The Sounds of Silence

School
School
School

Brain....melting.....
social life......withering...

Some videos I've been watching:
This (watch the whole thing)
This
Another cat
Heh (Not necessarily an indicator of my love life, I just found it funny)
Portal
Another
Dancing

G'night

Add One More Conundrum to the Universe

As many of you know, the Large Hadron Collider under the French/Swiss border is starting to fire up. While nothing has actually been collided yet, many are already breathing a sigh of relief that the world hasn't ended (yet). The point of this machine is to help scientists unravel the mysteries of the universe and somehow make it apply to out daily lives (public funding here people). Even if they don't find anything very useful out of it, how many people do YOU know who helped build the biggest and most awesome particle gun in the world? Nobody? Didn't think so.

I however, think I could put all these scientists to better use. I am currently take donations to fund the WTHHTMCW Project. It will attract the finest minds from all corners of the earth, under the management of someone so awesome, that people bow to him in his presence (I'd rather not name myself here, my humility is at stake). Funding will be purely by donation, and the work will be done via tasers and whips so that I won't have to actually pay anyone. Welcome to the.....

What
The
Hell
Happened
To
My
Car
Window

Project.

The mystery is this: I was cleaning out my car, and using rubbing alcohol to clean the inside of my windows (works wonders). Due to the fumes, I naturally opened all the windows. I realized that I still had some things on my back seat, so I opened the left-rear door to take the stuff out. The door was more stiff than usual, and as I was thinking "What the..?" The window totally shattered inside the door. That's right, SHATTERED.





I have no idea how it happened, and neither did the repair guys. All I know is that is set me back about 200$ :(

Why I Should be King of the World

I would like to talk for a moment about something that is very lacking in society, and that is sedatives.

My first experience with a sedative that I can remember was just this last January when I had my surgery. I was sitting on the bed anxiously waiting to get a needle in my arm or something to knock me out before going under the knife. The doctor looked at me and said "you're going to feel a little prick". I noticed that he didn't have a needle in his hand, so I was a little confused. I then felt a needle go right into the top of my spine suddenly. "Woah! what are you doin.........wait.....that feels AWESOME!". Suddenly my body felt lighter, I had no pain, and everything was blissful. They couldn't have injected very much into me yet, probably only a few milliliters (for those of you who don't know metric, a milliliter is half a pound). Life was great, and then they gassed me until I was unconscious.

I've been wondering lately about how nice it would be if we had tranquilizers like that on hand to nail people who were getting a little too agitated or upset. They're then in a state where they could possibly be reasoned with (I say possibly because getting too much can kill you, and it's rather hard to compromise with a corpse). Think about it, cops wouldn't have to zap you with tazers anymore. All you'd feel is a prick, and then you'd be surrounded by 10 policemen with guns drawn and find yourself wondering "I wonder if those guns will shoot flower petals at me".

So why all this talk about sedatives you ask?

There were a bunch of idiots on the road yesterday.

Why I Just Have to be "That Guy"

I think we can all agree that the Apple iPod is a great little MP3 player. Apple made the MP3 player cool, just like Michael Phelps has suddenly made swimming the cool thing to do*. I however don't share the enthusiasm that my generation has for these little guys. I have two main issues with them:

1. Requires the install of proprietary software (iTunes) to be able to transfer music (I could be wrong here, but I haven't heard otherwise).

2. You can't just plug it in and access ALL the files you want to, thanks to a little friend called DRM (Digital Rights Management). DRM makes it so you can't copy MP3s that you payed for from one machine to another. "But its illegal top copy!" you may say. Well I don't care, I paid for it, I should be able to do what I want with it (like CDs).

So I got myself a nice shiny little Sansa Fuze. Can you guess how much software I had to install after getting it? None. Did I have any issues copying my MP3s over? Nope. That fact that MP3s from Amazon.com don't come with any DRM helps too :) This is how I think gadgets should work, just plug it in and go. Sure, I can't plug it into an iPod dock, but considering I have a Line-in cable, I'm not bothered by it.

Some other examples (with good reasoning that will not be stated here) of programs/devices I use are:

Firefox
OpenOffice
VLC Media player
Daemon Tools.

If it weren't for the requirements of a lot of the programs I use, I would have ditched Windows by now for Linux.

*I like to go swimming at the gym, and there is always a spot or two open for me to just hop in. Ever since Michael Phelps won his medals, the pool at 24 is suddenly swarming with swimmers, argh :-\

Bleh

Over the last 2 weeks, I just haven't felt like writing anything up here. It's not that I haven't been doing anything. The Dark Knight was great, I'm mentoring a 10 year old boy, and I'm going to Vegas this weekend. I just don't feel like writing about it much :)

As soon as that changes, you will all know about it.

The Music of Game ads

I've noticed a trend that may be starting when it comes to advertising video games. If the game is violent in nature, the game companies will put relaxing music with the game. I think the reasoning behind this is to draw more emotion regarding the character/people involved in the games environment. I think this is very well thought out, as it lays a groundwork for actually caring about the situation you're supposedly in control of. Here are some examples:



And another



I can't really find any other examples at the moment, but I think I much prefer that type of advertising as opposed to something like this:




That ad reminds me of the cliche "Man loses family/child/someone special and goes on a holy crusade with tons of weaponry while taking out half a city" 80s movie. They could have done so much more with that storyline....

