June 2006 Archives

You know, I realized that I started this story a while back, but never bothered to finish it. I think that now would be a good time to get back to this, one of the most interesting things I've ever experienced.

(If you like, you can catch up on the previous two episodes here and here.)

So I'm finally admitted to the emergency room at North Kansas City, and the doctor there takes a look at my CAT scans. Unfortunately, he has this to say about them (paraphrased...),

"I can't really see what I'd like to from these scans. The barium contrast didn't get through your system enough, so we're going to have to run the scans again."

At first, the thought of drinking more awful stuff was overwhelming, until he reassured me that I wouldn't have to worry about that part of the scan.

Thank goodness!

Well, the nurse comes by a while longer, after I've read through whatever magazines that could be found, which mostly dated from about 1-2 yrs ago. What does he have with him? Barium mix to drink.

"I was told that I would have to do this again since I had a CAT scan taken earlier today."

"Well, I think you'll still have to, but I'll double-check that with the doctor."

Thankfully, I was right.

On a side note, the iodine injection made me want to pee again, which proves conclusively that the stuff makes you pee. (See Part II for a bit more explanation on that.)

I while longer, the doctor comes back to talk to me. As it turns out, he cannot make out any inflamation of my appendix. He told me that the radiologist makes his determination not by looking at the fat around the appendix and not the appendix itself. Therefore, because I am a rather slender individual (which my wife is attempting to fix at every turn), he may or may not be able to see any inflamation since I don't have much fat to begin with. So, since my white blood cell count was only slightly elevated, I was admitted for overnight observation. So much for something conclusive...

Tune in next time when I talk about my first experience with morphine. ;)

I did this a while back, but I think it is more than time it appeared here.

If you want a high quality version, download it here:

Oklahoma Rhapsody

Well, I've been enjoying playing poker with friends once every few weeks, but lately I've been getting into internet poker. No, I don't have money to burn or anything like that. Rather, I have been playing on Full Tilt Poker for free. Normally, when you aren't playing with anything on the line, it isn't particularly interesting. However, I've come across some little mini-tournaments that you can get involved with, say 90 or so people. Well, I played in one last night and took eighth (I had pocket queens and a low flop and the other guy hits a straight on the river... sheesh). The play is more realistic and is terribly fun. Probably something I shouldn't be doing, but hey, it is free...

If you're looking for the latest news on Jeremy, check out his new blog:

CaringBridge - Jeremy Jones

Well, since our neighbors decided to lock down their wireless internet, I've been trying once again to get this Dlink router up and running again. First, I thought that I'd try to do a set up where I hook the wireless into the wired router (which has never given me a problem). Turns out, that's a bit more tricky than I cared to try. Or rather, I tried various things and nothing worked.

In the process of doing this, though, I had a small epiphany. As it turns out, the wireless router was trying to use the same local ip address as the modem. I don't know why I didn't realize this before. I changed that setting, hooked it all back up again, and I'm currently blogging from our own wireless network. We'll see how long it works...

Yesterday, my wife had to stay after church a bit for a meeting about their Vacation Bible School. Having nothing better to do, I played with just about the cutest kid in church. She is three years old and highly intelligent.

For a while, we simply drew on a dry erase board. She drew me a banana and some grass. I drew her a frog that said "ribbit." Then, unfortunately, she discovered the joy of me picking her up to put her up on a table (I know, teaching her bad habits) and taking her back down. This "up" and "down" game persisted until my back felt like it was about to quit. At which point I played dead and allowed her and her brother to tackle me. That worked just fine. Overall, it was a lot of fun to play with her, and perhaps she won't be quite as frightened by that tall/skinny stranger in the future.

I love kids.

Then I went to work. Kids suck. The gelato case is gorgeous, what with its brushed metal and clear plastic window. One problem, though. It, like the back of an iPod, is impossible to keep clean. The slightest touch will yield a finger print, much less the smacking and pointing of little children. Couple this with the fact that kids aren't exactly the neatest or most gifted eaters, and you have a gelato store that quickly becomes a mess. Normally, we don't see but a handful of kids during the day, as we target mainly adults. Yesterday, though, brought out every little sugar-craving kid this side of the Mississippi. At one point, and this is no exaggeration, we had about a dozen kids under the age of 10 in that place, which, I might add, has a maximum occupancy of 20.

I hate kids.

So Carrie and I have been searching for a place to live for the next year. Frankly, the small one-bedroom apartment we have now is getting a bit cramped, and I also want to have a house/duplex where I can teach private piano lessons. Shouldn't be too hard, should it?

Ugh.

That's all I have to say. First of all, it ain't easy finding what you're looking for in a house or duplex for rent within a certain price range. Something is always wrong. The neighborhood, windows, kitchen, carpet, no carpet, basement, backyard, street, etc. etc. etc. So my dad proposes that he purchase a property and rent it to us. Huh. A great idea, frankly, but unfortunately there are now a plethora of houses that are possibilities. We drove around for an hour and picked up about 15 or so little fliers, and saw at least 3x that many houses that didn't have fliers. Websites are great, but frankly have way to many options. We don't know where to begin. My dad wants us to narrow it down and then he'll come look at some properties with us, but frankly, we don't know where to begin. Who has this much time on their hands.

I suppose we ought to get comfy in our apartment, eh?

