good rainy day in virginia, jet lag aside

last things first- had my melanoma checkup today and had three actinic keratosis frozen off, but that was ok. no new melanomas and that is what counts. good to get the three pre-cancers off. for anyone reading this , be forewarned, two of the three were in places i could not see them and i do frequent self checking. nice to have a dr. kith a magnifying glass and a good light system. that also makes 23 pre-cancers that she has taken off. she told me that this was a life-long thing and it looks like she will be proved right.

turns out that i also had an infection of my swollen right hand and i got meds for that. probably from cleaning up the backyard during the flood. she gave it a long name i won't bore you with, but at least i feel like something is being done about it now and i can stop wondering what is wrong.

on another note, my dr is leaving her practice here and moving to a private practice in ashburn, so i get to make a decision about that. not today though.
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on the way to the drs in a driving rain, i was listening to the news and the announcement came on that the government was going to spend $42 MILLION dollars, sending out letters telling people that the economic stimulus checks would be mailed in may. this just amused the hell out of me. what a classic waste of money. $42 MILLION. how much more could they have given each person instead of this stupid letter?
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how about some out of the box thinking on the mortgage garbage? won't don't they just make the banks give everyone the chance at a 40-50 year 7% mortgage so they can keep their houses making a smaller fixed payment spread out instead of everyone getting screwed? i am no accountant and i didn't sleep at a holiday inn last night so i didn't crunch all of the numbers. i am sure there is a way everyone could make something like this work. why own more houses you cannot sell and also force people out? put the greed aside and fix the problem.
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run wise- i went out at 7am and ran 9 miles. decent run and a little quicker than usual despite the hilly trail. did what i call the east blvd loop with some side tracking to see some of the new houses going up. more and more people are buying small houses and knocking them down and building large houses on the lot. my house seems smaller all of the time.

today the legs were good at the beginning and gave me some insight as to what i could do if the right leg wasn't always as tight as it is and the Piriformis muscle let me run. that lasted for almost 40 minutes and then it started to tighten up again. then after i finished the left hamstring let me know it wasn't loving me. more stretching ahead.

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golf-wise i did get to the driving range today for a bit. was rushed of course because there was little time before the rain came. spent some time with friends working on our putting strokes and critiquing each other and that was really helpful. then we had a 40 minute competition to add some pressure. that was also good.

but after some chipping which went ok, but not well- i will call it a good first practice in almost four months, i hit 105 balls and was horrible. bad doesn't tell how bad it was. only hit three wedges, but between pulls and shanks it was just awful. somewhere in the middle i hit three perfect shots-high, long and straight. then back to i don't know what. another oh well. will have to figure it out. cannot play golf with this swing as i have lost all confidence in it and have no idea where the ball is going. also seem really tight and having trouble getting the left shoulder back.

all in all though, a decent check-up makes the day a success. and tomorrow is another opportunity for adventure and hopefully, the jet lag and lack of sleep i am clearly going through will work itself out. of course, we do set the clocks ahead losing another hour of sleep.