Well I decided to go out and do it. With all the talk about wanting to get it done and actually having some time today, I had my upper ear pierced... twice.

Yea, my mother thinks I'm having a mid-life crisis.

What's funny is that apparently I'm a bleeder. It didn't hurt much more than giving blood... which is what I ended up doing. They used 16 gauge needles to get the size rings I wanted. When they pushed them through my ear I could feel something run down ear and drop onto my shirt. The girl that did the piercing was all nice and grabbed some paper towels to help stem the flow of blood. half an hour later the bleeding stopped and they where able to get the second one. That one didn't bleed anywhere near as much. As I told them, I guess you drained it all on the first try.

Right now it's a little sore, but overall it's not bad.

Posted by: Contagion at 03:19 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Well this restricted diet may actually be working. The stomach problems actually are starting to subside. It's been 4 days since I've had an episode, and that is a record over the last year. I'm down to taking my medication just at night which is good, because not being able to digest your food makes for some interesting situations in the bathroom.

Also, I lost 6 pounds in the last week. Which is truely amazing because the medications major side effect is that you gain weight. Oh, and I'm not even hungry, how cool is that?

Posted by: Contagion at 07:15 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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ItÂ’s been a week now that IÂ’ve altered my eating habits per doctorÂ’s orders. I havenÂ’t had any red meat in that time period and I have discovered that IÂ’m quickly developing a strong hatred for poultry. Mainly because IÂ’m limited in what I can eat, ie I donÂ’t like pork (unless itÂ’s smoked and covered in BBQ sauce) and I have a mild allergy to seafood. I can still eat it, but I get nauseous when I do. Not that my spontaneously vomiting is an issue to me since I do it anyway. I just donÂ’t like feeling sick. That really leaves me with Chicken and Turkey on a daily basis.

This brings up an interesting series of questions I have for all of you.

1)Have you noticed that low/no fat versions of some of your favorite foods are also low/no flavor or it tastes like crap?

2)Does anyone else find that “alternative” meat versions of certain products are just wrong? Ie Turkey breakfast sausage is wrong on so many levels.

3)What in the love of god is up with people actually buying low-fat chips that cause anal leakage? Why would you do this to yourself?

4)Does anyone actually like the mouth feel or texture of tofu? Seriously, it reminds me of curdled milk.

5)Since IÂ’m not allowed to drink beer, I wonder if itÂ’s okay for me to have non-alcoholic beer. Just for the damn taste. (Grau, T1G and Bruce, please do not beat my arse for this question. I know itÂ’s blasphemy)

Oh and to all of you that sent me various recipes, thank you very much. IÂ’ll be trying a couple of them this week and IÂ’ll let you know what I thought.

Posted by: Contagion at 12:57 PM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
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Last night I took KTreva out on a little date, just something simple; Dinner and movie. Now that may not sound like a great date, but when you have kids only a sitter for only 5 hours. You work with what you have. Plus since we hardly ever get out just the two of us, it was great.

I took her to a local Japanese restaurant that does the cooking at your table. We have two of these places in town and depending on the person you talk to depends on which one is better. To be honest I think they are about the same.

The best part of these places is the show you get with dinner. Now every time we've gone to anyplace like this, we've had an oriental guy that barely spoke English and it was hard to understand what he was saying. That is until last night. No, we had the only red neck oriental on the face of the earth. The guy had a slight southern accent and used the word "y'all" a lot.

I didn't have a problem with this, as he put on a great show and it was easy to understand him. It just through me off that he had a southern accent, especially since we live in the north.

Oh and if you are interested in the movie we saw, it was The Bourne Ultimatum. It was good, not as good as the first two, but definitely worth seeing.

Posted by: Contagion at 11:13 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I finally found something other than water that I can drink. A diet cranberry juice that is made with sucralose instead of aspertame. Normally I'd say it tastes like watered down cranberry juice. But since I've had only water to drink (besides the two beers from the beer review), it tastes GREAT!

Now if I could only get Ktreva to let me add Vodka to it.

Posted by: Contagion at 06:21 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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I'm off to due battle with one of the most tyrannical powers in the world, the State of Illinois government. Folks, it is my sincere wish that I make it through these trials and tribulations with out harm to myself or others, and that I make it home safe and sound. Alas, I'm a feared that it is not going to happen that way.

From past experience I know that any dealing with Illinois Government for me usually ends up with at least a good shot to my groin.

