The Hunt Begins!!!

Well it’s been almost a week since my surgery. It went really really well. I got to the hospital at 5AM ,holy crap!, seriously what is up with that? I got really anxious about 6am, started freaking out a bit. Thank the Goddess for Elizabeth. She got me all calmed down and out of my horribly heading funk. I think it was based on my two previous Hospital visits. My kidney stone of 2000 and my gall bladder like attack last year. Both times weren’t pleasant. So I started to think this was going to be the same as before. I was freaking out big time. So after getting calmed down, thanks to Liz, things went pretty good from there. I got some cool stuff when I was there. I got these little cool brown socks with rubber grippy bottoms. I told the first nurse that I really liked them and she sneaked me a couple of extra pairs. Sweet!!!. So now I’ve got 3 pairs. I don’t know how long they will last they seem partially temporary, but for as long as I have them they will be worn with full comfort!!! So I got moved over to the holding area. There I met some really great nurses and people. I met my anesthesiologist (wow, i spelled that correctly on the first try), but he got pulled away for a trauma issue. So I waited with 4 magazines all of the good housekeeping type. All was good, got some good reading in. the unfortunate issue with the magazines was that there are a lot of food ads and recipes. I was fasting for over 12 hours at that point. It really sucked. Beyond that, my day went really well. I re-met the Dr.’s and got moved to the operating room. There I got hopped onto the table. Man was is comfortable. They had it all laid out for me to lay face down with my face is this contoured foam pillow. I’m telling you the truth, I could have fallen asleep. It was like a massage table. So the surgery went really well. A fair amount of pain actually. I was under the medications and all but there was still a lot of pain involved. the cyst went a different direction than I think Dr. Yarbrough thought. it went deep instead of wide. All in all it went Ok. Some strange sensations in the head though. So I got moved back to ‘holding’ where I got apple juice and graham crackers. I told the nurse that I felt like I was in kindergarten again. All I needed was a nap pad and my binki. (that’s right I said binki.)

So I got all hopped up on vicodin, and some advil derivative, and went to Snack Shack. Had a delicious Garden burger and back home to sleep for a few hours. Got to hang out in the comfy chair (those who have sat in it, you know what I’m talking about) watch some F1, Play some PlayStation, watch a few movies. take more vicodin. So all in all it went OK. I’ve got some numbness above the incision, but it’s going really well. Still some puffiness, some bruising, soreness, but all in all it’s going really well.

So that’s the report. I put this in both the life stuff and The Thinner Man (technically I’m about 2 oz lighter with the removal so it counts)

“WASHINGTON (Reuters) — The Democratic-led Congress yielded to President Bush on Saturday and approved legislation to temporarily expand government’s power to conduct electronic surveillance without a court order in tracking foreign suspects.

President Bush demanded Congress expand his surveillance authority before leaving for vacation.

Civil liberties groups charged the measure would create a broad net that would sweep up law-abiding U.S. citizens.

But the House of Representatives gave its concurrence to the bill, 227-183, a day after it won Senate approval, 60-28.

The action came amid warnings of possible attacks on the United States.

“After months of prodding by House Republicans, Congress has finally closed the terrorist loophole in our surveillance law — and America will be the safer for it,” declared House Minority Leader John Boehner, an Ohio Republican.

“We think it is not the bill that ought to pass,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. But he conceded he and fellow Democrats were unable to stop the measure in this national security showdown with the White House.

“Protecting America is our most solemn obligation,” Bush said earlier in the day in urging Congress to send him the bill so he could sign it into law. The measure would authorize the National Security Agency to intercept without a court order communications between people in the United States and foreign targets overseas.”

