We drove up to Miami yesterday so that I could be on time for an appointment with the hand specialist at 08:30 this morning. The hand clinic is really professional and the people are great! They took new X-rays (had a good discussion about astronomy with my radiologist: Mike?) and used a fluoroscope to look at the wrist while it was moving. Because of the additional angles the doctor could get this way, he was able to see what the three-angle view of the previous X-rays missed: the distal end of the radius was not only smashed into the bone shaft, but it was not symmetrically smashed in, so the whole end of the bone had rotated about 20 degrees off where it was supposed to be for the wrist to function. Oh, I guess that would explain why the ulna moved, too. So it needs a plate. So they are doing this tomorrow. So, that was fast...

After the operation I will possibly be out of commission for a time, and I am not sure how fast this blog will be updated. Most likely it will, anyway, even if (gasp!) Derek has to type it :-) But of course, it's New Years and we hope you all are having your own wonderful busy times, so that you will forgive us for the gaps of days in here.

The marina at NAS Boca Chica is working with us to try to keep us in some kind of slip while I am recovering. The doc here is willing to let me do the physical therapy in the Bahamas, how cool is that, so eventually when the next cast comes off we should be good to go. I will not be 100% at that point, but if the bones are all in the right places, I will at least be likelier to be able to push and pull and twist and turn a helm wheel and so forth... kind of necessary.

We went to see Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol tonight, not because we are big MI fans (although I certainly was as a kid!), but because Brad Bird (Iron Giant, The Incredibles, Ratatouille) directed it: his first big-budget live-action film. Lots of beautiful locations and dramatic visual effects. And the technology works pretty well but there's always something that could have gone more smoothly, which is nice because in the real world people and things get messed up and tech does not always do everything it was supposed to do in the expected way, and there is operator error as well. The biggest no-no in that film was the idea that a nuclear missile can be deactivated at the last minute (seconds before impact and well after the ballistic phase inception). Ah, well, no, not unless things have changed drastically in that biz.

But recallable nukes or not, tomorrow is D-day for this wrist... more in the next post.