Maybe I'm Screwed Kate mentioned yesterday that there is a screw in my foot, which I had forgotten about, and maybe that is why the bottom of my foot hurts. I am torn about this. On one hand it explains why my foot hurts and that is reassuring. On the other I do not relish the idea of having them remove the screw. Does that mean that they have to cut me open again? I would think that they would have to cut open something and give at least a local.
The surgeon had said that they could remove the screw in like six months if it was bothering me. I do not like the idea of having to limp around for the next six months.
I guess I will find out Thursday.  ¶ 20:34 2 comments

  Brewday Set Chip and I have set up another brew day. The day is Saturday and the point, of course, is beer. Chip has listed either a Porter or the old IPA standby. For me it will be the long talked about but never brewed, "Bock Your Brains Out." Sure there have been beers with higher gravities and there have been beers with more hops but this will be a first of a different sort. This Saturday I will be using the new kegs that Kate got me, and Chip made, to brew...

10 Gallons!!!!

That is right, you read it here first there will be 10 gallons of BYBO. I will have to transport the kegs, the mashtun, and the carboys to Chip's for the occasion. We will drink lots of beer, make 20 gallons in 1 day and generally have a fine, no make that great, time.

I decided the other day that if someone would pay me my current wage to make beer I would leave engineering immediately. Beer is so much more fun and rewarding. Too bad.  ¶ 19:52 2 comments

  Frankenfoot This is the most recent picture of my surgerized foot. Things are going well. I have been working on the flexibility and trying to get movement back.


Beware....this is not for the faint of heart.






























  ¶ 08:49 3 comments

  Answers to Question No One Asked

1. What time did you get up this morning? 07:17 (which is way too early for a Saturday but that is when the body said it was time to get going)
2. Diamonds or Pearls? I say diamonds because pearly a icky gross things that oysters grow when their guts get irritated. But then diamonds are a racket and they would cost a 100th of what they do if there was not a cartel.
3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? Like Roland I believe it was HP and the Cup of Burny.
4. What are your favorite TV shows? Scrubs, The OC, House, How I Met Your Mother, and I am sure there are many more I watch only because a lot of people worked real hard on them.
5. Favorite wine. That would be a big bold dry red. But my favorite wine is beer. And my favorite beer is the one that is currently in my homebrew keg.
6. Favorite cheese. Cheese is like pearls. It is gross. But I do like cheese but I am not picky.
7. What is your middle name? Mátyás
8. What is your favorite cuisine? Not that pretentious. Lets say I enjoy great food but I am not a fanatic.
9. What foods do you dislike? Anything too spicy. If it is too hot I cannot enjoy the flavor and texture.
10. Your favorite Potato chip? mmmm....potatos. I like the sour cream and onion.
11. What is your favorite CD at the moment? Don't do the CD anymore. Everything is iPod or iTunes.
12. What kind of car do you drive? Henry Bierman drives a 575M Marenello.
13. Favorite sandwich? Reuben.
14. What characteristics do you despise? Ugliness.
15. What are your favorite clothes? Suit up!!
16. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Right now I want to go to China.
17. What color is your bathroom? I think it is painted.
18. Favorite brand of clothing? When it comes to work clothes I dig the Polo.
19. Where would you want to retire to? Some place where my $$$ go farther.
20. Favorite time of day? The part where I am not slaving away for the Man.
21. Where were you born? München, Deutschland.
22. Favorite sport to watch? Fußball.
23. Coke or Pepsi? Pepsi. Underdogs rule.
24. Are you a morning person or night owl? Check this out. Both.
25. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share with everyone? The yellow sun of this world gives me super powers.
26. What did you want to be when you were little? Astronaut, architect, beastmaster.
27. What is your best childhood memory? When I led the armies of France against the armies of Britian to free my country. Or it was the day I met my friend PK. Two dorky kids (6 years old) standing at the bus stop. One dork says to the other, "Want to shoot cars," which is pointing at passing cars a "shooting". The other says, "sure," and a likelong friendship was born.
28. What are the different jobs you have had in your life? Lawn mower, part time paper boy, Wendys, Dairy Queen, co-op, Automation Controls Engineer.
29. Nickname? The Lizard King.
30. Piercings? Eyes.
31. Eye Colour? Chocolate.
32. Ever been to Africa? I have not visited the Dark Continent.
33. What is the best thing that you can cook? Oatmeal.
34. What is the best art you can make? Beer.
35. Ever been toilet papering? Nope.
36. Been in a car accident? Just with a deer.
37. Favorite day of the week? I like the one they call weekend.
38. Favorite restaurant?
39. Favorite flower? Purple Clamatis
40. Favorite ice cream? Chocolate.
41. Favorite fast food restaurant? Taco Bell.
42. How many times did you fail your driver's test? One.
43. From whom did you get your last e-mail? Bryan Carlson.
44. At what store would you choose to have $20,000 shopping spree (no serious stuff)? The Apple Store.
45. Bedtime? Not since I was a kid.
46. If you had a million dollars to donate to the charity or charities of your choice where would it go? Something that helps kids.
47. Last person you went out to dinner with? Kate.
48. What are you listening to right now? Last song stuck in my head...Every Rose has a Thorn.
49. What is your favorite colour? Red.
50. How many tattoos do you have? Eins.
    