Diablo

Ok, it's nerd time.

Anyone who knew me back in 2000 knows that Diablo 2 was a crack addiction for me back then. Luckily, half the gaming world loved it too, so I wasn't alone in this. I would tell everybody I knew about the game, even if they didn't care at all about gaming in the first place. Some members of my family ward at the time (who will remain nameless, but we'll say they were part of an Inquisition of Ignorance) would disapprove of the game almost to a heretical level because there were demons in the game (lets all just forget that you're the one killing the demons).

So in their quest for global domination, Blizzard decided to give me an FYI on how my social life is going to officially end in a few years by announcing Diablo 3 . The timing of this wasn't very good, because I had to prepare a sunday school lesson that same day and couldn't concentrate.

So why all this Diablo talk? As far as how much a person can like this game is concerned (we're back at Diablo 2 now), I've just met my match and then some. A good friend of mine who has never claimed to be much of a gamer has surprised me by playing it with me and another friend. Normally when we get past a significant point in the game, all of us except him want to take a break. Our brains have turned into jelly, our eyes are red from staring at the screens, and he STILL wants to play! I think our only hope of giving this friend back to his (very patient) girlfriend is to hurry and beat the game ASAP.

Just to prove that I'm not nerdy all the time, here are some pictures of a very sad (yet cute) looking pug done by Christopher Michael .

Not so water proof.

Ever have the feeling that your life goes into certain stages that have a theme to them? Kind of how I managed to make milk tart for the first time by myself, and how I had to make millions of them just so the world could have a taste. The current life theme is that I'm having waterproof items die on me from water exposure. I couldn't tell you when some waterproof device has failed at ANY time in my life if you had asked me a few weeks ago. And yet, during the last week, I've had my very nice Nike (waterproof) watch and a (waterproof) electric tooth-brush die on me.

How do I know the water did it?, in both cases the screens seriously fogged up, and there were water droplets inside. The tooth brush has stopped charging, and now the watch won't shut up. What do I mean by the watch not shutting up you ask? Somehow the water is causing the thing to shriek like a banshee and I just can't get the alarm to shut off. So now the watch is sitting under a bean-bag in a long forgotten room of our house (Ashleighs room). It's probably still going now, let me check...hmm, it seems to only be making clicking noises now, and the display is totally dead too, maybe the battery has had it.

So now I'm a skeptic as far as water proofing is concerned. Epic fail on QAs part.

My Adventure with the B Man

At the beginning of this blog, one of the things that I mentioned would NOT feature would be my love life. There's a few reasons for this, one of them being that I'm not the kind of person who likes to announce my relationship status to the world. Today I will make an exception. This story isn't about the date itself, but it was something like a pre-date entertainment show (or more like a torturous brain drain in this case)

Last night, I went to go pick up a girl for a date, but her boss kept her later than usual. I wasn't in any kind of hurry, so I didn't mind waiting (And things can go wrong, it's a fact of life). So I decided to get comfortable on the stairs outside her apartment. Meanwhile, a guy in a bright orange shirt, jeans, and flip flops came out of one of the other apartments and saw me. He was carrying some plastic shopping bags filled with who-knows-what and he had a bit of a blank stare to his face. He looked familiar, but I couldn't remember from where. He started to slowly shuffle towards me and I could tell that an encounter was inevitable. My thought process went something like this:

Is....is that B-Money!?
No, it can't be him.
What on Earth is he doing here? It might be him
Nope, can't be him.

By this time he was standing in front of me with that classic blank stare. We stared at eachother for a few seconds in awkward silence. Finally he blurted out "hey man, do you like my shirt?"

Me: Uh, sure, it's very bright.
Mystery Man: Sweet dude, do you want to buy one?
Me: No
Mystery Man: Why not?
Me: Well I'm just here until my date comes, and I own a few shirts already.
Mystery Man: Oh (cue blank stare again for a few eternities)................My name is B-Money

Crap.....

Who is B-Money?
I thought you'd never ask.....




For about ten arduous minutes, this guy had me pinned to get me to buy one of his shirts. I had resigned myself to repeating my response over and over while I waited. Luckily, my dates roommate came to the rescue. Apparently, B-Money much prefers to talk to girls rather than guys (I can relate). The roommate had stopped by just to pick something up from the apartment, and B-Money followed her around just about everywhere until she got in her car and left. Poor girl, she probably thought I was in cahoots with him somehow (wrong place at the wrong time). Oh well.

Generation Messed up

Yeah so Weezer released quite possibly the coolest video ever. I'm not normally a big fan of them, probably because we always had the dumbest looking Weezer poster in my old apartment that nobody wanted to claim. So without further ado, here it is :)




I'm going to the Lehi rodeo championship with a few friends this coming Saturday. Rodeos were one of my first introductions to being in the United States. I was sitting on the bench fiddling around with a little mustard packet, and it suddenly exploded all over a womans hair right in front of me. Her boyfriend saw it and I was like "I'm dead, I am SO dead!!!!" Instead, he just started laughing. The lady wasn't too impressed with me though :-/ Hopefully this experience will be a little less embarrasing.

Wow..

See this sunset? Isn't it awesome? Can you guess where it is?




Still guessing?





Mars.

