My apologies that I haven't continued telling you about our holiday, but it has been so hot here that we have had little motivation to do anything. That, combined with my operation, has meant we've gotten little of anything done. The weather has suddenly cooled off significantly, however, so we are now struggling to catch up.

On August 26, I got my deep brain stimulator put in. It was a very interesting operation in which I was awake for half of it. I needed to provide the doctor with feedback as he tested the deep brain stimulator, sliding it into my brain. This was interesting, as I could hear the comments that he and an observer were making to each other. Apparently, the lesions from my MS actually do look white. They are readily visible against the gray of my brain matter. There were many other interesting comments; apparently, I have a beautiful skull. Once this was done, they put me under for the next step. They then made get cut high on my left chest, and put in the controller. They then fished the wire up my neck and across my skull underneath the scalp. I don't even know how long the whole operation took.

On October 7, I have an appointment to turn everything on and do the initial adjustments. I'm really looking forward to it. From the testing when they put the stimulator in, I have a feeling it will help a great deal. Perhaps they will eventually put in one to control my left side tremors as well.

Now that my skin has been healing up quite well for a while, I can restart the exercises that my physiotherapist gave me. I was worried at first, because some of them involve stretching and opening up the chest. That would not have gone well with my chest having been sliced open for the controller. I have been working on my balance, however. I have been out almost every day to whipper-snipper the weeds in the field behind our house. This is the common area septic field. The unevenness of the ground has been very good for my balance; I have to really work at keeping vertical. It has also been very good for my muscle strength in my legs. I'm probably better than I ever have been since I shattered my leg.

Thanks to Constantin for letting me know about the Solaris 11 Early Access program. I have been waiting since I installed Solaris 11 Express for an update to either Solaris 10 or Solaris 11. That was last December. Now, an update is (finally!) available. I am hoping to install it soon, and to find out whether the Sunray software will work. (It doesn't work at all under Solaris 11 Express.) I have been quite disappointed by Oracle's long delays on Solaris, but have not had a spare box to test whether SmartOS would support the Sunray software.

I am hoping to get another update or two to our travels in Europe this weekend, as Ele will be playing in a bridge tournament. That gives me time to update the blog, and e-mail a friend I finally heard from this past week.

Rainer