Business Trip to Chicago

I am currently on a business trip to Chicago. I arrived yesterday afternoon after a rather uneventful flight from the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport. Usually on business trips we stay at an Embassy Suites hotel. This time though, the Embassy Suites was booked, so the people from my company are at the Marriott Suites near O'Hare, while our committee members are staying at the nearby Marriott. Now I don't want to sound like I am complaining about the Marriott suites. Quite frankly, I think the room I am in is the best hotel room I have ever stayed in on a business trip. However, I really miss the breakfast with the omelet bar and the afternoon manager's reception that  the Embassy Suites has. Oh well, since the after-work drinks aren't free, the company will just end up paying for them.

This is a nice hotel though. The room has two large high-definition televisions. The alarm clock in the bedroom has a docking port for my iPod. That is especially nice since I prefer waking up to music than to an obnoxious alarm. And with the iPod dock, I can listen to my own music. I always find it such a pain to find a radio station that I will like in a city I am visiting. This eliminates that need. The bathroom is also very nice. Besides the typical bathtub, there is an actual shower stall, and the shower head is actually high enough for me! There are a couple of drawbacks about the hotel though, besides the lack of free alcohol. One is the lack of wireless Internet access in the room. I have Internet access, but it is not wireless. The second is the fact that sodas from the vending machines or from the front desk cost three dollars. That's an outrageous price! However, neither of these negatives are particularly bad, especially since I can get reimbursed for my beverages when I submit my expense report upon returning home.

Now on to the details of what I have been doing while I was here. Last night, two of my coworkers and I had dinner at the Carlucci Italian restaurant that is located very close to our hotel. I had some great food -- flank steak, pasta, and lobster-stuffed shrimp! It was fantastic! The crème brûlée I had for dessert was good as well, although the flame went out before the alcohol on top was sufficiently burned. It was so big that I was unable to finish it.

Today was the first day of our day and a half of meetings. I am not going to go into detail about the meeting, but I will say that I definitely earned the drink I had with dinner tonight! Speaking of dinner, we went to Gibsons to eat. We wanted to eat in the restaurant itself, but without a reservation we would have had to wait until 9:00 at the earliest before we could be seated, so we ate in the bar instead. Finding a seat in the bar was almost as difficult. I noticed that three women at one of the tables were eating some cake, so I staked out their table waiting for them to leave so I could pounce on the newly-vacated table before someone else had the chance. While I was waiting for them to leave, I noticed that the men at the neighboring table were paying their tab. They ended up leaving first, so I procured a table for my group. I had a rib eye steak sandwich for dinner. A few of us shared some crab cakes for an appetizer. For the second night in a row, dinner was quite delectable. After dinner, we returned to out hotel where we had some desert at our hotel's restaurant.

After returning to my room, I spent a little bit of time working on a different project to which I am assigned before composing this blog posting and going to bed. I am anticipating that my committee will finish up early tomorrow, so I guess I will probably be spending extra time at O'Hare waiting for my 3:05 flight back to Minneapolis.

Crazy Vandals

I stopped by my sister's condo this morning, and when I was leaving, I noticed that a sign in the middle of her street had been vandalized.

A Daddy Weekend

Mel went to Cedar Rapids this past weekend to visit a friend. This left me home alone with both kids. I got the kids put to bed alright Friday night, although Max did get up twice to be fed during the night -- at 10:00 p.m. and 12:30 a.m. He ended up waking up at 4:40 in the morning, followed by Emma waking up at 5:20. Emma wanted to go somewhere Saturday morning. She ended up asking if we could go to the Mall of America so she could ride the merry-go-round. So, I decided to take both kids to the mall. Taking a three-year-old and a seven-month-old to the Mall of America by myself was a lot more challenging than I thought it would be. The hardest part was when we were in the middle of eating lunch and Emma told me she needed to go potty. Well, she is too young to go by herself, our food was only half eaten, I was trying to feed Max, and there was no one to take her besides me. I ended up telling her to finish her lunch first, and then we would go to the restroom. We finished up and went, however Emma apparently didn't actually have to use the restroom. I guess my gamble paid off. Emms ended up riding the carousel three times during our visit to the mall before we headed home.

