Monday Meanderings - 2.3.2014

So, how about that SuperBowl? I personally think the problem with Denver was Payton didn't say "Omaha" nearly enough. That seemed to do the trick in other games. And then there were the commercials. Greatest year yet for commercials, didn't you think? Me neither. Boring. Well, surely the half-time show won you over. Barb and I decided we are not the demographic target for the half-time entertainment. And the very worse thing of all is -- no more football for six months!

Let me check off a few weather facts for you. In Austin this January, the lows for Tuesday nights were 22, 37, 38, and 27 degrees.  The highs for Fridays in January? Those would be 71, 75,  70,  and 77! The low expected tomorrow, Tuesday February 4th? You got it -- 27 degrees. One could get dizzy on this schedule.

Speaking of getting dizzy. I mentioned a couple of years ago about a visit to the audiologist when I could hear someone in the adjacent office in obvious distress. When pressed, the audiologist admitted that they were inducing dizziness in some poor soul by alternately blowing hot and cold air in their ears, and sometimes that dizziness brought on other less pleasant symptoms that involve hugging a porcelain convenience. Well, last week I got to be that person.

Not only did I fail the DWI perp walk - a straight line placing one foot in front of the other - I failed this Hot/Cold barf test, too. It didn't phase me in the least. In fact, the warm air portion is quite pleasant. Turns out that not getting dizzy is somewhat of a bad thing. The tester told me my inner ears "lacked some robustness." Excuse me? Are there special exercises for inner ears?  "Drop and give me 20 listens?"

Part of the Hot/Cold test requires being "distracted" several times for a couple of minutes duration. I am not making this up. So, to distract me, the audiologist had me first list men's names, starting with A, then B, and so forth. Next it was to list women's names, A then B, etc. Another distraction was to name food items: A - apple, B - Bananna, etc. Seems easy enough, right? Try it. Name 25 fruits, vegetables, dishes, etc. (you can skip "X"). Go ahead. I dare you.