week ago a car opened the door into me whilst commuting to work. Need hand surgery and knee needs to heal. Shittiest part was that I was registered for an XC (cross country) mountain bike race which my fitness dictated I’d finish on the podium (open class with pros – singlespeed) on Saturday, and the very next day a charity hillclimb benefitting a local food bank (also on singlespeed, but competing in open category… and even after a race the day before it was a 97% chance of winning). So, I let myself down, as well as the hungry. Shit happens. Not sure how long I’ll be down for. I need some helpful tips, as I’ve had perfectly working limbs/appendages my entire life. Any mobility-impaired folks here who use computers for a living please chime in.

Started a new gig with a local fruit company who has some history spanning a few decades in Sillycorn Valley a few weeks prior to the commuting incident, and it’s incredibly frustrating not being able to reply to and compose emails (30% of job) as quickly and error-free as I used to be able to do it.

Cannot quite tinker on PPC projects – and I have a few of them. I’ve got it easy compared to many others, but this is setting me back. The 100% shit-filled part though is that getting into/out of and driving my car puts my deflicted knee into a major world of hurt. Torsional loads on joint are too much. Walking (even up/down stairs) mostly fine. But the car thing really sucks. I think cars might be evil.

-he who stacks pork

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Powerbook 180, System 7.1, 100MB HD, 8MB
Surly 1x1, 9:zero:7 Whiteout, Chinese 29er, Gary Fisher Rig SS, Surly Troll SS, Santa Cruz Chameleon, NS Eccentric, Frankendale Cannonstein 650b
I enjoy picnics on the beach with hot and crazy women

Oh man Leo, I wish I had some helpful advice.

There really isn't much you can do other than perhaps try speech to text programs that let you dictate and text appears on the screen. Depending on the angle your injured arm/hand/wrist are forced to be at, an ergonomic keyboard might help on that side, but will obviously hinder the good side until you're used to it.

As someone with a deformed right arm and being blind on one side, even after all these years all I can do is grin and bear it when it comes to typing. Your issue is similar to why I had to go controller + mouse for World of Warcraft, at least until Blizzard removed exclusive fullscreen because MS excluded it from DX12 and Blizzard wants parity to help cut costs even though Metal supports EFS mode.

Regarding exiting the vehidle, can you put weight on the good leg first and partially lift yourself before you begin exerting pressure on the bad leg? It may take some practice, but it might be possible, if a bit time consuming, to avoid the pain each ingress/egress.

I shall now return to my period of mourning for Fry's Electronics, which appears to be on the cusp of death. Not one of their stores has more than a scant few items on their shelves anymore. Mismanagement and piss poor treatment of customers by the ragheads that ran the stores appears to finally have done them in.

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Thanks for the tips. Supposed to go in for surgery Monday. The main issue is my left hand/arm are in a cast, so there’s an extended part of the cast that gets in the way, and only have a thumb and two fingers not covered by the cast. So one-handed typing is the only thing that works. After surgery and recovery I should be able to type normally again. But everything else I do (prepare food, shower, etc.) is a seriously difficult task. My right hand and arm are sore most of the time since it’s working double duty.

As for getting into/out of the car, I’m kinda tall so there’s nowhere for me to put my head when using the rest of my body to unload weight. Also just sitting in the driving position is incredibly painful for my knee. Still not able to bend it more than 90° – the pain is too much. It’s still healing and for sure I will need physical therapy if I am ever going to ride a bike again.

I like the text to speech idea… going to need to book ultra-secure conference rooms at work to do that though!

Fry’s has been going downhill for several years. I remember when their first location opened off of Lakeside Drive – I was in high school. They were pretty good in the 1990s to the early/mid 2000s but yet they are sucking these days. Online retailers are helping to slowly kill them off, and I am guilty (NewEgg) of helping the process.

-he who stacks pork

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Powerbook 180, System 7.1, 100MB HD, 8MB
Surly 1x1, 9:zero:7 Whiteout, Chinese 29er, Gary Fisher Rig SS, Surly Troll SS, Santa Cruz Chameleon, NS Eccentric, Frankendale Cannonstein 650b
I enjoy picnics on the beach with hot and crazy women

There are split keyboards like this one that might help with the typing. Not sure if you want to spend that much dough on something that may or may not ultimately help you in your current situation. It's something to think about though.

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Damn Leo! That's a bad accident! When I was recovering from my hand injury (amputation to the base of the fingernail on the middle finger), my left hand was mostly unusable. I couldn't even push a shopping cart with it, because the vibration from the wheels was too much for me handle. Typing is still a challenge after several years. No WASD for me! Therapy was definitely a good thing. A bag of rice poured in to a coffee can, then put some small bits (nuts, bolts, keycaps, whatever) in the mix and pick them out. That's what they had me doing for a while.

And Squishy, that's a crappy situation as well!

I thought it was just the Seattle Frys that was dying! When the Seattle Frys dies it will be a tragedy for even thinking of buying any electronics bits in the area, since the Radio Shacks pretty much all died.

SC

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Desktop: Intel mini: 2.33 GHz i5 (G4/C2D minis are out with bad HDDs) OS X 10.13
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Peecee - Core i7 4771 W7 Pro 64
Server - Xeon 1231 FreeNAS

The Radio Shacks near me don't even stock any electronic parts anymore, they're just a glorified cell phone and other consumer electronics outlet.

Last time I went into one it was to buy a soldering iron, which they didn't have.

My local RS still had a good selection of parts. When it was open, that is.

A Seattle without Frys will have no options for electronic parts supplies.

SC

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Grumpy old man of Computing. Get off my CPU!

Desktop: Intel mini: 2.33 GHz i5 (G4/C2D minis are out with bad HDDs) OS X 10.13
qBOX-SF with four 2 TB
Peecee - Core i7 4771 W7 Pro 64
Server - Xeon 1231 FreeNAS

Smithcraft...

https://www.elliottelectronicsupply.com ... Washington

https://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=e ... ttle%2C+WA

& rePC.

That's a long drive to Elliot Electric Supply to pick up something that is needed at the last minute...

Your yelp link is causing Safari to quit.

rePC doesn't stock parts, and all the parts they have are used so that ethernet cable that's a super deal might be broken and a waste of money.

SC

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Grumpy old man of Computing. Get off my CPU!

Desktop: Intel mini: 2.33 GHz i5 (G4/C2D minis are out with bad HDDs) OS X 10.13
qBOX-SF with four 2 TB
Peecee - Core i7 4771 W7 Pro 64
Server - Xeon 1231 FreeNAS

Ah, yes.