Halloween is here. IÂ’m just taking a break from getting the house ready for the kids. Every year I decorate the house and entertain the local kids with a haunted house. The yard is done up as a graveyard, there are smoke machines, and numerous static displays. We actually have people that drive into the neighborhood just to see what we do each year. Every year I try to take pictures at night, unfortunately they never turn out very well. This year I took pictures during the day just so you can get an idea of some of the stuff we do.

I hope everyone has a Happy and Safe Halloween. Oh, and before I forget. If you scare anyone, I want stories.

Posted by: Contagion at 04:02 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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IÂ’m sorry itÂ’s taken me so long to update, IÂ’ve had an interesting time over the last couple of days. Right now IÂ’m not going to go into detail about the re-enactment, but I will regale with a tale that started out at the event. Saturday night while trying to avoid hypothermia from the bone chilling cold rain and wind my eyeglasses broke. That wasnÂ’t that big of a deal as IÂ’m far-sighted and only really need the glasses to see anything closer than arms length to my face. In other words with out my glasses if I canÂ’t old the print out far enough, then I just canÂ’t read it.

This only presented a problem when trying to do things like read the gages on my truck, or anything on a computer. My old glasses wouldnÂ’t even hold a lens and stay on my face come Monday morning. Fortunately I had Monday off. I took Boopie to school, hit the bank to make a deposit. As a side note I think the tellers had a lot of fun watching me try to fill out a deposit slip. With out my glasses IÂ’m writing it at arms-length. Ever try to fill out a deposit slip at arms length? Fortunately the teller took pity on my and offered to do it for me. Which I was grateful for and annoyed about at the same time, I hate it when I canÂ’t do things for myself. Since I had given myself a headache trying to fill it out, I let myself be dotted on like a senile old man.

After the bank I went to the mall. It had the only Lens Crafters near me that could do glasses in an hour. I couldnÂ’t go a week with out my glasses. When I get to the mall, I realize IÂ’m about 40 minutes early. All the stores are closed and the only people there are mall walkers, you know the people that do laps around the mall for exercise. Not wanting to sit around like some kind of store stalker, I decided to be the youngest old person there. I started doing laps around the mall. Hell, I was partially blind anyway.

When the store opened, they wouldnÂ’t just get me new glasses. Since itÂ’s been three years since my last eye exam, they wanted to do a new one to make sure nothing had changed. Eh, it needed to be done anyway. They did a quick repair of my old glasses just so I could take the tests. This is what we learned during the exam. A) IÂ’m still partially colorblind. 2) I have 60/20 vision at distances. I can see at 60 feet what most normal people can see at 20. C) IÂ’m damn near legally blind at less then 2.5 feet from my face. I completely failed the up close reading test. I only got the first line right, E, and thatÂ’s because I guessed. It was blurry and could have been an E, 8, H, 6, 9, 5, 2, or R. But since most eye charts start with an E, thatÂ’s what I said. Then I admitted I could just barely make it out.

Then to make things worse they had to check the inside of my eye, so they gave me these drops that made my eyes dilate. That was fun; they warned me my vision was going to be blurry for a while after. While the drops took affect, they sent me out to pick out frames. As my vision quickly deteriorated I had to pick out frames. Do you know how hard it is to pick out frames when you canÂ’t see? Fortunately they have a 30-day money back guarantee, because I think I picked out frames I like, but I really couldnÂ’t see to tell you the truth.

With frames picked out they told me that since I wanted the UV protection, glare resistant lenses it would take a week to get them. Apparently the glasses in an hour thing only apply if you get cheap frames and the minimalist of lenses. Again I explained I couldnÂ’t wait a week for my new glasses, as I needed them right away. The girl helping me said she would have my old frames repaired for free as a temporary fix. She told me that if they didnÂ’t last until I received my new glasses, they would even set me up with a temporary pair using my old lenses.

The whole time I’m going through this, my eyesight is worsening. Finally they call me back in for the final part of the exam. Alls well, my prescription hasn’t changed that much and other than my myopia, my eyes are fine. Then I ask how long before my vision comes back. The doctor tells me “three hours.” WHAT?!?!?!?! I drove myself here; I can’t wait around the mall for three hours until my vision returns to normal. I’ll go insane! The doctor offers to give me some drops that will help restore the vision quicker, but she warns me that it stings pretty badly. Hey, I don’t care. I’ll take the physical pain over the mental pain of being in the Mall longer than I need to be.

Well the doctor wasnÂ’t laying the restoration drops stung worse than campfire smoke in the eyes, but it was worth it. I only had to wait around the mall for an additional 30 minutes. By the time I returned home, I had a headache that wouldnÂ’t go away. By the time everything returned to normal and the headache went completely away it was late in the day.

