When it was all done, I was presented with two different options.

Option 1 would be to take some fat out of my abdomen and transplant that into my eye socket to offset some of the missing volume. The problem with that is over time the body would likely reabsorb some of it, and that volume would be lost.

Option 2 would be to do a full surgery and replace the current silicone implants with titanium. The benefit of titanium is that it is far more rigid that the current implant and should be able to more closely match the original contour of the floor of my eye socket.

I also still have persistant numbness in my upper teeth and my left cheek. While it’s likely permanent, the surgeon said he would also take a good look at the nerves running through my eye socket and possibly relieve any pressure on them if he sees that they are impinged. If that were the case than it’s possible the feeling in my cheek and teeth would return, although probably not likely (which is no big deal, I got used to it a long time ago).

In terms of double vision, it’s anyone’s guess at this point whether or not it would improve. Looking at the measurements he took, my left eye can only look up 13mm from center while my right eye can look up 17mm. So there’s 4mm of movement missing from my left eye, either due to scarring (which would likely be permanent) or because it’s impinged on the current implant (which is possible and may improve after surgery).

So at this point I’ve opted to proceed with a third attempt at rebuilding my eye socket, this time using titanium. This particular surgeon recently retired from doing surgeries, but is willing to do this one for me since it doesn’t sound like there are many people capable of fixing this type of injury around here. He suggested one other person in the US, but then I would have to pay out of pocket.

When I told him all this damage was caused by a kick to the side my face, he shook his head and said it was rather unbelievable. My entire eye socket has been shifted slightly, my cheekbone has been pushed inward, the floor of my eye socket completely destroyed, and even the ethmoid sinus has undergone buckling – he said the amount of force that would be necessary to do all of this is quite incredible. So I must have been kicked pretty hard.

While it’s likely most people don’t notice (in fact, I have a hard time noticing it), my cheekbone on the left side on my face is slightly out of place. I knew this years ago, since the surgeon at the time thought the risk of fixing it wasn’t worth the reward (knowing what I know now, I probably would have disagreed with him). Ultimately this results in a slightly wider facial projection on that side. In addition since the cheekbone makes up part of the eye socket, it’s definitely more difficult returning my left eye back to the proper position (which may never be possible, although getting it closer definitely is). He noticed the displaced cheekbone right away, since I’m sure he deals with this stuff all the time. But he still thought there was room for improvement.

With regards to the last two surgeries, I was told that while the results weren’t that great both surgeons did the best they could with what they have. Generally have you stable bone within the eye socket with which to rest implants on. In my case there really isn’t any bone left, so fixing the eye socket using conventional methods that most surgeons are familiar with isn’t really possible.

So right now the plan is to do all of this in the summer, most likely July. I definitely am glad at this stage that I am on the road to finally have some improvement with this. I wish I could have had all of this done before leaving for South America, but at least the end of this almost six year ordeal seems to be up ahead.

And on that note, I’m off to pack for Argentina.

On the flight back from Auckland, I realized there were a few things that had really been bothering me over the last few years, and one of them was unfortunately the weight I gained after the multiple surgeries I had and also being in the hospital with c. diff. that one time. Call it pity-weight, call it what you will – but regardless, prior to the chain of events that started in 2006 (and before many people in Vancouver ever met me) I was a relatively skinny person.

So on that flight I came up with a short list of the things I wanted to improve, and committed myself to following through with them when I got my feet back on the ground.

• Get back to my old rugby weight
• Improve my fitness level
• Fix my teeth
• Get another opinion on my eye and fix if possible

In terms of my rugby weight, I’m only about 5 lbs from my old rugby weight. I was hoping to be back to that weight before I left for South America, but I’m not going to make that goal unfortunately. That said, there’s a nice roof-top gym in the place I rented down there, so I’ll finish off the final 5 lbs or so there. I ran 30 minutes at a good pace non-stop on the treadmill yesterday, which I haven’t been able to do in years, so my fitness level is almost back to where I like it.

While my teeth weren’t horribly crooked, they definitely had moved since I got my braces off years ago. So I visited my orthodontist a few months ago and he started me on a series of retainers to shift them back to being straight again. I’ve been wearing them for about two and a half months now, and they are almost perfect again. I have one more meeting next week with my orthodontist, and I’m hoping he’ll push one of my front teeth back slightly. At that point I think they’ll be good as new again, and should be perfect before I leave at the end of the month. Since I was putting all this time and effort into my teeth, I decided to get a professional whitening 10 days ago to remove 10 years of coffee and diet pepsi stains – my teeth are nice and pearly white again.

