Doctober

After a ridiculously ridiculous weekend I realized that I haven’t been on the site in a while.  I pulled it up and realized that I haven’t posted anything since the end of September which is amazing because it seems like I was ready to pull my hair out last week.  Then I remembered that I was ready to pull my hair out last week…and the week before that.  Then I realized that I have been going on like this for the past five or six weeks. 

“All work and no play makes Johnny a dull boy. ”  That saying has been going on in my brain a lot lately. 

I titled this post doctober because the general theme for this month has been going to the doctor.  My wife.  Me.  My cat.  My dishwasher.  I am pretty much sick of doctors.  I have officially enacted a new “if it isn’t bleeding or broken, no doctor” rule.  For myself at least.  My wife can go whenever she wants, but not me.  When I was having a hard time walking due a pain in my left hip a week ago my doctor told me that I had a spine issue and ordered an MRI.  Three visits and hundreds of dollars later I have been told that my spine is fine and that I just need to go on a diet.  My oldest cat has been having a hard time peeing lately.  So I took her to the cat doctor and hundreds of dollars later, I am told she is fine and just has a virus.  Even my dishwasher began having problems so I had the GE guy out and he said that we “over soap” the load causing water to leak through the door and that our dishwasher was fine.  I paid a guy 140.00 to tell me to use less soap.  I laughed when he told me how much it would be.  The conversation went like this:

“So how much do I owe you?”  The GE guy replied “$140.00″.  So I asked, “Why so much?”  to which he answers “90.00 for the trip and $50.00 to diagnose the problem.”  (h, and I failed to mention that he did turn a knob on my water heater to make my water a little warmer.) An extra fifty bucks to tell me to quit using so much soap and to turn a knob a quarter of an inch.  ”Sounds good to me, do you accept credit cards?” 

The bottom line is  October has me by the short hairs.  There has been an argument going on in my brain for the past 48 hours with a general theme of being tired of doing things that I don’t want to do.  I find myself spending a large amount of my time lately doing things that don’t fall under the “I am glad i’m doing this” category.  Even as recently as last night (Sunday night) I found myself in a tuxedo downtown at a wedding missing the Bears game.  In all of my crazy football addiction I did manage to keep my eye on the score, but I won’t lie about being very angry that I actually call any person that chooses to schedule his wedding on a Sunday night during a Bears game a good friend.  Take the Bears game out of the equation and you still have a very expensive wedding taking place down town in the loop on a Sunday night when everyone has to work on Monday.  Why?  To save a few grand?  What a waste of open bar.  If you are going to drop 75K on a wedding, why do it on a Sunday night when everyone has to leave at 9:30pm.  Seems like a waste of money to me. 

Now that I think of it, the general theme of October should be “Grumpy Dennis”

Filed under: Overcommitment, achy, asspain

Busted Knee

Typically when I go to Las Vegas, the after effects upon my arrival home last maybe a day or two, but never longer.  Maybe longer if I do very poorly at the tables and my wife gives me the cold shoulder  if I lose a good chunk of change.  But never this long. 

This story actually reminded me that I never finished explaining the craziness that was my trip to Vegas over New Years.  I will revisit the story, but for right now I will only touch upon tiny pieces pertinent to the knee. 

2008 sucked in many ways.  When I am older and look back on my life, I can’t say that 2008 will be one of the years I want to rekindle.  2008 must have felt the same about me as I did about it because at 5 minutes to midnight this past NYE, it might as well have kicked me in the groin as a going away gift.  This is what happened…

The wife and I are in Vegas.  On the 30th of December we go out for a nice dinner, back to the hotel room to hang out, and then the wife wants to go to bed around 1:30am Vegas time (which is 3:30am Chicago time so she did good for her first full night in Vegas.)  Not me, though.  As she is ready to drift off to sleep, I am getting some comfy clothes on and getting ready to head down stairs to play some Pai Gow Poker.  8 hours and 20 free Captain and Cokes later, I am drunk and up a good chunk of change.  It’s almost 10am Vegas time and I haven’t had a wink of sleep so I head back up to the room.  For this trip, I decided since it was the wife and I that I would get a suite that offered a large whirlpool tub.  If you have been to Vegas and never had the experience of recovering from an all night terror, I would highly recommend the whirlpool tub.  Three hours in and out of consciousness in the whirlpool was as good as 8 hours of regular sleep.  We get dressed and by 2pm we are out of the hotel on our way to New York New York to buy tickets to Cirque Du Soleil’s Zumanity. 