Wish me luck.

Posted by: Contagion at 06:39 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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I just returned from the doctor's office following up on my condition that I have intentionally not posted about in almost a year. Yes, I'm still slowly dissolving from the inside out. Well, we have good news and we have bad news, and then we have the worse news.

We'll start with the good news. They have once again ruled out the funky growth as cancer. So after going back and forth between yes it is cancer and no it's not cancer... they have confirmed it is NOT cancer. So when they told me I had a malignant neoplasm last October, they were wrong. Now to defend them we'll go to the bad news.

They still have no frickin' clue as to what it is. No one does. They've sent the samples off and we are getting nowhere. Every doctor and specialist that has studied has give the same report, "Testing inconclusive". So they can rule out what it isn't, but can't confirm what it is. Since no one can figure it out, I'm going to cut them some slack for misdiagnoses.

Worse news: Folks, I know most of you are sitting already because you are at a desk reading this on a computer. However, if you aren't, you may want to have a seat now. Today they tell me the worse news they could have ever told me, and I'm not sure I can deal with it. I know that Ktreva and the boys will support me in this time, but I really don't want to burden them with my issues and my problems. My friends may or may not be supportive, it all depends on their moods.

The doctors have told me today that I MUST reduce my beer consumption. They have given me a grocery list of foods and beverages I am no longer allowed to eat or drink other than occasionally. It includes all things like fast food, junk food, pop, beer, etc. IT also has things like tomatoes and tomato based products listed. So all the food and beverages that I hold near and dear to my heart are no longer acceptable for me to eat or drink.

Of course I'll still do my weekly beer review, as I did talk to the doctor about it and he said a couple each week won't kill me, literally.

So there it is folks; I'm cutting beer from my life.

Well after this weekend of course, I have to drink those 5 growlers, and the left over six-packs. I mean, I can't just dump it down the drain now can I?

Posted by: Contagion at 09:40 AM | Comments (18) | Add Comment
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1 Christ, no wonder the stock market is about to crash.

You should really think about going to a university hospital, they are more up to date with wierd diagnoises.

Cause really, they may think this isn't doing any harm but if they don't know what it is then how do they know what it is doing to other things like organs.

Have you tried googling your symptoms? You never know what might come up.

Posted by: Quality Weenie at August 17, 2007 10:09 AM (grH7t)

2 Sorry Dude. And you know....I'll support you by only serving stuff you can eat when y'all come over. I can do that much.....

Posted by: Tammi at August 17, 2007 10:23 AM (PesK3)

3 NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Why, God, WHY!?!?!?!

Posted by: Graumagus at August 17, 2007 12:44 PM (msvPA)

4 I tell you what. Anytime you feel the need to imbibe, just let me know and I'll get hammered for you and tell you how it was.
Seriously, take care of yourself, I need to even the Fantasy score. I really tanked last year...

Posted by: spurs at August 17, 2007 12:52 PM (SQsl6)

5 awww dude, that sucks.

Get a new doctor. One who can tell you what the hell is going on.

Posted by: caltechgirl at August 17, 2007 01:11 PM (/vgMZ)

6 Poor Ketrva. How is she going to deal with the Beer withdrawals??? And the kids... oh no... the kids... (just joking). I hope they find out what it is soon and you can figure out what you need to do to fix it.

Posted by: vw bug at August 17, 2007 01:27 PM (FPOeI)

7 Wait, now, just hold on.

They never said you couldn't have alcohol, just that you had to bypass your stomach....

Anyone reading here know how to rig an IV?

Posted by: Graumagus at August 17, 2007 01:34 PM (msvPA)

8 All beverages??? Because I didn't see Jack Daniels on your list. Maybe there's hope after all?

Posted by: Raging Mom at August 17, 2007 01:55 PM (l+Chn)

9 The beer market has just collapsed. Geeze don't these doctors understand how markets work?

Sorry to hear they're making you stop your beer. I take it they are working on an elimination diet or something similar. That's a bummer. But if it works - that would be excellent because you'd feel better.

