pseudoephedrine.mut-tacular.ampersand.carpal-tunnel

!!-- WARNING! Due to the Graphic Content of this post, Parental Discretion is Advised. It is also suggested that you not eat within 30 minutes before or after reading this post. Possible symptoms may include: laughter, self-indignation, or eye-rolling. Women who are pregnant or are at risk of becoming pregnant should definitely, well... consider, not reading this post... i guess. Consult your PCP (Primary Care Physician... not the other stuff...) for further recommendations and advisements. --!!

does anyone else find it rather odd that blogger/blogspot is completely non-iphone friendly? i mean... since google took over years ago and google is revolutionizing everything on the web these days, youd think blogger/blogspot would at least be relatively iphone friendly, but no. not even a little. i can even get as far as into the edit screen after signing in with the teeny tiny non-mobile-optimized site, but once there, the text forms are non-responsive to touch sensor technology. it just clicks and clicks and clicks and never lets you actually enter the field.... or maybe im the only one having this issue.... i tend to think that im not the only one having any particular issue at any given time, maybe it makes me feel better, like im not really crazy, the rest of the world has random issues as well, but then again... perhaps i'm wrong. maybe i am the only one having some of the bizarre issues i have....

speaking of google, i started using chrome again. its been roughly two years since i stopped. i was having any number of problems with a buggy beta version back then (one of which being flash compatibility - and speaking of buggy. flash 10.2, right? right? right? wow adobe....) so i gave up on it and found myself enjoying v3.whatever of safari at the time. then safari started to annoy me come v5 and ive been bouncing back and forth between it and firefox for the last year or so, but man, this new chrome. im feelin it! for the time being... i digs.

so anyway... i cant sleep.

ive been trying to get sick for the last few days apparently. it started with my usual allergic reaction to staying at the in-laws this weekend. they have cats, and while i love their cats (zoro y diablo es loco, lol) i some-how or other developed a cat allergy (not the like super severe, omg-im-going-into-anaphylactic-shock kind of allergy, but the itchy-watery-eyes-cant-sleep-oh-my-freaking-god-it-itches-make-it-stop!! kind, you know?) while away at grad school after having lived with a dozen or so of the creatures my entire childhood... rather odd in my humble opinion, but apparently it happens... anyway. thats how it started. then it moved on to becoming this just rather gross nasaly-itchy throat feeling. so i started on the meds, because thats how it always starts for me when i get sick... then yesterday i woke up just feeling like shit. spent the whole day in this state of clammy-sweaty, pale & flushed (yeah, tell me how the hell that happens at the same time), sloshy/sludgey stomach feeling. have you ever had that? where you feel like your abdomen has somehow been pumped full of some-kind of toxic ooze and its just sitting there, sloshing around everytime you move... that back and forth liquid movement feeling... ugh, its almost like getting sea-sick for the first time... anyway, so that was yesterday. so of course ive been taking the regular attack cocktail of aleve, some kind of otc multi-symptom cold thing, and the prescription strength pseudoephedrine on 12 hour intervals (well, the otc multi-symptom on 6 hours) anyway... so i think thats part of why i cant sleep. im in the middle of one of those mildly-dehydrated-over-pseudoephedrin-ated-drug-highs that makes you feel kind of spacey and light-headed, but at the same time the sinus drainage is coming back so the meds must be wearing off, so why do i feel like this, kind of things. youve been there right? this isnt another "just-me" thing is it? meh.... the other excuse for my mild/insomnia is that i went to bed at about 9:30 because i was feeling pretty shitty, and with work and getting up at 5:30 every morning, my body is getting itself into the pattern of only getting roughly 6.5 hours of sleep each night, and so... that would partially account for my being awake between 3:30 and 4, hm?

or... maybe its just day-light savings time throwing me off........ ? ;]

[mut-tacular]

im suprisingly lucid right now given the self-medicated-ly induced, depreciated state of my higher-brain-function, and yes, i can maintatin the some-what linear thought patterns outlined by my title up there [which i almost always invent and refine before the commencing of the actual rambling on... is that odd? i feel like its backwards, like i was taught at some point along the way that the title is supposed to come last. like the writing will inform the title. but if i dont have a title, how am i supposed to know what im writing about? man, maybe i really am odd.....]

