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Happy belated brother Mike! Hope it was a great and special day!

Me: Roasted barramundi with risotto and roasted red pepper For Anne: Portobello gnocchi in Marsala sauce

Happy belated birthday Grahame!

Thanks so much, everyone! I had a nice, relaxing day with the family. I actually I had the same 'Chicago cut' bone-in rib eye steak at Gibson's as Daniel did on that night that I posted the big ass steak! And it was fantastic! A month or two ago, I had read an article about the best new restaurants in the nation in Bon Appetit magazine. It listed one in Chicago that made its own pasta in-house with really great ingredients, and I really wanted to try it. It's Monteverde Restaurant and Pastaficio: http://monteverdechicago.com . We went for a late lunch, because dinner was completely booked out for over a month. We had the daily special which was an eggs benedict dish with local Berkshire Ham, tomato/mancheno filled arancini, Oma's Green Mountain Salad, pumpkin ravioli with a sage butter sauce, and fettuccini frutti di mare. Everything was great - totally worth a visit for you locals! Only one bad thing ... I completely forgot to take pics! Yikes! FAIL! I think I was thrown off by my daughter's lettering of the one pic I did take of our cocktails. I wanted to remember the names of everything we ordered, so after I took a pic of our cocktails, I tried to add a caption, but couldn't figure it out. I asked my daughter if she knew how to do it. She took my phone, did this: ... and I didn't see my phone after that until we were almost done. After that, I completely forget to take any more pics. Really sorry to fail you all, because it was a really great meal.After that, we went to a gourmet ice cream shop my daughter noticed on the way in, I had a big thing of ice cream, went home, and fell asleep. I think I was a little pasta and ice cream drunk. Later that night, we ordered in from a Thai place, just the usual Thai stuff, nothing special. But my parents always told me it was a Chinese custom to eat long noodles on your birthday to have a long life. So I do that whenever I can remember. Then after dinner we Amazon streamed The Hundred Foot Journey, which we'd all seen already, but everyone agreed was worth a second viewing. Kind of a quiet day, but I like it that way. Oh, and Anne got me a highly rated craft beer of the month membership. So I promise to post pics of that as they arrive! Anyway, hope you all had a great weekend also! And thanks so much for the kind wishes!

He was a trooper! Finished all 22oz!

Took Daniel for his first real steakhouse steak. We both got bone-in ribeyes at Gibson’s

Ramen at Ramen -San with my son

Thanks Chris! Definitely need to get together! I’m traveling a bit with the fam over the holidays. Let’s get in touch in the new year and have lunch! Thanks Jim! I did send them an email making that request, and also added it to my review, which they do seem to monitor. Fingers crossed! And good luck Antonio! I’m sure you know this, but for me at least, the acute symptoms took several months to stabilize. (Unfortunately for me, it stabilized to a not normal new baseline.) So I’m hopeful for continued improvement for you still!

Really like these a lot! I got the earbuds as a test. I think I’ll get their Best big ones! I posted this review on Amazon: Fantastic! I have my hearing back, if only for the time I have my Earprints in. Instruments and vocals sound like themselves again. Soundstage is stable again! This was the most surprising aspect of the change. I guess because my hearing loss was only in the high frequencies in my left ear, it screwed up the stability of the soundstage as tones changed. Very frustrating, and I couldn’t really verbalize that until now. I spent hours fiddling with balance, volume, frequency etc. only to walk away angry and frustrated. These Earprints fixed it in 90 seconds! So grateful to have my music back! Now if only they exported their audio correction circuit for my speaker rig! I’d LOVE to have my personal EarPrint for my speakers! How are my dizzy and hearing challenged brothers? Would love to hear from you!

Orphan Black. Watching the first season on Amazon. Great start, and I heard it just gets better.

Happy birthday Gene!

Last night, but: Pistachio crusted chicken And black truffle sachet with mushroom cream sauce

Happy belated, Bro’ Bryan! Look forward to raising a glass with you soon!

Happy bday Jeff!

Happy birthday JP!

Same with my 6s plus. I can live with it.

Happy birthday Mikey!

Happy birthday!

Agreed, I spend many days thinking, “well at least I can work. And I know many people who have it so much worse than this. It’s just a function of getting old. “ I also found an online forum for Menniere’s disease and other related problems. I agree it was a source of good information, and it was helpful. However, I also stopped reading it because it was so depressing. I agree that it would not be worth taking a medication that makes me feel worse, and don’t blame you for not wanting to try new ones. I will say, however, that these types of medicines take several months to start working and several months to stop working. The side effects on the other hand start immediately and end immediately. So, the fact that you felt better for a few months immediately after stopping that medicine wouldwould suggest that the medication worked, but caused side effects. The side effects stopped immediately, but the benefits continued for a few months. That happens a lot with the medications that I prescribe. Then it’s a matter of convincing the patient to find a medication that works but without side effects. It’s a challenge however, and as miserable as the other medicine made the patient feel, they often don’t really want to try. I can’t say I blame them. But with some work I usually can find another medicine that works as well as the other but without causing side effects. I hope that may be the case for you. I might also be to a point where I just have to accept a new baseline. That, along with not being able to eat and drink anything that I want and thinking my cholesterol and blood sugars won’t to go up. (Insert other old guy complaints ...) Getting old sucks. Don’t do it!

