Month: February 2009

The Yang and the Um Day

EyeFirst off, I have to admit I am currently on a major sugar high.  My wife and I tried out the new ice cream establishment in Peoria Heights – the previous home of delicious Spotted Cow.  Unfortunately, I cannot remember the name of the establishment (two uncommon names), but apparently it is a small ice cream boutique chain out of Boston.  We both decided to splurge and get the dipped waffle cones.  Linda chose the nestle crunch with cake batter ice cream and I went with the dark chocolate cone with seriously chocolate ice cream flavor.  Wow, that was tasty.  Needless to say, my sugar level is through the roof, but it was totally worth it.  A tad expensive, but we both agreed it was far better than our previous favorite Cold Stone.

On to the topic of the day.  Yesterday morning I had my one year check up on my LASIK surgery.  Nothing like an 8:25am appointment on a cold, snowy and windy Saturday morning to get the day started.  Being that early, I figured there would only be few people there and I’d be in and out quickly.  I was totally shocked when I entered the building and there was a line of people waiting to get checked in.  Faster than expected, I made it up to the counter and noticed once again a large number of flowers behind the desk.  Every single time I have had an appointment, there have been a large number of wrapped up flowers with various names on it.  First thought was there must be a large number of birthdays or possibly births or the doctors were extremely appreciative of their helpers.  After validating all my insurance information, I proceeded to the waiting area where about 30 people were sitting.  Somewhat stunned, I took a seat in the socially acceptable location – translated, maximized distance from existing customers, much like the bathroom principle with the exception you are still allowed to talk to people and make eye contact.  Pondering the situation, it clicked that Fridays were a primary LASIK surgery day and they always had a followup the day after.  This gave and explanation to the large number of people.  My name was eventually called and the nurse began verifying my vision.  She started asking me if I was taking my steroid and anti-inflammatory drops and how everything was going.  This was not processing correctly so mentioned that I stopped taking the drops over a year ago which resulted in a strange look.  Remembering the deduction in the waiting room, I mentioned that I was in for my 1 year checkup.  With that cleared up, she took down all my powers (dual eye 20/15) and moved me to another room to get checked out by my doctor.  Good News!  Everything is fine and the eye healed up perfectly.  Definitely one of the best decisions I’ve made in a long time.

Another quandary was resolved at the checkout desk.  An older lady was completing her exit papers ahead of me and trying to plan her next followup a few days later.  Guessing with the fact she was not wearing any glasses and needed such a quick followup, the assumption was she just had cataract surgery (too old for LASIK) and was in for her post-surgery followup.  As she was getting ready to go, the receptionist handed her one of the flowers (with her name on it) and said it was a gift from her doctor.  That made a lot more sense than my original thought.  What a nice thing to do, it is relatively cheap compared to the cost of the surgery and it sure made the lady very happy.  Kudos to the doctor for a very nice touch.

But life is based on the Yang and the Um (for the non-Koreans, the Ying and the Yang).  The dualism of life; the good and the bad, sweet and the sour, life and death.  It is this constant opposition that keeps us grounded (morality) and leads to our character definition.  I came home from the appointment elated that my surgery was a complete success.  Later that day, there was a large crack against our great room window.  Typically this indicates a bird had just realized the concept of glass.  I didn’t think much of it since this tends to happen 2 or 3 times a week usually leaving the bird somewhat stunned, but able to fly off once the webs clear.  About an hour later I happened to look out the window and saw a beautiful cardinal sitting under our porch furniture below our large picture windows.  He looked alert, but was just sitting there opening and closing his beak.  It was still pretty cold out and the wind was gusting causing him to continually adjust his balance.  I pondered the situation for a few minutes while observing the bird.  Typically, if the birds don’t initially break their necks, they are able to recover and fly off.  Rarely do their wings get seriously injured since the impact is typically on the beak/head.  But this bird was alert, but wasn’t really moving that much other than adjusting to keep from being blown over.  It didn’t appear any sound was coming out of his beak movements but it was a steady opening and closing motion.  I could try to shield him from the wind or possibly get a box and move him to the basement until he recovered, but eventually decided to let it be hoping he would pull through.  If he was seriously injured, there was nothing I could anyway.  I also didn’t know what the laws were pertaining to a state bird (other than I think they are protected in some manner).  Going on with my daily tasks, eventually the situation left my thoughts.  I checked to see if the bird was still there later in the night and I am sorry to report, the little guy didn’t make it.  He had succumbed to the cold so he must have badly injured himself.  Yes, it was just a bird, but it did trigger memories from the teachings in the dojo.  The happiness of clarified sight in the morning paired with the reality of death in the evening.  The good news is one of the local farm cats will find a special treat when the show up to get out of the cold.

