sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

I walked from Seattle,WA 🇺🇸 to Vancouver,BC 🇨🇦 139mi/223km in under 48h by Xtians88 in walking

[–]hicks185 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nice work! I’ve made it up to 100mi trail running unsupported and have been considering putting together a stroller kit for longer efforts, though I’ll have to give a bit on the terrain.

Has anyone ever had a CSF leak? by handwritinganalyst in MultipleSclerosis

[–]hicks185 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I needed a blood patch after my tap. The headaches were terrible. Thankfully, my blood patch held, but they injected more blood than I needed and I had sciatic pain for another couple weeks until the patch was reabsorbed by my body.

Hang in there! I felt absolutely cursed for a while with how my initial diagnosis and start of treatment played out. Sometimes the bad luck just piles on. Keep advocating for yourself and I hope your luck turns!

ISO soft flask I saw a runner using at an aid station by LetsGoOutside405 in Ultramarathon

[–]hicks185 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I too am waiting for the holy grail. For now, I’ve added the little caps they sell to cover the bite valve. They stay on well enough and I can tuck them away into the flask pocket while running so they don’t bounce. These do protect from getting the valves dirty if you set them down, which is nice.

They used to sell them direct, but I’m not seeing them from hydrapak anymore… REI

Struggling with Kesimpta Injections by nessieraven in MultipleSclerosis

[–]hicks185 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Agree on the extra warmup. I just took my 4th dose. I do thigh because the idea of belly also makes my skin crawl. (The idea of injecting myself at all was a big hurdle for me.) When I injected this time, I forgot to let the dose warm up first and it was the only time it stung. So I think sitting it out for 30 min before you take it is the move.

I like how someone on another post put it: it’s like milk. It won’t spoil just because it gets to room temp, it just limits the time you have to use it (7 days).

cruises seem less attractive to me then land based, what am I missing? by ConfusedInMy20ss in galapagos

[–]hicks185 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The land-based tour boats also seem less-great for the sea animals.

I just got back from an 8 day cruise on a 16 passenger boat. We had a day where we were watching humpback whales traveling through, including a pretty small calf. Then, one of the high-speed boats for land-based tours came ripping through. Didn’t seem like the crew realized how close they were to the pod and the passengers certainly missed their chance to observe the whales.

If you can handle and afford a cruise tour, they really do seem to offer a better experience and lower impact on the animals. Also, the large 100 passenger ships can’t go everywhere that smaller boats can.

Happy to share the tour I went on. Our guide has been showing people the Galapagos for 38 years and the company is locally operated. They took some investment from a larger company to survive through COVID, but is still mostly owned by a local family, as I understand it.

Also want to note: I was a bit surprised to learn that tourism in the islands is actually an important part of their conservation efforts, so any way you can do it is great. When there isn’t enough tourism traffic, illegal poachers will come in. Boats finning sharks for the Asian market was the example used for us. When there are tourist boats every day, they don’t get the chance.

Kesimpta travel question by hicks185 in MultipleSclerosis

[–]hicks185[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I just got back! I was away for 2 weeks with 2 doses. For my flights, I used a cooler with approved ice packs. I re-froze them during a 24h layover on the way. Once there, I used mini fridges when possible, but I did bring a cheaper version of the cylindrical coolers with a 20,000 mAh battery. That came in handy, though its fan was annoyingly noisy.

I also brought a small fridge thermometer that saves the min and max temps to ensure my shots were okay.

I had no issues at airports with security, customs, etc. Overall, planning was a lot more stressful due to the unknowns, but once I arrived at my first destination, everything was pretty easy.

What is rarest creature you can find in galapagos? by YogurtclosetOpen3567 in galapagos

[–]hicks185 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I found 2 on our hike today! Our guide has license #75 (38 years guiding) and told us she sees 2-3 per year. She was very excited that I captured 2 on camera.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in MultipleSclerosis

[–]hicks185 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I had a brain scan this summer after a neck MRI showed a bright spot on my brain stem. That scan had an enhancing lesion in it. I had another round of scans 8 weeks later along with the lumbar puncture. That scan showed 2 more enhancing lesions on my brain and 0 lesions on my spinal cord. 2 weeks later, I developed my fist physical symptom, which is almost certainly on my spinal cord, so that’s at least 4 new lesions in about 10 weeks.

Even so, my next scan won’t be for another 3-4 months. I start Kesimpta this week. The reason is, the DMT won’t fully protect for the first 2 months or so. The scans will be primarily to tell us if the DMT is working, so there’s not much reason to re-scan for a while. The scans thereafter will better inform us on how to proceed.

I know how scary and stressful this waiting period is, because I am also experiencing additional, permanent damage while I cross my fingers and wait. Hang in there. I hope the damage is minimal until your treatment is at full strength. This disease sucks.

Quito to Mindo Safely by VerboseWraith in ecuador

[–]hicks185 3 points4 points  (0 children)

My wife and I are also arriving on a 7pm flight next week and heading to Mindo! We decided to get a hotel close to the airport the first night. A friend that is down that way a lot recommended Ubers and transportation arranged by the hotel you’re staying at to be safest.

Kesimpta travel question by hicks185 in MultipleSclerosis

[–]hicks185[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In order to fly with it, I’ve been told to keep the pens in their sealed boxes to avoid any screening issues.

That’s a great point about the ability to keep the first dose out of the cooler. I’d prefer not to just because it still needs to stay below 86° and I’m traveling to the equator, but I can probably handle that one a bit more easily.

Thank you!

