I save a life with the power of my anecdote...

I have the habit of telling people anecdotes about my life. Something will remind me of something else and I'm compelled to give people the gift of my life lessons. It's my way of paying it forward... or maybe I just like to talk...

An example of this is when I got a toilet the other day. I had a work friend help me with it off the shelf. As I was looking at it, I pointed out the rating of the toilet by an independent study. I told him that when they test this stuff, they use a paste that they make out of a soybean soup mix that resembles the consistency of the average fecal matter. They then give it a rating based on how many grams it can flush.

He replied that he knew that because I had told everyone on my work team that... while we were all eating lunch one day. I guess some people are just touchy about what you talk about at lunch.

I said, "Oh... That doesn't sound like me at all."

I was kidding, of course.

So today, I was calling my neighbor, Michelle, because Laura had seen a set of furniture sitting on one of our neighbor's driveway. It was an older-looking night stand, dresser, tall dresser and various pieces of furniture. We couldn't tell if it was out on the driveway because they wanted the garbage men to take it, it they're being picked up by the goodwill or it's out there for sale. When we saw it on our way to work, Laura got excited.

She liked the furniture and wondered if we should ask if we could buy it. I pointed out that when my Dad was in his prime, he would spot furniture like that on the street and then come back when it was dark to retrieve them if they were still there. I suggested that we could do this.

So when I called Michelle to see if the furniture was still there, she said that she didn't know because she hadn't been home since yesterday.

She then started to tell me that she had been thinking about me and one of my stories.

Apparently, her son had what she thought was the flu. Weeks before, something got me to tell Michelle this story about a time when my Mom thought I had the flu.

It was a Sunday night when my appendix ruptured all the way back in the Fifth grade. We had just watched the new Marty Feldman movie that was on HBO called In God We Tru$t. Marty, if you recall, played Igor in Young Frankenstein. He was also in a few goofy movies. The movie was okay, but I remember that I didn't feel so hot when I went to bed. Then I slept a restless sleep filled with bizarre dreams about that movie.

When I woke up, I was hot and I had thrown up, so I stayed home from school. I felt horrible. The day came and went and I was still sick, so I stayed home the next day, too. I started throwing up more and more. My Mom would yell at me because I wouldn't even get up to go throw up. The problem was, I was too weak to get up.

Finally, by the third day, my Mom started to suspect that this wasn't the flu. My brother, Joe, carried me upstairs and put me on my parent's bed so Mom could keep an eye on me. The TV in my parent's room had no cable. The fact that I laid there staring at soap operas and I didn't complain once sent up red flags to my mother pretty quickly!

She rushed me to our family doctor, who saw me immediately. He did some poking around my belly. I winced at a place by my belly button. They drew some blood and tested it for white blood cells. The count that returned was so high that it rivaled a leukemia patient's count. It was determined that I had a ruptured appendix. I was rushed to the hospital by my Mom, who informed me on the way that I was going to have to have an operation. I was too sick to even argue although I did whimper that I didn't want an operation at least once.

Long story short, I spent ten long and boring days in the hospital recovering from an appendix that burst behind my liver. I had a tube down my throat and some tubes sticking out of my abdomen. They even left my incision open for a day to let the infection seep out.

My Mom felt horrible. She told me that she felt like the worst mother. She felt a horrible guilt for yelling at me for throwing up because she just thought that I had the flu. I came damn close to dying.

So I had told this story to Michelle. She had this story in the back of her mind when her son got sick two days ago. When he wasn't getting any better, she took him to the emergency room. She asked them if this might be an appendix that ruptured. They did a CAT scan and sure enough, they saw that the appendix had indeed ruptured.

Michelle thanked me for telling her that story. So Mom, my funny anecdote about you feeling guilty during this time probably helped save this kid's life.

Well, maybe not his life, but it got the doctors to catch it before it got too serious. He'll be out of the hospital in a few days. Oh and that furniture is still there...

Auto-tune the News #3

The news set to a beat with the Auto-tune effect on the pundit's voices.

My daughter tries to bribe me...

Julia has been hanging around with a girl that I like to call, BFF (best friend forever). I don't actually call her that, but for this story I will since I don't like using real names of people without knowing them too well.

So Julia and BFF have been hanging out with each other a lot. There have been several sleepovers. I mentioned the one on Saturday where she came back smelling like a bunch of wet puppies...

This Tuesday she decided that she wanted to ride her bike over to BFF to hang out. Well she'd been really tired for those first two days of summer camp and didn't want her to get even more tired.

Julia didn't see that logic. All she knew was that she wanted to see her friend, BFF.

She kept pleading and pleading. I kept telling her no.

