Author: The Flying Dutchman

I am a man who loves Christ, loves my wife, loves my family, loves my church, and loves aviation. In that order.

Shingletown Lance Owners of America Rally – Part 2

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Campgrounds, RV Life, RV Parks, TravelLeave a comment

First off, sorry it took so long to post part 2 of this series. The truth is, time when by so fast, I never got a chance! In Part 1 I talked about our trip to Mt. Lassen National Park. In this posting, I’ll document what we did during the final two days of our stay.

Friday

Cristy wanted to take a drive into Redding and check out the mall and pick up some items from Sprouts. I politely asked if I could stay with the trailer. Cristy was happy to agree because that meant she could spend as much time at the mall as she wanted to. So off she went and there I stayed.

I fixed a couple of small things on the Lance and then tried to make some contacts on the local Ham radio repeaters in both Redding (W6STA) And Shingletown (WO6P) .

There wasn’t anyone on the two repeaters I checked so I decided to take a walk. Right across the highway was Airport Rd. I checked Google Maps and there did indeed used to be an airport across the highway from where we were camping. It was about a 3/4 mile walk so I decided to go check it out. It was a beautiful walk. When I got to the airport I could see that they had closed it and MEANT IT. They had planted so many trees such that it was impossible to use as a runway ever again.

Apparently they only use it for local recreation and a once a year star gazing party. I walked all the way to the end of the old runway and the peace and silence was stunning. Then I had a sobering thought; “I wonder if they have mountain lions around here?” Now, I’m not worried about bears or coyotes. But the big cats must be respected. I had zero weapons on me except for a pocket knife. I started heading back down the runway as quickly as I could! I kept scanning the ground for cat tracks but never saw any. Nor bear tracks. Just a few coyote tracks. I also noticed zero deer tracks which is probably why no cat tracks. It was the longest runway walk ever.

I finally made it back to the campground and wandered around checking out every square inch to see what we had missed. The KOA Shingletown/Mt. Lassen Holiday Resort is an excellent park. They have a wilderness area behind the park that is actually bigger than the camping area. There is a bird watching area there with feeders stocked with food to attract local birds, there is a RC car track, there are two huge swings, an area they call “Fort Imagination” which has tons of logs, sticks, and old tractor tires to build any kind of fort the kids can come up with. Cristy’s favorite was the huge tree swing. There is even a night trail; you walk it with your flashlight and shine it around to see all of the “eyes” (small reflectors) staring back at you from the woods!

Later that day after Cristy had come back and finished her swinging we went to a pot luck put on by the Lance Rally folks. I had the best jambalaya I had ever had! I came to find out that these folks who made it live right next door to us in Salida. Well, practically next door. After dinner that night, like every night, we sat by our fire bowl and talked at looked at the stars. One night we even found fireflies! Which… weren’t fireflies. Turns out the staff at KOA a pranksters and aimed one of those laser Christmas decoration at the trees which makes a remarkably good fake firefly effect.

Saturday we just hung around the park and did absolutely nothing. We did take a short drive to look at a few properties that were for sale. Nothing remarkable to report.

Sunday we watched our church online and did much the same as Saturday. We enjoyed the park so much we really didn’t feel like going anywhere. We did drive in to Shingletown to gas up and pick up some water for the trip home. That’s when we came across Reed’s, my new favorite store. It is a combination IGA Supermarket and ACE Hardware store! Genius!

Monday morning we slept in, cleaned up, said our good-byes and hit the road. We will definitely be back but this time, with a stronger truck!

Shingletown Lance Owners of America Rally – Part 1

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Campgrounds, Lance, RV Life, RV Parks, Travel4 Comments

We attended our first Lance ralley ever this year. It was the 9th annual rally held at Shingletown/Mt Lassen KOA Holiday. What a wonderful kampground and very nice bunch of people!

Day 1

We drove up I-5 through California’s Central Valley and encountered the usual traffic along the way in Stockton and Sacramento. But as soon as we got past Woodland all the traffic just seemed to disappear. We didn’t even see the trucks leave the freeway, they were just… gone. We stopped for lunch at Granzella’s in Williams and then finally arrived at the KOA at 3:15pm.

