The Look

The yesterday morning i got to experience the Look.  It's funny how all animals, human and dogs alike, can have the look.  The look is sheer terror.  The terror that something is happening or going to happen and nothing can be done about it.  My wife gets the look quite often when we are messing around in a tickle war and i lift her arm over her head.  I don't even have to tickle her armpit.  All i have to do is think about it and she has the look.  As uncommon as it is, Moby, our dog gave us the look.  After all it's really hard to scare a dog.  Surprisingly, it was his own doing.  After coming home from an uneventful night, i was greeted at the door by moby like usual.  After crawling into bed next to stacey, i found out moby is in total rebellion with sleeping in the same bed as my wife.  I gave the explanation that it's because she uses her boppy body pillow, and moby uses it during the day when he is sleeping in the bed.  After yelling up, our signal for moby to jump up on the bed, moby jumped up on the bed and decided to lay down at the foot of the bed.  After like 5 turn arounds he finally laid down precariously close to the edge of the bed.  At first he was totally fine laying down like most dogs lay down.  His front body was upright with his nose between his two front paws, and his back legs turned to one side.  Moby however doesn't like to sleep like this.  Instead he loves to flop down so he is laying completely on his side as if somebody left him for dead.  So me and my wife are laying there and he does his flop.  Only his flop shifts his center of gravity and now is butt is sliding off the bed.  In like slow motion the sheer terror look quickly comes across his face as he bolts his upper body upright and digs his front claws in the bedspread.  It's no use. A body in motion remains in motion.  He falls off the bed taking part of the bedspread with him.  Laughter erupts in our room as both stacey and i witness this event.  Moby gets up and walks around the room trying to either shake off his embaressment or figure out who moved the bed.  Either way he decides to play it safe and lay down on his bed on the floor.  A lesson had been learned but will probably be repeated sometime in the near future. 

Shopping Spree!!!

Well our trip up to virginia was quite exciting.  Of course it was like a week ago and now is the first time i'm actually able to write about it.  The drive up was uneventful only long as noted in the previous blog.  Since i was dissappointed with the gloomy weather outlook, i decided to leave my bike at home and forgo the idea of cycling skyline drive like i had planned.  I was slightly disappointed at first but as it started raining, became windy and overcast, not to mention the cold, i'm glad i didn't have my bike.  Of course on saturday, the day we left to come home, it cleared up and was quite nice.  I guess i didn't bring the beautiful weather from florida with me.  The cold and gloom didn't stop us from going out.  Nope, instead we went shopping.  There was a huge list of items that we could use, wanted to have, and of course needed.  The first stop involved petsmart.  We needed a crate to hold moby.  After all, even if we acquired one of those signs that said service dog, it wouldn't do any good.  I'm sure we would just be cleaning up excrement as our dog tries to poop and pee on everything he can find.  It'll work out great exspecially if we continue to travel up to virginia like we plan to do.  After all, we live in the vacation spot.  When the beach is 30 minutes away, why would we vacation to the beach?  Which brings me an interesting question where do park rangers go to get away from it all? 

Anyways, the next stop was ikea to check out potential ideas and things for the new house.  Ikea has some neat ideas, but only a few that we loved for our new house.  We didn't spend too much there only like $150.  We did however, walk away with some great ideas for a bookshelves that will fit in the corner of our house perfectly, so we shall return.  From there, it was hitting the outlet mall potomac mills.  Thats were all the fun began.  All in all we probably spent close to $400 on things that we loved and needed.  The majority of the items purchased were baby related.  We managed to find quite a few good deals on the clothes that we purchased.  Some for me, some for stacey, but most were for our lovely baby girl.  We managed to get a few gifts as well.  That night found us asleep rather soon.  It's amazing how much shopping can drag the life out of you, not including your wallet as well.

The next day, we traveled to lowes and purchsed one of those tax rebate cards.  After all it's like free money.  10% return on the amount put down, basically 100 dollars for every thousand.  Of course they limited it to 4000 dollars/card but no limit on how many you bought.  I wish i could say we took full advantage of those cards but we didn't.  The card has already been put to good use as we purchased our refrigerator this past friday.  It was the one thing that isn't included in the house that we would have to purchase. Speaking of the house, we were quite surprised at how little progress was made during the 4 work days we were gone.  Not only was nothing really changed, they continued trimming out the windows that were wrong.  Stacey was livid.  What began as an irate call to our building contact person, ended when one of the upper management of adam homes called us.  Rest assured things needed to be completed to move forward and get the inspections they needed instead of waiting to fix then getting the inspections.  According to his estimate, 1 week to drywall, 10 days to complete drywall, and then 1 month to go.  Which should put us into the house around the first week of may.  I'm alittle more realistic and think it'll be closer to the end of may myself.  But time will tell.