There are so many aspects of this day that should be in itself a post, but I have to get to midnight and will revisit certain aspects of this day. 

We tried to get tickets to Zumanity, but instead I found myself on a bus going to tour some property call “Tahiti Village” since my wife is a penny pincher.  3 1/2 hours later I am emotionally scarred by the boiler room sales tactics and we have tickets in hand for Zumanity and only one hour to get dressed for the show.  We see the show (totally seperate post as well) and have 45 minutes before midnight on the strip.  Head back to our hotel, change into warm clothes so that we don’t freeze our ass off on the strip, and head down to Las Vegas Boulevard to watch fireworks off the rooftops at roughly fifteen minutes till midnight. 

We are not allowed to walk over Las Vegas Boulevard since the bridges over the road are closed.  We can only exit on the street level which in hindsight was a huge mistake.  As we are greeted by a very large crowd we began to get crushed since no one was moving and everyone continued out the exit.  I decided that we are going to climb over the barrier on to Las Vegas Boulevard since it was closed to traffic.  As I force my way through the crowd with wif e in tow, I climb up the 4 ft tall barrier that has metal spikes mounted on top of it to prevent such a climb.  As I stand up to leap over, my toes catch the metal bar and I am now falling head first 5 feet down towards the pavement.  I catch myself with my hands and my left knee bangs on the ground before I do what had to have been the most ungraceful barrel roll in Las Vegas history.   I jump up to the laughter of many drunk idiots and help my wife climb on the barrier to which I lift her over and walk way with her in my arms.  Trying to be a man, even though I know I haven’t been in this much pain for many many years. 

After we get to an area where we can finally breath, I survey the damage and I have gravel embedded in my palms and blood begins to seep through my jeans where my left knee hit the pavement.  I am pretty sure that either my right wrist is either sprained really badly or fractured.  I look at my watch and at 2 minutes until midnight, 2008 delivered the biggest kick to the groin yet for what was just one shitty year. 

Fast forward now to February 1st 2009.  It’s been more than a month since Vegas and I am mostly healed.  I still have marks on my palms from the fall and there are still signs of a scab on my knee cap.  Whenever I put pressure on my left knee it still hurts pretty bad.  I began to feel my knee and to my surprise I can physically feel that my knee cap has been chipped.  A piece of my kneecap moves on my left knee that doesn’t on my right and it hurts when I touch that one particular spot right on the tip of my knee cap.  So, it’s busted.  Thanks Vegas. 

I am most concerned about the knee since I want to go see someone about it, but fear what they might say.  I am off to Denver in 6 weeks to ski for a bachelor party and the last thing I want to hear is that I need surgery to fix my knee.  But on the other hand, if I don’t go to see someone I am concerned that skiing will make it worse and I might just destroy the thing while skiing.  I don’t really know what to do.  I have two little people on each of my shoulders doing the whole “Go to the doctor” vs “don’t be a pussy” argument thingy in my brain and I don’t know which one to listen to. 

I have more going on in my brain, but no more time, so I will have to share my oriental balloon twisting competition story later.

Filed under: 15885677, 15888541, Blood, Busted Knee, Cry baby, Tahiti Village, Vacation, Vegas, achy, asspain, body, sore, train wreck, weird, wife

Sick

Two days ago I was plotting my course around Six Flags Great America hoping that my wife could hang with me as I flew from one roller coaster to another attempting to ride every single ride that Great America had to offer.  Right now I am nursing a 100 degree temp regretting that I even dared go to Great America.

Yesterday I had two different events that I entertained at.  A Spring Kickoff for a Garden and Nursery and then a First Communion party.  The Spring Kickoff was four hours of balloon twisting followed by an hour break before another two hours.  As I drove to the four hour event I began feeling noxious and knew something wasn’t right.  I have never had to take a break mid party and for the first time in eight years, I stopped for a good 10 minutes and walked out to my car to take a breather.  I felt that at any moment a child was going to request for me to make a some sort of balloon creation and I would follow up with a response that began with projectile vomit flying out of my mouth all over the child.  I can promise that I wouldn’t be asked back for next years spring kick off, that’s for sure.

I fought my way through the event feeling worst than I have ever felt while entertaining.  I don’t know if anyone knew it, but I faked fun the whole time.

