I haven't had one of these kind of days in a long, long time...

It's when you get up in the morning, put on your robe, and don't take it off until you go to bed at night.

Came in handy, too, as I napped on the couch, trying to watch the White Sox/Angels game. I'd drift off an inning at a time and check out the scores and pitching when I'd wake up.

I love days like this... days of nothing. It's a great way to recharge.

What a lousy weather day. Rain. Lots of it. Dark. Thank God we're not doing anything today...

... oh, wait... B&B and The Debster are coming out to our house to go out to dinner to celebrate Carol's And Debbie's birthdays (in May). We went out to dinner at the Weber Grill Restaurant out here in Schaumburg.

Everything tastes better when grilled on a Weber kettle, and that's what the restaurant uses. I mean, we got the barbecued shrimp appetizer and - holy crap! - that just sells the whole concept of a kitchen of nothing but Weber kettles.

After dinner we went back to the house and found... NOTHING to watch on TV. We watched the absolute worst movie that we've seen... perhaps ever. The movie? Bewitched. Nicole Kidman AND Will Ferrell? Puh-lease. This may have just put me against any Will Ferrell project.

There are really only two complaints I have lately, and I think everybody else around here has the same two:

The Weather and Gas Prices.

We're going from 60's in the afternoon to the low 30's (complete with frost and freeze warnings) by the time we wake up. The house was 61 degrees this morning because we don't have the heat turned on any more. Why should we? It's late April! Not only that, but we have one of those houses that - to get the optimum balance of heating OR air conditioning requires the opening or closing of certain vents around the house, and they're mutually exclusive to the function that you need them for. That means that if we decide that it's getting too cold in the house, we have to flip all of the vents that we opened/closed for air conditioning when it's been near 80 and house is just cooking.

And Gas Prices? Don't get me started... We're just pennies away in our area when hit hist the $3.00-mark for regular. I've been over $3 for a few weeks now using Premium. The whole situation is just pissing me off. I can't help believe that if the Iraq war didn't happen that we'd be involved somewhere on this planet with anybody that wasn't producing all the oil they could. I can't believe that we're looking at $3, with the possibility of $4 actually happening in the not so distant future.

Yes, America is addicted to oil. Yes everyone is complaining., even the damn SUV drivers which are sucking-up more gas now than 10 or 15 years ago. Are they cutting back their use? No, they're just paying more to live the American Way.

I don't know, I'm just so pissed off at a situation that has no "silver bullet", no easy fix, no short-term fix, and maybe not even a long-term fix...

...and then you hear things like an executive leaving Exxon Mobile and getting $400 million in a retirement package?

How insane has all of this become?

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Carol went to the Emergency department this morning.

She's got fluid behind the knee, a badly bruised kneecap (no breaks) and strained ligaments. They gave her crutches to use to try and stay off the leg, she has to ice it and keep it up and she should see a orthopedist (which, my guess, she won't do).

I didn't mention that I went to the doctor on Saturday morning, just for a regular stop-in and catch-up.

My blood pressure - though I think it's been OK, doesn't seem to be under control. The medication doesn't seem to working as efficiently, based on my in-office BP checks. I'm thoroughly convinced its 1) the manner in which the BP is taken, which is different than the when I had it taken regularly by the P.A. Kristi., and 2) I'm pretty sure I have a case of "White Coat BP" meaning that my BP goes up any time I see a white lab coat, like the doctor wears.

Anyway, we changed my drug to a two-drug combo, Lisinopril and Hydrochlorothiazide.

I was really "lucky" in that when I saw him, my sinuses were full, my nose clogged, and just in a full-fledged spring allergy attack. I was able to get a prescription for Zyrtec.

Problem? Side effect: fatigue & drowsiness. Effectiveness? For me, questionable. It's barely, and I mean barely, attempting to keep my sinuses clear. I know that this is a hell of an allergy season right now and a lot of people - me included - are suffering terribly, but I'm questioning if this drug is right for me. Right now, what's more evident than it "sort of" working is that I'm really tired. I mean really tired. I've fallen asleep at my desk once this morning already. I finally had a night of sleep that didn't include my very regular interruptions or going to the bathroom every hour and a half (side effect of the diabetes - every hour and a half all night long every night... my current hell).