Operation Occupation

So now that I've got this whole walking business down, I suddenly have free time on my hands, a LOT of it. The only thing going this week is my 5th year High School Reunion on Saturday, which I'm not terribly excited about. I spent a good chunk of high school down at UVSC anyway, and I'm probably not going to be too enthusiastic to see some people I knew at Timpview.

I've started to job hunt again, and for some reason it's not working out (so far). I've stopped by most of the hotels in the area to see if they were hiring, and they all only had positions that would involve heavy lifting (which is a no go because of the hip) My cousin showed me an online service called Cha Cha where you answer peoples question for them and get paid 20c a question. Can you believe they rejected me?! How is that even possible? I didn't specify any interests on their site because I'm comfortable answering ANY questions. Oh well.

In another effort to use up my time, I've been redoing one of the rooms in our basement. Instead of being a dark room with exercise equipment (that DOES get used mind you), I've now turned it into an entertainment center. All in all, there's going to be the big screen TV (which we had already), a Wii, DVD player, surround sound, a love sac, and my computers in the back. Not a bad setup if you ask me :)

I'll write about my vacation to Cali & Chicago as soon as I get the pics for them from my dad. So in the mean time, you get to read babble posts :)

EDIT: Cha Cha changed their minds, I'm working for them now until I can get a real job. :)

Barbequeing in the sun

No, we didn't have a BBQ. I'm in Chicago at the moment, which is why nothing is happening on the blog here. The BBQ part was referencing to the fact that I got a nice sunburn during Micheles graduation.

Much more later when I get back home.

:)

I'm in a very good mood tonight. Perhaps it's because I'm prepping a lesson to teach in Sunday School.

I think I have a very unique Bishop. Normally you'd expect them to be pious, full of thees and thous almost. I think the man upstairs certainly picked the right man for the job, because he has a way of connecting with young people. Last year he asked me if I wanted to teach class on Sundays, and I was rather stunned. Not so much about the calling itself (I had been teaching 3rd hour for over a year by then), but it was the fact that I was still struggling to stand for long periods of time with an as-of-yet undiagnosed hip problem. Our conversation went like this:

Bishop: Grant, I'd like you to teach Sunday School from now on, do you think you could do that?
Me: Um, you know I have trouble standing, right?
Bishop (without batting an eye): Just do it Jewish style, sit down.

Nowhere to go after that, it was all settled :)

Teaching is something I rather enjoy. Considering how I struggled as a child with speech, I think I've come a long way. I would consider teaching as a profession in a heartbeat, if only they were paid more.

Adversity - And Turning it Around

Ever had the feeling that life is just not fair? A good friend of mine always shakes his fist at the heavens demanding that life be unfair in HIS favor. Contrary to where you all may think this is going, this week has nothing to do with the hip.

I'll spare the techno-babble and simply say that my computer is broken, and will take at least a week to repair. It's not something I'm looking forward to, but I'm going to have to get around to it sooner or later. Luckily, it wasn't my fault (entirely). I decided to make good use out of my cell phone, and politely ask for refunds and replacement parts seeing as how there were hardware failures in areas that I hadn't even touched. In the last week, I've managed to get 150$ out of a processor, 50$ from broken crutches (another story obviously), a new motherboard (250$), and new ram (80$). Not too shabby if you ask me.

All this just from being nice (and occasionally patronizing) to the other guy on the phone. All this has suddenly turned what was quickly becoming a catastrophic week into a mildly annoying week. Top this off with getting lots of errands done, writing to a good friend of mine in France, and reading a good book, and this week isn't so bad at all now.

I should also mention that my social life is slowly on the rebound after the surgery. A lot of people moved out, so now I'm going to have to make new friends again. If I don't, I may end up being so bored as to do something like this.....

<

It's that time again kids

Yes, it's one of those days where I just have to rant.

Have you ever seen one of these?



Of course you have!! Anyone who wants to be a true patriot HAS to have one. Because we love supporting troops that have been ordered to blow up random countries. What is with all these "feel good" showings of support? What in blazes did you actually DO to support them?! Did you send them cookies? Freeze dried American burgers? Guns that work? Some armor they should've had already? How about a ticket home to their families? It truly irks me to see ignoramuses driving around with those stickers on their huge gas-guzzling SUVs that probably put the troops there in the first place due to oil demand. Blah blah blah. Here is something you can spend money on instead of those ribbons.

So what sparked this tirade? Facebook did. Some people (who WILL remain nameless) joined a Facebook group in support for oppressed women in the DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire). What dingbat honestly thinks making a Facebook group will change anything? When were you knuckleheads last in Africa? How about taking a lesson from the life and teachings of my sister Ashleigh, who actually got onto a plane and helped build a school in Africa for children? Certainly makes your little Facebook groups seem like a complete waste of time, doesn't it? Oh wait...it IS a waste of time! I can just see the African leaders now "Hey check it out Mugabe! We should totally stop running our governments like demented bees because A FACEBOOK GROUP SAID SO!"

Stuff like buying yellow ribbons and joining Facebook groups are like almost donating to an orphanage, making it so the orphanage was almost able to feed the children.

P.S. I'm starting a Facebook group to help prevent the merciless slaughter of demented bees from their tyrannical queens.

I can walk

Thats right

You want to know what song has been going through my head all day?

