BLog 36: Dear Diary

Dear Diary, it is currently 5:00 in the morning on a Saturday as I write this. I have been up since about 3. Why you may ask? Well let my story unfold for you.

When we bought this house there were several things wrong with it because the previous owners did not take the best care of it. We have had to replace the washer dryer, the air conditioning unit, paint and clean excessivly, insulation yada yada yada and you get the picture. Now one thing that we had requested they fix when we bought the house was to remove a large old tree in the back yard. They declined to do this and we eventually settled on some other terms.

Now about a week ago a large branch fell out of the tree in the back yard and I thought to myself, hmm, that tree sure is choked out by several types of climing vines, I think I should start getting estimates to get it taken down. Well guess what happened before the first estimate came in. Yep, it fell. Now luckily it was only the largest chunk that fell and when it did if fell through my neighbors fence, but the lucky part was that it managed to only clip the shed (mine) and actually just knocked the section of fence out of its spot without breaking it, and it also managed to not hit any of the bazillion toys the lazy neighbors leave lying around thier yard. Anyway I went and got a chainsaw, chopped it up, bolted the fence back in got someone signed on to take down the rest of the tree and bob's your uncle.

THEN. I began to itch. Now keep in mind I checked to make sure I wasn't working in poison ivy, cause I'm really allergic to it. What I DIDN'T know I was allergic to was Poison Sumac. And let me tell you. There was a lot of it. So now I find myself covered head to toe in... well... lets just call it living death. I slept a total of 30 minutes the first night and then yesterday I went to the doctor (where I waited for about 2 hours to see the doctor. I need a new doctor) and got some steroids and some sort of steriod creme. Yea, still death. I am currently taking 4 steroid pills a day, 4 advil at a time several times a day, 2 benadril several times a day, some other meds cause my immune system is shot from this condition, and I am still not able to sleep. And don't tell me not to overmedicate myself cause right now if I find myself in a hospital bed cause I had to get my stomach pumped my first thought will be "Sweet, I must have passed out and actually gotten some SLEEP". The only reason I made it till 3 oclock this morning was by the tried and true method of getting really drunk. So currently all the meds in the world don't stop me from feeling like shit but getting drunk can actually allow me to get my head down. And what truly sucks is that for some reason this is party weekend, one group of freinds is going to the beach, and another was going tubing (which is what I had signed up for awhile back). Yea, can't go to any of it. Instead I get to sit in the bathtub sloshing around most of the weekend in an oatmeal back because it makes me want to die just a very little bit less. I have included a pic as a sample of what this looks like.



But lets see, what else have I gotten up to lately. Well we did get the tree taken down with a minimal amount of fuss. The one issue we had was that the people taking it down had agreed to take it to stump level, but when the going got tough they said they could bring the stump down any shorter than 14 feet high cause it was too thick. Yea, not so pleased about it. I talked to them once about it, they shot me down. Meg talked to them about it, they said they could get it to 4 feet. We both went and talked to them about it, and while Meg talk I basically had a seizure from the pain of my poison sumac which I think they took as fear of me for my spouse and they caved and took the stump to the ground. So the sumac may have its up side. Not worth the down side though.

Puppy is doing great, though once you teach her a trick she thinks that all the tricks you request are the same one. Now no matter what you tell her to do she just rolls over. Cute puppy, but she'll get there. We took her to puppy training cause, hell, I don't know what I'm doing. It was amusing, lots of hyper puppies and I think the only think ours learned were the bad habits of the other dogs. Le sigh. Still class 1 of 8 so we will see how it goes.

Well I am officially up before the early birds cause they just came out and are yelling at each other about worms and sex. Hate birds in the morning. Love thick windows. Had thin windows at my old place in Alexandria and man those birds were very vocal about thier "goings on".

Other than that I don't think I've been up to too much. Minor house projects moving forward, oh, we got someone to put in a half bath upstairs which is going to be SWEET. Why you ask? What is wrong with having just one bathroom in the house you ask? The problem is that my wife has a pavlovian responce that when she hears the bathroom door close she immediatly has to go potty. It is AMAZINGLY accurate. So now this will no longer be an issue.

Aight, I think I might try to sleep a little more.

D289821 : Cause sometimes you just need a hat that says just what you're thinking.
http://www.google.com/patents?id=u7Q8AAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4&source=gbs_overview_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

07/01/2010: Yea yea I know.

Well new blog time. Truth be told it was new blog time like a week ago, but I just have no sense of timing. ANYWAY. Let us review what is new in the life of this guy.

