Migraines: pain, agony, and vomitting!

I've suffered through migraine headaches for most of my teenage and adult life. I had my first one when I was ten and there has not been a calendar year when I haven't had a migraine episode. They are a family trait as much as dark hair and freckles.

For those of you who haven't had a migraine, you could summarize the classical migraine as follows. It begins where you can see everything perfectly except for whatever you are focusing on you know a migraine is coming and you feel frustrated that the rest of your day is ruined. This is the beginning of the vision block stage and there is a small amount of pain on one side of your head. That dot of light then fills your vision as your head begins to pound. Everything is blurred and shaky in front of you and you begin to feel sick to your stomach.

After about a half hour, the vision block goes away, but the headache and nausea accelerates. The headache is constant and is very sensitive to elevation changes of your head, so sitting up or walking up stairs is extraordinarily painful. After 2-3 hours, you throw up and the nausea subsides. While that is not a pleasurable experience, it is a good sign that the migraine has reached its peak intensity and will begin to slowly dissipate. The migraine will take you out of commission for an entire day and it makes me nauseous just describing the migraine process.

Migraines are seriously not cool and they are more or less the only thing that can keep me home from work. I've found the best way to deal with them is to be asleep so I don't feel the discomfort. There are a good number of prescription drugs that try to short circuit the classic migraine that you can talk to your doctor about.

Since a non-trivial portion of the world's population get migraines, there is a comprehensive list of famous migraine sufferers.

Migraines sucks, so go hug a migraine sufferer today!

Age, its always too high or too low

We all know there are two things in live that are inevitable, getting older and being worried about getting older. However, this is not always the case. There are lots of times in your life you wish you were older.

1) In high school, before you leave high school.
2) In college before you turn 21. Probably don't need to explain this one.
3) If you are a Chinese gymnast at the Olympics. It would have been great to be 16, but I think things turned out just fine anyway. There is nothing better than a government issued fake-ID! They should buy the whole world a round.

That being said, getting older isn't all it is cracked up to be. There is also a list of timesit would be great to be younger.

1) When you go to a birthday party for anyone over the age of 29.
2) On Broadway, to be in the Spring Awakening cast, you have to be under 24 because you are supposed to look like a teenager. I can say, I wasn't really fooled into thinking anyone up there was 16, but I guess this is another time to fudge your name to get a big role on the Great White Way. No sleep in Heaven, or Bethlehem for those over 24!
3) In the Little League World Series. I thought we had laws against exploiting children, but I guess we make an exception if they are playing baseball or spelling long words. Anyway, there is no way that every kid on every team is under age 12, unless most 12-year-olds are 5 feet tall. Yeah fake birth-certificates created by parents abusing their kids!
4) Staying in the sporting world, if you want to play in the Majors, it helps to be 16 instead of 19. So this is another great chance to use your little brother's birth certificate. Miguel Tejada is a good example of "age doctoring". Heck, I'd do that too if it meant I could get of an island and go to the US.

Until there is a way to cut off someone's finger and count the rings, people will always be lying about their ages. I guess after we figure out how to do drug testing, we can figure out how to do age testing. The moral of the story is that you will never be happy with your age, so you will be happiest if you learn to enjoy each of life's ages in spite of its failures.

Fashion Faux Pas: Ausie Womens Basketball

Someone should buy the Australian Women's Basketball team (the Opals), some uniforms. As someone who enjoys saving money, I can understand why its important to be able to reuse high-tech swimsuits or wresting unitards for basketball. However, I'd like to think the Howard Administration didn't leave the country in such bad shape that they can't afford real uniforms for their womens teams. Due to budget cuts, the team has also tried out these "alternative uniforms" or as we might call them on the top side of the world "birthday suits".

The ironic thing is that this team is pretty good as long as they aren't playing the United States. They won the silver medal at the 2008 Bejing games.

LeRoi Moore, DMB saxophonist Dead at 46

One of my summer traditions will never be the same as one of the 5 founding members of Dave Matthews Band, LeRoi Moore, died after at ATV accident today.

I've spent the last 7-8 summers watching Dave Matthews at an incredible number of venues. From LA to the Gorge in Washington state, I've enjoyed good weather and a fun relaxed atmosphere. If you didn't know, the name of this website comes from the first song on their first wide album, Under the Table and Dreaming so their music has made a non-trivial influence on my life. It is a summer tradition that always reminds me to enjoy the good and simple things in life and to not sweat the small stuff. The key is to just make the best of what's around.

I like DMB because they don't limit themselves musically. They have studio tracks, but live the tracks expand into 10 minute jam sessions. They've tried new material and have moved away from their roots. I really appreciate that willingness to experiment and explore instead of obeying the music industries commercial ambitions. They've done quite well for themselves, racking up multi-million dollar tours every summer.

LeRoi is one of the camara shy members of the band. Wearing dark glasses at every show, he never jumps and runs around the stage like Dave or Boyd. He was rarely interviewed. He played all of the saxophones, as well as flute and penny wistle. Flute is an easy double if you play sax as all of the fingerings are the same. As tallented as any of the group, he helped them produce a solid rock sound without the benefit of a lead guitarist by sharing key rifs with the fiddle player. The rock-jazz fusion really worked when you mix in their Southern-tendencies.

