The Motorcycle Diaries

Many people who know me wouldn't think that I had a motorcycle, but I do. It is a 1996 Yamaha Virago 535 Special Edition.

It was a somewhat impulsive purchase I made on my 30th birthday. It probably was the single event the brought on my getting married because shortly after purchasing the steel horse, I met my soon-to-be wife.

Well, I needed to take the bike over to the Tag Center to get the VIN inspected so I can get my Oklahoma Title. It was a very frustrating day. The bike started without issue, but as soon as I tried to throttle up, it just conked off.

Well a friend of mine gave me a few things to look for and I decided to try and deal with those things today. I took the seat off the bike so I could get to where the fuel filter and other important hoses are and noticed that the battery was severly bulging.

It turns out that the vent tubing for the liquid battery had somehow gotten kinked and was preventing the gasses from escaping. I probably caught a major explosing before it actually happened. As soon as I unkinked the tube, I heard this loud whoosh of air like you'd heard out of an air compressor and the battery went back to it's original shape.

Well, I needed to get the battery out to check the fluid level because I couldn't get a good angle from within it's housing. I normally would just remove the two fuel lines than ran overtop and pull it out. But, I guess I have neve3r done that before with a full tank of gas, because when I pulled the tubing off this time, gas starts shooting out everywhere.

It was a geyser of gas coming out of the where I pulled the tube out and from the tub itself. I was frantically trying to get the tub back in place. I was successful in replacing the tubing, but I was soaked in gas from the waist down and it was all over the floor of the garage.

I took an entire roll of paper towels to soak up the gas on the floor and I think I started seeing pink elephants from the fumes eminating from my pants.

I guess it's time I break open the wallet and purchase a repair manual

One more RN Marches onward

Well,

I have always tried to be the best husband I can be, but we all have our weaknesses and faults.

One of my biggest weaknesses came out this week. Nancy sat for her NCLEX examination in Oklahoma City on Monday.

I have always known my wife is highly intelligent. After completing her first degree in Sports Medicine she sat for the National Licensure exam for the National Athletic Trainers Board of Certification (NATABOC) and passed it on the first sitting. It is rumored that only 30% of those who take this exam pass it the first time.

My wife also graduated Cum Laude from Texas Women's University with a BS in Nursing. Most of the time she hardly even studied much to the chagrine of her classmates who spent many sleepless hours preparing for the exam.

Even though she wasn't a straight 'A' student in Nursing like some of her cohorts, when it came time for the benchmark exams, she blew the roof off them. I told her that it must be because she is absorbing the data and not cramming in the minutia of the details required for A's on individual exams. Those people who were getting the A's on the individual exams didn't do as well on the Benchmark exams.

Well, due to beurocratic red tape in Oklahoma, Nancy had to be submitted to a curriculum audit in order to get permission to sit for the NCLEX exam. This took almost 3 months to happen. Meantime, she is working as a Graduate Nurse in the ER here.

Nancy only got 75 questions on the exam. This is the bare minimum. The maximum is 256 questions. The test is an adaptive test. This means that for every question you get right, you are given an even harder question. If you get a question wrong, you get a slightly easier question and more of the same to determine if you know the material. The purpose of the test is to determine if you are proficient in the material or not.

By only getting 75 questions means either you are extremely proficient or you are extremely non-proficient. Since she got quite a few pharmocology questions, which are a weak point for her, she thought there might be a possibility of her failing.

Now here is where I wasn't the best husband. Everyone was telling her that they knew she passed the test. My response......"What is the plan if you don't pass?"....groan.

I'm the kind of person who prepares for the worst and all I could think of was her failing. I knew she was smart, but I have this running theory that the elements are out to get me and everyone around me. So, by marrying me, Nancy gets to deal with the bad luck that comes from being me.

Nancy tries to tell me that she's always considered herself lucky and that by marrying me, I have inherited her luck.

Well, today, I think her luck beat out my bad luck. I logged on to the Oklahoma Board of Nursing site and saw that she passed her exam and is not a Registered Nurse in the fine state of Oklahoma

When one door closes, another window must be opened.