  ¶ 20:47 3 comments

  First Date Last night Kate danced with the At-Neemrah dancers at Mezze. And I do not mean that they came up to her and asked her to dance with them. Laura Armenta recently lost one of her dancers and asked Kate to join the troupe. She did one dance with Laura, which she did really well, and then the end of performance group dance.

There is another girl that Laura has picked to sometimes fill this vacancy. She is completely new to belly dancing but is studying dance at GVSU. She was there alone and I was there with no one to sit with so we sat together. It was like a first date without any of the ackwardness. I asked all of the getting to know you questions and had to answer the same. It was not wierd at all for me but the situation was wierd.  ¶ 08:03 1 comments

  Cast Off! Yesterday they removed my splint, I call it that because that is what they called it, and get a look at my foot for the first time. The split is more like a clam shell then an actual cast. It totally protected my big toe but the pinky was not enclosed.

Once the splint was off and they had cut away all of the other badaging and such I got a to see what had been done. It turns out they replaced my foot with Frankenstein's Monster's foot. My big toe, and surrounding area, is swollen like I have a fat person's foot. The girl doing the work said it looked like a pregnant woman's foot, and she should know since she looks like she could have given birth right then. But back to the foot. It is swollen, covered in the yellow goo of surgery, has stiches, and purple marker lines from where they made the cuts. Not a pretty thing to be sure. And to top it all off...Stinky. Yes Virginia, after two weeks of no soap or water a foot is a stinky thing.

So they took some Röntgenbilds of the monster to check and make sure everything is OK. While it still looks like a foot to me the surgeon said that everything looked fine and that we would see her again in two weeks and then the physical therapy.

Neat thing about Röntgenbilds is that you get to see the screw that they installed in you. It looks like they swung by Lowe's on the way and picked up any ol' screw. On the other hand I am one step closer to being a cyborg.

As an interesting note: without the splint and it's confining nature (now I just have a compression bandage) the things seems to hurt more. And it hurts like crazy when I elavate it. That makes no sense at all. I also discovered that when I am experiencing significant throbbing pain I do not cry or scream but laugh...and nearly uncontrollably. Katie says this is wierd. I agree but am not bothered by it.  ¶ 07:50 3 comments

  Brewboard Well, by the world's reaction it seems like everyone else is not as outraged over our changing the names of other countries and cities. C'est la vie.

So my brother-in-law, or should it just be brother, got me hooked on the Brewboard. This is a place, like OOTS, where like minded people can get together and post their comments on their shared love. And like any other board in the world there is a lot of non-related converstations and there are "fights". I found myself in one on my third day. I could not imagine that someone would have such a strong and unmovable opionion on the topic of "Whole vs. Pellet Hops". I figured there would be some opinions and the sharing of knowledge. Yes, that was true, but some posters were so adament about whole hops that anything else was unthinkable and therefor wrong.

