You know how the doctor asks about your pain, "on a scale of one to ten you're experiencing a <your number here>". I think this was my first ten and I will judge all future pain against this experience. It was really unbelievable how much it hurt. I had two root canals. The actual procedure went fine. Unfortunately, the secondary infection that set in just knocked me out. I didn't sleep at all on Tuesday night. The next morning Karen took me back to the Endodontist, where they gave me more antibiotics, steroids and percocet. Percocet is fun...I finally got some sleep (more like a coma) once I took a few of them. 

I'm glad that I took care of this now. I cannot imagine dealing with this with a newborn. Only two weeks to go before we're parents (Karen's due 7/7)! We had our last ultrasound last week. The baby is still on the small side, but everything looks good.

Current Mood: tired

Yesterday while driving to a client site I was in my first auto accident in many years. The other driver ran a red light and went right in front of me. Fortunately, no one was hurt.

Basically, the other car scraped all of the plastic off of my truck's front end (more like it exploded off), until the truck caught the car's back end. This caused the car to spin around and slam into a light pole. I barely felt the impact and my truck just kept going straight. My truck is still drivable, but I cannot drive when it's dark because both my headlights are dead.

Unfortunately, the other driver does not have insurance, so I'm going to have to pay for the damages. I am in the market for a new vehicle (I've been driving the same thing for 11 years and 145K miles), I just haven't decided what I want yet. Although, after the accident I'm leaning toward another truck.

Current Mood: annoyed

Our cat, Christine is hanging in there...she's getting weaker by the day though.

I lost two (Scooter & Dorsey) of my four turtles (I still have Nubbin & Kermit) last night. A giant raccoon, seriously he was like a small bear, found the turtle tank on our deck. Karen caught him eating Scooter. I chased him off, but Scooter was badly injured. All of his legs were terribly mutilated and he was barely alive. I ended up euthanizing him due to his injuries.

I cannot find Dorsey. I'm hoping she somehow escaped (it rained a lot recently and the tank got close to full) and is hiding under our deck. I doubt it though, I think that the raccoon might have caught her the night before.

I'm bummed. I was going to take them in this week because it's starting to get cold at night. They made it all summer without incident and to have this happen during their last week outside is maddening.

Today the vet informed Karen that Chris's liver is failing (her skin and eyes are yellow). The vet gave Chris some meds, but there really isn't too much they can do for her at this point.

Current Mood: sad

Recently, rescuing toads from the basement window well has become part of my routine. One night after feeding the cats, I looked up and saw three toads staring at me through the window. They've slowed down a bit since then, it's only one been one toad every three days.

Tags: nature
Current Location: Denver, CO

We almost witnessed a coyote catching our neighbor's cat (we call the cat - Mustache Kitty). The cat cleared the fence with the coyote just a few feet behind him.

The coyote just stopped, looked at us for a few moments, then trotted off to the creek that runs through the field behind our house.

Current Music: Home

Requested turtle closeups (Hi Jen :)).

Nubbin (Missing most of her tail when I bought her):


Kermit:


Notice that their outdoor tank/pond is now algae green. In about 2 weeks, they've managed to eat almost all of the plants. The filter screen now clogs almost every day, so I have to go out and remove and rinse/clear the filter. Ah, the joys of pet ownership.

Tags: turtles
Current Location: Home
Current Mood: busy

I still want to build a small pond in our backyard for the turtles, but I thought I'd try something simple first. So I went to the local feed store and purchased this 100 gallon stock tank, and then to home depot to buy a small pond filter.



The turtles seem to like it. We can see the turtles sunning themselves out of the water from the kitchen window. They quickly dive and hide when I go outside to feed them (Kermit is hiding underwater by the potted plant in the picture to the right). Hopefully, one of the neighborhood kids won't climb the fence and steal them. 

Tags: turtles

I had surgery on my right foot on Friday (taylor's bunion, wide feet, cannot put my feet in regular ski boots or biking shoes). It went well. I was awake for most of it. During and immediately after the surgery, I thought that I was awake for the entire thing. However, I don't remember them giving me local anesthesia and the surgery seemed shorter than it actually was.

For the first week I cannot put any weight on my right foot and have to use crutches. I'm not allowed to drive, although I don't know how I could with all the bandages and the splint on my leg.

BTW - Crutches suck! And why did we buy a house with so many stairs? I lost my balance on the deck this morning while going up to feed the turtles and stepped down on my foot. I didn't swear (for once), but Karen saw the look on my face when it happened. So I've been 'grounded' to the couch for the day. I'm so bored I'm considering working the rest of the weekend.

Tags: surgery
Current Mood: bored

Recently Karen and I were at a camera store looking for a SLR for her, for our trip to Baja California (whale watching, snorkeling, kayaking, etc.). While looking around for her camera, I found that Olympus makes a water/weather/crush-proof point and shoot digital camera.

I was interested in using it for our recent trip, and for when I go up to the mountains. I have resorted to using my camera phone several times when encountering wildlife while out on a bike ride, but the pictures just aren't very good.
So I ended-up purchasing the model that just came out a couple of weeks ago, the Stylus 1030 SW.

I currently have two of them because I purchased the first one from Tiger Direct and inadvertently had it shipped to my old office in Pittsburgh. I tried to have it rerouted, but it was too late. It was then forwarded to my Denver office. Because I'm impatient and was told that it would probably be sent back to the Tiger Direct, and I really wanted it for our trip in a couple of weeks, we found and purchased one at Best Buy the night before the original purchase arrived in Pittsburgh.

I've always been pleased with how fast Tiger Direct ships items. Now I'm going to have a chance to test their return policy.