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rec’d via email

SPB Mobile Shell is just this awesome shell for Windows Mobile. It’s available for other platforms, but I use WinMo, so don’t confuse me. The one feature, however, that was driving me bonkers, was the wallpaper option. Regardless of what resolution your wallpaper is, SPB will do this bizarre zooming on the picture, so that you lose most of the sides and bottom of the wallpaper.

This is okay, if you have a pattern or nature scene and the primary image you want is central, but if you prefer having your primary Lifestyle panel to one side or the other, or if detail is important, you will be very unhappy with the results.

I have an Samsung Omnia II, so it’s pretty much stuck in a portrait orientation, but if you have something else, you can tweak this for your device. The Omnia’s screen resolution is 400 x 800 VGA.

Click for photo source

As an example, let’s just use this in SPB Shell, using the recommended resolution of 960 x 748. We’ll adjust the image so we get that resolution and capture as much of the detail as possible. I’ll also mirror the image because my primary Lifestyle panel is on the far left, and do a little cleaning up of the picture. You can use Photoshop, or some other graphics program to do this, but if you skip the mirror and cleaning, you could even do this with Windows Paint. And yes, the motorcycle logo is reversed because of flipping the image. Are you really looking that close at the motorcycle?

Click for full sized image.

Regardless of how much you moved your image selection in the Shell, it would come out looking something like this.

Click for full sized image.

Well, that sucks. We’ve lost the model and the motorcycle detail. The picture is granulated and seems out of focus. The messed up area at the bottom would be where your Launcher/Contacts bar would be.

So how do we fix this? We add a side and bottom border, so the shell is forced to “scooch” the wallpaper to the fit the screen to the entire image you want to see. The side borders will vanish, and the bottom will descend just to the top of the Launcher/Contacts bar.

Let’s resize the original picture to 720 x 588.

Click for full sized image.

Now we add our borders. I’ve set the bottom border to 136 pixels. The left and right border are 160 pixels each. I set it in black, but you can always change your borders to something more compatible with whatever your wallpaper looks like. When we apply this image in SPB Shell, the left and right borders will disappear “off-screen,” and only the bottom border will show up behind the Launcher/Contacts bar. So here’s our new image.

Click for full sized image.

When you apply it to the shell as wallpaper, it will come out looking a lot like this:

Click for full sized image.

Depending on your device, you can tweak the height and width of your wallpaper. And you’re not stuck to 720 x 588 dimension I started with. Again, you just need to fiddle with the borders to make it work for you. If you prefer your image to run all the way down to the bottom of the screen, using this example, just change your original wallpaper dimensions to 720 x 724, don’t add a bottom border, and just add the side borders.

“hiiiiiiiiii

I would like you to identify yourself and be decent Asjqa intimate
Special hobby, and only a photography
I love it so much
So that all the love and appreciation my friend”

Flickr is a photo sharing website, so I think this is legite. I just have absolutely no idea of what “I would like you to identify yourself and be decent Asjqa intimate” actually implies. What thel hell is “Asjqa?”

Yeah, I know, just ask them. FU.

But in case you DO support health-care reform, let me give you this warning tale. I was seen at UW Medical Center for my neuropathy and tremors. Now, they wanted me to register with my insurance so they could tie it in to my appointment, so I registered with GEHA, my employer-provided insurance company. Let me repeat, corporate insurance, provided by my employer.

So the next day I get this call and a lady tells me “Mr. Huster? I’m working out the registration between your visit yesterday and your insurance company, but you’re only authorized for Medicare-A.”

“What?!!?”

“You’re only authorized for Medicare-A.”

“I have a Medicare-A account?”

“Yes sir.”

“How the hell did I get a Medicare-A account?!?”

“Well, when your 65 or older you only qualify for Medicare-A.”

“I’M NOT 65!!!!”

“You’re not?”

“Jesus Christ lady! I’m only 47!!”

“You are?”

“#@$!!!. Why would I say that if I wasn’t!!!”

“Oh, let me look…………………… oh, it looks like they gave me the wrong account number.”

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph, woman…”

(sound of Jack wetting his pants while he thinks about what the hell happened to HIS records)

If this is what happens with private sector insurance, think about what it’ll be like when the government takes over.

Went to neurologist #2. Big dog. I think he’s head of neurology at UW Medical Center.

After the general questions, the bastard asked me to do something else I didn’t realize I couldn’t do. Stand on one foot. They had to catch me twice when I fell over. What is this, some kind of entertainment for docs? What’s next? Handstands?

Then of course, the usual 47 vials of blood. This time we’re testing for cancer, and a bunch of other things.

