- Wednesday, April 30, 2008
The Results Are In...
HDL=53 LDL=161, down 31 points from last year!
Oh, and my triglycerides were described by the Nurse Practitioner as "GREAT!"
pero @ 7:31 PM | œ | 5 comments
Road Trip!
Driving back from my vacation, Tim (who never misses a road trip and who once again managed to be granted ANOTHER vacation and invite himself) and I had mapped out our route allowing for time to stop in New Mexico, Arizona, and then Nevada before driving home.A lot of the trip was (fairly) uneventful as far as the actual traveling was concerned. There are many border patrol check-points in and around New Mexico and Arizona. At one of them the officer asked Tim (who was driving), "Are you an American Citizen? To which Tim replied, "Si, senor!" The patrol officer did NOT find that funny, but he didn't subject us to further delay or any type of search. After a full day of driving we stopped somewhere in NM, since it was after midnight.
We were on the road again by about seven A.M., stopping at Whataburger for breakfast. I ordered breakfast burritos (each having 380 calories, 21 g fat - 7 of them saturated - 344 mg cholesterol) and coffee* (I will explain the relevance of all of this nutrition stuff in my next post); Tim ate two "breakfast on a bun" sandwiches (EACH having 570 calories with a bonus of 39 g of FAT-15 g saturated- and 1264 mg Sodium not to mention 247 mg of cholesterol), two orders of hash browns and I forget what else. The food was good. ("good" fast food is defined by me as being the proper temperature). I took my first sip of coffee. The coffee... tasted like soap. Or at least that was my first impression of it. I looked at the cup (as if it would be able to give some sort of clue) and tasted it again. Yup. Tasted like SOAP.
"Does your coffee taste like soap?" I asked Tim.
He tried his coffee and he said it did indeed taste like soap. So we stopped by a convenience store to purchase new coffee and discard of the soapy stuff. Not so bad for the first mishap on a many many hour road trip.
Our next stop was in Flagstaff, AZ. They had one room available. After checking into the hotel, we found a Safeway (grocery store) and purchased some backpacking friendly foods (granola bars, bottled water etc.), which took longer than it should have due to Tim trying to pick up random lady shoppers from the nearby University.
Once in the room, I fell asleep fairly quickly, despite the fact that Tim, the other occupant of the two-bed room, was trying to decide if he wanted to watch a pay-per-view movie, or "adult programming" while he inhaled an entire bag of Doritos.
By habit, I am (typically) a light sleeper. Sounds which are barely audible to many people will wake me in a fraction of a second. I am such a light sleeper that, the soft *pop* of electricity coming through the speaker of my alarm clock radio will snap me out of REM sleep. This is one of the many reasons I have difficulty sleeping.
I do not know how long I slept before I heard the sound of the lock click that can only be activated by -the faint but distinguishable sound of a key card activated door lock, issued by the office of said hotel. I was still half asleep, but remember wondering if maybe some (drunk) idiot simply had the wrong room. Seconds later, the lock unlatched and the door opened. I sat up and yelled "Hello?"
In my mind, I had already picked up the table lamp and was ready to fracture the skull of any unknown persons who dared to enter the room. The reason I did not already have the lamp in hand is -- because from a dead sleep in a dark room, I was unable to determine if it might be Tim, since it would not be out of character for him to check out the hot-tub occupants.
However, my startled "hello!?" woke him up and he yelled something along the lines of "WTF!?"
I could see the door from where I was, and the guy on the other side of the door - I kid you not - was Santa Claus. Portly. White hair, white mustache and long beard. Gold wire frame glasses. He immediately said, "Oh! Oh No! I am sorry. I'm sorry!" and he left.
I said, "Who was that? did you see who that was?"
"Dude, that was Santa Claus! Did you SEE him?" Tim replied.
I said, "Yah I did. I thought the same thing."