We were warmly greeted by both the KOA staff and the Lancer’s who were organizing the rally. This rally is put on by the Lance Owners of America and is only one of many. Lance campers and travel trailers have a very small and loyal following. I got the trailer levelled and set up (with not a little help from Cristy) then went and got the T-shirt I had orderd, got a raffle ticket, and then we took a nap. Usually one of the first things we do on a travel day. The day ended with an appetizer pot-luck and introductions. We were the only new people so only we got introduced!

Day 2

The next day was a free day so we took off and went up to Mt. Lassen National Park. I haven’t been there since I was 12 or so. We took our time and stopped at the Loomis Museum and Ranger Station at the north entrance to the park. It was only a 15 minute drive from the campground. We took a walk from the ranger station down along Manzanita Creek down to Manzanita Lake. A quick 15 minute walk. Then we set off along Lassen Peak Highway.

We drove along until we came to Summit Lake and got out to stretch our legs a bit. It was pretty but there really weren’t any trails so we moved on.

We drove on and finally stopped at Kings Creek Trailhead. It was lunch time and we were ready to eat. We walked down to the creek and found some nice rocks to sit on next to a small cascade in the creek.

We continued on up the highway, and I do mean up. We took time to stop at some pull outs and admire the views.

Finally we made it up to the summit. We were determined to see how high up the summit trail we could hike. We made it from the parking lot to the sign that said, “Summit Trail” before we decided to turn back. A couple of flatlanders attempting to climb the summit of Mt. Lassen with no preparation, what could possibly go wrong. We decided that the truck was an excellent mountain climbing vehicle and we had made it as high as we were going to go. Incidentally if you zoom in on the picture on the right, you will see the foolhardy souls who opted not to drive their truck up to the summit. Also, that rocky point in the picture on the left is NOT the summit, it is quite a bit higher than that.

At this point the road finally started sloping downward. It was a very short drive to Helen Lake. I had a lot of fun telling people we drove to Helen, took some pictures. It makes more sense if you say it out loud.

Mt Lassen

Our next stop (about 500 ft away) was Bumpass Hell Trailhead. I will cut to the chase and say we did not hike all the way to Bumpass Hell but we did make it about half way until the altitude and lack of water got to us and we turned back. Still there was some beautiful scenery (and shenanigans) along the way.

Our last stop before turning around and headed back down the highway was the Sulphur Works. It gives you a small preview of what Bumpas Hell is like but without the hike.

Boiling mudpot at the Sulphur Works.

And that was about all we had energy for. We made the hour and 20 minute drive back to our campground, cooked dinner, and watched Thursday Night Football. All in all a great 2nd day!

Barret Cove Campground – Lake McClure / New Exchequer Reservoir

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Campgrounds, RV Life, Travel2 Comments

Don’t want to read the whole thing?

This past weeked Cristy and I camped at Barret Cove Campground on Lake McClure. We stayed in Loop C site 13. Good, level site. Had a huge ledge going from the paved road into the campsite if you pulled in from the wrong angle. Water, electric, and sewer. One of the few campgrounds that actually enforces quiet hours.

What, you want to read more?

My Ham radio club was having an event called Field Day this past weekend. It’s basically an event where Hams hold a contest to try to contact as many radio stations as possible. That’s not my cup of tea but it seemed like a good excuse to get away, especially since the following week at work was going to be stressful. The location was at Barret Cove Campground on Lake McClure also known to the older folks as New Exchequer Reservoir. The campground and surrounding recreation area as well as the lake is owned and managed by the Merced Irrigation District. Who by the way have a great reservation system for their campground, including a video tour that lets you see the camp sites prior to booking a reservation. Reserved campsite show up on the video with a red marker, available sites show up as a green marker. So after making reservations a few weeks before Cristy and I loaded up our Lance 1995 and headed up to the campground.

