Yeah, it’s been a while since I posted, sorry. I just seem to have other things on my mind at the moment.

The pacemaker is going fine — I don’t notice anything. But neither have I noticed any energy boost from it. That’s disappointing, but I suppose I’ve misunderstood. They didn’t tell me much in the hospital.

One thing is that I was given a box, which contained a bowl shaped thing with a green ring in it. It tells me to place it on my bedside cabinet and plug it in. When you do that, the green ring turns on and a ring of LEDs starts circling. Eventually it settles down to a constant green ring of light.

Apparently it monitors the pacemaker at night while you’re asleep (it has a light sensor) and reports your waveform to a monitoring business in Heathridge, a suburb about 15km down the road. How? Wi-fi?

Anyway, you have to pay $75 for a year’s monitoring. I got a letter from them even before I’d paid saying that they’d noticed my signal and the monitoring had commenced. even before I’d paid. I’ve done so now, as $75 is OK by me.

To be honest, I feel that I came out of the hospital worse than I went in. I lost so much condition in those three weeks. I’m weak and my balance is shot. I have to use the rollator all the time, and my walking stick as well. I need to keep my phone close by at all times in case I fall.

I had a fall on the day after I got home from the hospital actually, July 9. Big bruise and blister on my left knee, but no other damage, which was lucky considering how hard I fell on the tiles in the passage. Wham!

I had another fall today — I was trying to get into a mate’s car, a BMW X5 with high sills. I was trying to swing my right leg up and kept missing, then suddenly lost my balance and fell backwards. Embarrassing. No damage done, except that I was a bit winded.

Luckily two people were passing and rushed to help. One was a nurse. She gave me a quick check, then she and the two guys lifted me pretty easily.

I felt OK after that, but now my left knee is a bit painful. A warm bed for a couple of hours was a big help.

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I’ve had a small adventure in buying on-line in the last couple of days. Last Friday I decided to take what I thought was a small risk and bought this on eBay from a seller in Japan.

Ordered Friday, arrived about a week later. But problem! It was faulty. Incorrect messages on the display, CD tray won’t eject, MiniDisc initially wouldn’t eject or inject, and so on.

Eventually it ejected a MiniDisc, but it wasn’t mine. But I still can’t insert a disc. Can’t select CD/MD and so on.

So working through eBay, I reported this to the seller and said I didn’t want to go through the hassle of packing it up again (I squashed the box for disposal) and I didn’t want to pay the return postage. I suggested a deal — refund me half the price, and I keep the unit. Net cost to me, $95.69. I’m happy.

He came back agreeing to that, so I’ve got my refund and a non-working deck. But I reckon I’ll be able to fix it. Since both decks have failed at the same time, I reckon it’ll be a power supply problem, because it’s common to both. Or else a plug has worked loose in transit. I shall report on progress.

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I have to make a decision about the Mitsubishi Verada. It’s sitting out in the laneway, unused for about six months. It’s got a faulty power steering rack, a faulty Mass Airflow Sensor (my diagnosis) and need s a new battery.

By rights, I should sell it to a scrap dealer. You get about $100 to $200 for it apparently.

But I’ve been thinking about it constantly and I don’t want to lose it. I love driving that car – smooth, quiet and powerful. I think I’ll get the Verada fixed and sell the Honda, no matter what is costs. Probably stupid, but we’re not logical at times. The Verada is a station wagon, which I want for carrying stuff. I should get several thousand $$ for the Honda, which is a better deal than $100 for the scrap value of the Mitsi.