Eye Can See Clearly Now
My eye appears to be fully recovered. It was pretty sore the day Dr. Dame removed the foreign object; by about 8PM that day, it started to feel much better. My pupil was no longer dilated by that point, so that helped immensely. On Tuesday my left eye was still blurry, but there was no discomfort at all. By Wednesday, the blurriness was gone completely. I suspect that the foreign object got into my eye when I scraped the barbecue Saturday night.
Carbon Fiber Reinforced ... Cornea
Saturday afternoon I got something in my left eye. Initially I thought it was just an eyelash. The discomfort continued through the evening and the night. Sunday morning we got some Visine and I started irrigating. This didn’t really help much, but it didn’t make it worse either. I figured I’d scratched my cornea. This morning I called Dr. Dame and made an appointment. Dr. Dame put some flourescent dye in my eye and had a look. He saw something right in the middle of my cornea. To remove the foreign object, he froze my eye. Using a small piece of sterile sponge, he gently moved the object away from the middle of my eye. I was doing a pretty good job keeping my eye open, but it wasn’t easy. Once the object was closer to the edge of my eye, Dr. Dame was able to extract it more easily. He showed it to me, but I couldn’t see it very well. My left eye was frozen, and both eyes were filled with tears. But there was a tiny little black speck on the end of the sponge. “It looks like a piece of carbon fiber.” “But we don’t own anything that’s made of carbon fiber. Could it be a hair?” “No, it’s not the right size and shape to be a hair.” Eventually tissue would have grown over the object – after about 48 hours. So I guess I was pretty lucky. Dr. Dame gave me some drops to put in my eye hourly, and sent me on my way. My eye has been extremely sensitive to sunlight. It was a little better without the object, but not as good as I would have liked. But by the time I’d come home and had supper, it was feeling quite a bit better. My left eye is still pretty blurry, but it feels much better now. I expect my vision will be mostly normal tomorrow.
Alice on the Beach
Much to our surprise yesterday, Alice had no desire to walk through the rainforest. After quite a bit of coaxing we got her to come down to the coffee lounge on the beach level. There we had a wonderful view of the Pacific Ocean crashing onto Chesterman Beach. It was a beautiful sunny day with a high of 27C. I had another cappuccino and Corinna ordered a fruit plate. The latter came with a delicious fresh-made yogurt, infused with cherries, strawberries, and blackberries. Alice had a little snack and then we got her out the door and onto the beach. We fully expected she’d head straight for the rainforest. Much to our surprise, she played happily on the sand and even got close to the water. We explored the beach, and Alice was quite taken with a little tidal pond. It had some small barnacles, tiny little snails, and some sand. Alice pretended she was feeding fish – she’d take a handful of sand from the beach and drop it into the pond. Pretty cute. We slowly worked our way onto some rocks. Alice liked that too, though the rocks were pretty slippery and she needed us to hold her hand. On some of the rocks there were more tidal ponds… and more fish feeding. As we got closer to the waves there was more marine life to see. Small hermet crabs, small fish – yes, we ‘fed’ them sand – lots of sea anemone, and even a big purple starfish. By this point Alice was sufficiently engaged that she was actually walking in the water. Our little girl walking in the Pacific Ocean! After a little more beachcombing, Alice took off across the sand headed straight for the rainforest path. I thought for sure she’d take us through the usual guided tour, but alas, Alice was starting to get homesick. She walked a meters into the forest, stopped, and wouldn’t go any further. “I don’t want to go to rainforest.” I carried Alice back across the beach and into The Wick. We went back to Beachcomber Suite 49 and finished packing for the return trip. Our return trip was uneventful. Alice slept from Tofino to Port Alberni, where we stopped for a bathroom break. We then continued on to Cathedral Grove for a quick 20-minute walk. Then it was back into the car and off to Comox. We got to the Comox airport about 65 minutes before our flight. Since it’s such a small airport – only two gates – we had plenty of time to check-in and clear security. Alice enjoyed the flight. There was a young boy (maybe 4 years old) sitting right behind her and they entertained each other quite a bit. Because she had a window seat, she also played quite a bit with the window blind. Alice also watched a Backyardigans movie – Samurai Pie. We were back home by about 10PM MDT. Corinna gave Alice a really quick bath, and gave her a snack. Alice was asleep by 11 and didn’t make a sound until 10AM today.
Come on, guys, follow me!