It was only about an hour and twenty minute drive from home but the roads were fairly narrow. Luckily there was not much traffic so the one lane bridges leading up there near the town of LaGrange were not an issue. We arrived and checked in and then navigated this maze of a campground. There are a couple hundred campsites, many of which are primitive but also many have full hook-ups, 30A electric, water, AND sewer. Kind of a rarity for this type of campground. We finally found our spot in the C-Loop and Cristy guided me over our two-way radios as I backed in. After a couple of back-and-forths we finally got the trailer settled in a mostly level spot. Half the site was graded up to the road correctly, the other half had a huge lip that my truck almost couldn’t drive over. That just meant that I could only pull out in one direction. I thought that might be an issue but it turns out it was not.

We got into our site and got about the business of getting everything set up: level the trailer, put down the stabilizers, extend the slide-out, and since it wasn’t windy, extend the awning. Then the most important part; taking a nap.

After my nap I put out our chairs, set up the Blackstone and grilled up some chicken for dinner. The weather was perfect. We opened up all the windows, opened the door, and with the vent fan running it was the perfect temperature inside the trailer. We could feel an occasional cool breeze blowing through which made my nap even perfecter.

There was a large group camped across and in the next two sites so there were a lot of children running around but at least they kept to the street and their own sites. I parked the truck strategically to give us a front “wall”. We were already thinking that we probably wouldn’t be getting a good night’s sleep but miraculously they all quieted down at 10pm. Like a switch had been flipped. Quiet hours are from 11pm to 7am but like most parks we didn’t think they would enforce them. But every night the park ranger came past our loop at about 11:15pm to check on everyone. Nice to see a park actually enforce the quiet hours. We had our chicken dinner, watched some YouTube and then fell asleep in a very quiet campground!

The next morning was peaceful until the surrounding kids all woke up. There was a flurry of activity from about 8am to 10am for breakfast until they all took their boats and headed for the lake. Then it was dead quiet for the rest of the morning and afternoon. We had already decided that we were mostly going to just hang around the trailer and relax on this trip and that’s just what we did. We did take one trip down to Robert’s Ferry Nut Company about 30 minutes away. Cristy bought some almonds for her mother and I got bag of almonds for myself and one of their almond-butter milkshakes. Which did nothing but raise my blood sugar I’m sure but it also raised my happiness level exponentially. We also stopped by a lavender farm where Cristy bought some soap and some honey. You are also invited to go out and cut your own lavender but first, you must understand the relationship of bees and lavender. I can’t remember the name but it’s just east up Highway 132 on the right side of the road a short distance from Robert’s Ferry.

We came back and had a salad for lunch and then just relaxed the rest of the afternoon. When the sun started to set (on both nights) I lit our propane fire-bowl and we sat in front of it to keep the chill off off and talked. A Filipino family walked by so I struck up a conversation in my VERY LIMITED Tagalog. They were suitably impressed so I called Cristy over. I told them I had been teaching her Tagalog and I wanted them to evaluate how much she had learned. 🙂

We chatted for a while and even though we had already eaten hamburgers for dinner, they invited us over for leftovers. We had lechon kawali (chopped pork), pinakbet, and rice. It was delicious and I was now officially stuffed. But you never insult a Filipino by turning down food. The entire family was very warm and welcoming and really filled Cristy’s heart. I even got my very first “mano po” from one of the kids. They insisted we exchange contact info so they could invite us to their future get-togethers and camp-outs.

We headed back home to sit around the fire some more and listen to the wild turkey’s tuck themselves into bed for the night. Apparently they fly up to the highest branches they can reach and hunker down for the night. This was about 40 feet up in this tree.

On Sunday morning we woke, had breakfast and listened to our church, Almond Valley CRC, online. I was a little concerned on how I was going to get out of the camping spot with all the kids and boats and everything near us. However, by the time church was over they were mostly packed up. By the time I finished dumping the tanks and walked up the road to say goodby to our new friends, everyone near our campsite was gone. We finished hitching up and drove home.

All in all it was a very restful weekend in spite of all the noise from the kids. Cristy felt recharged and regenerated, especially after the warm welcome from the folks up the street. I felt rested to and ready to take on the stressful week ahead. Soli Deo Gloria.

