No more sponge baths...whee!

I got my bandages off yesterday and was told not to shower until today. Oh my Lord! It was a religious experience. I don't think I'll take showers lightly ever again. I thank my wife for helping me with me daily sponge baths. I couldn't get my entire right leg wet for over a week. It makes washing hair fun too.
I'm now scheduled for an MRI on my back. The doc wants a closer look at an area of my back where he thinks I might have a pinched nerve that is causing some numbness in my left leg. I hope it won't mean more surgery. *sigh*

: Let The Big Dog Eat from the album "Margaritaville Cafe - Late Night Menu" by Bill Wharton "Sauce Boss"

Free at last

Went to the doc and they took the bandages off of my knee. Wow! I have sexy knees when they've been shaved. :-) Seriously, my whole leg itches like crazy. I had two whole stiches under the bandage that went from my knee to my ankle. Talk about overkill. They put on some lame bandages that they said I should leave on until they fall off in 3-5 days. They fell off in more like 3-5 hours. Tomorrow I'll finally be able to take a real shower. No more sponge baths.
As for the knee. It feels fine. The most painful thing right now are my upper leg muscles. They are tight from not being used for a week. I am able to get around without crutches. I get to start physical torture^Wtherapy now. Oh boy!

: On a Cloud from the album "Cross Canadian Ragweed" by Cross Canadian Ragweed

Welcome to the stage of history...

Yesterday marked the release of Soul Calibur II. A game I have been anxiously awaiting to come out for the Xbox. It was probably my favorite game on the Dreamcast and I've missed it ever since we sold the old system. I got to play it a bit last night and have mixed feelings about it. Yeah, it's still got impressive graphics and the fighter animations are great. It's just not got the same ability to pull me in and hold me like the Dreamcast version. It also lacks my favorite character, with whom I was was invincible, from the first version, Sophitia. Yeah, there's Cassandra that's supposed to be Sophitia's sister and she does a lot of the same moves but just isn't as interesting as Sophitia was. Most of the new characters are kinda bland. The only new one I like is Talim. I like her double swords and the way she can get in close and cause lots of damage.

Is it better than the first? Yes. Outstandingly so? Nah. Namco played it safe and went with a tried and true formula.

: The Captain from the album "The Captain" by Kasey Chambers

For all you people...

...who tell me that homeschooling is bad for my kid because he doesn't get to socialize with other kids his age. Is this the kind of socialization you're talking about? Grade school wasn't as fun for everyone as you might think. Think back to when you were in grade school. Do you remember this kid? The one that everyone picked on. The outcast? Every class had one. I was that kid. I knew others like me too. I wasn't gonna put my kid through that. My kid gets more than enough socialization, thank you very much. Between Boy Scouts, bowling, soccer, play groups, and many other things. He gets out and interacts in the real world, the Post Office, the Electric Company office, Courthouses, etc. In the real world do you interact only with people of your same age? Neither does he. He is comfortable around people of any age because of this. I think we are preparing him better for life than most parents.

We have made sacrifices for his education. Yeah, my wife could get a job. We could put him in school. Let someone else raise our kid. Make lots more money and have a new house and new cars every three years. But we decided to put our lives on hold to raise a child. Not a tax deduction.

Samizdata also has a good discussion going about this story.

: Life in a Nutshell from the album "Rock Spectacle" by Barenaked Ladies

Feelin' Loopy

Been taking the pain meds my doc gave me after surgery last week. Good stuff. Makes you not really care about the pain. What he's got me on is Vicodin ES or extra strength Vicodin. I've taken Vicodin before and it really didn't do much for me. This new stuff is completely different. After one pill about 1/2 hour later I'm feelin' no pain and about an hour after that, I'm asleep. I can take up to two pills as needed. I've done this a couple times. Wow! I found out that playing the Xbox after that is a whole other world. Things seem to move a lot faster in the racing games and I can't even think about playing baseball. I can see why folks would get addicted to these or at least the feeling they give you.

: Silent All These Years from the album "Little Earthquakes" by Tori Amos

My lil sis' b-day present...

