A week or so ago, I took advantage of Papa John's Redskin deal.  They will sell a large pizza for only $7.99 on the Monday after a Redskins game, with a free topping for every touchdown the Skins score, and double toppings if they win.  It is a good deal even without the toppings, a great deal with the toppings, and a deal too good for me to pass up with the double toppings.  I believe the Redskins had scored 4 touchdowns this particular Sunday, so it was an 8 topping large pizza for $7.99 (instead of the usual $20 plus).  I doubled my pleasure and ordered 2 pizzas, the 16 loaded slices were supposed to have served as my next 5-8 meals.

Unluckily for me, something sinister to my body was in this pizza.  5 or so hours after eating some, I woke up vomiting.  I'm probably not alone in this thinking, but vomiting is about the worst experience that I have ever had.  I would rather do any other horrible thing that I have been thru than get sick in that way.  Examples would include spraining my ankle, breaking my thumb, or even listening to country music.

I was sick in bed all day, missing work.  I felt better the next day, but still had that nasty feeling in my stomach for a day or so.

At work, a couple of the nurses heard my tale of woe, and were convinced that it was not something in the pizza that made me sick, but a bug that had been going around.  For example, Kris (pictured below) was sick before me, I was sick the day after spending an evening at her place, and Kris' daughter was sick the day after I left.  Several other of our co-workers had had the same symptoms also.  Kris especially kept insisting that I had this bug, and that the pizza was fine.

You all can probably see where this is going.  Doubting my anti-pizza feelings, and not wanting to waste $50 worth of pizza (that I only paid $20 for), I returned to my fridge and gave the pizza another try.

I was sick the entire night and into the next day.

I will never listen to Kris again.

So a couple months ago, while building a table and working with a power tool, I pinched the tip of my finger causing the above little blood blister.  It is one of those little injuries that hurts like the dickens initially, and feels much more serious than it really is.  At first, I was sure that I had either lost the tip of my finger or otherwise drawn a huge amount of blood.  But there was no bloodshed, the pain subsided pretty quickly, and I was left with that little red/black spot to remind me of one of my rules of life (#47, leave the tools to the professionals).

That spot stayed on my finger for two months.

It didn't fade at all, it just stayed that bright for two months and then just disappeared overnight recently. 

You know how when you're eating and you notice a spot on one of your fingers, and you assume its a piece of food, and you lick or brush it off?  Well, you can probably guess what I did at least once every meal for about two months.

I hope I do this story justice, it is perhaps the best one I have.

Several years ago, my friend Courtney and I decided to visit my friend Bobby (#2).  One of the reasons for me actually venturing into Arlington (something I dread doing, but that is another story) was that Bobby had just got a new cat.  If I recall, it was originally his sister's, but one of his nephews was allergic so Bobby volunteered to take it.

So we're upstairs talking with Bobby, and he tells us that Simba is still pretty shy.  He was usually hiding under the bed all of the time, a second new home in a week's time will do that to a cat.  I, of course, insist on at least seeing him, so we look.  Bobby searches everywhere, and finds no trace.  This is a fairly small apartment, so we should easily find him.  I mention that on the way in, Court and I saw a friendly gray cat downstairs.  It was pretty much right at the bottom of his stairs, and was really friendly.  But Bobby insists that there is no way that Simba could have got outside the apartment.  We search some more, and there is no cat in the apartment.  The only possible explanation we find is that his bathroom window is slightly cracked, and it is possibly large enough for a cat to squeeze through.  However, if he had done this there was no ledge or any other thing to hang on to, but a sheer 2 story drop.  He describes Simba to us, and Court and I both feel that his description matches the cat that we saw at the entrance of his building.  I look out his door and the cat had followed us upstairs and was actually outside of Bobby's door.  Bobby still insists that there was no way he had got out, but agrees to at least take a look at the cat we saw outside. 

I wish that I had a video of the following scene.  Bobby opens his door a crack, and looks out into the hallway.  He quickly closes the door and just stands there, quietly thinking.  He takes another quick look and closes the door.  After a minute or more of this, quick looks and then silent contemplation, all while standing perfectly still, Bobby finally decides that maybe this is Simba in the hallway. 

He opens the door and lets Simba inside.  The cat is very friendly, cavorting around the living room and letting the 3 of us pet it.  Bobby is still quite perplexed.  He thinks this is Simba, but isn't sure. He is acting a bit more friendly than the shy Simba that Bobby knew, and there was still no way that he could have got outside.  Court and I are a bit confused, and say things such as, "You've lived with this cat for a couple days now, how can you not know?"  Bobby finally agrees that this is Simba.