So, I think I'm going to keep taking the Zyrtec and see if it gets more effective over time, or I'll give up on it when I go to the doctor next time.

I hate this time of year and fall - the two big allergy seasons, and this particular season is bad.

Update: Fell asleep three times today, once this morning, twice this afternoon, the last for at least 20 minutes at the very end of the day, after I would have gone home. God I hope I didn't snore...

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I mentioned back in February that we got tickets to the PBR.

Well, tonight was the night.

The crowd was very disappointing. Our seats we upstairs, almost even with the chutes, which was a good vantage point. However, it was just a bit too far away. It was a good angle to view the bull and what they do, but it would have been nice to be closer - but that's what you get when you spend $35 a seat instead of $100 a seat (boy, that's steep).

This is the first time the PBR has been to Chicago. Tonight's event was Round 1 of The Jack Daniel`s Invitational of the Built Ford Tough Series.

They did something different with the structure of the event, which sounded new as well. Tonight was Round 1. Tomorrow afternoon at 2pm is Round 2 and then just 6 hours later at 8pm is Round 3 and then the Short Go Round. That's a lot of riding within about 27 hours.

Tonight, out of the 45 riders that competed, 15 got scores. The lowest was a 60.00 (Rogerio Ferreira on Salty Kisses was offered a re-ride and declined), the highest was an 89.00 (Helton Barbosa on Sports Machine).

All and all, it's much more entertaining to be at the event than watching it on TV This has a lot to do with the stadium announcers, but even more so the Barrelman (who is dressed like a Rodeo Clown, not to be confused with a Bull Fighter who are key components to the safety of the riders out there in the ring) Flint Rasmussen. Flint did a wonderful job keeping the crowd entertained.

Speaking of Bull Fighters, the best around (who's been out due to what I would call significant injury) was introduced before the event, as the first event that he was appearing at after the injury - Rob Smets.

Speaking of injuries, of the riders that we wanted to see, one of them was sitting out due to injury - Adriano Moraes of Brazil (out with a sprained right hip sustained in Detroit, but it sounds more like a stress fracture of the pelvis).

Had to write something here for the White Sox fans out there...

... as of yesterday, the Sox have now passed last year's season total for tickets sold.

April 19. Not bad for advance sales. Hopefully we can live up to expectations...

Carol has been off work for the last three days. She's been tackling a piece of household work that we've never had the time to try - cleaning up the "Second Bedroom".

Our house is built on a slab - we have no basement. I'll bet you every house like this has one of these rooms. You know, a room that you don't use that you just store old crap in.

Well, she's tackling it with a vengeance and she's done a great job. The only problem is that she's kicked-up so much duet from the last 20 years.

And who is allergic to dust? Yes, moi. The sneezing and runny nose all last night has put my throat on fire. I was fine all day (except my throat) until I walked into my house tonight. Now, it's happening all over again. Maybe if we can air-out the room it would be better.

She really did a bang-up job. We had built two shelves yesterday and they're holding storage bins from the Container Store and everything is organized.

Now, if I could just breathe clearly without the runny nose or cough, I'd be all set.

Carol and I met with a diabetic dietitian today. My doctor seems to be trying to get me into a program at the hospital to support newly diagnosed diabetes patients. She worked with us for well over an hour, trying to get a feel for our lifestyle and then figuring out what I should eat, based on both my diabetes and cholesterol (yes, that's bad, too).

So, she came up with a 1600-calorie per day plan that gives me about 60g of carbs for lunch and dinner. The great news (as far as I was concerned) is that it really seamed that no food was off the table - it's just a matter of portion control and realizing that I may have to sacrifice one food for another to make my 60 carbs. I can't go over, and I can't "save" like you could do in Weight Watchers. you use or lose it.

Then we went to a local Jewel and spent another hour and a half, doing a lot of reading to figure out what had what. We bought some good things and figured out quite a few things, not to mention finding the error of our ways on a few items now that we read the packaging in relationship to the diet.

So, we left the ballgame early so we could drive from the South Side (U.S. Cellular Field) to the North Side (Diversey & Narragansett) to pickup my Mom to drive all the way back down to Orland Park to go to my cousin Jane's for Easter Dinner.

