quick note

just a quick note to let anyone who's reading know that i'm doing pretty well after surgery. i'm still pretty sore, but besides that i'm generally ok :-)

cholecystectomy

on monday morning i wasn't in much pain at all, but i had turned yellow (not as big bird yellow as in december, but still yellow). we tried to get an appt. with a gi doctor, but there wasn't one until 1:45pm and we wanted to go ahead and get me in to see someone so we went on to the first er dept. we found up the road in lexington (central baptist hospital). we got right in, but you know how it takes a while for tests to come back and then for docs to analyze them and such. that afternoon, after an ultrasound on my gall bladder, they found that i have gall stones and they deduced that one had gotten loose and clogged up a bile duct and that was turning me yellow. the proposed solution was an "ercp" where they put me to sleep and take a scope down my throat, make a small incision, and blow out the offending stone. in addition, they also said i should have my gall bladder removed thursday. yep, in two days. i would feel like such an old person except for the fact that lindsay's college roommate had hers out in college when she was like 20.

i was pretty groggy afterwards and i just rested through the evening, but i feel pretty good today except for maybe being a little tender in the region they worked on. the removal (the technical word is the subject of this post) is mainly to prevent this from happening in the future since you don't really need your gall bladder. i'm not really looking forward to it, but i'm not that nervous about the procedure. but still - blech!

weekend - mom's visit

we had a good visit with mom and my new stepdad charlie. they got into town around 8:30pm when we were at lowe's - still making our way home from dinner at ruby tuesday (cajun tilapia for me). they met up with us there and it was a good thing because we weren't able to fit the glass door in our highlander and charlie had driven his truck. we just hung out at home and looked at some wedding and honeymoon pictures. oh and my mom brought every bit of my junk from my room and about a third each went to the garbage, good will, and garage (which just means i'll go through it again later).

on saturday, we had some breakfast (sausage, peppers, and egg mix with some tabasco for me) and decided to get to work on the glass door. the ceiling fan store was out of the type of fans we have in our house so that will be a project for another time. we got the door out of the box and started holding the pieces up to the door frame and we noticed something wasn't right. we have two skinny side windows next to our door and the framing on the sides of the door is only out to the windows and not all the way out to the depth of the framing by the brick. we stared at it for a while and then packaged the door back up and headed back to lowe's to either take it back or figure out what the problem was. the guy knew exactly what we were talking about when we got there and he showed us how we have to add a certain type of wood to fix it (we got one piece for each side and later figured out that we needed two for each side and had to go get more.). now the only problem was that we needed to shave some moulding off of each piece of wood and i don't have any type of electrical saw. so in the end, no projects really got done.

around noon we all went over to the seminary so mom and charlie could see where i work. they were impressed with all the technology and then we went over to subway there in wilmore (one of the five places to eat in wilmore) and we figured it'd be a slow saturday. nope. the freshman were poring in at asbury college (across the street from and unrelated to the seminary) for orientation so subway was pretty packed with parents and 18 year olds (i had a regular subway club sandwich).

on saturday afternoon and into the evening (dinner: non-greasy grilled cheese and hot dog) as we watched the aviator (pretty good, interesting story), my stomach started hurting and i assumed it was heartburn/indigestion from the spicy foods i intentionally mentioned above. i hit it with mylanta, pepto, and eventually even a nexium all to no avail. it was feeling somewhat better by the time i went to sleep and the same when i woke up. on sunday morning i had a sausage, cream cheese, croissant type thing with not that much sausage but it still made my stomach hurt in the same way (mom and charlie had to go on home at 9:30a to look at houses because they just found a buyer for mom's house). more mylanta, pepto, and nexium to no avail. i had some mac & cheese for lunch and i took a nap while jake took a nap and was feeling somewhat better. i had white rice with a little butter for dinner and even that made my stomach hurt a little more. by the time i went to sleep it was starting to feel better, but the last time i used the bathroom i noticed i was beginning to look yellow again like last december...

trips i'd like to take

ok, i got to looking at that updated map below and thinking of ways to finish it. thus, here are some trips i'd like to take in the next few years:

• new orleans, la & gulfport, ms - i've wanted to visit nawlins for a while and visiting this nearby beach in mississippi finishes off all the non-new england states east of the mississippi river for me.
  