On to the next party.  It started at six pm and by the time I arrived, the stomach cramps, headaches, and dizziness had taken on a whole new level.  I pushed through it regardless of the fact that at this party the children were actually climbing on me.  Literally climbing on my back and shoulders while I twisted balloons for children.  On one hand I was thankful that they had a couch for me to sit back on since I felt like ass while I twisted balloons, but on the other, it gave the children the impression that I love having them climb on my head as if I were their uncle.

As I left the second party I began to shiver uncontrollably and if the stomach cramps, headache, and cottonmouth didn’t alert me to the problem that certainly did.  By the time I had gotten home and taken my temp I was at 102 degrees.  Not that having a temperature is weird for people or anything, but for the first time in my adult life, I had a fever.  Seriously.  I have been sick dozens upon dozens of time, but never a fever.  My wife panicked since she had never seen me with anything above a 98 degree temp.

After a rough night of little sleep and horrific stomach pains, I decided to go ahead and head out to Great America today.  Bad decision.  A word of advice, never ride the Iron Wolf roller coaster while nursing a headache.  For what I thought would be a great day at the park, I ended up riding a couple of rides, picking up my discounted season pass (nerd, I know) and calling it a day.  I don’t know if it was the rides today or the fact that I though eating fried chicken, potato salad, and a hot dog was a good idea.

The weirdest part of the last two days is that I am sick of balloons, which doesn’t bode well since I am a balloon entertainer.  I don’t know if it was the twisting sick thing or if I have hit a wall, but this weekend made me seriously rethink the whole “I want to exclusively be a balloon guy for a living” mentality.

Hopefully that feeling will go away once I feel better since my next night of balloon fun is Tuesday night.

Filed under: achy, balloon, pain, puke, vomit, weekend, wife

Rough weeky

I feel like garbage.  I am praising God at this moment for creating this wonderful day called Friday, and even better giving us the amazing day of Saturday and Sunday so that I can actually get a break from this cloth covered enclosure I call my cube. 

Wednesday night I ended up going to see a cubs game.  I don’t know what it is about me and beer, but we have been getting along really well lately.  I overindulged not only Wednesday night at the Cubs game, but overindulged last night during my billiard league, which puts me where I am right now, feeling like garbage from two straight days of no sleep and hangovers. 

I just got a call from the doctor and the skin tag that was removed was malignant.  Whatever that means.  The woman from the doctor that left a message for me sounded like there was ever doubt and had the tone of being a hero for delivering news that should have made me jump from my desk and start doing cartwheels.  I wish I had the time and know how to post the audio because it is really funny to hear this woman build up the tension.  “Hi, this is Debbie from Dr. Meyers office, and we just got the results back from the pathologist where they screened it for skin cancer, melanoma, as well as other skin diseases, and you will be happy to learn that everything came back negative, so you can breath easy knowing that you are fine.” 

I guess I shouldn’t mock good news.  This message is better than getting something like this: ”Hi, this is Debbie from Dr. Meyers office and we just got the results back from the pathologist…could you give us a call back when you have a second?”  That would be scary. 

Great America day is here and I can’t wait.  Each year my company rents out Six Flags Great America for one day before it opens for the season.  I can’t even begin to imagine how much it costs for us to have the whole park to ourselves.  Once you have experienced Great America without having to wait in any lines for anything, it kind of ruins it for the rest of the year.  This will be the first year that my wife has gone with me and I’m hoping that she can hang. 

The rest of the weekend is full of balloonacy.  Saturday is full of 7 solid hours of balloon entertainment between two events, so I should beat.  www.misterd.balloonhq.com.  I’ve uploaded some new photos on that site.  I am preparing to enter the realm of balloon attire by representing the balloon industry in a fashion show in a few weekends.  I am excited because this will be my first opportunity to create wearable balloon art. 

Have a great weekend!

Filed under: Cubs, achy, balloon, beer, latex, weekend, wife

Pin Prick my ass!

As a follow up to yesterday’s post, the insurance lady came and she ran the tests needed to find out how much our monthly premiums will be for life insurance.  There is something about having a health test ran on me by someone that is so severely overweight that it made me giggle.  Here is this woman that hauled all her shit into my house to ask me questions about my health.  I kept thinking about the Adam Sandler skit Fatty McGee who kept weezing because he “liked the stairs”.   She had to have been pushing a good 300lbs up the stairs to my living room. As she came in the smell of ashtray followed her.  She must have just chained two cigarettes within five minutes with the way she smelled which prompted me to allow her to test my wife before me regardless of the fact that I can’t watch blood being drawn from another person, much less my own wife.

