Here and There Blog

...that you've had an IV jammed in your arm and lots of tubes attached when there's no pain. Until you do a training session in front of people and start moving around to illustrate a point and smack yourself right at the IV point and then ow! It does hurt! Only one person noticed so that was good. I'm so tired I might even manage to sleep a few hours tonight before getting up for tomorrow's flight.

Long day of flying. Seemed like a day of slow moving lines. Slow TSA, slow passengers, slow customs, even the taxi driver was kind of kicking back tonight. Feel tired but no additional problems from the vaccine.

My only concern about the Hepatitis A shot was a sore arm. Turns out, the arm is great. I carefully read the section of the paper about mild, moderate, severe reactions and was reassured that any reaction to the vaccine is quite rare. Under moderate to severe I read: fast heart beat, dizziness. Hmmm. I had that. Decided to drink some diet coke to make it go away. Read furthur: don't drink caffiene. Stopped. Read: Call a doctor right away. Went home instead to lay down. Felt better. Looked up the vaccine and wasn't so dizzy or lightheaded and decided I was imaging things because I had read them. Went to pick-up Mondo and we went to Hillcrest to see Moon. Donated money to a guy working to repeal Prop 8. Went into Whole Foods, looked around. Heart rate was racing, figured it was the walking. Ended up in the theater and 30 minutes later I was about to pass out on the floor. But the floor was gross so Mondo and I left (bummer because the movie holds your attention) and walked acr...

Mondo is a good friend! Thx Mondo

Kicking it with erratic heartbeat. It's 89, no it's 99, look 113! and back and forth. Can I just pass out now please?

At the end and wanting out. The doctor has given me the all clear and now I'm waiting on the nurse to remove the blob of needles and wires.

Needed 2 pee and all wired in. TMI of course!

Wondering how i got here when I wanted to be at the movies.

At good vital signs now. Still higher than normal for me but stable enough to go home.

Many drugs came in thru these tubes. Not all of them good.

Enjoying the Scripps treatment for my allergic reaction to below post shot

Got Hepatitis A vaccine at CVS . Super easy! One down for future travel and more to go. Sucky thing is that I'm having a mild reaction to the shot of slight dizziness. I'm always in that 10% or less category of people who have reactions. May have to pass on margaritas at dinner.

Next year is Kenya. Looks like no shots are required to enter the country but Hepatitis A and anti Malarial are recommended. Yellow Fever shot may be requested at border but only if coming in from infected country. Posting this only to solidify in my (and Dancing Machine's) brains that we need to look into shots as the 6 month mark is coming up fast.

I lost it with the gopher and rabbit holes this weekend to the point that I looked longingly at AstroTurf websites. Sadly, the regulations for my community prohibit all things AstroTurf so it's back to contemplating why the gophers only did on the back side of my fence and not on the HOA nicely maintained front side. What is it that separates one identical patch of dirt from another in a gopher's mind? Now I'm not to the dynamite the backyard point but I wonder when I will be pushed over the edge? And if I remember the end of Caddyshack correctly, the gopher won the war. Such is the joy of homeownership and the backyard nature channel.

Up was unexpectedly likeable . The 3D animation was what made me want to see the movie and I was expecting a standard kid plot with no real value. Everyone has said this is a good movie and they are right but what no one mentions is that it's kind of a tear jerker in the beginning, middle, and end. What was that about? The central character in Up is an old man who has recently lost his wife and with her, their lifelong dream of going to South America. Faced with life in a retirement home, the man devises a plan to lift his house up and away. In doing so, he finds himself with an accidental stowaway, a young Asian fat boy, trying to earn a wilderness acheivement pin. So the adventure to South America begins to chase a lifelong dream and earn a pin. In South America the due encounters new friends - a bird and a talking dog, and enemies - bad dogs and a bad man. Wackiness ensues and wrongs and past must be set right and let loose. Up is pretty much for everyone. I'd say see it ...

