Trip to the ER

Yesterday afternoon, while I was working, I suddenly got an intense pain in my stomach. At first I thought I was just hungry, so I grabbed something to eat, a hot dog. About the same time I was eating the hot dog, I noticed that my back was hurting as well. Something just did not seem right, so I went to the computer and searched Bing to see what having back pain and stomach pain at the same time could possibly mean for me. While I was doing this I started to get a headache as well. Meanwhile, the results from my search of the Internet led me to think that I should probably go to the emergency room, or at the very least, I should call my doctor's office to see what they though.

I tried calling my doctor's office but no one answered, so I proceeded to call a hospital where I explained my symptoms to the triage nurse. She suggested that I either come to the emergency room or call my doctor for a recommendation. I called my doctor's office back and the nurse there also suggested that I go to the ER. I then called my aunt to come get Maximus. She also insisted that I should not drive myself to the hospital, so she and my cousin took me there as well.

Mel showed up after I had been admitted, but before I had been seen. She had been at a doctor's appointment of her own when I called her to let her know I was going to the hospital. I had an ultrasound done on my abdomen. About an hour and a half after the ultrasound, I learned that I either have stones or sludge in my gallbladder. Removing it wasn't an emergency, so they sent me home with instructions to see my doctor to see about having surgery done. They also sent me home with a prescription for Vicodin. I haven't used any of that though as I have yet to experience any pain since returning home.

Como Park Zoo

This afternoon, after waking Emma up from her nap, we all went to the Como Park Zoo. One of the things we wanted to see at the zoo was the polar bears in their new habitat that opened earlier this month. The Polar Bear Odyssey was very crowded with people who wanted to view the two polar bears. We were able to get in and see them though. Emma loved the polar bears.

Another exhibit we visited while at the zoo was Blooming Butterflies. This temporary exhibit immerses visitors in the butterflies' habitat. There were butterflies flying all around us. At first it seemed that Emma was a bit apprehensive about having butterflies fliying so close to her, but she quickly adapted to them and enjoyed walking through the exhibit, looking at the wide variety of butterflies.

There was one animal at Como Zoo that Emma did not enjoy seeing on our visit today. She did not like the sea lions, due to their loud barking. Emma just does not like loud noises, and I think she may have found the noise from the sea lions to be frightening.

F***ing Bad Drivers!

On our way to church this morning in, we nearly had a traffic collision. We were driving on Radio Drive from Cottage Grove toward Woodbury. We were going around the roundabout in the inside lane, intending on continuing straight across. We were halfway around the portion of the roundabout that we were traveling through when an older couple in a Cadillac entered the roundabout in the outside lane immediately to the right from us. Both of us slammed on our brakes to keep from colliding where we would be exiting the roundabout and where they would have continued through. The woman, who was the passenger in the front seat, waved her finger at us and appeared to be shouting at us through our windows. I shook a finger, albeit a different finger, back at her as her husband started driving again, driving around the front of our car.

Clearly, if we had collided, it would have been the fault of the Cadillac's driver as he failed to yield to us, a vehicle already in the roundabout. I am wondering what they could possibly have been thinking. Did they think that since we were in the inside lane that we wouldn't be exiting the roundabout? While I do not think the collision would have been our fault, and as much as I wouldn't mind getting a new car, I am very happy that the collision was avoided. For one, I wouldn't have wanted anyone to be injured. And secondly, the car I was driving is just about paid off.

Wasting Some Time

I ended up wasting a couple hours of my time today. Last week I noticed that my Social Security card was not where I thought I had it. I looked in all the obvious places in the house and still could not find it. So I decided that I should get a replacement Social Security card. I thought it would be as easy as filling out a form, maybe getting it notarized, and sending it in. However, the Social Security Administration's website made it seem that since they have a location here in the Minneapolis/Saint Pall metropolitan area, I needed to go to their office to submit my form and evidence of who I am.

I figured this would take at most an hour of my time, maybe just a little more, so around the time of my lunch break from work, I set out for the Social Security office. My first problem came when I encountered a closed street that my TomTom wanted me to drive on. There was not a clearly-marked detour either. I ended up spending probably ten extra minutes driving around before I could find my destination.

