October 2005 Archives

The date is Thursday, October 13th. I had been having what felt like a mild stomach ache since Monday, and for most of the day, that is all that I noticed. My main concerns were focused on my piano lesson that day, and whether or not I'd be able to play Bach's French Suite in G Major effectively from memory or not. All of that changed around noon.

The pain in my abdomen had become increasingly, well, painful. I had ignored all previous pain because it wasn't that bad, and, on top of everything else, I had stayed home from work on Wednesday to nurse my wife back to health from a nasty bout with a stomach virus. But I could no longer ignore it. My abdomen began to hurt much more, and so, with considerable regret at the time, I cancelled a chamber music rehearsal as well as my piano lesson to make way for a visit to the doctor.

As it turns out, my regular doc was out of town, so I had to go see Dr. Granburg (or something like that). Oh well. So I go to the office, wait in the big waiting room, then wait in the little waiting room (insert funny Jerry Seinfeld bit) until the doctor finally shows up. I describe the problem I had been having, she pokes around my abdomen a bit, and then says that she thinks it is appendicitis. She then quickly schedules a CAT scan and sends me on my way. As I'm about to leave, she also gives me a prescription for some pain meds in the event that it is not in fact appendicitis.

At this point, I go to my parents house and have them drive me to go get the scan. (I wasn't sure how much driving I'd be allowed afterwards.) This stop, thankfully, was on the way. At this point Carrie is also home, so I call her to give her an update, and my dad and I run off to go get me scanned.

Had an appendectomy on Oct. 17. Got out of the hospital on Oct. 25. Am still on narcotics to help with the pain. Hopefully will have pictures and many, many posts in the coming days.

:)

Well, Carrie and I received the dreaded late night/early morning phone call yesterday at 5:00 a.m. No good news comes at that hour of the day. Unfortunately, we have no idea who was calling.

You see, the first time it rang, I thought it was Carrie's alarm, and I didn't realize it was the phone until I heard the answering machine pick up. Then, when no message was left, they called right back. In my haste to pick up the cordless that is right by the bed, I knocked it off the nightstand, onto the floor, and I'm pretty sure I managed to hang up on whomever had called as I tried to find it. They didn't call back.

I tried to *69 them, but it kept coming up busy when I tried (even when I tried over an hour later). Phone calls and emails confirmed that no close relatives were deceased, so we have no idea who it was that woke us up way too early yesterday morning. I'm of course inclined to think it was a wrong number sort of thing, but then you don't think that they'd call back after hearing "Hi, this is Andy and Carrie Lee..." on the answering machine, do you? We are at a loss.

So if you called us, could you please tell us what was so important as to wake us up in fear so stupid early?

Oh, and our hamster is alive and well, in case you were wondering.

I though this little germ of an idea needed its own post.

I got hung up on the word blockbuster today as we were renting movies. I mean, what about a blockbuster movie invokes the concept of destroying blocks? I started to imagine a little man, going around with a large hammer of sorts, busting up wooden blocks. Very weird, let me tell you.

So, being a nerd, I looked up the word in the Oxford English Dictionary. This was found under the entry for "block"

block-buster, an aerial bomb capable of destroying a whole block of buildings; also transf. and fig.; block-busting a., of the nature of a block-buster (fig.);

So, isn't it interesting that we use the word blockbuster to denote a very successful film but would most any movie made by Kevin Costner after Field of Dreams a "bomb." Huh.

Carrie and I watched Guess Who this evening. Now, I'm not a big fan of either Bernie Mac, and even less of a fan of Ashton Kutcher, but I have to admit that this was a pretty good little flick. Granted, I had low expectations, so my perception was skewed, but even with that, I think it was worth a watch.

Sure, it had the Meet the Parents sort of humor, but the way the racial humor was handled was both very funny as well as (dare I even say it) poignant, giving the movie a fresh edge. At 1hr 45min it did feel a little bit too long (probably because it was so enormously predictable) but it still made for a very enjoyable evening.

Ok, so I really enjoy the X-Files, it's true. I never followed the series when it was on TV, but the DVD's have helped me catch up a bit. So, to fill my addiction for that sort of series, I've turned to Nightstalker. Now, normally the idea of plugging a network tv show on my blog is a revolting thought, but, um, I'm gonna anyway.

The great thing about this show, aside from the paranormal investigations, is its current time slot. You see, Carrie meets with some girls from church on Thursday evenings, leaving me to watch whatever the heck I want. Also, noting her undying devotion to the X-Files, I think this is a brillian arrangement. I just hope they manage to keep the scripts fresh. If so, I think I might be hooked for quite a while.

It's 9:49 p.m. I had to get up in eight hours. It would be very wise of me to go to sleep right now, save the fact that I'm not at all tired. Go figure.

Ok, so I'm a mac head, and product placements in TV shows and movies are always fun to point out. Even Carrie, my brand-new wife is joining in the fun. Sometimes, though, you don't have to try very hard.

For instance, in this evening's Gilmore Girls (hey, at least I get to watch The Office at 8:30), Lane's band purchased a Dual G5 2.3GHz with a 1GB memory upgrade. They also mentioned an external 300GB hard drive, I noticed a cinema display, and also some program that I cannot recall at the moment. Anyway, there were more than a few mistakes with what they said.

First, the price. Apparently they paid $9,000 for this set up. Now, unless there was more to the setup than we were told, this was a big mistake. I went to the Apple Store Online and got them the same computer, with a 30" Cinema display (even though it looked like a 23"), Hard drive upgrade to 800GB, ATI Radeon XT card upgrade, PCI-X Card, Logic Express preinstalled, Bluetooth and Airport, and even a Fibre Channel Card. Grand Total: $7,671.00. I think they got ripped off.

Second, they couldn't figure out how to turn it on. This was insulting. Had they bought some Dell that refused to boot up I would understand, nay, even empathize, but this was a mac. To turn on, simply plug the mouse, keyboard, monitor, and ethernet in and press the power button. That usually works. Oh, and they were looking through some ridiculously thick owner's manual as well, which didn't make sense because usually you get little more than a small booklet due to the ease of use. Oh well.

Oh well, I suppose I shouldn't get so upset that the mac was so poorly represented on a TV show, but, um, I did. And you read it. So which of us is worse?

You're right, it's me.

So, here I am. No reason for an absense. Just lazy. That being said...

A lot of fun things have been going on lately. Carrie and I hosted our first dinner guests as a couple, with smashing success if I do say so myself. Went to a few concerts, featuring Joshua Bell and Leon Fleisher. And our church recently moved into a new building, which was pretty amazing. No more meeting in a movie theater, yay!

What I really wanted to talk about though, aside from my NationStates addiction, is This American Life. I love this radio show, but unfortunately it seems I am never able to hear it when KCUR is playing it. So, I finally sat down a bit and decided to solve the problem. After a few minutes, I had WireTap set up and ready to go for recording, and when I got home from church yesterday, bam, a recording of the streaming audio. Yay! Then I encoded it to AAC, threw it onto the iPod, and now Carrie and I listen to it through my sweet sound system at our leisure. The nice thing about recording streaming audio that is mostly speech, is that the quality is actually pretty good. So here I am, using all sorts of fun technology, so that I can do what people used to do a while back--sit down and listen to the radio in the livingroom as a family. Ah, good times.

Ok, we'll see if I don't manage to update a little bit more regularly now. Wish me luck.

Oh, and I need to plug two new blogs brought to you by my friends David and Michelle. Check 'em out.