so mut-tacular. if you cant relatively guess at the meaning of this strange term, then you need sleep more than i do. context-clues people, context-clues. anyhow, its one of our many many ridiculous little nick-names (why not peter-names? or jo-names? why nick? who the hell was nick to get this extra-naming... naming rights?...) for the silly little dog that follows us around snoring - regardless off his state of consciousness, or the time of day, or his current activity. anyway, i just wanted to briefly talk about him. i dont know how, well... thats not true at all, i totally know how... but hes become ever increasingly ornery to the point of just, wow. this dog is so freaking spoilt. lordy... prime-example. i keep getting up to go to the bathroom or roll-over or get water or something, because i cant sleep, and everytime i come back to bed he just looks at me with his head on his paws, and makes this half-grunt, half-sigh sound as he cocks his little buggy-eyebrows at me. as if to say "would you effing quit it already? im trying to get my beauty rest here..." [did i mention hes a total queen? total...] anyway, if thats not enough, this last time this happened, i stop short of climbing in bed and go around to my wifes feet where hes sleeping to scratch his little head sympathetically, as if to say "sorry buddy, cant help it" at which point he decides that his cue to get up, walk over and on top of his mother, and plop down next to her head and right on my pillow. totally stealing my spot in the bed. can you believe this non-sense?? freaking little... so i walk around to my side of the bed, flabbergasted as i am, and he just cocks his head a little and scootches over closer to moms head so i can get in, all the while looking at me like "what? i didnt do anything..." seriously... this dog has freaking attitude... so then after i get in, he does this little number that hes gotten into the trend of. he splays out flat between us and buries his head between our pillows. lol! i tell you, if he didnt rub me the wrong way all the time with his obvious lack of respect and defiance towards me, id never stop laughing at him... well, actually, i dont. lol! realistically, karen and i are much-more-than-likely completely fabricating this entire personality that we've cooked up for him. but then again... he really is a total queen. its all based on reality, even if it is ever so slightly embellished in our odd little minds... oh mut-tacular.........

[carpal-tunnel]

so the last couple of days, the last two [ring & pink] phalanges on my left hand, as well as the backside... [what do you call that? the karate chopper? ill have to inquire with my sensei...] from the end of the pink up to my wrist, have all been kind of just, numb. not like completely useless dentist lip numb, but like all the sensation has been drained from it and now theres this feeling thats just on the cusp of pins&needles, but not quite there. not painful, just... lacking the usual feeling - if that makes sense. and like all 22nd generationers [its 22now right? i cant keep up...] (i think i meant generation-y here... i was a little goofy on the meds, not entirely sure. forgive me.) of course i simply googled my symptoms to self-diagnose... myself. my first thought was stroke, yeah, gotta be stroke. or something... anyhow, carpal-tunnel was basically the only search result that came up. dozens and dozens of comments and keywords about carpal-tunnel. what-ever. i think this whole carpal-tunnel thing is a joke. we've been hearing about it for a decade, but ive never believed it was real... besides, why my left hand? im a righty. i do all the clicking with the right. clickity clickity click. all freaking day. you ever drawn in cad? thats a lot of effing clicks. but noooo no, if im to believe i have carpal-tunnel, because the all-knowing gods of the inter-google-webs say so of course, then its because of some b.s. poor keyboard posture? heh, what keyboard posture? i never learned to type. i took a typing class, but that home-keys crap. nah. not for me. i make up my own rules. i type just about as fast as the next guy [hell these long-winded posts typically only take me 45minutes to an hour] and a lot of the time im not even looking at the keyboard. especially for the letters l, pl, tr, f, s, m, cp, ro, ma & xref - LOL! [heh, cad humor. love it!]

hah, how about that. my alarm just went off. guess its time to go hop in the shower and start my day, lol. great timing, i was pretty much out of things to say at this point anyhow. well kiddos, until next time....

...stay anticipated.

[timestamp published 5:38, timestamp initiated 4:37]

epic.blogging [three]

post intermission two...

[again, if you havent read the previous two posts, there may be some spoilers in this one..]

so for the final post im going to discuss the other pretty big news in karen and my life over the past 6 weeks. honestly its been a pretty drastic change in retrospect and has been quite life altering. however, i cant say its a negative change...

well, enough with the stalling, the topic of this post is our new addition to the family. no karen isnt pregnant, so if thats where youre mind is going... stop it. karen and i are not in a place to have a kid and neither of us wants to right now... [if ever?] however, since before we even bought the house karen had been hinting [and pretty blatantly] that she wanted a dog. well, we finally got one.

after months and months of karen mentioning she wanted a puppy and us going through the cycle of her looking for them online and visiting the local spca, at the beginning of september the stars finally aligned. we were in bed and both tinkering on our computers before calling it a night [kind of the modern version of the couple reading books together in bed before going to sleep, lol] and unbeknownst to me, karen was yet again searching for puppies. well she happened to come across a little black pug for 25 bucks and she just melted at the sight of him. she quickly had me look at him and even i had to admit he was pretty cute, so i seceded and said she could have him. she quickly emailed the guy selling him and said we were interested and then 15 minutes later he emailed her back. sorry. he had already sold him... so karen went to sleep rather upset that night at the loss of her perfect puppy.