I don't know why I didn't anticipate it, but there was a significant wait before I could be seen to submit my information. After waiting for a while it occurred to me that there was really no reason why I needed a replacement Social Security card. I know my Social Security number, and I have other documents I can use for my I-9 if I start a new job, not that I am looking for a new job right now, I want to make that clear. However, I had already been waiting a while, so I stuck it out and eventually was seen by someone. In a couple of weeks I will be getting my new Social Security card in the mail. I should probably put it in a safe place so I don't lose it again.

Patrolling the Neighborhood

Police Car Lights
Originally uploaded by davidsonscott15

I was up around 2:30 Monday morning to feed Max. At 3:00, when Max was fed and sleeping again, and after the episode of Forensic Files I had been watching on truTV had ended, I put him back in his crib. After I laid him down, I saw a bright light outside the window, looking outside I saw that there were two police cars outside. One was stopped at the intersection of our street with the street which would run into our house if it continued. Behind that car, there was a police office talking to a man wearing a "wife beater" shirt. The second police car was driving slowly down the street, shining its spotlight in people's yards.

After looking at a couple yards across the street from our house, the police car made a U-turn and went down our side of the street. A moment later, a car slowly drove by, in the opposite direction as the police car. That police car then took off after the other car. The police car drove by again a few moments later.

I am not sure what the police were doing outside our house. I was tempted to go out and ask the police officers what was up, but I decided that I better just stay out of the way. I wonder if someone had called the police because they had seen someone prowling around. I frequently see people just walking down the street when I am feeding Max late at night. I have found that to be odd, but I have never seen the people walking down the street deviate from a straight path down the street. Aside from the fact that these people are out really late, they haven't seemed too suspicious.

Both police cars left by about 3:10, and I went back to bed, still wondering what they were doing. I admit that I was slightly concerned seeing them outside. Of course, watching Forensic Files as I do most nights when I am up with Max didn't do much to ease any concern I had. It can be a little creepy watching that show so late at night with just Max. Sometimes I worry that I may be the next victim featured on the program. Of course, if that were the case, I could at least take comfort in the knowledge that the crime would have been solved.

Torticollis

Last Wednesday, under the recommendation of his pediatrician, I took Maximus to see a physical therapist to treat him for torticollis. Torticollis is a condition in which the head is tilted to one side while the chin is elevated and turned to the opposite side. In Maximus's case, his head is tilted to the left and he tends to look to the right. One side effect of his condition is that the right side of his head is a little flattened because he turns his head to the right and spends a lot of time lying on the floor.

The physical therapist gave me a couple of exercises that we are supposed to do with Maximus several times a day. These exercises should help to stretch his neck muscles, correcting the condition. We are also supposed to do whatever we can to encourage him to look to the left more than to the right. This includes feeding him so he looks to the left while he eats. I have found this to be difficult for me, but it is something I need to learn to do for him.

Today I took Maximus back to the physical therapist for a second appointment. He seems to be doing fairly well, and he is getting beginning to tolerate the exercises and being on his stomach even more. Since we are comfortable with doing his stretching exercises, we just have to go to see the physical therapist every other week now instead of once per week. I feel very encouraged that Maximus will benefit from his exercises and from seeing the physical therapist.

Brown Bears

Last month the family and I went to the Minnesota Zoo where we saw the brown bears wrestling. As I promised then, here's the video of the bears.

Catching Up

I do not know why, but I haven't been blogging much lately. In fact, my last blog posting was at the end of last month. Since then I have been pretty busy. At the beginning of this month, Mel and I took a trip to Canton, Ohio, for the wedding of a good friend of hers. We had a good time there. This was the first wedding I had been to in a very long time, if ever, that had an open bar. Most of the weddings that I go to have free beer and soda, which is fine, but this one had free mixed drinks as well. While in Canton, I didn't do much sightseeing. Canton is the home of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but I did not go. I do not care enough about football to pay the admission to see whatever they had.

I took this past week off from work for family leave. I get two weeks off that I needed to use in the first six months after Maximus was born and he turns six months old next month, so I needed to get to it. I had a good week with Max. We did go to see a physical therapist on Wednesday because Max has torticollis. He has to return to the physical therapist weekly for a while. In the meantime, we have to get him to look to the left more and tilt his head to the right. He doesn't like it very much when we force him to do this.

