Doug's Sounding Board

Before Nicole and I went down to my parent’s house for the Thanksgiving weekend I weighed 199.6. My goal by the end of the weekend was just to not have crossed over 201 but I didn’t think it was a realistic goal.

We arrived Wednesday night and had tri-tip and potato kugel. After 4 helpings of kugel and two of the tri-tip, salad, and bread I was very full. Or yeah, we had molten chocolate cake for dessert.

Thursday I went with my dad to get the lobsters. The smallest one was 3.5 pounds that Nicole and my mom split. Tami’s was 4.5 pounds, mine was 5.5, and my dad’s was 5.7. They were big enough that we had to use channel locks at times as a cracker. I was sooo full. But then the chocolate mousse had to come out for dessert. Good thing we ate early because I needed digestion time before we went to sleep.

Friday is for the full turkey dinner. I had some eggs for breakfast and some cinnamon-bites from Cinnabon as an afternoon snack. Then for dinner was the turkey wing, cranberry sauce, stuffing, bread, more potato kugel (2 servings), and two helpings of mashed potatoes.

Saturday we returned and this morning I weighed in at 200.2! I attribute it to the water I was constantly drinking. Yay!

Stuff Happens is a history play by David Hare that looks at the very recent history of the Bush administration’s path to engagement in Iraq. A lot of it is made up of actual quotes and conversations that members of the administration have had and it’s filled in with reasonable conjecture. It’s a quick read and it’s nice having all of the events leading up to the Iraq invasion in a story form. The only problem I had with it is that I wanted a notation in it to differentiate quotes from remembered conversations from made up details. It’s a messd up path to our current mess.

I finally saw The Producers (2005 version) and after a rocky start where Bialystock and Bloom meet I think it works out really well. That was my least favorite part of the original movie too but I think it worked a little better there. I liked the expanded role for Ulla and the places where it opened up the story, though it did fall apart a little towards the end. Nathan Lane stole the movie and Matthew Broderick only felt like he was nailing it about half the time. I’d watch it again but I don’t think I’d seek it out.

I watched The Santa Clause again because I was in the mood for a Christmas movie and Nicole had never seen it. I think it holds up well and still makes a good X-Mas movie. Nicole liked it enough to want to see the second movie, as do I and since it’s rated about the same I hope to like it as much. I’m frightened by the third one though with a viewer rating of 2.8 on imdb, but I’ll probably eventually see it for completeness.

Grover had his checkup with the oncologist this morning. After feeling around the doctor said it all felt good and the radiated area looked good. So next checkup is in a month, then 6 weeks, then a few at every other month and then every three months. He didn’t say after that but I’d imagine every 6 months after that. The longer things look good the the better his chances. There will be periodic x-rays in there too to make sure it didn’t spread.

Grover has finished all his radiation therapy and he didn’t get sick at all during it. He did seems a little uncomfortable for a few days but for the most part he was fine. And the groggy dog routine was always funny after a treatment. They painted a target on him that they had to redraw a few times:
It wraps around across his belly.

Next week we have the follow up appointment with the oncologist to see if the radiation really did the trick or if something else (surgery) has to be done. They seemed pretty positive about his response to the treatment so we think it will be good news. Yay!

Here’s a picture of Grover in a hat (not because his hair fell out but because he’s patient enough to pose for a few seconds)

I think it was second or third grade when we made these at the Jewish Community Center.

We all started out with blocks of wood and a smaller sheet of wood to cut the arrow out of. I recall the group leaders drilling all the holes but they were perfectly fine with us handling the saws and files to get our arrow shapes. I guess without the power tools we weren’t going to be severing our limbs, just cutting ourselves and maybe needing stiches (I don’t recall any stitches).

Anyway, I drew out my arrow shape so the head and tail were bigger then the hole and then attempted to keep it symmetrical and arrow shaped with the tools we had. After I was satisfied I couldn’t go anymore without messing it up I took it to the grown-ups for the magical step of getting the arrow through the hole.

First they dumped it into a put of boiling water for a few minutes. Then they pulled it out and squeezed the arrow head with pliers to make it narrow and then forced it through. Once on the other side the arrow head expanded to be very close to its original shape.

After that we stained it so it wasn’t just some boring looking wood. Ta-da, arrow through a block of wood!

Both pictures I have of it can be seen here.

The collactables are gone or soon to be gone but I took pictures to remember them by.

You can see them here when you scroll down to my first name tag. And after that, some pictures of t-shirts. Two of them are from the Cowell Coffee Shop, there’s the Orbital Mind Control Lasers from KarlB and then there’s the Parrington dorm t-shirt.

It’s the song of the day (says me)

When you bring in some fill-dirt to modify the shape of your yard, one thing you’re never told is that there are dormant plants and seeds just waiting to pop out. Since our yard has been done I have seen a number of plants (and weeds) in our yard that weren’t already there and weren’t planted as part of the plan. Some of them are interesting so we give them a chance, but some are bad like new types of grasses and weeds we never wanted. I think the best of the random things to pop up are the variety of green onion that has popped up. The worst? There weird incredibly fast growing very large leafed plants that are are tough to kill. I think I’m going to have to dig them up because even RoundUp has been ineffective so far.

When you bring in some fill-dirt to modify the shape of your yard, one thing you’re never told is that there are dormant plants and seeds just waiting to pop out. Since our yard has been done I have seen a number of plants (and weeds) in our yard that weren’t already there and weren’t planted as part of the plan. Some of them are interesting so we give them a chance, but some are bad like new types of grasses and weeds we never wanted. I think the best of the random things to pop up are the variety of green onion that has popped up. The worst? There weird incredibly fast growing very large leafed plants that are are tough to kill. I think I’m going to have to dig them up because even RoundUp has been ineffective so far.