We are the Champions - Queen. I was going to post a youtube link, but the guy who posted the only decent version disabled HTML embedding. Jerk.

Nothing much to report other than that. I'm going to California next month. The doc says I'm probably going to set off airport security with all the screws in my hip, so that won't be fun. I guess I'll have to show them the scar.

Guilty Pleasures

It's no secret that I love traveling, particularly to Europe and Australia. One would think that it's mainly for the sight seeing and the experiences. While this is partly true, I also like traveling for another reason.

I love the intro music to BBC World News.

We don't get that channel here in Happy Valley, so I'm usually starved of it until I go to the UK, or visit my dad. They tend to change the song slightly every year or so, but it's basically the same thing. Here are some videos proving my point.







Someone even made a club mix of the song, not too shabby.



Now is that a great song or what?!?!

Hello?

A Social Effort

I have a habit of bringing up the whole hip issue in just about every conversation I'm involved in. While most of the time this is okay seeing as how others tend to bring it up in the first place, I've become conscious of just how often I'm talking about it. I think it's high time I have other things to talk about when I'm around people, IF I'm around people that is. An explanation on the IF part: I've been cooped up here like a goldfish with ADHD in a 3x3 inch fish bowl (just picture that in your mind). My window to the world has been my computer, which makes me feel like my eyes are becoming rectangular.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't spend a lot of time on the computer before the surgery anyway. Imagine you've suddenly been given an endless supply of Krispy Kreams/Biltong/Holdens (one for US, SA, AU). It would be great to overdose on it all at first, but then it gets old, and you want something different. This would probably explain why I get bored very easily on the computer, but don't do anything else because there's nothing else to do. Recipe for insanity anyone?


Image from The Escapist Magazine. It perfectly illustrates my state of mind in this madness.

At least the surgery (bah, mentioned it again!) was in the winter, the summer will be great and hopefully some social reconstruction will be happening.

EDIT 2: Got a little carried away with the last edit.

Moral of the story? Spammers are bad, mmmkay?

Blast From the Past

While browsing the net, I found this:




It totally reminded me of around the time we moved to the United States. It either came out right around the time we moved, or a few months before. Talk about a junior high back to the future moment.

Anyhow, you've probably noticed that the culinary blog hasn't been updated for a while. Don't worry, I'm working on it. I could use a little help with something though. As you can see in the blog, there's a little block that shows the ratings for the restaurant I reviewed. I'm looking for an easy way to make one of those tables and convert it into jpeg. If anyone has some tips, it would be much appreciated. My software options are limited to free open source programs like OpenOffice and GIMP (har har). Basically I just want to input the information, and have it spit out the jpeg for me (at a blogger-friendly resolution).

I started reading the Elenium series again. I read it before the mission, but I've forgotten most of it. There's a sequel series now, so I need to get myself up to speed in order to have the sequel make sense to me. I'm starting to run dry on my taste for sci-fi books though, thanks to my friend Ryan's corruption whenever we hang out at borders. Out of my friends, he reads the most (with Tom at a close second), and he always has these great literature recommendations for me, but I'm always reading some sci-fi book at the time (sound familiar dad?). Anyhow, after I'm done with these series, I'll get started on the Art of War by Sun Tzu which I didn't finish last time.

Just When I was laughing at Vista Users...

So my computer had a meltdown last night. Instead of giving you all the technical details and putting you all to sleep, I'm making this handy dandy imaginary conversation between me and my computer.

XP: Isn't this fun? It's been a while since we've played this game.
Me: Yup
Xp: You know what? I think I'll just go and die on you for no reason.
Me: What?? Why?
XP: *dies*
Me: NO! Come on! I didn't even make a backup of anything!! Maybe I can restart him
Comp: Nope, he's dead Jim
Me: fixboot?
Comp: nope
Me: Rewrite boot sector?
Comp: Not happening
Me: Repair install?
Comp: Think again
Me: Replace bad files?
Comp: I'm serious, XP is dead, you need to re-install him
Me: Not an option, nothing is backed up
*crickets chirping*
Comp: Well.....this is awkward
Me: Wait, what if I install Windows 2000 on another disk and access the files with that?
Comp: I dunno, try it
Me: *blows dust off ancient CD, installs 2000*
2000: Hi, I'm 2000, welcome to 1999!
Me: Oh geez, well lets get you up to speed here, XP here just died on me and I need help
2000: I can see that, may I recommend updating me first?
Me: Fine, but THEN we get to fixing this problem.

-Multiple updates/driver installs later-
2000: Hey I'm going to scan this drive for errors, ok?
Me: No! Don't touch anything! You're working just fine!
2000: I'm sorry, but you didn't press escape in time, scanning now!
Me: NO! Leave everything alone!!!!!
2000: See? I found some errors, now I'm going to start fixi..............*dies*
Me: What the!?
Comp: He's dead Jim
Me: What!? both XP and 2000 are dead now????
Comp: Well pretend you were in 2000's shoes, how would you feel if you were abandoned for over half a decade only to be brought out of retirement to fix your mess?
Me: You mean XP's mess
Comp: No, everything is your fault, bwahahaha!
Me: Listen here, I'm just about to go to Toms house, grab a big axe, then open you up and give you a reprogramming you'll never forget, are we clear?!*
Comp:.....
Me: Right, NOW GET 2000 BACK HERE!!!