Emma's Day

Emma has been acting up a bit lately. She hasn't really been bad, it's just that she hasn't done a good job of listening and doing what we ask her to do. I am not sure if this is just because it's typical three-year-old behavior, or if it's because she feels we have been paying too much attention to Maximus at her expense. Regardless of the reason, we asked Emma what she wanted to do today. She told us that she wanted to go to the zoo. Actually she told Mel that she wanted to go to the zoo. She told me that she wanted to go to the store. She didn't indicate to which store she wanted to go, but we ended up going to the zoo.

We really enjoyed looking at the new African animal exhibit in the Tropics Trail. Emma liked the crocodiles, but she did not want to view the bats. When we got close to the window behind which the bats were located, she quickly decided to get away from there. She also liked the Burmese python. We ended up buying her a 54-inch-long stuffed snake from the gift shop before we left.

Many of the animals at the zoo were much more active than they usually are when we visit. The wolves were running around in their habitat, and the bears were either fighting or playing vigorously. I got some good video and photos of the bears doing whatever it was they were doing, but because of some issues with our computer, I have been unable to get them off the camera onto the computer. When I do get that worked out, I will definitely be posting the video here on my blog.

Emma also had a great time playing in the water on the splash pad fountain on the Central Plaza. She hadn't had the opportunity to do that prior to this visit, but since it was quite warm, and we had spare clothes for her, we decided to let her play. She was a bit apprehensive when she first got near the water, as it was cold, but she started running around and through the water before too long. Getting her to leave was challenging.

We had a great day at the zoo. Hopefully Emma takes a good nap tomorrow as she didn't nap either today nor yesterday. She did sleep all the way home in the car, and she did go to bed an hour early tonight without much complaint. She does still need to nap tomorrow though.

Continuing Weight Watchers

In my second week on Weight Watchers, I managed to lose an additional 3.0 pounds. This makes for a total of 6.8 pounds so far, bringing my weight down to 330.0 pounds. I have just 30.0 more pounds before I reach my goal.

The Quest for a Swing Set

My mother has expressed interest in purchasing a swing set for us for Emma and Maximus to enjoy. We started our search for a swing set at the Kmart in Oakdale as we knew Kmart had them on sale and that was the closest location to our house. Emma picked out the swing set that she wanted and we proceeded to check out. Unfortunately we learned that the store was out of stock of that particular swing set model. After consulting their computer, we were informed that the Kmart in West Saint Paul had that swing set available.

Not knowing how to locate the Kmart in West Saint Paul, I tried entering the address we were given into our TomTom. The TomTom however did not recognize the street name, so I just picked the next closest Kmart that it could find. We ended up at a Kmart in Saint Paul. They too did not have the swing set in stock. This time an employee at the customer service desk actually called a couple other stores to see if they had the swing set we were looking for. The West Saint Paul Kmart, the one we had previously been referred to, did not have any, and neither did another of the closer Kmarts. We then decided to give up our quest for the time being. I hope we are able to locate a swing set, because I am sure Emma would enjoy playing on it.

Robin Hood

Since my mom was in town to visit us and to attend my sister's orchestra concert this weekend, Mel and I decided to take advantage of her as a baby sitter so the two of us could go to dinner and a movie by ourselves. We had a nice dinner at Don Pablo's followed by viewing Robin Hood. We both enjoyed the movie. I do not know how this story compares to what has been written in the past about Robin Hood, but I enjoyed learning of his origin, at least as far as this film was concerned. I suppose I could do a little research, but I am now wondering if Ridley Scott is planning on following this movie with another featuring Russell Crowe as Robin Hood.

My Return to Weight Watchers

Last Wednesday I signed back up with the online program that Weight Watchers offers. In October 2007, my weight was down to around 200 pounds. This is significantly less than the 243 pounds I weighed at the end of May 2004. However, in the past couple years my weight has crept back up significantly. Last Wednesday is was 236.8 pounds. In the last week, following the Weight Watchers program, I managed to lose 3.8 pounds, bringing my weight down to 233.0 pounds this morning. I have quite a bit of work ahead of me before I reach my goal of 200.0 pounds. If I work hard enough at it, hopefully I will be close to my goal by the end of this summer.

My Last Full Day in Philly

Today was my last full day in Philadelphia before returning home from my business trip. We were able to wrap things up a little early today. This gave me the opportunity to do a little sight seeing. I took a cab to the Liberty Bell. After visiting that sight, I wandered around the area for a little while, visiting the tomb of the unknown Revolutionary War soldier, and walking by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia and the United States Mint. Also during this walk, I stopped at the Independence Hall visitor center where I got a free ticket to tour Independence Hall.