Alice has really taken to the rainforest walk here on the grounds of The Wickaninnish. We cross Chesterman Beach to the rainforest trail. We often cross the beach at full speed. We still haven’t touched the ocean. Once we’re into the rainforest, it’s very important that Alice lead the way. “Come on, guys, follow me!” Alice is really good at walking the path by herself. There is one part where you have to walk across a streambed on a plank. Alice can do this without help. There are some stairs over old nurse logs – Alice handles these by herself. Sometimes the nurse logs are too small to require stairs. Our fearless rainforest guide traverses these without any assistance. We’ve seen many interesting things on the rainforest walk. There are flowers, bright red bugs, caterpillars, wild raspberries, and birds. This rainforest walk has become quite a regular routine. We did it once on our first day, once Saturday, and twice yesterday. Today we’ve already done it twice. Alice is having a nap on the cot while Corinna is at the Ancient Cedars Spa. As soon as Alice is awake, I expect we’ll go on our walk again. Tonight a babysitter is coming to our room to stay with Alice while we go to The Pointe for supper. Alice is having a Kid’s Night In – pizza, homemade cookie, popcorn, and a movie (The Little Mermaid). We hope she has fun. Alice has been pretty well behaved for this visit. Last night we had supper at The Pointe but ate on the patio. This worked really well for Alice, since she didn’t have to sit still and be as quiet as would have been required inside. Alice sang us a song before supper. It was another of her original works, and was acompanied by a little dance. Our waiter, Ali, was kind enough to bring Alice an appetizer of her own: a small grilled-cheese sandwich with ketchup. It was perfectly prepared, and must have been no more than half a slice of bread in total. A very nice touch. Our return flight was departing Comox tomorrow at noon. Since it’s a three hour drive from Tofino, we’d have to leave her very early in the morning. Corinna suggested we change to a later flight, and WestJet has put us on a 7PM instead. This should make our return trip much more enjoyable.
The Ocean's Talking to Me
The first day of our Tofino vacation was a pretty big one. Alice, Grandma Barb, Corinna and I packed up our luggage – all 10 pieces – and got to the Calgary airport in good time. We had done the WestJet Web Check-in, which helps streamline the process a little. We parked the Element at the Park-n-Jet and caught a bus to the terminal. We had so much luggage we occupied an entire shelf on the bus…. Alice had the largest suitcase, but that’s expected when you’re a toddler. I had a suitcase, a laptop, my camera bag, and my tripod bag. So I’m clearly the problem. The security people at the airport were surprisingly friendly. Maybe it’s because there isn’t an Alice Murray on any Canadian no-fly list. A very nice lady asked Alice to put Tiger on the conveyor belt so he could have an X-ray. Alice didn’t seem to mind. We all walked through the scanner – Mommy carried Alice. Once they were through, Alice started to become upset. She really wanted Tiger, and he was in a plastic tray, freshly scanned. Another very nice lady took an interest in Alice and Tiger. She even took Alice around the other side of the X-ray machine to see Tiger’s picture. It was a surprising departure from the security horror-stories you often hear in the media. We all very impressed. Our flight to Comox was very smooth. Alice enjoyed the flight much more than Grandma Barb – Grandma doesn’t like flying, and kept her window closed the whole time. Alice did her best to comfort Grandma, loaning her Tiger, Cocoa, blanket and pillow, snacks. It was pretty cute. I don’t think it made Grandma much more comfortable, but it was nice to see Alice thinking of others. The Comox airport is comfortably small. We got to walk down a staircase to the tarmac when we arrived. I think I enjoyed this more than Grandma Barb. All of our luggage arrived in Comox too, which is pretty handy. We rented our Mazda 5 and went to A&W for lunch. I drove from Comox to Tofino; it took about 3 hours. It was partly cloudy but there wasn’t any rain. That made the drive much less stressful than it’s been on previous trips to Tofino. We usually have lots of rain; those narrow, twisty BC roads are pretty treacherous. It was good to be back at The Wick; we stayed in room 49; we’ve been in room 47 on our previous two visits. Alice made herself right at home, first trying out the couch. That wasn’t quite right, so she tried our bed. That was nice, but still not quite perfect. Just like our trip to Auntie Wanda’s, Alice settled into her suitcase. Our room is really nice. There are French doors separating the king bed and bathroom from the couch/TV room. Alice slept on a cot, and Grandma had the hide-a-bed. After supper at The Pointe, we all went down to the ocean. Alice liked it very much, though she didn’t get her feet wet. At one point Alice announced, “The ocean’s talking to me.” We went from the beach to the rainforest walk on the grounds of The Wick. Alice liked the rainforest quite a bit too. She liked leading the way on the walk, “Come on guys, follow me.”
Going to the Ocean
We’re flying to Comox, BC today, then driving to Tofino. Back to The Wickanninnish – this time with Alice too. Corinna’s cousin Jason is marrying Stacey in Port Alberni on Saturday. Since Port Alberni is pretty close to Tofino, we couldn’t resist staying there again. Alice is very excited about this vacation. We’ve been telling her about the ocean and the beach. Most mornings lately have involved the following conversation. “I not going to Donna’s today.” “Where do you think we’re going?” “To ocean.” It’s difficult to explain the passage of time to someone who’s not yet 3. Alice is also very excited because Grandma Barb is flying with us today. Grandma doesn’t like flying, so Alice has been telling her all about the plane ride. “The plane goes up up up. Then there’s a really big bump.” It’s not clear whether this is helping Grandma.