Seafood over squid ink pasta Anne: Various stuffed arancini

Ugh. That’s so sad to hear. Not sure where it all went so wrong for the medical field. [emoji17]

So sorry to hear, Mike. I remember reading some of your posts a while back and thought I should have posted something. But I couldn't find the words, being in the middle of my own problems with the same, and being so lost in it. I'm glad you were able to post here. This stuff is really hard to sort out. I saw two ENTs before the one who helped me - the first said everything looked good, she had nothing for me. The second was a specialist in neurotology and I was referred to him by the audiologist I called, to get some relief from the tinnitus, thinking I'd get a similar device to what you're trying. But she said she saw something in my hearing test that suggested something wrong to her. She set up an appointment with this 2nd ENT who was a 'specialist in hearing'. I wrote up my whole history and handed it to his nurse. He never saw this writeup that I gave to his nurse, and didn't want to find it, but he said my hearing is normal, there's nothing wrong. Everyone has tinnitus, just sit in an anechoic chamber. 'The only thing that works is the antidepressant Elavil ... so you know what THAT means' . The ear infection? 'Yes, you had a viral labyrynthitis. That will resolve in time. It can take a year - what has it been, 8 months? You only have 4 months to go.' I said nothing and nodded, but seeing the disappointment in my face, he said 'well, we could get an MRI, but it will be normal. So don't even bother coming back, I'll just call you to tell you it's normal. ' I didn't bother going back, but I also didn't bother with an MRI. I didn't have the symptoms of a tumor, and everyone I talked to agreed. A year later, having given up on the whole thing, and just figuring I'll always be dizzy, have horrible tinnitus and be in pain with every moderately loud sound I hear (movies, my dog barking, my treble-voiced daughter laughing) and I would just never hear normally again, an audiologist I worked with was willing to hear my story, and said there is definitely something wrong. I should do an extended hearing test to higher frequencies (suggested to me by Antonio a year earlier, but I had no one else to see in my original health system). She did that test herself for me on the same day. She said yes, my hearing was normal in the usual testing frequencies, but in the extended frequencies, she saw a clear hearing loss above 8khz only in the left ear, and said anyone who has one sided hearing loss and gets dizziness that's worse with loud sounds, suggests something real going on, and I should go see the ENT she trained with at Northwestern. I did that, and that's when he said I had this condition, the rare (or under diagnosed?) result of the inner ear infection I had 3 years prior. He gave me a diuretic, and this has helped immensely. Day to day, I'm so much better. I can even go to a movie without pain. My dog's bark is annoying, but not horribly painful. I can enjoy my daughter's laugh again. I still carry my ear plugs and use them at loud movies, but I might be fine if I didn't, I'm just afraid not to. I won't go to an amplified rock concert, and avoid going to loud bars. I still can't listen to my high end rig, as that still makes me feel queasy, and my left ear is uncomfortable above 80db. And it worsens the tinnitus, which is still there slightly. Plus it just doesn't sound good any more. Oh well, enough about my problems. Don't give up, Mike. Look around in your area for someone who has an actual interest in this stuff. Most ENTs are not interested. See my guy, if you want, just PM me and I'll give you his name, though I know it'd be hard to travel here just for a doctor's visit. I also found that one of the nation's leading experts on this stuff is in Chicago, Dr. Timothy Hain. He's a neurologist who specializes in hearing and dizziness, so he's an otoneurologist, instead of a neurootologist. I was going to see him next, but mine has gotten much better. Maybe I still should still see him ... but I feel like I have a good explanation and treatment at this point. Maybe it'd be worthwhile to at least read his web site. There's a lot of good information there: http://dizzy-doctor.com Keep in touch, and feel free to PM me if you want to take this offline in more detail. Or keep it here, if you'd prefer. Hang in there , Antonio! Keep in touch!

https://geardiary.com/2017/07/25/even-h2-wireless-headphones/ My Christmas present this year! So, I haven’t been able to enjoy high end audio gear for almost three years now due to an inner ear infection which left me with high frequency hearing loss above 8khz, tinnitus, and intolerance to spl above 80db ... all only in my left ear. If you’re interested, it’s called secondary endolymph hydrops. Basically I have too much pressure of the fluid in my left inner ear. It sucks. Nothing sounds good any more. Detail in my left ear... gone. Soundstage ... gone. Anything above a minimal volume hurts in my left ear. Minimal volume which is tolerable doesn’t allow me to hear any detail. I’m hoping this headphone will let me listen again because it will tune the frequency response to my specific hearing loss and allow me to enjoy music at a low volume listening level. Fingers crossed. Also wonder if other middle agers with known or unknown hearing loss may benefit.

Key lime pie

Just finished taking my 5 hour long, every 10 years Specialty Boards recertification test. I’m thinking this is the last time I’m taking this damn thing. (Assuming I passed this one!) Treating myself to lunch at Shaw’s Crabhouse, which I’ve always wanted to try! Hot appetizer combo Seared George’s Bank Sea Scallops with cremini and maitake mushrooms, red wine-balsamic butter sauce