Anyway, thatÂ’s why I havenÂ’t posted until now.

Posted by: Contagion at 06:25 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 I've never had trouble driving with my eyes dialated - Sun glasses are a must but otherwise it's okay. I wonder if it's because you're primarily far sighted.

Otherwise how are you?

Posted by: Teresa at October 24, 2006 10:02 PM (o4pJS)

2 When I went last year they told me that if my near-sightedness gets just a tiny bit worse most eyeglass places will have to special order the lenses because no one stocks them that strong.

Oh joy.

Posted by: Graumagus at October 25, 2006 02:20 AM (b1qlW)

3 You should have spit some of your venom in the doctor's eyes and laughed maniacally. BTW how is your mutant transformation going?

Posted by: shawn at October 25, 2006 04:28 PM (4Df8Z)

4 This seriously changes the entire scope of your superheroness. Now you're a blind, venom-spitting, senile old mall-walker. Super Blind Old Snake Man!

Posted by: Ogre at October 27, 2006 08:40 AM (oifEm)

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Tonight I get a call from an automated message service from my doctorÂ’s office. The results of my biopsy are in. I needed to call the message service and find out the results. When the procedure was done, they told me this is how they get the information to the patients faster. They gave me my unique identification number and had me set up a PIN.

I called the service and this is the message I received, “The results of your biopsy are inconsistent with your condition. You need to contact your doctor during the next business day.” SON OF A BEAOTCH! Yea, that was helpful. Know what that tells me? NOTHING! It actually has me worried that they found something horrible and the doctor has to break the news to me personally. All I can think right now is that I have some kind of horrible disease that is killing me slowly.

The kicker of this whole thing is that IÂ’m getting ready to leave town for the weekend, and the next day IÂ’m going to be able to call the doctor when he has office hours is Monday. That means all weekend IÂ’m going to be sitting around wondering if IÂ’m slowly dying. Which, I know IÂ’m not, if that was the case the doctorÂ’s office would have called right away, but my mind canÂ’t get off the worse case scenario.

I think IÂ’ve finally hit the stage where IÂ’m honestly worried. Up to now I figured it was nothing, weÂ’d treat it and all would be right in the world again. Now IÂ’m thinking that maybe this is something serious and maybe IÂ’m looking at the beginning of a long down fall.

Now excuse me while I go have a long conversation with my therapist, Jack DanielÂ’s.

Posted by: Contagion at 05:45 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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TheyÂ’ve been calling for it all week long. Many people didnÂ’t think it would happen, but it did. Today, we had snow. Not just a flurry, but actually accumulation. Of course not long after it stopped snowing it started to melt right away, but it was there. On the rooftops and in some yards there is still about an eighth inch of snow.

At one point it looked like a full-blown blizzard. I looked out the windows at work, and you couldnÂ’t see across the parking lot. I half expected there to be news reports of school closings. My employees where lamenting the snow. Of course following all first snows of the year, there were plenty of accidents. It seems like it takes a couple of good snows before the majority of idiots remember how to drive in the white stuff.

And while some people were lamenting the snow, I was rejoicing in it. Snow is fun; it means it’s cold, but not too cold. It’s a nice comfortable feeling that allows you to wear the flannels with out sweating your nards off. In celebration of the glorious weather, I was singing “Let it Snow” all day at work.

Posted by: Contagion at 05:57 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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I actually had my procedure today. Things went much better then last time. IE, they did NOT try to stick a camera up my butt! The procedure wasnÂ’t too bad and even though IÂ’m still feeling the side effects, IÂ’m doing well.

Good: They actually found something.

Bad: They have no clue as to what the hell it is. They did a biopsy to see if they could get more information.

Bad: My esophageal ring is damaged and weakened. IE it doesnÂ’t close all the way and any stomach irritation could cause it to open and release the contents of my stomach into my esophagus. IE the vomiting. They canÂ’t fix thisÂ… but it could heal on its own in time.

Bad: I have an extremely nasty case of GERD (Gastro Esophageal Reflux Disease). I swear the doctor said that if it keeps up like this IÂ’m going to be able to spit stomach acid like a spitting cobra shoots venom. The only thing to do with this is treat it with medication.

Bad: My stomach is producing ungodly amounts of stomach acid for no reason what so ever. After not eating for 12 hours or drinking anything for 6, my stomach should have been relatively calm. From the photoÂ’s I saw it looked like some violent tumultuous pool of acid seen only in Super Hero comic books and Movies. Again, this is treatable with medicationÂ… a lot of it.

At least I know what’s going in, if not the “why” behind it.

Oh, and during the procedure they made a mistake and were able to see my black shriveled heart. IÂ’m kidding; we all know I have no heart.

Posted by: Contagion at 04:19 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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