War Wound

First of all, roller skating was a blast, and I'd consider doing it again, just not anytime soon. I was skating just fine on rollerblades, but I didn't like the way they fit, so I decided to try quads, a.k.a. traditional roller skates.

It didn't go so well. I got about 30 feet, Mark saw me, gave me a tip on how to push off, and I fell shortly thereafter, rolling up on my wrist (the same way i broke it in 1992), and chipped off a piece of bone (circled below). Of course, I'm too stupid to know it's broke, so I finished my circle around the rink, fell again, and changed back to blades, and skated for about 45 more minutes.

It's just that little shadow there in the circle.


Purple was the best choice out of my doctors lame color choice.

It started to tighten up as the evening wore on, but even though I said right away that I broke it, I thought it was just a bad sprain. I went home slept fitfully for a few hours and went into work.

That was a bad idea, but I eventually went to the doctor at 1000. I was all casted up by noon, and back to work. It hurts right now because of the swelling and my fatigue.

No one is to blame, so don't beat yourself up.

It will be four weeks for the cast. Balboa anyone?

edit below-------------------------------------

Not so cast my friend

So the cast lasted a little over 12 hours.

Yesterday as time wore on the cast was less and less comfortable, and I began to get nauseous from the pain. I got home from work, stayed busy most of night, but then when I went to sleep, the troubles escalated. The pain and uncomfortablness got worse and worse. I thought I was losing my mind and wanted to cut my cast off ... now! I talked Venche and she calmed me down, then Jessie convinced me I wasn't crazy, and that my hand was swelling in the cast and cutting off circulation to my fingers.

So I hatched a plan, I went up to Walgreen's and got a wrap, then came home and cut off the cast myself using a dull hacksaw and some firecrackers. The majority of the pain went away as soon as the cast came off. I called into work, and finally got some sleep.

In the morning I got hold of my doctor, arranged for an appointment, and Micah came and carted me around. I ended up with a removable cast that leaves me with less of an ability to type than the solid one, but can be adjusted for swelling.

Hopefully this is the end of the drama.

That 3rd Thing Not To Do

1. Never get involved in a land war in Asia.
2. Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line.
3. Never try a piggy back ride with a flying mount in the parking lot at Village Inn.

Thank you

First and most importantly, I'd just love to say congratulations to Mr. & Mrs. Matt & Vivian Johnson. Yes, I cried, what a big softie.

I was the emcee for the reception, an honor that I hope I did well with ... my main focus was to take the jitters and worries from the bride and groom, and help them to enjoy themselves. This is the kind of thing I love to do. Several people assisted me in this process, and that is what this note is about.

Merinda & Jenny for help in developing a schedule. Venche for fashion advice.

Micah for co-writing a song with me. Micah and Epp for singing it with me, recording it, and to the ever talented Erin for producing. Thanks to Mark for lending equipment, and being the roadie & sound guy, and to Omaha Jitterbugs and Nate for lending equipment. Also thanks to the forty or so people who knew about the song and kept it a secret from the bride and groom.

Thanks to Robin for running my camera. Thanks to Lisa for volunteering to run Matt's video camera, and to the many who took pictures with Matt's camera & the ones left on the table.

Thank you to Sarah Meade for tending to the injured so well and efficiently that the bride and groom probably don't know who got hurt.

To Keith and Micah for getting me a plate of food.

Special thanks to the best man, Nathan, and the maid of honor, Jenny who made things easy for me and helped move everything along ... and with them the entire wedding party.

I know everyone thinks their group of friends is the best around, but seriously, there were 15-20 who stayed until the end and helped clean up, no one had to ask, they self organized and pitched in. Too many to mention. *sigh* I love you all.

Thanks also to Troy, although it would be difficult to put exactly into words what he did/does, but his expectations are so high, it makes me do everything better.

The Good Old Days

When I was growing up, I (literally) had to listen to stories from my father, mother, aunts, uncles, and grandparents about how everything was cheaper in the past, how they could get a hamburger for a dime, a gallon of gas for fifteen cents, and a pair of shoes for a buck. The point of every one of these assaults on my pre-consumer-price-index-understanding brain was to illustrate just how spoiled myself, brothers, and cousins were.

Today, I went in to Best Buy and picked up a 2G SD card for my new camera, $22. I thought back and remembered that the very first time I bought computer memory in 1993, I spent over $100 for 256k, at those prices, 2G of RAM would have been in the $800,000 range. (I saved over 3/4 million dollars just by waiting 15 years).

This is what I realized, we will tell the opposite stories to our kids than the old folks told us. Our stories will about how much everything cost us, and how spoiled they are that they get so much more for so little.

Can't wait to be the crotchety old man ... "you kids and your 256 bit wide terraflop multiprocessors. When I was your age had 64k RAM and a 5 1/4 inch floppy drives and we were happy!"

Bonus (probably) unanswerable question: when I was born in 1964, was there 2G worth of volatile memory on the whole planet?

Making Lemonade

These intrepid adventurers laughed at the weather.

Last night was the the best lemonade I have had in years and years.

No one who was around me could have possibly missed that I was on call. To make my crankiness even more pronounced, it was over the first two weeks of Shakespeare on the Green and the College World Series. What's the point of living in Omaha if you can't attend either?

I knew that I was going to pretty much have one chance (maybe not so much) to go to Shakespeare on the Green, so I planned way ahead for this, setting up a Facebook event eight weeks in advance.

Stupid weather. Or more to the point stupid weather paranoia. I was really concerned about the weather all day, and sure enough in the mid afternoon it got bad, then better, and so on. I got there, found Keith already there, and we set up our little camp. The greenshow started on time, but as time for the play came to start, more and more of the VIP's were being shuffled off to places unknown. Then came word that show was canceled.

I feared this all day (several days), and here it was. I was not a happy camper, and wanted to just go home. But no one else moved, they wanted to regather somewhere else. I was the stick in the mud.

Then something interesting happened. About the thirtieth time Lisa said "let's unpack our food and eat", I agreed, and two minutes later we were all sitting at a lopsided picnic table (in the background of the above picture), my mood changed (and maybe others as well), and suddenly we were laughing, eating, talking, joking, and having a good time. Things got silly then, we started singing loudly, standing on tables, trying to perform plays out of our heads, quoting "Princess Bride", dancing on tables, getting yelled at by the stage crew, and taunting the remaining groups of people that we were going to be the last ones there. It all cumulated with the singing of "We Are The Champions" when last one packed up.

Here is what I said when I planned the event:

Some of my favorite moments in Omaha have come here..."

Guess what? I have another one to add to the list.