Another sunset

Taken from woodland

Lightbulb overload

We're stocking up on cfl bulbs since they're subsidized. This should last us as long as we own this house.

Fast cars!

Drew plays with his legos.

What's that noise?

My power source

This is the device in my chest. It's bigger than i thought it would be. It feels like it could stop a bullet, which is a bonus. Maybe i can get a whole endoskeleton made of these and fight crime at night.

Clouds

A cool view on my drive this morning.

This is batman

He fights toothpaste.

My greatest accomplishment

I bought Megaman 9 for the Wii, which was looking like a huge form of self torture, as Dan and I couldn't beat a single stage last night. Today, I beat my first boss. I was on top of the world, until the next level kicked my butt so bad i just gave up.

Amy happiness!

I (Amy) just installed the slide out shelf I ordered, which has waited a whole week to be put in place. I am so excited by these things. I put my counter-top appliances on the shelf and voila! I have one more to install, then several more to order for the lower cabinets. My happy factor goes up by so much when my kitchen is organized. Sigh. :)

Courthouse

Jumping

Drew trying to hurt himself.

At Ikea

Dan took our picture. This might be the first picture of the 3 of up together on this blog.

Watching Einsteins

The cut

I still haven't seen underneath, but it still hurts like hell. A little less than on day one, but i'll be happy when it's healed. I have an appointment on monday for a dr to take a look at it.

Clouds

We have a nice sky at the new place.

The salad eating boy

I'm still amazed every time i see this. Amy could get a tiger to eat tofu.

The best get well present ever

On returning to the office, I was greeted by a new 22" widescreen LCD, replacing my old 19" monitor.  My heart welled up with joy.  Actually, I noticed them in other's cubicles on my way to my own, so I had an idea I might be upgraded, but it's still just as special.  It's only 400 more horizontal pixels, but it feels like a lot more real estate.

All is sore

They let me go from the hospital yesterday.  I'm an undying optimist, and I thought I'd be back at work today, but my shoulder is telling me to stay home.  So here I am.  I'm so glad we're mostly moved over here, but as you can see in the background, we have things to be put away.  And that's only a tiny part of it all.  I'd love to have it all put away, but that's just not going to happen for a while.

So, about me.  I'm really sore.  Yesterday, when Amy picked me up from the hospital, we headed around town for a while, picked up Drew, and ran around town for a while.  Big mistake.  Last night, I was dying.  Amy could tell, so she ran down to get the pain meds for me, which I'm hesitant to take, but they do definitely take the edge off.  I've decided to use the sling, which does help support things and minimize the pain.  Today, I'm lounging on the couch with a laptop and checking out the new TV line-up.  Some of the HD stuff actually looks really good, especially the CGI cartoons.  I've flipped between Surf's Up and Ratatouille this morning, and they both look fantastic.

Tomorrow, it's back to work.  I have a presentation to give on some of the stuff I've built this year, so I've gotta hurry up and heal today.  I'm not sure how to hurry these types of things, but I'm doing my best.  

All is well

Rich had his surgery today. It was a surprisingly harrowing time for me. I've been so distracted thanks to the move that I honestly haven't had a whole lot of time to process that Rich was going to be cut open and stuff attached to his heart. That being said, I had my own little catch-up freak out in the half hour before they wheeled him in and I left. All in all, I think I did pretty well.

I managed to keep it under control while I chatted with his electrophysiologist, who would be doing the insertion and the anesthesiologist. They were both very nice and made me feel much more secure that they were capable. The electrophysiologist was pretty frank about the controvery over the situation and the debate over whether a defibrilator is really the way to go. It made me a little sad that ultimately the decision was likely made to pre-empt legal action by putting them in, even though they are likely completely over-kill. It'll be interesting to see how often Rich's actually goes off. We're theorizing that Rich will rarely, like less than once a year, have his engage. In which case, this is kind of crazy. Better safe than sorry, though, esp. where the heart is concerned. 

The surgery ran just under two hours, relatively speedy for a defibrillator insertion. I suspect it had something to do with his age and health. I was tense until I got the word that he was out of surgery. When I got the call, I was on the phone with Jotham...and then someone else called, too. I literally had three phones on with calls on them.

