Monday afternoon I suddenly started having worse and worse pain in my abdomen. I tried to convince myself it was probably something I ate, and that’s what I said when I wrote the rushed note saying I had to go home sick from work, but I had a strong suspicion as to what it really was. Yup, for those of you who have been reading this blog for more than just a few months, you’ll know. It had all the classic kidney stone features.

I drove home as fast as I could, with it getting worse by the second. About a mile from home there was a sudden very sharp pain, then it got a bit better, but still hurt a lot. As soon as I got home I took a pain pill and lay down. When that kicked in about an hour later, I felt much better.

Except for the massive cold/flu that had been threatening me for over a week but choose this moment to suddenly flare up to full intensity as well.

So, while doing bits of work from home both Tuesday and Wednesday, for the most part I was in pain, drugged up and on top of it a massive cold. It was fun and exciting.

But Wednesday morning my suspicions were confirmed and indeed… three kidney stones.

Since that moment the pain and such has gotten much better. (Usually takes a couple days to fully recover.)

Even the cold is on the upswing. I’d say I’m back up to about 80% capacity.

Oh, and there are no pictures this time because Brandy tends to complain when I post the pictures of these things, even though I think it is quite interesting. :-)

A couple weeks ago Chad suddenly sent an email asking “Sam, what has your cousin Jake been up to lately- making WPT final tables by chance?” and enclosed a link with the picture here and some interesting quotes:

Would a Legend Win the Legends of Poker
(BJ Nemeth, Cardplayer.com)

Day Four: The Final Table
The final six players who would play for more than a million dollars the next day in front of the WPT cameras were:
1. Todd Phillips $1,900,000 Seat 2
2. Alex Kahaner $1,855,000 Seat 6
3. Kenna James $1,540,000 Seat 1
4. Jake Minter $1,525,000 Seat 3
5. Tim Phan $1,085,000 Seat 5
6. Kevin O’Donnell $500,000 Seat 4

…

The blinds skyrocketed to $100,000-$200,000 ($20,000 ante) after the break, costing the players an average of $120,000 per hand. Here were the chip counts at the break:
1. Kenna James $3,680,000
2. Alex Kahaner $3,380,000
3. Jake Minter $1,320,000

Rather than going on tilt, James increased his chip lead after the break, coming back to again hold more than half of the chips in play ($5,200,000).

In hand No. 112, Kahaner raised to $500,000 from the button, Minter moved all in with A-5, and Kahaner immediately called with A-9. Minter was dominated, never improved, and was eliminated in third place, earning $333,600.

(via Chad Hunter)

Indeed, looking at the picture I did immediately know that the Jake Minter in the article was indeed my cousin, although I had not heard this news through the family grape vine. Yup, this was Jake Lightning Minter, the very same cousin who had given me my stuffed bear “Red Bear” when I was a newborn and he was six months old. Yup. That one.

Anyway, congrats to Jake and continued good luck on such endeavours!! Next time let me know when you’ll be on TV and I’ll be sure to Tivo it! :-)

Um, so, well, I was walking down the hall last night and I heard a splashing noise. I turned around. Brandy was about 5 steps behind me. About one step behind me was a bucket and mop which had recently been being used to mop the floor.

Sam: “What was that?”
Brandy: “You kicked the bucket!”
Sam: “Are you sure you didn’t throw anything in there? It sounded like you threw something in there.”
Brandy: “No, I didn’t throw anything, you kicked it.”
Sam: “OK”

Then I thought nothing of it for the next half hour or so while I walked the dog.

Then I needed to make a phone call.

I could not find my phone.

We started calling my phone from Brandy’s, cause we always do that when I put it some random place in the house. Nothing.

We start retracing my steps following where I had walked the dog. But it was cold and I had no jacket on, so I decided to make one last sweep of the house before looking outside.

As I am looking around in the bedroom I hear from the other room…

Brandy: “O! Sam!”
Sam: “You found it?!?”
Brandy: “Yes.”
Sam: “Where was it?”
Brandy: “I don’t think you want to know.”

And yes, indeed, it was in the bucket of dirty mop water, where it had been soaking for over half an hour. And yes, I had managed while simply walking through the house, to have the Treo fall off my belt clip over the one square foot out of thousands of square feet in the house where there was water to fall into. Yes, that is me.

My sister says I need to take better care of my cell phones, cause she has had one for over four years and is on the same phone. Me on the other hand, I think my lifetime record was a cellphone that lasted a year. And that one after six months I had smashed the screen in my car door, and for the second six months I couldn’t read the screen, but kept it because the phone calling part still worked.

Good thing we bought the $4 a month replacement insurance thing.

So at the moment I am using Brandy’s phone and Brandy is using Amy’s phone and Amy is using no phone, while the phone sits on a counter drying to dry off. The last one though I rescued after mere seconds, removed the battery right away, etc. This one soaked for half an hour.

I didn’t think the odds were good when I dropped it in the pool a couple months ago, but it eventually fully recovered. I am thinking my odds this time are very very slim.

I may give in and just pay the $50 deductable and get a new phone. But then I would have to give up on the old phone and mail it back to them. I kinda want to give the phone a fighting chance before I give up on it! So maybe I’ll let it dry awhile.

Of course the whole everybody trying to call me going straight to voicemail and everyone trying to call Brandy getting me and everyone trying to call Amy getting Brandy probably won’t work for all that long…

Sigh.

The screen people finally showed up to start working on the screen the day after Wilma went by. They said it would be done in two days. They did indeed start, but each evening they would leave the place a mess with all their tools out and in one case an open beer can still sitting on the table. And a bunch of scraps and stuff. On Friday they promised it would be done by the end of the day. It was not, although they did take their stuff.

We find out today that appearantly the crew got their check Friday, then hasn’t been seen since. So the company has sent out a different crew today. I pointed the camera out the back sliding door so we can see what they are up to. I have it saving a time lapse movie.

I really wish I had thought of this last week when they were building the bulk of it. At this point the whole frame and everything has been up for awhile (although there is some finishing work that needs to be done which they had better do) and they are just finishing putting up the actual screen part. So probably not much to see.

Unless they start having a beer party on the lanai while they are working like they did last week. So wacth the camera today! It will be updating every 5 minutes if there is no significant motion, but if it senses people moving and such it will be updated once a minute. I think the main place visible today that they will be working will be the corner of the screen to the right in the picture.

Looks like Wilma is as close as it is going to get. Right now the wind is going nuts, there are small tree branches down and running accross the golf course. The power has been on and off several times this morning, but never out for more than about a minute so far. Right now outside the wind is going nuts. Brandy and I spent the last few minutes outside on the lanai just watching. The wind is strong enough to be an “Oh wow! Did you see that!” but not quite enough for a “Run for you lives!!”. There are a bunch of branches down, but that seems to be the extent of actual damage.

The TV is talking about flooding everywhere in our area. And one tornado ripped up an apartment complex about 3 miles away.

I want to go out and play in the storm and do the lean into the wind thing, but aside from one quick dash out into the open when the wind slowed down for a minute, Brandy won’t let me. Something about flying objects impaling me or something silly like that.

In any case, it is has been pretty strong consistantly for the last half hour or so. Shouldn’t be much longer though.

And this is just TS force winds. Ain’t nothing compared to what they got to the south of us where they got Cat 2 and Cat 3 winds.

Anyway, we’ll see if we retain power. Kinda too bad if the whle county doesn’t lose power, cause Brandy would get lots of overtime. :-) Just kidding.

We’ve taken a few pictures, but I can’t find the cord to get them off the camera into the computer. So those will have to wait.

Ouch! The wind is whistling really loud right now. I’m going to run outside again.