Eric M.’s Blog

Discovery channel usually has a longer ‘indirect’ ad, and they do a new one every now and then. Their last one, Let’s All Discover, I really liked, and I just saw their new one, Boom de y ada. Maybe it’s just me, being a super-dork and all, but I love them. Here are those two, plus a thrid short ad that I just find funny.

So apparently there was some major damage to launch pad 39A during the launch of Discovery on Saturday.

Images from various news sources, as well as NASA, show hundreds /thousands of missing bricks in the flame trench, and a large section of buckling of the cement:

The flying debris caused some pretty impressive damage to the perimeter fence around the pad:

NASA reports that the pad should be fixed for the next flight in October, but they will have to form a committee to find the cause. More at The Flame Trench and Space Flight Now.

Started the month at 216.4, ended at 207.0, for a loss of 9.4lbs, that comes out to a bit more then 2lbs per week.

In other medical news, I had a doctors appointment last week, and got a few updates:

I have been on Simvastatin (Zocor), a statin, for reducing cholesterol for about three months now. I was put on it because my total cholesterol was 243 and my LDL (bad) was 178 (>=200 total and >=150 LDL is high). Unfortunately, the drug irritated my IBS. Yesterday was my 3 month followup. I found out my numbers had dropped a bit… My total was down to 131 and my LDL was down to 71, both well within the normal range. Since I had also lost 25lbs since my last appointment, and the drugs were bothing me, my Dr told me to stop taking them, and we will check my numbers again in 3 months and see where they are. So that’s all good.

I’ve been having this issue that I burp, a lot. But only sometimes. He had me take Prilosec OTC over the last few months to see if it helped the symptoms. It did not, so he scheduled me for an ultrasound on Monday to look for gallstones (gallbladder problems are a common cause of excess gas).

I was newly diagnosed by a specialist with ADHD, so my Dr put me on Concerta (essentially controlled release Ritalin) to try and help with concentration. He is starting at the lostest dose, and we will work up from there to determine the best dose, or if I should try a different drug. This is one very irritating thing about these drugs. They are a Schedule II controlled substance (the same as Cocain…), so I have to physically get the Rx from the Dr office, then phisically take it to the pharmacy. No mail/phone/fax allowed. Not only that, but you can only get an 30 day Rx at a time. There is a new rule that may have recently gone into effect that lets you get up to 3 Rx’s from the Dr at a time, but you have to still get each one filled seperately every 30 days. What a pain in the ass.