(context)

I just replaced my phone a few days ago and switched services. As a result, my new phone does not contain my contacts. So I don't know who is calling, and until I do, I presume that all calls are important and worth answering. Thus having three phones (the home phone, my cell phone, Rich's cell phone) on all at once.

(/contex)

I was a bit more relaxed afterwards, despite the microwave install guy and the unexpectedly-two-days-early DSL chick. But all of our appliances are now plugged in and work without leaking (I finally fixed the dishwasher with a little twirling of a crescent wrench). It's a relief to Rich that everything is working.

After all the service folks left, having successfully performed their jobs at our house, I heated up a huge chunk of lasagna that I made yesterday, made a PBJ, and cut a large slice of fruit tart and packed it all up to go. Then I picked up Drew from daycare and we went to see Rich and have dinner.

Rich wasn't allowed to eat after midnight, yesterday, so he was hungry when I left him. The nurses promised he'd be fed as soon as he was out of surgery, but my last conversation with Rich at 5, almost two hours after he'd come out of surgery, had a lot of reference to food. We figured hospital food couldn't be that good, so I packed.

My first view of Rich was actually a relief. He was pretty normal looking aside from the multitude of wires sticking out from everywhere and crossing his body on their way to the sensors. He was happy to see us and Drew is always happy to see him. I just took a deep breath and did a little check to make sure he had all his limbs and was intact. And then released.

Rich is just fine. He was finally getting to eat when we arrived. He quickly put aside the not-so-horrible rice pilaf and salmon and downed the lasagna like he hadn't seen food for days. He went all out. It was a double portion as I had expected to share, but hey, he hadn't eaten, so I let him go to town. Drew nibbled on his PBJ and got all excited about the juice and Cheetos I'd brought along. And last, but not least, the fruit tart and fresh strawberries that I'd forgotten to serve up over the weekend to our cavalry.

Drew and I left the hospital and went to Costco to pick up laundry supplies and then to the old house to get a light load of stuff. My drawers that I had ordered were waiting outside the door and between that huge box, laundry stuff and bathroom stuff, the car was full. 

I had my first look at the house post-cavalry and it's eerie how empty the house seems. There's still a lot of random stuff in the house, but it's so empty and lonely, now. It'll be good when I can get all the pieces off the floor and vacuum. It'll be almost like how I found it when I moved in...only slightly improved, what with the carpet cleaning and the renovated bathroom. 

Drew is in bed, now, pretending to try to sleep and I'm about to fall over from exhaustion. The emotional energy caught up to me along with the general physical fatigue from the move. I'm barely upright. To bed. Now.

Laundry!

I finally got these hooked up this morning. I'd bought them used to save some money, but didn't realize the dryer was using a 3 prong connector but the wall socket had 4 holes. Home depot wouldn't sell me an adaptor, i had to install a new wire harness. But they both work now, finally. Now, i relax a few days.

MOVED!

Well, mostly. A huge thanks to Eric, Zelda, Aaron, Julie, baby Evan, Dan, Yon Soon, Gary, Tyler, Ashley, and Allie and baby Jack. Thanks to great friends, we've almost completely gutted the old place and are moved into the new place. That's not to say that everything is where it should be. We have enormous piles of stuff in the entry room, the garage, and our upstairs landing. Every room has piles of stuff that need to be put away in their new homes. But it's a huge relief to have the moving part out of the way. AHHHHH!

Some other good news, I have successfully stolen and re-broadcast the internet to our home, under SSID 'stinkity'. One of Drew's favorite words, describing the lingering odor after breaking wind. So now I'm blogging on a signal I picked up from our own home. Kind of...

I've been using a beater cellphone while moving, so no pictures yet. But things will be back to normal soon enough, and I promise to get back to posting. Maybe a virtual tour once we're semi-moved in, things are kind of embarassing in their current state.

Crunch

Dan came up to help me with the last of the big movement this weekend. He was up last weekend with the moving crew (Aaron, Julie, Zelda, and Eric) to help, too, but came back because Rich wasn't going to be able to move things.

The movement part of things went really well. And then we noticed that his car had been hit! Our new next door neighbors, who were renting from the first of our neighbors we met, had backed into his car, parked all the way across the street!

