I said before that I had migrated all of my social media content to posts on SideshoViD.com, but that wasn't entirely true. I had not posted any of my Instagram stories. To be honest, that's mostly because I didn't know I could. I thought that once they disappeared they were gone. But the other day I noticed my "Archives" on Instagram had every story I'd ever posted.

They made it basically impossible to access that content from my laptop, but on mobile, there was a button to click to download the photo or video. I was astounded at how quickly videos were downloaded to my phone and then uploaded to my website. They must be compressed or optimized somehow. It was literally as fast as I could click that they were done. As a result, it only took a few evenings sitting on the couch crunching through them to complete 2018-2024.

The cool thing about that is that there was a period of time, a couple of years even, where stories were the sole format I used. I liked that they were more ephemeral, less pressure, and felt more spontaneous or narrative. So now a huge chunk of time from around 2022-2024 that was previously unrepresented has some history here.

I also like that it took the topic tag for "squirrels" from obscurity to #6 most popular topic. Those were the primary years we spent getting to know Muffin and trying to get her to eat out of our hands. So that is all documented now for posterity. She's here right now in fact having a little breakfast before heading out to work. Look for her to pop up a lot more in the This Day In History section! 🐿

Yesterday I have my first ever colonoscopy. Normally they say you should wait until you're 45 years old. But I think that's not so much because it's a good idea to wait and more of that insurance won't cover it until then. I was talking with a doctor recently and mentioned that my father had had colon cancer and he said, "Oh then you shouldn't wait until you're 45 yous should start when you're 40." Mmmk, well I'm 44 and a half years old, so great.

Regardless, I got it on the calendar and scheduled it for this year. My gall bladder surgery had not only met my deductible, but pushed me over my out of pocket maximum for the year, so it would be covered at 100%. Although I have to admit I didn't ever verify that it would be covered, so there very well could be a massive bill coming. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Colonoscopies, insurance, deductibles. Could I BE any more adult?

Everyone told me the colonoscopy was no big deal. They just give you some of Michael Jackson's milk and you doze off into blissful slumber. NOT really the whole story folks. Before you do that you have to spend an entire day eating nothing and taking absurd doses of laxatives and Miralax. I don't think they do the prescription jug of juice anymore, since you can accomplish the same thing by abusing over the counter drugs. It was so terrible. I couldn't sleep the entire night because I had to run to the bathroom every 15 minutes, nauseously hungry, and trying not to get dehydrated.

Sure the actual procedure was pretty nice. I really did prefer the propofol over the general anesthesia for a full blown surgery. Waking up was gentle and peaceful, not jarringly confusing with missing bits of memory. They did find 2 polyps and those are being biopsied so all in all I guess it was a good idea that I got this done, but please jebus don't make me do it more often than every 5 years. I am not looking forward to the next one.