South of the city got hit by rain hard. It was a real trip getting to and from Jane's house. Jane had the front door open all night and you could hear the ongoing deluge going on outside.

We had a good time (though Diane, Melinda, and Jackson weren't there - they were with Melinda's family down south). I missed Jackson at the family gathering. I felt like there was something missing all night long.

Trying to figure out what to eat was a real trip tonight. I've got no guidance on what to do until I see a dietitian in a few days. Dinner was great and I felt the need not to do much about dessert. Since there were a lot of sweets involved, I knew that couldn't be good.

The traffic on the way home really picked-up. People were all going home from wherever they were during the weekend.

Boy, these were two long days...

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Happy Easter from Chip and Indy!

I am re-posting an entry that I have posted every year at this time (2005, 2004, 2003, and 2002) - please indulge me.

I have posted this entry with a future date so it will "stick" here until Easter Sunday, when it will start rolling around, just like any other entry.

I know I don't get a lot of traffic here at this Blog, but, please, take a moment to read this and help out this cause.

Carol and I have a pet rabbit named Indy and another that's only been with us about a year and a half, Chip. (They have there own WebCam over on the Right-hand side of the page, if you want to visit). We love Indy and Chip, and have loved the rabbits that have been part of our life over the past 20 years. They're different, but fun - and very loving. I think that's the one thing that has surprised me the most over the years - how affectionate they can really be. This past year, we've experienced what it's like to have two rabbits together, and even that seems special. They're inseparable, always together, always grooming, yet always running up to us for attention and their "lovin'" (which is us petting them).

Every year, at Easter time, people think about buying a rabbit for their kids. Bunnies really are great, but they have special needs and care and are not like dogs & cats. There are many rabbits that are abandoned each year after Easter when the kids lose interest or when they become a burden to the owners.

If you have a website, please visit the Easter Page at the House Rabbit Society's website and get a banner to put on your page until after Easter (April 16 for those that don't know) to help raise awareness of the problem. There are also PDF's to print up and post in your cubicle of wherever if you'd like to do that to help spread the word (as well as a damn sad poem that just rips at our heartstrings). Please slso visit the site of their new campaign - "Make Mine Chocolate!" for additional flyers, business cards, and postcards.

Indy thanks you, Chip thanks you, and Carol & I thank you.

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What?

Monday? The 17th? Oh, the weekend...

Umm... nevermind...

OK, I couldn't let another year go by without posting something about Peeps.

OK, this is going to require a little explanation (I saw this at Boing Boing)...

You know what a Turducken is? This comes up each year around Thanksgiving. It's de-boned turkey stuffed with a de-boned duck, which itself is stuffed with a small de-boned chicken. (Check out the Wikipedia entry)

OK, now take that concept and "Easter-fy" it with candy, and you come up with an Easter Turducken...

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... about Jack and Diane...

Actually, about my nephew Jackson and my sister Diane.

Diane has made the leap into blogging - blogging all about Jackson, her son.

Even though she'll probably never link to me, please go over and visit her blog and check out the great pictures of Jackson!

I've already added her site to my Blogroll...

So, go to a little ditty.....

Serious.

I saw this in a post on Boing Boing.

The Volcano Rabbit (or zacatuche or Romerolagus diazi)

They live in the Madrean Pine-Oak Woodlands of Mexico, and is endemic to the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt surrounding Mexico City, where volcanoes and rabbits co-exist.

Well, sort of. They're endangered.

Who would have thought?

It was 25 years ago today that the first Space Shuttle launched for real (not a drop test, like Enterprise) - it was known as STS-1 and it was Columbia, now gone. (Know what STS stands for? Space Transportation System.) The brown external tank used to be painted white in those days, but NASA soon realized that all that white paint actually weighed a bit, so they stopped painting the tanks. It was also the only flight to have ejection seats (actually, the next flight may have as well - I don't remember). It was manned by a two-man crew - commander John Young and pilot Robert Crippen, both former Navy Test Pilots (there was a time - and I don't know if it's still the case - that if you asked someone a trivia question about NASA's Manned Spaceflight program, the answer almost all the time was "John Young").

Now, if the first shuttle flight was 25 years ago today, today is rich is space history.

It's the 45th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's flight to space in 1961 - the first manned orbital mission. The first time man was in space.