The amusing thing that happened today was that there is a box for food donations to the hungry at my work place. Now keep in mind, this is a BIG office and consequently a BIG box, like the king you would get a mini fridge in. And what was inside it you say? What plethora of foodstuffs do the government workers have to offer to those families less fortunate? One, yes ONE, Apple Strudel. Those kind you get at 7-11 that are under a dollar. Eat well families of fate, eat well those denizens of poor fortune and dine, nay FEAST, on Apple Strudel. I am actually shaking my head sadly as I write this.






New News. Got me a puppy. A little beast of pure poo-dome. But bar none, the cutest thing I have EVER seen. So when you get woken up at 4 in the morning only to turn on the lights to see the puppy has not only eaten her bed, which I must say defies physics as it is bigger than her, but apparently has the digestive tract of a Sawmill and has already pooed it out, only to, yes you saw this one coming, use it again as a bed. It's recycling at work. So when you are awoken out of the dream where you are scrooge McDucking it into a pile of cash only to have to clean up vast VAST amounts of puppy poo, and you feel like wringing their little neck, it is good, at least for them, to be so uncontrollably cute that even being covered in your own feces comes across as mind boggling adorable. Note, babies do NOT and never shall possess this ability, if they did everyone would have one and teen pregnancy would be the "in" thing, but this puppy can, and so needless to say potty training is a little hard when you can't scold them for tracking poo around the house. But this puppy is a handful. She has already eaten a bee and had her head swell to the size of a softball where we had to take her to the vet. While she started off scared of EVERYTHING, she is now attempting frequently to run into the road, thinks that she chases away cars, yes CARS, by barking at them, and she has on multiple occasions "rolled with the big boys" which is no exaggeration as she has bitten and hung on as she has been lifted off the ground, to the face of the in laws Great Danes, who, thankfully, are too nice to eat her in response. Pictures to follow.



What else is new. Hmm. Reached a new top bench weight the other day. For awhile friend Joe and I have been gyming it so I have been able to lift more weight cause there is someone there to catch it when I drop it on myself. Other people in the gym, not so keen to help. I think they find it amusing to watch someone squirm under a barbell for awhile. Keeps them in their place. But new weight reached was 245 lbs on the bench on a surprisingly zero energy day, or as I like to count it 17.5 Stone. Rock it old school style.

Went wine touring on Saturday and got a bit toasty. It was "bring your dog with you" wine tour day so we saw many a puppy but I think ours took the cake and ate it too. Finished off the night by lighting up the new fire pit with gasoline. Drinking, and using gasoline as lighter fluid = not the best idea in the world. And for anyone who hasn't yet, while it is impressive, the ignition WILL knock you off your feet. First hand experience is all I will say, and I will add that that is a very sturdy fire pit and that we discovered rocks CAN burn under the right conditions.

Did the 48 film competition the other weekend. For those who don't know the 48 hour film competition is where you roll in and get a genre, a character name, a prop, and a line of dialogue and must make a 5 minute film with these in under 48 hours. We ended up getting Sci-Fi this year, and I got to act in it, while not really helping in other aspects due to time constraints, but it came out alright. The link is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIbX6uaJF8U
The way it is written is that a guy unknowingly is stuck in a TVesque world. Not sure if the writing reveals that to the degree it was hoped, but I think the cinematography and original musical score came out very nice.

Planning on cutting down a tree in my backyard tomorrow. Note that if you don't hear from me again if could mean I have crushed myself, or that I am just lazy. Sorry there isn't a better way to relate my fate. I'm sure the suspense will just frazzle you. Man, did I just use the world frazzle? My word.

Lastly (and yes I am reading off a list I have of things to talk about so SUCK IT), is that friend Brett just got a new Sprint phone and I WANT IT. This phone makes me realize how technologically far behind I am with my crappy phone which has broken 4 times and been replaced 4 times. His phone has an 8 pixel camera which is better than my REAL camera, and it has, follow me on this one folks, not ONE, but TWO cameras. And a kickstand. This thing is closer to a motorcycle than a phone. I want one, but sadly, I must wait for my contract to be up with Verizon or suffer their penalties which include large fees, being prattled at by them, them selling your information to everyone in the WORLD who will send you junk mail, a slap across the face by the mail man and possible circumcision. Boo.

http://www.google.com/patents?id=sh-TAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4#v=onepage&q&f=false
Touch Twister: I kid you not, you blindfold yourself and do it by feel. I'm sure there is no way THIS has ever ended badly.