Funny Friday (LONG VERSION)

Alright. we ALLL know that i am madly in Love with my wife, who was my first TRUE love, and then i suffered brain trauma broke up with her while in Japan, then we got back together, yada-yada. No? You must be new here. Ok. Go here to catch up with the group.....
You back? Good. WEEEELLLLLL...this post has NOTHING to do with that story. I just like to tell it. wuhahahaaaaa.
This post has to do with a different story. Please bear with me, as I think that you will find it interesting AND funny (at my expense).
About a month or so ago my hospital was invited to give a presentation at a conference being put on by the Vermont Council for Quality (yea, i dunno what the hell that means, either). They wanted us to talk about our electronic medical record system. good. fine. we ROCK at that, so, why not. My predecessor, Pam, readily accepted the invitaion and said that we could use one of her 'canned' presentations since she has given this talk several times over the past few years. Sweet. All I had to do was to come up with about 5 slides, sit next to her on the stage, talk for about 5-6 minutes, and sit down. Basically I would act as "eye candy". (Which sounds a lot like I CAN....just sayin').
We received an email that listed the agenda for the day and it included a listing of the presentations and presenters. This is where the story gets GOOD. And by good, I mean Soap Opera Good.

I quickly scanned the peeps, wondering if there would be anyone I knew from nursing school or such, because, hey, Vermont ain't that big a place, ya know? As my eyes went down the page, they got HUGE, I mean BUGSY huge when I saw a familiar name. I immediately picked up the phone and called my wife. The conversation went something like this:

T: Hello.

Me: ohmygodyourememberthatconferencethatitoldyouaboutthatihavetogivealittlespeechatinNovember?yeawellguesswhoelseisgoingtobethere?okyou'llneverguesssoi'lltellyoubecauseiknowyouarebusy. Steph.

T: who? what? is this prank call? we don't want any encyclopedias.

Me: nononoit'sme! youheardright. STEPH is going to be at the conference. not just BE there, but also PRESENTING. yea. right before me, in the same room as me.
T: what day? i SO want to go to this thing.......

(a bit of back story here: my first marriage ended disasterously. mostly because i wasn't the best person that i could be at the time, and the person who was hurt the most was Steph. i do feel bad about the person i was back then (we divorced in 2003. i haven't seen or heard from her since. no children are involved, but i DO suspect that she killed my cat.), and i suspect that Steph still harbours bad feelings toward me. I would. (i do, actually...)

So then i told Pam, my co presenter. I believe that her email response was, "GET.OUT! Are you kidding me???" Many emails have gone back and forth about this. Pam found the situation to be 'interesting' but was certain that 'everything will be just fine'. Well, it was. I have thought about it quite a bit, and have lost a little bit of sleep about it, but have steeled myself enough so that earlier this week, with just 10 days to go before the event, I was ready to present.
Then an email came from Pam with this subject: "PLEASE DONT FAINT"
The body was this:

Hi Gene

Don’t faint when you read this -----I cannot be at this conference – I am flying home from a meeting in SLC that day – I had made a mistake and thought the conf was on Friday – not Thursday….yikes. I will prepare slides of the stuff I was going to cover – are you OK with doing the whole VA enchilada? I will be in tomorrow – can we get together then?

Thanks, Pam

"thanks???" THANKS??? thanks is what you say when you ask someone to pass the Old Bay and they do. I would have preferred to have her write, "sorry to have totally effed with your head, but i am sure you'll be ok" instead of 'thanks'.

So i replied with, "**thud**", waited a good dramatical few seconds, then re-replied with this:

Disregard the last email. After some smelling salts, I am feeling MUCH better now.

Yes, I will be here tomorrow. Now, if I could just figure out what that halo is on the periphery of my field of vision, I’d be all set…

-g-

(the halo is sometimes a symptom of head injury, stroke, seizure, etc.)
Her reply? Oh, so comforting....

It’s a good thing you share an office with Chris – otherwise no one would have known that you fainted…and we would not have found your body until I showed up to talk to you in the am.  I am really sorry – I am usually pretty good about remembering dates with my travel etc…but I had in my mind (feeble as it is) that the conference was on a Friday and that I was all set (who needs to know the date?)….

Have you developed a twitch?

nice. so i shared this conversation with Chris, who is the stereo-typical systems analyst who i share an office with. she has been working with computers since..well..ALMOST since they still used vacuum tubes.
My rebuttal? yep...

Yes, actually, and I’m afraid that my ex will think that I am winking at her. Maybe some depakote will do the trick?

No worries…..

I will see you in the morning. Please disregard my 1000 yard stare. And please, no sudden movements.

-g-

(depakote is often prescribed to combat seizure activity, as well as for major depressive disorders.)
having a similar sick sense of humor, she replied:
Wear sunglasses and she will never see the twitch (unless it becomes a full body tremor)…but if that happens you will undoubtedly begin to stutter also. 

I asked if I could wear a suit for the day, and she said that I could. I sent her this picture, asking if this type of suit would be appropriate:

We shall see.

