Work and such

Everybody wish me luck. I go back to work after new year's. I think I can deal with a close to full time schedule, but we shall see.

Removal of extra parts!

Yay, the feeding tube is out and the trach will be coming out in about 6 hours. That will be the last of the extra parts that have been added to me over the last six months. I have lots of new and interesting scars, but I can finally say that I am all original again. Now all I have to do is to wait for the extra holes to close up. I'm quite happy about this!

Sleep Issues

In current minor good news, I am finally sleeping through the night. I have been having issues sleeping since I got out of the hospital. My only issue right now is that I am oversleeping these days. I wake up at 10am or so. This is only a problem because I am supposed to be taking my meds at 9am.

I'll take getting some sleep on a regular basis though.

More fun

You know, I think the world likes to mess with me. Every time I think things are going well, something comes along to ruin my day. It looks like I am having trouble with my feet swelling again and apparently, it is also messing with my lungs. They are bumping up my diuretic to clear this up. We'll see how it goes.

how am I doing now?

Just wanted to post an update here to let folks know how I am doing. I feel much stronger than I did when they let me out of the hospital. I think I am on track to return to work at the beginning of the year with no issues. I also will be getting my feeding tube removed next week, which is the last of the various tubes they put in m while in the hospital. The trach will be coming out the week after to complete the removal of all the things that got added to me over the last few months. Hopefully, nothing else will get put in...

Other than low potassium levels, it appears that all is going well for me these days.

I'll post more as doctor visits warrant.

Yes, it's true...

I'm home. They let me out of the hospital yesterday and I am trying to finish my recovery. I;m still a bit weak compared to before I went in, but I think I will get back to where I was.

Thank you all for the support you gave me while I was fighting to recover. I don't know what to say!

And the fun continues

Just to make my day even better, I have another doctor's appointment tomorrow morning (I already had one scheduled for the afternoon) because my white blood cell count keeps going down. They are not sure why, but it appears that there will be more tinkering with my drugs. Hope it helps, because this cold thing bites!

Just great..

I appear to have caught a cold. I wanna go home and go back to bed.

Mixed day

Well, it appears that my white blood cell count is going down and they figure they should do something about that. They are tinkering with my drugs and for the time being, I am just going to avoid people who look like they might be sick and wash my hands a whole lot. :-)

On the good side, my creatinine is down to 1.4, which is the lowest it has been since the transplant. Not sure what I did to bring it down, but I hope I keep doing it!

What's going on with my various appointments.

OK, before kt hurts me, here's how things stand: I went to my clinic appointment on Monday and they didn't do much about the drain there. The pain level has dropped quite a bit. I am managing it just fine with moderate doses of tylenol (instead of the Percocet I thought I was going to have to use).

They also sent me to see yet another doctor about the status of the drain and I am not really sure what he was doing this for. As far as I can tell, He just changed the dressing, and looked at the drain insert point and said "it's all good" and sent me on my way. I assume he is just going to be monitoring how things are going but I'm not entirely sure how he is going to be doing that. I have another appointment with him next week, so I guess I will ask for clarification.

The drain is going to be there for the time being. I am outputting about a liter of fluid a day through the drain and they are not going to take it out until I am down to about 100 ml a day. It's going to be a while before this comes out.

And the tally rises

Well, the CT Scan count now goes up by 1. I called my doctor's office today because of some serious pain in my left side that started last night. It made for an interesting night of attempted sleep. After talking amongst themselves, they sent me back to the hospital to see if the drain had dislodged itself or done something else rude that might be causing the pain, but it appears that is not the case. The radiologist says that it is in there, where it is supposed to be, and doesn't know what is causing the pain.

Anyway, I have to finish some work related stuff here at the office and then it is off to home and some serious painkillers and my bed! I am hoping that this whole pain thing is a short term thing and it will go away in the next few days. If it doesn't, at least I have a doctor's appointment on Monday and they can try to diagnose it a little better.

Where I've been...

OK, I guess I let folks know what the heck is s going on with me these days.

First and foremost, it appears that I had somehow dislodged the drainage tube sometime on Wednesday. This, as you might guess, caused some consternation amongst the medical types. Mind you, it took a CT Scan to determine that this had occurred (and for those who are counting, the current tally is 4 Ultrasounds, 1 X-Ray and 2 CT Scans). I had an outpatient procedure to remove the old tube and replace it with a new one yesterday. This would not have been that big a deal, except that someone scheduled it wrong. I showed up at 9 AM on Thursday (after some horrific traffic) to find out that they thought I was going to be showing up on Friday and had fully booked the surgeons for the day. After some running around and rescheduling, they managed to get me in later in the day. The actual procedure was pretty straight-forward and uncomplicated. The new drain appears to be working fine. We'll see how long before something else goes weird.