• san diego - it's smaller than the enormous sprawl of los angeles, it's supposed to always be beautiful there, and it has a nazarene university overlooking the beach that i'd like to visit. of course we'd also like to visit san fran as an option to check off california.
  
• las vegas - i've heard that the first trip needs to be focused more on being a tourist so that future visits can be focused on ... the point of the trip.
  
• four corners, az, co, ut, nm - i've always wanted to visit the four corners spot ever since i found out about it as a kid. it knocks off four states at once (well, i've been to az) and we could probably see the grand canyon too. not sure where we'd start this trip - denver?
  
• new england - we could try to hit all these at once by headquartering in boston and taking daytrips to foxwoods casino in ct, coming back through rhode island, and somehow hitting vt, nh, and me possibly in the same day
  
• seattle - this finishes the pacific northwest (though i'll agree our visit to oregon is somewhat suspect) and also offers the option of hopping up the road to visit vancouver or at least crossing the canadian border
  
• montana, wyoming, south dakota, nebraska - no clue how to get these states besides just going there and the only thing i can think of to see besides the scenery is mount rushmore which i hear is kind of disappointing.
  

of course there's also the around the country summer trip to visit baseball stadiums, but that's almost definitely something for retirement now that we're pretty much settled into adulthood.

idaho, part deux

the day started bright and early (and with a nice chill in the air) with a hearty breakfast at ihop (chicken fajita omelet for me, funnel cake platter for L) and starbucks (venti iced vanilla latte for me, water for L) and a 30-minute drive through the mountains to a train station for our morning adventure. the scenic train ride went up through the mountains (no real big uphill or downhill sections) along the payette river. there were old west 19th century actors aboard the train and their ongoing drama sketch included a chained bank robber, a bounty hunter, a marshall, a gambler, a bad banker, some rogue cowboys, and some travelling ladies. the drama ended in a shootout over all the money on the train after the robber stole a gun and turned up to be in cahoots with the "bad guys" on the train. the shootout didn't end too well for the good guys (which included the gambler :-D ) as seen below for the marshall. however, it didn't end too well for the bad guys either as the women stole all the money while the bad guys were tending to the dead good guys.

the train returned a little after noon and since we were already north of boise a good ways, we decided to drive straight west in order to visit oregon. the scenic drive was nice and almost as fast as the interstate (though those have a speed limit of 75!!). we had lunch at a really well done, family owned pizza and pasta place in the first city across the oregon border (ontario, or).

on our way back we stopped in nampa, id to drive around the campus of northwest nazarene university. there are 8 nazarene universities in the u.s. (and the one seminary in kc) and i've now been to 4 of them (trevecca in nashville, olivet near chicago, mid america near kc, and northwest in nampa). we'd definitely like to visit two soon (point loma in san diego and eastern in boston), but i don't know when we'll take the time to visit the other two (southern in ok, mt. vernon in oh (past columbus, oh)).

instead of going to the hotel and getting a nap while we could, we went on back into boise to an outdoor store downtown so lindsay could continue to look for a nice pair of chaco sandals that we'd been periodically stopping to look for on saturday. she found some good ones and wore them the rest of the trip because they were so comfortable. after that we stopped by boise state university and i took the previously posted picture. we dropped by an outlet mall nearby and wandered around for a while before we realized that if we wanted to see a movie like we had considered that we had better get a move on!