Life is a circle (see the pupil)

Physical Therapy Causes a Pain in the Rear

Back in May of 2008, I was playing third in my softball league when a high fly ball headed to my right.  I spent a lot of energy to chase the foul ball down and had finally made it to the down trajectory when the umpire called it out of play (past the benches).  Frustrated at having spent a significant amount of energy for nothing, I simply took my left arm and swiped it underhand across my body and snatched it out of the air as the ball came down in front of me.  What I was not expecting was the loud pop that came from my left shoulder.  Although it sounded bad, it did not seem to impair my motion at the time so I continued playing the rest of the game.  In the weeks that followed, my shoulder started to flare up every time I raised my arm past shoulder height or extended my forearm greater than 10 degrees from my side.  Having had my right shoulder rebuilt already I was familiar with rotator cuff tears, but it did not feel the same.  I continued to give it time to heal and finally gave up last January and went to a local sports injury/medicine center.  Unfortunately, I’ve been there several times for my other shoulder, both my inside knee medials, multiple hand fractures and a broken elbow – yes, all sports injuries .. sigh.  After my MRI it was decided I did not have a tear, but rather an impingement.  This resulted in my first Cortisone shot (NEVER EVER AGAIN!) and a series of therapy appointments to strengthen the area around the rotator cuff.

Due to work, my sessions were at 7:00am.  On the second to last day I was looking for something in my truck and noticed my insurance card was just thrown in the glove compartment so I took the time to put it in my standard place in case I needed to retrieve it someday.  As I pulled into the patient parking lot, I noticed it was again completely empty, but a beer bottle was sitting in my preferred parking place.  Preferred representing the calculated parking location based on variables such as A=distance between other cars, B=devoid of sharp objects to puncture the tires, C=entry effort and D=exit effort.  Preferred then represents maxA + maxB +minC + minD = max in range[driver’s ed parking lot to outdoor waterpark parking in Winter].  Quickly doing the math, I picked a spot on the side of the building in order to compensate for appointments that came after mine.

2/3rds of the way through my session, my shoulder was starting to feel the burn.  It is amazing how little weight it takes to fatigue an isolated rotator cuff.  In the middle of a rowing set, an individual comes up and asks if I drive a black truck.  Immediately, I surmised I was not going to be pleased with what followed.  Sure enough, he was delivering something to the building and backed into the rear of my truck.  Unbelievable — suddenly the pain drained out of my shoulder and headed right for my butt.  I finished my therapy and headed out to see the damage.

Truck Dent

It ended up not being that bad.  He somehow missed my side panels and the bumper successfully performed its role.

Truck Bumper

He provided me all of his insurance information and to his credit, took responsibility for the mistake offering apologies.  I called up his agent, AllState, submitted my claim and scheduled an appointment to have the damage assessed.  I was somewhat annoyed I had to flex some time at work to get the truck to the assessor, but made it there at the set time.  Expecting a lengthy discussion regarding what they were and were not going to do, I patiently waited as the assessor looked over the damage.  10 minutes later, he returned, asked me where I wanted it fixed at, called up the service manager there, verified that a new bumper was available, confirmed the charge and cut me a check for over $540 to cover the replacement.   Wow, kudos to AllState for making things right.  I thought I would share this story since often times I rail against bad service encountered in almost a daily frequency.  There are definitely some bright spots out there and they should be recognized for their efforts.

