Today I had a followup on a sleep study I just did. This was to see how well my CPAP was working.

Some numbers---

Before:
Apnea/hypopnea's/hr (AHI): 123.2
O2 average saturation: 89.5%
O2 low Saturation: 82%

With my CPAP 2 years later:
Apnea/hypopnea's/hr (AHI): 2.6
O2 average saturation: 92.7%
O2 low Saturation: 89%

A bit of a difference! It's shows my therapy is definitely working. Which is great as I want my heart to last for a long time. I definitely encourage everyone who doesn't sleep well, finds themselves waking up often, and even snores, to get a sleep study done. You can first do a home study, where you just wear a vest to measure the stuff in the comfort of home.

I had another date last night with the girl I went out with a week ago. I picked her up, and we headed down to the Gateway, and went to grab some dinner at Happy Sumo. I've only ever really had the cheap California rolls, never anything "good", so this was a first. We got one of their California Rolls, their tempura fried Vegas Roll, and for something a little more bold, the Jezabelle Roll. I tried them all, and while the Jezabelle wasn't my favorite, I did have a couple pieces of it.

After dinner we ran upstairs and picked up tickets to Scott Pilgrim vs The World, but it wasn't for almost 2 hours. So we just started walking around and talking. Eventually we ended up sitting my the fountain talking until it was time for the movie. Back up to the theater, and got in our seats. That movie was so hilarious! I highly recommend it! After the movie, it was like 12:30, so I took her home, then rushed home myself to get to bed. Another good date!

Last night started out all sorts of bad. Immediately after work I went to the gas station to fill up. I checked my tires, and needed to add some air, so after filling up I pulled over to the air hose. Got the fronts... and crap. The hose wasn't extending, so I couldn't get to the rears. Moved the car so that I could top them off. Time to go home. Jumped in, turned the key, nothing.

Tried again and again. I have plenty of power, but nothing was happening. I gave Eric a ring to see if he had any ideas. Recommended I try starting in Neutral.. No good. Looked and didn't see any fuses for the starter or such. Then while poking around under the hood I noticed my fluid had leaked out far too much. Ran into the station, no distilled water. So I walked over to Smiths to get some. My car requires special G12 antifreeze which is pretty much only available at Audi/VW dealers. No gas stations or auto parts stores carry it. So I added a bit of distilled water, to see if a dry sensor was causing it. Nope. Still nothing.

I called Eric again, and he was going to stop by on the way home to see if he could see anything. I got out my phone and started searching online. Eventually I found a post that mentioned the transmission multifunction switch. The recommended trying in park, the neutral, then park, and so on. So I kept moving the transmission between the two, each time trying to start it. Suddenly it started! Yay! Rather than risk anything I immediately started going home. Once in the garage I stopped the car, and tried to restart it, no problem. Reversed out, and back in and tried it again, still good. Ok.

At about 7:15 I started loading up my car to take pictures of the Perseid Meteors. But first I went over to Eric's to have cake and ice cream for Whitnee's birthday. I hung out there, helped Eric try to get his xbox playing nice with his router, and headed off to get a spot at about 9:30. A quick run to Dan's to get some Dew and snacks, and I was off.

I reached the top of Emigration Canyon at 10:00. It was packed! I found a place to park, and set stuff up. I started playing with settings to try to find something that worked well. As the night went on cars kept coming up and down. It was very hard to include some horizon in the shot for a cool point of reference. Finally I said screw it, loaded up my gear, and hiked up the mountain on the north side of the road. No more headlights! I sat there and tried several different angles, exposures, etc... At 1:30 AM I packed up and headed back to the car. It did start immediately, so I headed back home, and to bed an hour later.

I looked over my shots... Not one turned out. I think it was a combination of things. A darker sky would have greatly helped. (Going camping away from everything next year!) I did a poor job of focusing the camera. Very difficult using just the small LCD to figure it out. And finally I'm going to say I was using the wrong lens. I need a lens with a much larger aperture (1.4-2.8). The meteors were so faint that with the brief amount of time they are visible, not enough light can get into the camera from them. So next time I try sky or even just meteor photography, I'll first rent a lens that gives me that larger aperture.