So long LeRoi. I enjoyed listening to your music. I'll leave you with my favorite DMB music video.

Don't feed the animals

You see it at every park in America (and around the world) that serves food. From the Statue of Liberty, LA Zoo, to Yosemite, you can't feed the animals. It ruins their natural feeding cycle, makes them dependent on humans, and promotes terrorism.


The fundamental problem with people feeding the animals is the lack of an incentive to not feed animals. On one hand, you could obey a sign, but on the other hand you could have a cute squirrel eat out of your hand. The long term issues associated with animal feeding (other than terrorism) do not effect the feeder nearly as much as they effect the food stand vendor, who has to come up with a plan for dealing with a herd of squirrels eating garbage.



How can a park effectively discourage people from feeding animals? That is a good question and its very likely that the answer is "It is impossible" given how long animals have been enjoying handouts. Its likely that entire generations of squirrels have been naturally selected for their cuteness and begging persistence and that if we shot people who fed them, we would soon have no more squirrels in the New York Metropolitan area.

There are three ways to attack this problem, either by making it harder to feed animals, increasing education, or increasing punishment for feeding animals. The way to accomplish the first point is to restrict food, children, and adults that act like children from small furry creatures. This seems like more of a challenge than I'm willing to bite off right now. Most places go for the second option and it is not working, but at minimum is worth continuing. Finally, its pretty clear that our police have better things to do that arrest people from feeding animals, such arresting people for acting like terrorists. So that option is out as well.

The moral of the story is that I'm very willing to believe that for my entire life I'll see people feeding animals under the sign that says "Don't feed the animals".

Half Dome

There really is no way to understand Half Dome until you've hiked it yourself and walked up the cables. It is an unbelievable hike through a breathtaking place.

Things kick off at 4:15 when your alarm goes off. You eat a quick breakfast and make any last minute preparations. After driving to the nearest parking lot, its one mile to the trailhead.


The next stop is Vernal Fall by way of the Mist Trail. There are a lot of steps to climb, but an inspiring waterfall to lighten your steps.


The next stop is Nevada Fall, and even more steps.


Finally, things flatten out for a nice stretch through Little Yosemite Valley as the sun rises on the John Muir Trail. You enter a forest and begin your assent to the shoulder of Half Dome. Its clear how much mountain is left and what a challenge it is going to be to push up and over the mountain. With full water bottles from a spring on the side of the trail, its time for the final push over the two remaining obstacles, Sub-dome and the cables.

Sub-dome climbs up the side of Half Dome. It is something like 400 granite steps in the baking sun. You are already fatigued. Because this picture is shot from the top, it doesn't do the steepness of Sub-dome justice, but it was the best shot I had.


Now we are in the saddle between Sub-dome and the Half Dome peak. Ahead, you can see the cables running up the side of the mountain (the line of ants in the photo below). They jump up the mountain at as much as a 60% grade over polished granite. Hand and foot traction is limited.


Things start out relatively flat but quickly steepen in the middle of the climb. Temporary metal poles and weather-worn 2x4's are the only things that hold you to the moutain as you struggle to pull your body up the slope. As your hands slip, adrenaline kicks in and you lock onto the cable with a death grip until your forearms burn with lactic acid. Until you can overcome your fears and relax your muscles, you are pinned by fear to the mountain side gasping for oxygen in the thin air. Finally, you inch up the mountain, one streatch at a time.

The slope narrows and the top of the mountain can be seen!


Well, that's about all there is to making it to the top of Half Dome. This was by far the most challenging thing I've done in the past few years. It was incredibly rewarding and a fantastic bonding experience with your siblings. And yes, there is a nice view from the top.

How to improve your MPG: Drive more

Lets face it, high gas prices are here to stay. Its very expensive to drive a car that has low miles-per-gallon (mpg) because the price of a gallon just keeps going through the roof. We all know from watching the news that driving a low mpg car like a Hummer supports oil companies and terrorists. We all know that nobody likes supporting terrorism, other that Osama bin Laden.

Well, here at makethebestofwhatsaround.com, we'll make the best of what's around and give you foolproof ways to improve your fuel economy while preventing terrorism at the same time. Here is the whole secret: increase your miles-per-gallon (mpg) by driving more!

When I fist got my 2007 Honda Accord, I had a short commute of 5 miles. It was so short that my car had barely warmed up by the time I got to work and it was completely over city streets. I only got about 22-24 mpg. Definitely below the estimated 24 city/34 highway because clearly I didn't drive enough.

I then moved and I had a 10 mile commute up an expressway. I could drive a much more consistent 45 miles per hour and I was able to get 25-26 miles per gallon. Things were looking up, but they could be better.

Finally, Code Green Networks moved to Sunnyvale, increasing my commute distance to 15 miles! A naive reader might see this as a bad thing, but it allowed me to drive on 101 for 3 miles in both directions. That has boosted my mpg to 29-30!

You may read silly things that increase your MPG like inflating your tires, not speeding and buying a more fuel efficient car. The real answer is to just drive more. Its like buying anything at Costco, the more you buy-the more you save!

:)