For her birthday we thought and thought about what would be the perfect gift for her 30th birthday. I finally came up with something. A skydive. We were going to do it on her actual birthday a few weekends ago but things didn't work out schedule-wise. We finally got to do it today. I have some friends that are regular skydivers and decided the best place to take her would be somewhere I knew some folks. One of the guys I know has a helmet-cam and said he'd be happy to film her jump. We showed up around 3pm for her dive. She watched the little training film and did some practice with her tandem partner and was ready to go. As they were taking off clouds started to roll in. Gotta love Texas in summer, storms can pop-up and disappear quite quickly. By the time they got to altitude it was pouring on the drop zone. The pilot called off the jump and landed. As he was landing, the storm ended. They re-fueled and took off again. Once at altitude, about 12,000 feet, they jumped. She got a good 10-12 seconds of free-fall before they popped the chute. She got another 3-5 minutes of gliding before touch-down. It was not the most graceful landing but as they say, 'any landing you can crawl away from is a good one'. She said she had a blast and that she'd do it again.

Happy Birthday, Saucy.

For pics see the photo album. I'll also upload the video once I've got a copy.

: Semi Charmed Life by Third Eye Blind

New career?

Shannon and I are looking at buying a building. Yes, a building. It is in downtown Liberty Hill. We are thinking of opening a coffee shop or maybe something else if we find something that we feel the town could use. The building is two stories with an apartment above the store. This is where we'd live. I've always commented that this is how people should live. I mean look at all that wasted space above your standard grocery store. You could easily put an apartment complex on top of one that could house hundreds. Save the open spaces for recreation instead of more blacktop and apartments.

Dang, now I'm sounding like some sort of hippie. Forget you read that.

Back to the building. It was built in 1905. It exterior walls are 15" thick double stacked limestone blocks. It is a sturdy little place. It has a decent sized backyard with alley access and a good sized storage building out back. It was last a music store that the owner decided to close after moving to Lago Vista. We are looking at getting a SBA loan to help with start-up costs.

Opening your own business is a big step but I really want out of the rat-race. Companies are shipping more and more tech jobs overseas. Eventually I'm sure mine'll go too. Time to change careers before it happens.

Owie, owie, owie...

Had my arthroscopic surgery this morning. Got to the clinic around 8:00 and checked in. Signed all their paperwork and paid my co-pay. My portion was $100 of the $4K+ surgery. Thank God for health insurance. I had my I.V. put in and was wheeled into surgery. The anesthesiologist injected something to 'relax' me. After that I vaguely remember singing 'Jingle Bells' to the beat of my heart monitor. The nurses thought that was hilarious. I remember nothing after that. I have no idea how long the surgery lasted as I was unconscious. I think it was around 45 minutes. They gave me a scrip for painkillers and sent me home. The painkillers are great. One kills the pain. Two means nigh-night time. This surgery is much less painful than my last knee surgery. I think it's because the doc did an MRI and knew exactly where to go to fix it. My last doc did a lot more exploratory surgery and I think that caused a lot more swelling and along with that, pain. Hopefully this'll fix it for a bit and I'll be able to sleep soundly again.

BTW, can anyone explain the 'you gotta pee before you can leave' rule?

Idiots in the Northeast...

I was reading a story about the power outages in the Northeast this week. People stuck in elevators. Subways stopped. Etc. Very ho-hum stuff. That was until I saw a quick blurb on CNN . It told about how in the first 24 hours or so there over 3000 calls to fire departments in the affected area. What were these calls about? Fires. People were causing fires in their own homes. How? Candles. These idiots hadn't yet mastered fire. The technology of the candle eluded them. They were unable to control fire. I just about laughed my ass off.

Take away electricity and people are unable to take care of themselves. Modern man has no survival skills at all it seems. My family keeps enough supplies on hand to last at least a week without utilities. It's amazing how few people keep even a couple days supplies ready.