As we were leaving the building, I told my wife that I had already given up my retirement career as professional bowler and ballroom dancer, but now I had to give up my hopes of becoming a pink flamingo in the front yard. -sigh-

Fell down three times since my last post. One time I got that horrid skin crawling thing that comes with neuropathy. I pulled into McDonald’s to get something to drink, and knew something was wrong when I could hardly put on the lid, and it was serious work not to drop the cup.

The UPS man was leaving just behind me, so I tried to open the door for him, and down I went.

Another time was getting out of the car, and the other was when my backpack on wheels took off at a dead run, with me still clinging to it.

Oh, and what’s really cool is that the postmaster approved my request to replace 4 doorknobs I struggle with, with levers. Guess he isn’t the dick I usually tell him he is. Er, forget that last sentence. Love you Len. And I mean that in a manly way, ahem.

P.S. There are times I struggle to do simple things, and I almost come to tears. Don’t tell my wife. I’ll have to kill you. Probably by falling on you.

You know how someone asks you if you lost weight, but your spouse doesn’t notice because it happens gradually? Naw, that’s not what happened. What was happening was that my hands were shaking gradually more and more. But it happened gradually, so I just thought I was clumsy. Tried threading a needle, took me about 20 minutes of cussing. Figured it was my eyes.

One day, I posted a video on YouTube. It was a kind of technical vid on using a pipe retort. I set the camera aimed at my hands, so I could manipulate the camera. I’ll add here that the camera has a anti-shake feature, so again, I didn’t notice anything through the vid. I figured I’d get some comments and questions about alcohol percentage, disinfection, blah, blah, blah. Instead, the most comments were about how bad my hands are shaking during the video. Here’s the video. You can turn off the audio, it isn’t important, but watch my hands…

If you do listen to the video, you’ll hear a catch in my voice as well. I hadn’t even noticed any of that until I started getting emails and comments.

My arms and legs were getting really tired fast, and I was having a tough time writing.

Now, I hate seeing docs. All my family doc ever says is that I’m just getting old. After years of this, I thought, duh, get a second opinion, so I saw an orthopedist. I did have a torn meniscus but after the surgery, I couldn’t hold my legs steady enough for rehab. He suggested neurologist, so I went to this very nice doc. I did actually bring the video above with me, because sometimes I worry that they’ll just say I’m a hypochondriac.

She saw the video and said it was a “resting tremor.” At this point, I’m going to assume you know how to do ‘net searches, so I’ll use technical terms to keep this novel a little shorter. She had my draw a spiral, and it looked like someone doing a spiral during an earthquake. She moved my arms, legs, had me do this and that.

Now the weird part. You ever watch those cop shows where they test to see if someone’s drunk by watching them walk heel to toe (tandem gait)? I haven’t done that under observation since I was 18, but hey, I could do it a few years ago, what’s the big deal? One step into it, I fell down. I got back up and she said that was okay, and have a seat. Well the hell with that. Must’ve been not paying any attention. Well, I did manage to make it 3 more steps. I was gasping with the effort, and it looked like I was walking a tightrope. I knew I was off-balance, and my brain was telling my legs what to do, but they just were ignoring me. I stopped trying it, stumbled sideways into the wall. Maybe it was a smart thing to have a seat at that point.

She said it was neuropathy. The loss of balance, and my difficulty walking. I’ve been walking with a cane for years because of my screwed up knee, but what I didn’t realize was that using the cane was masking the fact that I was off-balance.

So, long story short, I had my brain magnetized, 5 gallons of blood drawn ONE TINY TUBE AT A TIME, and have been repetitively subjected to electrocution.

We looked at the MRI. That eliminated the two scariest things; a tumor or lesion on the brain, and multiple sclerosis. There was an abnormality that I’ll name a little later here. Parkinson’s was ruled out clinically. So now it’s down to diabetes, idiopathic neuropathy, or “other.”

Diagram showing MRI scans of two brains. The brain on the left shows atrophy (shrinkage) of the cerebellum. The brain on the right shows a normal cerebellum.

So, end of story, mostly, is that I have ataxia (cerebellar atrophy), neuropathy, peripheral neuropathy, and cubital tunnel. We just don’t know what’s causing those yet. I’ve contacted a relative if he knows of anyone on his side of the pond with similar disorders, but I sure as hell can’t remember anyone on my side of the family having anything like this.

My arms and legs are getting weaker, and it’s damn near impossible to stand more than 5 minutes. My right hand and arm are pretty unusable, but my left side is a little better. I’ve had to make some modifications to my car, including a suicide spinner (look it up), an extension for my turn signals, a “lazy-susan” for my ass so I can swivel out, and a beast of a bar that inserts into the door handle to help me out of the car.

