All that you can leave behind

All my worldly possessions (except for some clothes and the laptop I'm using to write this on) are now in 114 cardboard boxes and packages on their way to the UK. The shipment will take 4 to 6 weeks, so I'll have to live without most of my things for the next few weeks. Right now everything is in an industrial size container on Concorde Avenue in the Bronx, waiting to be taken to New York Harbor.

I'm amazed at how much stuff I've accumulated in the 10 years since I left Malta. When I first left, back in 1994, everything I had could (and did) fit into a large black suitcase. Anyone who knows me well knows that I'm not a very materialistic person. What I've acquired beyond the contents of that large black suitcase are mostly essential things. In my case, most of the things I'm sending to my new home in England are books. Almost all these books are either about performance or creative technologies, in one way or another.

The rest of the stuff is just a modest amount of furniture, most of which belonged to my wife before we ever met. Most of her possessions are also in the 114 cardboard boxes and packages I mentioned above. She has been saying that she's all set to live the life of a Zen nun, during the next couple of months. This private tidbit about her reminds me why she has become the brightest guiding light in my life over this past decade.

It will be truly wonderful to once again imagine no possessions (well, almost!) and see what I can live without during the next couple of months.

My tell-tale heart

This should be the last entry about my heart for a while...at least I hope so!

The matter has now been temporarily settled. The reading of the 24-hour Ambulatory Electrocardiogram shows that I had a brief WPW episode at 3:23am, as I slept. I've always felt that the oddest thing occurred during some nights when I'd wake up with my heart racing as if I had been jumping up and down instead of sleeping soundly. The highest heartbeat rate was recorded while I stood in line for the ATM at the bank on Roosevelt Avenue. Go figure!

I've been meaning to comment on the recent MBA report, which mentioned streaming radio, but I'm a little too busy to focus on that right now. Hopefully I'll get some time to blog about that this weekend. I noticed a couple of other interesting things in the news these past couple of days too, but I suppose that for now I can just link to them. Here they are: Lm200,000 from EU for Maltese interpreters training + Eco-Contribution to be introduced in less than a week.

Another little piece of my heart

I was expecting the doctor to sit with me and discuss the result of my Ambulatory Electrcardiogram this afternoon, but the medical technician said that it will take a couple of days before they can actually run the results from the recording I generated during the last 24 hours. So now I have an appointment to see the cardiologist on Thursday afternoon. And that's that, I suppose.

Meanwhile, I got really exited today about a report that came through the Malta Broadcasting Authority about streaming radio on the Internet. Pierre Cassar is one of the co-authors of this report, so I've emailed him privately to discuss their survey a little before I jump into what will undoubtedly be a heated discussion about the actual reasons why the number of people following Maltese radio online is so low.

There will most certainly be more about the heart stuff and this MBA report in the coming days. Meanwhile I'm really thrilled that my blog has managed to get me in touch again with two people I had lost contact with for about 15 years: Fernand Grima and Lawrence Buttigieg. And I'm sure there are more old friends I'll be hearing from again in the coming weeks and months, thanks to this blog.

Piece of my heart

I have never felt more like a cyborg in my entire life! According to the Cyborg Name Generator, T.O.N.I. stands for Technician Optimized for Nocturnal Infiltration; whatever that means.

So here I am with my first ever Ambulatory Electrocardiograph strapped up to my torso. Six electrodes coming out of a small battery-powered recorder are attached to various parts of my chest and upped abdomen to monitor the electrical activity of my heart while I supposedly go about my usual daily activities.

It feels a little weird to have all these wires around my body, but in some ways it's not too different from times when I spent hours on end in radio studios with headphones or some other wireless monitoring devices on me.

This holter monitor will record about 100,000 heartbeats in 24 hours and is designed to detect any other problems with my heart, either related to the WPW syndrome we discovered earlier this month, or the leak in the valve on my left ventricle, which was detected during last week's echocardiograph.

Much of the dizziness I felt before last week has now all but subsided since I started taking the daily beta-blocker pill prescribed by my doctor. The advantage of ambulatory monitoring is that the heart can be monitored during normal daily activities. Apparently, many heart problems occur only during certain activities, such as exercise, eating, sex, emotional stress, bowel movements, or even sleeping. A continuous 24-hour recording is much more likely to detect any irregular heartbeats that occur during these activities.

I was also given a diary to record any symptoms...and I'm actually starting to feel slightly dizzy, so I guess I'll just go note that in the diary now. I'll blog some more about all this tomorrow after the holter comes off.

How often do you blog?

I'm really busy getting ready to move from New York to England right now, but this is only one reason why I haven't written anything new on my blog since last Tuesday. The other reason is that there's actually very little I have to say about anything new or interesting. It tends to get that way around mid-August. Many people go on vacation about this time of the year. Or if they're like me, they're wishing they're on vacation!

I know I'll be blogging my visit to the doctor tomorrow because I'll be experiencing something unusual for the first time ever in my life: an ambulatory electrocardiogram monitor, which I have to wear in a holster for about 24 hours. More on that as soon as I have it on and I can get to my computer to blog about it.

Until then I must get back to the cardboard boxes and continue packing.