That Darned BP...

Went to see the Nurse Practioner today for the results of my monitoring. Basically good. As far as she was concerned, with the exception of when I was actually standing in the Doctor's office I was completely normal. She took 3 readings there and found that the first one was sky high but the third was normal (135/82).

She wants to do cholesterol tests and Kidney blood tests just to be sure, which I'll have next week, but for the time being she thinks I should stay on the Ramipril, which is not actually a beta-blocker. It's an Altace which is apparently an angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor. Well I never.

Her opinion is I need to do more exercise (and lose weight) and then review in a month or so when the current pescription runs out and I should be able to come off them. Which is good.

Curious about the cholesterol numbers are. Given the type of foods we eat out on trips to Seattle I'm not sure they'll be good. Something tells me Prime Rib, Burgers and Mexican aren't in the heart friendly food groups.

Convoy

So, Convoy has been cancelled.

I couldn't go anyway, but I'd made up my mind a while ago that I couldn't be arsed with another Adelphi convention. I like the space, I like the city, I have amazing memories of a Chinese meal with Ramsey Campbell in 1997. However, the sum of the parts is somehow less than the whole.

With the exception of '94 (where I didn't actually have a room but hung around the con not sleeping) I had awful experiences with the hotel and the staff. The space is great for a convention, it really is, but I don't think the hotel and the security made up for that. It was the same reason I didn't go to Blackpool - I used to live near Blackpool, I know exactly what Blackpool is like on an Easter weekend. Blackpool Acute Trust is the hospital that army doctors train for multiple skin traumas in for a reason.

I would also have to feign surprise at some of the "communications" that came out of the con-com. The Adelphi is a pretty emotive subject and having a hotel liason tell me that she knew of no problems when she was standing about 4 feet from me while Eileen, the manager from hell, was shouting at me that if I didn't like the blood stained sheets in the bed I could always leave, annoyed me.

So, perhaps no formal large Eastercon next year. That will be sad, and I will certainly try to time a trip to the UK for Orbital. Still. Maybe this will force the debate about the Eastercon that we really need.