I’ve been watching snibbets of video from the EV Nautilus’ channel on YouTube. Fascinating. If you’re into cool live shots of undersea creatures and that sort of thing (or your kids are), you should check out this channel. Their ship has these remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) with lights and video equipment which they send down and explore with. There is a live feed feature so scientists (and anybody else) can watch what’s going on in real time and make contributions. So you have these scientists sitting in a room with all these monitors showing video feed of what the ROVs are encountering, and just geeking out over the stuff they’re seeing. (Oh, over there! Can you zoom? It’s a Tropiometra carinata, and, yes, look! It’s being parasitized by a Myzostoma probably fuscomaculatum. That’s so great!) There’s this one guy, though. I mean, how can you get a PH.D. in marine biology and not learn how to pronounce “anemone?”! He consistently pronounces it “a-nen-o-me” and it just drives me nuts. (Life on the spectrum, ya’ll. . . .)
It’s been hot here. Sunday’s high was 102F/38.9C. Today’s high is supposed to be 109F/42.7 C. Naturally, I have to get out in it. I have an appointment to get my teeth cleaned at 3 p.m. 47% humidity. Tuesday’s high is supposed to be 88F/31.1C. Ridiculous.
I’ve been going through ice cubes a tray at a time in my stainless steel drink bottle. It holds 40 oz — I fill it a little over half full with a packet of Crystal Light, and then dump in a whole ice tray. Lasts me all day.
Last Thursday was my last day of physical therapy. I have 120 degrees of flexion now (a straight leg is 0 degrees), and I can ride the exercise bike and get the pedals to go all the way around. I have a pair of ankle weights (red ones!) somewhere, left over from when I broke that kneecap many long years ago. I’ve been trying to find them so I can do my home exercises. No idea where I put them. Not a clue. However, the hand weights I got around that time are probably with them, where ever they are. I’ve still got residual swelling and numbness, but I’m only 3 months postop. It can take up to a year for all the stiffness and swelling to finally go away. I reckon I’m down to about half of what I had right after surgery. Onward and upward.
The Owl Underground 
The best ROVs I ever watched were the ones they sent down during the Deepwater Horizon disaster. As awful as that was, watching the work in real time was the coolest thing ever, especially in tandem with an IRC chatroom where experts were interpreting what was going on. There were a lot of those deep sea critters around, too — a real bonus.
It’s great to hear about your progress. I laughed at your “now, where are those things?” comment. I can’t remember what I couldn’t find this weekend, but it was something, and it seemed utterly impossible that I shouldn’t know where it was. Ah, life.
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I’ve been working on a project recently that uses ROVs and other stuff to restore a coral reef so that dialogue you quoted sounds just so familiar :))
Great to hear that you keep making progress in your recovery!
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