we found a really cool "entertainment" area where an imax, a 25 some odd screen theater, restaurants, and small shops all connected by an outdoor strolling area with benches and a fountain. we got tickets to the movie and popped in some of the shops where we ended up buying a hand painted ceramic vase that was really unique. the shop ("artist for a day") allowed you to buy unpainted ceramics and paint them in the shop with their supplies (great first date idea), but they also happened to have some finished pieces for sale that people never picked up. we were still kind of full from the pizza and calzone at lunch so we went on to see wedding crashers. it was pretty funny if you disregard the few scenes that give it an r rating. some parts in the second half were dumb and time wasting (sorry will ferrell), but overall it was pretty funny. after the movie we stopped in at the sports bar by the theater and had some late nite wings and skins before returning to crash at the hotel.

sunday is pretty easy to describe - we got up early, got the car returned, hopped on a 4 hour flight to atlanta, lost two hours going back to eastern time, piddled and ate a long lunch at tgi friday's during our 2-3 hour layover and had that short hop flight back to knoxville. we got back to l's parents at about 5:30p and jake was really excited to see us (as we were to see him). he had had a blast chasing the dog and going to a kiddie pool birthday party on saturday. we had a lil bit of dinner and visited with family before heading out at about 8:00p to drive 3 hours back home to lex. i was pretty much a zombie at work monday morning, but it was really a great trip.

updated map of where i've been:


create your own personalized map of the USA

idaho

i'll be honest, i didn't have the highest hopes for idaho. we were going there to attend the wedding of two of our closest friends from dc who we watched meet, become good friends, fall in love, and get engaged during our 3 year stay there. i thought idaho would be dry, hot (i guess i was thinking 'west' like the time i was in arizona), and unpleasant (really, i don't know where i got all this). no, we stepped out of the airport and the breeze at noon was almost chilly. the air was dry and the sky was a beautiful blue. sure the scenery was pretty much mountains and dirt, but the mountains were amazing, were all around, and seemed to go on forever. i'd be amazed to see the even taller parts of the rockies.

on thursday i left work at 3:00p and we hit the road and made it to knoxville in time for dinner (wow that's a change from dc). we hung out and saw family and got to bed later than we'd hoped. on friday we got up at 3:30a, left the house a little after 4:00a for our 6:00a est flight. we both slept on the short hop over to atlanta and we got some chik-fil-a in the airport for breakfast. the next flight was at like 8:00a est and we got to salt lake city, ut at 10:00a mst (making it about a 4 hour flight). we got to see a movie on an airplane for the first time (well, L watched it. it was monster-in-law with *blech* j.lo) and it was the widest plane i'd ever been on (7 seats wide - 2x3x2). we piddled for a little bit and then had a little more than an hour of a leg to boise, id where we arrived at about 12:30p mst. we rented a car and had some lunch near the hotel (seeing as how it was about 3p est when we got there) and then we checked in and crashed for a little bit before having to get ready for the wedding.

the wedding was about 15 minutes away in downtown boise and was a beautiful ceremony with a well-written program and vows (and these cool cards at the reception tables that detailed different cities that they had lived in). from the wedding, we traveled back near the hotel to her parents house for the reception. the backyard had been transformed into kind of an italian village with pretty lights and catered by johnny carino's (a delicious italian place that we recently visited in lexington). it was great to see missy and jason, their families, and a few friends we hadn't seen in a while. we actually got to sit with the bride and groom at the reception!

saturday and sunday post to come!

for the sports fan

the trademark blue turf field of boise state university:

they were having practice so i was able to sneak in through a gate, go up into the stands and get some pics. in the back corner, you can see what being such a winning program gets you (a multi-million dollar indoor practice facility).

backyard cows

i thought you might like to see the friendly cows in the field adjacent to our backyard. if you give a loud 'moo!' sound, they'll look at you funny. no comment on how i know this.

i think i have too many shirts...

as today was the first day i have worn a shirt to work that i have already worn to work. i only know this because in another act of type a(nal) behavior, i have been systematically changing each shirt from a thin, wire hanger to a nicer, plastic hanger once i wear them since we have more room in our closet here. anyways, i still have more shirts than i need, but we also gave a lot of clothes to the salvation army as we packed it all up to move from va.

anyways, idaho posts to come today. and the nats are on a 4-game winning streak including a very important win over philly last nite!

