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!

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.

Cedar Rapids

Mel, the kids, and I spent this past weekend in Iowa. It was the fifth consecutive weekend I was in Iowa, and fortunately it will be the last for a while. The driving is getting to be a bit much, and travel with two kids under the age of four can be challenging. On this trip, we visited a friend and former coworker of Mel's, Penny. Spending time with Penny and her son really made Mel want to be living back in Cedar Rapids, preferably in a house across the street from Penny. I admit that, while I do like living in the Twin Cities, I would gladly move back to eastern Iowa if we had the opportunity.

While Mel didn't really care for Cedar Rapids all that much when we lived there, after moving to Minnesota, she attributes her dislike for the town mainly on the fact that she did not like her job. So, the main obstacle to moving back to Cedar Rapids would be Mel finding a job she thinks she'll like there which pays enough. One other thing standing in the way would be being able to sell our house in Minnesota.

I still enjoy the benefits that working from home full time has to offer, but I would not mind giving them up to return to the office in which I worked in Iowa City. That is one nice thing about keeping the job I had when we were living in Iowa. If we were to move back, or even somewhere else in the country, I would not need to find new employment.

I do not want to get the hopes up of any of my Iowa friends and family by making you think this blog posting is an indication that we will be returning to Iowa in the near future. It is possible that we could move back within a year, but it is also just as likely that we will stay where we currently are for many more years. Of course, if we do decide to make the move back to the City of Five Seasons, you will be able to read about it here.

Missing Severe Weather

Okay, maybe this sounds wrong, but I really miss severe weather. Oh, I do not miss the property damage and loss of life that can come with severe thunderstorms and tornadoes, but I miss seeing such weather. In general, the thunderstorms here where I live now in Minnesota seem so boring. Sure, there is an occasional thunderstorm worth watching, but for the most part, the storms here are very weak. On the other hand, the storms I experienced in eastern Iowa were much more worthy of attention, and fun to watch. Here's a storm a recorded from my front door in Cedar Rapids in July 2007.

To Friend, Or Not To Friend

I have a bit of a dilemma that I am dealing with. Okay, maybe calling it a dilemma is a bit of an overstatement, but I have an issue with which I am dealing nonetheless. Should I be friends with my manager at work on Facebook? Here is some background on this issue. A while back, I became friends with one of my coworkers who had about the same position with the company that I had. This is a coworker whom I have never actually met, since we have three offices in two states, as well as several employees, including myself, who work completely offsite. We do seem to have a lot in common however, so I have enjoyed viewing his activity on Facebook, and he has made several comments on my activity. Several months after we became friends on Facebook, he was promoted at work and soon after that he became the person to whom I report for general work-related things. Perhaps this is really a non-issue as I can easily modify my Facebook privacy settings on a case-by-case basis to exclude him from seeing anything I wish to keep from my manager. However, any input my readers have would be greatly appreciated.

Happy Easter!

I hope all of my readers have a happy Easter. Here's a picture of Emma with the Easter Bunny at the Minnesota Zoo yesterday.

Farm Babies!

During the month of April, the Minnesota Zoo is featuring farm animal babies at the Wells Fargo Family Farm. As we had nothing else planned for today, we decided to go to the zoo to check them, and the other animals, out. This was Max's first trip to the zoo, however he ended up sleeping through most of it. At just ten weeks of age though, he probably wouldn't have gotten much out of the experience even if he had been awake. Emma had a great time though. She was a bit apprehensive about looking at the bears. For some reason she has been having bad dreams about bears roaming around outside the house. These often coincide with when they sing the bear hunt song at daycare. On our way to the zoo, Mel told Emma that the bears couldn't get her because they'd be locked up in a cage. Emma did eventually go up to the glass to see the bears, and she did enjoy watching them swim. As we looked at other animals at the zoo, Emma just kept wanting to move along to the next animal. She continued to do that until we got to the prairie dogs. She just wanted to keep looking and looking at them. Prairie dogs must be one of her favorite animals.

When we got to the farm area of the zoo, Emma at first did not want to pet any of the animals, but when we got around to where the goats were, she decided that she did want to feed them. Fortunately Mel had a couple of quarters in her wallet, so we were able to buy a handful of food for the goats. Emma had a great time feeding the goats. I thought she might not like the goats licking her hand, but she did not mind it one bit. In fact, once the food was gone, she wanted to get some more to continue feeding the goats.

After viewing the farm animals, we had our lunch and then went through the Tropics Trail portion of the zoo. It was very crowded there this afternoon, and the animals were especially active. We had a good time watching one of the gibbons swinging through the trees. I don't think I have seen a gibbon that active at the zoo in a while. Of course, the last time I was at the zoo, the gibbons were not on display. I am looking forward to the new animals they are adding to the Tropics Trail this summer. Emma is especially looking forward to seeing the crocodiles!