-A reinstall goes by-
2000: Hi, I'm 2000, welcom to 19-
Me: Shut up! You're updated now, and you're going to help me, if you so much as dare to do anything that I explicitly haven't told you to do, I'm buying A MACINTOSH!!!
2000: You wouldn't....
Me: Try me..
2000: Oh hey! here are all the files you need, just burn a copy of this and you're ready to go!
Me: That's more like it.
Me: *repair installs XP again, this time with the RIGHT disc*
XP: Hi!
Me: How are you feeling?
XP: Not too good, you sure took your time
Me: You can blame gramps over there
2000: Hey!
XP: I can work now, but if I were you, I'd back everything up and re-install everything, otherwise, I just might die on you again!


That is the tale of my saga. It's also the reason I didn't get to bed until 3am

*Totally ripped off from Douglas Adams, may he rest in pieces

Gravity

So today I had an unexpected appointment with the wall. Somehow my crutch was caught in the carpet, making me fall forward and to the side a bit. I would've hit the ground if the wall hadn't been there to smear my face across. I started putting weight on the bad leg during all this, which made me totally relax that leg and try to send all the weight to the good leg. Needless to say, pain became the word of the day, but it subsided after an hour with the help of some pain killers. I purposefully throttled down my meds intake specifically for a situation like this when I really needed them. Forward thinking FTW :)

Today for my internet class I had to give a 3 minute eulogy about myself to some of my cousins. Man did it feel awkward, but I'm glad it's over, only 6 speeches to go :-\

At least I didn't fall like this guy


Reporter Owned By Sled - Watch more free videos

Bleh

Here's a tip everybody:

Don't take Lodine before going to bed on an empty stomach when you're not feeling well.

I think I went to sleep at 3am, but I don't remember. Actually, I don't remember much of last night at all. I haven't been feeling well (I'll spare the details). I woke up this morning after having some seriously trippy dreams. My head feels weird, my stomach doesn't feel good, and my motor skills aren't being very helpful today.

Next time I'll remember to eat something before taking those pills, or I just wont take them at all.

Music

I've noticed an interesting phenomenon in my life. Up until my mission, my taste in music leaned over more to stuff like Metallica, Breaking Benjamin, Linkin Park etc. It never went as far as stuff like Pantera, but a rocking guitar always put me a good mood. I still listen to that sort of thing, but only in one place, the gym. I always get kinda bored in the gym, so music like that tends to get the adrenaline going and it makes the workout seem much shorter.

Fast forward to after the mission. My friend Ryan introduced me to Sigur Ros, and ever since then, my music taste have done a 180, and now I listen to some of the most chill music I can find (my mom says it sounds depressing at times). For me, it does wonders to the stress levels as well as just leaving me in a good mood when it's over. Here are some examples:





I also listen to a lot more stuff like Radiohead now. This is one of my favorite/favourite songs from them: (I like the guitar later in the song)



Also, if you live in the US, I highly recommend you go to www.pandora.com . It's a great place to discover new music. If you don't live in the US, then this site will be blocked off for you. You can blame the record industry for that.

Advertising - The Bane of my Existence.

In an effort to get things going in the culinary blog, I've been selecting recipes from my culinary magazines etc. so I don't have to go fishing around at the last minute for a recipe. About 10 minutes into this, I realized just how maddening all the ads in the magazines are. I can't stand advertising in most forms. The only ads I like are ones that are clever, ones that make me think, or laugh. Here is an example:



See? That ad makes a person think. For those not in the know in International politics, the UN is really good at releasing statements, causing local scandals, and not much else. They've pledged support for Darfur, but haven't really done much. This post isn't intended to demean those who are providing humanitarian aid, but it's meant to point out that someone with half a brain should grow a pair and take action while that lunatic in Khartoum (sp?) lets genocide happen.

Anyhow, back on topic. Ads. I've spent a good few hours with a fine blade cutting out most of the ads from the Culinary magazines. Mind you, I'm leaving the ones alone that have useful info on the other side of the page. Now when I go through the magazines again (with marked areas I've selected to look at later), it's so much better and it even feels easier on the eyes. For a while now, I've installed an addon to Firefox called Ad Block Plus. Because of that addon, I haven't seen an ad on the internet for months, and I love it. I don't watch TV shows on the TV, I just wait for the DVD since I know I'm not going to see ads on the DVD. And when I'm driving, I just close my eyes on the highways so I won't see any billboards......okay not really, but if anyone knows how to get rid of those, I'm all ears :)

New Blog -->

This is just an fyi for the less observant, I decided to just start my culinary blog now. Its in the link list to the right, so enjoy.

Too bad I'm not a paid spokesman

Ok this isn't meant to be an ad or anything, but I have to give a shout out to 24-Hour Fitness here.

I've been a regular customer there for 2 years now, and I know a lot of the people there. Today was my first day back at the gym after the surgery, and I got a very warm welcome back from the people there. They all asked how everything went with the surgery, and one of the guys moved one of the exercise machines out in the open so that I could use it. They also kept the door open for me so I could go in and out (they don't have a handicapped button). So today has been a wonderful day and it was off to a great start thanks to 24.