All of this nonsense also caused me top miss a doctor's appointment. Not a big deal, but that's the first time I missed one.

Work has also been keeping me busy as hell. I have either been at work, the doctor's (or the hospital) or at home for every waking moment this week. I need to slow down a bit.

Visible improvement

For the first time in weeks, both of my feet are their normal size. I seem to have lost most of the weight gained when the edema thing started. My only current problem is that the drain seems to be cranking out at a high rate still. While it has slowed down some, it is still not at a level where they are comfortable taking it out. Hopefully this will get better soon.

Update

I realized that I have been slacking on this for the last few days, mostly because nothing traumatic has happened! :-)

After my last clinic appointment on Thursday, it appears that my doctors are going to try and wait out this drain thing. It went into overdrive for a few days, dumping out something like 1.5-2.5 liters of fluid ever 24 hours. The scary part was that the edema in my leg continued to get bigger. It looks like it is finally slowing down to a reasonable pace (less than 1 liter per 24 hours) and hopefully will continue to slow down over the next few days.

I think the best evidence that good things are happening is that I have lost close to 10 pounds since they put the drain in. I always forget just how much excess fluid weighs! You would think 3 years of dialysis would have taught me that, but what can I say, I thought I didn't have to deal with that so much anymore.

The long weekend has allowed me to spend some quality time off of my feet, which has helped the edema quite a bit. I also went out and bought myself a pair of the compression stockings to wear to help that out some more. As of yesterday, I can finally close the strap on my Tevas again for the first time in about 10 days. I was quite excited about that.
I look quite silly walking around in Tevas and white stocking-like socks, but what the hell, it makes my legs feel much better.

I think that's about it health-wise, so I am going to go play some video games now! :-)

Hospital woes

When the staff at the hospital starts greeting you with questions like "you live here now, don't you?", you have officially spent too damned much time in that hospital! :-)

Weekend update

Quick update on my life over the last few days, cause it's been busy!

As a result of my Thursday clinic appointment, they discovered that my creatinine level had gone up from 1.5 to 2.1 over the course of three days. They sent me to the hospital on Friday to have an ultrasound done to see what, if anything might be causing that. They discovered a large fluid buildup around the new kidney and my doctor decided that something needed to be done about that pretty much right away. I then got to spend the weekend in the hospital while they put a tube into my side to drain the fluid. It appeared that it had stopped draining, but when they did another ultrasound, they found some more fluid that didn't seem to want to come out. There didn't seem to be much they could do at this point without further surgery, so they decided to send me home, but without removing the drain.

Of course, overnight, the excess fluid seems to have decided to come out. From Saturday at 10pm to Sunday at 6pm, the drain produced less than 200ml of fluid. From the time I left the hospital at about 6 until 8am on Monday, it has already dumped out about 400ml of fluid. Hopefully, it will slow down in the next day or so.

On top of all of this, there was some fun with my drugs. They dropped a number of drugs and it seems that they forgot some of my drugs. It took me two days to get all of this sorted out. Just in time to be released from the hospital. I hope I have gotten all of the changes right, but I guess I'll find out today when I go to my clinic appointment.

I guess I will update more later today after I get the results of the blood tests.

Stent Removal Aftermath

OK, if I never, EVER have to do that agin, I will only be too happy.

First full day back...

Went well. I managed to put in a full day and went through a big chunk of the installer testing on our new release. Filed a few bugs and apparently found some interesting bugs.

The only downside is that sitting at my desk all day made for a slightly more swollen ankle and foot. Hopefully this wont go on for too long.

I also am going to be getting the stent removed from my kidney tomorrow. Not that I want it to stay in there, I am more than a little nervous about *how* it is supposed to come out of me. I'm not sure I really want anesthetic on that portion of my anatomy and I sure as heck don't want anything going in that way, even to remove something. This is almost worse than the whole Foley catheter thing. :-)

Back at it!

As of today, I am back at work! The doctor gave me the OK to return to work and I leaped at it. I am now hip deep in installer testing for our new version and hopefully will make a useful contribution to the development of this thing! It feels so good to be back doing something useful, I don't know what to say!