Yesterday, we all went to the Woodbury Days parade. That is one really long parade! I think it lasted about two hours! Before it was over, Emma was ready to go home. It wasn't because we were there for so long, but instead because she was frightened by the fire coming from the RE/MAX hot air balloon basket that was in the parade. The loud noise was bad enough, but when they fired it up near us, I think the combination of fire, intense heat, and noise pushed her over the edge. It took several minutes to calm her down. She ended up with quite a bit of candy. I don't think she will be able to go through it all by Halloween even. She also ended up with a lot of political stickers on her shirt. Somehow though, the stickers from the Republican candidates ended up being covered by the stickers from the DFL candidates. Hmmm, I'm not sure how that happened.

Time to Blog

I've been having a hard time making time to blog lately. I have some time now, so I thought I would write about our trip to Iowa last weekend to celebrate my grandmother's ninety-first birthday, as well as the birthdays of my sister and my cousin's wife. We drove down to my mother's home Friday night. I think this really messed up Maximus's sleep schedule. It took a long time to get him to sleep. Fortunately, this meant he ended up sleeping much later than usual.

On Saturday we had lunch at the Colony Inn in Amana. Lunch was terrific! The mashed potatoes and gravy were delicious, and the Swiss steak I had for my entrée was quite flavorful as well. We then returned to my grandmother's house where we later had a small dinner followed by cake and ice cream.

My mom, sister, Mel, Emma, Max, and I went to the Other Place in Waterloo for pizza on Sunday before returning home. The drive back went pretty well except for the last half hour or so. By that time, Max had woken up and was tired of being in his car seat. He wasn't shy about letting us know it either. I hope we all survive our trip to Iowa next month for a wedding reception. That trip is going to be much longer than the one we took last weekend.

Taking Off the Pounds

I seem to be getting back on track with my weight loss. I lost another 1.2 pounds this past week, meaning that my weight has now decreased four of the past five weeks. And I think the only reason my weight was up last week was that last Tuesday I went to a potluck lunch at Mel's workplace. I was actually expecting to see an increase this week as I weighed myself Monday and my weight had increased significantly. I was very happy to see that it did not increase however. In the 14 weeks since I have been using Weight Watchers, I have had a net loss of 11.2 pounds, averaging 0.8 pounds per week. I'd like to see my weekly rate of weight loss slightly higher, but this number is acceptable. I now have 12.5 pounds to go before I have lost 10% of my weight when I started Weight Watchers in May, and 25.6 pounds until I reach my goal weight of 200 pounds. I know I can do this, but it would be much easier if I could find some time to get some real exercise in.

Voter #3

On our way to daycare this morning, the kids and I stopped so I could vote in the Minnesota primary. When I signed in, I found it interesting that there were two people whose names were on the same page as mine whose eligibility to vote was being challenged. For one of the two names, there was a not indicating that the person had moved. For the other, it said the person was a felon. I didn't think to look at the time, but I could have actually looked to see who these two people were who listed as possible illegal voters.

After getting my ballot, Emma, Maximus, and I proceeded to the voting booth. Up until the time I got there, I still wasn't completely sure who I was going to select for the nomination for governor. In fact, I hadn't even made up my mind whether I was going vote in the Independence Party race or the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party race. I ended up voting in the DFL column of my ballot, selecting the incumbents for Secretary of State and Attorney General. It was a tough decision for me between Mark Dayton and Margaret Anderson Kelliher when it came to the governor's race. I'm not going to say for whom I voted, but I didn't even consider voting for Matt Entenza. While I am sure he would do fine in the job of governor, his insistence that Minnesota should drop out of No Child Left Behind made me not want to vote for him. The fact that my job entails creating tests, such as ones used for NCLB, played a big role in this decision.

After I marked my ballot, I let Emma slide it into the ballot-counting machine. My ballot was the third one of the day at my precinct. I didn't think that was too bad considering that the polls had only been open for a few minutes before we arrived. The person manning the machine gave Emma and me "I Voted" stickers. He was going to give one to Max as well, but I declined. I told him that Max would just take it off and try to eat it.