and we're off!

right after i leave work early at 3pm today, we'll drive to knoxville and then get up early tmrw morning to leave on a jet plane for a 3-leg tour to boise, id. two of our closest friends from dc will be getting hitched friday night and we're excited to get to be there with bells on (assuming our luggage makes it with us). we'll spend saturday getting a quick tour of idaho before venturing back across the lower 48 on a 2-leg tour back to knoxville on sunday. i looked up preston, idaho on google maps and found out that it is about 5 hours east of boise and much closer to salt lake city, ut. for those out of the loop, preston, idaho is the setting of napoleon dynamite and apparently you can get maps of things from the movie there in the city. i hope to have some kind of good pics from the trip when we get back.

playing catchup

well, i didn't post at the beginning of the week about the pas weekend because it was pretty normal and boring. last friday, L went to visit her mom and have lunch with her bro and dad, but she didn't get back until 8:30-9:00p so we postponed our friday date nite dinner outing to saturday at lunch. we went to johnny carino's - an italian place that we'd never heard of, but apparently they already have one in west knoxville as well. it was really good and hopped to the top of L's italian faves while tying at #2 with carraba's on mine. my heart still lies with macaroni grille and the great tastes they create.

after that we bopped around town and got some things we needed. one was a new portable dvd case that will better hook on to the seat in front of jake for watching movies on trips. L did that on the way to knoxville and back and he loved it. jake's mind is getting more active (with the walking and attempts at talking) and i figure that even though he's a little kid, a three hour ride in the car would get pretty boring unless he falls asleep.

we enjoyed church again on sunday, but nothing much else happened over the weekend. no visitors to casa de collins, but we have more planned soon as my mom and step-dad (that's still weird to say) are coming next weekend. it'll be great to see the newlyweds.

snape's true colors

***spoiler alert for hp book 6***
i've been compiling my thoughts recently and what came out was so succinct and compact that i wanted to put it somewhere. i'm not sure how many questions it answers and it may only spark more. here goes...

q: was snape under the imperius curse?
a: while Snape being under the imperius curse is something i hadn't thought of, i think it is too late in the series for jkr to be bluffing with something like that. i think we have to accept that he did it, but we can debate on why he did it. the hp community is pretty much split 50-50 (or at least it makes it easier to say we
are) on whether snape is good or bad. if he was truly a double agent for LV all along, it fulfills AD's quote about "when i'm wrong i'm usually WAY (fatally?) wrong".

if he is still good - hard to believe, but travel with me - it could explain why AD seemed to be begging for snape to kill him (could be interpreted as AD begging to not be killed, but the overwhelming sense is that AD would never beg like that. also remember his quote that "death is not something to be feared for it is only the next great adventure") and why it seemed that snape was protecting HP from the other death eaters and giving him one last occlumency and dueling lesson ("keep your mind and your mouth shut") as he runs away. AD had 100% faith that snape was honestly good for some reason (that we assume we'll finally find out in book 7 via AD's portrait or something). if snape was killing AD on AD's orders, it could have been to continue to let snape stay as a spy on LV (though he will have no one to report to since the order assumes he showed his true colors). or it could have been to save both draco and snape's life because if draco couldn't fulfill his duty (his lowering of his wand says as much) and snape didn't fulfill the unbreakable vow, we should assume both would have died. and as for the look of hatred on snape's face, it could easily been out of self-hatred at having to kill the only man who ever trusted him (and who wasn't purely self-motivated, e.g. LV).

horcrux summation

***spoiler alert for hp book 6 ***
continuation from above on a different topic: horcruxes.

yes, RAB should be Regulus.
if you you haven't read the 3-part JKR interview from the week after the book came out, it's required reading. go over to mugglenet.com and check it out.