2 Lines!
We’ve waited to post this entry until we could tell our families… May 17th, the day we left for Winnipeg, I decided to do a pregnancy test. I had just done one on Mother’s Day, May 13th, and it was negative. By Thursday May 17th I thought it was time to test again. I did the test and waited, Don and I were busy getting ready for our trip; I looked at the test and there were definately 2 lines. I kept saying “honey, 2 lines”, or “hey, 2 lines”, “did you know there were 2 lines?”. I couldn’t believe it! We’ve been trying for about 6 months; and in April I kind of gave up and decided not to keep track anymore, as obviously nothing was happening. Of course this is when it happens! We didn’t have much time to absorb this information, as we had to get out the door. We told Alice as soon as she woke up, and she proclaimed the baby in mommy’s tummy was a boy. She seemed okay with the news, and has been talking about wanting to be a big sister for awhile. Our trip started out by getting pulled over by the police on Deerfoot; I passed a motorcycle cop while on the way to the airport, going 105; he was going 100 km/hr. He let us go, I’d have been pretty choked if I got a ticket, given standard speed on Deerfoot is 120 km/hr…. We got to the airport, parked at the Park n Jet, and I wanted to bring my CD’s with us. Don said he’d put them in his suitcase. He looked at the suitcases on the ground, and realized we didn’t have his… this isn’t a good predicament to be in when you’re already at the airport! I suggested we could just leave it, but Don said there were lots of things in there we needed, so we decided to go home and get it. If we didn’t get a ticket going to the airport, I was certain we’d get one now, as we had to speed in order to get home and back to the airport in 1/2 hr. Otherwise we’d miss our flight! I drove back home, and was stressed out the whole way, as I had just been pulled over… so Don drove on the way back to the airport, averaging 140 km/hr…we made it from Copperfield to the airport in 15 minutes…. Anyway, we got to the airport, parked in the Park N Jet, and there was a bus ready there to take us to the terminal – lucky for us we didn’t have to wait! We checked our luggage and even had time for lunch – this was good for us! As we were quickly eating, I thought I heard a final boarding call for the flight to Winnipeg – but couldn’t be as we still had 20 min. before the plane was supposed to leave. Then a minute later we heard: “paging Don, Corinna and Alice Murray to gate 50!” Yikes, we’ve been paged! I told Don to run ahead and tell them we were coming, meanwhile I was holding onto a crying Alice, the cooler and a plate of cut up pizza, running down the gateway…it was one of those scenarios that you see and pity that poor mother! We got to the gate and they told us that the pilots wanted to leave Calgary early as they wanted to avoid a storm…they told us to take our time boarding; right. We got on the plane, of course it was full, and yes, we were the last people to get on. How embarassing! Alice did very well on the flight to Winnipeg. We landed, and Daddy was in charge of baggage. Alice and I were watching her DVD player (a God send, really), and after quite awhile I looked up and the baggage carousel had stopped moving, people were gone, and where was Daddy? We found him at the West Jet baggage claim, not a good sign. Apparently they lost 2 of our bags. Don thought we had 5; I said I thought it was only 4; after looking at the bags we had, we confirmed we were only missing one. And guess which one – my work bag!!! I’d rather loose my clothes than my work stuff! Luckily it turned up several hours later; West Jet called us at Auntie Wanda’s and it was delivered by courier that night. Crisis averted. Day over, we were exhausted and still haven’t been able to process the little baby growing inside me.
First Bandaid
A week ago Alice cut her finger. It was a pretty small cut – like a paper cut – but she was quite upset. We’re not even sure how she got the cut. We were headed to the Zoo, so we stopped and bought some Dora the Explorer Bandaids. We put a small one on her finger, and this seemed to ease her discomfort, poor little girl. Over the next few days it was very important to Alice that she have a bandaid on at all times. The bandaid would often get wet and slip off her fingertip. She’d pick it up and slide it back on – like a ring. It was pretty cute. I tried to photograph the cut, but it was pretty small, and it’s hard to hold still when you’re 2. The bandaids are no longer needed, and Alice’s finger looks great.
SpamAssassin, spam_buttons, Squirrelmail, and CentOS 3
After more than 6 years, I’m finally starting to get spam on my primary dmurray.ca email address. It has certainly helped that the address has not been published: my fans need to use my contact page first. The QVCS Guide has clear instructions on configuring SpamAssassin to filter out spam. Once I had this configured I tracked down the spam_buttons plugin for SquirrelMail. Theoretically, spam_buttons should have been an easy way to mark email as spam or ham (non-spam) from SquirrelMail. Alas, I had to fight a little to get this working. The missing piece was sudo -H in config.php.
Read more