Solving problems ... that's what I do :-)
So!
the worsening of my pain in the back is probably nothing major as a hernia or so. The doctor looked and said something in german, too fast to be understood. Anyway. An injection of something for the pain and I should be improving soon. Dammed snow delaying the usually delayed bus + delayed subway + doctor appointment + physiotherapy took me the whole morning.
Fernanda, at the same time had her appointment at the other side of town and she will really need a surgery. Next week. The rest of the day was spent arranging stuff like authorization from the health insurance for the surgery and other issues. Not done yet, but on the way.
Only reading some papers while waiting.
Labels: life
About pain and models :-)
So! About pain. My lumbar pain is gone worse. I have an appointment with the doctor tomorrow. It can be some sort of "inverted placebo", like I get worse because I know the symptoms of disk hernia ... or I did something wrong on the home part of my physiotherapy ... or as I have been taking more care of Matheus (specially the lifting part). Anyway.
Fernanda had her appointment and it all points to surgery. The doctor was safe to say that it was too bad for therapy but not as bad as to assure a surgery. He sent Fernanda to a neurosurgeon, tomorrow at 10.
On science I finished "healing" the failed models and ran it. Now gotta check them all, but a first look only showed a hand full of problems.
Also read more of Lucas Schubert's dissertation. Still lots of pages to go :-)
Labels: hi-z morph, life
a day to ...
So! What a day, good that it's over.
As I comment last post, Matheus provided me with night entertainment :-)
In the morning it was all white, again! I don't mind, as long as I can walk, what was not the case. Streets around here were full of snow (not that there was THAT much snow) and sidewalks too. I don't understand that city ... in Goettingen it was always everything clean early in the morning, here the problem starts with my janitor service, that sux. And we woke up later, given the "night" party :-)
Don't need to comment that the bus that is usually late just collapsed, something that other people in other parts of the town also know, so it's not just "my bus". And there's winter every year ... will they learn?
Yes, I complain about this city! People in "suburbs" like Garching have a better service!
Most of the day was spent with Fernanda around doctors. Yep, her back pain didn't improve, actually got worse since our last visit to the doctor, now an orthopedist.
First doctor said it was a muscular distention ... after 2 months of pain. Well I have distended most of the muscles in my body and I can tell none lasted 2 months ... Second doctor said it was a nerve clamp, but the solution offered was some physiotherapy, didn't work. In Brazil she visited a physiotherapist and an acupuncturist, also no solution. Then we visited an orthopedist how said it was muscle clamping a nerve ... ok
So, today she went to the doctor again and he asked for an
MRI (if you watch House M.D. you're familiar with the term :-) ), which took most of the afternoon. Result of it ...
lumbar disc hernia. Tomorrow we're gonna see the doctor again, to hear that. Solutions are, surgery and when possible a conservative treatment involving medicines, physiotherapy and massage. Surgery solves the problem quicker and with less pain, at least through time ... on the other hand is a surgery and it has risks. Let's see what the doctor will tell us tomorrow.
So! Pretty tuff day!
Science: I kept saving failed models in the waiting rooms.
Labels: hi-z morph, life
Cold
So! Seems that the cold really got me. Whole morning between taking Matheus to the Tagesmutter and physiotherapy. Then after a couple of failed models checking I gave up to the sore body of who has a cold ...
A long and good night of sleep should do the trick (P.S. Your kid can provide you enough entertainment during the night to destroy your plans ... :-) ). Let's see what the next day will bring.
Also received some chapters of my good friend Lucas Schubert's (Computer Science Uni-Goe) dissertation to check on.
Labels: hi-z morph, life
Gathering! :-)
So, two friends that worked with me at INPE are coming to Munich next weekend (30-31/01)! Alex Wuenchen (INPE) and Rodrigo Leonardi (ESA) will be coming for the weekend, so tourism and music! We used to play together.
Thursday back up day. Finished to copy my back up and started to see how could I expand my Time Machine partition. Turns out I'd need the iPartition and I'm not in the mood for paying about 40 USD for it. So I'll have to copy data to another disc, then change the partitions and re-copy. Tried it last night and it didn't work fine with a "cp". Turns out there're too many cyclic references and it copies everything (I could tweak the parameters, I know).
So you search and talk to people and got this info:
http://www.macyourself.com/2008/12/10/how-to-copy-your-time-machine-backups-to-a-new-larger-drive/
It works.
(actually done in the weekend and worked fine)
Science. Identifying and correcting the GALFIT failures (not running them yet). This will go on monday and reading the draft of the UCDs paper. It's getting good!
Labels: hcg_ucd, hi-z morph, life, Mac_hints
Still on the backup
Yep! Finished updating one backup disk and now I'm mirroring it to another disk, but some possible bad clusters on the original backup disk showed up. Luckily all the possible corrupted files are recoverable from the computer's HD.
Now also trying to resize my Time Machine backup disk, so that I solve backup problem for a while. Next step on backup will be trying a Time Machine similar for windows, so that Fernanda's problem with backup is also solved.
Science ... reading some papers while the computer is doing the work.