I hung out in the kitchen cooking dinner until it was my turn and by the time I was up, the smell had dissipated some.  I hate needles.  More than you could ever imagine.  I am such a wuss when it comes to needles.  Something about sticking a sharp metal object into my vein doesn’t do it for me.  I could never be a heroin addict regardless of the high.  I thought I read where they just do a finger prick to draw blood but apparently the amount that we are requesting for insurance required a gallon. (not really, but two big vials felt like a gallon to me) She was nice.  I’ll give her that much.

So today I had a doctors appointment where I was to have what I thought was a mole removed from my back.  I thought it was a mole, but it turns out that it was actually a skin tag.  I dare you go google the word skin tag.  Make sure you click on images before you google it though, and you my friend are in for a treat.  I swear, Google images is our generations freak show.

Skin tag, abcess, zit, tumor, skin disease, brown recluse, among many others are words you can google if you have any desire to test the boundaries of your stomach lining. Just don’t attempt it after eating.

The removal wasn’t so bad.  The skin tag had grown to the size of a raisin on the middle of my back and I knew that when my cats started batting at it thinking that it was a bug meant that it was time to have it removed.  That and the fact that while in Vegas a few weeks ago I caught several children pointing at it and snickering like I didn’t know it was there.  My friends had a flicking competition while in the pool to see who could get it the most.  So, goodbye mole…or skin tag.  I bled like I had been shot when the doctor cut it off.  Twice in consecutive days I had a needle stuck in my body and I hope that I don’t go three for three.  To treat myself for being a good little sport this evening I bought what I assume is the fattest most disturbing burger on the Red Robin menu.  The Whiskey River burger.  That just screams fatty.  When I was a kid I would ask for a lollipop, but eerily as I age, a nice big fat juicy burger has a better effect than candy on a stick.

Tomorrow night I get to go to my first Cubs game.  Watch for me on TV if you get the game on television.  I will be sitting right next to the guy who created the Fukudometer.  Go Cubbies!

Filed under: Cubs, Fatty, achy, pain, stink, weird, wife

Broken Rib

I think I have one.  It hurts when I breathe, and I think that might not be a good thing.  This past Monday night I fell.  Hard.  Very hard, actually.  I have the great people that run my home owners association to thank for the shitty snow removal company that we hired to maintain our streets and driveways.  Right outside of my garage is at least a good 2-3 inches of thick ice that has accumulated throughout the past month.  I honestly could put on a pair of ice skates and skate from my garage to the street without hitting a patch of uncovered road.  That’s a good 30yards, too.  

So, this past Monday night, while I was rolling a very full garbage container to the street, we ate it together.  The container hit the ice at an angle and it flew on its side and since I had both hands on the handles it took me down with it causing me to rip things in my back that I never knew could be ripped.  I thought the pain would go away, but it hasn’t.  I honestly think that there might be a broken rib or two. 

I shall try and head to the doctor at some point, but with my balloon-party-laden weekend ahead of me I won’t have time. 

All of this talk about Ribs make’s me crave the McRibb from McDonalds.  Hasn’t it been long enough to scrape up all of the excess pork tidbits to give it another run?  I came across a food review where they ranked the top 10 sandwiches in the united states, and I was shocked to see the McRibb one of the top 10.

http://www.esquire.com/features/food-drink/sandwiches 

It’s good to see that i’m not the only one.  When I get sad and lonely, I go to www.mcrib.com and watch the dancing McRib sandwiches and dream of the day that I, too can hold one in my hand like the luck SOB that forever dances with the BBQ.  (although I don’t know how they hold the sandwich like that since they are messy)  Since I have started this whole healthier lifestyle bit, looking at this sandwich to me is about like staring at porn.

Today is leap day.  I don’t understand it.  I know that every four years we get an extra day that we wouldn’t have had otherwise.  I found it funny to hear on the radio in my drive to work this morning people calling in whose birthday falls on Feb 29th (leaplings are what I have learned is the technical term for such individuals).  Each caller would call in and say that they are 6 or 7 (really 24 or 28 for those not mathematically inclined) today.  The joke would continue about wanting a pony or tickets to a Hannah Montana concert.  When asked what the 7 year old was doing today, we were met with the “I’m off to work” line.  Bad radio.  You have to love it.  Well, at least this is only something that we have to deal with every four years. 