But the FUNNIEST part of all of this, which I will NEVER KNOW ABOUT, is....think about it....I got the agenda, which means SHE got the agenda. What do you think her reaction was when she saw MY NAME on the list???? And my name isn't common, like a Bob Smith might be. So....there is no mistaking that it will be me following her to the podium this coming Thursday. Oh, to have been a fly on the wall in her office that day. And the subsequent weeks. Who knows. Perhaps she just laughed it off and went on with her day. I hope so, but imagining differently has been much more fun.

Thank you for enduring this lengthy post. I has been cathartic for me to get this out there. Have a great Friday~

-g-

Gene's Test Kitchen

As i am certain that most of you know, I have been spending quite a bit of time on Twitter these days. Not at night, just during the day. And not on weekends, just during the week. What does that mean? Yes, I tweet while working. While this might not be the BEST use of my time, I can assure you there are some work things involved. How can that be? Simple.....I am one of the most active (pun intended) people on our Wellness Committee, and have taken on a project (ok, not just taken on. I came up with the flippin' idea) of putting together a cookbook of healthy foods. Well.....a quick walk through the halls should have clued me in that I wouldn't be getting very many healthy ideas, if you know what I mean. So we opened it up to just be a cookbook, 'sponsored' by the Wellness Committee.
Being the nice guy that i am, i tweeted that i was looking for some good recipes for the cookbook. why not share some tweetie, blogger love, right? Cathy from Planet Veggie and Jog-Blog sent me a recipe for some great peanut-butter bars which i reviewed here. Those will be included for sure. She also sent me a recipe for some great soup, which I made but didn't review. Suffice to say, it was GREAT. Even our 13 year old liked it. WIN~
Then one day I got caught up in a conversation between @MMNorthDallas and (i think...) @hotlegsrunner about a Pita Pizza. (note to people who don't tweet: start tweeting. ok, more serious note: the "@" is how twitter identifies it's users. you could type ClifBar in a sentence to talk about a bar, but if you type @ClifBar, you are talking about the company, or the user. clear as mud? moving on now...) Since i am interested in pizza, and different kinds of pizza, i jumped in and asked for the recipe. Jason was gracious enough to send it to me, and I was very excited to try it out. TWO WEEKS LATER, i did.
Jason has a tab on his web sited called "Athlete's Plate". Head over there for the recipe (if you have trouble, either tweet me (@boutdrz) or email me and I will get it to you) and give it a try. Very basic, very tasty. I altered it a bit, but it was pretty much the same. I have no way of grilling chicken (HORROR!), so that wasn't on it. I don't like the smell of broccoli in the oven, so that was off. Instead of using a bunch of the single ingredients, I opted for some fresh Taboule (my new BFF). Next time, though, I'll need to squeeze some of the water out so that the pizza is crispier.
Are you dying to see it yet???? ok. here are the before and after shots that you have been salivating over:

BEFORE it went in the oven.

the 15 minutes that it takes to make this were excruciatingly loooong. i was hungry. i had already made chicken wings for Z, nuggets for B, and nachos for T. T had made brownies in the middle of all of that, and now it was my turn. whew. we had been shopping, and for almost 2 hours after our return, T and I never left the kitchen.seriously. good times, and no one got hurt (although we did put the hurts to some FOOD!)

ok. without further ado, here is the after. it says it all, i think. give this a try. YOU WILL LOVE IT!

about 10 minutes AFTER it came out of the oven.

So if you have some good ideas, feel free to send them along!

Fun Friday

I had started a post yesterday, in which i was going to be more upbeat about the dreadmill, and trying to embrace the treadmill, and not harp on the rubber band of doom any longer.
This is not that post.
I have decided to go ahead with the Fun Foto Friday meme. Please allow me to pre-empt it by expressing my sympathies to a friend of mine (who isn't a reader, but deserves mention anyway) who's husband lost his battle with cancer early this morning. I had only met him on a few occasions, and they were all while he was a patient and i was helping to care for him. The news was expected, in as much as this type of thing can be 'expected', but it still threw me for a little spin. I am better now, and have regained focus.
Which is what brings me to today's Fun Foto Friday offering. Let's look at a familiar scene from someone else's perspective. I am sure that those of you who have not been living under a rock (or in Siberia) will recognize this scene from the Original Star Wars movie, now know as Episode IV:

"these aren't the droids you are looking for"

Let's see it from the poor StormTrooper's perspective, and try to tie it all in to real life. Stay with me on this, ok? Thanks. They KNOW that these really are the droids that they are looking for. They have been briefed. They read the memo. They have all seen the films, read the blogs of other Troopers, tweeted about their plan of action. Then this old guy comes along waving his fingers basically tricking the Troopers into believing that what they actually believe about the situation is FALSE. For an instant, they question their training, their instinct, their prime directive, and then fall for this false prophet (remember, from the StormTroopers' perspective. we all know that ObiWan is a good guy).
Later, after a few rounds at the local cantina, the poor, defeated, and now a$$-less (from the chewing? hello!) StormTroopers are left to reflect on their day and the choices that they have made (as I am sure most of us do, no?) Suddenly, he realizes that he as been duped, and is downtrodden. He goes into a period of beating himself up for not following his gut, for not trusting his instinct, for not following plan.

self interrogation can lead to misery. don't let it.