The final piece of the puzzle is my eye injury, and that’s the one which is unfortunately the most out of my control. I approached my family doctor when I got back from New Zealand and asked for a referral to a specialist for another opinion. He then read the final report from the last doctor in 2008 and basically concluded a referral would be a waste of time (and it would also take a long time to get to see a doctor). Since I quietly disagreed, I took matters into my own hands and contacted a specialist on my own via his email address that I tracked down. After having him look at 3 CDs worth of CT and MRI data for me he ultimately concluded, as I did, that there is still room for improvement and the final result of my second surgery was less than ideal.

I’ve been waiting almost two months to see this doctor, but I have an appointment on April 27th with him, a few days before I leave for South America (in fact, that’s the only reason I’m still in Canada right now). I have no idea what the result of that meeting will be, but what I hope will happen is that we will both agree to a third surgery and schedule it for the summer when I’m back. This guy literally wrote the book on these types of surgeries, so if anyone can finally fix it, he’s the guy to do it.

So in four months I’ve taken pretty much everything in my life that I was disappointed with and have turned it all around. If I can manage to finally get my eye fixed, all the stars in my universe will be back to where they shine the brightest.

In order to move teeth you first have to make room for them to move. What they typically do nowadays for small revisions like this is to sand away a little enamel between your teeth. Then the retainer will have room to move the teeth back into the right position (which for me involves pushing my front tooth backwards and inwards). He also said two other teeth have rotated slightly over the last 15 years, so he’s putting those back into position too over the next two months.

Normally you wait two weeks before switching trays, but as I’m leaving for a month in 8 days, he suggested I come back in 8 days for another small adjustment. When I get back at the end up March he’ll do another adjustment, and everything might be all done in mid-April. It’s likely most people won’t even get a chance to see me with a retainer in (although it’s pretty undetectable really, and it hasn’t impacted my speech at all), which is great! Even better is that in only two months I might have my teeth back to the way they were after my original orthodontic treatment.

I showed him my teeth, and in general he thought they were still pretty straight. The bottoms are pretty much perfect, so he didn’t want to touch them (which is fine with me, because I think they are fine too). But he agreed that at least two teeth on the top have moved a bit out of place a bit. And most concerning to me is that one of my two front teeth has rotated slightly and is trying to cross the other one.

He also happened to have a bunch of old polaroids in my file of what my teeth looked like as a kid. I’m almost embarrassed to put these up, but for your viewing pleasure.

First, a frontal view of Jaws:

And a side view of Sharkie:

Man oh man. I sent my parents these photos and both of them couldn’t remember them ever looking like that! To fix that monstrosity they had to pull four permanent teeth (to make room in my mouth), attach some weird device to the roof to expand my jaw slightly, and also use a ton of elastics.

Thankfully my teeth have been mostly straight since I was 16.

Anyways, he said that he could construct a series of 3 or 4 Essix retainers (which are like Invisalign ones, although usually used simply to retain teeth) which should move my front teeth back into their “straight” positions in just a few months. He quoted me $500 for the whole process, including a fixed retainer that will be bonded onto the inside of my front teeth (which is way better in my mind than having some stupid removable retainer that you have to wear in bed for the rest of your life). I had a removable retainer that was supposed to keep my teeth straight, but I stepped on it about 12 years ago when I lived in Ottawa, and never got another one.

Since he did all my previous work and the price was significantly more attractive, I said sure. So we took the moulds for my upper teeth this afternoon, and I’ll get the first retainer on Wednesday. I’m away for all of March, so I’ll get the second retainer as soon as I’m back in April. With any luck I’ll be on the third (and possibly final one) before I take off again at the end of April, which would be great.

I had one surgery back in 2006 to put my eye back in the right place. It improved things slightly, but still left me with a droopy eye and some residual double vision. About six months later the surgeon did a CT scan, which ultimately looked like this:

The surgeon concluded at the time that the reason my eye was still droopy was because the orbital shape on the left side (which appears on the right in the CT image above) didn’t match the shape on the left. Effectively that leads to an increase in volume inside the eye socket which causes the eye to sink further in. Technically these effects goes by the names enophthalmos (sinking backwards into the eye socket) and hypoglobus (sinking downwards towards the sinus).

It was decided at the time that a second surgery would be performed, and the orbital implant would be raised upwards and then fixated (using a few screws) into the orbital rim. This would effectively anchor the implant in the right position, theoretically restoring the proper volume of my eye.