As a note, this is the last time I test fate and touch my insurance card in the morning.

That’s One for the Fail

I happen to be a huge fan of the various “Fail” sites on the Internet.  Just in case you are not familiar with them, basically they collect images and photos of things that fit into a generic failed category.  This could be such things as an engineering failure, a social failure, a design failure or the most common types, signs and descriptions that are incorrectly worded.  Two of the best sites on the web are http://www.engrish.com and http://failblog.org. The first catering to bad translations and the second for the ever popular “Owned” images.  As an avid fan, I am always on the lookout for items like this and over the years have collected quite a few.  I lot of mine can be found at http://www.eddiesoft.com/den/den/scat/miscscat.html.  I decided it would be fitting to include some of the new ones on this blog since after all, this is all about observations.  Warning, some of these are mature oriented.

As a the first in this new category, I’m going to start with a chocolate marshmallow treat I was given in my last Christmas stocking.  Chocolate covered marshmallow treats is nearly an addiction for me so I was eager to bite into the sweetness.  This feeling changed abruptly once I got it out of the packaging.

Snowman Treat

All I could think of was South Park and their quite disturbing character Mr. Hanky.  This character actually being a talking/singing piece of poo with arms, eyes and a Santa hat.

Mr. Hanky

Before I forget, I grabbed this image off of the net.  If someone has an issue with me using it, just let me know along with proof you have rights and I’ll find another one to replace it.  Now I ask you, is this really the impression the candy company is trying to capture?  The confectionery creators didn’t care, so I’m assuming they either don’t watch the show or it is a secret inside joke to them.  In either case, I’m going with another brand next time.

I have some more fails after the jump

Continue reading That’s One for the Fail

I Shot the Luckiest [B]uck in the Area

I believe this is my first post to date on a wildlife topic that was not focused on birds.  This also helps to fulfill my one of my goals in I set for this blog at the beginning of the year.  I was working from home yesterday which allows me to sit out in our kitchen bay window area and observe the wildlife while I parse through hundreds of emails in my inbox.  It gives a nice break as I race to bring some reasonable organization to the flood of emails that heads my way each day.  Around 4:00pm, I looked out and noticed a herd of deer moving across our woods in the back.  By herd I mean over 25 deer.  In the middle of this group was this guy.

Buck

Yes, I deserve all the criticism for this crappy picture.  As soon as I noticed it I went running for the camera which happened to be in another room.   It is very very rare to actually see the bucks around here although when we do, they are generally trophy size.  We live in a heavily populated deer region and close to a large park where they breed like rabbits.  The park is so overrun with them that they opened up a bow and shotgun season inside the park.  This translates to a steady stream of hunters every morning and night lining our roads.  I get a chuckle every time I see the gun racks and the multitude of hunting stickers on the back windows of the trucks…. whose owner is out shooting fish in a barrel.  I don’t have anything personally against hunting (just don’t call it a sport until you arm the deer), but I do not allow hunting on our property so they tend to seek refuge in our yard as the guns start blasting.  So, from mid November through mid January, hunters are out looking for the antler racks.  By some miracle or cleverness on his part, this particular buck made it through.

Buck

Did I mention I was rushing to get the camera “shot” as he moved through the yard, shooting at dusk and through a screen?  Trust me, I wish I had taken better shots also.  I named him “The Luck [B]uck” but I substituted a different letter.

I did witness an interesting interaction between a few other deer – see details after the jump

Continue reading I Shot the Luckiest [B]uck in the Area

Congratulations, It’s A Poochon

I’d like to introduce you to the newest member of the family.  Over the weekend, we picked up our Christmas present for my mother-in-law.  Why so long after December 25th?  No, we are not procrastinators – although year after year I have to convince my wife that the closer to Xmas you get, the better deals are, not to mention AFTER the big day.  You don’t believe me do you?  Okay, next year check out the prices of Chia Pets on December 1st and check it again on December 24th.  Most people like a Chia Pet for Xmas, but EVERYONE likes a Chia Pet for half price.  With those words of insight, I would like to introduce Benji.