Old Thumper

For living nowhere near the country, my backyard has been a constant nature channel special. Each summer I get woken up at 3:00 am by crazy birds that don't know it's still dark. Gophers and rabbits dig up the dirt that was once the lawn. And the top corner of the A frame has been home to two mud nests for birds each spring. The baby bird mortality rate is high. More eggs fall out of those nests than I ever see hatched. This year I walked out to find out what was going on with all the screeching and I saw several of the dreaded black birds scouting out the remains of the most recent casualty . Given that I don't like having these giant birds around I hosed them off and told the bird parents how sad I was for them. Then, a few days ago one of the mud nests disintegrated and collapsed to the ground. Luckily no babies were inside but those birds sure were upset. I'm not sure if everyone has moved into one nest or if one family was victorious over the other but there'...

Director Sam Raimi's new horror flick Drag Me To Hell could have been funny and we all expected some humor but not so much so. This is a straightforward horror movie with slow parts that build up and then the seat jump. The movie can be good or bad, depending on what you want out of it but more important - when you see it. Drag Me To Hell is a pretty boring movie on a Sunday 12:00 pm screening with an audience of 20. See it at 8:00 pm or later with a packed crowd on a Friday or Saturday night and interaction and talkback from the audience would make this a fun movie. The lead character is the type that audiences naturally scream at for being stupid. Going into a car in a dark lot, not locking doors, mocking the gypsy curse... Then again, a better movie would still hold up at any time, any viewing. Sam Raimi fans are going to go no matter what or have already gone. The rest of you, see it with the right audience or skip it. Warning - lots of green projectile vomit, bugs, and pr...

Guinness, Celtic Music, family - a perfect Sunday afternoon!

End Credits. Yes, the end credits were what I liked best about Land of the Lost . Movie reviews return not with good movies like Wolverine and Star Trek (liked them) but with a dud. Sorry about that but sometimes I'm compulsive about seeing movies that I shouldn't. Land of the Lost was a good idea that went wrong somewhere. The revamp of Holly and Will characters to adults was fine. Cha - ka and Enik , and Dr. Marshall were awkward jokes that didn't work. In fact, most of the one-liners in this movie might have read good on paper but in delivery feel flat and generated no laughs in the audience of maybe a dozen yesterday. The plot adapts elements of the TV show but jumbles them so together that any cohesiveness is non-existant. If you were thinking of watching this, save the money. Even trapped on an airplane, if this was my only movie, I wouldn't watch it again. I realize this sounds harsh. Did I like anything? Leonard Nimoy was the voice of The Zarn and that was th...

Must be the addiction! I have managed to clean the coffee pot, do the dishes, and take two more items out of the suitcase and put them away. Now I feel in the mood to post everywhere. Here, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter. Compulsive yes but cheaper than eating, drinking, gambling, or drugs. I love cyberspace!

CBP -Customs Border Protection. The sticker that lets you come home to 13 airports and bypass the customs line! After a 30 minute interview explaining why I failed to change the address on my Driver's license after 3 years of moving and why I go to Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, UAE, Lebanon, Egypt, and Malaysia, I have the sticker! Next up tomorrow morning - change the address with the DMV so my approval is not revoked. Now I have to hope that the CBP Kiosks get up and running in Dallas by July 1 for my next re-entry.

Some Belgium beer at Houstons. I have no clue what the name is, I don't think the waitress could pronounce it. She called it a Belgium Brown. Who knows? It was tangy but not grapefruity. Tangy as in drinking a Sour Tart beer but in a good way if it is a one time beer only. Why? Because I now have the CBP in my passport!

Where is there time to catch a breath? I feel like I've been spit out of a vortex into familiar surroundings but have no balance. Spring cleaning is way overdue and it looks as though the rites of Spring will have to wait until Summer. At least the bills are paid and the Subaru is scheduled for service. The leaky shower door, broken window decor, and the cobwebs will have to wait for attention.

Wow! After 5 weekends away from home, this Sunday morning found me slowly climbing out of dead sleep and realizing that I was in my own bed and had a day free. No trip to the airport, no work, just a mound of laundry, post office runs to do, banking to do, and organization of my life also on said to do list. In-between all this, or really after, I plan to enjoy a beer with Homer. Come Monday, the hamster wheel starts to turn again. That gives me 24 hours to remember who and where I am.

Sol Cerveza

Cerviche in Tampico

And I'm out on Saturday! I've still only seen the one short stretch of road but tomorrow looks to be less than today's 14 hour day so there's a chance that I'll see something else besides nothing. Food - not eating much but I'm holding out hope for tomorrow's group dinner for good food.