Unfortunately due to a last minute scheduling conflict, the surgeon who was originally going to operate on me couldn’t perform the surgery at the scheduled time. Instead another surgeon filled in and proceeded to attempt to correct the problem. After the surgery it was explained to me that the original implant was removed, and two new ones were inserted that were slightly thicker and ultimately more resistant to sagging or bending. I was also told that no fixation was used, and instead the implants were placed on what was left of my bony ledges (which is normally how it’s done, but I have a fairly large fracture).

Things were great after the surgery for a week or two, but once the swelling went away my eye slowly started sagging again. I set up another meeting with the surgeon, and after waiting months, we eventually met up.

At this point the surgeon wasn’t really concerned about the cosmetic outcome even though I still was. Rather the focus shifted from the look of my eye to the function of my eye (since I still had double vision when I looked up). As a result, the surgeon ordered an MRI to see if there was any damage to my eye muscles that may be causing issues for me.

When I met with him to go over the results, I caught a brief look at my MRI on the screen. At least to me it looked extremely similar to the end result of the first surgery, which wasn’t all that successful. The surgeon looked at my MRI and my eye, and then basically said he didn’t think he could improve upon the cosmetic or the functional outcome.

At that point in time I asked for a second opinion, and was referred to an eye specialist in Vancouver. A few weeks prior to that meeting I called down to his office and asked the receptionist to ensure that my CT and MRI imagery would be there for my meeting, and I was assured it would be. So you can imagine my surprise that day when the first thing the specialist asked me was whether or not I brought any of my imagery in on CD so he could look at it.

Since the office didn’t have it ready and I didn’t bring it, the only document that was used during the meeting was the final report from the second surgeon, who concluded that it wasn’t possible to improve upon the situation. So instead of a second opinion, I really felt like I just got my first opinion reiterated to me – I was told that the final result was basically “decent, but not great”, and that I should go home and try to get used to it.

And that’s basically what I have been doing for the last four years, getting used to it.

But the truth is I have never really been satisfied with that final opinion, primarily because it seemed to me to simply be a rehashing of the first opinion. Having seen my MRI over the shoulder of the surgeon, it looked to me like there was still quite a lot of room for improvement. So when I got back from New Zealand, I decided after being upset about this for four years I was going to make another effort at getting an opinion and possibly trying to improve the outcome.

The first order of business for me was obtaining that final MRI on CD so I could take a close look at it. So a few weeks ago I went down to Vancouver General Hospital, paid $60, and left with my data on CD. I fired up the viewer on my laptop, and got the first real glimpse (other than an over-the-shoulder glance) of what my eye looks like on the inside. And here it is:

What should be obvious to most people, as it was obvious to me, is that the shape of my left eye isn’t really much better than how it was after my first surgery. This is what I thought I saw over the shoulder of the second surgeon, and ultimately confirmed a few weeks ago when I picked up the CD from VGH.

I’ve read a lot of material over the years regarding my injury, and even the relevant sections of a few textbooks. In particular is this passage which I wrote down recently from a book called “Orbital Surgery: a conceptual approach”. I’ve emphasized the relevant sections in my case.

Surgery must restore the orbital volume and requires careful isolation of stable bone on all sides of the fracture and adequate fixation of appropriately sized alloplastic or autogenous implants. If inadequate stable bone is identified, the use of rigid fixation systems can provide the necessary stabilization to control the position of the implants. A common mistake is to fail to realize that the normal inferomedial orbit, rather than being concave away from the orbit is actually convex towards the orbit; this postequatorial convexity must be re-created to avoid expansion of the orbital volume. This problem is demonstrated by the CT scan and clinical outcome in a 21-year old patient referred with persistent enophthalmos following a blowout repair. [...] The CT scan demonstrated that the orbital plate rested on the floor but failed to recreate the postequatorial convexity, so that the orbit had the shape of a box instead of a triangle. The orbit was expanded, resulting in postoperative enophthalmos.

And the relevant image that the textbook refers to:

That passage says the following basically with regards to my own situation:

• I’m missing stable bone to place the implant on. That’s most likely why it refuses to sit in the proper position. As the textbook indicates, rigid fixation (screws) should be used in that case to prevent any movement of the implant.
• If the orbital volume isn’t properly restored (by making sure the new geometry matches the old, uninjured geometry, it’s likely that enophthalmos (sinking of the eye) will result, which is what has happened to me
• A common mistake is to fail to recreate the proper contour of the orbital floor. If it looks like a box instead of a triangle, it’s not right. And that’s what both my CT and MRI show from both surgeries.