i presume that the trio will actually go back to school. jkr intimates as much in the interview. they will proceed on a horcrux quest, but they'll find some quickly i think. in book 5 (p. 112, 116) they found a "heavy locket that they couldn't open" while cleaning in 12 grimmauld place and that should be the real horcrux locket. now it's possible that mundungus nicked it, but it's also possible that he sold it to AD's brother aberforth, the bar man at the hog's head. we see 'dung talking with the bar man in the final scenes as harry and AD are going or coming from their visit to the cave. also jkr says that in book 7 "we'll meet someone we know who is in the order but that we haven't properly met yet."

in addition to the locket, i assume harry will find something in godric's hollow in the beginning of book 7 after he stays with the dursleys for a couple of weeks and before he goes back to hogwarts (which should be after the big fleur-bill wedding). maybe it will be helga hufflepuff's cup (since he already knows to look for it.).

so to count up the 7 soul parts: diary-destroyed, ring-destroyed,
locket, cup, "something of ravenclaw or gryffindor's", nagini, and LV. obviously the last two are together (if you believe that nagini is a horcrux) and if HP has the first four taken care of (whether or not he's able to destroy those two right away), he'd only have one left to find. i propose (along with many others) that this one is actually at hogwarts. there was so much junk in that room of requirement and we know harry has to go back there to at least get his HBP potions book. many people pointed out that jkr had that tiara in there and that she used the word tiara at least 3 times in the book (one was in reference to fleur and/or molly weasley wearing one at their respective weddings). or it could be a wand of ravenclaw's to continue with some tarot card pattern people found (and trelawney was conspicuously seen reading them for some reason) where the 4 "suits" are rings, cups, and something like wands and/or swords. many people are stuck on godric's sword being a horcrux since it is the last gryff artifact, but you'd think AD would've figured that one out. some others also point out that the sorting hat says in a song that gryff was his original owner,
but i think it's crazy to think that'd be a horcrux either.

back to nagini - in the time between books 5 and 6, i read some really good articles about how LV and HP's souls were connected and that HP would somehow have to excise the part of LV's soul that is in him (which gives him powers (parselmouth) and allowed them to see into each other's head in book 5) or die in order to fully rid the world of LV. mind you that these thoughts and theories came out before anyone had heard of horcruxes and putting a bit of one's soul into other things. i think it is ideal in a literary sense and in a heroic epic tale sense for harry to be a horcrux and to somehow have to vanquish that in order to fully kill LV. BUT, i have no idea how jkr will write that out, because even though LV went to godric's hollow "to make his 6th and final horcrux using HP's death" (the 7th part is inside LV), the avada kevadra failed and LV apparently didn't get to perform the incantation or whatever for the horcrux. who knows.

also, since the pensieve allows anyone to look at even one of their own memories from a 3rd party point of view (from the JKR interview), what if harry viewed his own memory of the nite LV came to visit? i bet there would be some clues there if he could stand watching his mum get capped.

my new baby cousin

my cousin samuel and his wife brittany just had a beautiful baby girl that i've got to show off:

full photo album

weekend and visitors

we had a fun weekend as a family on saturday going to an old shaker village down the road near harrodsburg, ky. it was very relaxing and ended with an hour boat ride on the kentucky river. that nite my dad came to visit after his class ended. i had picked up a stomach bug that i dealt with all of saturday morning which then came back after i ate too late on saturday nite. lindsay was dealing with the same bug late saturday nite as well so we ran over to kroger at 2am and luckily dad was there so we didn't have to wake jake up. we were better by morning, but zonked so we slept in and didn't go to church.

on sunday afternoon/evening lindsay's longtime knoxville friend dawn and her son tucker came to visit. we all met at sonny's for a good bbq dinner and then hung out watching movies and playing games at the house until 1am when i said "oh yeah, i have to go to work tomorrow". i went into work like a zombie (which is funny b/c back in dc it was normal for me to get less than 6 hours of sleep) and all of the other 5 of them went over to the louisville zoo for the day and met me for dinner afterwards. monday nite was the same as sunday nite but i tried to go to bed earlier. all the guests at casa de collins left during the day on tuesday, but it was great to hang out with everyone.