Sick Puppy

One of the Midwest headquarters for the Center for Disease Control is located nary half a mile from my house, and it's been some comfort to know that in an outbreak of Ebola or the Avian Death Shake I can be one of the first to press up against the barbed wire begging for one of the doses of Tamilflu which are in short supply because government as an institution is inept and categorically incapable of disaster preparedness despite our naive assumptions.

Visions of Outbreak and The Hot Zone were flooding my delirious brain a few days ago as I lay on the floor of the bathroom. Readers will be spared the unspeakable details, except to say that even a little ice chip was capable of producing violent convulsions, and the blogger's wife (faithful maid) had the family sedan ready to serve as transport to the emergency room in the event of the dehydration which seemed immanent.

During my moments of lucidity I wondered if my life insurance was adequate. It was probably some ugly new variation of the flu - but for all I knew it could have been some deadly new disease vector that began when the gentleman who coughed next to me at Macy's had a tawdry encounter a few weeks ago on vacation with a Taiwanese street mime who had recently ended a relationship with a spider monkey that shot heroin and looked like Tom Waits.

It has taken almost four days to recover. I have done very little besides rake a few leaves and read a biography of Lewis Carroll. We stayed and home on New Years and the sight and sound of Dick Clark on TV reminded me of my overall luck. And as a Catholic living the Midwest I complied with applicable local law and watched most of the Notre Dame - Ohio State matchup in the Frito Lay's Tostitos Nachos Fiesta Salsa Bowl. I can't say the outcome was surprising or disappointing.

A side note - regular readers know I categorically do not discuss work on this weblog. However, I do work in one of the ten zillion industries related tangentially to consumer technology, and as such I will be traveling to Las Vegas for the CES show later this week. Blog entries will not include anything directly or indirectly related to my employers, clients, etc. - but observations about Vegas or CES in the most general sense might be appearing in this space.