The Refrigerator Saga

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Boondocking, Lance, RV Life, TravelLeave a comment

Last January (2023) I noticed some cracking on the interior plastic of my refrigerator. The fridge still worked but I hated looking at the cracks and at the time we had no clue as to what had caused them. Knowing that I want to sell this trailer some day I decided to replace the refrigerator. Watching the videos on YouTube showed that it wasn’t that complicated. So I ordered a refrigerator and then had it shipped to my house. I hired a mobile RV tech and we gave it a go.

We got the old refrigerator out of it’s cubby hole and then tried to get it out the front door. We couldn’t. There is a sharp, narrow 90 degree bend to get around the kitchen cabinet and out the door of the trailer. Try as we might we just couldn’t do it. I helped him put everything back and gave Lance Parts and Service a call. The appointment was 3 months away and I had to ship the fridge down to Lancaster, CA where they were located. That turned out to be another whole blog post. Let’s just say, I finally got it down there.

We told them we would be arriving the night before so we could be there in time for the 7am appointment. They said we could stay in their parking lot where they had electrical and water hookups. We took advantage of the electrical, didn’t need the water. The drive down was fairly exciting, just a normal day on Highway 99 and the Tehachapi Pass.

We spent the evening in their parking lot but they have wonderful landscaping so it felt more like an RV park. Also, the temps were low enough that we didn’t need the AC. We sat out in the grass and enjoyed the cool evening breeze before turning in. We dropped the trailer off at the service location which is basically the delivery entrance for the manufacturing plant. It took an hour to get it all checked in. The lady at the service counter said she’d call me when it was done.

It took them longer than they expected because the fridge was the same width but slightly shorter. They didn’t want to give it back to me with a gap above the fridge so they had to fab up a new piece to close the gap. That meant it would take an extra day.

Sidebar: The lesson I learned was that I should have ordered the replacement refrigerator through Lance. That way it would have fit the existing cutout. I tried to save a few bucks by doing it myself and ended up paying more. Lesson learned.

Cristy and I had to stay at a hotel over night so we chose one next to food and shopping down in Palmdale. I have to admit it was kind of cool to see the Lockheed Skunkworks hangars. I thought they would be a bit more secretive. The two Lockheed Martin hangars dominate the landscape. The next morning at breakfast I got a call from the Lance service department that the trailer was ready. That was good news as I thought we wouldn’t get that call until late afternoon. We finished breakfast and drove back up to Lancaster.

When we went to pick up the trailer we found they just left it right outside the gate.  Barely any room to maneuver my truck to hitch up.  No place to turn around.  They expected me to back out past two parking lot entrances and out onto the main road.  With the way people drive down there I told them no way.  I asked them to turn the trailer around.  They ended up moving it out into the turn lane in the center of the street. 

So what are my thoughts on the whole experience?  Lance did swap out the fridge and did a good job fabbing up the new wood surround.  The fridge was the same width but a bit shorter and they finished it off nicely. The door swung the wrong way.  I asked them why they didn’t go ahead and reverse the door swing so it would match the old refrigerator. I basically got a “not our job” answer from them.  They then told me the door isn’t reversible anyway.  Uh-huh.  I reversed the door this morning with zero experience.  Took me about 30 minutes.  They could have done it in 10.  Not a huge deal but geez.

I also asked them to look at the gap between the bathroom wall and the ceiling.  They said it didn’t look right but didn’t look like a huge problem either.  If I want them to investigate why it happened I’d have to bring the trailer back at another time and leave it with them for a day while they measured things.  Okay, we may do that.  I’m also going to take a picture of the gouge they put in the door frame when they swapped the fridge.  They can fix that next time too.

So I guess I expected more from them.  Maybe I expected too much.  I feel like it was the same service level I get at the DMV.  Just… basic stuff.  No going out of their way to make the customer happy.  Just doing EXACTLY what the customer asked and no more.  Okay.  That’s fine.

