Today is another VA day...

but only after doing something else for five hours that will have me very busy. As a result I expect to be really out of it on Wednesday.  I'm also going to admit to being a bit nervous.  Not about tomorrow.  About where tomorrow's multitude of things to be done at the VA is leading.

I'm going in for two out-patient tests on my heart and while those tests are being run, they are going to also shock my heart to try to get it back into a normal "sinus rhythym".  I don't hold out much hope that the shocking thing (the technical term is cardioversion) will work for very long.  I've had an irregular heartbeat (cardiac arrhythmia) for a long time now and the longer you have it, the less likely the shocking thing will work on a long-term basis.

I'm not nervous something bad will happen next Wednesday as they test/shock me.  The doctor has reassured me that these are just routine procedures.  I'm a bit nervous about what the test results will show, although considering all of the tests I've had already, I'm pretty well prepared for what the results will show.  My heart was very strong, thanks to decades of strong aerobic activity, but it's gotten problematic starting back in 1997.  That's when I stopped being a runner.  But what I'm really nervous about is the discomfort I've heard goes with the threading of a catheter up the vein in my leg, all the way to the heart.  Even knowing I'll have been given something for pain and some kind of sedative, I'm not looking forward to this.  The temptation to reschedule this procedure ten or 11 times, over the next 18 months before finally having it done is strong.  Ten years ago that's what I probably would have done.  I won't do that now.  All those months in the hospital convinced me that bad news doesn't age well, like a fine wine.

Also, please hold good thoughts that I will be able to drive home afterward.  The letter from the VA says I should get someone to drop me off and pick me up, but they scheduled this stuff so that I have to arrive there before 6:30 in the morning.  No one is going to get up that early and drive me to the VA and then come back hours later to take me home.  So I'm going to drive myself there, and if I'm too worn from the procedures afterward, I'll just sit in my car until I'm strong enough to drive home.

Other things I'm pondering this morning include:

Who cares who is the latest "mayor" with these random check-ins using Foursquare?

Would a concert bill of Ryan Adams opening for Bryan Adams be really confusing?

Is dating Taylor Swift your best chance of having your name immortalized in a hit song?

Does knowing that the LAPD now has more than 10,000 officers make you feel any safer?  NYPD has something like four times that amount.

Will the BBC change it's main theme music to "Yes, We Have no Bananas" now that they've been banned from the facility due to one employee's severe allergy to them?

So when Mitt Romney says something that's not true, he lied, or he's stupid; but when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says that the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina doesn't begin to approach the level of devestation caused by Hurricane Sandy, he "misspoke".  Right....

Apparently when you're calling the play-by-play at a major football bowl game, noticing that the girlfriend of one of the quarterbacks is in the audience and she's gorgeous is out of bounds.  Why is that?

Should baseball players whose career achievements were clearly helped by steroids or other performance-enhancing substances be elected to the Hall of Fame?  Or just into the Hall of Shame?

The guy who directed "Snakes on a Plane" has died.  So far no one has been able to explain to me how a 25 foot reticulated python could be snuck into the cargo cabinet of that plane inside what's supposed to be a box of flower leis.  Oh wait, it's that let's suspend disbelief completely and utterly thing.  Never mind.  RIP, David R. Ellis.

Is a corporation a person?  One man is trying to test the theory behind this legal designation.  He piled paperwork in his passenger seat and drove in the carpool lane until ticketed.  His defense will be that he did have another person in the other seat, the corporation.  Will he win?

No This Date in History this morning.  I will do it this afternoon if there is time.