And today, both a Russian Cosmonaut (Pavel Vinogradov) and an American Astronaut (Jeff Williams) celebrate this moment together in the international Space Station.

This is all so cool.

Was just watching the game on Comcast Cable.

The Wolves have been eliminated from playoff contention by their 5-4 loss in overtime.

I Believe this is the first time in franchise history that the Wolves didn't make the playoffs.

Great. I think I feel a shakeup coming on...

Damn it.

I was fearing this.

Official diagnosis: Type 2 Diabetes.

Yeah, the tests are in from last Saturday. A normal fasting glucose level is between 65-99 mg/dL. I was 137. The kicker was the two-hour test. The glucose level should be 65-139.

I was at 327.

Time for regular glucose testing during the day. Have an appointment to see a dietitian. the doctor wants me to go through some education (classes) as well.

I'm scared to death. I feel helpless because I just don't know what to do with myself. I guess it's the fear of the unknown, but, damn, this feels scarier than that.

Life changing. Great.

What kind of life will I have? Maybe that's the unknown that I'm not looking forward to. I don't understand the mechanics of the disease and the treatments and how things all work. When I think hyperglycemia I think "no sugar" at all, but I know there's much more to it than that.

And then I start thinking about all those foods I will never eat again, probably.

And I think about eating out with friends and family and how I'm not going to be able to eat what is prepared. I don't know, it's a bit of paranoia as well I guess.

I came home after work today to find the bill for all of those MRI's from 2 weeks ago.

Patient Services Provided
MRI / Brain - Quantity 1 - $4,146.00
MRI / Spine - Quantity 3 - $12,679.00
Drugs Requiring Det Code - Quantity 1 - $561.00
Total Charges - $17,586.00

Ouch!

I hope insurance will cover this!

On top of this, I'm having an uncomfortable situation with my doctor. When I first went in for the EMG/NCV, he wanted my to see a neurologist. Now that he's seen the MRI's he wants me to see a neurosurgeon.

I feel like we've jumped a step along the way. I feel that we're thinking of surgery and that might not be the only thing wrong to fix my "twitching" legs (Oh, the diagnosis was Cervical Spinal Stenosis and moderately advanced degenerative spuring in my thoracic spine).

I said I still wanted to go to the neouraologist first, so I maid an appointment - for first-time ("new") patients, the earliest I can get was July 26th at 2pm.

Apparently this is too long and now the doctor wants me to see the neurosurgeon.

I've got to get this cleared up.

Carol & I went Home Improvement shopping this afternoon.

We were looking for a new garage door to replace the one that's falling apart after 21 years. We have a brand new Lowe's in the area and we've never been to one before. Loved it. But, when it came to garage doors, they didn't have any samples to look at, so we went across the street to Home Depot and got what we wanted.

Unfortunately, it'll be 2-3 weeks before we see it. We were hoping to get it in a week, because Carol is taking some time off to do some housework and it would be great because she'd already be home, but no luck.

So, we'll see what kind of stories we'll have to tell in 2-3 weeks.

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Just got back from the Glucose Test.

Boring.

Had my blood drawn, then had to drink this flavored drink that had 100 grams of dextrose (i think it was dextrose) in it. Then I sat around for two hours. The office was empty (it was 8:10 on a Saturday morning) but there was a young woman that came in about 5 minutes after me - for the same test. I got the last Lemon-Lime drink, she had an Orange.

The magazine selections in the office sucked (I mean, they actually had a magazine I've never seen before -"Cheerleader"). So I watched the fish in the fish tank for a while. I brought my bag from work, so I had my laptop with me, and I used it like a big black iPod and listened to some podcasts. I actually read Green Eggs and Ham cover to cover (actually, I liked it, Sam I am).

Then the two hours were finally over and I got out of there. A few people came and went in the meantime, but overall it was quiet.

And boring.

I'm fasting again.

No, it has nothing to do with it being a Friday during Lent.

I have another blood test tomorrow. This is a glucose tolerance test, so I have to stay at the office for two hours with nothing to do. Not looking forward to it.

These fasting things really aren't so bad. I don't have a big snacking "drive" in the evenings - I just have to drink water when I get thirsty and nothing else.

