The software that was included on the CD Rom with the image data was a very crappy Windows application and I didn’t do much with it. But today I found an open source Mac viewer and it produced these stunning revealing images.

Have a peek into my body:

Alison asked if she could use the ladder: “I want to remove the vine out of that almost leafless tree so maybe it will do a bit better.” I went into the basement to get the ladder, which took some effort since I really should clean up, and put it up against the tree for her. Then I went inside to continue my work on the computer.

A few minutes later Alison came in. “Uhm, I think the tree fell down.” I asked if she was okay and then went outside to see what had happened. The tree had snapped off at its base, just below ground. Apparently the reason it didn’t have much leaves was that it had rotted away, probably because the strangling vine had deprived it of nutrients. Fortunately it didn’t fell all the way to the ground which might have injured Alison, but just fell a metre until it rested against the neighbour’s garage. I hate that garage, since it takes away a lot of sun from our garden, but for a change it proved useful.

I interrupted my work, got my electric saw out of the garage, and went up on the garage’s roof to cut the tree in pieces. That went pretty quick and a few hours later the whole tree was in my car and I was underway to deposit it at the Eco Centre at the end of our street. Usually when I come here to deposit debris of one of my renovations it’s very busy with contractors. But today it was Sunday and there was hardly anyone. So I was relatively quick back to work.

We killed Pepe today.

No, don’t worry; not with a saw, a spade or a pitchfork. And we didn’t even do it ourself. The vet did the dirty work with two injections. This photo was taken during the dress rehearsal on Sunday. I dug his grave and Alison let him try it out.

Eight years ago Pepe and I got off to a rough start. He bit me the first time I slept in his (and Alison’s) bed and ate half of my expensive mouth guard a week later. I wrote to a friend that this licking Chihuahua monster was awful. But over the years we got closer. And because Alison was away a lot I took care of him a lot in the past months. Fed him every couple of hours, regularly carried him outside so he could pee (and didn’t do it all inside) and tucked him in under his blanket.

I’ll miss him.

For a longer report of the events, illustrated with my photos, I direct you to Alison’s story, I’m too tired to type more right now.

On her weblog above you can also find some previous posts she wrote (eloquently) about the final weeks of Pepe.

And you can follow this link for much more Pepe.

(No need for sympathies in comments or emails; he had a good life and we’re fine.)

Bixi is Montreal’s new shared bike system and it was recently rolled out. Not all bicycle stands/stations were installed immediately but according to this sign they were going to install a Bixi station 150 meter from our house last Saturday. These stations install very fast. They are solar powered and after they are lifted of a truck they require just a few bolts and that’s it.

But somebody in the street thought it was wrong and glued this note on both of the signs:

Saturday came and went and no Bixi station was installed.

Sunday came and went and no Bixi station was installed. 

Monday came and went and no Bixi station was installed. 

Tuesday came and went and no Bixi station was installed. 

But finally, on Wednesday, a big truck came and dropped off this station. The bikes were added today. It is not installed in the original location (which would have cost two parking spaces) but, just as the note asked/said, on the other side of the intersection. So now it’s 170 metres from our house. We have many stations nearby, another one is 200 metres in the other direction, and there’s a third a bit further away, almost 400 metres, near the park.

This weekend I’m going to convince A. to make a test ride. And if it’s a success she might get a Bixi pass for her birthday. Or a bike.

If you have an iPhone or iPod you might want to check this site to get an interactive map that you can load in Google Maps which shows the location of all 300 stations and how many bikes (or free spots) are available at every station. Because some stations are at times totally empty and others are totally full, which is a problem when you either want to get a bike or want to drop one off.

Not much going on here, and that has several reasons. I have a nasty flu, cold, or whatever that is going on for almost a week and a halve now. (No, it’s very unlikely it is H1N1, if it was I should be dead by now.) 

It gave me a high fever, made me lost my voice and I have terrible coughing fits. Because my voice box is not working (Laryngitis) the coughing sounds I make are very high pitched like they would be when one pokes an adolescent boy with a breaking voice with a burning stick. It doesn’t feel that way, fortunately, but it still is painful.

I can’t go out of the house, since if I do, I might infect others and certainly now, people are extremely worried when they see an overdressed person coughing hysterically while walking on their sidewalks. Any physical activity also just renders me completely exhausted and I cough even more afterwards.

Contacting people by phone is also hard because they can’t hear me and even whispering is bad for my Laryngitis.

