This 'N That

Here's a quick little ditty about what's been going on lately:

I've been getting ready for the World Series of Pop Culture adventure. Me, JCTMH and his high school friend, Jon Payne are busy finishing our 3 page applications. Chi-town here we come!

Ben & I are are working on training the cats to use the toilet instead of litter boxes. It is a somewhat slow process and if just one of them doesn't cooperate (Jake, I'm lookin' your way) then it won't work. But we're hoping for the best and if it works, that'll be one more tally mark on the never-ending cats vs. dogs scoreboard.

I have successfully survived my gall bladder removal....oh wait, you already knew that. So far the only side effect has been that I can't seem to eat as much as I used to. That may not be so bad in the long run.

We are gearing up for the holiday season. Gifts are being bought and wrapped, decorations put out, but we can't seem to decide where to put the christmas tree.

Shout out to Geoff and his girl Jess who are gearing up to move to Hawaii at the beginning of the year. When's the party? Heck, we'll host it if you want!

GBS: Post-Game Wrap Up

Well, it's Friday and I sucessfully made it through my gall bladder removal surgery. As far as I know, things went smoothly and it came out of one of the four small holes I now have in my abdomen. But which one?

The only things I remember are getting wheeled into the OR a little after 3, someone asking me to move over onto the table, then someone put one of those big, rubbery masks over my face and I was OTE! You know how you'll watch different surgery shows on TV, and they'll wheel the patient in, and be like, "Are you ready?" then they'll give them some of that white stuff in their IV? And then the patient lies there and talks or counts backwards for a few seconds; I didn't have anything like that happen, at least not that I know of.

Next thing I knew, someone was saying my name and told me I was in the "post-op area" and I opened my eyes and saw a big clock that said 5pm. I told the voice that I was sore and she said she'd give me something for that. I must have dosed in and out for the next hour. This nurse kept giving me ice, and it was the best ice I'd ever had because I have never woken up with such a bad case of dry mouth and sore throat! I think the doctor must have "messed around" and put something down my throat. And by that, I mean something like a breathing tube.

Sometime around 6 I was awake enough to be moved to recovery where Ben and my parents came in shortly after. The next hour or so was me just lying there, I think I talked to them and then the nurse gave Ben my list of restrictions, helped me get dressed and I was sent home.

I've got some pictures, but the card reader on the computer isn't seeing it, so I can't post them right now. I've got a picture of my gall bladder, my appendix (which looks like a bratwurst), some fat (like I didn't know I had any), and a couple other random pics of my innards.

I've spent the last day and a half in somewhat of a drug induced haze. I've got my "special" pills that I take every 4 hours or as needed for pain(sometimes < 4hr) and another pill to help with the nausea, but I don't really have any of that.

I'm going to go and get back to the list of movies I have to watch during this time. There's really nothing on regular TV anymore.

Gall Bladder Surgery Pre-Game Countdown

As some (most) of you know, I'm having my gall bladder removed Wednesday (tomorrow) at 2:30pm. The hospital has called and we went through all preregistration questions and the do's and don'ts for me for the next 24 hours. I have never been hospitalized for anything before, so I'm slowly starting to get anxious about the situation. The lady on the phone was nice enough and she assured me that "Dr. Brown knows what he's doing and he usually doesn't mess around once he's in there". Thanks lady, that's good to know, but I'm not sure how to take that statement. Do some doctor's mess around once they cut you open and your stuff's all exposed?

This is a laproscopic, out-patient procedure, so unless something crazy happens I should be home later that day. There is a chance that things (i.e. organs) have moved around and in that case they would do a traditional surgery to remove it and I would be staying at the hospital at least over night. But we don't expect anything like that to happen.

So I'm about to head home for my last decent meal before I'm stuck sucking down soup for the next week. I believe we're having pasta with some sort of vodka cream sauce that Steve makes really well (shout out to the Wills's). The camera is charged and ready to take play-by-play photos of the events tomorrow. Dr. Brown has said that some of the OR's are equiped with video recording apparatusi to which I asked if he would record the procedure. He said to remind him of it and he'd see what he can do. Otherwise, he said he would take pictures for me to share. So either way, the next blog should have visualizations for your viewing pleasure!

Well, the time has come and I must shut down my computer and head home. I sure hope this wasn't my last blog ever because it was pretty lame. Just in case know that I love you all. Well most of you anyway. Set a little reminder on your Outlook for 2:30, 11/15/06 and think of me as my organs are being exposed. Habba enjoy and talk to you soon!

Totally Unrelated: For those interested, the team name picked for my World Series of Pop Culture team is "The Nagheenanajars".

World Series of Pop Culture

I don't know if any of you watched VH1's World Series of Pop Culture earlier this summer, but I did. It was an elmination style tournament of pop culture trivia. I like to think i'm fairly smart when it comes to pop culture and I've gotta tell you, I knew a lot of the answers when I watched the show! I mean, all most all of them, you can ask Ben if you don't believe me.

So just as I had hoped and prayed, they are doing a 2007 WSPC and I want to pull a team together. Each team is made up of 3 people and we have to come up with a name. Here's where you come in. Leave a comment if you think you'd like to be part of the team, I do well in music on my own and I'm decent in TV and movies, but I would really need someone who knows a lot about sports (JCTMH, I'm looking at you) in addition to the other TV, movies, music type areas.
You'd have to be able to head to regionals in Chicago for a weekend (Feb. 2-4) and then to NYC for the finals if we win regionals (March 16-18th).

Drop me a line if you're interested or if you have an interesting name we could use. Something relating to pop culture would be nice. Holla Back!

Oh, and here's the link to find out more:
http://www.vh1.com/shows/casting_call/auxiliary.jhtml?id=881895