Since I was now armed with some real strong data regarding my case, I decided to contact several doctors in the United States and ask for an opinion. In the process, several of them asked me if I had contacted a certain expert in the field that lives in Vancouver, and I said that I had not. In truth, it turns out that I tried to contact this individual in 2008, but never received any response. The passage I quoted above is actually from a textbook written by this expert in Vancouver.

I contacted that person about two weeks ago, and thankfully received a response this time. The doctor suggested I send him all the relevant information, along with the scans from both CTs and my MRI, and he would take a look for me. So I packed everything up about two weeks ago and mailed it off, and for the next 14 days basically waited for a response.

The response came yesterday.

In short, the doctor agreed with my assessment. Not only that, but he also pointed out that my scans show that one of my muscles appears to be displaced at the back of my eye socket, which may be contributing to some of my ongoing problems. The next step is to meet up and discuss options, of which thankfully there finally appear to be some.

As of right now, that’s all I have. Originally the doctor was going to refer me to another person in Vancouver if the scans warranted, but instead he has asked to see me himself (which is great, because he’s very knowledgable in this field and has written several textbooks and many papers regarding these types of injuries). I probably won’t be able to see him until April or May, but I’m happy there is once again some forward momentum.

A few people have sort of questioned my desire to have this fixed over the years, since the current result isn’t “that bad” as a few people have pointed out, and it “could be worse”. The truth is though, it’s simply not that good, especially since I had spent 29 years getting used to how I used to look. Had I ever looked at my CT or MRI scan and saw things that looked pretty much the same, I imagine I would have resolved myself to just accept it. But when I first looked at my CT, and recently at my MRI, it seems pretty obvious to me that there is still room for improvement.

I have a long way to go before I have another surgery, and that may not even be an option once things are discussed in detail. But it may be an option, and if it is an option and the likelihood of an improvement is pretty high, I will probably take it.

But until then, I just have to wait. And after almost six years, I’m pretty good at waiting.

The good news is that they haven’t really shifted *that* much yet. So I am hoping that the treatment time I need will be relatively short. Since I pretty much spend a lot of my time by myself in coffee shops, that will hopefully mean I’d have them on and off again rather quickly. So we’ll see.

I just got back from an Invisalign consultation. Invisalign is basically the latest and greatest thing where they take moulds of your teeth and then give you a set of nearly invisible trays to swap out every two weeks. Each tray represents a fractional shift between your crooked teeth and ultimately your straight teeth. It’s appealing to me for a few reasons. First, they are really hard to see. I met a girl in Buenos Aires with a set and the only reason I noticed them was because of a slight lisp she had at the table (most people quickly adjust to speaking with them in). But you really can’t see them unless you are looking for them. The second reason is that they are pretty compatible with travel. In theory I can simply take a few trays with me when I go somewhere and just change them out on my own. If you have a hot date or a dinner with friends, you can simply remove them for a few hours and put them in after.

The good news is that after my consult they said I was probably going to be in the Express category. That means it would only take 20 weeks to get my teeth back to being straight (as opposed to the 104 weeks or so it took when I was a kid). The price they quoted for that was $2,600, which isn’t really out of the ballpark of where I was hoping it would be.

The only catch to all of this is that they won’t know for sure if I’m in the Express category until they take moulds of my teeth and send them off to Invisalign HQ. Express is anything that takes 10 trays or less (10 trays multiplied by 2 weeks per tray gives you the 20 week estimate). If it’s 11 trays or more, it’s no longer Express, and the price jumps to around $6,400.

After being presented by both estimates, $2,400 and $6,400, I told her I would obviously like the first one. But she said they don’t know which it is until you get your moulds done and sent off, but that the price for the moulds is included in the total cost. So I said one price was acceptable to me and the other wasn’t. And then she said we could take the moulds, which is included in the cost, and see which price comes back. I went around with this circular logic for a while until I basically just pointed out that I would pay the $2,400 but not the $6,400, so if it didn’t come back as Express I would basically have to decline to move forward. So I asked how much the moulds would cost (assuming I had to walk away), but she didn’t really have an answer. So I guess that means free.

I have an appointment with my previous orthodontist (who is still in business) and am going to go over the options of braces with him. You can actually move teeth faster with braces, so it might be something I’d consider. I wouldn’t go with the ugly metal ones nowadays, most likely the white ceramic ones if I were to get them. But right now I’m leaning towards Invisalign, assuming I qualify for the Express option.

