Progress

Well, so far so good on the resolutions. I've lost the Holiday weight and am starting on the "real" 10 pounds before September. One half down and nine and a half to go!

Also, this makes my second post for the month of January, so doing okay there.

As for other things, I'm still playing soccer on Monday nights -- being the goal keeper usually about half the game. My sister, my mother and I found the time to go back to bowling on Tuesday nights. I was off to a decent start, but this week I bowled lousy. Hopefully, I'll find my groove again and keep it this time. Finally, I've been spending time helping Sandra look for a wedding dress. It is such fun to look at all the elegant, playful and just pretty dresses out there. I think she's narrowing down her search and should have "the" dress selected soon.

Top Movies of 2006

Using a combined score from both my and Justin's rating, here are the highest ranked movies we saw in 2006. The titles should link to IMDB, and the rating should link to our comments. Some of these were released in late 2005, but they didn't get on last year's list. For more movie ratings, visit our home page, http://www.justinandangie.com.

Rank	Title	Angie Rating	Justin Rating
1	V for Vendetta	8	8
2	Inside Man	7	8
2	Little Miss Sunshine	7	8
4	Capote	7	7
4	District B13	7	7
4	Fearless	7	7
4	Jarhead	7	7
4	Kiss Kiss Bang Bang	7	7
9	Devil Wears Prada, The	5	8
9	Illusionist, The	6	7
9	Mission Impossible 3	6	7

Resolutions

Okay, so it's a week past New Year's and time to get going on my resolutions. I made only two this year. First, to lose that last ten pounds that I've been struggling with for awhile before my sister's wedding in September. It seems feasible to lose ten pounds in nine months. I've even got somewhat of a start -- I've lost a pound and a half of Holiday weight. I'm not counting the first three pounds, since they were put on only since the middle of December.

Anyway, the second resolution is to post to this blog at least twice a month. Again, that doesn't seem like too much of a stretch. And this post isn't going to count either. If I can find some free time, I'm thinking about giving the template (i.e. layout and colors) an overhaul too.

Missed a legend

I just happened to notice recently that one of my adolescent heroes, Wil Wheaton, was at the same gaming convention I just went to. Of course, he was there on Saturday which was the day I scheduled myself full of games, so I wasn't actually in the convention hall for very long and so I didn't see him. It would have been cool to roll dice at the same table as a "famous" geek, but oh well. I'm working on a longer, more in-depth review of my trip which I hope to post in the next few days.

Back in the swing

Yes, I am back to 100% health and unfortunately that means back to work. The up-side is that I'm not all worried about any problem with my upcoming trip to GenCon. It will be nice to see some Sunny California for a few days!

Special guest on House M.D.

Have you seen that show? Well, even if you haven't seen that one in particular, I'm sure you have seen one medical program or another. One where there is a sick patient and they can't figure out what the problem is. So they guess one thing, give her some medicine and see what happens. Oh wait, this is drama, so of course that doesn't work. There is a bad reaction and now we have to guess again and give her a different medication. Now what happens? Eventually, things are supposed to work out. But it really sucks if your real life has turned into being that "experimental" patient. The emergency room never really did confirm the kidney infection. But they pushed my I.V. with some antibiotic, gave me acetaminophen for the fever, and phentinol (fentanyl?) for the back pain. Then they proscribed me a different antibiotic (Cipro) and different pain reliever (oxycodone) and sent me home. Wednesday, my first full day on these two and I was feeling much better except for a little nausea which I attributed to the oxycodone. However today the nausea got much worse. I had two small bouts in the morning, and as usual, after your body empties your stomach you get some adrenaline to help you feel better for a bit. I ate a little bit of bread and actually went in to work. But by the third hour there I was extremely nauseous again. I couldn't even keep plain water down after that. So Justin calls the hospital. They think I am having a bad reaction to the Cipro (antibiotic) and refer me to another new doctor. So we trek back in this afternoon. By now I have a splitting migraine, can't sit up straight for long, and hate the light. Hmm... their guess is that the infection is gone and my nausea is really a reaction to something viral. Can't do much for that except give me something to get rid of the migraine and nausea and let nature take its course. Sounds like another gamble to me. Oh well, so far so good. After four hours, I've been able to keep gatorade (to replenish electrolytes), water, chicken broth and even a little applesauce down. I have a little bit of headache, but I think it's from sinus pressure. Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings.

Here we go again...

Well, it turns out that if you've had a kidney stone before and start to have similar pain, you probably should believe that you're having one again and go in to the doctor just in case. I experienced some extreme symptoms last Monday (10/30), but was able to manage it will just over-the-counter pain reliever and drinking lots of fluids. By Tuesday, most of the pain was gone. Yet some lingering aches bothered me the rest of the week until finally this Monday (11/6) I got a 102.8 fever. Justin took me back to the hospital yesterday and the poor guy had to wait with me there from 10:00am until 5:30pm. After several blood tests, some urine samples, and a CT, they still couldn't tell me for sure what the problem is. Obviously, there is an infection of some sort evidenced by the fever and elevated white blood cells. But the scan did not show another kidney stone, only some slight inflammation. Anyway, I am home from work again today. Drugged up to the gills and on antibiotics. Wish me luck.