Home is getting interesting. I’m sitting in a hydraulic chair at the moment, that tilts forward and lifts so I can get up a little easier. I’ve replaced some of the doorknobs with door levers. Got a couple of those grippy/picker-upper things that I chase the dogs around with. I have this torture device so I can slow down the muscle loss. I have 28 canes, so that’s not an issue, but I may be looking at a walker soon. And I have pouches on my belt, because it hurts my hands to much to reach them into my front pockets. Writing has become ridiculous, while my hand refuses to do what I’m telling it to do. I can type, but it does start to seriously hurt after a while.

I was depressed for about 2 minutes when I realized that I’m never going to get better, only worse as time goes on. Then I thought, screw this. If I can make my own wonky inventions, and cheats, and I’m not dyin’ or anything, things are good. But my dreams of becoming the world’s only a bowling/ballroom dancing/card thrower champion are pretty much shot. I’ll just keep some humor and a positive attitude through serious medication…heheh…

My wife, however, is totally freaked out. She’s trying to modify the house, or get it sold so we can live in a one floor house. Kind of overreacting there. I joked about having my walker all picked out and she started crying. And if you look up ataxia, I told her at least she was guaranteed to always be smarter than me.

Anyway, so while I will still post from time to time, I have to give up something else to do with my hands that day. I can do one, or the other. So, don’t cry for me Argentina (and screw you if you don’t get the reference. And if you say you’ll pray for me, I will personally whack you with my cane. If you want to help, come over and rebuild my deck. Or get McChord Air Force base to quit flying over my goddamn house. They come down now so low, that I can see the passengers, the color of their hair, and occasionally sneak a peek at what they’re reading.

And if someone tells me I have to give up my pipe, or relent and go to the VA hospital , I’d rather die on the street. While having my toenails pulled out. Knowing the VA hospital, they’d probably have my ears pulled off instead, and take someone else’s toenails out.

And I absolutely swear to NOT upload the MRI scans to my Flickr account…unless I can get a scanner big enough.

Best wishes to you all, and Facebook readers, I don’t see your comments. These posts are just on my blog and are automatically fed into Facebook and MySpace.

Here’s some links I’ve used to scare the crap out of myself:

• National Ataxia Foundation
• The Neuropathy Association
• WE MOVE – Worldwide Education and Awareness for Movement Disorders

Here’s an excellent link explaining what it’s like to choose between typing or doing something else with my hands: The Spoon Theory written by Christine Miserandino | But You Dont Look Sick?

So, take that into context, that I’m not whining here, just explaining why I haven’t posted anything in a while. I seem to have a case of…something. It’s arthritis, but it’s really aggressive and it’s getting worse, and just to be annoying, it seems to have come with a palsy. So it’s been kind of painful to type. Yeah, yeah, I’ve finally relented and have an appointment with an orthopedist for a start.

Walking with two steel braces on your knees, another brace on your ankle, two arthritis compression gloves on your hands covered by two wrist braces is really a pain in the ass. Which I haven’t managed to contract so far, thank god.  I have employees who are perfectly capable of being pain in the asses without any help. Back and neck seems just fine though. And I have my lovely cane collection. For your edification, contemporary sword canes are pretty useless. You have to unscrew the handle to withdraw the cane. Try doing that in a tight spot. “Uh, hang on… Give me a second…”

Fortunately, this is as pretty as I’m going to get.

Funniest thing I’ve seen is versions of “Cane Fu.” That’s where someone uses a cane as a defensive weapon in a version of martial arts. Listen, if you actually have to use a cane for support, I have this mental picture of trying to kick someone’s ass, and falling down. “Could you help me up? I’m trying to kick your ass here. Or at least bend down so I can hit you with this damn thing.”

So like I said, not whining, just making stupid excuses as to my absence from anything that requires a lot of typing.

Now excuse me while I go work out on a punching bag from my Lazy-Boy. Would you mind pushing that thing over here for me?

No, on Flickr! Yeah, that’d be http://www.flickr.com/photos/jackslife/

And that’s without any naughty pics! Okay, maybe one or two, but it’s her own fault. I’m not responsible for ex-girlfriends. ::: cough :::

News from my hometown: Thomas Hovis Jr., 52, fleeing deputies in Albion, Ind., thought he had found a nifty hiding place where they’d never think of looking. He was wrong. They found Hovis standing neck-deep in a manure pit in the outbuilding of a farm. WANE-TV (Fort Wayne)

Oddly enough, this man looks sad and embarrased. Imagine…