At least they had bothered to leave a note, in a zip loc bag, too, to keep it dry and legible. It was a dewy morning.

The Cavalry is Coming

I am SO done moving. I can't take it anymore. And with the haphazard way we're doing it so we'll be done this weekend, we'll be unpacking for months. Seriously, MONTHS.

That being said, the cavalry is coming this weekend and I am optimistic that it will simply be done by Sunday night. Have I mentioned how much I love my friends? They are the mostest and bestest most wonderful friends.

My mom is even taking up the cause and catering a Korean dinner for us to be delivered on Saturday so that we won't have to worry about cooking. Which is good since the stove was delivered and just BARELY fit and the gas isn't on yet and it may not work. 

Anyhow, I'm a little wired...and tired...and ready to just unpack in a leisurely fashion. I think Rich and I have realistic expectations that we'll be done by January. And I think that's a good goal.

Customizing electronics

I get a cute splash screen when i start the gps now. I'll have to change it to the hulk for Drew later on.

IT planning update

So, my DSL self-install kit didn't go so well.  I'm supposed to get 3 solid green lights, and I get 2 solid and one blinky light.  Power cycling doesn't work, different phone jacks don't work, and hitting it against the wall doesn't solve anything either.  I called tech support the first night, and they said I should wait until midnight for it to be activated.  The next night, the guy said "yep, sounds like a problem", and they won't have someone out to check the wires until next week.

So, thanks to some ignorant but benevolent neighbor, we have a wifi (this is prounounced "wee-fee" in our household)  signal that I can hook up to via my laptop.  Speeds are even decent, and i get a pretty strong signal.  But connecting my laptop doesn't do much for the rest of the computers.  My next step is to connect a wireless bridge to that network, which I will then plug the VOIP router into, allowing me to use our VOIP stuff, and creating a wireless repeater in our house.  Being that my neighbor obviously likes sharing, by extension, should I leave my repeater network free?  I'm awfully conflicted.  But what I do know is that I'll owe the neighborhood a week of free wifi from our own network once I'm hooked up good and proper myself.  It's really the least I can do.

Wire

Drew's bedroom had about 8 feet of coax cable coming out of the wall. He's not getting tv in his room anytime soon, so I was just going to clip off the cable and replace the cable plate with a blank. Amy suggested I just feed it back into the wall, and problem solved. At least until i walked around the side of the house.

Wacky clothes day

I forgot about the daycare event today, so we ad-libbed something on the spot.

The pile

Someone's gonna have to sort through this mess one day.

Moving Update

It is officially Day Five of The Move. I'd call us maybe 20% moved. Rich was shocked to discover a cache of boxes in the office he hadn't realized was quite so densely packed. On the bright side, the garage is parkably empty, if we bothered to move a few things around. Luckily it's not a particularly high priority, so we'll just keep going. Tomorrow, I'm going to take down my shelves of kichen stuff and move a couple of carfuls of stuff.

Zelda and Eric are coming for a visit this weekend to help us move and paint. Given the current state of things, I suspect it will be more moving than painting, but I've already warned them, and they haven't changed their minds (yet) on coming. We may round up Aaron and Julie on Saturday so we can really get things moving and be done with most of the larger items that require assistance. I'd like to be done with everything by Sunday, but it may not be possible.

Moving with a kid is a very different experience. Drew has been superb. Very helpful and getting quite strong. He's so enthusiastic and so likes to help out that I feel bad when I don't save lighter weight items just for him to take to/from the house. In the larger picture, though, if we can not have to keep an eye on him while moving, things would go much faster. And so, I am envisioning a distraction for him on Saturday, whether it's Julie and the baby or a visit to a friend's house. 

The house feels much larger without all the stuff in it. We'll move and suddenly realize how large the house actually is and that if we could have streamlined our lives, we could have easily lived here. But I won't argue with extra space.

While we're moving, I am going to identify a corner of one room for all the items we are going to sell in some combination of Craigslist, eBay, and Amazon. All proceeds will go into the travel slush fund, so as to give us some incentive to really get rid of stuff. Plus, I'll be scheduling a Salvation Army pickup from the new house about a month after we move in so that they will come get the stuff and we won't have an excuse not to get rid of things.