A lot has been happening to me in the last few days. First, I've started my job at Balsano's, a gelato place. It isn't too bad--at least we keep pretty busy and it pays well.

Second, our DVD player crapped out on us, completely. I couldn't turn it on or even manually remove the rented DVD that was in there. I had to take the whole thing apart just to get to the DVD.

Third, I attended a wedding in Macon, MO. It was a very fun reception.

But all of that is difficult to blog about right now, as I play with legos. Star Wars Legos, that is.

My gamecube rules.

Just thought I'd give you a picture of my brother John and Unknown Hinson together, all up close and personal like...

Pretty scary, huh. And Unknown Hinson doesn't look so hot either...

Ok, ok ok. Here it is. The review of Unknown's concert at Davey's Uptown. But first, pictures...

Here he is, in the flesh.

He was a remarkably good guitar player, especially for one who writes very humorous songs.

Here he is, singing his heart out...

Rocking out, again.

Then there was this guy. Unknown Hinson's chauffeur/man-servant. He stood on stage for the entire concert.

Until Unknwon needed a drink, which he provided faithfully.

So how was the show. Well, as I said before, Unknown was a remarkably good guitar player. Later on in his set, he and his three man band jammed for at least 5-6 minutes whilst he just wailed on his guitar. (Though I suppose that out to be pronounced "gee-tar.") The songs were funny, as was to be expected, but on the louder songs the lyrics were just a bit muffled.

I would have liked to see his bass player and drummer get into the mix a bit more. Neither had a solo during the whole show, which was a shame, because they both seemed to be quite good players.

Overall, I'd have to say that it was worth the $12 that the tickets cost, and I would have picked up a CD had they not cost $20 at the show. Still, though, it was an experience that I won't see forget. So if Unknown Hinson shows up in your town, you should definitely check him out.

Ok, no Unknown Hinson update for today. In my defense, I was golfing all day, and after playing worse than I had in eight years (honestly, the last time I can remember playing so badly), I didn't feel like working on what will be a spectacular blog post.

On another note, I start training to be a Gelato server on the plaza tomorrow. Seriously, a new place is opening and I have a summer job. It's called Balsano's. You should come visit your humble author sometime if you are in the neighborhood.

Unknown hinson update tomorrow. Seriously. Maybe. If you're lucky. And if my appendix doesn't explode again... Oh wait, that's not possible. Ok. I'll do my best. Or some facsimile thereof.

Go to bed.

Well, this evening I'm going to go see Unknown Hinson at Davey's Uptown. I'm not sure exactly what I'm in for, aside from the song samples which one can find on his website, but hopefully I'll have a full report tomorrow afternoon.

...

Also, I went to Red X this evening with Carrie. No, it isn't some red light district in Kansas City that no one knows about, but rather just about the best place in KC for any kind of liquor, both in selection and in price.

We picked up a few things. A 750ml bottle of Delirium Nocturnum beer, some Francis Coppola Zinfandel 2003, Lindemans 2004 Reserve Shiraz, Yellow Tail Shiraz-Grenache, and Santa Emma 2003 Reserve Merlot. :) Our 12-bottle wine rack was getting a bit empty, so I had to take care of that. We're up to 10 bottles now.

OK, I'm off to see the King of Country n' Western Troubadours. And then getting up really early to go to church.

We're using a d-link DI-524 wireless router, which at this point I would not recommend to anyone. It's shut down our internet multiple times when the older linksys wired router never had a problem. Ugh. So, anyway, I upgraded the firmware today, so hopefully that'll provide some more stability. Hopefully. I can't complain too much as this router came to us for free, but still, I'm not anxious to go out and spend money on another router that may and/or may not work.

We'll see...

Update: Firmware updated helped not at all. Switched back to Linksys wired router. Yay for internet stability...

Well, the router we got to set up wireless internet has decided to stop working several times in the last 24 hrs. I'm going to go back to our old router here before too long (and gank our neighbor's wifi) until we can get a better wireless router. Sorry for the downtime, especially as I've directed so many of my friends to visit my new site.

Thanks for your patience...

June 7, 2006 - My New Website

Enjoy!

Well, I have been wanting to do this for about six years now, and finally, things are in place. My webspace, whose launching point is http://andy-lee.com, has gone live. I still need to do some tweaking to the pages, especially the music one, and get some more podcasts going, but overall, I'm very excited to have this up and running. Go check it out!

I've added some pictures to the Jeremy Jones page. Check them out here:

http://andy-lee.com/jeremy/

I've decided to do some podcasting as I alluded to in my previous post. Here is the first post. This and all subsequent posts will be in the Doctoral Diaries section of this blog.

June 2, 2006 - The MacBook Arrives

Enjoy!

I picked up my new MacBook today and boy is it a treat to use. I had it shipped to my parent's house to save about $25 on taxes (yay suburbs), and sadly they missed the FedEx guy during a 15 minute window when no one was home. Still, I was able to pick it up this evening and get things running.

I will post more in a bit, but for now I'm going through the rather long (and very enjoyable for geeks like myself) process of getting the software updated and all the files from our MacMini to this 'book. :)

Oh, and I plan on podcasting ASAP. I didn't realize that this baby had a built in mic, and given my experience with setting up podcasts (Lakeland Community Church), I figured I should give this a go.

Ok, that's all for now. I'm being told to restart...

P.S. Two-finger scrolling rules.