Why I Leak: A Theory with Some Evidence

Reb,

I'll bet you know the word "Shish Kabob." "Souvlaki" is exactly the same thing. "Shish Kabob" is what they call it in Turkey. "Souvlaki" is Greek. The Greeks traditionally hate the Turks. When you buy souvlaki the person selling it to you is probably Greek.

Jeff,

In your description of your heat pipe you forgot to mention the wick. They work because while the alcohol vapor is streaming one way down the pipe, liquid alcohol is wicking down the pipe in the opposite direction.

Yes, I have some unpunched cards ... somewhere, in one of my boxes of previous lives. Since you mentioned having your own card punch, do you remember how to insert a character when copying a card? It was a kludge. You held your thumb over the card in the read station while you punched the character to be inserted. If you held it tight enough it couldn't advance and would pick up copying with the next character.

The next time you are at the state fair, take a peek behind the curtain of the "Handwriting Analysis" booth. You'll see a big old continuous loop of paper tape -- like a pile of spaghetti. It contains analyses separated by tape-stop characters. If you stick your head a bit further behind the curtain you will see the back of a T33 teletype machine.

Startech,
You need to be licensed to use those special characters. They're dangerous. You can poke an eye out with those things.

Peter,
I didn't forget the wick. I just didn't mention it assuming that component was obvious. The working fluid was the critical piece of information as that tells the temperature range. At one point I had a mercury vapor filled one but that had to be returned. Darn it.
Yes, I remember the trick for inserting a character. Push hard. Do you recall how to read the letters of the card - or punched student ids or bills? Card rows were numbered from "0" to "9" but on top there were two unlabelled rows called "12" and "11". Letters always consisted of two punches. One in the 12 or 11 or 0 rows and one in the 1 through 9 rows. The magic numbers were 0, 9, and 17. If there was a punch in the top row you added 0 to the number in the 1-9 row and that told you the numerical value of the letter. If the was a punch in the 11 row that meant add 9 to the number below. If the 0 was punched you added 17 to the number in the 1-9 row.
Example: imagine there is a 0 and a 3 punched. 0 means add 17 to 3 = 20 = "T" the 20th letter of the alphabet. I was fast.
Do you remember punching out all the holes? We called it the lace curtain.
I checked online and see that you can buy a box of 2000 cards for $40. I guess I will have to wait a little longer before they will fund my retirement.
By the way, in school I was a computer operator for the IBM360/50 when it was one of the most advanced computers known to man.

IronReb.
Sounds like you have all the important food groups covered. All you need to do now is add the chocolate food group and you have a perfectly balanced diet.

Ok, one last bit of genetic testing for both of you guys. Admittedly, this is really pushing it.... When do your amateur radio licenses expire?
Jeff

Careful. With great power comes great responsibility. Don't poke your eye out with it. Ψ !

Reb,

I remember learning a different set of food groups when I was in college. I guess it's because I am older. The ones I learned were grease, salt, sugar and alcohol, obviously in no particular order.

Jeff,

We called them lace cards. The card punch output machine would punch a card that had the job name spelled out in big letters with a border around it. We had them taped to the wall next to the card duplicator with signs saying "DO NOT PUT LACE CARDS IN THE DUPLICATOR. IT WILL JAM IT."

We were a CDC shop. CDC 6400 when I started, then a CDC Cyber 170 Model 730 and a Model 760. about the time I left they got a Cray. We scoffed at your IBM 360. I still do. Phooey! So there.

Sorry to disappoint. No amateur radio license. I was receive only.

Guys,
I realize the amateur radio license was a long shot. I'm not too disappointed. The odds of that happening are less than all three of us being perfect kidney transplant matches. I just figured I'd throw it out there. Besides, would any of us admit we knew the expiration date? I think not!

Hey, it was the 360/50 that put astronauts on the moon and got them back in one piece. Don't knock it. That really was an incredible achievement when you think about it. No doubt it was all the smoking, white shirts and skinny ties that did it.
Jeff

Iron Reb,
You got me! It's a 6" Newtonian, Equatorial mount. The Criterion Dynascope. I've upgraded the eyepieces and added mounts for digital work. I also added a Telrad for aiming.
My 15 seconds of fame was "the best shot on the internet" of the transit of Venus, 3rd contact, June 8 2004.
Jeff

I say we all meet at IronReb's house and play with his big, 10 inch, dobber.
While there, we can watch him stone his nipple after tussling with some FFFg.
Jeff

Returning to the original point of this thread (and I continue to indigently assert that there was one) I have added some more data to my blog entry.

uncle-freds-prostate.blogspot.com/2012/10/doing-bit-of-my-very-own-science.html

I am two weeks into IMRT now and my incontinence/urgency issues have been getting worse. My calcified suture theory continued to offer some hope since I have gotten worse before I passed a bit of suture on three previous occasions. But the radiation can also cause bladder irritation and there was nothing in the pee strainer but the occasional bit of pocket lint. I was getting pretty discouraged.

The incontinence was interfering with my bladder protocol for the IMRT. (I am supposed to show up full for the fine-positioning ultrasound.) I called my Urologist tuesday morning -- Dr Flabio Cavernosa, have you heard of him? -- to talk about the problem and his nurse left a note on his desk which he will see Friday morning when he gets back from a surgery marathon.

Then last night, after the last of the trick-or-treaters had straggled off, I caught a 6mm bit of suture in my strainer and felt more comfortable immediately (although I continue to leak a bit). Today should tell whether the leak improves, too, which would offer strong support to my theories. I have updated my blog (link above) with an update and a photo of the new specimen.

Jeff,

I have an English system bladder that holds 17 oz.. That's only slightly bigger than your 500 ml metric bladder.

I see my radiation oncologist once a week after they toast my innards. It's usually Wednedsays but this week it got pushed off until today. I'll mention the clamp to him and see what he thinks of the idea. I am also hoping that some sort of bladder anesthetic might help. Today I seem to be mostly dry with frequent urges. I don't leak, I just pee all the time -- a distinction without a difference, to be sure, but it does allow hope that if the urgency was blunted I could be dry enough for the ultrasound to work.

 

PeterDisAbelard said...
Update:

Returning again to what I claim was the main purpose of this thread...

Thank goodness!   

Interesting observations about passing the sutures and calcium deposits, what your Dr have to say about it? 

I continue to be amazed at how much information is available on this site so thank you for sharing.

As a side note I think you must have been the guy standing next to in the rest room last month :)

ONE YEAR LATER...

Hey there, I'm back to this thread.

I have an appointment tomorrow for a cystoscopy which, hopefully will help determine why I leak so much, still. I've been weighing my pee pads now for the last seven months to see if I am making any progress and, actually, I seem to be definitely headed in the wrong direction. Here's a graph: /docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0As2Lx8MdiUugdHUwc3c5cVRLRklBSFRMU0lybzB0MHc&usp=drive_web#gid=3. (The data is fairly noisy because my leaking depends heavily on how physically active I am but the trend line is clearly not going down.)

Although the more likely explanation is radiation cystitis and an incompetent urinary sphincter I am still going to go with bladder stones as the cause, possibly started by that one last suture that never quite let go. But, hopefully, we'll know tomorrow.

Update:

Sadly, my urologist didn't see any stones or other removable detritus. He saw a bit of inflammation consistent with radiation cystitis. Oh well. It was worth a shot.