Well, this marked the first week that Nancy started working the shift that she was hired to work (3PM - 3AM). It started on Sunday night.

To me it was no big deal, I'd head over to my brother's house and eat some food and watch his family play the PS2.

Well, as soon as Nancy took off, I decided that I would install the new programmeable thermostat we got from Lowe's. I just cannot stand to use a thermostat where you set it and have to change it manually whenever you want the temperature to change.

Firstly, the part of the wall that holds the thermostat isn't in an easy to get to area. There is a treadmill in the way and an antique china hutch. So I had to move the china hutch to the left to make room on the wall for the new, wider thermostat.

Naturally, it wasn't a simple task like I thought it would be. First I had difficulty figuring out how to remove the face off the old thermostat so I could get at the screws to detach it from the wall. Eventually I had it figured out but not after a few choice words were rolling off my tongue.

I prefer to work these kind of projects when my wife isn't around because I don't have to be subjected to her disapproving stares when words that are on the "banned" list are uttered.

So now I have the old thermostat removed and I lined up the new thermostat and found out that the holes in the wall from the old screws were in perfect alignment to the screw holes in the new thermostat. I was sure it was a good sign. I screw the back of the new thermostat in, snap the wires into their appropriate place and put everything in it's place and step back to admire my handiwork.

At this time I knew I wasn't going to make it to my brother's house by 5:30PM for dinner, so I call to tell him. He tells me to just show up whenever I can make it.

Well, I go to program the thermostat and noticed that the thermostat wasn't flush up against the wall. So I pop the face off and notice that the screws don't tighten down to the wall. So unscrew the entire thing because I was going to use the little thingies that came with the thermostat that you stick into the drywall to give the screws some "bite". Well it looks like I was lucky and I could just push the "thingies" into the wall and tap with the hammer to push them flush.

I wasn't that lucky. One tap of the hammer caused the thingie to bend over sideways. I was pissed and more "banned" words began flowing. So I pulled out the instructions to see what size drill bit is suggested. I go out the garage to get my drill bits and a pair of needle-nose pliers. I use the pliers to pull out the thingie and use the drill bit to open up the hold some more.

I'm the kind of person who throws all the extra parts from projects into my tool box. So I spent the next 30 minutes looking for some extra thingies because I don't tend to use them. I was sure the one I ruined was not useable anymore. I wasn't lucky enough to find a thingie of the same size so I just grabbed one from the tool box and mumbled my way back to the thermostat.

Well, I got lucky and the the thingie was still useable so I tapped both of them into the wall and was able to screw the thermostat plate tight against the wall and got the thermostat reassembled. Everything seemed to be working.

So I called my brother to let him know that I was done with the thermostat and all I needed to do was feed and walk the dogs and head on over.

So the dogs got taken care of and I decided I should put my tools away before heading to my brothers. So I head out to the garage and as I make my way through the door, I pull the door behind me out of habit so the dogs won't run out. As I walked into the garage, I heard a click and immediate turned around screaming, "NO!". I knew what I had just done. I locked myself out. I reached to check the doorknob fully aware that the answer would be that the door wasn't going to open.

You see, the new house we are in has a locking doorknob. There isn't a deadbolt like what I'm used to. I'm not used to the lock being on the doorknob so out of habit, I just closed the door since I have always had to manually lock the door iwth a key.

Well, the first thing I did was looked to see if there was a window that wasn't locked. Which there wasn't. But there was a window, that for some reason wasn't on it's track.

I called my brother to tell him I wasn't coming because I was locked out. His first suggestion was that I break out a window. I didn't like that idea because I didn't want to piss of my wife or the property manager. His next suggestion was that I knock the doorknob off the door. This would cause the part of the door that has the lock on it to be removed and therefore rendering the door openable. Well, just as luck would have it, the hammer was locked in side.

My sister-in-law suggested that I try to find something flexible enough to slide through the side of the door to pop the latch, but that was unobtainable too.