So my social life is very dull and boring since all I do is sit in my chair and read the Internet. And I work on my secret iPhone project, with some napping in between. Today I basically finished the project (after nearly 3 months!) and I’m going to submit it to Apple for approval tomorrow. Finally, I was running out of steam a bit…
Even though I can almost feel your curiosity I can’t tell you more about it before it is accepted. Apple might rejected it for some stupid reason, and I don’t want to give my competitors too much of a head-start in their efforts to copy it. Not that it is very likely they are reading logloglog, but you never know.

This application is also the reason for the move to a real domain for logloglog. It is very possible I will get much more traffic on my corporate site soon, and I want to make clear this is my personal weblog. The old loglog goes off-line in a few days. If you have links to loglog in your blogroll please update them.

Next to the Montreal General Hospital they are building an addition to the hospital. Or maybe it is just a parking garage, I don’t know. Since this is literally in the mountain they have to remove a lot of rock. When I passed they were just finishing up drilling deep holes in the rock with a giant drill, mounted on a crawling vehicle.

Then the covered the just drilled hole with these big grey mats. Suddenly it dawned to me and my suspicion was confirmed when I saw this sign.

They were going to blast the rock with dynamite, right there before my eyes! Being a Dutchman I’ve never seen any blasting. The only rock we have is the one used by junkies, our soil is sand, mud and clay, so a backhoe will do fine to remove it. This suddenly became very exiting. I asked the guy that waited on the side walk how long it would take before the blast. “Five minutes,” he answered so it was an easy decision to wait.

I had to get off the sidewalk onto the street but managed to get a picture anyway.

(Okay, in reality the blast was not nearly as exiting as this photo suggests. It was only a very muffled boom, and then some dust emerged from the pit. Those protective mats really work.)

After the blast they removed the mats and bulldozers went into the pit to remove the rubble. Then the drilling started again for another cycle. From the daily report that hung over a fence post I learned they did about 25 blasts a day. Preparing a building site in this location sure is a lot of work.

When I cycled to my doctor yesterday on the Maissoneuve bike path I noticed this sign when I entered the borough of Westmount. Apparently cyclists need to wear a helmet there, I’ve no idea since when.
Now I do think wearing helmets in Montreal’s traffic is generally a good idea. I always wear mine especially since my accident, but I do think it is a good idea to introduce this requirement in all the boroughs on the island of Montreal at once.

In the current situation Westmount is an island, and legally inaccesible by the majority of cyclists that don’t wear a helmet.

Of course I saw a lot of people breaking this by-law and I’ve no idea if it is enforced. But having laws that are just laws is worse than having no laws at all.

The results of the MRI are in:

• A Baker’s cyst 3 x 2 x 4 cm
• Old minor tear at the lateral meniscus
• Grade I-II patellar chondrosis
• Osteophytosis at the medial trochlea

If you’re interested you can Google what this all means. Basically I have fluid in my knee, and the cartilage behind my knee cap is damaged. There is also a small bone spur, a bone that the body makes to make up for a lack of cartilage. Unfortunately that is not a good plan and over time this can get very painful when that bone hits other bone.

I’m going to have physiotherapy and have to do a lot of stretching and strengthen exercises. They hurt.

And my doctor referred me to an orthopaedist. He’ll probably see me in 6 to 9 months.

My knee hurts.

Since quite a while now but it got worse after a fall while cross-country skiing a few weeks ago. So my doctor made me have another MRI. The technician was so kind to make this photo. As you can see I didn’t have to go into the machine head-first so the whole experience was not at all claustrophobic. I even managed, despite the loud noise, to nearly fall asleep at the end.

I paid an additional fee, on top of the $650 that will hopefully be reimbursed by my health insurance, to get the results on a CD-ROM.

If you are an orthopaedist you might see exactly what is wrong, if you’re not, just enjoy the little movie. I think it’s really cool to look into your own knee sliced like it is a loaf of bread.

[Click to play; click circle button on bottom right to play full screen]

44 candles, and I managed to blow them all out at once but one.

Alison baked this cake, a Gugelhupf or something. It turned out to be very bready, so I suggested to top it with icing. That worked well and the result was delicious. A really sweet birthday cake.

My mood has lifted today (Yay!), so Alison invited (and instructed me to invite) some friends to come and eat the cake. Of course it was very last minute, she had to see if I was feeling well enough to cope with visitors. On top of that it is beautiful, almost-spring weather so we just left a lot of messages on answering machines, hoping that at least somebody would show up. Two people did and we had a good time.