Knee surgery-Part 2

Less than 24 hours ago and the knee is doing well. Surgery went ahead at 3:00 as scheduled and I awoke at 3:50 in the recovery room feeling rather happily sleepy and wishing for a large meat lovers pizza to land in my lap. Wow we are a spoiled generation because I found that 16 hours was a long time to go without food! I was happy to awake in good spirits and with no feelings of nausea! I wasn't happy with the fact that I couldn't leave the recovery room for quite some time, when all I wanted to do was see Veronica! I said to Veronica who was perhaps a tiny bit concerned for my surgery, that I was more concerned for her as I was in a controlled situation with lots of doctors, and she was out on the road for the afternoon. I laughed good and hard when she told me that she almost schmucked into a bus!!

So all is well now. I'm at home, feeling virtually no pain as long as I'm taking pain killers. I'm using crutches for support but I can virtually walk on the operated knee, though I've been taking it easy still. The doctors say I may only be on crutches for a few more days. Sitting here makes me feel sorry for those who have to get a cast on a broken limb, because just one day with this wrapped up leg, and the itchyness is getting annoying already! That comes off tommorrow leaving only two small bandaids over the incisions! I find it amazing how something as incredibly complex as operating inside of a limb joint can become such a minor surgery! Wow, how technology is amazing!

Moving out and moving on!

It's official now. Jay Hart is moving out of his Condo and moving on from Toronto life.

It's a sad task to move, but the market has been horribly slow. I've been working as a retoucher, and enjoying the sights of my work going up on billboards. I have also enjoyed the hectic life in Toronto and all that it has offered me. However the market is very slow and like every other artist currently in Toronto (photographers, retouchers, illustraters, designers etc.), the work is slim pickings! I don't see this as an end to this carreer, but rather a redirection of my life path. The Lord has blessed me so richly over the past 7 months in Toronto, but I feel the Lord has chosen a different direction for me. I will never put this work behind me, as I feel another window could always open in the future allowing me to still work as an artist.

May I say that I have thoroughly enjoyed my stay in Toronto, and parts of life here I will miss! The Lord has been good to me in teaching me and I have been able to learn a lot of valuable lessons. One is that Family, Friends and Church are very important!! I have missed these three being further from them all.

I plan to move to Elora, Ontario where I will be near the majority of those three. Unfortunately I will not be closer to my direct family, but I will be closer to Veronica's family. I hope to live with my dear friend Jeremy V. for a few months, and then settle into a place of my own where Veronica and I will be able to make a home after September 17. I trust that the Lord will keep watch over me in the future and guide my ways as he has so much in the past.

Ol' Cowboy

Check it out on Videos.

The Ol' GO transit cowboy lives!

P.S. turn on those speakers... you wouldn't want to miss out on some Johnny Cash!!

Enjoy!

Knee Surgery-Part 1

As some of you know, I am scheduled for knee repair on May 27th. I've titled this section part one as I'm sure I'll write a parts 2-? after surgery giving you updates (as I will not have much else to do but read and write blogs.)

The surgery is to repair and or remove a meniscal tear in my right knee joint. A meniscus is a soft 'C' shaped ring that sits between the knee joints (I like to think of it as a rubber seal like in an engine) for layman's terms. The idea of a meniscal tear is best described here!

I am not sure at this point what specific type of tear I have, but I have an idea that it is an outer or inner horn tear (on the end) causing a loose flap of meniscus to 'hang out' (in a not so cool way) in the knee joint. As to the cause of the tear, this type of injury is often sports related, usually in pivoting or slowing down a run in a standing sport. The best thing that I think could have caused my injury is kneeboarding as seen here! I thoroughly enjoyed kneeboarding and my family still enjoys this sport in the summer. However I'm left questioning the saftey of this sport especially if kneeboarding the redneck way as seen here!

I had my first concerns with the knee about 5 years ago. At that time my family doctor suggested that I not go for surgery as any form of surgery has risks and could make matters worse. I wasn't impressed with his treatment at the time as he did not look further into it. My knee started acting up more frequently and finally after about a year of research, doctors and studies, my newly appointed knee specialist sent me in for a magnetic resonance imaging scan (MRI) which provided the necesary info to schedule my surgery. The MRI is quite a unique feeling because as pictured in the above link, you are strapped to a flat board which slides into this large hollow unit which whines, hums and makes lots of noise. The cool part is they give you headphones, let you put in your own cd and you fall asleep the hum of this machine that seemingly threatens to eat you alive! :)

I am to have arthoscopic surgery done on my knee which is to leave only two small cuts around the joint. One opening for the camera, the other for the tools. Though it is surgery in something as complex as the human knee joint, it is only a day surgery, and one where within 1-6 weeks I should be back on my feet, and back into a fully active lifestyle in half a year. The thought of surgery also doesn't concern me much as I have a very good doctor who was just able to help out a friend, Carolyn Bartels, and this form of knee surgery has been practised for several decades.

Video is here!

The first video is up. I can't get it online with sound yet. The way that the video gets encoded it doesn't seem possible to keep the audio embedded into the file when getting the video prepped for online delivery. The video is far cuter with sound, but for now you can look at the clip itself here!!

Enjoy!

My Tiger has arrived!

So what's all this excitment about tiger? The new operating system for the Mac! And wow it is beautiful, sleek and handy. Spotlight is a new search engine that finds everything. I type in the word "sony" and it comes up with everthing in my computer called sony. It pulls up an old email to do with sony video cameras, an email to my bro brian telling him which camera I bought, a calendar item that says what day I bought the sony camera on, my folder where all my digital pics are kept, my web browser history bookmarks, and even credits from a movie, and the word sony found in a pdf document! WOW!

And what's cooler, is Dashboard. Its handy, funky, gorgeous and nerd techy all at the same time. You really have to check this out!!

These are Widgets, part of Dashboard! Widgets are small mini applications (software/programs) that run in the background. At the touch of a button, the widgets pop up! From clockwise: top right is the countdown to my wedding!! Next is the time, yes, I am up that late... and yes it is raining, but this makes the rain look pretty cool! Following is, This day in history, Hula girl, Word, Quote and Joke of the day, Bible passage, Mini Address book (contact) info, and Mini Calendar. Than the so cool all in one wikits (digital post-it notes, as many as you want all organized together.) Then you can ask any question and get an immediate online answer. Below is the dictionary and thesauras, to the right is the calculator and than bottom row: language translator, Conversion (any thing to anything- measurements, currency, etc.) and lastly, my audio controller! Wow, that's a crap load of tasks that normally would take many programs and websites do all of that. Now it's all there, at the touch of a button. And as more widgets get developed, I can drop them on my screen. And oh, did I mention that this is a screen shot from only one monitor? :) The other monitor is filled with other widgets!