Well, I decided to walk up to the property manager's office to see if there was anyone there, but there wasn't. So I walked back.

Well, as I was digging through my toolboxes for the umpteenth time, I noticed a roll of very stiff electrical wire that was left over from an installation of a garage door opener and I looked at it with a hint of possibility. I was wondering if I could fashion a loop on one end and fish it through the crack in the window and pop the other latch. After about 10 tries I got it and was in. Granted the window only opened a little bit and I had to do a limbo number to get through the window.

Well, I was going in feet first because I'm better balanced that way and step in dog crap. Apparently, my dogs snuck into that room and pooped on the floor near the window. But it didn't matter, I was in the house.

I immediatly called my wife and let her know I was no longer locked out of the house just in case she got the first message I left when the ordeal all started. So that she would know that I wasn't sitting on the back stoop with only my cellphone.

Afterwards, I called my brother and let him know I was in the house now. He asked me if I was still coming over and I told him that I would if he was still willing to accept the company. He asked me to grab a few Texas beers I had in the fridge (beer from Texas has a greater alcohol content than Oklahoma beer). I grabbed 4 Shiner Bocks and hit the road.

That beer sure hit the spot....mmmmmm

Elsevilla's Girl Lc Style

My brother has posted another coloring piece. Per his DeviantART page:

This was a quick one about an hour to an hour and a half, with 45 minutes later on as clean up.

You can view the original page here.

You can view the original line art here.


Elsevilla's Girl Lc Style by ~impwerx on deviantART

The Acceptance of Charitable Service

Well, on Monday I drove down from Oklahoma City back to Houston. For all practical purposes, I made a 450 mile trip so that I could mow the lawn on my house in Houston I haven't been able to sell thus far.

When I got to Houston on Monday afternoon, I wasn't able to mow the lawn because it was pouring outside.

So I was able to get the lawn mowed this evening. After cooling off and getting shower, I went across the street to return to our neighbor their keys we had in case of an emergency.

Well, my neighbor is LDS and he was trying to get me to allow him to mow my lawn so that I don't have to drive all the way and back just to mow. I'm having a hard time accepting his offer of charitable service.

I think it has to do with one or both of two things:

1. I was always taught that one doesn't get something without an expectation of something in return.  In other words, if he mows my lawn, he'll expect some kind of favor in return
2. I am somewhat of a micro-manager and I wouldn't trust that it would get done to my satisfaction

This is really bothering me

Whitney & Osama?

So I'm listening to one of my podcasts earlier this week and it was mentioned that Whitney Houston has decided she's had enough of her husband Bobby Brown and is leaving him.

Am I the only one that finds it interesting that within a couple months of the world finding out that Osama Bin Laden has a craving for Ms Houston that she's leaving her man.

Could it be that Whitney decided that she's had enough of the 80's bad boy and now wants to make sweet, sweet love with the current ultimate bad boy?

Happy Birthday to Me....WDW Day 1 (Part 1)

September 8, 2006

Well, as I said before, I was spending a vacation with my wife at the most Magical Place on Earth.

Today actually started yesterday. After putting in 10 hours at work, Nancy and I took Belle back to the hospital that did her surgery to be boarded while we are at Disney. We just told her that she's going on a spa trip for awhile. Once we had Belle safe and secure in the care of the loving nurses of Gulf Coast Vetrinarian Hospital, I needed to go to a doctor's appointment. That took forever because as we all know, doctor's never see you at the appointed time. By the time we got home, the sun was setting.

I quickly mowed my lawn which will most likely look like a jungle when I get home despite the fact that it got a trim before my departure. Then I had to rearrange the garage so my Toyota Tundra could fit inside. I didn't want to leave my nice truck outside as bait to would-be car thieves. Then we had to go drop Coco off at grandma's house for her 10 days of only-child living.

By the time all this got done, it was late, but we still had to clean the house and finish packing. Since we are going to be gone we needed to make sure the house was show ready.