Finally, Julia pulled the Ace in her sleeve. She ran into her room and came back with money.

"Daddy, I will give you two whole dollars of my own money if you'll let me go over to BFF's house."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

"Are you trying to bribe me with my own money (money I gave her for her allowance), so you can go to BFF's house?"

"Please, Daddy. I'm serious. I'll give you to whole dollars."

"No!" I exclaimed. "I'm not going to take your money!"

Julia could see I was a hard sell, so she upped the price.

"I'll give you three whole dollars if you'll let me go to BFF's house."

I stared at her. While the money was certainly tempting. I didn't want to start a bad trend.

"Put your money away," I said. "I'm not going to take your money no matter who much you try to give it to me. You can go to BFF's house to see if she's home, but if she's not there, you have to come back."

She ran out the door only to return 10 minutes later because she wasn't there, but in that absence, I could only shake my head. I could not believe that my own daughter had tried to bribe me. It's not like I've ever tried to do it myself, let alone in front of her. I rarely keep cash on me!

Maybe she gets it from Laura...

June 3rd - Stretching...

Today I went swimming with Julia after work. Laura worked out while we smam. She's apparently got it into her head that she's going to sign up and run a 5k, which is about 3 miles. She also took great pleasure in rubbing it in how she's in the best shape of her life and how I need to get back on the ball since I've gained a lot of weight since last summer.

I grumbled, "Oh, you're just loving rubbing this aren't you after all my years of suggesting that you start running."

"That and the 'you need to stretch' stuff that I've been hearing."

I've been urging Laura to stretch because she doesn't. I keep trying to tell her that not stretching is going to lead to problems, but she doesn't listen. She periodically will pull a muscle, which requires her to ice and take pain killers.

I try to point out that if she goes to a doctor to complain about the muscle that a doctor is going to ask how it happened and when the cause is diagnosed, the doctor will show her a series of stretches to perform before and after working out to get rid of it and prevent it from happening again.

Laura scowls every time I tell her to stretch.

I replied, "Well, it's true. And if you're going to run a 5k without stretching, you're asking for pulled muscles, shin splits and Achilles tendinitis."

Audiobook - Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz

I just finished an audiobook for 'Odd Thomas' by Dean Koontz. Dean Koontz is like the poor-man's Stephen King, which is a little unfair to Dean, who after all was publishing for years before Stephen first got published.

There are major differences between a King and Koontz book. Whereas King likes to take his time moving into the plot, Koontz generally hits you over the head with it. They move fast usually.

I've read 'Phantoms', 'Intensity' and 'The Bad Place' by Koontz, but I wasn't so much a fan that I wanted to read more.

I saw that he was branching out into a series with the Odd Thomas series, which is on its fourth volume by now.

The series centers around a man called, Odd Thomas. Go figure. Odd is his real name and he has the unnatural gift of being able to see the dead. The dead appear to him when they need him to help with unfinished business. He works with the police chief in town, who knows of the gift, by leading him to the killers of murdered people.

This is all turned on its head when Odd notices a man who's being followed around by dark shadows that usually appear when mass trauma is about to go down. He follows the man with the shadows and sets in motion a series of horrifying events that changes the town he lives in forever.

It's a pretty decent listen. The narrator is just right to play the very simple Odd. It does have its share of horrifying scenes, but not so much to turn off the non-horror fan. It's also a little humorous at times.

June 2nd - Waterparks, Ghostbusters and I Don't Care...

Earlier today, I went out for a run. I'm trying to get back in the swing of running. Since winter, I've gained about 10 pounds. Normally, even with my extra gut weight, I'm in better shape than Laura. After my pitiful performance while hiking Saturday, I can see that I'm in need of getting back in the groove of running. I had quit last year because I started getting massive pain in my Achilles heel. It turns out that I have Achilles tendinitis. After a months of icing, stretching and strength exercises, the tendinitis may never go away. It's a lot better but still there somewhat. I decided to just be cautious and stretch a lot before and after. That seemed to work. It wasn't bad. I ran/walked for about 37 minutes.

While running, my mp3 player was on shuffle. It came across the new Fall Out Boy song called, "I Don't Care."

I had to smirk a little because I joke with my brother, Bill about his parenting skills. There's the 'Hey! Stop that!' technique which is invoked when the older child does something naughty. Another strategy is the 'I Don't Care' technique, which is invoked when the older one is being slow and giving excuses for not doing what Bill wants. When this happens, Bill is all 'I DON'T CARE!' and 'LOUD NOISES!' while trying to get his point across.

So I pictured Bill screaming 'I DON'T CARE!' every time it was mentioned in the song.