Court and I leave, and about an hour later I get the funniest phone call of my entire life.  Shortly after we left, Bobby kept hearing yelling out in his apartment building.  It was someone calling for a kid or a something.  He opens his door and sees that one of his neighbors is out there looking for a pet.  He goes back into his living room, and as his mind is trying to convince him that maybe he stole a cat, and as he is sitting on the couch with Simba from outside, the real Simba runs out of his bedroom.

When the coast was clear, he quietly shoved the stolen cat out into the hallway, and never told his neighbors.

So instead of referring to Bobby as #2, I should probably just call him catnapper, both for his predilection for afternoon sleep, and his shady pet stealing past.

The below is not the real Simba, Bobby doesn't share his photos, but perhaps it was the temporary Simba.

This is pretty long, but please bear with me, as what I write below is very important to me.

A couple of comments from different friends have made me think about my reasons for blogging yet again.

The most important reason is still to "talk out" my walk with God, and other struggles in my life.  I have and will continue to admit faults and write about deeply personal things, even things that will make me look "bad".  We learn thru self-exploration, and externalizing it thru writing is good for me.  If I kept it internal, I would learn less about myself.  My memory is crap, and having these old entries to occasionally look back on help me remember my hopes, goals, and feelings.  There is a huge accountability factor in having everything "on paper" of course.  I know that I've felt guilty in writing a few entries, and that I'll probably feel that way again, like today.

Another huge reason for blogging is to have a record of my life.  I know that I would absolutely love to have access to friends and relatives journals.  For example, if my Mom had written a journal all of her life and had volumes and volumes of material, I would love to have permission to read it and would devour every word.  Maybe someday I'll have children or grandchildren who will be similarly curious, and they will someday read my "history" and see pictures of their relatives, and hear stories of how their grandparents meet.  Or they'll spend a few hours reading boring softball updates and self-serving diatribes and think, "what a weird grandfather I have".  But I hope they appreciate at least the opportunity to dig into the past.

On those notes, here comes one of those confessions of which I am not particularly proud.

One of my reasons for blogging is to feed my ego.  Actually, I don't think that anyone who blogs can deny this.  To some extent, we are writing in a public forum because we feel that someone else should want to read what we write.  We are thinking or saying, "I am important, I have interesting things to say, I matter, and you should care."  We bloggers can not totally deny this.  If we truly wrote just for ourselves we would either write on paper or make xanga private.  Or if we wrote just for our family we would just make our page viewable by select people.  But no, we make our journals public.  We advertise our journals by posting in other people's journals.  We crave attention.

Stepping back a bit, this "ego" reason for my blogging is minimal compared to the main two reasons I mentioned.  I have no delusions of ever being a Featured Content Xangan or otherwise being "famous" for my writing.  I don't really plan on meeting new people thru my site.  But I do strongly desire for my family and friends to read these entries.  But I'm not sure how strongly I should desire that.

I would not expect anyone to do anything that I don't do myself.  I would love to read the entries of many people in my life.  Any family member would be an automatic read.  And I could probably list 40 or so friends that I would read every word they wrote.  Of course, this is easy for me to say, since, as far as I know, only one of these people blog.  But I can guarantee you that I would voraciously read every word that these people write.

So I'll be honest and admit that it disturbs me that most of my friends don't feel the same way.  I know that a few of my friends read what I write, but not as many as I would like, and those that do don't comment as often as I would like.

Do I have the right to feel this way?  Probably not.  Should I be so self absorbed that I care what other people feel about my blog?  Should I expect anyone to want to read anything that I write?  No.  But I do.

I probably average about 30 seconds worth of reading material per day here.  Just because I would read what they write, should I expect anyone to be willing to read what I write?  No.  But I do.  Should it hurt me that others don't devote that 30 seconds a day to me?  No, but it does hurt. 

Should I be phrasing things in such a way to obviously be trying to make people feel guilty?  Absolutely not. 

So the real questions for me are, "why did I feel the need to say these things" and "how can I change so that I don't do this again".

World-wide Travel Advisories

The British are feeling the pinch in relation to recent
bombings and have raised their security level from "Miffed"
to "Peeved." Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet
again to "Irritated" or even "A Bit Cross." Londoners have
not been "A Bit Cross" since the blitz in 1940 when tea
supplies all but ran out. Terrorists have been
re-categorized from "Tiresome" to a "Bloody Nuisance." The
last time the British issued a "Bloody Nuisance" warning
level was during the great fire of 1666.

Also, the French government announced yesterday that it has
raised its terror alert level from "Run" to "Hide." The only
two higher levels in France are "Surrender" and
"Collaborate." The rise was precipitated by a recent fire
that destroyed France's white flag factory, effectively
paralyzing the country's military capability.