No matter who wins today, I will still have a choice to make in November. I can not yet say that I am completely committed to voting for the DFL candidate, whomever that may be. I could still select the IP candidate. Of course, there is no way in hell I will be voting for Tom Emmer three months from now.

Maximus's First Few Days With His Helmet

We've been breaking Max into his STARband helmet since Friday when we got it. On Friday, he alternated between one hour of the helmet on and one hour of having it off until he went to bed without the helmet. Saturday he was two hours on then an hour off, without wearing the helmet for naps or overnight. Yesterday it was on for four hours and then off for an hour, leaving it on for his naps. Finally today, Maximus was supposed to leave it on for eight hours with an hour off. However, he was napping when it was time to remove the helmet, so he actually wore it for a whole ten hours before removing it temporarily. He didn't have any difficulties napping with his helmet on, and now he is sleeping with the helmet on. The past two nights, Maximus has finally slept through the entire night without waking up to be fed. I hope he manages to do it again tonight. I am not sure if the helmet will affect his sleep though.

I have been out and about with Max a few times since he started wearing his helmet. I admit that I wondered how other people we would see would react to his helmet since it isn't something most people are familiar with. At Target this past weekend, I noticed that some people looked, but no one stared or asked why my baby was wearing a helmet. There was a woman who was helping an adult with a developmental disability do his shopping. She stopped to talk to Max, commenting on how pretty his big blue eyes were.

Saturday evening though, we did get a question about Max's helmet. We were eating at a restaurant. When our server initially greeted us, he said that Max's helmet was cool. Later on he asked if Max was learning to walk, assuming that was the reason for the helmet. We did explain that Max had the helmet to correct a flat spot on his head, and he found that to be interesting. Likewise, Max and I were shopping at Target today when a girl who appeared to be about nine or ten years old commented that she liked his helmet. I started talking with her mother and explained the purpose of the helmet. And of course, when I took Emma to daycare this morning, the other kids were curious about Max's helmet. I expect that Max will get second glances from people when we are out, and of course I am perfectly willing to educate them about its purpose if I am asked.

Tomorrow Maximus begins wearing the helmet for twenty-three hours every day. He still doesn't seem to mind it, so I am not anticipating any problems.

Max's Helmet

Last month, Maximus was fitted for a cranial remolding orthosis, a helmet, to correct the shape of his head. Yesterday we got the helmet from the orthotist. Max has the condition plagiocephaly, or flat head syndrome, due to his having torticollis, which causes him to turn his head predominantly to the right. Because he spent a lot of time lying on his back, and turning his head to the right while on his back, the right side of his head is flattened some. This helmet will allow the flattened parts of his head to grow out while restricting grown in the directions where his head has already grown out. After a brief break-in period, Max will be wearing his helmet for twenty-three hours a day until his head has a rounder shape. The orthotist estimated that this will take until Max is about eleven months old. So he could be wearing his helmet for about five months.

Prior to receiving the helmet yesterday, I was concerned that Max would have a problem with having the helmet on his head. However, its presence didn't seem to bother Max one bit. He does not act any differently whether it is on or off, and he hasn't tried to remove it from his head. For a couple of weeks, until he is completely adjusted to having the helmet, Max will probably have a harder time sitting up and rolling over. However, he will have the benefit of being able to fall over from a sitting position without hurting his head. Of course, when he finally gets rid of the helmet, he may be in for an unpleasant surprise when he does bump his head. We are going to have to start washing Max's hair daily now, instead of every other day as we have been doing. Otherwise, the helmet, which we will also have to wash daily, will begin to smell bad. I am really looking forward to seeing the progress that Maximus makes by wearing his helmet.

Wrap-up of the Past Week

We've had a pretty busy week this past week. Last Saturday we all went to the Mall of America where Emma finally got to ride on the carousel. She rode on it three whole times! I thought that since she was tall enough to ride on her own, but I wanted to go with her, I would have to pay as well, so I paid enough for two rides, one for her and one for me. However, when we got on, they only charged us for her, so we had enough points left for her to ride a second time. Somehow though, the points were not deducted from our ticket for on of her first two rides, so she was able to ride a third time. She had a great time on the carousel.

