Entries this day: dream laser pinwheel

dream

7:37am CST Thursday 30 March 2000

Last night, as predicted, I had an elaborate dream about all of the guys from ultimate fighting some battle. Basically there was a seige of a castle, though I'm not clear on who 'owned' it or who built it. Most interesting part for me: We magically built a spiral staircase up to the top of the tower. The 'bad guys' didn't know about the appearance of a hole in the roof of the castle, so when they were near it, I would toss them down to their demise.

Ick.

permalink

laser

(adapted from my diary)

8:20am Thursday 30 March 2000

I'm at TLC (The Laser Center) with Nancy (my neighbor) about to witness her eyeball laser surgery thingy.

- - -

They just did a topographical survey of her eyes. She'll get a color copy of the maps when she leaves. It was cool to see a huge image of her eye with concentric circles imaged onto it. Looked like something out of an alien movie.

- - -

I'm outside the surgical room, looking at a big VISX brand STAR Excimer Laser System S2. TV monitor is showing an enlarged version of her eye as the camera looks straight down on it.

A doctor dude asked if I have a weak stomach.

"Pssh. Naw man... there's no blood, right? My eye doctor told me that the cornea is the only part of the body that needs a lot of oxygen, but has no blood vessels there, cause they would block the view!"

He nodded and walked away.

- - -

Holy cow I passed out. If I had any blood in my brain I would been embarassed as I was led to the next room and lay onto the floor. The nurses took perfect care of me and I was "unconsious" for maybe 3 seconds as my diary was taken and I lay down.

They had sliced her cornea off, flapped it back, lasered her eye, then flipped the cornea back down. Watching them swab swab swab the cornea down did it for me. Ewwww too much information for my little eyes to handle.

It looked like a little metal rod like a paint roller stroking her cornea flat. Bleah!!

I felt my brain getting all woozy and the nurse was all, "c'mon with me" and she led me to the next room. I had put my head down and felt I would be fine. While walking to the next room my consciousness began to fade. I felt that I was dreaming as they helped me lay down. (That would be the precise moments I don't remember - laying down) Then the dreaminess floated away and I verified I was right- this wasn't a dream.

Cute nurse was smiling down, and the guy who had asked if I had a weak stomach was there. He said, "as soon as I saw you, I knew it."

That's weird. How can that be? They were all saying that big guys tend to pass out more easily than other people. One of the women described that when the heart begins to beat too quickly, there's a valve that shuts down the flow to the brain so it won't allow too much blood up there. Then the brain passes out, body falls to floor, heart stops pumping as quickly, valve allows blood to resume normal flow patterns. Very interesting.

Out of fairness, I'll point out that Nancy had the best time of all.

11 seconds for one eye and 7 seconds for the other and the procedure was complete.

She said she felt no pain (except when they took the tape off that held her eyelids back) during the procedure or after. By the time I had driven her back home, she said her vision was already clearing up. It was described as in focus, but like through a dirty windshield.

permalink

pinwheel

6:14pm Thursday 30 March 2000

Oh my goodness.

A friend of mine sent me a URL to something called Constructor. Due to my silliness and this URL, I have been at work 8 hours but have logged 0.50 hours today.

And I have successfully made a pinwheel type thing (that spins quite slowly) using 1 fixed mass and 7 free masses around it.

1. Fixed Mass in the center of the screen, call it F
2. 7 free masses essentially evenly distributed on a circle around F.
3. Label the free masses in sequence 1-7
4. Link all free masses to the 'next' one, making a circle around F. Link all free masses to F.
5. For stability, link 1-3-5-7-2-4-6-1
6. Make the radial arms be the muscles, with each one in sequence expanding and contracting.
7. Put the wave speed slow, and the whole thing spins to keep the mass down low!!!!

Wende gets home in 3 hours. Time for me to work.

permalink