Shoulder Surgery – 13 weeks in

Don't be fooled... healthcare is far from a non-profit industry!

Don't be fooled... healthcare is far from a non-profit industry!

Last post I talked about how my recovery from Open Bankart Surgery on my right shoulder had begun to focus on pure strength training and continued development of my outward flexibility. This routine was exactly the same for week thirteen except that my physical therapist (PT) increased my weight by one pound on each exercise. This made it overall much harder to do, but I got through it. I also cut back to two visits for the week. The pure intensity of the work outs require at least a day to recover and I find with the long weekend in between the sessions I recover more fully so as not impede forward progress. When I went to return for my second two visits to head into week fourteen I was told that my insurance company said my progress was adequate for the treatment and that I no longer needed PT. As such, they would pay for no more PT sessions.

With that I’m waiting to talk with my orthopedic surgery (hopefully tomorrow) to discuss this further. I’m not so sure this is the case. While I have regained about 75% of my capabilities I’m nowhere near being able to perform high impact sports or able to lift over thirty pounds. I also managed to get to an external rotation of 72 degrees. This is still short of 90% of the full 90 degrees that we wanted and thus there is no way I don’t need further treatment.

We’ll see how the appeal process goes, but with cost consolidation being the way of modern corporate America courtesy of the never ending recession none of this surprises me. Of course, it is disheartening to see one’s health care now comes under such scrutiny where close enough is considered fully recovered– not good news. Glad I didn’t get open heart surgery… I can only imagine how that would have been. It’s beating so that’s close enough for us!

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The 2010 digitalflood Metal Challenge – Intro

Venom Live at Hellfest - Does it all start here? Yeah. Don't argue.

Venom Live at Hellfest - Does it all start here? Yeah. Don't argue. We're right-- so there.

It all started this morning when Dan and DJ SlipK started with the simple question “What is the greatest true Metal album of all time?” It all escalated from there. An entire day spent in on and off conversation over many facets of the question. What is Metal? How do we break this down? Can we truly compare 1990 to 2010? Do we include the classic roots? J Diddy then chimed in and spoke about how classically Metal is defined as a musical genre and broken down into categories. How it’s broken down genre by genre. Leader by leader. I chimed in with some truly off beat includes and some ideas as to how we present the thing. DJ SlipK came up with a play list and it is all a blur from there.

So it begins– the 2010 digitalflood Metal Challenge. We will set out to define, analyze, and systematically define the best Metal album ever. This is obviously no easy task. No light decision. And no short gap to making it happen. This will require hours of dissertation and yes– you the viewer to help us decide. Because we’re going to put the whole damn thing on line. Poll by poll. Match by match. And it all burns down from there. It is time my friends– we shall pick the best Metal album ever.

The players thus far are as follows:

  • DJ digitalflood – All sorts of industrial, goth, and electro-metal leanings. Too much hard core loyalties burnt in from years of scene exposure.
  • DJ SlipK – Classic 80s metal leanings, new school Euro metal allegiance, and melodic metal yearnings. He’s into the true core Metal underground scene and maybe a metal snob; but he certainly isn’t going to include a Skid Row album on his list.
  • Dan – Classic hard core, punk, and old school metal leanings abound. He was metal before they had a name for it. If it wasn’t recorded on a cassette tape and baptized in the soul of all that is true metal– it just ain’t metal.
  • J Diddy – New school leanings, indie metal roots, and a passion for some true old school metal. He’s got electro metal leanings, but also holds true to his classic black metal roots. He is the living paradigm of metal that bridges the gap between new school and truly old school.

We may include more judges to “seed” the pool and choose who’s in or out, but those are who we got right now. Stayed tuned. This is about to get interesting.

Want in? Let me know!

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I Am The Definition of “Lazy”

I know what you’re saying– there’s been no News updates for like five days. What’s up with that? Well, if you’ve been staring at the DF.com Code Info page on a daily basis (I doubt you have– really I seriously hope you have better things to do) you’ll notice we’ve crept up everyday a few code revisions and are now at df.com version 11.6.1c. Most of that work has been seamless background web page engine tomfoolery such as:

  • I upgraded web engine to latest WordPress code to fix known exploits with Flash and Flash image upload tools to insure security best practices are maintained.
  • I did updates to various widgets and plug-ins that run our site’s many features such as the Artwork gallery, the script optimization tools I use to speed up web page loads, the security tools I use to keep the site from going down, and the comment anti-spam tools I use to keep the comments free of spammers and scammers.
  • I moved the DF Pirate Radio FAQ to the Music sub-menu for consistency/logical organization (previously under the About DF.com sub-menu). I also updated page’s content to reflect some better MP3 players that have come out since the page was originally authored.

More notably (and of entertainment value) I added additional videos to our YouTube channel, which can also conventionally be browsed on our site in the Videos section. Our YouTube channel has also been branded in our color scheme. We now have 36 videos in our channel including some of my seminal favorites from Skinny Puppy, Chamillionaire, Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, and Jay Z. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Physically, I’m feeling a lot better. My range of motion and endurance is improving every day. Therapy continues to help a lot. So lack of updates has not been because of that. I guess the main culprit has been all the background work I’ve been doing on the site and our various third party social network profiles, as well as, my continued focus on my rehab exercises and PT visits.

Don’t be fooled though by the appearance of laziness because of lack of main page News updates. If you dig around on the site you’re always sure to stumble upon my latest experiment or some new content. You just never know what you’re going to find and you’re always sure to be surprised as to what I’m up to. Keeping it fresh; that’s what DF.com does best!

Stewie Griffin – “Everything I do, I do it for you”

Served from the DF.com YouTube Channel

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Birth of InterWebs

Some random items and thoughts:

  • Forty years ago today, the first packet was sent across the Internet between the Univeristy of California (LA) and Standford Research Institute (both in the State of California in the USA). Happy birthday Internet!
  • Everyone keeps asking me if I’m psyched about the soon to be launched DJ Hero video game– I’m not. Just like Guitar Hero is nothing like playing a real guitar, DJ Hero is nothing like mixing real tracks.
  • A local bank robbery is solved… I think the best part is the bank robber made it all the way to Hawaii on the cash and then came back to Orange County, NY where he was caught by parole officers with the clothes and money in his car from the robbery. Why would you come back? Come on!
  • Your first official look at the new Verizon Droid mobile phone.
  • If you use Mozilla Firefox be sure to upgrade to the latest release. They just patched like 16 security holes.
  • There are a number of password stealing scams going on right now across the world. One such is the recent Facebook phishing email scam. I got about 15 of these messages in my various accounts this morning. Don’t be a moron and fall for it lest I mock you publicly for all to see.
  • For all you Yankees fans who mocked me when the Mets where being clobbered by the Phillies… hope you’re happy now because they are 100% your problem to deal with.

I’m hoping the weather holds out for Halloween. I’d like to walk around with the girls for an hour or so. It’ll be my first time outside of the house or a hospital in over a week. Fortunately I’m not getting cabin fever as of yet– yet being the operative word.

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DF Pirate Radio – “Sweet Seventeen @The Disco!”

Title: Vol. 2 Episode 3 (Click Link to Play) Rel: 01/16/06
Description: DF Pirate Radio celebrates MC Mary @ The Disco’s! seventeenth birthday with a room full of teenage girls, one loud five year old singing out of tune, and a creepy old DJ. Chaos! Get some! Things turn into a full blown Fiesta when DJ Digitalflood reps it for Oswego and gives shout outs to cows. It’s all down hill from there… quickly. Don’t miss the Meow Mix song. Classic.
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