For a really action packed and educational read, I recommend going to wikipedia and looking up the word leap year.  Mad Leap year props if you make it through the whole thing without being confused or falling asleep. 

Filed under: achy, balloon, body, free porn, pain, stupid

Quick milestone

Things are rough at my regular day job.  The screws are tightening and we are being watched at all times.  I hit a milestone in my quest for unflabbiness that I needed to share.  For the first time in 7 years, I am in the 220’s.  Just barely, but I am there.  I haven’t seen a 22x in a very long time and if I didn’t have a broken rib (different story for a different day), I might have jumped up and thrown my hands in the air while screaming Yahoo!  Instead, I muttered a silent yahoo hoping to not anger the bone that feels like it is poking straight into my left lung. 

22lbs down, 18 to go for my goal prior to March 26th.  I have 27 days left and I am not going to hit the 210 mark as I hoped prior to Vegas. I know that I aimed entirely too high, but even if I hit 30lbs taken off in 2 1/2 months vs the 40lbs, I have won.  The only problem will be not gaining every single pound of it back while I am out there.   I type this while many around me eat free ice cream from Cold Stone Creamery that was brought in by one of our vendors.  I’ll just reach for my powdered meal in a huge jug, add a little water, shake, shake, and go on my new unfatty way, thank you very much. 

210’s here I come. 

Filed under: Exercise, Fatty, achy, body, pain, ride the snake, sore, work

“Put your elbows on the table…”

Yesterday will go down in the archives of my life as possibly one of the worst ever. 

“Put your elbows on the table..” He said.  If you don’t know what that means, let me back up and work up to it.

Yesterday started off shitty to begin with.  When taking out the garbage on Monday night, I managed to hit a patch of ice and fell.  The rolling garbage can fell too.  I think I hit the ground harder because the garbage can wasn’t whimpering as loud as I was as I rolled it out to the street.  I hurt my back.  I think it might be the worst that my back has ever felt.  Either something is torn or I have punctured a lung.  I can’t be certain.  Anytime that I breath or move suddenly I wince in pain.  I would assume that if my lung was punctured, I would really know and I would have gone to the hospital, so I am leaning towards something being torn.  I will give it a few more days. 

So, getting out of bed Tuesday morning and getting dressed was a treat.  I was off to work.  Upon arrival and review of my daily outlook calendar of appointments and conference calls, it shocked me to see that I had a Urologist appointment scheduled for 2:30pm.  Joyous.  I haven’t seen one of them in a few years.  I have been having issues that I won’t describe here, but I can say that these issues were major in my life 10-12 years ago and I had to have surgery.  Now the issues have slowly crept back into my life which is setting off alarms everywhere now that my wife and I are considering having children. 

My new Urologist isn’t very nice.  The nurse asked me all of the standard fare questions as she typed them into the computer in my little room.  After a good 10 minute wait the doctor finally arrived.  He was an older Doctor wearing very eccentric pants and shoes.  Upon arrival, he introduced himself and then sat down at the computer.  He began to type and click the mouse.  I was unable to see the monitor from where I was because there was a privacy screen.  He typed and clicked for a good 7-10 minutes while I sat there in the quiet room.  No questions, no chatter…I honestly felt I was back in my high pressure close the sale days where the first person to talk would lose.  I lost.  I noticed a pamphlet next to the doctor that was covering “No-Needle, No-Scalpel, Vasectomy”.  I instantly thought about my friend Toms (www.stupidtom.com) questions regarding this “non-invasive” procedure, and saw my chance to get some answers.  Tom’s concern from what I recalled was a question about where the sperm goes.  His answer was very scientific and he discussed how the semen remains the same since that doesn’t come from where the sperm cells come from.  The sperm cells get absorbed in the body (he used some fancy term to say that it doesn’t cause any problems when absorbed since they are only cells that the body created to begin with…something like protein enzymes or something technical like that.)  But I will type word for word a potential complication as it is stated in the pamphlet:

“Sperm granuloma, a hard, sometimes painful lump about the size of a pea may form as a result of the sperm leaking from the cut vas deferens.  The lump is not dangerous and is almost always resolved by the body in time.  Scrotal support and mild pain relievers are usually all that are needed for symptoms, thought I may suggest other treament.”

“Congestion, a sense of pressure caused by sperm in the testes, epididymis, and lower vas deferens, may cause discomfort some 2 to 12 weeks after vasectomy.  Like granuloma, congestion usually resolves itself in time.”  