Yesterday Jason and I rode up Mueller Park. I got to his place at 6 PM. We changed, loaded up our camelbaks, and drove down to the trailhead. We were on the trail by 6:30. The trail is one of the greats in the area. Smooth hard pack, with a light dusting of old pine needles. The first mile is the real kicker, with a pretty high grade. But after that it becomes much more manageable. We took our time, and made it the 3.6 miles up to Elephant Rock. That's about the same distance as the top of Clark's.

I was feeling pretty decent, so after resting for a while, and chatting with another rider, we continued up towards Rudy's Flat. There were a few sections that were a bit rockier than below, and definitely a lot more roots. We stopped at the 5 mile mark, and made the call to turn around due to the light. So we started booking it back down. Relatively early Jason hit a root to jump it, and hit a rock on the landing, sending him flying off the trail. He kept the bike upright, but went into the trees off the side of the trail.

We kept going down as it got darker, dodging horse crap along the way. At the bottom it was very dark, and compounded by the tree cover, but we made it out and back to the car. We cruised back to Jason's house, and started some chicken for dinner. As it cooked we relaxed our muscles in the hot tub. After dinner was ready we parked it in front of the TV and watched part 2 of the Battlestar Galactica miniseries.

I had a great date last night. I doubled with Jason, and we used his season tickets to Rodgers Memorial Theatre to see The Music Man. They did a fantastic job, and the musical was tons of fun. After that we went to Chili's to get some dinner, and talk. After dinner we went our separate ways, and I went back to the theatre to take my date back to her car (blind date, so I'm always fine with that as they don't know if I'm psycho or not. ). We sat and talked for 45 minutes, until midnight, then we said goodnight. It was tons of fun, and I definitely hope to see her again.

Tonight was mountain biking Monday. Eric was able to get off work early, so we loaded up quick, and went down to Corner Canyon. I was a little worried as my left calf was killing me. We started up the central trail on our way to Clark's. My leg ended up doing pretty good. We pushed kinda hard, and made it up to the top after about 45 minutes of riding. Of course that doesn't include the stopping time. That probably added up to another 45 minutes.

Then the descent. Jason wanted us to branch off to lower Ghost Falls. Ok, no problem. So we started first down Brock's, then over and down Canyon Hollow. It was much easier to descent with sunlight! No problems, so we continued down the Lower Ghost Falls trail. At one point I almost ate it, when my bike started going out from under me. I recovered though and continued on. Towards the bottom there was a few small rock gardens. Enough that you had to watch your pedals. Apparently Jason had stopped going through there first, and Eric did the same. Eric got out of it just as I got there. I was ready to ride over it, but I had scrubbed off too much speed waiting for it to be clear. I stalled half way through it. In a flash I went down on my right side, still clipped into the bike. Bike on top of me, I layed there on my back. I took a few seconds, unclipped, then got up and we finished the trail. No damage to my arms, but my right leg has some road rash from where it scrapped over one of the rocks.

Only one way to finish up an epic ride... Food! We went over to Del Taco where I got 5 chicken soft taco's. Mmmm... After getting home, I started getting cleaned up to truly evaluate the damage. Not to bad to the leg. But not so good was I've developed a blister on my left foot. Crap! That was the least of it though... I sweat far to much up there and developed a rash. I foresee days of pain.

Yesterday I took the day off, and first thing I needed to do was get my motorcycle inspected. So I took it over to Quality at about 10 am to get that done. I hung out with Eric for a while, and grabbed some lunch at Caruso's. At about 11:30 I left to get home and ready for Timpanogos.

Jason came by and picked me up at about 2:00 and we cruised down to Alpine, and up to the cave. The hike. It was long. My shirt didn't breathe well, and the pants I was wearing were far to hot. But at least I looked good. We started a bit late, but we arrived at the cave in just over an hour. We waited about 10 minutes for our tour to start. It's been so long since I did that tour I didn't remember anything. I especially didn't remember some spots being as tight. I brought my new camera, so I was having fun trying to take cool pictures.

After the tour was over began the descent. This is where things really started going bad for me. It started in the toes of my left foot. Sharp pain with each step. I took the descent slowly. On the way down, at about 6 pm, we passed a thermometer. I took a picture. 100 degrees. Eventually we all made it down to the car, with minimal damage done.

On the way back home we stopped at Cabella's as Jason was craving a buffalo burger. So we ate dinner there and Jason picked up a few things. They dropped me off at home, and I crashed.

Ughhh.... Must... Play.... Starcraft...