Signs of spring

Women's toes....(ladies, casual Friday should not allow me to see your feet via open-toed shoes!)

Motorcycles out and about (I'm cool with the freedom, but hate the noise....hey, how about a hybrid bike? That would get like 500 miles to the gallon, no? And a silent electric motor would be amusing.)

Dogs left out at night (again, HATE the noise....)

Allergies -- a new reason to sneeze, instead of a winter cold, I suppose (pollen....I can't wait!)

More kids playing b-ball at the park while I drive home

Female pedestrians showing off their shoulders....usually for the better.

Calves on farmland out with their moms learning to graze

No more shoveling to get to the grill on our deck

And the one time of year where the grass grows before the crabgrass takes over, so the lawn looks nice-ish

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A little side note on my "#5" thing. At an old job, my dad's company was a client. And so I was in charge of writing our year end letter to review the company retirement plan. I accidentally left two number 5s on the itemized list of about 15 things to go over. Nobody really noticed, except me, when I went to write the following year's review letter -- we'd often use the prior year's report as a template and make changes as appropriate. So the following year, I had for point number 5, "There is no number five this year." Obviously the kind of thing you can get away with only if you have it in good with the client. And so they ended up with one number five per year, on average.

What would happen if...(4/12 edition)

...I took too long to post my thoughts, so that I had no idea what the note I took meant? I mean, really, I've got written down on a sticky note, "MBA = Hanson!" and I have no freakin' idea what that means. Usually, I think of something funny at work, and since I don't blog from work any more with the new job, I write it down to use later. I assume it's got something to do with mmmmmbop, but I've got no idea.

I enjoy the idea when people say something like their poop smells like roses. I offer Axl Rose and Pete Rose, as two Roses I wouldn't brag over the smell of....

A good suggestion for photos is to aim the camera down a bit from above the forehead....check out your high school yearbook, the pictures of even the less hot girls can still look halfway decent. I suppose aiming the camera up just shows off the nostrils.

I want the job for making up the pronunciation of acronyms. Specifically, ones that don't have an obvious phonetic reading to them. For instance, in 2001 there was the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act. EGTRRA....most people figure out that this would be called "egg-truh"...but every once in a while you'd get an "Egg-Tray" or "Erg-truh" by someone really not noticing the spelling. One of the newest acronyms in pension-land is the Qualified Automatic Contribution Agreement (where your company signs you up for your 401(k) plan without your permission). QACA. I cringed at the pronunciation of "quacka" because there's no U in the acronym. I prefer pronouncing the Q like a hard Middle-Eastern word (scrabble favorite QAT, for instance). And just having it sound like "ka-ka" (poopie reference). So that could be my job.

With my sneakers, I don't run the laces through the last pair of holes, and so the laces are pretty long. Occasionally the loops will get caught under the wheels of my work chair. That sucks! Because the wheel has a plastic castor covering it, so you can't just pull the thing out. I actually have to take off the shoe and pull the loop apart and figure out which way to pull the lace out from under there.

On my way home I saw a field of cows, and instead of mooing at them, I yelled, "Ruminants, unite!" (The revolution is a grass-roots movement, after all....)

Okay, one more that I sort of forget the specifics on. I believe what it was, is that my lips were chapped, and my wife, who was driving, had to pee. It was one of those things where both statements were announced sort of one right after the other, as we were on our way home from somewhere. I thought about how both problems could be solved at once and quickly said, "Those birds....die separately."

(ya know, like, one stone isn't gonna kill them...)

ok, the end. David has probably sent some of you guys over to read this, so I'm working feverishly to provide new material!!

Tales from rehab

So, rehab's not hideous. Three nights a week....here's a typical night:
a. heat pad to the shoulder for 10 minutes
b. 10 minutes on a bike -- no pedaling, but just the back and forth with my arms
c. dangling, pendulum-like motion while holding a dumbbell. (up to 5 pounds at this point!)
d. alternate shoulder rolls and curls (10 pounds in each arm, I assume for symmetry)
e. reverse curls, alternating sides and front (4 pounds)
f. a couple of weight machines....these are like 80 pounds that you have to pull towards yourself
g. thick rubber bands to pull on, stretching the upper shoulder ligaments
h. an overhead pulley to help my shoulder stay yanked over my head
i. manual contortion of the arm by the therapist. (I asked if the positions were stuff even my right arm was normally capable of, and apparently so.)
j. ice pack for 10 minutes and head home.

The place doubles as a workout gym for a few, so the single-digit weights do seem a bit emasculating. So the left arm is getting stronger, while the right arm is just the normal sore you get when you haven't worked out in a while -- tight elbow ligaments, for example.

On the bright side, my wife had similar surgery a few years ago and is familiar with everything I'm doing.

Croquet this weekend....the swinging motion could be good.

It's a labRum, dad....

Apparently Dad thought I had torn something else....even though I do have a left and right labrum. (Hint: replace the R with an I, and you get a girl part!)

Anyways....ya know how they tell you to count back from 100 for anesthesia, and you never get even to 98? Well, I started counting back at 100 a little at a time when I got to the hospital during the 2.5 hours of check-in and prep. By 9 am I was down to about 11. While wheeling me down the hall to the OR, I did 5-4-3-2....they told me to wait, none of that counts yet. So what happens? they knock me out in the operating room without telling me, so I never did get down to 1. Oh well.

Turns out I'm allergic to reglan, an anti-vomiting medicine they tried to give me in my IV so that the anesthesia wouldn't make me puke when I woke up. I got ridiculously itchy and weak-feeling, like my butt cheeks were infested with ants. Not fun.

Other than that, I've been okay. Percocets are the painkiller of choice. Physical therapy starts Friday. Pain has been intermittent. However, it's been a bitch being in a sling for stuff like typing, writing up reports right-handed....and tonight I had the labor of transferring 5 gallons of beer from one vat to a glass carboy.

And no driving until next week. Ho hum....it would be great for the drinkfest planned after work tomorrow, except they say that alcohol and high concentrations of acetaminophen (as in Percocet or Tylenol 3) will practically make your liver dissolve inside your body. So I get to play it dry, if not loopy from the medicine. What better way to celebrate the 30-year anniversary for a woman at work, who's a big Brett Favre fan, than to get doped up on painkillers, right?