For example:

"(Bill's voice) I DON'T CARE! what you think as long as it's about me. The best of us can find happiness in misery."

There's also a section that goes,

I said I DON'T CARE!
(I DON'T CARE!)
I said I DON'T CARE!
(I DON'T CARE!)
Said I DON'T CARE!
(I DON'T CARE!)
I DON'T CARE!
(I DON'T CARE!)
No, I don't

All to the tune of Bill's voice. I wish Bill would consent to me recording him yelling like that so I can create a mash-up, but he probably wouldn't do it.



We may make a quick trip to Colorado for a three-day vacation in late July.

I stumbled across a water park called 'Water World', which is north of Denver and sits on 64 acres. My original plan was to take my brother's fold-up camper and save on hotels, but Laura nixed that plan.

"So you're wanting me to spend all day getting sun baked and wind blown at a water park and then top that off by sleeping outside without air conditioning? I don't think so."

The problem is that Laura showed the park's web site to Julia, which is something I wasn't even going to do. Now Julia is insisting that we spend every day there. It's still not set in stone, but I'm just thinking a day at the park would suffice.

We'll also be hitting the Casa Bonita, which I've been to once. It's a huge Mexican restaurant with cliff divers, wild west shootouts, wild gorillas and various other oddities. You can also go into a treasure cave and dress up like an outlaw to get your picture taken. It's about the only thing I remember about Denver other than my Dad's friend's son freaking me out about rattlesnakes when we went on a hike. He made it sound like they could snatch you by jumping at you from 20 feet away. Needless to say, I steered clear of any possible rattlesnake hiding places.

Ghostbusters was on AMC. They were celebrating the 25th anniversary of the film. When that was announced between commercials, Laura said, "Jeeeezzzzz!" while cringing.

It's really something when you realize how old you are in relation to things that you liked when you were a kid. I was about 13-years old. Laura was about 9-years-old. This happens to me more and more.

I like to freak Julia out by telling her how old some of her favorite songs are.

"Do you know the song, "Somebody to Love" by Queen?"

"Yeah" she'll say.

"Well, it's over 30 years old."

"Whoa!"

June 1st - Summer camp and a super-sonic toilet.

Julia started her first day of summer camp, which is run by my employer. They have a day care facility and run a summer camp for the older kids.

Julia has been a little weird that last few days. When spring break ended, she almost refused to go back to school because, "No one plays with me at recess." We tried to reason to her, but she wouldn't take our reasoning. Then we remembered that she had pulled the same arguments at the end of fall vacation and winter vacation. When I opted to have her teacher talk to us and give reports on it, which we had done previously when Julia had complained about recess (Her teacher was baffled at the complaint. She assured us that Julia plays with a lot of kids), Julia back peddled and decided that she wanted to go to school after all.

She cried off and on the last few days of school last week because she said she loved school. She declared that she was never going to see her teacher and her friends again. She was also distressed that another year had come and gone. Julia is sad that one day she's going to leave us. I assured her that she could live with us while she goes to the local college. She excitedly agreed.

I'm going to hold her to that!

So this morning, Julia was marginally excited. When I picked her up, Julia was pretty tired. By the time bed time rolled around, she declared that she was "soooo tired!"

I mentioned yesterday that I wanted my super sonic toilet. Well I picked one up at the local hardware super store. It's an Eljer Diplomat. While it's the economy purchase, it was rated at a 10 on the flushing scale. An independent water research group tests toilets using a paste that they mold into fecal shapes. The paste is made of soy beans. My new toilet can now flush up to 1000 grams of fecal matter in nothing flat!

I was going to install it tonight, but Laura put her foot down.

"For the love of God and my sanity, just please wait for the weekend!"

I guess super-sonic flushing will have to wait until then. She also threw a monkey wrench into my plans. She is insisting that we put it in the bathroom by the front hallway near Julia's room. I think it's so I'll be forced to not use that one and not the one in our master bedroom. The other benefit is that if we have people over, we no longer have to worry about the toilet backing up.

I know I'm kind of weird about this stuff, but I look at it this way. Last year, we spent about half the amount on an umbrella for our deck along with an umbrella stand. But because our deck is high off the ground, we had many problems with wind gusts. More than once, the umbrella would just soar out of the crappy base and fly off into the yard. Then it snapped in two one day just by the wind knocking it back and forth! This was only after one month of use! Plus it didn't really help with the sun's glare because we'd try to use it near dusk, but the shadows were past the deck, so it was like we never even had an umbrella. We also spent a lot more on shrubs and flowers that died!

At least with this toilet, I'll know that I'm going to get some worry free, quality flushing in!