This meant we went to bed around midnight and had to get up at 4:00AM to catch a 7:45AM flight (damn homeland security and their need to check my bags with a fine tooth comb). I set the alarm and went to bed. Somehow, when the alarm went off, I must've turned it off and rolled over. This is an extreme rarity for me. I'm always a slave to my alarm clock. Fortunately, I woke up at 4:25 AM and noticed the problem. We got up and I got dressed and loaded the luggage in the car while Nancy got ready. We were out of the house quickly and we still got the airport at my predetermined time.

You see, it takes a lot of math to factor a wakeup time. I knew IAH was saying that you had to be there 1.5 hours before loading. Since loading was at 7:15AM that meant I had to be at the airport at 5:45AM. Then I knew it takes about 30 minutes to get from the off-site covered parking to the airport. THat means I had to be at the parking lot at 5:15AM. I knew it takes 45 minutes to get from my house to the parking lot. Which means that I had to leave the house by 4:30 AM. Now the tricky part, figuring the Nancy-factor. I know on a normal day it takes 45 minutes for her to shower, perform her skin maintance regime and eat breakfast. This time she already showered before going to bed, wasn't going to eat breakfast, so I had to guess. I gave her 30 minutes, that's why I said a 4:00AM wakeup. Fortunately, it took her less than 30 minutes to get ready and it took less than 45 minutes to get to the airport. So we got to do ALOT of sitting and waiting

The flight was not without it's drama. While sitting in our seats waiting for everyone else to board, the usual log-jam formed as people put all their carry-ons in the overhead compartments ignoring the unwritten rule of only one bag per person. Well, one lady was standing there waiting for the non-english speaking people to get into their appropriate seats. Apparently, this passanger didn't care that the seating arrangements were breaking up this latino family and felt they should've thought of that when they booked their flight. She was very vocal about getting the aisle seat she paid for. Well while all this was going on, a person of asiatic descent and most likely still lives in the region, since he also spoke little or no english decides that he was going to do the kind and courteous thing of moving through the log jam like Emmitt Smith on Super Bowl Sunday. When he pushed passed this vocal lady, she told him to f-off and shoved the crap out of him. That caused some tension because the poor fellow (not really because he was being most rude) almost hit the floor.

Needless to say, all those in shouting distance of this lass was glad when the flight attendant announced the destruction of all cell phones. Not really, but I'm sure that's what people think is being asked of them to turn it off. That was the only thing that shut this lady up because we were getting to listen to her recant over and over again the details of "Shove-Gate 2006".

Besides that, all was fine with our flight. We landed in Orlando without incident.

We had decided to forgo the free Magical Express shuttle service from Orlando to our resort which came with free baggage delivery and went with a towncar. Some of the Disney-themed forums I visit made it clear that it could take awhile to get to your resort based on where you were on the drop-off schedule since the busses went to all resorts.

As was described to us, the gentleman who was to be our driver was in the baggage claim area holding a sign with my name on it. I really felt important :)

He stood with me while I got my luggage and helped me haul it outside where he told us to wait while he got the car. While this was going on I was telling Nancy that the towncar would be just as good as a limo because we were originally planning on getting a limo since this is also our honeymoon. But a limo was an add'l $100 on top of what a towncar cost.

As we were standing on the curb we see our driver pulling up with not a towncar but a nice long white strech limo. He gets out and Nancy and I told him I thought we had a towncar. He looked at us, smiled, and said, "Surprise!". Somehow we got bumped but I don't know who is responsible.

Since Nancy has never been in a limo, this was a real treat for her. When we got to the Animal Kingdom Lodge, I swear we saw people looking at us getting out of the limo wondering who we were.

Amazingly, our room was already ready for us at 11:30AM. We were taken straight to our room on the concierge floor. We decided to go whole-hog on this trip and booked the Platinum Package with a concierge level room. Basically, everything but the basic snacks from the carts is pre-paid like on a cruise. We just have to tip the housekeeping (or as they call it at Disney....Mousekeeping).

