The great scholar Daniel Dennet recent had some serious heart trouble that required he undergo surgery wherein his heart was stopped completely. He has written about the experience and reflects on famous deathbed epiphanies that result in atheists succumbing to religiosity. He admits having an epiphany of his own but remains an atheist.

Dennett’s fans will find it a interesting quick read.

I cannot stress enough, how important it is to NEVER touch a fan inside a server case while it is running. Today I touched an 8000 RPM fan and it put a deep cut in my finger and shattered to fins on the fan.

It doesn’t hurt as much as it is embarassing. Of course, the real lesson is the obvious one. You shouldn’t have a server case open while it is running. And if your stupid enough to do that, you should be putting your hand inside and pointing and the dangerous bits.

Well, no I get to type for a week on a sore finger… stupidity sucks.

Burhan is going to be participating in this years Run for the Cure to raise money for breast cancer research. He is just a few hundred dollars short of his fund raising goal but there is just a little over a week left. Help him out and donate online!

To my dear dear friends: Please, if we are eating together and I contemplate eating something calorie-rich, remind me that I am on a diet and recommend that I eat something else. Apparently, I do not have enough will-power to maintain my diet when I am in your presence and I could use a gentle (or not so gentle) reminder of that fact.

Earlier this summer I began a diet with the goal of losing a lot of weight. It went very well for a long time. I managed to lose 1 lb per week every week just as planned. The past few weeks however, I have fallen off the weight loss wagon and regressed into overeating. I just barely managed to hit my goal of 192 lbs last Friday, but this week I have bounced back to about 194 lbs.

Over-eating is very hard to avoid. My weakness seems to be related to socializing and that seems to surprise me. In the past I always thought my problem was that, while I am working, I pay not attention to what I am eating. However, since starting my diet I find that I have no problem restricting what I eat while I am working. The real problem is that when I go out with friends, I eat too much.

In the past two weeks there have been so many occasions to eat socially that my will power was broken. At first I did well. On days when I knew I would be going out with friends, I would “save up” some calories by eating less earlier in the day. However, as of last weekend, all moderation went out the window. I managed to eat about 4000 calories over and above my budget! On my diet that is about 3 days worth of food.

Yesterday was a fine example of my weakness. I was having lunch with someone and we were discussing what to order. I pointed that I had had a particular sandwich before and it was great. Then I explained however that the calories were way too high. It is a ciabatta sandwich with grilled chicken, brie cheese, and mayonnaise. Of course, you would think that after explaining how many calories there were, I would order something responsible. Nope! My friend did, but I gave into temptation and ate that high-cal baked brie delight. At least I had salad instead of fries (not that it matters since they slathered the salad in some kind of sesame dressing).

I seriously worry that I will not be able to keep up my diet when I am back in University this fall. My fall-back plan is to add an additional 200 calories to my diet which should reduce my weekly weight loss to below half of a lb but will at least ensure that I do not put on addition weight.

Today I got the result of the barium enema test I had two weeks ago. The test revealed some diverticulosis but this does not explain my symptoms. After taking some history on my problem and reviewing my file, the doctor I saw today did not hesitate to put the label of Irritable Bowel Syndrome on my problems.

Diverticulosis are small pouches that form in the large bowel and food can be trapped there causing abdominal pain from irritation (diverticulitis). However the typical pain associated with diverticulitis is not the kind I have. It typically presents in the lower left abdomen and my pain is mostly on the right.

Previous tests have revealed other problems that do not account for my symptoms as well, and the tests for diseases that would account for my symptoms have been negative. For example, I had an ultrasound to look for gall stones, which would explain some pains I have, but no gall stones were found and blood work similarly showed no signs of liver of biliary duct problems. The ultrasound did reveal fatty liver (fatty infiltration of the liver is the term I prefer), however that is not typically associated with the kind of pain and changes in bowel movements I have been having.

I have been expecting for about two months for the doctor to suggest that I have IBS. My regular doctor had never brought it up before. He was on vacation today and I saw someone else. This doctor asked me all the questions that I have read are used to diagnose IBS (The so-called Rome criteria I think). He told me that there were medications that we could try and said that they were relatively mild with few side-effects but that he did not want to prescribe anything unless things were currently bad. Things have been really good for the past 3-4 weeks. In fact this week was bad but not anywhere near as bad as things were a month ago. So he suggested no looking at medication for now and to continue to moderate my diet.

Sigh… that means I still cannot drink coffee or whiskey. But at least I know that there is a course of action now should the problem persist.

I am also thankful that the doctor did not send me for any more tests. I suspect that if I had seen my regular doctor I would have been going for a barium swallow (upper G.I. fluoroscope) test. He had previously stated that it was his intention to send me for one after the barium enema. I understand that the upper G.I. isn’t as bad as the lower G.I. test but I am getting pretty tired of the fasting period that precede these types of test .

The National Institude of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Diseases says that since I have diverticuli I should not eat nuts, popcorn hulls, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, caraway seeds, and sesame seeds.