Nobody managed to remember to latch the inside door locks. Since there were two of us, this is only partly my fault. PARTLY. I really feel that the hotel should have a better system of knowing that if room 101 has a person in it, they shouldn't be sending another person to that same room. I locked the door, cussing myself for being an idiot. Minutes later, as I was just starting to fall asleep again when the phone rang. The person in the office wanted to say "SORRY" about sending Santa Claus to our room. The rest of the night was uneventful.
The next day we drove up from Flagstaff to the Grand Canyon and spent the day hiking. We stayed one more night in Flagstaff, then continued our trip the following morning. We stopped at the Hoover Dam, took the tour, and then headed to Las Vegas.
ON THE RECORD: What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
OFF THE RECORD: We hit a number of casinos, New York New York, The Bellagio, The Venetian, Caesar's Palace, The Luxor, MGM, Excalibur, Mandalay Bay, Treasure Island, Mirage, Circus Circus and of course, Hooters.
When we were walking the Strip, we passed a Street Evangelist (for lack of a better term). The guy was yelling out to passers by that they need not be tempted by the LUST and GREED among us. He elaborated in detail about Fornication, and sin. Tim stopped and feigned interest for a while, nodding at each sin the guy listed and saying "yep. I've done that. yup. done that too..." which only encouraged the guy to yell louder. After a while, we grew bored of the guy, so we left.
We caught the free show (The Sirens of TI") outside of Treasure Island. While we did not have the best view, we could see most of it. (There were 1-2 groups of people in front of us.) A few minutes into the show, a woman in front of me turns to the guy she was with (I assume it was her husband) and she says, "Well, I didn't know it was going to all about SEX! We need to go." and she literally dragged him away from the show. When Tim asked me what that was about, I told him what I had heard, and he said, "Does she know where she IS? This is VEGAS!"
I replied, "Maybe debauchery wasn't mentioned in the vacation brochure."
We caught the water show outside the Bellagio twice, and ate a fair amount of food. The casinos were not as generous with the "free drinks to gamblers" as they have been in the past, so we were basically forced to actually purchase beer (for six dollars a bottle). -- Needless to say, we did not get drunk on this trip.
After two (extremely sober) days in Vegas, still having money in our pockets, we decided to head home, a sixteen hour drive; which wasn't so bad in two shifts.
pero @ 2:48 PM | œ | 1 comment
real quick...
Batman is indeed superior! (Why Superman will Always Suck)- - -
In the event that this link should be moved, deleted, or otherwise break, I have this saved as a pdf file. If you find the link is broken, please email me and let me know.
pero @ 3:53 PM | œ | 3 comments
First Things First...
Before sharing the details of my vacation, I have this strong need to rant a bit... (I will try to make it quick.)
I have heard people claim that they need a vacation from their vacation, but up until now I have never actually had that feeling. Don't get me wrong, the vacation itself was GREAT... but trying to get back into routine now that I am home has really worn me down. There were many things waiting for me Monday morning; papers piled on my desk, equipment needing to be called or sent in for service, inventory to be counted and ordered. They didn't take care of anything--instead, they just let it all sit around waiting for me to return. When I voiced my opinion(s) about them and their lack of effort, they claimed that (a) "You are particular, so we didn't want to do it wrong." and (b) "Well, nobody knew how to do that, so we just left it for you."
My thoughts on this -- "For TWO WEEKS?"
I mean, MOST people, or at least those I actually respect, would have at least TRIED to figure it out.Today, I managed to properly file a ton of reports, complete inventory and order supplies, and clean the area around my desk (which at the time I left for vacation was immaculate, but over the two weeks I was away, had become a catch-all storage area for whatever crap they didn't want to find a proper place for.) This includes food wrappers and a few near-empty mocha-frappa-latte cups from S-bucks. (I hate it when people don't bother to empty the contents of their beverage cups prior to placing the cup in the trash.)
Thanks... I feel a little better now. I'll come back during the week to give you those details I promised.
pero @ 8:04 PM | œ | 1 comment