as the next morning came i had already forgotten about the puppy but karen was still upset about it. so we went to run errands for the day and in an attempt to cheer her up i insisted that you just never know. anything could happen, right? what if he didnt like the person that was supposed to buy him? so she cheered a little at that thought, and i shrugged the whole thing off expecting to just go back to normal for a few months until she came across another pup she just had to have. well little did i know, that all too often im more right than i even know....

a few hours went by and we were working on some project and not really thinking about it at all when suddenly my phone rings. i answer it and of course, its the guy selling the puppy. he wants to know if we're still interested because hes had two people now that lied to him and never showed up and the puppy is ours if we want him. so i hang up and before i can even tell karen the good news, shes already over heard the conversation and practically tackles me to the ground jumping into my arms to hug me. apparently shes still interested....

so we go get the money and drive over to the guys apartment to meet the little puppy and karen falls in love instantly. at this point, its official, we have a new member to the family. well his back story [because ive been asked every single time, so i may as well tell you] is as follows... his original owner flaked out and randomly moved to california. in the process she totally ditched the poor little guy with a relative. well the relative hasnt heard anything from the original owner and doesnt expect to and lives in an apartment that doesnt allow pets and needed to get him into a new home. his name is gizmo [definitely not our choice... at all...] and well, he knows his name, so we cant change it. he was about 11 months at the time and is now about a year old. and lucky for us this was a package deal. for the 25 bucks they were asking he came with a huge cage, the kind you have to get for big dogs that dont fit in the little crates, he came with a chain for outside, a retractable leash, and a really nice harness that goes around his neck and legs. and if that wasnt enough, he also came with some puppy bath stuff, a pillow, a bag of food, food bowls, and a number of toys and such... so basically... we had everything we were going to need for him, it was a hell of a deal!

well its been a little over a month now and giz has definitely become part of the family. at first he seemed really confused and a little apprehensive about being relocated yet again, but he quickly got over that. hes extremely friendly and to be honest, a bit nuts at times, lol. hes pretty well house-broken, although it seems he still has a number of accidents - but we're working on it. hes pretty stinkin cute and i have an album on the photo site that has a ton of pictures of him, and we're constantly adding to them. overall he seems to be pretty well quite at home and we really enjoy having him. [although karen more so than me, heh]

so things are pretty normal with him around now and we've gotten him into a routine so to speak and things have been going pretty well so far. in the most recent news, this weekend we decided to do a little much needed yard work after church and as a result decided to try and seed the yard again [i think i mentioned this yesterday...] well, along with seeding the yard we've noticed that a lot of people around here put hay over their seed which does something or other to help the grass grow. honestly, id never heard of this before and i have no clue how it works, but we decided that all our other attempts to seed have failed miserably and its worth a shot. so we went to the depot and got the smallest bail of hay they sell and when i was done spreading it over our fresh seed we still had basically the entire bail left and nothing to do with it. so as brilliant as i am i suggested we just leave it in the yard and maybe get some pumpkins and call it fall decoration. well karen seemed to be fine with the idea and we got a few pumpkins...

now then, how this relates to the giz... [did i mention we have like a million nicknames for the little bugger? everyday it seems we come up with a new one, but just a few are as follows: the giz, gizzard, gizmodo, gizmotron, gizmotronic, gizmatic... and so on... ] well i had never carved a pumpkin before and it was a pretty beautiful day out so i decided to try my hand at it. and as i pondered what kind of jack-o-lantern i was going to create the giz was looking at me as quizzically as usual, completely befuddled as to what i was doing with this huge round orange thing in my lap, and it suddenly seemed obvious that i was going to have to make a giz-o-lantern.

well after a quick sketch on the pumpkin with my unable-to-sit-still model, and a couple of hours of trial and error pumpkin carving i eventually conquered the task and resulted with a pretty decent giz-o-lantern. obviously hes way too cute and cuddly to be a scary halloween decoration, so i had to embellish his ferociousness a little, but alas, here is the result...