I'm making steady progress in recovering. I should be signing up for an institute class soon so that I can spend more time out of the house and make good use of my time. 5 weeks and then I can ditch the crutches, I'm SO looking forward to it :)

I found this video on digg.com, I thought I would share to end off this post :)

Yays and Nays

Okay, there's good news and bad news in this post. The bad news isn't even all THAT bad, more like slightly frustrating.

Today I went to the doctor, who gave me the ok for driving! So naturally the first thing I did was get into my car the second I got home. The battery was dead, but after a jump start, I was back in action. I'm also able to put half my body weight on my left hip now. Let me tell you, it feels so WEIRD to use the bad leg now. The muscles have no idea what I want them to do, so they just kinda spaz out in different directions. It's a wonderful feeling to see some real progress now :)

The (almost) bad news is that the doctor has delayed my full weight bearing status by another 3 weeks, which means I can only try walking without the crutches in 6 weeks. Frustrating, but I'll survive.

In other news, I've decided that I'm going to start a second blog after I learn to walk again. It'll only involve culinary stuff, mainly experiments and how they turn out (with recipes), so until then, you'll all have to survive on whatever it is you all eat anyway. (that last part made more sense in my head..)

EDIT: And on a side note, I stood up today without the help of the crutches for the first time :)

Cane Idol

Ok I know a lot more of you read this blog than those who leave comments. In about 6 weeks, I'll hopefully be able to start learning to walk again. I'll probably still need some help getting around, but I'm getting sick of the crutches.

So here's the deal. I'm planning on getting a cane to use for a few weeks and I plan on keeping it for next year as well. The problem is that I don't know which cane to get. I saw a few on amazon.com that were not bad, but I couldn't pick one out of the choices there. So I'm open to suggestions, here are the rules.

50$ max, and if it's 50$, it had better be a nice one.
I can override whichever choice is most popular.
If you want to send me a suggestion, but don't have a blogger account, just e-mail or get me on facebook, or text me or something.
It needs to be long enough for someone (like me) who is 6'4"

Funny entries get bonus points :)

The sound of.....Windows music?!

That's right folks, I have found what I think to be one of the greatest videos ever made. Here it is:


It's a song made purely out of sounds from Windows XP and Windows 98 (as in 10 years ago 98....wow). Apparently the guy was just bored and had some spare time on his hands. I wish I could make something as cool as this in my free time, all I do is school work, reading, movies etc, and some games of course.

Speaking of games, anyone who knows anything about me knows I'm a gamer, but I can honestly say I've been doing hardly any of it. Right now, as Adam mentioned in his blog, I've been playing a game called Civilization 4. My most recent adventure was me building up the country of India as Gandhi, and I had the joy of having Mao Zedong as my neighbor. If he was half as cranky in real life as he was in that game, then I'm glad I'll never meet him. He declared war on me TWICE, and only wanted to talk about peace after I sacked 13 of his cities (don't mess with Gandhi, fool).

This week Elder Scott is coming to our Stake on Sunday, and I've decided that with the help of probably a wheelchair and some pain killers, I AM going to that meeting. I managed to go to church last week, but only for sacrament meeting. After that, I was really exhausted for some reason, and started to get light headed. I'm glad I made it though, since I don't get out of the house much (yet...). In about 11 days (or 10, depending on what time zone you live in ;) ), I should be allowed to put some weight on the joint, and you can bet that I'm going to do a LOT more things out of the house when I get the chance.

Yay!

Well I went to the doctor today, and things seem to be improving nicely. It will be another 3 weeks before I can put any real weight on the joint, so until then I'll have to be content with the fact that I can use crutches now instead of a walker. I also have a much better time sitting down in chairs and getting back up onto my feet. I can also manage going up and down stairs now using the crutches.

Other than going home from the hospital in a lot of pain and in a drugged state, this was the first time I had really gone outside since the surgery. It was a weird feeling, but it felt great to be out and about doing stuff again. I only really lasted about 4 hours though. I became rather tired from all the energy used in that time, so I'm just back at home chilling out.

Just to help some people realize how serious this all is, I'm posting a picture of my x-ray so you can see all the mayhem that has happened. And to think....I have to go through this all again.

On a more serious note, some people have been asking me if the pain is bad. Right now, I'd say it is about 1 or 2 out of 10. It wasn't like this during the first week. Never in my life did I ever feel so much pain as I did that week. Imagine pain so bad that you totally lose control of your muscles and your breathing, shaking half to death and crying your eyes out and wanting someone to just kill you so it would end the pain. All this with feeling that nobody was there for you, because at the time this happened, nobody was around. The nurses took their sweet time coming to the room to find out what was wrong, and by then, I was half unconscious since the pain was so excruciating. At one point later in the day, I was injected with a drug that just put me to sleep (my mom was around by then). The drug was meant for anti nausea, but it's side effect put me to sleep for hours while they were trying to figure out why the pain management was going so horribly wrong.