Once we dropped off our bags, we decided to go to the Animal Kingdom since it was close, it closed at 5 and allowed us time to prepare for my special Birthday dinner at Victoria & Alberts (the AAA 5 Diamond restaurant at Disney's Grand Floridian Resort).

Since we hadn't eaten all day we decided to hit up the Rainforest Cafe since it was near the entrance and it was available to us on the Platinum Package meal plan (from what the waitress told us, that's the only meal plan it was on). I must say, it's harder for me to order a meal when price is of no object than when it is. I'm cheap, so I usually order a nice cheap burger, sandwich, or chicken fingers. I decided to go with the shrimp sampler and Nancy had the chicken and ribs. The highlight was the volcanoe cake for dessert.

We really enjoyed our food and left thoroughly stuffed.

The Animal Kingdom is host to one of Walt Disney World's newest rides, Expedition Everest. After we ate, we decided we needed to check that one off the list and since it was a new ride and lines were to be expected, we felt we should do it first. We made haste to Asia to get in line. It wasn't hard to find it. At the Animal Kingdom, signage was excellent, but you almost didn't need that to find Everest since you couldn't miss the giant mountain piercing the horizon.

When we got to the ride, there wasn't the line running outside the staging area like we expected and the sign informed us the wait was 15 minutes. We were stoked because 15 minutes is alot more tolerable than an hour. Well, despite the sign saying 15 minutes, there really wasn't a line. We walked right up to the ride vehicle.

Everest was awesome!!!! Nancy and I were really amped up about this ride. Disney did alot of promotion for it thorugh some TV specials and we were really looking forward to this attraction. We were not disappointed. We were so stoked we got right back on after getting off the ride. This time, I was asked to carry a red plastic card on a lanyard. I was told that they time how long it takes to get from being handed to me to being handed to the person on the other end of the line. The ride was as fun the second time as the first.

After two rounds on Expedition Everest we felt we should try to do something else. We decided the Dinosaur would be fun. Once again, no wait. Just right onto the ride vehicle. This ride was a classic Disney dark ride, but was really, really bumpy and alot of what I call the shock factor. Dinosaurs suddenly appear in your face making alot of noise. I probably wouldn't choose to ride this one again, but I wouldn't protest if someone else did.

After Dinosaur we made a mad dash to a restroom. When I came out I found Chip and Dale having fun with my wife. They were wanting to know where her husband was. You see, we were both wearing pins denoting that it was our honeymoon. I have a lot of respect for the Cast Members who wear the costumes every day. I was standing there in shorts and a short sleeved shirt and I was drenched in sweat. They had a lot more material draped on them and no real way to get a breathe of fresh air.

At this time we needed to head back to the resort to get ready for dinner. We made our way back to the busses and stopped at shops on the way.

We are settled in

Well, our possessions survived the trek from Houston to OKC. The moving truck was here at 10AM on Friday morning. It took some time for the driver to figure out the best approach to bring the truck into our new community.

I must admit the guy was a great driver. He ended up deciding to back the truck in and had to navigate around a parking lot while doing it. He treaded that sucker in their nicely.

The next thing that needed to be tackled is the two small flights of stairs leading to our front door. One of the men on the crew had the ingenious idea of using ramps to go from the truck to the door, thereby bypassing the stairs. It was easily setup and worked beautifully.

It took the movers only 4 hours to unload the truck. This included getting the appliances into their new homes and setup. They also masterfully squeezed our very heavy and long couch into our living room. It wasn't a straight shot, but they made it look simple.

I must say that I highly recommend our moving company. We used Daryl Flood who is an affiliate of Allied. Despite the fact that to me the trip from Houston to OKC is a long haul, to the moving industry it's no different than a trip down the street. Therefore, the nationwide movers won't touch the job. They lateral it over to their local affiliates. That is how we ended up with Daryl Flood. From talking to our driver it sounds like Daryl Flood operates in more places than just Houston so I believe I'll be using them again

Into the great wide open

Well, the movers finished with their job at 6PM. Nancy and I stood there watching the giant orange Allied Moving truck disappear into the horizon waving as 99% of our possessions were onboard.