Grammar at the Grocery

Thank you "Weird Al" Yankovic for making this grammar correction at your grocery store. I hope everyone takes your lead and starts correcting all such signs they encounter.

Back In Cedar Rapids

Jeremy, a good friend of mine we were in junior high school, was getting married this weekend in Cedar Rapids, so for the third weekend in a row, we all spent the weekend in Iowa. We had long ago decided that we did not want to find ourselves encumbered by a three-year-old and a two-month-old while we were at the wedding and the reception following it, so we dropped Max and Emma off with Mel's aunt and uncle in Robbins before proceeding to the wedding. The ceremony was very nice, and we had a great time at the reception. It was great to see many friends whom I hadn't seen for quite some time. While we are all in contact with each other on Facebook, it was nice to see them all in person.

On Sunday, we picked the kids up and went to my grandma's house in Keystone, Iowa. She had met Max for the first time two weekends ago when we were in Waterloo for Emma's birthday, but we thought it would be nice to visit with her in a much smaller setting. After our visit with Grandma, we headed back for home.

Our trip home went fairly well until we stopped for dinner. After that we had a problem with Emma constantly saying that she had to go to the bathroom. That last stretch of our drive home, from Rochester to Cottage Grove, took way longer than it should have. It will be nice once both kids have better control of their bodily functions.

Happy Birthday

Today was Mel's birthday. Before doing anything for her birthday this evening though, we took Emma to the doctor for her three-year check-up. Emma is growing just fine. She is 39.5 inches tall, which places her at the 95th percentile for height. She is definitely going to be tall!

After the doctor appointment, we all went to El Loro in Eagan for dinner. Mel was going to have a large margarita and I was going to have a smaller one. Thinking that she may end up buying a second margarita later, I thought we should order a pitcher of margaritas. As I was driving, I didn't get to drink to much of it, and not wanting to waste a drop of margarita, Mel ended up drinking the vast majority of the pitcher's contents. We had a really good dinner, but Emma did not seem to interested in the food which she had ordered. She did like eating my rice, so maybe next time we go to El Loro, we should just get a side dish of rice for Emma. Sure, it's not a well balanced meal, but she gets plenty of nutrients throughout the day.

When we returned home from dinner, Mel opened her birthday presents which included a Minnesota Twins T-shirt, the DVD of New Moon, and Buckyballs which I had purchased with the gift certificate I had won from ThinkGeek.com.  We then rounded out the evening with some cake, which I baked, and ice cream.

A Visit to the Doctor

We took Max to his two-month doctor appointment today. There we learned that he weighs 12 pounds 14 ounces and is 24.25 inches long. These measurements place him at the 75th percentile for both weight and length. Max is going to be one big boy. The doctor told us that he is quite healthy. We did mention to her that Max seems to have a problem digesting his formula as evidenced by the consistency of his dirty diapers. She suggested that we switch his formula from Similac Advance to Similar Sensitive RS. It will take us a few days before we know if this formula is working better for him, but just this afternoon, he appeared to have an easier time consuming it. He drank more before stopping to burp. This was all really good especially since he was very unhappy this afternoon, probably because of the three vaccination shots he received. By this evening though, Max calmed down quite a bit.

Putting Maximus to Bed

On Friday night, Mel decided that we should start trying to put Maximus to bed before he is asleep, allowing him to fall asleep on his own in his crib. Previously we had been holding him until he was sleeping, then we would place him in bed. Mel had read that between six and twelve weeks of age is a good time to start this. With Emma, we did not try to get her to go to sleep on her own until she was one year old. That resulted in several nights of lots of screaming. That is something that we would like to avoid if possible Well, it took just under an hour for Max to go to sleep the first night we tried this. He didn't scream at all, but he did make some noises, and we went in to check on him several times. Both Saturday and Sunday nights, as well as tonight, went even better. I think it only took him about ten minutes tonight to be sleeping. It might help that he has suddenly started eating more; yesterday and today he began eating five to six ounces of formula at a time, up from four to five ounces. Now if he would just sleep through the night, things would be even better.

Birthday Party

We went to Waterloo, Iowa, yesterday for Emma's birthday party. She shared a party with her cousins David and Benjamin, both of whom have birthdays either this month or next. While it made for a long day, driving to Waterloo and back in one day, we had a good time. Emma really had a great time. She got quite a few presents, and seemed to like them all. She even liked the clothes she got. When we told her that she needed to try them on tonight, she couldn't get to it soon enough. It is good that she got some new clothes, because she was lacking on summer clothes that fit her still. We gave her several T-shirts on her birthday, and yesterday she ended up getting quite a few pairs of shorts.