I won’t comment on this.  I will let the words speak to each of you in it’s own little way.  Back to me and my quiet wait.  I honestly think he was checking email.  Checking email or playing sudoku online.  Maybe even a cross word? 

We finally got down to the tests. Most of everything he said was good news.  I have to do some more testing to be sure, so more will come.  After he began explaining what was going on, he pointed at the table and said, “Put your elbows on the table” as he reached for a tube of jelly.  I can’t be certain what happened next because it is all a bit foggy, but I remember him saying something about ”not fighting it” and while throwing a box of kleenex at me to “clean myself up”.  As I drove away a little tear streamed down my cheek.  (being over dramatic) 

Ok, so there wasn’t a tear, but definitely a grimace at what I had just experienced…until…wait for it…BAM, BAM!  Within 5 minutes of having a finger shoved in and around my rectum I hit a pothole that destroyed my two right tires.  It had seriously been  5 minutes since one of the most traumatic events occured in my life until I was now unable to get off the road due to having tires shredded by a three foot long pot hole that had to have been 8-10 inches deep. 

An officer called in for a tow truck since I was actually blocking one of two lanes, and AAA wasn’t going to be able to get someone to me for a good 45 minutes to an hour.  My wife picked me up, we followed the tow truck to the auto place and the wife and I continued on to the restaurant in Algonquin where I twisted balloons and she graded papers and did school work for a good two hours. 

…yep, I would say that yesterday sucked something hard.

Filed under: Cops, Cry baby, achy, balloon, balls, body, pain, scared, scrotum, stupid, weird, wife

I’m too old…

 …for this shit.  Yesterday I hit the wall.  I am 31 years old and I can still party like a rock star, but my body doesn’t recover as quickly as it once did.  Saturday was a sneek peak of our trip to Vegas towards the end of March and while I feel I passed this test with flying colors, I fear what is on the horizon. 

Let me back up to Friday.  Friday evening my wife and I celebrated Valentines day.  That celebration concluded with two empty bottles of champagne and a killer hangover Saturday morning.  I believe that I drank about one and a half bottles of the bubbly while laughing at a rented movie that had no business being laughed at. (Hot Rod)  I don’t care what anyone says, things become a lot funnier when you are drunk. 

Saturday mornings hangover really sucked because my wife and I had to volunteer on the South Side of Chicago for the Greater Chicago Food Depository for four hours.  Not a big deal.  We have done this in the past.  This time we decided to make the hour and fifteen minute drive seperately so I could have guy time with my friends immediately following the good deed of the day.  I have been to the Food depository 4 years now and I thought I knew how to get there.  I googled the depository address.  Here is the link and map that I quickly pulled:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=chicago+food+depository

See that map?  It shows the depository at the intersection of S. Kedzie and S. Archer.  The address even shows 4100 W. 42nd pl Chicago, IL 60632.  So we headed out on our way to this address.

This is not the address.  This is not where it is located.  The strength of my hangover was tripled upon driving around for an hour with my wife following me in a seperate car wondering where in the hell is this place.  I kid you not.  We drove around in circles for an hour.  If you are a fan of Dane Cook, then you will know what I am talking about, but after this stupid goosehunt I wanted to punch a baby.  That’s how mad I was.  I called the food depository.  No one answered.  I called information, and they confirmed the 4100 W. 42nd place.  I did a driving directions on my phone and it led me to this exact same place.  Finally I called on my brother in law.  He pulled up the same info as I did.  I instructed him to go to their actual site where he found a different address and instructions.  He got us there.  After more than an hour of driving around like a retard we made it there. 

I enjoy working at the depository.  It gives me a glimpse at what life could be like from a job standpoint if I ended up working in a factory.  It is a brainless job working an assembly line and if I could find a way to make good money doing it, I would.  My job was to close the untaped 26lb food filled cardboard box and push it through the machine that tapes both the bottom and the top to seal everything in.  Cardboard cuts are a bitch.  I have no less than 8 of them as we speak.  We filled and boxed 860 26lb single family boxes of food in four hours time.  The work is rewarding in that you leave knowing that the food you boxed will help feed a family that wouldn’t have a change to eat such a meal without the assistance of the food depository. 

