POP!

This blog entry finds me sitting by the fire with the pups at my side and Mandolin Orange on my UE Boom speakers while a snowstorm (possibly our biggest of the season) has turned our brown-world-struggling-to-turn-green into white. Lots of white. We've got high temps well above freezing for as far out as the long-range forecast peers and I could probably ignore the snow and allow it to eventually melt but I won't. I'm retired—remember?

Although we've found a new home for Tammy's mom, Tammy is still working overtime trying to get several details ironed out with Dakota county. She's put a lot of work and worry into this and we're both looking forward to it being wrapped up. Being able to come and go as we please without having to coordinate between each other so one of us is always here with Elaine has been a nice change. Nicest of all though is the transition she's made to her new home. She's very content and isn't at all questioning the staff about her new surroundings.

The injury to my left side intercostal muscles that I suffered on the golf course last week turned out to be more than that. I went in to see the chiropractor I'd turned to when I was injured in a bike crash in September of 2014, hoping he could work his voodoo magic skills on my pain.

I have even more of an appreciation for chiropractors now.

I took my shirt off and laid face down on the table. Within a minute of probing and reacting to my responses/winces, he was able to pinpoint my pain and surprise me with his diagnosis of a dislocated rib. I thought you either broke ribs or bruised them; I didn't know they could be dislocated. Before I could reply he firmly applied pressure with the palm of his hand and I felt a distinct 'POP!' (I think I even heard it) as he forced my rib back into place. He followed that up with acupuncture and instructions to ice the area a few times each day and to make a follow-up appointment in two days.

It's still going to take a couple of weeks to heal but not addressing the dislocated rib would've set me back much more and it never would've healed correctly on its own. My intercostal muscles were also strained and they're what will probably be what slows my recovery the most. This ordeal has given me a renewed appreciation for the benefits of stretching before teeing it up. Still, I'm going to be more than a little worried about this happening again. If nothing else, it's given me time to focus on my short game.

I've had a love-hate relationship (mostly hate) with my LGG4 phone that I bought last November. The way it couldn't hold a WiFi signal was frustrating me to no end so I returned it for another. The replacement phone seemed to work fine for about a week but then it too began to have issues staying connected. I put up with it until last Thursday when I went back to Verizon and explained to the sales rep the problems I was having. Sure enough, he couldn't get it to connect either. I asked if this is a common problem with the phone and he assured me that it isn't. He put another phone on order for me and it arrived on Monday.

The new phone seemed to be an improvement over the previous two but it would still occasionally lose its connection. I went back to Verizon to get a screen protector for it (having decided that I was going to accept the phone and whatever shortcomings it had) and the rep who'd helped me earlier asked me how the LG was working. I told him about the few times it disconnected and he inquired about the wireless router we have at home. "It's a Belkin," I told him. He did a quick search while another rep carefully cleaned my phone's screen and affixed the protector.

He found a thread where someone was complaining of having connectivity issues between their LGG4 and their Belkin router. They bought a new router and it solved the problem. Hmmm. I asked if he had a suggestion on a good router before going across the street to BestBuy where I came away with a (scary looking according to Rachel) NETGEAR Nighthawk X6 AC3200 Tri-Band Gigabyte Router. That's a mouthful of a description but it leaves nothing to chance with respect to a signal anywhere in our home.

It still doesn't explain why the phone was unable to connect in their store but I'm sorta done thinking about it. The new LGG4 is working just fine and that's what matters.

Time to sleep. I've got some snowblowing to do in the morning!