At 4:00, I took my tour of Independence Hall. It really isn't much of a tour as there are only two rooms in Independence Hall, the courtroom and the room in which the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution were signed. That's not to say that the tour wasn't worth it. The tour guide did an excellent job describing what happened when the Second Continental Congress met there.

Later this evening, my colleagues and I all went to Misconduct Tavern for dinner. I had some really good homemade macaroni and cheese there. In addition to the variety of cheeses in the mac and cheese, I had them add grilled chicken. It was yummy, and not too much food. Tomorrow morning I have a few things to finish up for work, and then I will be headed to the airport to return to Minnesota.

Whose Cuisine Reigns Supreme?

As I mentioned in yesterday's blog entry, Monday night, after my colleagues and I arrived in Philadelphia for our meeting, we went to dinner at Morimoto, the restaurant of Iron Chef Japanese Masaharu Morimoto. In ordering dinner, I had to choose between ordering a specific item from the menu or omakase, in which the chef prepared a variety of dishes of his choice. Wanting to get the full experience, I had the omakase.

The first course of my dinner was hamachi tartare with fresh wasabi and osetra caviar.

The next course was whitefish carpaccio seared with hot olive and sesame oils, yuzu - citrus soy, finished with shiso, ginger, mitsuba, and chives.

 The third course was sashimi salad, mixed greens, yuzu vinaigrette, shaved bonito.

After the first three courses came the intermezzo, a palate cleanser, almond-spearmint soda.

Fourth came the first of the hot courses, black cod miso with su miso mustard.

The fifth course was pan seared duck breast and foie gras with port wine glazed ginger reduction.

Next came the chef's selection of sushi. I do not recall what they all were but one of them, the one shown on the top left, was tuna, and the sushi at the bottom right was octopus.

The dinner concluded with desert. For desert we were served chocolate strawberry bavaroise and white chocolate shiso mouse.

Each of these dishes was fantastic, and they were all very tasty! I have been trying to pick a favorite of the courses, but such a decision has proved to be impossible. Everything was so flavorful and delectable. I am not likely to return to Moromoto Restaurant any time in the future, so I will savor this visit.

Cheese Steak!

Last night my colleagues and I had dinner at Moromoto Restaurant in Philadelphia. I will be blogging about that, but that will have to wait until I get the menu of what we had to eat back from one of my colleagues. In the meantime, I am going to write about today's meeting and dinner. The meeting which I facilitated today went very well. We made a lot of progress at getting finished what we needed to work on. I am very pleased with what we accomplished.

This evening, a couple of colleagues, a few of our committee members, and I all went to get cheese steak for dinner. I got cheese steak from Geno's Steaks while a couple of the people in our group got their cheese steaks from Pat's King of Steaks across the street. Our cab driver said that he prefers Geno's, which it why I chose that for my dinner. Geno's is the restaurant which was controversial a few years back for having signs up in their windows telling people that this is America, so they should order in English. I was certain to place my order in English as I didn't want to anger the employees. Besides, I wasn't sure how to say "cheese steak" in Klingon. I had my cheese steak with onions and Cheez Whiz. It was good, but I also had a taste of a sandwich from Pat's. I think the meat at Pat's tasted better, but I thought the cheese was better on Geno's. That could be because the steak sandwich from Pat's had provolone instead of Cheez Whiz.

I Dislike Flying

I do not understand why, but I do not particularly care for flying. Oh, I know it's supposedly the safest way to travel, and without flying, it would be a lot less practical to go places that aren't as nearby, and while I wouldn't way that I have a fear of flying, I just can not get over the fact that there is a possibility that the plane will crash. Of course, the probability of that happening is very slim, and it it much more likely that I would get in a car accident if driving a long distance.

Anyway, I had a rather uneventful trip to Philadelphia earlier today. Everything went according to schedule. I even got an entire row to myself on the plane! I have checked into my hotel room at the Embassy Suites, and am currently waiting for my colleagues to arrive so we can figure out what our dinner plans are. This hotel is interesting. Each floor of the hotel is dodecagonal in shape. I have found it to be somewhat confusing finding my room upon exiting the elevator, having to sweep around a whole 360 degrees until I located my room. It might take me until my stay is over before I get a hang of finding my room.