Benji

Benji was bred in Clinton IA and is a Poochon which is basically a crossbreed of a Poodle and a Bischon Frise.  We are a poodle family (lost one, still have two) so I am really not that much into designer breeds, but this little guy was available and he sure is cute.  Linda thinks he looks a little like a panda, I on the other hand, think he looks like the Predator which is also cool.  At this point he is mostly fluffy fur, but much more alert than our poodles were when they were brought home for the first time.  He also doesn’t make a lot of noise which may be due to just getting acquainted to the strange surroundings – for my mother-in-law’s sake, let’s hope it is his normal disposition.

Benji

In order to keep him out of harm’s way and safe from the curiosity of our two spoiled dogs while we had supper, we put him in pop-up cage.  This was definitely not something he was used to and quite frankly not a big fan.

Benji sulking in his cage

At this point he did start making some noise including a all out raise to the moon howl.  Our white poodle does this exact same thing if we do not pick up the phone after 2 or 3 rings.  Don’t ask us why, but it is nice to have a secondary notification that someone is trying to contact us, especially since his howl carries a lot further than our ringer.  At this point, Benji decided to show off.  We looked over and noticed he was literally climbing the cage.  This I thought was amazing for such a small puppy.  I predict he becomes an explorer and plan to keep the dangerous stuff pretty high.  Here is a shot we took of his climbing skills – keep in mind he is only like 6 weeks old.

Benji climbing

As soon as we finished supper, we rescued him from his cage and let him loose.  My dogs were doing pretty well with him until he went for their food bowls.  They are used to being the only dogs and have very little visitors out here in the country so they did not appreciate that one bit and had a little altercation.  Benji was a little scared at that point, but they need to get this resolved between them real quick.  After a few minutes of “discussion” they settled back down and went their own ways.  Benji decided to start exploring and found a small table with a ledge full of magazines.  I am not sure if he wanted protection from our dogs or just likes being off the floor, but he ended up climbing up the magazines and making himself comfortable.

Benji climbing up the end table

Since he liked it there so much we decided to remove the magazines (they were slipping around) and make a little cozy bed out of it.  This immediately became his favorite place to be and ended up taking a snooze.

Benji sleeping

We gave him a toy skunk which surprisingly looked like a twin.  Just for reference, here is a pulled out image.

Benji sleeping

Might as well show off my kids while I am at it.  I don’t want them reading this blog and getting jealous.

Neither of them were very happy at the moment because they really did not want any part of the new guy.  Our two dog agility stars are Rizzi (Osiris) on the left at 10lbs and Kerby (Kerberos) on the right at 5lbs.  If Benji currently weighs more than 1.5lbs I would be shocked.  Oh, and yes, our dogs are named after gods of the dead, but Linda demanded they had cute sounding short names she wouldn’t be embarrassed to call out in the agility ring. Kerby was actually from the same breeder in IA.  There, that should make our boys happy.

Unfortunately, at this point Benji was pretty exhausted from his big homecoming.  He definitely just wanted to catch some Z’s and nothing was going to stop him from doing that.  Clearly he is comfortable around us and looks like he going to fit right in.

Benji looking cute

Benji looking cute

While we were visiting Linda’s Mom, we wanted to make sure the sweater she got for him fit.  Our dogs are not fond of their cold weather coats, but Benji seemed to have no problem with his.  It is still too early to tell if he actually likes it, but he definitely did not fight it.  He is quite the cutie.

Trying out the new sweater

Pet my belly

It finally came time to head home and leave Benji and his new mother to the bonding the process.  The potty training process is always the hard part, but Linda’s mother does not work so that should be easier to get him out on a regular basis.  He had not gone most of the day, but while he was in the cage we ended up putting a newspaper in the corner.  As soon as we did that, he ran over to it and relieved himself.  Apparently, he already had a little familiarization which will help tremendously.

Welcome to the family Benji!

Brian and Benji

We might just have to bring him home with us 8^)