We had a 3 hour power outage in our neighborhood a few months ago. Once we decided it was gonna last more than a few minutes, I fired up a camping lantern and within 2 minutes we had a neighbor knocking asking if we had power. 'Um, no, we are just prepared for these things. Here we have a spare. You can borrow it'. I then had to teach them how to operate a simple camping lantern. No, you don't just flip a switch to get light. *sigh*

Blue Man Group

My parents bought us all tickets to see the Blue Man Group at The Backyard here in Austin. We had been wanting to see them for quite a while but things never worked out. We'd be out of town when they did a show. We'd be out of money. Etc. Well, we finally got to go and take Dakota too. It was his first concert ever. The tickets were really his birthday present.
When we got there over an hour before the concert was to start things were already quite packed. It was standing room only and we got a crappy spot near the back. Dakota wasn't going to be able to see anything and I wasn't happy with that.
The concert started and the first act came on stage. It was Tracy Bonham. She was very good, kinda like Sheryl Crow with a country edge. She played a mean fiddle and could really wail. I'll have to look for her CDs next time I'm in a music store. After she was done, people got up to stretch before the second opening band came on. I took this chance to improve our seating. I grabbed Dakota and we moved closer to the stage and sat down in a tiny spot. I was able to make enough room for Shannon and my sister and we had much better seats. The next band cam Venus Hum came on. They weren't really my taste. Their lead sounded a little like Björk I guess. They had images displaying on the backdrop during their songs. I started laughing during one song, the images were just an OS X screen saver. Real original there guys. While they were playing I improved our seating. We were now within 40 feet of the rail at the front.
When Venus Hum finished up we moved farther forward and got a spot on the rail for us all. We were now 15 feet from the Blue Men during the performance. We we also that same distance from the subwoofers but didn't realize it. The music started and the Blue Men came out. When one of the would hit their giant drum you could literally feel the wind passing you coming from the subs. I don't think I'll have to worry about kidney stones after that. Even though we were only 15-20 feet from the speakers it wasn't uncomfortable because most of their music is percussion and that doesn't really hurt your ears to listen to. During the performance they played with a camera and panned the crowd a couple times. We managed to get on the big screen because of our spot. The Blue Men played for nearly an hour and a 1/2 in the Texas heat. From our spot you could see the sweat flowing off them. I did not envy them. They put on a hell of a show. I've seen their concerts in concert halls on tv but I think they really rock in a rock concert type venue. After the show when they were doing intros a drummer threw his sticks into the crowd. My sister managed to fight off two girls for one and I think it is now her prized possession.
We managed to beat most of the traffic and get home before midnight but not after an encounter with a drunk driver(I'll save that story for another time). Dakota was one tired puppy but I think he had fun at his very first concert.

Knee surgery...

I had an MRI of my knee last week and had the follow up with the doc today. Looks like I get to have Arthroscopic surgery on my right knee again. Doc suspected a torn medial meniscus and the MRI agreed. I had it done about 8 years ago so I know what I'm in for. A few days of pain a couple weeks of aching and then no more pain. At least for a few years.

Arnold for prez? No, you idiots!

Ok, Schwarzenegger has said he's gonna run for gov of Kalifornia. Good for him. He can't be any worse than what they've got out there. What I'm getting tired of are these idiots on TV comparing him to Reagan. On CNN this morning I heard one of their talking heads say 'is the Whitehouse next?'. No! He can't run for prez! Read your freakin' Constitution, Article II, Section 1, folks. He is not a natural-born US citizen. He is ineligible. End of story.

I hope he does win. I know why others in the entertainment industry were trying to discourage his running. He leans right and they know he's got a good chance at winning.

Fry's. Gotta love 'em...

Went to my local Fry's Electronics yesterday at lunch looking for a inexpensive car stereo for my new Defender 90. I saw one that had all the features I wanted. AM/FM, CD, and the important Aux input so I could plug in the iPod. It also had one really good feature, it was $75. I decided it was the one for me and I'd grab one to put in myself when I had the chance. I went to the stack of boxes and noticed that 1/2 of them were returns. Hmmm, not good. I noticed that those returns also had 'Return to Vendor' stickers on them. They should have never been back on the shelf. Good ol' Fry's, letting me know what I shouldn't buy. The stickers were hilarious. They said things like 'Doesn't power up', 'volume doesn't work', etc. The best was one that read, and I quote, 'Customer suggested I use it as a boat anchor'.

Guess what I didn't buy yesterday.

If anyone has any suggestions on a cheap car stereo with a front Aux input, let me know.