Recent adventures

It looks like they have finally gotten a handle on this edema thing. I foot is still swelling a small amount, but nothing like it was a few days ago. Mind you, I am visiting the restroom almost as often as I was right after I got out of the hospital, but it is so nice to not have my left foot be twice it's normal size.

The rest of it seems to be going along swimmingly. Hopefully, I will get the OK to go back to work sometime next week and I can get out of this boring rut I have been in...

More tests needed

I went in for an ultrasound on my leg yesterday. They were checking for clots that might be causing the edema in my leg. It appears that there is nothing in there, which is good, but this means that they do not know what is causing it. They thought it was the drugs, but now that those have been changed, it appears that it is something else. Hopefully, they will have a better idea of what is going on when I go in for my clinic appointment on Friday.

On a related note, my potassium is up to a decent level. Not enough to stop taking the horse pills they have me on now, but it is an improvement. My creatinine is currently at 1.6 and holding. They actually reduced the phosphorus supplements since that was going up. Nice to know it is actually possible that they can take away some of the pills. :-)

More drug changes

Oh happy day! It appears that my potassium level is actually up to something respectable! It's been years since it was that way on it's own! Hopefully it will stay there and allow them to reduce the amount of potassium I am taking. Those things are freaking horse pills!

They also reduced the amount of phosphorous I am taking. It was getting high again, so finally something that reduces the number of pills instead of increasing it.

It appears that they are not done dinking with the blood pressure meds though. They upped the Diovan and the Lasix in an attempt to bring my BP under control as well as control the edema in my leg. I ended up spending most of the day on the couch trying to get the swelling to go down. Kind of boring, but we'll see how it goes.

Also, my creatinine level is down to 1.5. Hopefully this will continue. I have not actually gotten the results from the blood tests today, so we shall see if that results in more changes.

More contact needed...

I think I need to talk to more people in the near future. I think I have been getting a little too insular sitting here staring at the TV and my computer all damned day. I need to get out more!
:-)

If you feel the urge, give me a call sometime!

More drug changes

Well, I am off of Norvasc. It was not helping my BP enough and the side effects (edema and high pulse) were kind of troublesome. They have put me back on the medication I was on before the transplant and preliminary observations make it look like a good idea. The BP is not quite where it should be, but it is slightly improved and my pulse has dropped something like 30 BPM. I can't tell on the edema yet since it is usually better in the morning, but for now it looks like it is better than it has been. I'll see how it is by this evening.

Update

OK, the edema seems to be getting better. I hope it continues, but for now I'm counting myself lucky that my leg isn't twice it's normal size! :-)

I'm still having some issues with my blood pressure. Hopefully they will do something about that when I go in for my clinic appointment tomorrow.

I'm also going to be trying to convince my doctor to let me go back to work at least part-time. Hopefully, this will let me save a little vacation time so that I can actually travel at the end of the year to visit my Mom like I usually do.

Other than a little soreness around the midsection, I'm feeling really good. Hopefully the next round of tests will agree with how I feel.

Get well KR

Stopped by to see A and KR. It looks like she's having a bad time of it. Get well soon! It pains me to see you feeling bad!

Health musings

Creatinine is still at 1.7 but everything else seems to be doing well. More to know when I go in for my next appointment on Thursday.

Also, I am down to twice a week clinic visits instead of three times a week. This is a good thing!

I'm also managing to get some work in so that I am not being bored out of my mind sitting at home...

Test results!

Creatinine is down to 1.7! It looks like the kidney is pretty close to fully operational!

I appear to still have some vitamin/mineral deficiencies, but they are working on those. Unfortunately, those pills are the huge horse-pill variety. Not a lot of fun to take! :-)

My hemoglobin is creeping up as well. Hopefully this means that I will not have to get EPO injections for too much longer.

We'll see if things continue to improve when I go in for my appointment on Monday!

As the world turns..

Today was sorta blah, sorta fine. I did pretty much nothing all day but hang around try to keep myself occupied. I suspect that if I don't get back to work sometime soon, I am going to go stark raving mad!!!

Ok, I'm good now. I'll stop complaining! :-)

Creatinine notes

The most recent blood tests (Monday) show my creatinine is down to 2.2! The kidney is getting along just great! Now if only I could get my potassium and calcium up...

More Edema

Well, they have put me on a diuretic for now to help with the edema. It seems to be doing the job. I have been hitting the bathroom lock clockwork all day and the swelling is noticeably less than it was yesterday with only minimal differences in the amounts I am drinking. Hopefully this will continue and eventually my new kidney will be able to keep up with the demands!

Finally met the guy...