Posted by: Teresa at August 17, 2007 02:25 PM (gsbs5)

10 "When Beer Things Happen to Good People"
by Contagion

Posted by: Roses at August 17, 2007 07:53 PM (6KPV+)

11 Ummm Fritz's

Posted by: Bruce at August 17, 2007 08:23 PM (a87ev)

12 Whoa...

Posted by: Bou at August 18, 2007 07:30 AM (fGpp7)

13 Holy crap!
Did you clarify? I mean, does "reduce your beer consumption" mean you can still have a couple bottles a day, but you're no longer allowed to try to finish off half a keg in one sitting?
That sucks, dude - sounds like they're pulling anything that's a bit acidic, eh? Which of course is most food that tastes good :/

Posted by: Shadoglare at August 18, 2007 11:11 AM (sYMAW)

14 Awwwwwwwww crap. That sucks. And what Tammi said - that goes for my house as well. You can still have shrimp bacon cheese crack, right?

Posted by: Richmond at August 18, 2007 06:49 PM (XkZ30)

15 In the spirit of true friendship:

Well hell, thats not bad news. It's more beer for Grau and I!

With both you AND T1G out of the beer department, Grau and I can now effectively drain the country dry BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Oh errr I mean, damn dude, thats horrific.

Posted by: BloodSpite at August 19, 2007 08:51 AM (ZTGJT)

16 The beer gods are crying . . .

Posted by: Oddybobo at August 20, 2007 07:33 AM (mZfwW)

17 You sure you're not hatching and alien in there?

Posted by: Omnibus Driver at August 20, 2007 12:35 PM (WOXRM)

18 Gott damn, dude...

I vow to pick the pace back up... health be damned.

Posted by: That 1 Guy at August 20, 2007 04:27 PM (amJz2)

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Have you ever played a stupid, cheesy game and gotten hooked on it? To the point that you spend at least a part of every waking hour thinking about it. IÂ’m kind of stuck there right now.

And when I say stupid, cheesy game, IÂ’m not talking like some of those online games I post occasionally. IÂ’m talking about some of those stupid Yahoo games.

Why wonÂ’t my villagers stop trying to push the rock?!?!?!

Posted by: Contagion at 05:04 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Yesterday while draining the basement I took a couple of breaks to get some pictures of what was going on in my neighborhood. When the pump was going, there really is nothing much else I can do. Well I guess I could try to splash water toward the pump.

I thought I would share with all of you just exactly how close this was to my house.

Okay, obviously I did NOT take the above picture, I found it online. But it shows what my neighborhood looked like. This picture is actually 3 blocks north of our house.

This is also not a picture I took, but I didn't get any good ones of the boats in the water. When I found the above picture I found this one as well. This was about four blocks directly north of me.

This was three blocks directly north of me after the water had subsided a lot already. I spoke with this gentleman and he was telling me his story. He stated that last year when it flooded he didn't have any structural damage, but he lost a lot of personal items and belongings. They were still trying to recover from having to buy new appliances, furniture, carpet, clothes, etc and paying to have it cleaned out. Now all the stuff that they had replaced is gone. He doesn't have the funds to be able to replace it this time.

I'm sorry for the quality of this picture. The battery was dead on my good camera, so I had to use Ktreva's little point and click digital. It takes good close up pictures, but not at a distance. What I was trying to get was the water geysering up out of the water. This was taken hours after the city officials stated that the flood waters were subsiding, and gave a clear for people in the surrounding areas to return to their homes. Yet as you can see there was still enough pressure running through the storm drains to cause water spouts in 2-3 feet of water.

This picture was taken after the flood waters had subsided a lot. This is a garage door that is almost exactly 500 feet from my property. You can see how high the water reached. It was about a 15 inches deep there. If you look out of my back yard toward this garage there doesn't appear to be much, if any incline at all, but obviously there is as the flood waters did not make it to my property. Yes, I had about 11 inches of water in my basement, but nothing that bad... thankfully.

I honestly feel that the majority of this could have been prevented. Maybe not completely, but at least reduce the amount of damage. The city has known for a while that Keith Creek needed work, but all they have done is sat in committee and made plans. They've stated there is no money. Yet they can find money to buy a Hockey team, redo the Metrecentre, build a riverwalk, have a study for a white water rafting park, etc. But they can't even fork out the money to clean out the creek bed of debris and sediment.

Our city administrator Jim "I got a DUI in a government vehicle and kept my job" Ryan stated they cleaned out parts of the creek. I'm not sure where, but nowhere near where I lived. Those creek beds where filled with plants and debris in my neighborhood. FYI the creek is housed in a man made cement drainage ditch. He also made the statement that cleaning them out wouldn't have prevented the flooding. He doesn't know that for sure, but using his same sense of omnipotence I can say that it sure would have lessened the overall impact.