It is easy to get caught in the trap of self loathing and self pity. Am I right? during this time, however, we need to reconnect with the things that brought us to where we started along our path as well as refocus on the destination. Ever so often, moments of clarity will seem to fall into place, most often from sources that you wouldn't expect. I find that it is during those times that we need to be most open to learning from various sources, rethink things that we have cast aside in the past and explore them deeper, and even reach out to others for help. It can come from the strangest of places.

why can't I be this clever?

My message today is to never give up. Set a goal, have an idea, make a plan. People and situations will come along and (for good and bad) cause you to stray from your course. Don't let them take over. Take time to regroup, to refocus, to re-evaluate. Find new ways to stay on track. If you need other resources, seek them out, and don't be afraid to back track. But keep the end in mind, and go for it!

the gym at work has undergone some renovations over the past month and has been unavailable for staff. i was really torn up about that, especially since I LOVE the dreadmill rubberband of doom modern torture device just as much as the next armchair runner does.
**aside: as i type, Z is watching ESPN in the living room. they are highlighting some football guy named Randy Moss. I don't really know who he is, or why we care so much about what he has to say, but his interview/press conference really struck a chord with me. please allow me to rant....
Apparently he was fined $25K for 'not talking to the press'. see article here, if you are really interested. i haven't read it. my blood pressure can only go so high before i might have a CVA. nevermind. i couldn't find an intelligent article. suffice to say that contracts require that players:  "must make themselves available to the media at specific times each week. Moss last spoke to the media on Oct. 13, then declined interviews after a win over Dallas on Oct. 17, throughout last week leading up to a loss at Green Bay, and after the defeat. Moss also declined to be available this week despite being in high demand because the Vikings visit New England, for whom Moss played the past three seasons."


Sure. great. whatever. you didn't talk to the press, you should pay a fine. that part i am ok with. but what he SAID during the press conference has my knickers in a knot. The fine was $25k. I dunno about YOU, but a fine of $250 dollars would make my head spin. His comment was something along the lines of "i don't care".
***crickets***
did he really say that? and WHY are we running the conference over and over? Hey, Moss, sit down, and shaddup already.
I imagine that if you take a look at the average income for NFL fans, and then told them that they had to cough up $25,000, it would pretty much put most of the families into hardship. No mortgage payments, no car/truck/4 wheeler payments, no extra trips to wal-mart...oh, wait. am i confusing NFL fans with NASCAR fans? whatever. 
And can ANYBODY tell me, please, where this fine money goes? According to espn, last week over a QUARTER OF A MILLION DOLLARS were collected in fines from NFL players. IN ONE WEEK. Clearly, the 'fines' and punishments aren't steep enough. But where, oh where, does the money go? Anyone?


ALRIGHT, my aside turned into my main rant. sorry about that. i gotta go take dinner out of the oven now, so my story of the first run back on the dreadmill will have to wait for tomorrow.


peace,YO!

pre Halloween report

sure, why not?
totally not in our normal way of doing things, this year we ended up waiting until almost the last possible second to carve pumpkins. this was B's first Halloween where he was actively involved with the setting up of decorations and picking out his pumpkin and it's design. i can't wait for next year already!
last week or so i decorated our side deck:

I went into the woods near our house and lopped off some dead branches from a fallen pine tree. used zipties to secure them to the posts. i managed to stretch one package of webbing across the whole thing, so that was pretty sweet. the skull on the table has a light underneath it, and it glows in the dark. nice sky, too.
Several years ago i took some scrap plywood that had been lying around and cut some shapes out of them. Graves stones, a sinister pumpkin, some arms, a cat, and a snowman. these we place in the front yard, on the hill. We mix in some ghosts on a stick, then add some eyeball lights. The picture doesn't do it justice, but here it is anyway:

note the ghosts in the window. we put a strobe in the room behind them. very cool effect!
are you ready for some obligatory pumpkin carving photos? well, i shall not have you wait any longer...

here we are, 'eating' the 'guts'

note the stern concentration on my face. you'd think it was neurosurgery

looks like Z is trying to hide behind B. yea, not gonna work

there are 5 of us, so we had 5 pumpkins. trouble was, M was working and wouldn't be home until too late for us to wait, so T carved a pumpkin in his honor. Here are 4 of them, lined up on the front steps, which we never use.

l to r they belong to B, T, 'M', and Z. where is MINE, you ask???

surprisingly, it was a big hit among the other family members!

be sure to tune in again either tonight or tomorrow, when i'll have pictures of the kids dressed up and some other things. i hope. thanks!
-g-

hey, Coach! just did 6.2

hey, Coach! just did 6.2 miles (10k) of trails, roads, rail trails in 56:04. thank you for encouraging me!

ran 5 miles in 1

ran 5 miles in 1 hour. spent about 15 minutes geocaching along the way.