Archive for April, 2004

So, I gave my notice that I was resigning my position as Chanter at Church this week, effective immediately. It was a difficult decision, but something that I have felt I needed to do to help grow my business and seek some peace of mind.

In other news, my afternoon client shorted my by $15.00. That sucks, but it’s a valuable lesson to learn.

I have another client arriving in about 10 minutes.

So I was driving home with the sun in my face, coming up to the lone traffic signal light on that stretch of road, and the car directly in front of me, a Volvo S80 was not moving.

This is the fifth sentence of my 23rd LJ posting – you can do the same thing!

I created an LJ bear region on NationStates called Rainforest Ursines Region

Come on and join the region – it takes a password: bovina

Albadger, it’s your birthday!
All badgers fall down and worship
At the Altar of the Golden Badger
Golden hair as the sun at Dusk
Setting Sun a Scarlet Flame
Scarlet Clouds a Beacon of Hope
Hope you’re having a Great Birthday
Albadger, it’s your birthday!

http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi/target=display_nation/nation=cyber_amish

a friend of mine sent me this link to a product on ebay…

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=4146756343&sspagename

it’s really funny – milk-snortingly good.

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Howdy, Bears,

Our first event, a Cable Cars/F-Market Streetcar tour has just been scheduled for May 8th! You can read about it on the site calendar. Hope to see you there!

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/backyard-tourist/

Once again, I sat down in the waiting room, and chatted with Connie, bear_with_me’s dental technician and receptionist. She’s really nice, caring and funny! Richard was vacuuming the examination rooms, and I was ten minutes late, so I waited. (The Caldecott Tunnel was jam-packed with traffic). Back into the room I went, sitting down in his dental chair, which he adjusted to the proper position to get back into my mouth. Then the procedure began.

First, after an examination of my mouth, he got out the anesthetic swab and put that on my gums, to numb them in preparation for the injections. A few minutes after the swab, he brought out the needle and made three quick little jabs, again commenting that I could make a good living as a shot model at the dental school. That line always makes me giggle. Next, he drilled out the temporary filling and removed the cotton he had stuffed down in there last time. There was no smell of cloves, though – I guess it must have spent itself in the intervening weeks. Once the old work was removed, it was on to the new.

With the stuffing removed, he stuck one of the micro-files into my tooth, and had Connie take an x-ray of the tooth to see how deep he’d have to go cleaning out the chamber. With that done, he finished the tedious process of filing the inside of the tooth smooth, which again took about an hourish. All the while, we were chatting – well, he was chatting; I was the captive audience, although I laughed at the appropriate moments, and once in a while did get a comment or two in.

Filing out the chamber done, Richard cleaned out the chamber with bleach, using suction to not spill a drop into my mouth. The vapors of the bleach solution to feel slightly irritating, but once he rinsed my mouth with water again, I was fine.

The next process is the creating of the plug. Using a rubber called Gutta Percha, in tiny little slivers slightly larger than a hair, and a glue containing oil of cloves, Richard created a wedge of rubber and glue that filled the chamber. First, he had the master core, I think he called it. Then he successively created the plug by inserting another sliver at a time. Insert a glue-covered plug, pack it in; insert, pack, insert, pack. That process continues until the tooth is full. Then he heats up one of is tools with an alcohol flame and melts the rubber, fusing it into a solid plug. The smoke coming from one’s mouth is just a bit disconcerting, but it was over in about 15 seconds.

Finally, he created another temporary filling, and Connie took a third x-ray to document what had been done for future reference. bigjohnsf had been waiting in the lobby to pick me up, bear_with_me scheduled me another appointment, and off we went to lunch at some Viet-Thai place around the corner.

A word of caution – one’s sense of tasted is diminished with one’s tongue is numb, so everything tasted really flat to me. I put on tons and tons of chili oil on my Kang Kai Pineapple curry – so much that I know I’ll be well aware of it in a few hours. I’d write a review of the place, but that wouldn’t be fair.

If you have the chance to be a patient of bear_with_me, you should (not that I’m wishing any dental ills upon anyone, mind) – I can’t reiterate enough how much he cares about his patients; he explained everything he was doing, showing me real respect and dignity. And, his famous wit is very reassuring.

back from the root canal, part two. i still have one more appointment to go to finish the thing off.