Off to the Zoo!
We're off to the zoo this morning with Miranda, Karen, her parents, and of course, Maelynn and Sierra! It's Kin and Ian's anniversary (Happy Anniversary guys!) so Karen and her parents have the kids for the day. Can't wait to touch the stingrays!
Avenue Q last night was awesome. Very hilarious show and I absolutely recommend it to everyone that has the chance to see it! Thanks to Jean and Win for inviting us! And for those that really want to know, no, I unfortunately did not make it onto the stage in my birthday suit. I know, disappointing.
The food at Salad King was delicious, even though my first bite ended up all over my shirt after fumbling with my chopsticks... some Thai spicy chicken at Spicy Level 5. It was just about at my threshold for being really spicy but still being able to taste the food I was eating. Great stuff!
Okay off to the Zoo!
Update on… things?
(looks at topic of this post)... Yeah - I've used all of my creativity for the day. While we wait around to leave for the night, I guess it'd be a good time to update the blog. The video of the new house, somehow, was a success. I attribute that to Nadia's presence somehow offsetting my own.
Lately things have been going really well. We are still trying to work out a good mortgage for the new house, but any of the options look pretty decent. Some more than others, obviously. Tonight, Nadia and I are going to watch a musical called Avenue Q. Our good friends Jean and Win invited us, so we'll be leaving to go in about 10 minutes! Better make this quick...
Last night Nadia and I went to visit her grandparents for dinner and to catch up, and our cousins Miranda and Mark were there as well. We were just talking and found out that we're both going to the same Avenue Q show, and not only that, had plans to go eat at the same restaurant beforehand! Weeirrrrd... Should be a great time!
Lots of work coming in lately through the company I do consulting for... They're really great guys, most of them based around the San Francisco area, but some in places like Toronto (not only me), and New Jersey. Very motivated and very, VERY intelligent individuals, and it makes the pay only the second best thing about working for them.
Hmm... 5 minutes left. I think I'm going to cut this one short for now, I'll update tomorrow about how the show went, and whether or not I made it running onto the stage in my birthday suit.
Cheers!
Recovery, Ubuntu, and more houses…
It's the fourth day (third full day) of recovery from getting my wisdom teeth out, and still eating mush foods. I just had two chocolate puddings for breakfast and to be honest, I'm getting a little sick of them. My diet includes mashed potatoes, congee, pudding, and ice cream milkshakes. What's keeping me from eating more solid foods are the stitches in my mouth - they rub against my cheek and cut the ever living crap out of it. It's not a complete breakfast without drinking a little bit of your own blood. Anyway, the stitches are supposed to dissolve in about 3 more days. Hopefully it's before that!
While sitting here being extremely bored, I decided to give my Ubuntu OS another try. For those not familiar with it, it's a free alternative to Windows XP/Vista (despite Best Buy selling it for $20). Now I'll admit, it's quite intimidating, even for me. The one thing it has going for it though is it's community of developers and of general users. If you ever run into a problem, chances are that someone has posted it online and someone else has posted a solution. I'm currently writing this from my Ubuntu installation, and everything is working perfectly with only one exception: If I want to play a game like Call of Duty 4, I have to go back to my Windows XP installation. Ubuntu just doesn't handle Windows games 100% (though there are some games that, when run with a program like WINE, can be run without any problems in Ubuntu).
Taking into consideration that one fallback, I'm still extremely pleased with how it's running. The desktop effects are very nice and smooth, and it supports my dual monitor setup quite well. Skype even has a nice little client for Linux users, so I've been using that as well.
In about 5 minutes I'll be out the door with Nadia to look at five more houses. I'll post back with our favorite(s)!
Ouchies.
So I now have my wisdom teeth out. There was no knock out, no laughing gas, only four or five shots to freeze my mouth up so I wouldn't feel anything except extreme pressure as they pulled and pushed relentlessly to get the tooth out. The whole procedure didn't take longer than about 45 minutes, and the pulling of the teeth hurt only a little. What really hurt was the drilling into the teeth, and the initial shots of mouth-freeze.
My wisdom teeth are now in a small cup you normally put marinara sauce in. My mouth is actually not that sore as long as I don't open it or move my jaw from side to side at all. If I do, the pain is absurdly bad. I've attached some pretty gross photos. The first is of my bottom right wisdom tooth which was actually infected (the gum around it is fine, it was just the tooth that was infected). They cracked it in half to yank it out, so you can actually see the infection below. The second photo is of the two wisdom teeth (the two upper ones) that they didn't have to break apart. Talk about friggin' huge!
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- You can see the infection here.
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- My two upper wisdom teeth.
Wisdom Teeth!
Well in about 3 and a half hours, I'll be sitting in the dentist's chair getting prepped for the removal (or "extraction" as they like calling it) of my four wisdom teeth, all of which are severely impacted. I think it goes without saying that I'm less than excited.
On the flip side, I get happy pills from the nice lady!
New Book: The Art of Oratory
All sexual innuendos aside, I decided to pick this book up at the local bookstore because, inspired by the character of President Bartlett in the West Wing series, I've always wanted to be at least decent at public speaking. The book is filled with speeches from people like Ghandi, to Barack Obama (his 2004 DNC convention speech), to Roosevelt, among others. I'll be using them to practice...
Shepherd’s Pie!
I can now add one more item to my cooking repetoire, Shepherd's Pie! Below are some pictures I took of the process. I got that sweet t-shirt from Nadia when she went to Las Vegas.
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- Cooking the hamburgers and the potatoes.
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- The hamburger, and the mess on the stove top. :)
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- Mixing! Who Farted??
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- The first layer…
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- The mashing!
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- The chef and his trusty sidekick!
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- The finished product! It was delicious!
What to do, What to do
With my wife at a bachelorette's party in Las Vegas, I'm left to figure what the heck I'm going to do with myself. Do I go on a Call of Duty 4 binge? Do I down a few beers and fall asleep, hoping it'll make the time go by faster until she's home? Nah... I'm just going to try not to think how I'm going to get past the next few days and take it one day at a time. I might work on a website here and there, play some Call of Duty, read a book, walk around outside, go to the pool, learn a foreign language - I have plenty of options!
At least that's what I'm trying to convince myself. It's hard to do things on your own when you're so used to doing them with someone you love. It sounds corny, I know, but it was just so overwhelming and I wasn't expecting it at all! Anyway - I'll most likely be trying to read away the time this weekend.
Cheers.