On Sunday we went to the Minnesota Zoo. Emma wanted to play in the splash pad, but we told her we would do that before leaving instead of right when we got there. As a consequence, Emma did not want to spend much time looking at any particular animal. She kept saying that she wanted to see the next animal. I am pretty sure this was so we could finish with looking at animals so she could play in the water. When it was finally time to go home, Emma was not happy about it. She screamed all the way to the car that she didn't want to go home yet. She fell asleep in the car, but when she woke up when we got home, she began whining again. She ended up spending a bit of time in her room alone until she managed to calm down.

On Monday, Max rolled over from his back to his tummy! He had begin rolling the other way regularly last month, but now he can roll both ways!

Max's physical therapy appointment for his torticollis was Wednesday. He is doing really well, although he still tilting his head to his left. This appointment was also a lot more pleasant than the previous two as Max refrained from screaming for most of the appointment. He did complain some during one of the exercises he did though. It was nice to not have him screaming for the entire appointment though.

I had a follow-up appointment from my gallbladder surgery yesterday. Everything looks just fine.

I have had quite a bit of work lately, especially since Wednesday this week. All of these other appointments haven't helped with getting it done, and we have another appointment this afternoon. However, working at night, I have been able to get things done. Well, I've gotten most of it done anyway.

Six Months

Six months ago yesterday, Maximus Xavier was born. I can not believe that he is already half a year old! He has grown so much since then. He weighed seven and a half pounds when he was born. He is now over eighteen pounds in weight. He is also quite tall. His feet hang over the end of his infant car seat.

Maximus is usually in a great mood, smiling most of the time. We took him to get his pictures taken yesterday, and he did a fantastic job. He did much better than Emma did when she got her pictures taken when she was six months old. Emma was not very cooperative, but Maximus was. The only problem he gave us was that after falling over once, he didn't seem too keen on sitting up on his own. Of course, Maximus is still pretty new at sitting up. He can't get himself into a sitting position, but if someone else sits him up, he can usually maintain the position for a couple of minutes.

Besides sitting, Maximus has begun rolling over from his tummy to his back. In the past month, until last night, he had rolled himself over three times on his own. However, this was not a feat that he would repeat. Last night, this all changed. I placed Maximus on his tummy, and after a little bit of whining, he rolled over onto his back. I put him back on his tummy, and he immediately rolled back over again. He did this a few times in a row, so I got the camera out to make a video of this. At first I thought he wasn't going to do it again, but then he did.

Surgery and Recovery

On Thursday I had my gallbladder removed. And as I was not going to be able to eat from between midnight prior to my surgery until after the procedure was completed, I decided that I wanted to have a large dinner Wednesday. So Mel, Emma, Maximus, my mother, including my mother, who came to visit to watch Maximus, my sister, and I went to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner. I thought that was a good place to go since their portions are notoriously large. However, I ordered an item off of their specials menu. Those entrées are not as large. Nevertheless, I still had plenty to eat. Around nine o'clock that night, I had my last food prior to my surgery, half of the cheesecake that I had brought home from the restaurant.

Thursday morning, after taking Emma to daycare, and doing some shopping at the grocery store and Target, Mel and I headed to the surgery center. I was a little nervous. Prior to this surgery, the only surgery I had had was having my wisdom teeth removed. However, the fact that this surgery was routine did help to ease my nerves a bit. I figured that the chances of something going wrong were very remote.

Upon arriving at the surgery center, the nurse prepped me for surgery, putting an IV in my hand. I really hate needles, so I wasn't looking forward to that, but it wasn't too bad. The anesthesiologist came in to ask me a few questions, and then the surgeon stopped by to tell me that he had another laparoscopic cholecystectomy to perform before mine, so he would be in good practice when it came to mine. After waiting for an hour or so, I was wheeled into the surgery room. I seem to remember them saying something about the operating table not being long enough, but that is the last thing I recall before waking up in the recovery room. When I came to, I apparently was trying to sit up, because I seem to remember the nurses yelling at me to not sit up. After being observed for an hour and a half or so, Mel and I went back home.

I actually felt pretty good initially after my surgery, although I did take some generic Vicodin upon returning home to ensure I continued to feel all right. I also had some crackers and Jell-O to eat once I got home since I was so hungry, but didn't think a full meal would be advisable. I didn't have much pain at all until I laid down to go to bed. That hurt quite a bit, but taking ibuprofen and more Vicodin helped. I ended up going to sleep fairly quickly.