Tomorrow, begins a new chapter in our life as we face the reality that we are indeed moving out of this house.

They're Here

I'm drafting this entry while the moving company is here.  So far so good.  These guys are quick and careful.  It's been 3 hours and I'd say half the house is on the truck. 

The disgusting thing is that now that furniture is disappearing, we are noticing a black film all over the carpets.  I, at first, thought it was dirt from their shoes, but it wasn't.  It was a layer of dog hair from our Coco.  Man, the vaccuum cleaner is going to get a workout when the moving is done

Moving Day

Well, it's 2:00AM Central Time and the movers are coming to finish packing and moving us to Oklahoma City. I still have alot of crap to get organized in my office before these guys show up.

I hate moving.....

New Blog Entries Coming Soon....

I'm currently sitting at the Orlando Airport on my way back from a fantastic 10 day trip to Walt Disney World. I'll be back to blogging in the next day or so.

I have a lot of family and friends that want to know how my trip went, so I will be posting my trip reports to my blog for easier distribution. Hopefully, my writeup will be entertaining enough to keep my readers interested

When you wish upon a star....

Q: So, Ray, your wife has just graduated from college, what are you two going to do now?

A: We are going to Disney World!!!!

Well, folks, it's time for Nancy and me to take a much deserved vacation. This will be a slash vacation ... Birthday Gift (for me)/Graduation Gift (for Nancy)/Belated Honeymoon (for us)

I don't know what my internet connectivity situation will be like at Disney, but if it's there, I plan on trying to post something. But definitely when I get back, I plan on blogging my trip report.

I have a pro flickr account and we'll be uploading alot of pictures

Belle Before and After

I know, I know, you guys are tired of hearing about my dog, but Nancy and I were amazed at how quickly she's healed. Here is a side by side comparision of her from the day we brought her home and 6 days later:

Belle's Surgery Incision Originally uploaded by rharkness.

Belle after 6 days Originally uploaded by rharkness.

Update on Belle Part 3

Belle is home!

Actually came home yesterday, August 30th, but she is a handful. That's why I've been lax blogging an update. Despite the fact that she's home, she still needs constant attention and care.

The doctors warned us that she'll be coughing alot and that we have to feed her very carefully. What we have to do is make little meatballs out of canned dog food and feed it to her one piece at a time and make sure she completely swallows between meatballs. This is because she kinda has to relearn how to swallow properly. Part of the problem was that the flap of skin that helps control where air and food go was overgrown and part of the breathing problem (in addition to the airway collapsing). So what they had to do was some resculpting of the flesh. This results in the potential that if she doesn't eat patiently she could accidentally inhale her food. I'm not too worried about her though. I have the same problem. I cannot talk and eat at the same time without nearly choking on whatever I'm eating.

Nancy has been spoiling the heck out her. She hardly lets her walk on her own. I think we are going to have an even worse monster on our hands when the healing is done. We are also supposed to keep her as calm as possible.

This is no easy feat since she doesn't believe anything is wrong with her. She is always trying to jump up on things or down from things. Also, whenever Nancy leaves the room (or house) and comes back she gets all excited. The funny thing is that when Nancy leaves, she remains very calm with me and just sleeps. Then when she comes home again, she's excited again. But this also hold true for our other chihuahua, Coco.

The surgeon was telling us that everyone in the ICU was knocking on any piece of wood they could find and would never talk about how well she was healing loud enough for her to hear because they were afraid of a jinx. We were told that she's ton quite a few surgeries on dogs like this and our dog has healed the fastest she's ever seen.

So here's hoping we are through the woods on this one, but Belle is still a candidate for lung infections and infections from the surgery. But she's our little trooper.

Thanks to all who had our little girl in their thoughts. I'm guessing some good energy was sent her way

An Update on Belle Part 2

Well, 5 o'clock came without word from the animal hospital.  Nancy being the concerned parent that she is, decided to call to see what she could find out.  I told her to not bother the hospital because the surgeon most likely was still in surgery.  We knew that there was at least 4 surgeries scheduled for today. 