Anyhow, Rich is home from the last load of the night. Drew's started to be afraid of the dark, which sucks, and keeps waking up. Exhaustion and sleep are pretty compelling right now.

Planning out the new IT environment

So the first thing Amy was concerned with in the new house was "how are we going to configure the kitchen".  My first thought was "what am I going to hook up to the TV",  but an even bigger project is how I'm going to handle the computer network in the new house.

Starting with the internet, I need broadband of some sort, but price is always a factor.  I'm not going to spend ~$50 a month on this.  Luckily, ATT now serves up "naked DSL", meaning DSL without phone service.  We qualify, but not for very much.  The maximum speed is 768k down / 128k up.  Not great if you want to share linux ISO's with nerds across the globe, but fast enough to serve my craigslist addiction.  It's only $20/mo, which is really good (remember paying $20 for 56k?  or 28k?), but a little quicker speed would be nice.  ATT promised they'd let me know when they were ready to take more of my money every month.  $30/mo for a nice 3Mbps service would be a sweet spot.

Phone - I didn't really want a home phone, as we both have cellys now, but Amy works from home occasionally, and will be tied up to the phone upwards of several hours per day.  That eats through a cell plan a little too quickly.  But I didn't want to pay $20/mo for a phone line, I was so excited to get a naked DSL plan.  So first, I looked at Skype, which seemed to be quite a bargain at $3/mo.  But that only lets you call out.  Skype In is like another $6/mo.  Bah, that's too complicated, and I've gotta worry about getting a skype phone on top of that.  Enter T-mobile, with their @home service.  A $10/mo VOIP plan that uses real phones via a router.  It even does QOS (Quality of Service for the non-nerds), which makes the phone work without drops, even when Drew and I are youtubing vintage incredible hulk cartoons.  And it's unlimited minutes per month, which is very hard to run out of.

On to the rest of the network.  We're going to have a roomy dedicated office upstairs, which will house the desktop PC, as well as the upcoming storage array.  I'm hoping to start out with at least a couple of terabyte disks, mirrored to each other, to make sure I don't lose any photos (Amy would kill me), along with other niceties, such as movies and music.  I'll also put the network printer up there.  For now, I'll use a wireless ethernet bridge to network that room to the rest of the house.  

In the living room, I'll put a modded xbox for watching divx movies, and maybe the HTPC project.  Oh, I guess the Wii will live in there, too.  Another wireless bridge for connecting it all to the router.  As for the rest of the house, it will just be our lappity tops, which will just go wireless.  Speaking of wireless, I'll step it up a bit to WPA in the next place.  We were using WEP at the old place and were plenty happy with it, but I know how security guys get about those things, and I don't really want anyone hacking my network in the new neighborhood and stealing my megahurtz and rams.  They're my rams, and they're for me.

Down the road, I'll have the house wired for cat-6, and eventually put a gig switch in somewhere.  It's so cheap, I can't afford not to!  I do remember the days of $300 4-port gig switches, and now that they're going for a song down at Fry's, I might as well.  We'll do network drops to the kitchen, living room, office, and maybe a couple other choice locations.  Wireless is nice, but after we're wired, streaming video to remote locations about the house will actually work stutter-free.  Bliss!

Once I'm all networked out, I'll need a new piece of iron to do my fileserving from.  That's when I wait for a weekend when Eric is up, and we take a trip to Fry's and get a quad-core something-or-other and he talks me into putting Solaris on it and showing me ZFS and its black magic.  I'll have him on speed dial for when I break it.  Which I will.  Daily.  I'm pretty sure he can remote into it and fix stuff from his place.  Even through my firewall.  Even when I'm unplugged.  Those unix guys are tricky.

But before all that, it looks like tonight, we're moving a fridge, maybe a futon, maybe a bedframe.  How can I move furniture and appliances when I've got this on my brain?

Gophers?

Something tore up our neighbor's lawn last night. It looked a little too surface-oriented to be a gopher, though. Maybe rabid squirrels.

Ants

Guess what building these guys are filing into? If you said a poorly maintained public restroom, you're right. Nothing's worse than a dirty toilet seat except one teeming with ants. I took Drew to go over and pee on some plants instead.

