antonywilliams.com

Those of you who know me well will know that about 8 months ago I got fed up with windows crashing for the last time, and switched to Linux.
There are hundreds of different distributions, but I picked Ubuntu, as it was frequently updated, and had good hardware support.
Initially I kept both Windows and Linux on my system, just in case. Within a month, I removed Windows completely.
For those of you who are still afraid of anything not micro$oft, check out a screenshot of my desktop. You can still do all the same things in it. Play MP3's, watch DVD's, write essays, and browse the web.
I did have a little trouble trying to get wireless working, but it was worth it to be rid of BSOD's (Blue screen of Death). All in all though, it's not too hard to set up. For those of you who didn't know, Linux is where Firefox was born!
This is a screenshot of Ubuntu's latest release "Edgy Eft" that was released 26/Oct/06

As most of you know, a few months ago I got into a bike wreck and broke my thumb, right where it joins the hand.
I had to have surgery, in which the Dr. drilled 4 pins into my hand to hold my thumb in place while it healed.
As you can imagine, it sucked. The worst part being I had to go on holiday with my cast, and couldn't go swimming at the beach in Galicia, Spain :(
So, catching up to present day.... I got back, and 3 days later had the cast removed. At first I couldn't move my thumb. My doctor recommended I see a physical therapist. Since I play the piano, I thought it might be a good idea if I intend to play at a high level again.
I went. The guy would push ever so lightly on my thumb and hold it. He'd ask
"Is this stretching?"
I'd tell him no, so he'd push just a tiny bit more on it.
I kept telling him that he needed to push harder, but he seemed afraid to.
I just couldn't keep quiet any longer, so finally after the 4th time of telling him to push harder I blurted out
"Was the last person you gave physical therapy to a girl??????.....Come on man....push, I'm not gonna cry!"
He seemed a bit embarrassed by my comment, and used the excuse that it's better to push too lightly than too much.

Needless to say, I didn't bother returning.
A complete waste of my time and my insurance's money :)
Instead, I decided to be my own physical therapist.
This meant stretching my thumb in all directions. I would do this while in class, watching a film, doing hwk. etc..
I soon got tired of having to hold my thumb down with my other hand.
I came up with a very simple solution.

A rubber band, that can stretch my thumb as much as I need it to, all day everyday.....even while I sleep... and for FREE!
Maybe I should put in a claim to my insurance provider and get them to pay me some money instead of some useless wimp.

The great thing about it is each day I just shorten the length of the band, making it pull more.


I'm now pretty much back to how I was.
I have about 95% of my flexibility back, and most of my strength.
I'm a little slower when playing the piano, but nothing a little bit of practicing won't fix..... If only I had time to practice.....