Nords

Mornin', Nords. Got to ask: what's the point of being retired if you're up so early? And, do you ever nap during the day?

Nords,

I'm glad to see your book on military retirement is progressing nicely. In your earlier comments you mentioned the difficulty in finding a publisher. Have you considered contacting Military Living Publications to see if thery might me interested. These are the folks who publish the Military Camping and RV guides, Space A Travel, Military Lodging guides etc and are sold in all of the military exchanges.

Just a thought.

2soon2tell

Hi Nords,

I'm not sure who to address this to, so perhpas you can advise me or forward this to "the powers that be" LOL!

I am not sure that my posts are "posting." I can relpy to a post, but when I go to "new posts" there is no recent activity. I also noticed that my posts are absent in the threads I've posted to. Maybe I'm not smart enough to use this board? LOL! Sending PMs still seem to work.

Thailand update-its been a pretty low "low' season here and the business that cater to the tourist trade are wrining their hands with anxiety over the relative strength of the pending high season. Guess what nationality the Thais are trageting now? RUSSIANS! More and more businesses have signage in Russian and there is even a Russian channel on Pattay's CATV :)

Its a new world man!

Hope you and your family are well in Hawaii :)

Hey Mr Nords... Can you get rid of dick & bikini spam?

TooFrugal,

I'm sorry to hear about your MRI. You'll have to let us know what they find and what they propose to do about it.

The MRI appears to be run by techs, not radiologists. You just lay down on the slab and they position your knee inside the toroid. The slab may drive back & forth a few inches for optimal positioning but you stay still. The two MRI machines I've seen both had plenty of room for your head and most of your torso to remain outside. The room is cold, so they may provide a blanket and you'll definitely want to bring a jacket. They'll probably offer a cushion or a pillow, too. They do whatever they can to keep you comfortable so that you'll remain absolutely immobile. I had the word on earplugs and was darn glad I brought them-- the switching magnets sound like a can of marbles in a paint mixer or a gigantic buzzer. If they have plastic headphones then you'll want them in addition to the earplugs.

The magnetic fields make the techs paranoid about metal. Leave your watch & jewelry at home. (You may be able to lock up a wallet in their locker room since the MRI may mess with credit-card magnetic strips.) No eyeglasses. No body jewelry. If you wear any clothing with metal, magnetic or not, it comes off. (Like the rivets in Levi's blue jeans, or even the snaps in boxers.) You will be barefoot and possibly naked with their hospital gown. (I got away with a t-shirt & shorts, but this is Hawaii.) If you have any metal inside your body, let them know far in advance so that they can huddle about how to position you and what strength of magnetic field to use. If you've ever used a welder or a metal grinder then they worry about metal particles in your skin or your corneas.

Having said all those scary things about metal, they didn't care a bit about my nine fillings. I don't know why. They might feel differently about crowns or plates or retainers or other dental work. I'm just glad I wasn't a teen with braces!

If things are quiet then the techs may be able to display your data on a screen for you, but I never saw a radiologist. The techs won't go over any of the results; I guess they're not allowed to. Even the radiologist might not talk to you without your own doctor present. If you bring a blank DVD then they may burn you a copy to take home with you. It's interesting to look at but if you don't have medical experience then it's hard to figure out your orientation and what you're seeing, even if it's not damaged. I wanted a copy just in case theirs didn't make it to my doctor.

I think the worst part of the MRI was the 20-40 minutes of forced thoughtful contemplation of what you did to your knee to cause you to be there. At least that's how it was for me.

Hi, Nords. I'm due for my first MRI on my knee next week. I spotted your thread from 2006 on this topic.
If you have time, do you mind briefly telling me how it went? Did they put your entire body in the tube for just your knee? Did it pull all your tooth fillings out (ok I know that's not supposed to happen but that's my phobia at the moment). Did you wish you'd brought earplugs?
Thanks.

Nice bio, Nords! Thanks for sharing.

No worries about not having more info on Darvas. I just thought I'd ask as I have seen a few references to it, but never really a walkthrough of someone trying it over a period of a year tho.

I'm looking at a few different options a bit 'off the beaten path.'

My personal portfolio is currently similar and I'm invested solely in Canadian Bank stocks. They've taken a hit recently, but as they're all long term, we'll just weather the current storm and collect our dividend cheques ;) but, I would also like to give Darvas another shot - I just checked back this morning on the stocks that I had bought and sold about 2 years ago using Darvas method (diod, fzn, airm) and 2 of 3 are still winners today - couldn't remember what the other one I picked out and played.

Anyway - I'm envious of you and your surfing :) I've only been once just north of LA, but coming from land locked Manitoba, Canada it's always been a dream of mine. Unfortunately the whole coast of China is about as bad as Manitoba is for surf locations :P

Thanks for being an inspiration!

-Mitch

Hey Nords,

I searched Darvas on the forums, and your name came up many times. I'm starting to think about Darvas again now that I have a little more money to play with.

Did you finally give his method a go? I played 3 winners about 2 years ago and one that didn't go so well, but then life got busy, cash was needed elsewhere and I stopped the experiment.

Interested to see if you went ahead with what you were reading.

Cheers

Mitch