The living room

All it needs is a tv, and we can move on to decorating the next room.

All Sorts of Amy Thoughts

1. Dallas

A nice green city. I went to a client kickoff and boy are there a lot of businesses located there. I'd seriously have to contemplate living there if it weren't in Texas. A lush city, moderate temperature, beautiful home neighborhoods. Really nice! And good food. We had some spectacularly yummy BBQ at Sonny Bryan's where the onion rings were superb! And then some surprisingly good Southwestern/TexMex at a place right next to Sonny Bryan's called Via Real. Really good margaritas. I had this crazy tasty pecan pan seared sea bass with pineapple mango sauce and delish mashed potatoes. Hrm. I must be getting hungry.

2. New Phone

I saw a Nokia E71 on my trip to Dallas and it was gorgeous. I mean really, really cool! I've decided that this will be my new phone. Rich was lobbying for the N82, but when I mentioned the E71, he got all excited. Apparently it has phenomenal battery life, which will be a nice change for me, since my current phone has to be charged halfway through the day if I use it a lot.

3. Moving

I hate moving. I HATE moving. Add to that the fact that we have to be done by a week from today and I really hate it even more. That being said, I am really excited about moving, despite hating it. Rich and Drew managed to fill up the garage all by themselves while I was in Dallas. The house cleaners claimed to have cleaned, and well, let's just say I am extremely pissed off at them for failing to achieve anything resembling cleanliness. I've spent the last couple of days cleaning and setting up my kitchen so I can move stuff into it. Sigh. I hate that we paid good money and didn't get even half my money's worth. At least the carpet cleaner was good. Sigh.

Anyhow, there is now a sofa in the family room and a dresser in Drew's room. I'm going to head back over with my craft paper and lay down paper and move boxes from the garage into the living room. And take more boxes from the garage and kitchen. This week is going to be oodles of fun!

4. Drawers

I am currently obsessed with buying pull shelves for the new kichen. I've found a good source that will ship out in 2 days, so maybe I'll have them by the end of the week. Crossing my fingers!

5. Work

My boss effectively told me that I HAD to work overtime for the rest of the month to help out a colleague whose project has gotten out of control and is in deep doodoo. I would have done it voluntarily, since I like that colleague a lot. But being forced, at a time like this, when we'll be moving every evening and a week from Monday is Rich's defibrulator insertion and it's not like I'm going to be stressed out or anything. But geez, the way my boss handled it. Sigh. I'm not happy and when I'm not happy, well...I get a little touchy. So it should be an interesting couple of weeks.

6. The End

I have to get moving, now, literally, so that's a wrap!

 

Ouch!

In my excitement while mowing the lawn, I gave myself quite a blister.

Extreme lawnmowing

I gave up on the weedeater and just tackled the yard with the mower. I went into a sort of landscaper's berserker rage. The results were pretty good.

Tackling the backyard

The weedeater was being difficult. And it was maybe too much weed for the little guy to handle.

Practicing for Halloween

But after studying his anatomy in the mirror, he told Amy that the hulk has boobs.

Ice cream

After moving, we shared an ice cream. Drew's version of sharing meant holding the cup very close to himself and guarding it with his life.

Loaded up

Drew and I are ready to make a delivery to the new house.

Bed hog

He came up in the middle of the night, telling me he was sacred of the dark. Then he falls asleep sideways across all the pillows.

Riding in the truck

He was so excited, you'd think he was on a ride at Disneyland. Only greasier.

Temporary friends

As soon as we ran out of bread, they were gone.

Texan Food

I had to go to Dallas for a few days of work. In that time, I was determined to go to at least one BBQ place. At the hotel, I asked around and accidentally started a big discussion about the best BBQ in the area. After some debate, we were referred to Sonny Bryan's, which had a location fairly close by.

I went with Donna and Marie, who were great sports about being dragged off to Texas style BBQ. Craig was having none of that and opted out of our BBQ-a-thon.

At Sonny Bryan's, they had a respectable selection. We all opted for different things. I got the ribs with a side of onion rings. Their buttered rolls were delectably light and fluffy while not entirely drowning in butter. We were especially impressed with the onion rings. They were HUGE, but light in texture and not greasy at all. Excellent specimens of onion ring-y-ness.