Yesterday I felt fairly good and ended up eating a good lunch and dinner. Staying medicated helped to keep pain away, although my right shoulder felt stiff most of the day. In fact, I felt well enough out that Mel, Maximus, and I even went out for a little bit. I didn't feel much pain at all yesterday until I tried to feed Max and ended up stretching in an uncomfortable way. The next real pain I had last night was when a joke on truTV's World's Dumbest made me laugh. It was very painful when I laughed, but I couldn't stop! I had to get up and leave the room, because just watching the clip on the show kept me wanting to laugh.

I seem to be recovering just fine from my surgery. Later this morning I will be able to remove the dressings from the four incision sites. Then I will get my first look at where the surgeon inserted his tools.

A Date with a Surgeon

Perhaps I should have written this blog entry before the previous one, but yesterday I went to see a surgeon about my gallbladder issues. Even though I haven't had any pain from it in over two weeks, the fact that I had two occurrences of pain that week, the other being two days before, the surgeon recommended that I have my gallbladder removed before it causes any more issues. So next Thursday, a week from today, I will be having a cholecystectomy done. This week has been, and next week will be busy weeks in the medical area for the Mathman family.

The Craniofacial Clinic

Back in June I blogged about how Maximus has torticollis, a condition which causes him to tilt his head to the left and look to the right. He has been going to physical therapy since then to work on that. We have also been doing exercises with him at home to stretch out his neck muscles to prevent this. However, despite this intervention, he still prefers to turn his head to the right when he is lying down, and as a result of this, he has developed plagiocephaly, or a flat spot on his head.

The hope was that his physical therapy would help in rounding his head out, but this has not happened. So today we went to the craniofacial clinic at a local hospital to have him evaluated. After taking some measurements, the nurse practicioner and orthotists decided that a helmet would help to correct Maximus's plagiocephaly. Maximus was fitted for a helmet. To do this, the orthotist put a cap on his head that contained reflective dots. She then scanned around his head with a laser which took information from the position of the dots. A computer then created a three-dimensional image of Maximus's head from the data it received. Maximus also needed to have a CT scan done to make sure that two of the bones of his skull had not yet fused. He actually did very well for that, especially considering how bundled up he was. Maximus hates being bundled up.

This afternoon, after we got home, we got a call from the nurse practitioner letting us know that the CT scan showed that everything was normal, and that we can proceed to order Maximus's helmet. I will call the orthotist tomorrow to set that up. She was supposed to email us a file showing the different color and pattern options, but she apparently did not get around to that yet. Hopefully she can do that when I call tomorrow so they can get to work on Maximus's helmet.

Star Wars: In Concert

This afternoon Mel, my sister, and I went to go see Star Wars: In Concert at the Xcel Energy Center. Having a sister with connections it really nice, as our seats were in one of the suites, complete with complimentary cookies, brownies, and soft drinks.

Before the show, I really did not know what the show would be like. All I knew was that there would be an orchestra playing music along with Star Wars movies being shown on the screen. The show began with the orchestra playing the 20th Century Fox fanfare, followed by the theme song to Star Wars. While they played this, scenes from the various Star Wars movies were shown behind the orchestra. Also shown on the screen was views of the orchestra playing.

Then, Anthony Daniels, the actor who played C-3PO in all six Star Wars movies, came out and introduced different musical numbers, many of which focused on different characters in the saga, telling the story of Star Wars as the show progressed. Through talking about each of the characters, and some of the events of the movies, Daniels told the story of the whole Star Trek saga.

This was a great show. I really wish we could have brought Emma along as she is somewhat interested in Star Wars. Not only would she have been able to see clips from Star Wars, leaving out some of the parts that maybe wouldn't be appropriate for someone who is her age, but it would also have been a good introduction to seeing a symphony orchestra perform. However, the show was probably a little to loud for Emma; she hates loud noises. Also, I do not know if she would have been content to sit and watch the performance for the entire hour the show lasted before the intermission. If Star Wars: In Concert were to return in a couple of years, I think she could handle it.

