Road Trip

Well,

The year 2007 marks the tenth year my wife has been out of high school. We found out a week before that a reunion (of sorts) was going to be held at Hugo Lake in Hugo, Oklahoma. This is where my wife would've graduated from high school if her dad's job hadn't moved her to Southern California in the middle of her Junior year of High School.

Since, she had a greater attachment to her high school in Oklahoma because she lived there most of her life, she decided that is which reunion she wanted to attend.

Fortunately, Nancy was able to get her scheduled shifted so we could get a Friday and Saturday off to drive down there for the reunion.

I took a half-day off of work, we shipped the "kids" off to the "puppy hotel" and hit the road to Nancy's homeland.

For the entire time I've known Nancy, she has gone on and on about the Indian Nation Turnpike and how it is absolutely horrible. From a scenery standpoint, it is 10x better than the drive down I35 S to Houston. But it has one major detractor. Somewhere between Tinker AFB and Shawnee we lose our cell phone signal and we don't get it back until we get to the same point. So the entire time we were gone we'd be without a cell phone.

Well, half-way down the turnpike, we noticed the car was starting to drag and pull when trying to go up hills. It was behaving like my motorcycle does after winter.

Immediately, I just assumed that we got some bad gas. I recently switched to the low octane gas under the insistence of friends who told me I was wasting money by purchasing the middle-grade gas. I was just hoping that we got to Nancy's dad's house (where we would be sleeping) before it died.

We got there alright and Nancy's dad and I went to the gas station to put premium gas in the tank and a bottle of STP. We hoped that it would make the problem go away.

The next morning was the day of the reunion. As the day went on the car just got worse. Our biggest problem was that since we didn't have cell phones we had no way to stay in touch with the other people in the group. So we kept trying to stay with them despite the car running like crap.

Eventually, the "Check Engine" light came on. This was the final straw for me and I insisted that we went to Nancy's dad's house and stopped driving the car before it died for good.

We got to her dad's and he was nice enough to swap us for one of his rather new vehicles where we were able to catch up with the group at the Hugo Rodeo that was going on at the same time.

Well, it was decided that we'll leave the car in Hugo and borrow one of her dad's cars to get home. Nancy had to get to work the next day. Someone was going to take it to the Toyota dealership for us and we'll return with the borrowed car when our car was fixed.

Well, we got a call about the vehicle the day after it was dropped off. Here is where it gets interesting.

Apparently, when we took the car into the shop a year ago to get the 100K mile service, the spark plugs were changed. Whoever did the work left the socket for tightening the plugs in the engine. It took a year (about 14K miles) for it to do it's final damage. It trashed the sparkplug which resulted in one cylinder not firing anymore. It was a simple fix. But, while they were trying to do the inital determination they found a leak in the head gasket. This was very expensive to fix ($450).

Needless to say, we had to make the trip back the next day and I had to take another day off of work. But, we have the car back now and it's running like a champ.

Wasting away in Tornadoville

Well, it's 12:23AM and I'm sitting in front of the TV switching between network channels.  We are having tornadoes once again dropping all around me.



So far, I've been lucky and they are not close enough to me to warrant the tornado sirens to go off, but I'm afraid to go to bed or risk sleeping through the siren (it's awfully faint from this location).



I haven't even had a chance to hit the showers after my 45 minutes on the treadmill because I didn't want to get an uninvited guest while showering.



My wife just called from the hospital to inform me they have announced a Code Black because tornadoes have touched down real close to them and they need to be prepared for potential victims.



I told her that I'd take a hurricane any day over this.  This is the 3rd night in a row of this crap!  At least with a hurricane you know which way it's headed and you can get out of the way and pray that it turns.  Here, it's like Russian Roulette.

Welcome to OKC...Bitch!

Well, I just got my first Tornado scare......

The siren went off, then the radio did it's Emergency Broadcast sound, but this time it wasn't a test. We were being told to take shelter.

I scrambled to grab my laptops because the information contained within are crucial for my company and my personal finances. Fortunately, my home office is right next to the bathroom that serves as our storm shelter.