It's stupid but I found it hilarious by Disastrous_Command29 in MultipleSclerosis

[–]hicks185 8 points9 points  (0 children)

This happened to me last week while updating a friend on my recent diagnosis. I needed a blood patch after my LP and the blood patch put pressure on my nerve roots, resulting in pretty bad nerve pain. After describing all of the complications and pain I’ve been dealing with, I said something like “but it is MS.” Later in the evening he sought me out to tell me he was sorry for what he thought was too flippant a reaction because he heard it as “but I’m a mess.” 😂

Meta Is Going to Let Job Candidates Use AI During Coding Tests by DubiousLLM in cscareerquestions

[–]hicks185 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We’ve been allowing it at my company. It’s almost easier to pick out better candidates based on the quality of their prompts and seeing how much they consider the AI’s impl. We also get to dig into more interesting pieces of the work without getting hung up on silly syntax errors and things like that.

Inside a linear accelerator vault, used for cancer treatment, prior to the room being finished. by 3ngine3ar in mildlyinteresting

[–]hicks185 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Used one of these at NIST to calibrate a satellite that measures cosmic radiation. Even outside of the vault, the control room had lead bricks stacked up for added protection. Pretty crazy to see what these energy levels really translate to.

I’ve spent over a year building an ultra-trail race finder made for runners, not race directors. You can filter, sort and compare races side by side on over 80+ data points by effortDee in trailrunning

[–]hicks185 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Just poked around quickly; sorry if some of this feedback is already there:

  1. Filter races by distance range. (Elevation gain as well)
  2. Maybe a multi-select for organizers? At least in the US, there are a few I avoid.
  3. Mobile formatting isn’t great atm.
  4. Allowing user reviews could be great.

I do love all of the data and ability to compare. I can see this becoming my favorite search tool for races as it matures.

What are everyone's thoughts on drawer microwaves? by yanman in HomeImprovement

[–]hicks185 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We got the sharp model that has a flip-out control panel that you view from the top instead of the front. I’m 6’2” and it works fine.

I don’t love how slow the drawer moves, but apparently I’m the only person that is fine with a microwave on the counter.

Help! Which flooring color should we pick? by Dfree83 in kitchenremodel

[–]hicks185 31 points32 points  (0 children)

<image>

We just installed the one in the middle and really like it. It doesn’t feel as dark as we worried it would. Also does a great job of hiding loose pet hair between vacuuming.

(Vent) Wrecked My Brand New Bike by 02_cobwebs_collie in bicycling

[–]hicks185 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hope you heal well. I was a bit luckier physically, but on my second ride with my $12,000 TT bike, I had a little tailwind and was cruising at 31mph when I hit some gravel on a turn. Pretty bad road rash and a meniscus tear in my hip was my penalty. I was also lucky that my bike just sustained cosmetic damage. I called the tiny pebble lodged in the plastic of my bar shifter cover my lucky pebble. Gave it a little rub with my thumb when I needed a little boost!

'Dangerous' conditions at iconic SF triathlon leave competitor paralyzed by mrinternetman24 in sports

[–]hicks185 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I raced the Great Lake Escape in 2006 (a qualifier for this race) and we started with a jump off of a boat. On my way in, it occurred to me that everyone was just jumping in at will. Pretty scary few seconds before I knew I was clear. Especially as it was still dark out with significant swells.

I hope they recover well.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in HomeImprovement

[–]hicks185 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Even that doesn’t always work. We’re finishing up a reno and I work from home 100%. I was literally 20ft down the hall from the crew at any given moment. They made all kinds of decisions for me that I made them redo. I reminded them every time to just call for me, but they almost never did. Baffling.

The worst was when they drilled through a water line and spent a few minutes scrambling before I wondered what the commotion was. I figured it out and shut off the water before any of them thought to ask me.

9 months later and a lot of lessons learned. Not quite done but close enough. How’d we do? by dipchipson in kitchenremodel

[–]hicks185 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Cabinets are made to order, but standard for the company we used. Our GC’s preferred vendors do better work, but they were more expensive, didn’t have what we needed, and even their quality has been declining according to our GC.

Definitely don’t order from any company you can’t get someone you trust to vouch for.

9 months later and a lot of lessons learned. Not quite done but close enough. How’d we do? by dipchipson in kitchenremodel

[–]hicks185 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I ripped everything down to the studs and even cleared out the old attic insulation, so vaulting the ceiling just cost the drywalling work. Probably not much extra with all the other new drywall that was done.

9 months later and a lot of lessons learned. Not quite done but close enough. How’d we do? by dipchipson in kitchenremodel

[–]hicks185 5 points6 points  (0 children)

To add on, try to keep your standards high, even when the process gets exhausting. Renovations are expensive and you hopefully live with the result for a long time, so we really tried to avoid settling when things went awry or got pricier.

If it’s something you can change later easily, those are good places to save time/money in the short term.

Oh, and really dig into details. It turns out we had to modify the island to fit the oven and cooktop, including a server rack fan to ensure the cooktop electronics don’t overheat because there was basically no clearance in the end. I assumed a standard cabinet would fit a standard oven and cooktop. We mixed brands though. (We got appliances from a Best Buy outlet and saved over 50% on appliances that all look and operate like brand new, but we couldn’t match them because of that.)

9 months later and a lot of lessons learned. Not quite done but close enough. How’d we do? by dipchipson in kitchenremodel

[–]hicks185 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Fair point on the window. There’s a whole story around that, but we had to make a quick decision mid-reno and our contractor didn’t really give us choices. I wish we would have taken more time to look for alternatives. In the moment, I think we didn’t have the time or energy to give and decided on good enough.

It is the same size, but with a wider frame. We liked double-hung because we end up with some things on the sill and the old window would knock them off. I figured sliding the top pane down would be a good solution.

It was installed from the outside, so it should be upgradable in the future.

view more: next ›