I finally met my new Nephrologist this morning. The office has separate practices for pre- and post-transplant patients and once I got the new kidney, they switched me to a new guy. The problem is that his wife had a baby shortly thereafter and he is now on leave to be with his wife and the new baby. Since he is going to be gone for a while they switched me to another doctor. :-)

I have to say, I like the new guy. Good bedside manner, seems like a nice guy. Seems pretty knowledgeable without being a know-it-all. We'll see how it goes over the next few months.

On a side note, my creatinine level is down to 2.2!! The kidney is definitely kicking in!

Edema update

Well, it looks like I am just going to have to learn to live with the edema for a while. According to the transplant nurse, it is a common side effect of a transplant. They have to re-route some blood vessels to get everything hooked up properly and the swelling is a result of that rearranging.

I chatted a bit with KR and she said she experienced the same thing right after her transplant. I'm just going to have to wait it out and learn just how much fluid my body needs to function. It's a tricky balance: too much and I get really nasty swelling and not enough and the kidney starts to hibernate a bit and doesn't work as efficiently. This is also much more hazardous during the early stages of a transplant when the new organ is getting used to its new surroundings.

we'll see how it goes over the next couple of days.

Strength levels

It's depressing to realize that I am so out of sorts that I can't even get through cleaning the kitchen without needing to sit down and take a break... Hopefully, I will get stronger over time and be able to get back to something resembling my former hale and hearty self....

Well, that was interesting...

Not quite sure what happened yesterday, but for some reason, even though I was going to the bathroom regularly, I got all sorts of edema (swelling) in my legs yesterday. The body seems to have caught up overnight (lots of trips to the loo in the dark last night) but I'm not sure why it happened in the first place. I'll have to talk to the folks at the transplant clinic about this tomorrow at my appointment.

Overall, things seem to be going well. I am able to move better than ever and the scar doesn't hurt as much in general. Now if only it weren't a hundred frickin' degrees outside!

Woohoo!!!

No dialysis tomorrow as well! It's starting to look like I may be done with dialysis for good!

My creatinine level is down to 3.1 (from a high of 11.5 last Friday) and dropping steadily. This is very good news for the general health of my new kidney.

The only downside is that I am still low on potassium. Kind of a chronic condition for me, but they are going to put me on a supplement to bring it up now. Hopefully I will react better to it than I did way back when I was first diagnosed with hypertension. They gave me the stuff and about 10 minutes later I projectile vomited. Not a lot of fun, especially not with my surgery scar still in the healing phase.

Things I never thought about...

Just to let you know, the combination of a newly functioning kidney and a long unused (i.e., somewhat smaller these days) bladder is an insanely annoying combination! It's getting better but the last few days have certainly been amusing to my friends as they watch my sudden jaunts to the loo.

Good News!

While it may not be permanent yet, today's blood tests indicate that I do not have to go to dialysis tomorrow! Yay!

More specific thanks

I also have to mentions some specific people in my thanks: Andy and Kaley Rotering. Kaley is the only person I know personally who has got it harder than I do with this transplant stuff (kidney and Pancreas) as well as having a host of other medical problems. Despite this, she has been there to give me moral support during this whole thing and did it all with a gentle smile a quite a few jokes and even offers of help to get me through this. Her husband is a co-worker of mine and we initially bonded while talking about some of the things she was going through, but I think it as developed into something deeper since then.

Thank you both for your love and support, you have made this whole thing a hell of a lot easier for me. I don't know how I will ever repay you, but rest assured, if I can do it for you I will!

Thanks to everybody

I've gotten lots of notes and phone calls from folks telling me congratulations and I can't thank you all enough. It's amazing what a quick call or note can do for someone's spirits in a situation like this! So thank you all!

Current Adventures!

As most of you might have heard, on Saturday, July 15th at about 3:30 pm eastern, I received the call I had been waiting three years to get! The folks from the Hennepin County Medical Center (HCMC) Transplant Center called and told me that there was a matching kidney waiting for me!

This was great news overall, but it came with a few issues. The main one is that I was standing in front of a barbecue grill in South Hadley, MA cooking for my annual (though somewhat belated) 4th of July cookout. Another issue was that the reason the cookout was delayed in the first place was that I was going to be attending a friend's wedding the next day. Kind of a bummer that I had to miss it, but I think all parties involved understood!

Anyway, after getting the call, I managed to book a flight out of Boston that evening and landed in Minneapolis at just before Midnight. I was picked up at the airport by my friend Eng and driven to HCMC for admission and my (supposedly) last dialysis session. They got me in and dialysed (sp?) by 5 AM and dumped me in a hospital bed to prep me for surgery.