i think he turned out pretty scary anyway ;]

in other recent news... as we were carving the pumpkin and sitting out on the porch i happened to notice that giz appeared to be crying and mentioned it to karen. after looking at him a little closer we decided he must have just gotten some dust blown in his eye or something and didnt really think much more of it. he wasnt crying or whining or anything so we quickly forgot about it and moved on with our day. well... the next morning i got up and took him out and when we got back and i took him in the kitchen i noticed that his eye was still watering, that it was a little gunky, and that it appeared to be swollen about halfway shut... well, being the good father that i am, i quickly located the nearest animal clinic and gave them a ring and explained what was happening. they said it was probably a good idea to bring him in, that a lot of pets develop allergies this time of year and its better to be on the safe side... so... i got karen out of bed and we quickly dressed and loaded him up and headed over to the clinic.

well long story short, over an hour later we left having spent 50 bucks for the supposed 22 dollar visit in which they stained his eyes[16 dollar test procedure] and discovered that he had a small corneal scratch, and were prescribed some ointment to put in his eyes[10 dollar prescription] 3 times a day, daily. however, we also needed an e-collar [the big cone things] so that he didnt scratch it more and they were out so we had to go to petsmart... again... 50 dollars later... we had an e-collar and a new travel bag for him so that he can ride in the car and not completely spaz out the entire time or if we take him on a trip or something... well when we got home i decided to put this stupid thing on him and since then, well... hes pretty much made it clear that he hates my guts... and looks at me with complete loathing for making him wear the dumb thing...

[thats what i call disdain...]

however, he seems to be healing pretty well, his eye seems to be opening the normal amount again today, so i guess its worth it. not to mention, well, hes just a puppy and we took it off him last night to let him eat and drink in the kitchen, and 10 minutes later he had his head in my lap looking for rubs and scratches and all was forgiven, haha. gotta love short term memory. ;]

well... i guess thats about it for now. youre all pretty well caught up on the goings on of our lives in recent history, and you even got a few pictures out of it. hope you enjoyed the updates and that all is well with you, wherever you happen to be. know that we miss you [especially texas for me!] and love you and hope to see you soon.

dc[part.thrice]

[sunday | 5.2.09 | day.three]

sunday morning was another groggy morning, but we managed to get up at a similar hour to the day before. after showering and getting ourselves ready we headed down to breakfast again. as with saturday we werent disappointed, although i think we both had a little less breakfast overall this time around. they didnt have the burritos, but there were scrambled eggs and sausage and most everything else from the day before.

after breakfast we quickly grabbed our stuff for the day, plotted out our stops and were on our way. well, no sooner did we hit the lobby door than we realized today was going to be a little different. it was lightly drizzling out and we didnt have an umbrella or ponchos or anything else to protect ourselves with. so after exchanging glances we pressed forward and made our way to the metro stop. luckily, the rain wasnt heavy and the temperate outside was moderate enough that we werent getting soaked and frozen, but we were getting damp and chilled a little, oh-well.

soon enough we were on the train and headed to our first stop, federal center s.

as we got on the escalators and slowly rose out of the depths we were a little disheartened to find that the rain hadnt magically ceased during our 15 minute subterranean reprieve. so after glancing at our maps and trying to find our bearings karen grabbed a free newsprint of some kind from a nearby dispenser and we set out in what i thought was the right direction. as i mentioned before the subway maps vs. street maps are a little difficult to rectify from scale and abstraction, so it turns out we were heading a little off course at first. soon enough though we realized my mistake, corrected and before long we were across the street from our first museum of the day - the national museum of the american indian.

id seen pictures of it at some point before so i knew what the building looked like, but it was definitely cooler in person. from what i remember the idea behind the design was a symbolic representation of the cave cities in the southwest so its got some really fun geometry. inside is a huge domed atrium space with an oculus and there are various different exhibits and gift shops on all the levels. we visited a couple of the exhibits which were pretty interesting to see, and then did a little research on my native american heritage. im some very small part potawatomi and am officially registered with the tribal rolls, and was curious to see what the national museum had on my tribe. well, sadly, they didnt have a whole lot. it took quite a bit of digging but we did find a few pages in one book in one of the bookstores that gave a brief synopsis of the tribes origins and then in one of the displays there was an actual artifact about beading, but other than that, ziltch. but i thought my parents would get a kick out what we did find, so theres a few images in the albums. thats alright though, the main center for the potawatomi is in oklahoma now and while i havent made it to see what theyve got yet, i plan to someday and im sure its much more in depth. anyway, we spent quite some time at the american indian museum - hoping it would stop raining, however, by the time we were ready to go... it hadnt.