Two things I loved in this little tid-bit:

1. “amid warnings of possible attacks on the United States.”. What? When isn’t this country being threatened? I’m sure that there’s not a day in reality when someone really pissed at the USA isn’t planning something. But the part that I’m more concerned about it that this deals with the ‘threat’ of foreign actions. Really? I’m thinking this ‘possible attacks’ part will quickly include the interior of the USA too. And, I’m guessing here, it’s gonna happen in about 20 minutes. Reading emails that are between people in the ‘USA and foreign targets overseas’. What are we looking at the Taliban Myspace account here? How do they know which emails to watch? Answer: they don’t. they watch all of them. From the AT&T Employee Mark Klein said of the NSA filtering rooms in San Francisco, “Despite what we are hearing, and considering the public track record of this administration, I simply do not believe their claims that the NSA’s spying program is really limited to foreign communications or is otherwise consistent with the NSA’s charter or with FISA,” Klein’s wrote. “And unlike the controversy over targeted wiretaps of individuals’ phone calls, this potential spying appears to be applied wholesale to all sorts of internet communications of countless citizens.”

2: George Orwell might have been right with 1984, just a few decades off that’s all.

my 2¢

Part of my new work out which is primarily made up of Bicycle riding, is my new shoes and pedals. They are super cool. The new shoes are black and silver with metal cleats that are counter sunk. They clip into the pedals with a super resounding and confidence inspiring “clunk”. The warning from the technician Emily @ auls bike shop was to make sure to unclip your feet when you stop. They mentioned something like a 3 to 4 ‘Dork falls’. Those are the ones where you stop at a traffic light and tip over because you’re on your way to the ground while you’re still trying to get you foot off the pedal. So far no falls

But what do these shoes provide me? some push and some pull and some steady feet when I’m getting a little tired and sloppy. Really it helps make my riding a little more efficient. It offers a good pull on the foot, and a good push. Allowing for some serious hill climb ability. I did my long hill ride again, more on that later, but the shoes really seem to help a lot on smaller hills. I took the Defazio bridge in 2 gears higher than normal. It was a good time.

The big hill climb, it was a great ride, hard but great. I took off early, yes I set my clock, and got riding early. I took the garden way road over the south Alton Baker park way into Springfield. I took off from Springfield and back over the A street bridge and back into Eugene. I continues my journey over and south to 30th avenue to Lane Community College. At this point I got to reach for my new water bottle. I took a good gulp, and checked my watch 7:40 am. I started my accent onto 30th. I’ve ridden my bike over 30th avenue hill once before. about 6 weeks ago if I remember correctly. It took just about all I could give on that ride. I was whipped. I had to stop about 5 maybe 6 times on that ride. It was all I could do to make it up that hill. I did eventually make it up the hill. But I didn’t and wasn’t able to get home. But this ride was different.

I did have to stop once on the ride up the hill. I need to remember a good pace. so I stopped, got my water, got my breath, set the gearing for the lowest hill climb gears that I’ve got and whala!!! I made it up and over without stopping. 20 minutes all in all. 20 minutes from Lane Community College to Hilyard Street. To me this seems amazing. I was pretty stoked. I made the rest of the ride home, back into the town and back home. I was really pleased that I made it home this time. Didn’t need to call Liz for a pickup this time. I was pretty happy when I got home. I had an incredible endorphin rush going. It’s getting a bit addictive. I was in a sweet spot. I really had something there. I felt like I could have ridden another 30 minutes or so. I felt it was a good spot to stop and enjoy the rush of success.

So as of this posting I’m officially at 381#’s down from 436# In March. so 55#’s down and a lot more to go. so this is the beginning of my logging and blogging of my workouts and my weight loss. Hopefully it will be of some importance to myself and possibly others.

Well it’s 10:08pm on 8//1/2007 when I write this on my macbook. I’m stressing about a few things but especially the fact that I’m getting my neck cut open in about 8 hours. But I’ve done it before. it was in 1996 if I recall properly. But this time it’s different. It’s different because I’m married to Elizabeth. This week I was surprised that she wanted to get our wills notarized. I immediately started freaking out (big surprise). It was a totally logical thing to do, it just had a little extra impact that it coincided with my surgery. But it’s all good all in all. I’m just a little anxious about going to the Surgeon in the AM. I know this seems a little vauge but I guess it’s just a good sounding board. I guess that’s the purpose of the blog thing in the first place. I guess the importance of what happens to me and then really what happens to Elizabeth in case something happens to me is what this is really about. And why this surgery is completely different than that of previous years. I guess it puts into sharp relief one’s love and commitment to each other. and I guess part of why this is being written is for me to say to Liz, and let her konw just how much I love her.