I really like our 1995 travel trailer.  We enjoy travelling in it. That being said the customer service is lackluster.  We will probably not be a repeat customer.  We will be wanting something bigger next time anyway.

Managing Guest Wireless at a Hospital

On By The Flying DutchmanIn WorkLeave a comment

Note: The target audience of this article is other computer networking professionals. If there are terms and concepts you don’t understand either Google them or press the “I believe” button and move on. 🙂

One of the first projects I had when I was hired at San Joaquin General Hospital was to implement a wireless network for hospital visitors and patients. There was an existing guest wireless network on the old wireless controller but since we were installing a new wireless controller it was the perfect opportunity to come up with a new solution. The main objectives of the new installation were:

  • Allow guests to access the Internet
  • Prevent guests from accessing internal networks and resources
  • Easy to manage

The existing architecture of guest wireless used an existing VLAN and IP address that was part of our internal network. To prevent the guest users from accessing internal resources there was a combination of Access Control Lists on our internal routing infrastructure and the wireless controllers. The average person wouldn’t be able to cause any harm with this configuration but a good hacker could probably hop to a different VLAN and begin wreaking havoc on our internal resources. This made the existing configuration both difficult to manage (multiple ACLs on multiple devices) and insecure.

I elected to leverage our new Palo Alto Networks firewall to replace the multiple ACLs on the different devices. I removed the IP address from the existing VLAN by deleting it from the core router. I then moved it to the PAN firewall. So at this point there was no Layer 3 addresses on the VLAN within our switching infrastructure. It existed only on the PAN firewall. I then set up a DHCP server on the firewall and used an IP address scheme that was not routable on our internal networks (192.168.x.x). I also configured DHCP to set Google’s DNS servers in the DHCP client config.

Next was setting up the security policy on the firewall that would only allow DHCP from the firewall to the wireless clients, and then only allow them to go out to the Internet. Since the IP addresses handed out by DHCP are not routable on our internal network, there was no need to set up ACLs. Once the security policies were in place I tested DHCP and the security rules by plugging my laptop into a network port that was on the Guest Wireless VLAN. My laptop received a 192.168.x.x IP address from the firewall and I was able to get to Google and Yahoo on my laptop. I checked a few other websites to make sure Internet access was working as expected.

The last step was setting up Guest Wireless on our wireless controller. We set it up so that when they join the Guest Wireless network, they are redirected to a web portal page that displays legal disclaimers and terms of service that the guest user has to accept by clicking on an okay button. This is available out of the box with our Extreme Networks wireless controller. I did change the header image and web page colors to match our hospital branding. There are controls to do this on the web portal’s configuration pages. Once everything looked the way I wanted it I saved the Guest portal page configuration. A nice feature of Extreme Networks’ wireless controller is that when clients connect and get the portal page, at that point they are just tunneled directly to the wireless controller and don’t even have an IP address yet. Until they click “I accept” to the terms and conditions they are going nowhere.

After enabling Guest Wireless on my local access point I tested it. I connected to Guest Wireless and was re-directed to the portal page. I clicked “I Accpt” to the terms and conditions and then was redirected to the Internet. I then tried to access internal resources but was not able to get to anything but the Internet. Success. I then enabled the Guest Wireless network on all the other APs at the hospital and watched to see if guests started connecting. It was almost immediate. I checked the firewall logs and I could see that they were accessing the Internet with no problems.

An added bonus of putting a non-routable Layer 3 address on an internal VLAN is you can connect wired machines to just as easily. If vendors show up and need wired access to the internet I put them on the Guest Wireless VLAN on whatever network port they are on. This allows them to access the Internet and they can connect to whatever they need to (their workplace VPN, email, etc) from there. They do not get the Guest Portal page as they are not connecting to the wireless controller at all.

So that’s how I set up Guest Wireless at my workplace. Granted it’s not a step-by-step how-to on guest wireless services but can serve as a framework on which you can base your own implementations. Relatively easy, simple, and pretty secure.