I went to go try to grab the dogs which I knew would be a challenge when the warning was lifted. The tornado had already touched down.....15 minutes down the road from where I was.

I called Nancy at the hospital to let her know I was alright to find out that the hospital had already called a "Code Black" and she didn't know why. I told her that a tornado touched down on a highway and took some cars out.

She's in for a long, long night in the ER and hopefully I don't have to do this hokey pokey again and try to get my butt into the bathroom/storm shelter

Sicky McSickster

Well, no good turn ever goes unpunished....

I was out-of-town helping with a project for my company and as we like to do, we exceeded our goals and delivered results early. That didn't come without a price. Between Monday and Friday I clocked 74 hours and an additional 4 hours today (Saturday). Of those 74 hours, I spent 10 hours traveling between Houston and OKC.

By the time I woke up Thursday morning (after clocking 51 hours), I woke up with the beginnings of a soar throat and cough. So, I did what I normally do when this happens. I start drinking water like it's going out of style. Well, for the first time, this didn't help. My throat just kept getting more sore by the hour. By the time we went out to dinner that night, my voice was starting to get hoarse.

Well, despite being exhausted, I didn't get much sleep. After being out cold for about 2 hours, I awoke in pain. First I threw up and threw up. This must've been from the drainage. Then the pain in my throat hit me. I couldn't have been in more pain if I swallowed a pine cone whole. I tried to suffer through it, but by 2AM I needed to say something to someone because I was just miserable.

So I called Nancy. She was the good nurse that she is and told me the proper things. I needed to drink more water. Well, anyone who has been on a high water diet knows that drinking lots of water and sleep don't go hand-in-hand. You either sleep in wet shorts or you are running back and forth to the restroom. I think the only way one could afford to do this and sleep is if they are capable of putting in their own Foley catheter. Then you can pee and sleep at the same time.

Well, I whined to her on the phone for a bit but I could barely speak so I cut the conversation short. It was at this time that I remembered that when I have a problem with coughing due to drainage, I would prop myself up with pillows. So, I scrounged up all the pillows I could find and build a wedge out of them. This seemed to help alot. At least enough that I got a few more hours of sleep.

Morning came and we swung buy CVS pharmacy to pick up some throat remedies. So I picked up some CVS-branded Chloraseptic® and some cough drops. Both of these seemed to help, but the Muscinex I took earlier seemed to start to make me foggy headed and I had to struggle to continue to be productive at work. Plus, I needed to catch a 5:45PM flight back to OKC.

I caught my shuttle to the airport after it being almost 45 minutes late and made it through security without issue. I was worried because on this trip, I was bringing back all the stuff I was leaving in Houston while i was traveling back and forth since late November. Well, I didn't want to check my back for one 4 fl. oz. bottle of contact lens solution. I know the regulations are 3 fl. oz. or smaller, but I looked and couldn't find a 3 fl. oz. bottle of contact solution in my brand. Well, security didn't say anything.

Then, as luck would have it, my flight was late. Then it was overbooked. Then it was hot, hot, hot. I was sweating the whole way home. I tried to sleep, but it was just too hot.

It wasn't until I stepped out of the OKC airport into the 48 degree air that I realized that the plane wasn't hot, I was. I was still burning up in the cold air.

Well, Nancy had asked me to go get some milk on my way back from the airport. At this time, it was around 8PM and I felt like death warmed over. So, I decide to go to Wal-Mart. I prefer Albertsons for groceries, but I wanted to see if I could get some more knock-off Chloraseptic® and I didn't know what Albertson's selection would be. Wal-Mart is also a tad out of the way, but I didn't want to stop twice.

I get to wal-mart and pick out some drugs to try and help me sleep grabbed the milk and came home.

Naturally, Belle and Coco were ecstatics to see me. I let them out of the confines of their entrapment (the kitchen) and they emptied their little bladders in the appropriate location. Then I fed them. I hit the couch to watch a little TV and maybe play a little XBox 360, but I never really made it far. I was out cold on the couch. I woke up at 10 and dragged myself to the bed where I remained until 15 hours later.

I hate being sick, but soar throats, to me, are a torture worse than death.