So, yeah, that's my big "secret" from the blood test from before. I guess the normal fasting glucose level is about 100 and I was at 149. And this is the one thing that's scaring me.

I immediately dropped any sugared soda I was drinking and started drinking diet soda. I hate hate hate hate hate hate hate the taste, but what can you do? Hopefully, i can correct this all with diet... I'm hoping...

I had to post this, since I won't have an opportunity for a hundred years...

Know what time and date it is locally (based on how we write the date)?

01:02:03 04/05/06.

Pretty cool?

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I woke up and felt the need to see if the White Sox were still playing.

Sure enough, they were.

They got themselves into a 3-3 tie in the top of the 4th when the rains came. No, DELUGE.

Total Rain Delay time: 2 hours 57 minutes.

Sox won 10-4 around 1:10 in the morning.

Dear Jackson:

I know you may think it's just another Sunday going to that Grandma's house, but it was a big day for me. At least, it felt like it to me.

You know why? Well, there's two reasons, one of which you just don't know anything about yet. Tonight is the Season Opener for Major League Baseball. This is a big deal for me, because baseball is my most favorite sport. What made it more special was that tonight there was only one game being played in all of baseball. Baseball decided that the Chicago White Sox, my favorite baseball team, will start-off the whole baseball season. What makes it even more special. is that the White Sox won the World Series last year for the first time in 88 years, and they were going to raise their Championship banners before the game. Thats a real special thing if you're a baseball fan. Now, normally, Auntie Carol and Uncle Michael would both be at that game, but this year we're here with you. We're watching the game on TV, but we're here with you.

Tonight, I was on the floor with you for a while, and even though you never smiled when we were together, at least you let me stick around and we hung out. I consider that a big deal.

The really big deal for me came after dinner. Because I'm always standing up and walking around because of my leg twitches, your mommies came up with an idea. You had eaten as much as you were going to eat of dinner, and you didn't have a nap, so the next thing I knew, you were being handed off to me, so I could walk around and hold you, and hopefully you'd fall asleep.

Well, guess what? Yep, you fell asleep, and you slept for almost an hour! I didn't mind holding you at all. It was kind of cool. I mean, you weren't awake so you couldn't exactly reject me, so you just slept quietly and soundly the whole time.

Now, I have to admit that, when you finally woke up, you really had to look around to figure out where you were and were your mommies were. And then, you had to figure out what the heck was holding you - me. Well, you started to fuss and I had to give you up - which was probably a good thing because between the two of us, somebody was generating an awful lot of heat. I mean, we were both sweating. Your hair was all wet, my shirt was all wrinkled.

Still, I really enjoyed holding you and you really aren't rejecting me like I thought you were, and that makes me feel good.

Yesterday when Auntie Carol and Uncle Michael were out shopping, we got you your first official baseball cap. It fit you really well, and I was so surprised and happy to watch you wear your hat without a problem! in fact, it almost looked like you liked wearing it! You never once tried to take it off.

And you looked pretty damn cute wearing it, too.

Maybe someday we'll get a chance to watch a baseball game on TV, too. It's just so hard watching TV at grandma's house - there's always just too many things going on.

See you soon, Jackson!

Love,
Uncle Michael

The Dan Ryan Expressway in Chicago is undergoing some major reconstruction that started last night.

Normally, this would not impact our lives at all. This time, however, it does, because even though this expressway is no where near us on the South Side of Chicago, it's a main artery that we take to get ourselves to White Sox games.

Carol had this great idea that we should drive down to the park and check out how we should get there, coming up with alternates in case the traffic gets really bad, as they are predicting for the summer.

So, we spent the afternoon driving around the park, actually taking the Dan Ryan to get an idea of what's being blocked-off and how traffic is being funneled. I think we're going to be OK for Sunday day games. Forget Saturday games - we'll probably have to take alternates.

Of course, if we drove all the way down there, we had to stop at Grandstand to do some White Sox shopping. I think we were lucky - we got out of there without spending a hell of a lot of money. It could have been so much worse.

Hey! No Foolin', you better say "Rabbit, Rabbit!" as your first words of the day to have good luck!

(It's Times 2 because of the two because of our two resident rabbits, Indy & Chip!)

Now, could it actually be "White Rabbit" or Rabbit! Rabbit! Rabbit!?