While I am writing about things I dislike, I should also mention that I very much hate heights. Heights don't always bother me. Really the only time I hate heights is when I am not fully enclosed in a structure. For some reason I fear falling over whatever railing there is. I know this fear isn't completely rational, but I seem to get by having it. I did manage to walk up to the railing of the balcony of my nineteenth-floor room, holding my camera over the edge so I could take this photo of a building I have yet to identify. I think I have had enough time on the balcony for the rest of my stay now.

Three Months

Maximus turned three months old this past Friday. It doesn't seem like it's been that long already. Anyway, we took him to the Sears Portrait Studio at the Mall of America yesterday to get some pictures taken of him. They turned out really well. He did a much better job of getting his pictures taken than Emma did when she was his age.

Aaron Doubles Down

For weeks I have seen ads for the latest fast food monstrosity, the Double Down from KFC. And while this creation appears very unhealthy, I have had a strong desire to try it. I am going to resume watching what I eat in an attempt to lose weight once I return home from a business trip, so I figured this was my only opportunity to give this "sandwich" a try. Before I continue, I am not sure if I can really call the Double Down a sandwich, despite the fact that KFC does use that term. In its definition of the word sandwich, Merriam-Webster makes it pretty clear that sandwiches involve bread, something that the Double Down is lacking, unless you consider the breading on the deep-fried chicken breasts to be bread, which I do not.

When I ordered this composite of meats and cheeses for lunch, I actually felt a bit of embarrassment for ordering it. I was worried that the person taking my order would judge me for my willingness to eat this fat-laden conglomeration. I got over that and took the item home, along with my order of potato wedges, and Diet Pepsi. Yes, I ordered a Diet Pepsi with this. Some might think that there was little point in ordering a diet soft drink if I was already planning on subjecting myself to this wad of meat, but I didn't want to add on one hundred more calories than I needed to.

Since this sandwich contains no bread, eating it was somewhat messy. Yes, it did have a paper wrap with which I could hold it, but that only lasted so long. Eventually the amount of remaining chicken was reduced to the point that I had to discard the paper, unless I wanted to eat that as well. If there had been any doubt in my mind about how much fat was in this item, the greasy feeling left on my fingers took care of that. Looking at the Double Down, I was expecting to really like it. After all, I do love chicken breasts, bacon, and cheese. The Double Down did not live up to my expectations however. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't the orgy of flavors that I expected either. It was simply adequate. Now from previous experience, I know that my local KFC isn't one of the best ones out there. We have gotten some less-than-terrific food from them before, but now that I have tried this culinary atrocity, I will never eat one again. Maybe I will try the grilled variety. Okay, I don't think that it necessary either.

While the media would have us think that KFC's Double Down is a crime against humanity, destined to kill us all, nutritionally it isn't really any worse than a lot of what fast food restaurants offer. According to information I have found online, the Double Down has 590 calories and 31 grams of fat. Now if I were counting Weight Watchers points, this would have been about 15 points. I am estimating this number as I do not want to dig out the Weight Watchers points calculator. Besides, I don't think it goes that high. While that is a lot of points, it's hardly record-breaking. In fact, Mel was looking up the points for Dairy Queen Blizzards tonight, and several flavors of large Blizzards have over 30 points.

So let's compare the Double Down with chicken items from other leading fast food restaurants. The Premium Crispy Chicken Club Sandwich from McDonald's has 630 calories and 28 grams of fat. From Burger King, the Tendercrisp Chicken Sandwich has 800 calories and 46 grams of fat. This appears to be significantly less good for the eater than the Double Down, yet it does not seem to garner the same publicity. Finally, let's look into the nutritional information from a chicken sandwich from Hardee's. Their Big Chicken Fillet Sandwich has 710 calories and 38 grams of fat. All three of these sandwiches should be more of a concern than the KFC Double Down. I guess the Double Down's lack of bread gives it the appearance of being more gluttonous than these alternative fast food chicken choices. Now that I have looked up these other sandwiches, I think I may strike them from my future fast food choices as well.

Update (4/22/10 3:37 PM): I may have to reconsider what I said about the calorie and fat count of the Double Down. Here's an article that says KFC has grossly underrepresented these numbers: http://cityrag.com/2010/04/kentucky-fried-bullshit-2/

What Are You Waiting For?

If you haven't yet completed and mailed back your Census 2010 form, do it now! Mailing in your form saves the Census Bureau, and thus taxpayers, a lot of money.