3

Today was the third anniversary of Emma's birth. I still remember receiving a phone call at work from Mel on this day three years ago telling me that her doctor had told her to go to the hospital. Since it was still a couple of weeks early, I was sure that it was nothing and that Mel would be going home from the hospital that day. I even told my coworkers that I expected to be back at work the next day. How wrong I was. Mel's water had broken and Emma was breach, so they delivered Emma that afternoon.

Today was, of course, much less eventful than that day. Emma did have a good birthday. Mel asked her if she wanted anything special for breakfast, giving her the option of McDonald's or doughnuts. Emma decided that she wanted a doughnut, one with sprinkles. The doughnut always has to have sprinkles. After breakfast, Emma opened her presents from us. We got her a Memory game, a pink soccer ball, and five T-shirts. It was good that we got her some T-shirts as we had her try on all of her short-sleeved T-shirts this morning and discovered that she had outgrown most of them. While we didn't have McDonald's for breakfast, we did have it for lunch as, after she said that all she wanted for breakfast was a bowl of cereal with milk, Emma decided that she wanted chicken nuggets, apples, chocolate milk, and a toy. So off to McDonald's we went to get lunch.

Emma took a really good nap after lunch. Then this evening we got the chicken alfredo pasta from Pizza Hut, one of Emma's favorites. She really likes pasta. I think she would eat noodles every day if we let her. She then blew out the candle on her birthday cupcake. We are having a larger birthday party tomorrow, so we decided just to have cupcakes and Dairy Queen ice cream tonight. After desert, it was bath time, followed by bedtime. For some reason this evening, Emma just started saying "X-wing fighter" over and over, so for her bedtime story, I located my Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back pop-up book from the basement and I read that to her. She really enjoyed it. She especially liked pulling the tabs in the book. Remarkably, the book is still in really good condition. Only one of the pop-up features does not work. Now Emma just needs to go to sleep, she's been in bed for quite a while, but she seems to be resisting sleep. We have to get up early tomorrow morning to head to Iowa for a birthday party with our relatives, so she better sleep soon, otherwise she is likely to be cranky tomorrow.

Sweet Child O' Mine

I can not believe that Maximus, who is not yet two months old, is already wearing 6-to-12-month clothes, some of which are already too small for him. The Onesie that Max was wearing today fits around his shoulders and chest, but it is lacking in length. Max is definitely going to be a tall kid. Finding clothes for him is going to prove to be challenging. I've seen some devices for extending the length of Onesies. Hopefully that will work, but I need to remember where I've seen them.

Census 2010

We got our 2010 Census form in the mail today. I am not sure why some people, like my neighboring congressional district's representative, Michele Bachmann, are so concerned about it. There were very few questions, and except for the question about whether we own our home outright or have a mortgage on it, none of the questions were overly probing. It took Mel less than ten minutes to fill out the form. It's now ready to go back to be tabulated.

Trip to Cedar Rapids

Last weekend Mel had a bridal shower to go to in western Iowa. She took Max with her so her bride-to-be friend could see him. This gave me a great opportunity to go to Cedar Rapids to visit friends who I hadn't seen in about a year. I took Emma to my mom's house in Waterloo on my way to Cedar Rapids. There I stayed with my friend Bill. The two of us went out to eat Friday night to Metro Buffet. The food was pretty good, although I still thin it was better several years ago.

Saturday morning, Bill and I drove around Cedar Rapids, seeing the sights. We even went to Westdale Mall. Surprisingly the mall was quite busy. There was some charity walk going on in the mall. If that were not the case, I would guess that the mall would have been dead as it still seems to be less than half occupied.

Saturday evening, Bill and I got together with our friends Jeremy and Jason. Jeremy is getting married in a couple of weekends, so we had a bachelor party of sorts. This entailed us driving to Coralville where we had dinner at Old Chicago. This was followed by miniature golf at Colonial Lanes in Iowa City and pool at Gus' in North Liberty. The whole evening was over before 10:00 when we headed back to Cedar Rapids. Some of us are just too old to hang out very late these days.

I left Cedar Rapids to get Emma from my mom around noon. Emma and I then headed home.

Dishwasher Update

Here's an update on our new dishwasher. We were the repairman's first stop Friday morning. Upon looking at the dishwasher, he discovered that the installers who had been here two days prior neglected to install the check valve when installing the dishwasher. The water line also had a kink in it. He easily solved these two issues, giving us a fully functional dishwasher!

