Rising Above Mediocrity
by Benjamin Geiger

Today, I had my first teeth cleaning in at least five years. It didn’t go so well.

Since I’ve been neglecting my teeth for so long, they’re in pretty bad shape. So far, I have an unfilled cavity (plus the two that have already been filled; one of the fillings is “leaking”, apparently, so it needs to be replaced), gingivitis, tartar buildups (which have since been removed), and 3-6mm periodontal gaps. Essentially, I need to start brushing more regularly (that means twice a day instead of twice a week), and visit the dentist every six months.

However, is it normal for cleanings below the gumline to take place without any anaesthetic? For the most part it was fine, but there were a few points (such as between my two front teeth and behind my leftmost upper molar) that had me squirming.

I just got back from my appointment with the oral surgeon. I had a couple of bone fragments that hurt, so I had them removed.

For some reason, the left side of my mouth took a lot longer to numb than the right, so much more anaesthetic was used… so when it kicked in, it kicked in hard. Right now, everything from my left eyebrow to my chin is numb, including most of my nose. That’s a very strange feeling, let me tell you.

Tomorrow I have the first of three visits to the ordinary dentist. On Tuesday I went for what I thought would be a cleaning. Turns out it was just a sort of pre-screening and evaluation… the actual cleaning will require two visits, and the two fillings I have to have are going to need a third visit.

The moral of the story: take good care of your teeth.

Not a good day. I lost an even game against Jonathan. Twice.

At least this lights a fire under my ass; I’ve played more games in the past two days than I have in the past month. I will get better. And I managed to beat Rich with only nine stones, so I think I’m getting better already. Here’s hoping.

I’ve been arguing with my Linux box for a couple of days now, trying to get NAT set up.

Technically, the connections worked. Some services would work, and very short websites would load. (If they had more than a sentence of text, they wouldn’t.) I had upgraded my kernel and iptables with no effect.

By a sheer stroke of luck, I ran across an article that described the fix . Essentially, the fix was to clamp the MTU on forwarded packets to the MTU of the PPP link. The reason why it was failing can be found in this article .

Now, on to bigger and better things… like getting 802.11b and DHCP set back up for my Powerbook’s benefit. It’ll be nice to get back on KGS …

Those seem to be the words that define my life.

I spend an inordinate amount of time and mental effort ruminating on things that have happened in my life, and in particular, things I handled particularly poorly. I’m not referring to major events; instead, I tend to fixate on small things that J. Random Normal could have handled without a second thought, but only brought me embarrassment.

Here’s the worst part: whenever I do this, I feel the same embarrassment anew. It doesn’t matter that now I know how to handle that scenario; I still feel the shame from the first time, when I didn’t. It doesn’t matter that everyone else in each situation probably has long since forgotten it. The wound is there, and the memory reopens it and grinds a fresh handful of salt into it.

Missed opportunities continue to resurface, as well. I had an acquaintance when I was attending PCC. She was by no means unattractive, but she had a shy air about her, almost as if she were ashamed of herself; maybe she was embarrassed about her height (she was at least six inches taller than I was). I don’t know. I don’t remember how we met, honestly, but we’d occasionally see each other on campus and talk for a few minutes. I could tell she was usually uncomfortable, and I was uncomfortable, but I didn’t really know what to attribute it to.

After a long while, another acquaintance and I were discussing a newspaper article (I was on the school’s state Mathematics Olympics team, and he was the editor of the school paper; he was writing an article about the team), when she walked up and we spoke for a while. When she walked away, my other acquaintance said something along the lines of “looks like shorty’s hot for you”. (I said, “‘Shorty’? She’s taller than I am!”) But that got me thinking, and after some thought, I decided that the next time I saw her, I would ask her out.

I never saw her again.

It bothers me to this day that I couldn’t see for myself that she may have been attracted to me. But at least I learned from it. The same scenario arose a few months later. Granted, my next attempt wasn’t successful (she said she wasn’t looking for a relationship), but at least I made the attempt.

I noticed something odd today about the latest batch of presidential campaign ads. While the new campaign laws require the “I approved this message” line, it apparently doesn’t say where within the ad it is required to go.

Both major candidates use this to their advantage. Bush hides his up front, presumably in an attempt to let the impact of his name fade from the minds of the viewers. He seems to want viewers to think solely of Kerry, forgetting that it’s a campaign ad. Kerry, however, puts his disclaimer at the end of the ad. Instead of slinging mud, he’s trying to build his own reputation, and to do so he needs to make sure his name is attached to the good things being said about him.

Following the letter of the law doesn’t necessarily imply following the spirit. Bush, IMNSHO, is trying to skirt the law somewhat.

I saw the oral surgeon yesterday for a followup visit. Turns out what I thought was a dry socket wasn’t, and apparently what came out of the socket was some food that had managed to get trapped in there. I’m not sure why the pain restarted, though… but at least it stopped before I got home from class on Wednesday. I didn’t even have to take the Vicodin.

It’s utterly amazing how quickly the gums can heal. Jonathan had a good point: the gums are designed to be torn up, since that’s precisely what happens during the teething process.

Played ChadMiller in an even game. I took black and won by quite a bit. (I can’t remember the exact amount, though it was a few dozen.)

After the meeting, a group of us went to Rocky’s for some Initial D. I finally got the new engine for my Trueno… woohoo.

Pain. Pain. Pain.

Last night, the blood clot fell out of my lower right socket, leading to a deep, throbbing pain. Tylenol helps, but it still hurts quite a bit, and more when I’m eating. I’m back to soft foods again, too.

I have a followup appointment tomorrow. Hopefully Dr. Shaikh can put in the dressing and have me ready to go by 7PM. But that’s tomorrow. Tonight, once I’m done with class I’m going home and taking a Vicodin.

Only played one game yesterday, against Joe Block. I gave him a two stone handicap and lost by six points. Early in the game I got cocky and let a dead group live in the corner, then I started playing too fast and lost a huge group in the center. Ack. Hate it when that happens.