Many people know that I spent eight months of this last year traveling around the world. Without a doubt, BC (and Canada in general, if you exclude Quebec) has some of the most archaic and ridiculous liquor laws in the entire world. Here are a just a few examples from my travels of just how backwards we are in many regards:

• Movie theatres in Austin, Texas (and I imagine other parts of the US) can serve beer to patrons
• In Thailand you can walk into a 7-11, buy a beer, and have the cashier open it for you (assuming you are just walking and not driving)
• Movie theatres in New Zealand also have beer available to people watching movies. They’ll even bring it to you in the theatre after you order it
• You can buy liquor from normal convenience stores in Argentina, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, the United States, and Uruguay. I suspect in many other countries too, but I haven’t been to them yet. In addition the beer you buy is drastically cheaper than you’d pay in Canada, thanks to the heavy taxes we are charged.

I fully support the Rio theatre’s efforts to obtain a liquor license valid for shows. Given that a typical movie is two hours long and most people I’ve seen at movies drinking beer only have one, it doesn’t really seem like a huge issue to me.

If you think so too, make sure you head on over to the Rio’s Facebook page and lend some support.

Now that I’m back in Canada, I went out and finally bought a BlueRay player. I sat down over the Christmas break to watch a few of them, and I can say without a doubt that the quality of the films in excellent.

But what seems absolutely incredible to me is how each disc has 5 or 6 crappy trailers that you are forced to watch whenever you put one of the discs in. The disc menu button doesn’t seem to work while these are playing, so the only way to bypass them seems to be to keep pressing the chapter-forward button until you eventually finish all the trailers. These aren’t trailers for great movies, but rather crappy ones (in my opinion) that most people probably wouldn’t probably go and see anyways.

I understand revenue models where advertising is necessary, but surely since I’ve purchased these discs for my collection there’s no need to blanket them with ads. Given the timeless classic nature of the movies, having five or six trailers for crappy non-timeless classics is just plain stupid. Not only will I never see those movies, but they will be completely irrelevant in about six months, if not already.

I’m seeing this more and more. Another example is the paid version of Words with Friends. When I upgraded from the free version, I assumed that since I paid I wouldn’t be exposed to anymore ads. But even in the pro version there’s noticeable real-estate taken up on the main screen for advertisements for more free versions of different games. It just seems cheap, like putting a bunch of advertisements on the front page of a commercial website.

This seems like a no-brainer to me. If you are giving something away for free, then by all means throw some advertisements in there. But if you’re asking someone to pay, I really don’t know how you can justify tarnishing the experience with a bunch of cheap advertisements.

When they originally launched they were asking over $400 for each profile. I’ve been patiently waiting for a sale to get mine done, and eventually managed to find a coupon to bring the cost down to $99. So right before leaving to Thailand I mailed off a saliva sample to California and have been waiting for the results.

Some people have told me previously that they actually wouldn’t want to know if they are susceptible to any ailments. As far as I’m concerned, it’s still a really new area of research, so a big warning flag isn’t really going to worry me at this point. I also know that many of the results come about due to associations (people with a certain disease had particular genes), but that doesn’t necessarily mean it was the causal factor.

I thought I’d share some of the results just to show what kind of data that can extract from your DNA.

Maternal Haplogroup

23andMe gives you information about your family lines. If you’re a guy, you can get both of them out of your DNA, but I believe women can only get their mother’s line out of theirs.

Maternal Lineage

My mom’s line is one of the oldest in Europe, and I believe was even around back when Neanderthals were around (so I’m part cave-man, big deal). As my grandparents were from the Ukraine, this matches up from what I know.

Paternal Haplogroup

Based on the data from 23andMe, my dad’s genes come from Europe, tracing back to Scandinavia.

Paternal Lineage

My dad’s father was born in Yorkshire in England, so it also matches what I know about my lineage.

Physical Traits

Based on my genes, here is a list of physical traits that I should probably have:

Physical Traits

Some comments:

• Alcohol Flush Reaction – Correct, I don’t flush.
• Bitter Taste – Yup, I can taste bitter things.
• Earwax Type – Wet it is!
• Eye colour – My eyes change a bit, but are mostly blue.
• Hair curl – Yup, I have curly hair.
• Lactose Intolerance – I’m not lactose intolerance, so correct again.
• Malaria Resistance – Never had it, so not sure.
• Male Pattern Baldness – I mostly have all my hair, and my dad still has all his hair. My uncles on my mom’s side are all slightly balding. But, the genes say I’m at reduced risk, so I’m rolling with that.
• Muscle Performance – I think all my physical education teachers would agree that I’m not sprinting material

So, pretty much all accurate based on the ones I know about.

