ive had a pretty crazy week...

this time last week (wednesday morning) was pretty normal... except i was all jazzed because my special order of jamaican blue mountain coffee beans were roasted and waiting for me at the local roastery and i was picking them up that afternoon... said to be some of the very best coffee in the world, i couldnt wait to see what the fuss was about... and i wanted to know what made a coffee worth $50 a pound... (this may not seem relevant, but trust me, it is... im getting to it)

so after lunch i grab my beans and head back to the office... i revel in the aroma of freshly roasted coffee as my beans are ground to something close to a powder... ed packs a double shot into the espresso machine, and im practially hopping from foot to foot waiting for the stupid thing to make my coffee... and at last, it is ready...

and it is GOOD... damn good... freaking awesome... no bitterness AT ALL, with a truly unique flavor... mmmm mmm mmmmm! why, its SO good, it almost makes me dizzy...

about this same time the server terravirtua lived on started to show signs of failing... it had been having issues over the last few months, but by now it was failing one or more times a day, and disk checks turned up more and more bad sectors... the machine had clearly reached the end of its useful life (although 6 or 7 years isnt a bad run [ed informs me it is actually somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 years... fucking whatever, terravirtua itself is 10 years old this august, i cant remember EVERYTHING])... i decided to put fedora core on one of my spares and transfer everything over friday...

i woke up thursday feeling kinda weird, a little out of it, but i figured it for lack of sleep, and knew it was nothing some coffee wouldnt fix, especially the bliss of blue mountain... two cups of drip later, i didnt feel any better, in fact i actually felt a little worse... i was suffering occasional dizzy spells that would last about 30-60 seconds at a time, and leave me feeling lightheaded, like i might pass out...

friday morning i wake and feel even worse... the dizzy spells are coming more often and lasting longer, and im feeling weak overall... but when i get to work, i discover one of my coworkers is also out with some kind of flu, throwing up violently... maybe thats it, i might have some kind of weird flu... so i try to shake it off and get through the day, with the help of another double-shot of blue mountain... however, at lunch the spells are so bad i can barely stand and driving back to the office is very difficult... i decide to go home and get some rest... im supposed to meet a friend for dinner and id like to make it, so i hope a few hours sleep will help straighten me out...

i feel a little better after i get up, so i head over to the restaurant, and have a good time... little to no dizziness, so im able to enjoy the food and conversation... but when i stand up to pay the check, im hit by the worst spell yet, so violent i actually stagger and barely manage to stay up, followed by a wave of nausea so strong i nearly projectile-spew everything i just ate... at this point, im pretty convinced ive got the same flu my coworker has, which is actually somewhat reassuring because i was beginning to wonder if i had a brain tumor or something...

8 failed installs of fedora later, i realize that my spare machine is also a goner and ill need a new one... i decide to get a new machine saturday and crash, hoping i feel better in the morning...

no such luck... same pattern, i feel a little better when i get up, then sharply go downhill after an hour or so... while im at fry's getting a cheapo pc ($320 for a p4 2.8ghz celeron! refurb, but still) i start getting the spells again... its obvious at this point that im not getting better... the rest of the day repeats like the days before, and im starting to actually get a little worried... in fact, im more than a little worried, im flat out scared, which is such an alien thing to me, i find it even more disturbing than my illness, whatever it is... the combination of fear and the room spinning makes it nearly impossible to sleep (for the first time in my life, i seriously wondered if i might go to sleep and never wake up), so i decide to stay up and get the new server installed... finally exhaustion wins out, and yet another nightmarish day ends...

sunday morning: i feel MUCH better... hooray! i must be recovering! no such luck... again, as the day wore on, i get more and more dizzy and disoriented... i decide, screw it, i cant wait until monday to see my regular doctor, im going to go to a clinic while i can still drive...

when i get there, they do the usual, check my temp, check my BP, then the doc comes in, shines a light in my eyes, then says shes calling the ambulance to take me to the emergency room for a CAT scan...

ok, now im freaking out... i also dont have insurance because ive been lazy and havent finished the paperwork for my new job... so i tell the doc to skip the ambulance, id call a friend to take me to the emergency room... she calls ahead so they know im coming, and ed takes me in... and then i wait. and wait. and wait. and wait. hours later, they put me in a room, put an IV in me, and shoot me up with a bunch of stuff... i get wheeled down to the radiation lab, and the stick my head in a machine and take pictures of my brain. then i wait. and wait. and wait. and wait...

finally they come back and tell me that i dont have a brain tumor, menengitis, blocked arteries, or anything else brain related, and that it is most likely either a virus, a food alergy, or something called "benign positional vertigo"...

i suspect that it is the blue mountain coffee... another of my coworkers said they felt dizzy and lightheaded after a cup... and i drank a LOT of that coffee... but it could also be vertigo, because evidently my mom, her sister, and their father all have it too...

on the up side, the dizziness has completely gone now... friday i am going to do an experiment... im going to drink some more of that coffee and see what happens... if nothing happens, i can chalk it up to heredity... if i DO get dizzy again, ill know that that was the most expensive bag of coffee on the planet, to the tune of $2,200 (and $50)...