The updates

The following is a list of updates my mom wrote to people about my surgery. I figured that instead of telling the story over again, I can just copy and past and make everyone satisfied. All the parts of the post you see in red is my commentary on her updates :)

Update 1 - 22nd January 2008

Grant tore the cartilage on the ball of the hip in his left hip joint about 8 months ago. In the process of finding out what was wrong, we discovered that he has hip dysplasia (can't figure out why that wasn't picked up when he was a baby!-Um, African doctors anyone?), and an imbalance in the way his pelvis and hip sockets (can't remember the real names -The acetabulum (sp?) for all you medical nuts) have formed. The surgery was to repair the cartilage and restructure the hip. He has to have the right side taken care of in a year, so this is the first of two stages, a year apart (we hope he doesn't remember the pain from this round, otherwise stage 2 may not happen). -Just like I'm sure women don't remember the pain of giving birth

These health issues have affected his life drastically - he has had to drop out of his Culinary Arts program at UVSC as he cannot stand for more than a few minutes. He also moved back home as he lived on the third floor of an apartment block with 5 other guys from his singles ward. He has to be non-weight-bearing on his left leg for the next 6 weeks -I'm having trouble sitting still for so long, let's get this whole walking business on the road already!, so being home is probably the best option for him right now, even though it's very "uncool."(?....If its "uncool", then I must be in the same popularity range as Tom Cruise, ugh) Of course his social life has also hit the rocks as it's difficult to go out with friends when you can barely walk...or sit...or stand....let alone dance, rock climb -or when they get into car accidents and can't drive up to see you, ski, or anything else young adults do when they socialize. Hence we have had a somewhat miserable soul with us the past few weeks. Hopefully this surgery will be the start of good things for him. The doctor has told us it will be about 4 months before he is fully healed from the surgery. -Give me a cane to walk around with, and any social hiccups will instantly disappear. Hey, if it worked for Pres. Hinkley, it'll work for me, right?

Update 2

Grant went into surgery at 11.30 and spent the next 5 1/2 hours there. Dr Smith came out and explained the procedure to us - He is finally in his hospital room on the 4th floor. He has been extremely nauseous and shaking, saying he is cold.-This was hell, imagine shaking uncontrollably but not being cold at the same time. The nurses have been very attentive, bringing him warmed blankets and trying to get him to sip a little warm chicken broth.-I honestly don't remember this part. His right hand went numb and they have tried to fix this with reducing the pressure on his BP cuff, and lifting the arm onto a pillow so that the epidural anesthetic (he is still having from his surgery) does not sink down to his hands.

Dr Smith mentioned that he uses a special swiss-made tool (called a Gonz Osteotome sp?) for this particular procedure. It is critical for success, however, just as they were performing the last cut, the tool broke.-What can I say? My bones are made of steel! He told us he has no replacement, and had the tool broken earlier in the surgery, it would have been a disaster as the procedure could not have been completed. In fact they would have had to just close him up and he would have been left unable to walk and sit.-I think I would've strangled someone, so lets get another tool (or 3) ready for the next time round Dr Smith felt very strongly that the prayers of all the family and friends of Grant had been heard, as things went incredibly well, even with the timing of the broken tool.-I'll bet he was just emotional because he knew he would've had a lot of upset people on his hands if he aborted, talk about dodging bullets.

Update 3 - 24th January 2008

One of the worst things imaginable is to watch a child go through excruciating pain and not be able to help fix it. Grant's blood pressure started dropping last night - down to 110/60, then 90/43.-So much for high blood pressure in our family. Then his SATS (O2) went down to the 70's-Nobody can call me an oxygen thief now :). When his blood counts were done this morning, his body was going into shock from the severe loss of blood (remember I mentioned in the Christmas newsletter that Grant would be giving blood 3x prior to surgery as there's a possibility of blood loss?-Best idea ever. It generally occurs after, not during, surgery). When I arrived at the hospital this morning, he was as white as a sheet - lips too. He was shaking uncontrollably, but gradually settled down when he received the first unit of blood. He received 2 units of blood in total, and it helped enormously.

However, his IV pain medications were removed and he was put on pain meds by mouth. Thankfully Physical Therapy managed to get him to stand and take 3 halting steps before the pain hit him. The pain meds simply did not work.-To put it lightly Added to this, Grant became nauseous, so between excruciating pain and dry retching, he has had the most awful day. Zofran, a strong anti-nausea drug-So amazingly strong that it did NOTHING which is used for cancer patients did nothing-They would probably have had better luck injecting water into me; Oxycontin, for pain, had no effect. To add to this, Grant began to feel like he couldn't breath, so now he's on oxygen again. His SATS dropped to 78 just a short while ago so he's being monitored closely too (with a ghastly little machine that beeps constantly-That machine was so loud, it was maddening.). His nurse called Pain Management and they changed the nausea meds to Phenergan via IV. He threw up the Oxycontin and since they don't know how much his body had absorbed, he has to be on breakthrough meds every 2 hours till tomorrow morning. Andre and Judy, and Jean-Paul came to visit him this pm - Andre and Jean-Paul gave him an administration...and he's finally settled down. He asked me to stay at the hospital, so I'm going to try and sleep on a squeaky recliner next to his bed....and we have to do this again in a year!