On to the rest of the saturday.  The wife and I decided to have lunch and enjoy the city for a bit before I joined my friends. We went to Lalo’s Mexican restaurant.  We each ordered a margarita and our server recommended buying a pitcher for 5 dollars more since it was twist the drink.  You don’t have to twist my arm.  After the pitcher arrived, it became clear that we had made a horrible decision based on the size of alcoholic beverage.  Two hours later and 3/4 of a pitcher of margaritas in me and I had set the tone for the rest of my Saturday.  The day continued upon meeting up with a friend in the city where I had my first crack at playing the new Nintendo Wii.  I’m not going to describe my Wii experience now, but I could easily dedicate an entirely seperate post to my sheer enjoyment.  I am now actively trying to get one in my possession and any and all recommendations as to how I can obtain one without meeting a scary man in a dark alley with “cash only” would be greatly appreciated. 

We drank while we played.  It was fantastic.  We headed out to meet other friends for dinner at Hop leaf. 

www.hopleaf.com

If you like beer and food, then this is the place for you.  In my drunken stupor, I managed to eat some of the most amazing food ever.  The Messels and Toasted Nueske Ham sandwich just might have hit the top ten in meals of my lifetime. 

After dinner and drinks we went to a different bar to play NTN trivia which is always fun when drunk.  After having a couple in our group threatened to be removed from the bar due to drunkeness, we decided to head to the horseshoe casino in Indiana.  I can’t reveal all of the details, but the Saturday debauchery ended when I finally arrived home at 8:30am on Sunday morning. 

I hadn’t done an all-nighter in a while and this drunken marathon reminded me why.  I now don’t know whether I should look forward to or fear the fact that I will be doing this same thing for five straight days when we head to Vegas in five weeks. 

Filed under: Wii, achy, beer, drunk, sleepy, weekend, wife

I can’t take it…

but I am going to anyway.  The coundown is at 72 days.  Only 6 in my new lifestyle, and I have deduced that I am going too hard.  My body and brain are not getting along.  My brain wants to keep working and hit the ultimate goal in a week.  My body continues to say “Fuck you” to my brain.  They have a love hate relationship.  Tonight I have my one required one hour session with a physical trainer.  I would love to explore this profession in a later post and I think I will.  Since I know that it is the goal of my gym to dig their hands as deep into my pockets as possible they are going to sell the shit out of paying for a physical trainer.  I have been thinking up a plan on scaring the shit out of whatever trainer gets stuck with me.  I have to come up with a story.  Something along the lines where my Hepatitis can only be contained with one hour of cardio daily.  Or how I just got done with a 3 year stint in the pen for stalking my last physical trainer.  I could have a lot of fun with that one.  I think that my response to any question eluding to scheduling sessions wiht a physical trainer will be, “My psychotherapist doesn’t think that it would be smart for me to start seeing a physical trainer again after what happened last time.” 

The theme of this past weekend was balloons.  I managed to make perhaps the greatest balloon sculptures yet to date in my life as a balloon twister.  A 5 foot long Lightning McQueen and a 4 foot tall Snow white.  Each were commissioned for seperate birthday parties and both were fully custom made.  Typically when I am booked for a balloon gig (www.misterd.balloonhq.com) I offer a grand finale creation for an extra thirty bucks.  I will make something a little more elaborate than the norm and keep it in my car until the party is over.  Before I leave I bring inthe surprise and offer it to the birthday child to the “oohs” and “aahs” of the parents.  Bringing it in at the end of the party also prevents every single child to want the same thing that you spent 3-4 hours on the morning of or the night before.   Thirty bucks is nothing for the sculptures I made since they do take an enormous amount of time.  I like to make them because it allows me to challenge myself and create things that I wouldn’t normally make.  The Thirty bucks purely covers the expense for balloons on the grand creation.  I will post some pictures of these creations soon.  Next weekend I have to make a life sized Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and I am looking forward to that as well.  

This last weekend also gave me time to fix things with my wife.  I don’t know what it is about my lifestyle change, but it has created tensions in the homefront.  My wife and I were/are not on the same page about the decisions that I have made.  She understands a little more now after we spent a good amount of time talking and I actually think that my change is bringing on a change in her as well.  She is eating healthier as well as working out more and more, so this could be good for both of us. 

I know I continue to promise pictures and they will be coming online soon.  Computer problems at home have prevented from the upload of photos, and I am now at the point that I am just going to go to Walgreens and have all of the images uploaded from my memory cards to a disc so I can finally get it done. 

Have a great week!

Filed under: Exercise, Fatty, achy, balloon, body, muscles, pain, ride the snake, sore, weekend, wife