I just have to pause here because I have to thank my friend Eng for all of his support during this. He stayed with me all night during that dialysis session and has come to visit me every day in the hospital and even loaned my girlfriend his car since she can not drive mine (I have a stick). This is the kind of buddy you want to have in the trenches with you when the fit hits the shan, you know what I mean?

Anyway, on Sunday, there was some running around while they got the final cross-match tests done and I finally went into surgery at around 3 pm central. Obviously I don't remember much of the next few hours. All I know is that I woke up with a huge scar on my belly and a whole lot of pain! Fortunately, I was in a hospital and they have drugs for that! They kept me nice and loaded for the next day or so and I was visited by lots of my friends from work and by the time I managed to get my cell phone charged again I had a mountain of voicemails as well. I even got flowers from my brother and sister-in-law. Sometimes the world does try to make you feel a little bit better.

I got out of the hospital on Friday, July 21st and I have been doing pretty well so far. I am still immune-suppressed, so there won't be a whole lot of going outside and visiting with people, but I would appreciate phone calls and the like. I will try to keep this updated so that people have an idea of what is going on with me, but I am going to be a somewhat irregular direct correspondent. I get tired easily these days and even with not working, I think this is going to be a bit of a bear to get through.

I'm going to bed now! Talk to you tomorrow!

AGGGHHHH!!!

I've spent the last two days trying to run down the cause of an error that basically translates into "This program can't deal with this situation. I'm going to quit now." I love it when vendors give such helpful messages. One would think that since I am using standard hardware that this sort of problem would have been encountered before or at least mentioned on the forums. I get nothing and now I have to figure out if my company still has a support contract with this vendor....

Weather is getting me down...

OK, I know I have been whining about the weather for a while. It's just that it has been basically raining for the last two weeks straight. If it has not actually been raining, the ground was still wet and the sky was overcast and usually that only lasted for a few hours at most. I haven't seen the sun in quite a while and I miss it...

I think that nature is taunting us by giving us some early spring weather (I posted something on it here) and then dropping us into the crapper, weather-wise. I don't want 90 degrees and sunny, I would settle for something that actually feels like mid-may, you know something on the order of 70 degrees and not freaking raining or cloudy? Is this too much to ask?

Random thoughts

First, Free Comic Book Day is damned cool. I like this as a marketing tool.

Nice weather finally!!!!!

I'm ridiculously late for a Cinco de Mayo party. Hope it's still going...

My blood pressure is doing weird things. Either I have gained 2-3 kilos since Monday or something is going weird in my body. This wouldn't bother me so much except the same thing seems to have happened a couple of weeks ago...

I'm outta here!

Newsflash

Yeah, OK, insomnia sucks. I tried going to bed something like two hours ago and here I am on the net wandering around because I can't sleep. Damn.

Nintendo WTF moments...

I just read an article revealing the final name for the new Nintendo console gaming system: Wii. Just out of curiosity, did anyone at Nintendo actually do any market research on this one in English speaking markets? This one makes no senese and it sounds way too much like a child's phrase for taking a leak...

I hope this one works out for them, but I don't have a whole lot of faith that it will come out well. I guess they just wanted to hand the entire console market over to Sony and Microsoft.

Children, etc

I just spent 10 minutes trying to talk to my girlfriend while her daughter decided to decry the state of the world in as loud a voice as she was capable of. Oy vey.

Years ago, I heard a theory that children's cries were evolutionarily designed so that the adults of the species found them grating as hell as a survival mechanism. Based on my reactions to this little girl's screams of discontent, I would have to say that they might be on to something there...

Spring Again

I am suffering a serious bout of spring fever here. I can not seem to focus on work, every time I look outside and see this beautiful sunny day out there. I want to run away and play in the sun...

Spring at last!

Today was beautiful! I spent the day wandering around the Lake Calhoun/Uptown area of Minneapolis. I think I could get to like weather like this. Too bad it is supposed to be cold and dreary tomorrow! Hopefully we will get some more days like today sometime soon... :-)

Hmph!

Yesterday sucked. It rained all day, it suddenly turned about 25 degrees colder than it has been for the last few days and I got into a long convoluted argument with the developer I am working with and basically ended up being told "Nope, not gonna do it!" I thought it was such a clever idea too! :-)

Anyway, I am going to the Tea House for lunch today and that always cheers me up...

April annoyances

Not that this is a surprise to anyone, but I really hate doing my taxes. A lot.