Posted by: Contagion at 08:30 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Just a quick update. We have no power at home, and we are flooded. There is about 8-12 inches of water in our basement. Apparently the city of Rockford and the incompetence of itÂ’s elected officials did not learn a lesson from last yearÂ’s Labor Day flooding.

There is supposed to be more rain today so IÂ’m not sure if the water is going to be rising or not, but if it does we could be in a lot of trouble.

UPDATE 11:56: Power came back on about an hour and a half ago. I've spent the last hour draining the basement of about 4 inches of water. I rigged a pump to do the work for me. The problem is that I'm still getting some water rising up through the storm drain in the floor. Mental note: Cap and seal storm drain after this is over.

There are helicopters flying around surveying damage. The fire and rescue crews are on the scene pulling people out of the houses by boat. The have issued a warning in our area asking for a voluntary evacuation just in case the damn breaks. However the Army Corp of Engineers are saying it isn't that bad and as long as we don't get another down pour we should be fine.

Update 14:10: The basement is pretty much dry. All the water is gone, the humidifiers are doing their thing and I've bleached the area for all that it's worth for right now. I'll go back and do more disinfecting later once it's all dry.

Posted by: Contagion at 05:57 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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Yea, well IÂ’m back. After spending the week with my in-laws I was ready to get home. We really didnÂ’t do too much. We went to Wichita. While there we had the van break down and I got to spend a day waiting at the dealership. We went to an Indian museum were they had some neat artifacts, but they also had some crappy horribly inaccurate reproduction costuming that they where trying to pass as authentic dress. I know many a native re-enactor that would have flipped out seeing nylon ribbon dresses and shirts being passed off as authentic Plains Indian clothing. It seriously was circa 1970.

We went to the Sedgwick County Zoo, we were there a couple of years ago and it was pretty good. This time it was kind of crappy. Not only was it ungodly hot, but also by 4:00PM half the animals were put inside where you couldnÂ’t see them. Although watching Clone interact with a gorilla was amusing.

We did go to see Transformers the movie. The movie was enjoyable, but seriously lacked in many departments. Luckily it wasnÂ’t just the movie we went for. The theater it was showing at was a full functioning pub/theater. You would sit in your seats, push a button on the armrest and a waiter would come out and take your order. You could get Pasta, burgers, steaks, salads as well as junior mints and popcorn brought to your seat for no additional charge. Plus they served beer!

On the way home we missed being in a horrible accident by seconds. We were about 30 minutes out from our hotel when Boopie said he had to go to the bathroom. Since IÂ’m the type that wants to get to the destination ASAP I asked if he could hold it for 30 minutes and he said he could. Ktreva said she also had to use the bathroom but could hold it until we arrived. As we were driving down the highway I saw a rest stop coming up and decided we that IÂ’d just stop so the family could go to the bathroom. We all went and were back on the road in 5 to 10 minutes. We werenÂ’t on the road for more then a minute when the vehicles ahead of us were slamming on the brakes and traffic was backed up. A Semi was flipped upside down alongside the road. There were no emergency vehicles on the road. Ktreva called 911 and they advised they were aware and had help in route.

From what we could see it looks like the semi was traveling westbound on 80. The tractor blew a tire, jumped across the median into oncoming traffic and flipped over into the cornfield. From the looks of the traffic and everything it looked like that if we hadnÂ’t stopped we very well could have been involved in the accident. It was kind of scary.

The boys fought and got on KtrevaÂ’s and my nerves for most of the week. I finally snapped 30 minutes from home. I told both of the boys that if they made one more sound I was going to make it so neither could sit for a week. It was the only time when they werenÂ’t sleeping that they both were quit for more then 3 minutes.

I also felt like a bootlegger. IÂ’m not exactly what the law is about carrying alcohol across state lines, but IÂ’m sure I broke them. Between the cases of wine, multiple six packs and liters of beer, and bottles of whisky, I think I would have made some of my ancestors proud. Hell, once we got home Ktreva pointed out that I didnÂ’t buy anything on vacation that wasnÂ’t alcoholic for a souvenir.

Anyways, IÂ’m home. Oh, and BTWÂ… whereÂ’s the comment party? Jebus, I left black powder, firearms, artillery, whisky, beer, whiskey and the contents of the night stand out for you all to play with. IÂ’m disappointed.

Posted by: Contagion at 07:21 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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