For a hobby about beer some people really are....not beerlike.  ¶ 13:48 2 comments

  A Rose by any other name ********Warning*********
******Rant Ahead********

So I am watching the Olyimpics and the commentators (ever the most clever people around) are calling these the Turin games. But everywhere I look on the screen it is the Torino 2006 games. So what the F*$k is going on here? Why the ____ can't we agree on what the name of this place is? Is it too much to ask the Americans to learn the name of the place? Can we not be bothered to call their city by the name that they have given it? What if they decided that New York should be called, hell I don't know, Stupid City that Got Attacked.

The same crap happens all over the place. München is Munich? Deutschland is Germany? Guangzhou (廣州) is Canton? Zhōngguó (中国) is China? España is Spain?

Of course, France is France. strange.

I once learned that a person's name is the most beautiful sound in the world to that person. Should not we all learn to say the names of the places of the world by the names that were given by the people who live there?  ¶ 16:14 3 comments

  St. Valentine's Day OK, technically this is not until Tuesday but Kate and I often like to avoid the actual holidays (be they real or Halmark) by celebrating near them but not on them. It hepls to avoid the busy times at restraunts and helps to get better deals on goods.

As I was wrapping the presents for today I was listening to the iPod and the song "Bohemian Rhapsody" came on. Made me so nastolgic for Wayne's World that I just had to pop it into the DVD player. Absolutlely classic.

But since that is what we are doing tonight I do not really have all that much to talk about in regards to the stated title of this posting.

As could be read on Roland St. Jude's blog avatars are the newest thing. I have requested Roland to procure me an avatar and have left it up to him to dictate what it would look like. As Susan stated, half the fun is finding out what Roland thinks of you and what he would commission.

On the foot side of things everything is going well. I manage to walk around the house without too much difficulty and I'm enjoying the return of mobility and the ability to carry things. Based on how it feels and it being only 10 days from the surgery I am hopeful that I will be fully recovered soon.

PS: does the spell checking on this thing work for anyone else?  ¶ 14:24 1 comments

  Wiki-Hochuli Here is the Wikipedia link to everyone's favorite NFL referee. This man needs no introduction for he is, inexplicably, the most recognizable ref in the game today.

Give it up for........

Ed Hochulie  ¶ 20:33 4 comments

  Home This is now day 3 of being laid up at home. Thank God we finished the basement and bought the sectional couch with the hide-a-bed. I spent all of the first two days on the bed watching TV, reading, and sleeping. This always sounds so great when you are trapped in the daily work grind. Day after day of waking up and going to the same place, doing the same things, talking with the same people, and tackling the same problems. Then you spend two days trapped at home and you almost want to go back to work.

My biggest issue now is that I cannot walk. I can get around with crutches but I cannot put enough weight on my left foot to actually walk, or even limp. I think that I could go back to work but I do not know how I could do it. The doctor said that after Sunday I do not have to keep my foot over my heart any more, but she did advice keeping it elevated some every hour. Plus, if I cannot get around at work without crutches it could be quite difficult. I guess I'll have to see how I feel tommorrow night or Monday morning.

Thankfully, there is the Super Bowl tommorrow and there have been plenty of movies on TV.  ¶ 13:34 1 comments

  Surgerized

Yesterday was the big day. For the first time I went under the proverbial knife. Everything went just fine and I was back home by 6pm.

My surgeon fixed my bunion by cutting a chevron in my big toe and shaving off the lump at my toe knuckle.

After getting registered and checked in they take you into a prep room. Here they do the regular things like taking your temperature and blood pressure. They got me hooked up to an IV and then it was the waiting. The surgeon was running behind so I had to wait an extra 30 mins. The anesthesiologist came in and described what he was going to do and then the surgeon came in and answered all of my wife's questions. Then it was time and they wheeled me into the OR. The drug man hooks me up with the sleepy time drugs and shortly thereafter things begin to fade away. There was no count backwards stuff.

Next I wake up while be wheeled to the recovery room. I am surprisingly aware. The strangest thing was that I was lying there trying to rest and the nurse keeps telling me that I have to remember to breathe. How do you remember to breathe?

The Vicadin has kept me asleep mostly since then and that has been nice. I have been popping two at a time and it has kept the pain quite manageable. Now I have to start eating because the Vicadin is making me nauseous with nothing in my stomach.

This summer my Birckenstocks will fit properly on my feet.

  ¶ 08:41 3 comments