Courtesy Calls from Discover Card

Black Telephone
Originally uploaded by Ollie-G

Discover Card has begun calling our house again to ask to speak with my wife. When I ask what the calls are in regards to, they simply tell me it is a courtesy call. If I tell them she is not here, they just say they will call back later. I have told them that she is not interested in receiving their call, but they continue to call back. I know that they do not have to abide by the federal Do Not Call registry since she is a customer of theirs, but she really isn't interested in signing up for their credit protection plan or whatever they are offering her to get her to use her card more. I have tried being polite with them, and I have also been more stern with telling them that she doesn't want to talk to them. With the two most recent calls from Discover Card, I have changed my tactic for dealing with them. I told the caller that Mel was here and that I would get her. I then just went about doing whatever it is I had been working on, letting the caller wait. The first time I did this, it the caller waited one minute, forty-five seconds before hanging up. The second time, the caller hung up after just one minute, twenty-five seconds. Oh, I suppose I could just ignore the calls and not answer them, but I really want them to STOP!

The Fourth of July

Our Fourth of July holiday began with us taking Maximus to the urgent care clinic to be checked out. That morning, when he woke up at 3:00, he was very warm. Taking his temperature, we learned that he had a fever of 101.4°F. That, along with the rash he had on his chect and back, prompted me to call the hospital to speak with a triage nurse to see if we needed to take him to the emergency room right away. After hearing all of Maximus's symptoms, the nurse said that we chould take him to be seen by a doctor some time within the next twenty-four hours. At the urgent care clinic, we discovered that Maximus has an inner ear infection.

While we spent most of our morning at the urgent care clinic and running a few other errands, we ended our day by going to Woodbury to see fireworks. Mel considered staying at home with Maximus since he had not been feeling well, but we ultimately decided that we would all go to the show. We were not sure how Maximus would deal with the loud noises, but he did great! He loved watching them and only cried a little bit toward the end. Emma, on the other hand, reall hates loud noises, so I was anticipating that she might not like the fireworks. She did cover her ears the whole time, and asked several times if we could go home or if she could sit in the car, but she did fine otherwise. After the fireworks were over, she said that she enjoyed them but that she closed her ears because they were loud. As we were in line to leave the parking lot, Emma kept counting the number of cars there were. She counted from one to eight before declaring that there were one hundred cars there. She ended up falling asleep before we got out of the parking lot. Unfortunately, she woke up this morning at the time she usually does, so I am afraid that she may end up being a little crabby this afternoon.

Happy Independence Day!

Happy Independence Day everyone. Below Superman is a patriotic video, but please use caution as it contains explicit lyrics.

Another Zoo Trip

Today we made out fifth trip to a local zoo for the year. This time it was to the Minnesota Zoo. In fact, only one out of our five zoo trips this year hasn't been to the Minnesota Zoo. Anyway, we had two things we wanted to be sure to do at the zoo today. We wanted to give Emma a chance to play in the splash pad there, and we wanted to see the baby camel which Mel recently heard about. Emma did get to play in the water, and she had a great time. Unfortunately, we failed to see any baby camels. All of the big camels were all sitting down close to each other and we couldn't tell if there was a baby among them. Oh well. We can always see it later. We didn't spend too much time at the zoo though as Max seemed to be a bit overheated. One other thing that we did end up seeing at the zoo today though was the prairie dogs playing.

Happy Pre-Independence Day

It was 234 years ago today that the Second Continental Congress voted to declare the United States to be an independent country from Great Britain. And in honor of that, I am presenting here Stars and Stripes Forever being performed by the Muppets.

Getting Back on Track

I did a pretty good job at losing weight once I started back on WeightWatchers on May 5. However, since the beginning of June I have struggled a bit at continuing to lose weight, as shown in the graph below. While I am not looking forward to the prospect of having a cholecystectomy, the fact that I have been having issues with my gallbladder has made me reevaluate what I have been eating lately. This has provided the extra motivation to eat well, as I do not want another gallbladder attack. Hopefully my gallbladder issues will be resolved soon after I see a surgeon in a couple of weeks. And while I would enjoy going back to care-free eating, I think I really need to focus on eating right!