Disease Risk

Here’s a list of the diseases which I’m apparently at a decreased risk of obtaining:

Disease Risk

Carrier Status

There’s also a breakdown of all the dormant diseases that I may be a carrier of. Thankfully I don’t have any, but here’s what the list looks like:

Carrier Status

Summary

As part of the process, everyone is required to sign up for a one year membership. What that gives you is updates to your data whenever new criteria are obtained. For example, if they find new genes for cancer, they re-run all the genetic information (which they store at their facility) against the new criteria, and update your profile. So you get real-time updates whenever there is something to report.

For $99, I think it’s money well spent. For the most part, there were no surprises on the report for anything, especially when I factor in my family history in a few areas. But it’s good to get confirmation on a few areas, and to know things I’m at risk for and also not at risk for.

I’m scheduled to fly out on Wednesday afternoon, stopping briefly in Tokyo, and ultimately ending up in Bangkok after about 17 hours of flying. I get to have a quick sleep at a hotel near the airport, then wake up early in the morning for another quick flight to Ko Samui. All in all it’s about 36 hours of traveling before I arrive at my final destination, so I’m likely to be a bit tired. But hopefully I’ll meet up with Scott and Sam shortly afterwards and get to nurse my jet lag with some warm Pad Thai and some cold beer.

Given that I’m heading to New Zealand afterwards, I’ve been trying to pack for that trip as well. But the climates are fairly dissimilar, which is making it challenging given the suitcase I wanted to bring. I’m probably going to pack mostly for Thailand, and simply plan to buy a few warmer items in New Zealand when I arrive. I’ve also been told that clothes in Thailand are dirt cheap, so I think I’m going to ditch my mid-sized suitcase back in Chilliwack and grab a full-sized one instead (so I can buy a pile of clothes there and bring them with me to New Zealand).

For those that are interested, I’m going to be writing mainly on my travel website, Migratory Nerd, going forward. I’ll still post the odd technology entry here, but travel is what interests me lately, and all those entries will end up over there. I’m bringing some new technology with me on this journey, so I’m hoping to be able to pull off a lot more photographs (I’m bringing a 17-50 f/2.8 zoom and a 50mm f/1.4 prime, far more versatile than the 28mm I took to Buenos Aires), as well as some high definition video on my trip. I’m also bringing my Olympus E-PL2 micro four-thirds camera and my 20mm f/1.7 lens, which is a great lens for street/bar photography.

So only a few more sleeps to go, and then it’s wheels up again. I’ll miss Canada and all my friends and family I’m sure, but I’m definitely looking forward to seeing the beaches of Thailand, and the wondrous landscape that is New Zealand.

Of course, most articles depict Depardieu getting up and purposefully pissing in the aisle of the plane, forcing it to go back to the gate. Passengers, especially men who urinate multiple times per day, were obviously traumatized having to watch such an event.

If you read between all the fluff, it sounds all that happened is a 62 year old guy simply couldn’t hold it any more. Guess what? I’ve been that guy before too. Sometimes you just gotta go and you can’t hold it any more. I’ve been in cars where someone has had to pull over on the highway and take a piss, and about half the people I know can’t make it through a movie in the theatre without having to go.

Depardieu apparently asked to go to the bathroom, but was told to wait 15 minutes. 15 minutes later he told the flight attendant that he had to go immediately, and they told him he couldn’t. So, left with the option of pissing his pants and all over his seat, he did probably the only logical thing he could think of – try and urinate in a bottle. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work, and the media has gone to town with it.

Back in elementary school, the same thing happened to a girl I knew. She asked repeatedly to go to the bathroom, and the teacher wouldn’t let her. A few minutes later the teacher noticed the girl sobbing, and a puddle or urine spreading from out under her desk. That girl was traumatized by the experience, and people continued to make fun of her years later, even in high school.

At the end of the day, people need to use a little common sense. It sounds like Depardieu will have a similar experience as that girl in high school I knew, all because a flight attendant wouldn’t let a desperate 62 year old guy use the bathroom when he needed to.

Since that time I’ve reclaimed the set of keys that were lost as well as my spare set of keys. That’s great in that I now have all those items back, but unfortunately neither the FOBs (the wireless units that open and close the doors) nor the keys work with my car anymore, since the onboard computer has been reset for the new items.

If you take them to a Mazda dealership, they will often charge to program the keys and the FOB, or so I’m told. Instead, I decided to scour the internet and eventually found instructions buried on a forum for how to do it.

For future reference, here is how you reprogram keys and FOBs for the Mazda (I believe it’ll work for the 3 and the 5, and possibly others).