We all enjoyed our dinners but then realized that they had cobbler! So we shared a peach cobbler a la mode. It too was an excellent example of good simple food. The cobbler was not complete mush and the topping was crisp. The vanilla ice cream was good but unremarkable.



The next night, we managed to go somewhere really good, Via Real, where we talked Craig into joining us for dinner. I had the macadamia nut encrusted scallops which were delicious. The margaritas weren't bad either.

The truck

My first moving adventure was last night. I picked up a dishwasher in Rancho Cordova and an upright freezer in Citrus Heights. I wish I had video of me unloading the freezer by myself. I still don't know how i pulled that off.

We're homeowners!

Title recorded today, time to move. Anyone want to help? :)

What's wrong with Rich?

Let me break it down for everyone reading the blog not entirely up to date with what's going on with me. I'm not sick, and I'm not dying. But here is why I keep ending up in the hospital.
Since I was a teenager, I've been having these 'episodes' where I get tightness in my chest. It's kind of like when you've eaten a lot of dry food (like mashed potatoes) and don't drink water. It's uncomfortable, and usually happens when I am relaxing, not very often when I'm active. The episodes will last 20 - 30 minutes, then pass, and I'll be fine again. I'll usually just sit it out until the feeling passes. I never thought it was heart related, just a digestive anomaly that plagues me every few months. And I've never bothered to do anything about it.
On Amy's insistence, I made an appointment to see a Dr about this, maybe back in March or April. I called on my way into work, thinking I'd get an appointment later that week, or maybe the next week, and the Dr asked me to come in that morning. So I did. One of the first things he did was to run a EKG test on me, which is a computer with a bunch of sticky pads that connect to your chest and extremities. He got really worried when he saw one of the graphs, which looked like I'd had a heart attack.

Now, I've never been able to get too worried about any of this, because I feel fine, and I've always been generally healthy. But the Dr's were getting crazy about this. Since my normal office didn't have cardiology offices, I was referred to another office that did. I went to an appointment there, and they ran several tests on me, which included me running on a treadmill with EKG leads attached to me, and me drinking nuclear juice and sitting under a 10-ton imaging machine that took pictures of my heart. The technicians kept noting that I was the youngest person they'd seen in those facilities in some time, and how well I did on the treadmill test. I'm not in great shape, but I can certainly run on a treadmill for 10 minutes with no issues.
Those tests ended up being inconclusive. My treadmill test came out with great results - my circulatory system is working great, and I get excellent oxygenation in my blood, but there was still that EKG reading. As far as the imaging, it showed a slight bulge in one of my heart chambers, but nothing to indicate heart damage or any reason why my EKG's could be so strange. One cardiologist mentioned that my EKG readings were characteristic of Brugada Syndrome, also known as Sudden Death Syndrome. It means that some people's hearts suddenly stop and they die. Wonderful.
My normal hospital network didn't have facilities to further test this theory, so I had to be referred to another, which ended up being very nice. They first ran something called a Procainamide Challenge Test, which checks for certain electrical systems in the heart. I still had inconclusive tests, so they had to run a pretty serious test on me - an Electrophysiology Study (EP Study).
The EP Study wasn't fun, and was actually the first thing that slightly concerned me. Wires would be inserted directly into my heart, via the femoral vein. Then they'd record and pulse signals to my heart to measure the response. There was a chance that they could cause my heart to stop, but they'd have shockers hooked up to me in case they did. I checked into the hospital last week to have this done, and maybe the worst part of the test was the hunger. I couldn't eat anything all day, and I only had a light dinner the night before. They kept pushing the procedure back, from 1 to 3 to 5, then finally 7pm, at which I was pretty hungry. They lied me on a table and shaved me (how embarassing) in the crotchal region, then numbed me up, and inserted the wires. I could see the wires travelling up my body on the x-ray display above me. Very surreal.
The test was a very strange experience. They told me they kept giving me medication that would make me happy, indifferent to what was happening, and would make me forget the experience. I didn't experience any of these. While the procedure didn't hurt much, I did feel what they were doing to me. I'd watch my pulse rapidly accelerate on the monitors, then go back to normal. At one point, I told the nurse that I felt something very strange, then black. I'd passed out. I found out later that my heart had gone into fibrillation, and I'd passed out due to the lack of blood to my brain. They shocked me with 2 very large defibrillator patches, applied to my chest and back, and told me it was actually a pretty significant amount of electricity. Even today, 4 days later, I still have red marks from where those pads were on me. I'm not sure if it was due to the burn or my skin's sensitivity to the epoxy. I remember waking up with a start, wondering why I was in bed without Amy. Then it came back. They told me the test result had been 'positive' and explained what happened. They took the wires out of me, and wheeled me up to a recovery room. It was midnight before Amy could finally take me home, she and Drew kept me entertained for my last 2 hours at the hospital.
Right now, my crotchal area is severely bruised at the insertion point. It's a mix of greens, blues, and purples. A picture would probably be in poor taste.