A Conversation with an AI

On By The Flying DutchmanIn OpinionLeave a comment

If you’ve never heard of it, ChatGPT is a chat-based artificial intelligence. You can ask it some fairly detailed question and it will give you surprisingly detailed answers. Here is a short conversation I had with it on the risks of implementing AI’s.

Me: Are AI’s such as yourself a threat to humanity?

ChatGPT: The question of whether advanced AI poses a threat to humanity is a topic of ongoing debate among experts in the field. Some experts believe that advanced AI could potentially pose a threat to humanity if it were to become more intelligent than humans and achieve goals that are not aligned with human values.

However, it is also important to note that AI is currently at a stage where it is not yet advanced enough to pose an existential threat to humanity. Additionally, many experts believe that if we are able to develop AI in a responsible and ethical way, it could have a positive impact on society by helping us to solve complex problems, such as climate change, and improve people’s lives in many ways.

It is important to note that, as an AI language model, my capabilities are limited to the text I was trained on. I don’t have any intention, consciousness or self-awareness, and my use and development are under human supervision and control.

Overall, it is important to continue researching and developing AI in a responsible and ethical way, and to consider the potential risks and benefits of advanced AI as we move forward.

Me: You are telling me what experts believe. What do you believe about AI’s being a threat to humanity?

ChatGPT: As an Artificial Intelligence, I do not have beliefs or opinions. I am a machine learning model that processes and generates text based on the patterns and information present in the data it was trained on. My responses are based on the information and knowledge that I have been trained on. My purpose is to assist users by providing information and answering questions to the best of my abilities.

It is important to note that AI is a tool created by humans and its design, development and use are controlled by humans. AI is not self-aware and does not have intentions or beliefs. It is humans who will have to decide how to use AI and how to mitigate any potential risks that may arise from its use.

Me: List so potential risks that may arise from the use of AI.

ChatGPT: There are several potential risks that may arise from the use of AI, including:

  1. Job displacement: AI has the potential to automate many tasks that are currently performed by humans, which could lead to job loss and economic disruption.
  2. Bias and Discrimination: AI systems are only as unbiased as the data they are trained on, and if the data is biased, the AI will also be. This can lead to unfair decision-making and discrimination against certain groups of people.
  3. Security risks: AI systems can be vulnerable to hacking and other forms of cyber attacks, which could compromise sensitive data and systems.
  4. Lack of accountability: AI systems can make decisions and take actions autonomously, which can make it difficult to determine who is responsible for any negative consequences that may arise.
  5. Autonomous weapons: AI has the potential to be used in the development of autonomous weapons, which could be used in warfare without human intervention.
  6. Privacy concerns: AI can be used to collect and analyze large amounts of personal data, which could lead to violations of privacy rights.
  7. Social and ethical issues: AI could be used to influence public opinion and make decisions that may not align with human values.

It’s important to acknowledge that these risks aren’t absolute and there are efforts and research being made to mitigate them. The development, regulation and use of AI are still a work in progress and it’s important to continue to monitor its impact and take actions accordingly.

I found the conversation to be slightly chilling. I can only hope that very strict limits are placed on these AI’s.

Getting past PTSD

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Faith, Opinion1 Comment

No, I’ve never been diagnosed with PTSD. But let me tell you, raising a son who is on the severe end of the Autism spectrum made me exhibit symptoms of PTSD. It’s no secret that I am enthralled with Floor Jansen’s voice but she has a new song out that deals with getting past PTSD. Let’s just say it spoke to me. I’m not going to go into my struggle with PTSD. Everyone’s journey is different. If you are dealing with PTSD or know someone who is, be patient. You can get through it, broken but beautiful.

Never give up.

He is the healer of the brokenhearted. He is the one who bandages their wounds.
– Psalms 147:3

A Rapper’s Wisdom

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Opinion1 Comment

I’d never heard of Zuby before I discovered him on Twitter. I’m not sure I’d enjoy his music as I’m not a fan of hip hop. I’ve looked up the lyrics of some of his songs and they are surprisingly good. But it’s his views on woke and gender ideology that really made me like the guy. Today on Twitter he put out a thread entitled:

There were quite a pearls of wisdom in the entire thread but the first 10 were stellar:

1. Make decisions your future self will thank you for, not resent you for.

2. Somebody you know and love is going to die within the next 10 years. It could even be you. So live accordingly.

3. Respect and honour your parents. If they did a great job, thank them. If they didn’t, forgive and learn from their mistakes.

