Todd Bradley’s Galaxy

I just got to work about 20 minutes ago. I was at the ear doctor this morning. The tests from last week have shown that I have an abnormal buildup of fluid pressure (called “endolymphatic hydrops”) in my right inner ear. The test isn’t 100% accurate, though. So, to test the theory that this ear pressure is the source of my problems, I’m going to start a special regime for the next 6 weeks. I must reduce or eliminate caffeine, go to a low sodium diet (limit to 2000 mg per day), and take diuretic pills. This should reduce the fluid level, and possibly fix my autophony problems. If it doesn’t, well, I don’t know what the next step would be.

My legs are sore this morning. And that’s a good thing! You see, my Ultimate Frisbee team had practice last night, and I joined them as a player (not just a coach) for most of it. That meant running around in cleats for 90 minutes or so. That was the first time I’d played Ultimate since May 2003. And boy is it nice to be sore.

Monday, I had a head CT (“CAT scan”) and yesterday afternoon I had my electrocochleography (“ECOG”). The ECOG was much worse than the CT. Next week, I go back to the ear doctor and he’ll interpret the results for me.

In other news, I’m working on a concept album, which will be the next work product from 404 Not Found. I can’t remember if I already mentioned it, but I tracked down the current owner of “Welcome to Earth, Shorty,” a piece of artwork that I’ve wanted to own for several years, since I first saw it at Caffe Mars in Boulder. At the time, I didn’t feel like I could afford to buy it, and I’ve regretted that ever since. But I convinced the owner, who was the owner of Caffe Mars, to sell it to me. It arrived this past week. Now I need to figure out where to put it. The concept album is inspired by this painting.

You can definitely tell it’s spring down here in my den, where I’m writing this. As I’m eating my breakfast of Frosted Mini Wheats and writing this blog entry, I just killed two spiders. A spider once crawled into my bowl of cereal and I didn’t like it.

I visited an ear specialist today, to see if he could figure out what’s wrong me. You see, I’ve had ear problems for the past 9 years, and even wrote a song about them – “What It Sounds Like To Be Todd” on 404 Not Found’s “Nightmare Lullaby” CD. I recently went to my regular ear, nose, and throat specialist, Dr. Warren. He still can’t figure out what’s wrong with me, so he sent me to a guy who specializes just in ears, Dr. Muckle. It turns out that there’s a name for my ailment. It’s called “autophony” and can be caused by a number of things. So, now I’m going to get some more tests. The first is a CAT scan to see if I have something abnormal inside my head. The second is called an electrocochleograph to measure how my inner ear responds to sound. Then I go back to Dr. Muckle to review the test results. Oh boy!

Wow, I’m not updating my blog very often. I guess that shows things have been pretty busy in my life, lately. Especially at work. The biggest event of the past couple weeks was that the final performance of the 404 Not Found Live quartet was on April Fool’s Day. We played at the D-Note in Arvada. It was fun, but the end of an era.

Here are a couple quotes I saw in someone’s signature on Usenet today:

| “The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our
| number one priority and we will not rest until we find him.”
| ~ George Bush Jr. 2001-09-13
|
| “I don’t know where he (bin Laden) is. I have no idea and I really
| don’t care. It’s not that important. It’s not our priority.”
| ~ George Bush Jr. 2002-03-13