Today, I scheduled my next appointment - the installation of an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator.  I held one in my hand that looked nearly like the picture, it's about the size of a thick silver dollar.  They told me I have the option of getting it implanted just under the skin or below the muscle, so I'm opting for the under muscle option, just so it will be less conspicuous.  It's very strange to think I'm going to have this in my body, but it's probably for the best, and will give my heart bionic anti-fibrillative powers, which makes me less prone to death than your average person. I'm scheduled to have it implanted on Sept 22, which gives me two free weekends to get stuff moved into the new house before I go disabled.
It should be noted that the diagnosis of Brugada Syndrome doesn't really mean I have anything other than a funny EKG reading, which might just be an anomaly of my body. Brugada Syndrome is still something new, and even my electrocardiologist thinks that Dr Brugada, who it is named for, is a bit quick to lump cases similar to mine under this heading. Still, this is a preventative measure, and should ensure that I will be alive and kicking, well into my 120's.

New jammers

We've been on a pajama buying kick, as they're super cheap at costco and Drew has finally started growing.

Movie Review: Babylon AD

This weekend, Amy and I took the chance to see a movie. We don't do it very often, so it was kind of a cool treat to ourselves. We had a hard time deciding what to see. We were skimming through the listings for what was playing at each of the theaters around town, and Amy expressed some interest in Babylon AD, the new Vin Diesel flick. I wanted to see Dark Knight in theaters, but we knew we'd eventually be getting that on blu-ray, and Amy didn't want to see a 2.5 hr long movie, so we wrote it off. We both like most of Vin Diesel's movies for what they are, so we decided to go for it. It should be noted that I'd looked up the rottentomatoes score and found it to be a paltry 7%, but that's mostly by granola eating critics that think if it didn't show at Sundance, it's not worth watching. Right?

We'll start off with the theater. There were like 3 or 4 people in the theater as we went in to see the movie. That's pretty cool, I hate a packed theater. And we'd smuggled in a couple of cold drinks, which also makes the movie experience a bit better. No snackies, but we'd just munched down on a wedge of some pretty good cheese with toasted cracker biscuits, so we were feeling good. Really, we were in a good movie-watching zone.

Too bad the movie was crap. There were lots of shooting sequences and explosions, but the utterly stupid story couldn't carry things past that. Nothing was explained to the point of anyone's satisfaction, not that it would have made things any better. Crappity crap crap. Don't see this, don't rent it, and when it shows up as a B movie on cable next month between re-runs of MASH, change channels. When it was over, as the 6 people in the theater stood up to leave, everyone groaned to their friends how horrible the movie was, and how much they regretted going.

Since I can't even write a proper movie review, maybe I'll leave it to the experts.
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/38119

Afterwards, we had king crab and tri-tip steaks for dinner. I also decided that I might be allergic to wine, which sucks, but I'm not in much of a hurry to see an allergist at this point. At least the dinner was good. And we also watched National Treasure (the first one) this weekend on Netflix, which was a modern masterpiece in comparison.

Julie and Evan

He was being insanely cute our entire visit.

My garden buddy

He won't last long, so i had to take a picture of him.

Looking in a window

We were light shopping in a closed store.

Smoke

Something's on fire. Hope it's not our house!

Snow cone

Drew enjoys a treat at Amy's company picnic.