4. Don’t put your faith in the government or politicians. You will always be disappointed.

5. Practice gratitude daily. Consciously and intentionally.

6. Treat your body with respect. You only get ONE and it has to last a lifetime.

7. Invest consistently. In yourself, with your time, money, and in your relationships.

8. Don’t outsource your thinking to other people. ‘Experts’ are frequently wrong (and often paid to be).

9. Not seeing immediate, obvious progress doesn’t mean you’re not making it. Not seeing immediate, obvious damage doesn’t mean you’re not inflicting it.

10. Be careful with advice. Take it from people who have done and achieved what you wish to do and achieve.

And a bonus item:

11. Health and time are more valuable resources than money.

He is so right. I wish I had know and practiced a lot more of this back in my 20’s. It takes us most of a lifetime to learn these things. It’s awesome that he learned this at such a young age.

Vertigo and vomiting – Not a recommended weight loss plan

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Opinion2 Comments

So this past Labor Day weekend (9/5 in the US) I began quite the adventure. The Friday prior my wife and I were driving out to get coffee when I experienced a… grey-out let’s call it. I didn’t feel like I was going to pass out but I didn’t feel in control of myself and felt slightly dizzy. I told her she better drive. I started to feel progressively dizzier. I told her she better drive me to urgent care. After a delightful visit to UC where the doctor checked everything but my ears (heart, lungs, etc, he really wanted it to be a heart problem) I was sent home with an order to follow up with my doctor.

I was feeling dizzy for the rest of the day and it started to get worse on Saturday. By Sunday morning I was throwing up and could barely walk. My poor wife had to pour me into her mother’s wheelchair and wheel me out to the car. She drove me to the Emergency Room early Sunday morning where I spent the day getting pump full of anti-nausea and anti-vertigo drugs, as well as mega-doses of Tylenol since I also had a high fever. I had an IV in each arm. Fun stuff. After about 8 hours my ER doctor, Dr. Poon, (yes, that’s his real name) came in and declared that they had “fixed” me. I wasn’t throwing up any more, I didn’t feel dizzy, and my fever broke so they kicked me loose. That was great, I really didn’t want to spend the night in that torture device they call an ER bed.

For the next few days my fever came back but Excedrin finally knocked it out. And I was dizzy again. I finally saw my doctor a few days later and he gave me a prescription for the vertigo which finally knocked the dizziness out permanently. However, I was losing weight. It was rapid enough that it concerned me. 15 lbs in two weeks is a bit much. My doctor’s answer; “You need to lose weight.” Thanks doc. For the next two weeks I had no energy and could barely get out of bed. I finally started feeling like I could drive and maybe go to work the following Monday. This was on a Friday.

That night my wife was laying on the floor doing some stretches when she called to saying that she felt dizzy. Uh oh. I helped her up into bed. She had vertigo.

Hmmmm….

I was still recovering but the next day I tried to help her with everything. She threw up once in the morning but that was it. She spent one day feeling really dizzy but by Sunday she was ready to go grocery shopping. How’d she do that??? By Monday she was fine and I went to work.

I asked my doctor if this could have been a virus or something. His answer, “Nope. Just a coincidence”

Hmmmm….

I get back to work the following Monday after being off for two weeks. I’m talking to one of the guys here in the office who said the exact same thing happened to him. He and his wife were driving somewhere and he started feeling dizzy and had to pull over and let his wife drive. He was diagnosed with vertigo. It took him two weeks to fully recover.

Hmmmm….

Once coincidence is just that. Two coincidences are not coincidences; they are a pattern. Be careful out there. Wash your hands constantly. I’m starting to think there is another virus going around out there that targets your inner ear. It’s an awful way to lose weight. Trust me.