Nancy got ahold of one of the nurses in the ICU.  The surgeon was still in surgery as I suspected.  They had several emergency cases come in that extended the surgeon's day.  From what the nurse told Nancy was that Belle was doing fine.  She has won over the hearts of the staff and every time someone comes over to her cage to straighten it up, she's there all smiles and ready to jump in their arms. 

That news seemed to help appease Nancy for awhile.  The nurse she spoke to said that we should hear something between 6PM and 7PM.  Well that came and went and she was getting kinda worried.  I told her that either she's still in surgery, busy calling all the patient's parents, or decided she'd call tomorrow because it was late.  So we decided to go to dinner.  We went and got sandwiches and came back.

Around 8PM we heard from the surgeon.  She said that she had to implant around 7 prosthetic rings to support her airway.  She needed rings that went down to her first ribs on her rib cage.  We were informed that her practice was to keep the dogs intubated for 45 minutes after getting out of surgery to make sure there isn't any potential for paralysis.  For that 45 minutes the dog is in the lap of a nurse getting some TLC.  We were told that at almost exactly at the 45 minute mark Belle was letting everyone know that she was ready to get that tube out of her throat.  Once she was extubated, we were told that if it wasn't for the swelling you'd never know anything was wrong.  Then the surgeon told Nancy that she had to lower her voice so Belle couldn't hear, but she was absolutely amazed at her progress.  She's progressing faster than she ever expected or has seen and if things keep on this path, she might be home by Wednesday night.

Belle's next hurdle is going to be eating.  She'll get her first solid food tomorrow.  It will be wet dog food (food from a can) rolled up into tiny balls.

That's all we know at this point and thanks for all of those people that had our little girl in their thoughts

An update on Belle

Some people who read my blog have told me that they want to be kept informed about how Belle is doing.

We got up early this morning to take Belle to the surgeon.  The paperwork we got told us to be at the hospital between 7:15 AM and 8:00AM.  So we took off from the house at 6:40AM.  Belle was all confused because her routine was screwed up and she didn't get any breakfast.  Coco was confused because she was baby-gated into the kitchen but Belle wasn't with her.

Well we hit the highway and just as I feared we ran into traffic.  Not just any ole traffice but the kind where you are only moving at 10-20MPH.  In an hour we had only travelled what the previous day had only took us 20 minutes.  I was stressing.  But we eventually got there with 5 minutes to spare

We filled out the necessary paperwork and sat down and waited for someone to come get her.  We weren't there waiting for long.  Nancy gave her hugs and kisses and handed Belle over to me.  We had to say our necessary goodbyes in case things went badly and this was the last time we saw her alive.

I am usually the cold hearted bastard of the bunch when it comes to feelings so I was taken aback by the fact that I actually felt a little something as I walked away from Belle after she was handed off to the medical personel.

We didn't hear anything from the hospital until sometime around noon.  The call was from someone in the recovery room.  Everything went well.  They had just extubated her and she was real quiet.

Now we await a call from the surgeon to find out how successful the surgery was and anything else she needs to tell us.  Plus, Belle needs to survive the recovery process.

All I know, if that it feels like something is missing here

Organization is the Key

Mr. Eichmann was my 12th Grade math teacher in North Carolina. He really made math fun. Besides his very apparent passion for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (The Tarheels) he also had a passion for organization.

A day didn't go by without him uttering the phrase, "Organization is the Key" and he meant it.

It turns out it's a good phrase to live by. Now those who know me really well and have actually seen either my work office or my home office will know that I haven't really taken the phrase to heart. My wife, on the other hand, lives by it.

When she was a student at Texas Woman's University studying nursing, she began every semester with a trip to Wal-Mart to buy organization supplies. That usually entailed buying three ring binders for every glass, colored post-it tabs and colored highlighters.