so we headed back out into the rain and soon found a vendor with umbrellas so we bought a small one - probably should have gotten a larger one in retrospect - and huddled together as we made our way to our next stop a few blocks away, the smithsonian museum of natural history. i was really looking forward to this one because wed seen some posters of an imax film about dinosaurs that looked pretty cool and also something about a giant squid on display. so after getting ourselves thoroughly dampened and our feet thoroughly soaked after sloshing our way over, we made it inside and found ourselves in the midst of hundreds of people, a large majority of which were children who were having a good time but were definitely a little obnoxious. anyway the first thing i wanted to check on was the imax times and prices and as it turns out they were charging like 10 bucks per person and we really werent prepared to pay that price. so we decided to just see most of the exhibits instead and made our way through the museum. the first area we went through was the ocean stuff and got to see all kind of cool artifacts. they had huge lifelike models of different marine life, and a ton of real skeletons and stuff that were preserved for study. we really enjoyed ourselves and took a ton of pictures.

after the marine stuff we went on to the dinosaurs section and looked through all the fossils and skeletons of the dinosaurs they had on display - again a lot of pictures.

after the dinosaurs we went through the space exhibit and then the geological formations and saw all kinds of crazy rocks and gems and stuff. they even had rocks with hair! it was pretty crazy. the last stop we made was to see the hope diamond which was currently on display - karen REALLY liked it... hah, she wishes! after another trip through the ridiculously-over-priced gift shop we were getting hungry and had seen just about all we wanted to that day, and with the rain and all... we decided to call it a day and go find some food.

so we found the nearest subway station and headed back to the hotel to see if we could find a dining guide of some kind and figure out lunch. well... after consulting the internet and our brochures we found that not much was open on sunday in the area we were in and settled on a little deli/bakery - au bon pain - just down the block from our hotel and had a nice little lunch. they had some really great macaroni and cheese that we shared as a side and all kinds of little pastry goodies for dessert. after lunch we were both pretty exhausted and since it was already about 3pm and still raining we decided to head back to the room for a little relaxing, some tv, and a nap. well... the nap ended up being a little longer that we expected i think, and around 8 we woke up and decided to have a quick order-in dinner before calling it a night. we had a very very early morning on monday and it was going to be a loooong day, so we decided it was better get our rest. after confirming our shuttle pick up to the airport [because really who wants to change trains a dozen times at 3 in the morning?] we drifted off to sleep before getting up again at 2am and making the trip home.

as for the trip home, it went just as planned, was very uneventful, and after napping on the plane and landing back in cincy we got the truck from parking and were on our way straight to work and school. and thus, our trip [and the story] is complete. its actually been a pretty short week by comparison to our "vacation" but im looking forward to the weekend. we dont have any real plans yet for whats going to happen this weekend, but if we do anything fun or exciting ill be sure to fill you in next week.

hope you all have a fantastic weekend and a happy mother's day!

rodent.olympics

so if the title of this post alludes to anything, theres a short but humorous story coming.

so this morning im turning off the shower and i suddenly hear this very fast, very loud tromping sound. my first thought is that karen is running down the stairs right outside the bathroom, which leads to questions of why...? so i paused for a second, didnt hear the alarm, so i quickly exited the bathroom to make sure she was alright, and to my surprise she was rolled up in the bed like a burrito, her usual routine once i vacate the bed.

so as im standing there dripping in a towel staring at my wife still in bed mid sentence asking "what the heck...", again theres a loud, fast, tromping sound. only this time, its obviously coming from the ceiling above us. "...was that?" she rolls over and says shes not sure, but its been going on a while. so i chuckle to myself and stand there under the skylight looking up at the roof. and then again theres something racing across the roof. and again, and then along the side of the skylight i see the quick outline of a squirrel butt and tail scurrying by. at this point im laughing out loud and i tell karen i just saw a squirrel, and then shes laughing too. "man, thats pretty loud for a little squirrel, i wouldnt think..." and all of a sudden a giant raccoon scurries directly across the top of the skylight quite visibly, lol. karen saw it too, and we were both laughing pretty hysterically at that point. "man sweetie, i didnt know we were having rodent olympics on our roof!"

we still arent sure what the heck they were doing up there, chasing birds, defending their territory, who knows. but im pretty confident they arent living on our roof, it would provide little, if any shelter at all from the elements. so that was our comic event of the morning, hope the story was as enjoyable as the experience itself, lol, what a way to start the day. =]

p.s. for those of you [*ahem*my wife*ahem] that didnt figure it out on your own, there were two posts yesterday. one was an actual post entitled "then.suddenly.productivity" and the other was a brief post of the stained glass that my mother-in-law emailed me directly after i posted the original... post. so for those of you that missed the actual update yesterday, feel free to read it at your leisure to catch up on current events. =]