Disappointment

This afternoon, after lunch, I started our new dishwasher out on its inaugural run. After the dishwasher beeped to indicate that it was done, Mel opened it to put the dishes away. The first couple of dishes she pulled out were still dirty. We both attributed this to how the dishes were loaded into the washer. We both assumed that I didn't rinse them enough or that they were too close together. Upon removing even more dishes from the dishwasher, Mel discovered that none of them were clean. Once all of the dishes were taken out of the dishwasher, Mel noticed that the dish-washing detergent was pooled up at the bottom of the dishwasher, below the door from which it was dispensed. All of this gave us the impression that no water actually ran through the dishwasher when it was supposed to be washing the dishes. I called the Sears installation and maintenance number to see about getting our dishwasher working. After being on the phone for nearly forty minutes, we now have an appointment for someone to come out and look at the dishwasher between 8:00 and noon tomorrow. I was planning on leaving town at noon tomorrow. I hope this repair does not delay my departure.

A Functioning Dishwasher

If you have been a regular reader of my blog for the past year, you may recall that on April 10, 2009, I broke our dishwasher by tripping over the open door in the dark of the night. The dishwasher had never really worked too well, so we did not want to invest any money in repairing the door so that it wouldn't leak. Instead we simply stopped using the dishwasher, and washed dishes by hand since then. We had considered buying a new dishwasher but when I learned that the government would be having a rebate program for purchasing Energy Star appliances, I decided that we should hold off on buying a new dishwasher until we could get the rebate.

Last Monday the state of Minnesota opened up its appliance rebate program. The website and phone lines were both down for most of the day, but in the afternoon, I was finally able to get through on the website and register for a $150 dishwasher rebate. I consider myself to be pretty lucky as all the alloted rebate funds had been reserved by 9:00 the next morning. So Saturday, after attending a birthday party for one of our nephews, Mel and I bought a new GE dishwasher from the Sears appliance store in Woodbury. The salesman who worked with us, who from our conversation I gathered to be a high school senior, was very helpful and did a fantastic job. This afternoon the dishwasher was delivered and installed. We didn't bother to wash our lunch dishes today in anticipation of the dishwasher's arrival. I can not wait to get it fully loaded so we can give it a proper test run.

New Roof

When we bought our house in 2008, we knew that we would have to replace the roof sooner than later. It had some damage, probably from a hail storm. However since the house was owned by a bank, having been repossessed from its previous owner, the roof had never been repaired. A few weeks ago we got an estimate for repairing the roof that we thought we could manage, so we decided to go ahead with the repairs. Having people banging around on the roof all day made it a little harder than usual to get my work done, but I did get everything done that needed to be done today. I am definitely glad that this major repair is done. That is one less thing to worry about for the next twenty-five years.

A Raise

Yesterday I received a phone call from my manager at work informing me that I am getting a raise. I was expecting one, although I wasn't expecting much of a raise as I had told that raises this year would likely be modest. I was surprised to get a bigger raise than I expected. Today I also found out that I will be getting a bonus this coming Friday. All this extra money will definitely come in handy, especially with having a relatively new baby at home. The raise and bonus are nice, however I am coming to the realization that being a full-time work-from-home employee is probably hurting my prospects of getting promoted at work. Perhaps I should talk to my manager about the possibility of being the lead on a project. That would help in getting promoted, but I do not know if that will happen. I do not suppose it will hurt to ask.

Photos

Last night we went to the Sears Portrait Studio at the Mall of America to get Emma's picture taken in advance of her third birthday in two weeks. We had been very pleased with our experience there last year when we had pictures taken. The photographer last year was very understanding when Emma didn't completely cooperate when we first went in, allowing us to come back a couple of days later to get more pictures taken. This time, Emma did much better at listening to the photographer, looking at the camera, and smiling. Our entire session took very little time, and we were once again quite pleased with the photos. I especially like that they include rights to reproduce photos on the CD which we purchased with our portrait package so we can make additional prints ourself. Looking at the portrait CD this morning, I did notice however that they did not include the enhanced portraits on it as they did last year. Those would have been nice to have on the CD to make additional prints of, but I suppose I can always add borders and change the tone of the portraits we do have, myself. Regardless, we certainly will be returning to the Sears Portrait Studio next month to get photos of Max taken when he is three months old.

ThinkGeek Action Shot of the Month

I know it's been a long time since I have blogged, but I have been quite busy with both work and home life. I also haven't had much to write about lately. I do have some news to share now however. A few weeks ago I submitted to ThinkGeek.com this photo of me wearing my geek T-shirt holding Maximus moments after he was born. Last week I was notified by ThinkGeek that my photo was their action shot of the month! Not only did this come with the honor of having the photo in their monthly newsletter email, but it also came with the award of a $100 ThinkGeek gift certificate! I bought a few things last week. I got s a T-shirt for Emma and a Monty Python killer rabbit plush for Max. I have yet to buy anything for myself though. There are a few things I am thinking about buying, but they are all out of stock at the moment. Hopefully when the items I want are in stock, ThinkGeek will be having a sale that I can take advantage of, getting even more benefit out of my prize.