Reprogram Keys

To allow a spare key to start the car, you need to start out with two working keys for the Mazda. This is security precaution to make sure someone with one key can’t activate another one, for example, a valet who has the key. If you only have one key, you’re out of luck and will have to take the car to Mazda to have it done. In fact, many people recommend buying a spare key and doing this procedure so that you always have three working keys around (you only receive two when you buy the car). That way if you lose one, you still have the ability to do this procedure on your own.

Here is how you do it:

• Insert the first working key into the key slot and turn the ignition to ON. Wait about 5 seconds, then remove the key.
• Insert the second working key into the key slot and turn the ignition to ON. Wait about 5 seconds, then remove the key.
• Insert your new/spare key into the key slot and turn the ignition to ON. Wait about 5 seconds, then turn to OFF. This should add that key’s information to the onboard computer and allow it to start the car.

How To Reprogram the FOBs

This procedure is a bit more involved, and it reminds me a bit of the Konami Code from Nintendo. You’ll need access to all the FOB units that you want to enable for the vehicle. Apparently you can only have three active FOBs at the same time, so don’t try and program more than that.

• Open the driver side door
• Lock and then unlock the door using the button on the door. Leave the door open.
• Insert a key into the ignition and turn the car to the ON position. Leave for about 2 or 3 seconds, then turn off. Repeat this two more times (3 in total). Leave the key in the slot in the OFF position.
• Close the passenger door. Then open it. Then close it. Then open it. Then close it. Then open it.
• The onboard computer will respond by locking and unlocking all the doors at this point. That means it’s ready to accept FOB programming
• Press a button on each FOB unit to program it to the computer.
• When you are done programming FOBs, you can simply remove the key, which causes the computer to cycle the door locks once more.

You can buy spare FOBs and key blanks for Mazdas on eBay for a fraction of what they cost in the dealership. So make sure you check there first if you have the luxury of time.

I did both of these procedures in under five minutes, and now have four working keys and three working FOBs. So if you are in the same scenario and are feeling a little adventurous, you can simply reprogram the keys or the FOB yourself and save both time and money.

In fact, I read a few news articles that basically seem to allude that the government was frantically trying to get S&P to keep the rating in tact. There was even talk in congress about passing some legislation to restrict the ability of the ratings agencies to downgrade any debt.

But S&P followed through and downgraded US debt from AAA to AA+. That was followed shortly afterwards by the Obama administration attacking the credibility of the S&P, saying there was a last minute error in their calculations. Whether the administration wants to admit it or not, they have a huge problem on their hands. China knows it and now the S&P is reaffirming it.

It’s a huge embarrassment for the United States obviously. The US dollar forms the backbone of all international transactions as the reserve currency. China is already talking about accelerating it’s diversification after the downgrade, which means they will start offloading US treasuries on the market and investing in other financial instruments.

I’ve blogged many times about what I think will ultimately lead to a complete crash of the US economy, and this is definitely along those lines. I think this is the first major event that will cause people to abandon the US dollar, which will cause serious economic problems for the US at home, namely that they can no longer export their inflation away to other countries.

This is a historic occasion, so I really have no idea what the markets will do on Monday. If I had to guess though, it’s likely to be a pretty big onslaught on Monday with stocks and bonds taking big hits, and possibly precious metals and commodities making some minor gains. But who knows, everything could explode next week.

First, let me comment on the ratings agencies. Right after a deal was announced, two of the three major rating agencies reaffirmed the United State’s AAA credit rating. These are the same ratings agencies that also gave AAA ratings to the credit default swaps and other securities that were the underpinnings for the 2007-2008 financial crisis. Saying the United States is in good fiscal shape is like saying Icarus was the world’s best astronaut.

S&P hasn’t weighed in on their rating yet, but I suspect they’ll give a AAA rating as well. It doesn’t really matter – either way the markets have reacted negatively and are punishing US stocks.

I came across this video tonight, and I agree with almost all of it. The only part I don’t agree with is that the Euro is the only currency that can compete with the USD – several proposals involving a basket of currencies have gained a notable following, and I imagine that’s what will eventually take the place of the US dollar.

If the US didn’t have reserve currency status, they would be no better than Greece or Spain, and we would be treating them the same. All they’ve done with this current effort is to kick the can down the road, and it will be undoubtedly a harder problem to solve when it is addressed. And let’s not forget that this whole debacle was basically dealing with the current deficit, the actual debt hasn’t even been discussed yet.