Update 4 - 27th January 2008

Grant's nausea has become a huge stumbling block to him dealing with pain and being able to progress with physical therapy. The original plan was for him to be discharged on Friday, however, his symptoms have not yet been brought under control. After returning from the hospital late on Saturday night, I was so stressed about what we were going to do, so I got down on my (very old and stiff) knees, and prayed, asking Heavenly Father to help us find a way to help Grant. I woke up early this morning and got to the hospital at about 6.30am. I wanted to catch the doctor and speak to him about the current plan of care. So far he hasn't come by (Sundays are always a little different in the hospital). However, my sister Louise and her husband Ric came by the hospital this morning, and Louise and I started talking about options for nausea control. Louise mentioned "Maxolon," a drug that was used in South Africa for severe nausea - I remember using it myself, so we started checking out the possible American equivalent on my little laptop here at the hospital (we got some very weird looks from doctors and nurses at the desk as Louise used medical terms and references that have always sounded like Greek to me!). Apparently a drug called "Reglan" is the American version. We spoke to Grant's nurse Lisa, and she called the doc. The doctor has taken him off all his previous painkillers and nausea meds. He is now on Reglan for nausea, and Dilaudid (hydromorphone) for pain. After a blessing from Ric, Grant was given his first dose of the new meds and has been sleeping for about 2 hours now....

Grant woke up a new young man! He was so much more like his old self - chatty and laughing, and ready to come home. Who would have thought the answer to my prayer would come through my big sister and her training in medicine that she no longer officially practices in!

Update 5 - 29th January

Miracles! It's Tuesay 29th Jan and Grant came home yesterday-That was an adventure all on it's own, the nurses looked happy about my departure.... He is doing so much better! His pain is being managed on very small doses of medicine; he's hardly been nauseous at all; he walked right through to the kitchen from his bedroom this morning on his platform walker (we have home health, so both a nurse and a physical therapist come to the house to work with him ); he was able to take a shower after a week (smells SO much better-Amen to that :D) and was able to eat a hearty dinner this evening of 4 meatballs (Richard's delicious Lingonberry sauce!) and a red potato (also some of a "special" smoothie Ash made him). Okay we're just going to leave out the last part of this update.

Thank you

A big thank you to all who have written and visited me. I will send more personal notes out and give a detailed break down on what has happened when i can.

Off I go

Well the time has come. I've tied up as many loose ends as I can. To all those who I managed to talk to personally about how I'm feeling (you know who you are), thanks for lending an ear to all my rambling.

I'll keep everyone up to date on how my recovery is going, thanks to all those who contacted me before to wish me luck.

I found something pretty cool online where you can send an e-mail to me through the hospital website. They'll then print it out and give it to me. So to all those who would like to say hi but can't make it, this is a great substitute.

https://intermountainhealthcare.org/xp/secure/forms/uvrmc_emailpat/

I'll see everybody on the dark side of the moon!

Grant

Pills Galore

See all these pills? I've been on all these during this whole hip debacle. Some of them are not required (multivitamin, Glucosamine/Chondriotin), but the rest more or less have been required. The big bluish/grey ones (they're bloody huge) are Lodine. My doctor just yanked me off those since they will thin out my blood before I go under the knife, and they can't have that. The small round white pill is iron, which the doc says I need to get as many red blood cells produced as possible before the op. The yellowish long pill is Ultram (sp?), which from what I understand is a mild narcotic (used in place of the Lodine). I took my first dose tonight and I can say I was in another world. I've always wondered what it was like to be high, I think I caught a glimpse of it, so I'll only be taking those when I'm in a lot of pain. The small pink pills are Ranidine (Zantac 75) which I use in conjunction with the Prevacid (pink/black capsule). They're for my acid reflux, and are only taken as needed (about once every two or three weeks on average).

What kinda irks me is that before my mission, I was as healthy as an ox and didn't need pills. I'm just glad that I don't have to take all these pills every day. If I understand right, I might only need the yellow pills before my next operation in 09 (or not at all thank heavens, I like having my wits about me). As far as the Lodine is concerned, it will be as needed (and only after the op) to deal with the cartilage tear in the right hip that developed a few weeks ago, so I can't see myself taking that very often. The heartburn stuff is only occasional, and the rest are all unnecessary. When I'm an old man, I can see the nurses in the retirement home having a hard time getting me to take my pills. :)

I also found out an estimate on how much this is all going to cost, thank heavens for insurance. I won't say how much it is on here, but it's more than 3 or 4 times what I paid for to get my car.

I will post again soon, and try not to have it revolve around the hip thing. I have more to say, but I'm kinda tired of typing right now. (drugs + late night = ZZZZzzzzz)

Countdown

20 Days and counting.

You know that feeling when you're about to leave somewhere for a very long time? Like if you're about to go on mission, or you're about to finish your time at a school.

That's kind of how I feel right now when it comes to this whole surgery thing. I feel like I'm starting to disconnect with people, things, and some places (?). I don't know why this is the case, because it's not like I'm going anywhere. I guess this time in my life is the calm before a very, VERY turbulent storm. This is my current view going into 2008, which is why I didn't exactly greet the year with enthusiasm. To be fair though, nothing, and I mean NOTHING was going on in Provo (that I was aware of) for New Years, so I doubt I missed out on much anyways.

I've been reading the Dune series for who-knows-long now. My family always wonders why I read these "Cinderella books" (As my friend Tom puts it). I figure that I read so much everyday about news, politics, factual type stuff that I just get into some reading that is entirely fictional. It gives my brain a rest from all the rubbish going on in the real world. So when the family asks me why I read them, they always get the same answer. I like it :-)

Heres a nice little pic to go along with it all.