It's not only the English and French that are on a
heightened level of alert. Italy has increased the alert
level from "Shout Loudly and Excitedly" to "Elaborate
Military Posturing." Two more levels remain: "Ineffective
Combat Operations" and "Change Sides."

The Germans also increased their alert state from
"Disdainful Arrogance" to "Dress in Uniform and Sing
Marching Songs." They also have two higher levels: "Invade a
Neighbor" and "Lose."

Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual,
and the only threat they are worried about is NATO pulling
out of Brussels.

I know that these 2 pictures are virtually identical, but the girls are so cute that I couldn't decide which one to post.

I had the pleasure of babysitting my niece and maybe#4's daughter the other evening.  Jaime and Mercedes are a few years apart, but got along great.   They especially had a great time with Toby, my friend Kris' puppy.

One of the highlights of the evening was driving home from Kris' that night.  The girls were in the backseat, apparently worn out from chasing Toby around for hours.  There was silence for several minutes, and then they suddenly awoke and started playing those little rhyming games like patty cake or whatever the modern versions are.  I had so much fun just listening to these two "battle" back and forth for 20 minutes or so.  I was laughing so hard that I was almost crying.  By the time I remembered that I had my phone with video camera, it was too late.  I recorded a minute or so, but then they saw me and I had to turn it off.  Mercedes kept making up rhymes, but Jaime would call her out saying, "You just made that one up, say it again!"  Mercedes would then try to repeat this long story/song, but of course would not quite get it exactly right.  Maybe it was one of those moments where you had to be there, but I swear it was the funniest, and most fun, moment of the year for me so far.

Christmas was, as always, a great day spent with family.  Actually, I guess last year's Christmas wasn't so great, thinking that I was going to die all day long.......  I'll have to finish that entry on last year soon.

This Christmas, I started in the morning at my sister's, watching Jaime and Anthony open a couple of their presents, and getting the above pictures of Kimba and Sheba.  Then we all went to Shepherd Gate.  It may have been the first time all year that the 4 of us (Mom, Dad, sister and I) were at the same church at the same time.  Mom wanted to get a group shot, but I had overslept and hadn't shaved, so I avoided that end of the camera this Christmas.

After church, we all went back to Pam's for a traditional meal and more Christmas present opening.

I'll let the pictures do most of my talking.

On Friday December 30th, we had our work party.  The first (?) PHI VA Air medical Christmas party went well, despite the fact that I was partly responsible for its organization and planning.  Luckily for me, Wayne and Sandy did most of the work of setting it up and buying the food and decorations.  And they did a fantastic job with the preparation.  We had a great spread of food, and an original Christmas Tree (I wish I had a better picture showing its unique ornaments).  Highlights included seeing "old timers" Pete and Chuckles, a nostalgic trip thru our 15 year history via our scrapbooks, and the couple of the day, Alex and Savannah.  Next year, I hope to work a bit harder on it, and hopefully organize a White Elephant or Secret Santa exchange       http://www.santalady.com/xmasgame/whiteelephant.html .

No, it wasn't because of the Mike Tice firing.  (I have mixed feelings on that actually.  I believe that he is a good coach, and deserves a second chance somewhere, but maybe the Vikings did need a clean sweep.)

I've been admitting for months now that my eyes occasional well up at certain emotional moments in TV shows or wherever.  I probably wrote about this before, and may have expressed the opinion that it might be partly because of my job.  At work, I see death almost every day.  And if it is not death, it is something equally sad, such as grieving families or people getting bad news.  Seeing it daily, I think that in a way I've become immune to it almost.  If we let it affect us at the hospital, we could never get any work done.  I'm not saying that I'm always stoic or even joke in the face of death at work, it definitely affects me sometimes.  But I rarely, if ever, let it show.

So maybe my outlet is in responding to emotional scenes that I see away from work.

Yesterday I watched the Fiesta Bowl.  I can't even tell you who was playing now, but I'm a guy, so I have to watch X number of bowl games per year.  X being all of them.  At halftime, they had one of those contests where a fan was chosen to try to throw a ball thru a hoop to win a prize.  She missed, but they had arranged for her to talk to her boyfriend via satellite video.  He was in Iraq with the military.   The network surprised her by having him actually flown to the game, and it was a tender, exciting moment when he came out and surprised her at midfield.  I'm sure that most people watching at home or at the stadium had to at least smile at that moment.  But then he surprised her by getting down on one knee and proposing.  Tears welled up and I actually had one or two flow at that moment.

And in keeping with this confession, the same thing happened again when I saw the replay on ESPN News later that night.

So much for my macho sports-guy image.

Ok, I know this is silly, but I just started another blog.

I attempt to explain myself at http://www.xanga.com/ChronologicalBible

I'd love to have someone join me.