Labels: life
Backup day
So! Day spent organizing my backup disk. Next day will probably be spent on that also and on making the backup's backup.
Forgot to mention yesterday, on the bus complaint, that the bus schedule is planed to minimize commuting time. But the bus I need to get the subway is always late, so it maximizes the commuting time, since you can see the subway closing doors and leaving while you rush through the stairs ... :-)
Labels: life
Back to normal ... almost
So!
Sad news, read today at
David Hogg's blog that Sam Roweis has passed away. Didn't know him personally but liked his work a lot.
Trying to get back to normal life. Day started with physiotherapy, to my back problems. I hope to see some improvement soon.
Organizing small issues to make work flow and putting some things in motion via e-mail.
Now section "complaining about Munich" :-))
German buses are always in time and have an area reserved to wheelchairs and baby trolleys. Of course there's always someone standing in this area, instead of sitting. In a smaller city like Göttingen, people see you coming with a trolley and leave, making place for you. Here, besides for rare occasions, they pretend you don't exist. I'm starting to think that larger cities either have/attract indifferent and careless people, or brings this "dark side" from us ...
Still waiting to see the bright side of Munich. Maybe the Pat Metheny's concert at the end of next month helps :-)
Labels: life
One more week
So! One more week!
Matheus is adapted to the Tagesmutter. Fernanda is already working. And I'm trying to get back to a work routine after a long set of non-science related tasks like looking for flats, some traveling, removal, organizing ...
Put together a couple of IDL routines, specially one for
Pearson Correlation Coefficient to be used in a paper we're working on. With it I started to reformulate my personal webpage and make the routines public. "
click here" :-))
Also finally managed to read the referee comments from Elif's paper. Long but good list of suggestions.
Also my back pain didn't improved, so now the doctor put me (actually us, Fernanda has a stronger problem also in the back) in physiotherapy ... let's see. No one has ever heard of
RPG (Global Postural Re-education, not Role-Playing-Game) here in Germany. Basically is a physiotherapeutic technique that works your whole body as one, not just your pain in the back or in the leg.
Good new, we got time at ESO to observe the PNe's!
Labels: hcg_pn, hi-z morph, life
Signed
So! Fernanda signed her contract with the TUM without any extra requirement of Beckenbauer's autograph or so ...
Problem solved.
Also the adaptation of Matheus at the Tagesmutter is going well ... I'm the one "suffering" hehehehehe gotta spend the whole day there but not playing with the kids, but trying to go as unnoticed as possible and with my lumbar distention that prevents me from sitting properly ... blah. At least he's having fun! :-)
Finished (up to a certain point) updating my bibtex file and downloading most of the PDF for the papers there, so I can't get rid of most of the printed versions.
Labels: life
Stearing
So! Managed to get the letter for the TUM saying that Fernanda doesn't need any special permit for that. The very nice people at the foreigns department also made me aware on how fed up they are with the TUM and their ignorance of the German laws.
Then the "know it all" b*tch of the personnel department of the hospital once again said some stupidity, now about health insurance that costed me more time, energy, stress, but I solved the problem before it became one. Now let's see on thursday (tomorrow is a holiday) if she will come out with some other "problem" or if Fernanda will be able to sign the contract. Surely the next "problem" will be solved by a lawyer, because I'm done with it.
Matheus spent the whole day by the Tagesmutter. We took turns to stay with him there, and solve problems, but we managed to leave him in peace :-))
So, it seems now that things will start working fine!!!
Labels: life
Getting in track?
Life was suppose to start getting in track today ... I mean, getting back to a normal.
After the long story with visa and permissions Fernanda would start working and Matheus would start in the Tagesmutter (day care) so that I would start having time to work. Even though there were still some small issues to be taken care.
The day care requires some adaptation period, that in this case means staying there the whole time ... not exactly a good thing for someone that can't stay sit too long because of the lumbar distention, also can't stay laying there ... well it would have to do.
Fernanda went to the institute and from there to the personnel department of the hospital to finally sign the contract ... turns out that the INCOMPETENT employ said she still needs to bring the "work permit" to sign the contract.
Just remembering previous posts (not gonna link them) Fernanda doesn't need it because researchers don't and also spouse of a citizen of an "old-EU-member-country", as its citizens, don't need this permit to work. The restriction on the visa is hashed and that excludes the need for it. But the wh*r* still wants it or a letter from a competent authority saying otherwise. She has a copy of the f*ck*ng law that says it but "she knows the law" ... f*ck!
So, after 2.5 hours of adaptation I had to get Matheus and leave to go to the foreigns department and work department to try to solve. The first ones closes too soon, and the work department said that this permit not necessary, that a personnel department of one of the largest universities in Germany SHOULD know that and that he doesn't have the authority to state that, the foreigns department is the proper place. So tomorrow we'll have to go there and see what we can get. In case we can't solve, then I'll need a lawyer to tell the TUM about laws ...
Upset? NOOOOOOOO!!!! Luckily I'm not the one that goes to the TUM, luckily for them ...
Labels: life