I agree with Peter Schiff: the crisis wasn’t that the United States wouldn’t raise their debt ceiling, it’s that they would. Now they have repositioned themselves to head down the same path that other countries like Argentina and Zimbabwe have traversed, and in both of those cases, the currency and the economy were destroyed in the process.

** Update – China announced they have downgraded US debt. Thankfully their ratings agencies aren’t as clueless at the US ones. Guan Jianzhong, chairman for the Dagong Global Credit Rating Company, has this to say:

“The squabbling between the two political parties on raising the U.S. debt ceiling reflected an irreversible trend on the United States’ declining ability to repay its debts. The two parties acted in a very irresponsible way and their actions greatly exposed the negative impact of the U.S. political system on its economic fundamentals.

Our downgrade simply reflects reality. Our rating didn’t cause China to lose any money — it was the inappropriately high ratings for the U.S. by Western agencies that had led China to make risky investments in U.S. debt.”

Macbook Air

While the Macbook Pro is a great computer, the Macbook Air has always intrigued me. Most of my uber techie friends have one, and I’ve always thought it was cool how small and light it was.

But other than its startling good looks, the Macbook Air line has always been underpowered compared to the Macbook Pro line. And while I don’t really do anything computationally intensive like playing 3D games, I still appreciate a fast machine, more-so since my income is dependent on one.

I’ve been considering upgrading to a Macbook Air for almost a year now, but decided to hold myself over with the last Macbook Pro I purchased. But when Apple announced the new Macbook Airs with the i7 processors (the 13″ Macbook Pro still uses the Core2Duo processors, which are two generations old now), I decided to finally take the plunge.

Considering that my laptop generates my only real source of income, I generally don’t cheap out when I make a hardware upgrade. That’s why I ordered the $100 upgrade from the 1.7 GHz i5 processor to the 1.8 GHz i7 version and opted for the 256 GB SSD drive instead of the 128 GB SSD drive. It’s the highest end 13″ model Apple is currently offering.

Delivery

Considering you can’t get the 1.8 GHz version of the Macbook Air in the Apple Store, I didn’t have any other choice but to order online. I really wanted to have the new machine in my hand before the long weekend (mostly so I could tinker with it and get it ready to go), so I ended up getting the expedited shipping which ultimately shaved a few days off of the delivery time. Even so, it still took about three business days before Apple shipped the laptop, and another three days before it arrived at my door.

Weight

I held my Macbook Pro in my right arm and the Macbook Air in my left to do a weight comparison when I received my new machine. Compared to the Macbook Air, the Macbook Pro felt like a brick in my other hand. It’s really amazing how light the 13″ Macbook Air is. I’m sure it weighs more than my first generation iPad, but it honestly doesn’t feel much heavier than it.

I carried my Macbook Pro around in Argentina in my backpack, so I’m definitely looking forward to having a lighter load on my next round of travel to Thailand.

Display

A lot of people don’t know this, but the 13″ Macbook Air has the same screen resolution as the 15″ Macbook Pro. So the resolution I lost by dropping from the 15″ Macbook Pro down to the 13″ Macbook Pro has now been regained on the 13″ Macbook Pro.

And the difference is quite remarkable.

Not only is the screen vibrant, but the extra pixels really make fonts seems more clear compared to my Macbook Pro. Granted, it could have been all the gunk on my old LCD, but the new display seems gorgeous by comparison.

Performance

The day my new laptop arrived a series of benchmarks were released comparing the new Macbook Airs with the previous generation of Macbook Pros. The results showed that the new Macbook Airs were faster than every single 2010 Macbook Air released.

That’s a big deal.

While the Macbook Air has always been a novelty item due to its size, the new processors really do take the machine into the realm of performance computing. Not only is the laptop lightening fast, but the removal of a normal hard drive has rendered the machine virtually silent. It’s actually quite eerie to be using it and not have the machine make any sound.

I’d say that this is the fastest machine I’ve ever owned, but every laptop I purchase typically is at the time. But this definitely feels like one of the most noticeable performance upgrades I’ve ever had.

Does It Blend?

Without a doubt this is the nicest machine I’ve ever used. One of my main concerns with the Macbook Air prior to owning one was that I thought it might feel fragile. But in fact the opposite is true: it feels amazingly sturdy and well made.

A friend of mine said once I “upgraded” to the Macbook Air line that I’d never go back, and that’s absolutely the case. The form factor is amazing, and the SSD and processor combination delivers a huge punch in terms of speed and usability. In all honestly, I’ve hardly put the machine down simply because it’s such a joy to use.

So if you’re thinking about getting one, I highly recommend the new Macbook Air line.