Well, her organization fetish isn't limited to the classroom. We were going to the Galleria area because we had to take Belle to the surgeon and they had to run some tests on her that was going to take over an hour. So we decided to go to the Galleria Mall to kill some time. Well, on the way there, we passed The Container Store. Nancy isn't one to blow by a store which derives it's business through providing organizational products. Plus, she is looking for a better way to organize her scrapbooking and quilting supplies. So we stop and go in. We didn't really see anything of use until we got to the end. There were these plastic containers that are designed to store your shoes.

Nancy decided that she was going to pick up a box of 20. I noticed that the boxes for men's shoes were more expensive than the ones for women. So I decided to see if my Size 8 shoe could fit into a woman's shoe box. Unfortunately, it couldn't so we picked up 4 of the mens shoe boxes.

We got home from our trip to the Galleria area and Nancy quickly went to the closet and started boxing up her shoes. Up till now, our shoes resided either at the front door on a shoe rack, or along the floor of our walk-in closet.

The beauty of these boxes is that you can stack them and see into them. So now, all our shoes are neatly boxed away and are on the top shelf of our closet. Boy does our closet look better now without all the clutter on the floor.

This is an animal hospital?

As I mentioned in my previous post, our beloved Belle will be having surgery on Monday. The surgeon operates out of a hospital in the Houston. For those familar with Houston, the hospital is tucked away in the Galleria area.

When you walk into this animal hospital, you'd swear that you were in a medium sized human hospital. But you realize rather quickly that this isn't the case. Everywhere you look there are dogs, a few cats, and maybe an exotic animal or two.

There are departments just like you'd expect to see in a hospital. There is Oncology, Dermitology, Gastrointronology, Orthopedics, etc. Of course, this hospital also had the requisite waiting areas with all the outdated magazines. The walls were covered with professional portraits of hospital staff with their pets.

They even have canine gurneys. It was kinda funny watching the staff transporting the dogs on these gurneys. They had high sides on them like a child's crib but no front or back. The dogs, wouldn't lay down and would try to stand as the gurney moves forward. It's almost like what I imagine a dog would look like if it was trying to surf.

They even have a fully staffed ICU for their surgical cases and seriously ill. From what we've been told, they even prefer to hire RN's instead of vet techs because their own studies have shown that the recovery rates are higher with RN's.

I have to say I'm impressed and never believed there was such places in this world. I felt much more comfortable with the idea that our dog will be in their care.

Lady Belle Von Wags-A-Lot

We call her Belle for short. She's our 7lb fawn colored Chihuahua. We found out early in her life that she had problems with breathing. SHe would cough alot. Our first vet just wrote it off as Kennel Cough, but eventually over time, we found out that it really was a congenital defect called a collapsing trachea.

It's rather sad to see her. She runs around trying to have a good time like a 4 year old dog would like to but she just starts hacking and coughing. She really sounds like a goose when she gets going. All the neighborhood kids always ask us what is wrong with our dog which Nancy promptly tells them that she has bad asthma. Adults on the otherhand think we are choking the crap out of our dog.

Unfortunately, in the 4 years we've had her it has finally gotten to the point where she really doesn't want to do anything anymore but lay around. Our vet recommended a surgeon who happens to be a pioneer in airway surgeries in small breed dogs. Nancy went to see her last December and found out Belle was a strong surgical candidate. The only problem was that the recovery is long and if anything went wrong, she wouldn't be able to cope while trying to go to school at the same time. So we have waited.

This summer has been especially hard on Belle, but we finally made it to Nancy's graduation day so we made an appointment to see the surgeon again.

Belle is scheduled for surgery on Monday. We will not be able to visit Belle after the surgery for anywhere from 3-5 days. Since the surgery involveds her airway, the doctor cannot take any chances of putting undo pressure on her airway so the prescription is boredom. The more bored she is the less stress on the airway and what dog isn't excited to see their family. So therefore, no family visitation.

This is going to be very stressful for Nancy. Since she is young we are told that Belle's chances are good, but with any surgery there is risk.

I know she is a dog, but she is like a child of ours. Some people have think we are wierd but we don't care. I think pets should be given every chance if you have the means to take care of them. To mean that is part of the definition of responsibility