My company's LLC agreement seems to nothing for me but complicate my taxes and gives me no appreciable gain for it...

Well, that was unexpected

Apparently, my girlfriend's daughter has taken to referring to me as "Da-da Dennis" This amuses her (my g/f that is) to no end. I find it a little unsettling. The only thing that keeps me from totally freaking out is that she doesn't seem to attach any significance to the term. Ah well, it's a good thing I was planning on hanging around for a while anyway.

And just so you know, here she is:

The medical field is having fun with me.

It seems like now that I am finally reducing the number of pills I have to take for my blood pressure, the universe doesn't want me to get too comfortable with not taking too many pills! Now I have to go back on cholesterol medication. Fortunately, I am not so far over the limit that it is going to be a big dose... We'll see how it works out!

Back again

Just got back from Boston to see the Women's Basketball Final Four. While the semifinals were kind of weak (especially theDuke-LSU match-up), the final was one of the most exciting basketball games I have seen in a really long time. While I have some problems with the officiating, the really great thing about it was that they played defense all day during this game, rather than just when it was close to the end of the game or when it was a close in score. It was really nice to see talented players playing a team oriented game, rather than the "I want to make the ESPN highlight reel" type of play that the Men's tournament is devolving into.

The fact that the Women's final was exciting, close and damned electrifying to watch just made the contrast with the Men's final all the more depressing to think about. I don't know if it is the fact that almost all of the top notch players are going pro early or if there is something fundamentally wrong with the way basketball is being coached at the lower levels in this country, but they need to change something to make the Men's college game relevant again.


Anyway, I am thinking that next year, a trip to Cleveland for the 2007 Women's Final Four might be in order, rather than going to Atlanta for the Men's. I know I am going to have much better memories of this trip than with recent trips to the Men's finals.

Weekend adventures

OK, I just spent the weekend at my first Anime Con, Anime Detour. A few of things came out of this for me:

1) Anime fans are an interesting bunch. There was much more running around in costume than at the comic conventions I have been to in the past. Maybe I need to spend more time at science fiction cons in general to get used to this. In general I like it though. It was a good atmosphere and I think it is something I want to do more of. We shall see in the future, but I think I will be going to Anime Detour again next year.

2) I know way more about Anime than I thought. I figured that since I have not watched any of the recent series, I would be lost amidst the Anime faithful. As it turns out, I have apparently been absorbing Anime through my skin via osmosis and recognized a fair portion of the costumes. I found myself somewhat intrigued by a lot of it and I think I will be spending some time watching some of this stuff in the near future.

3) I am getting old. I worked as a volunteer because I knew one of the staff members (he was why I went in the first place) and they were short on people. While I was "badging" (verifying people were wearing their con badges when entering con areas) I noticed that a high percentage (40+ percent) of these people were wearing pink badges. The system worked like this: orange badge=AD staff, green badge=dealer/con guest, blue badge=adult con attendee, pink badge=minor con attendee. I was amazed and appalled to realize that something like half of the people I was seeing were literally half my age or less. I had no idea that anime had penetrated the youth of America this deeply. I think the thing that bothered me the most is that in far too many cases, I would not have know they were so young had it not been for the badges. I'm trying to figure out when my ability to read ages went out the window...

Anyway, I had fun and I want to do it again. I'll even try to remember to post some of the pictures I took of the costumes in the next few days when I remember to download them from my camera!

Oddball Gamer

I've decided that I am a bit of an oddball among gamers in that I have no real desire to play first person shooters. I got over it way back when Doom II came out. The reason I say this is because there are currently seven other gamers in my house having a grand old time playing "Serious Sam 2" and blasting away at everything possible and I am sitting here thinking to myself "this is kind of boring."

Hopefully my passion for strategy games will not get me booted from the gamer fraternity! :-)

Some advice...

My girlfriend needs to stop taking in strays. Her life is complicated enough.

Revelations week

OK, so the tally for this week is

1 New Boyfriend
1 Breakup
1 Marriage

If any of my other friends have any major life changes, I would respectfully request that they wait until after next week. I'm all full up for now! :-)

I'm baaaack!

OK, I know I've been missing in action for basically two weeks, but I have a good excuse: no internet access for most of it. I realized that I can not deal with dial-up when trying to do anything other than quick emails. Anything that requires any sort of GUI (like editing my blog) just takes way longer than I want to wait for while using dial-up. So next time I am back at my Mom's (who is pretty much guaranteed to never get broadband access) I'll be out of touch yet again!