All in all a good trip.  One thing that i'm very excited about that i acquired on my shopping trip was a kindle.  Needless to say i totally love it, and the fact that i've picked up and have time to read again.  I would love to say we purchased the ipad 2 that my wife wanted.  But neither of use was willing to wait in line for 6 hours.  There was a small line forming in best buy when we picked up my kindle.  Needless to say now she has to wait until production catches up with the demand which should be about 5-6 weeks.  But it'll come soon enough.  

Just Call me Charlie...

Since Charlie Sheen has been so popular in the news recently with all his crazy tirads and all jacked up on something, one of my coworkers has used that to poke some fun at my expense.  In going back, since i work nights and some times have a hard time switching back and forth between day and night schedule, i've been prescribed provigil.  Yes, it works great in the fact it helps me switch over from night to day shift.  No, i don't take it everyday.  It doesn't give me a "high," only helps keep me awake and somewhat functional.  When my coworker found out that it's a cns stimulant that affects the same chemical receptor as cocaine, the fun began.  According to him, i jacked up on that stuff like Charlie Sheen is.  He even looked it up saying monkeys preferred it over cocaine.  I will admit i did take it yesterday morning so i can switch over and drive up to VA after working.  I managed to work my usual 12 hour shift and then drive from florida all the way up to north carolina.  All in all almost 800 miles of the 1000 mile trip.  Instead of actually making my crazy and wacked out and totally strung out, i was just like all the rest of the normal people on day shift...awake.  The one bad thing about provigil for me is the crash later on.  I wouldn't say its a crash from the drug itself, more of a crash from being awake for something like 24 hours.  Like normal i totally crashed from a few hours on the last part of the drive.

Insane

I truely must be insane.  The last few days have been absolutely unbelievable even to me.  This week i was actually lucky enough to have a 2 days off in a row.  Something that rarely happens.  Working mon, tues, and wed night didn't have any major problems or issues.  I have even been keeping up with my morning runs but wed afternoon when i awoke at my usual time of 4pm i had no idea what the next few days would be like.  So this is the timeline and the occurances of what transpired.  Like i usual do, i made dinner upon awakening then getting ready and heading to work for the next 12.5 hours until 0700.  Nothing unusual happened at work, normal busy as usual.  I was even looking forward to the next two nights off to spend with my wife, something that has usually only happened on the weekends lately.  I was able to see my wife for a whopping 10 minutes upon arriving home like usual.  From there, i attempted to switch over like i normally do. I went for a nice 2 mile run and then geared up and rode my bike for 20 miles.  I forgot how much i love riding until i was riding.  The headwind i was encountering wasn't making the best time in the world, but at least i planned my route to have a killer tailwind for the long straight 7 mile run back to the house. (My favorite route).  I would say my speed was slightly below average something like 17mph due to the strong wind. I was almost crawling at like 15-16 mph into the wind for what seemed like the most part.  However, hitting the tail wind along with my energy hit me at a solid 25 mph with spurts up toe 28.  All in all a great hour and fifthteen minute ride.   From there instead of passing out from sheer exhaustion, i rested my eyes for maybe 15 minutes long enough to get some energy but quick enough not to fall asleep.  From there is was running errands around town.  After getting home and chilling, i got the phone call.  They needed help at work tonight.  Yeah, not so much is what i was thinking.  10 minutes later it was double bonus.  Tempting but no.  Then a hour later it was the patient was getting a vad (Ventricular Assist Device essentially a machine that does the work of the heart only outside of the body).  (Huge SIGH) Knowing the staff on that night, i had to go in now.  Plus i'm a huge adenaline junky.  Anything that makes me think and work gets me excited.  I prefer the sicker patients on every machine know to man 12 drips of fluid running and unstable.  The only problem is i hadn't slept yet, anticipating actually be able to sleep in the same bed with my wife that night.  Something most people take for granted and that usally occurs once or twice during the week since i work nights.  At this point i have approximately 1 hour to sleep.  I will admit, i tried.  However, my dog was apparently a dalmation in a previous life.  Some firetrucks were responding to an alarm in the distance and the sirens drifted into our house.  This sparked the interest in moby whom responded with his roo in the same tone, pitch, and with every once of breath in his lungs.  I will say it was the longest roo i have every heard.  So instead of sleeping i was laughing.  So much for sleeping.  Adrenalin is a wonderful thing because now i was headed back to work the second time in the same wake period.  The good news is the patient didn't need a vad after all.  There was multiple drips involved and was still very critical.  The night was quite long and there was times when i was definitely feeling the lack of sleep.  However, i managed to tweat the patient to the point that most of the drips were off and they were stable. Possibly even leaving the icu the next day.  Driving home wasn't too bad, but then it hit me.  It was friday.  It didn't end there, breakfast with my wife and then i had a meeting  to go to regarding our house to make sure everything was in order considering the items that been missed or have been wrong.  Everything in the meeting is clarified and i'm heading home now.  Finally 1100 finds me in bed for a few hours rest.