Mother's Day

One of the nice things about living in Thousand Oaks is that Ventura is only a half hour drive North. Old-Town Ventura is a blast to visit. No offense Ruth, but it kicks butt all over Fullerton's and Brea's Old Town. It has all the antique shops and mom & pop restruarants that you would expect out of any Old Town, but it is also over looked by a bueatiful tree-lined hill and has fresh salty air from the beach that is only four blocks away.

On Mother's Day went out for breakfast with my sister inlaw's family (Jenna, Alex, Alec, and Brennen) at cool cafe called My Florist. The prices were very reasonalbe (around $8) and the food was outstanding. I had eggs benedick with Salmon (instead of ham). I don't know why I ordered it, because it is not one of my favorites and more importantly, eggs benedick is a very dangerous item to order. You never know what you're going to get. A lot of places really destroy hollendaise sauce, making it either way to heavy or sweat. Their sauce had a slight spicy bite to it - very cool. It was also served on bruschetta to give it that fancy touch. Tania and Crystal both had the Belgium waffles with scrambled eggs. I don't know what they did to the eggs, but they were delicious.

To top the meal off, two gentlemen provided music playing guitar and violin. All in all, it was a very nice meal. I would recommend My Florist to any of you when you visit Ventura. It is on Oak, one block South of Main Street.

After breakfast we took a short stroll along Main Street browsing in the shops and art galleries. Tania found a jewerly making shop/bead store. Crystal and I kicked back at a small cafe for a glass of tea so Tania could take as long as she wanted.

Nice Mother's Day. We really don't go up to Ventura enough.

Swine Flu

Look out, here comes the pigs!
Our local high school, Newbury Park High, closed today because a student caught the piggy flu. They closed two schools in Oxnard last week. I guess that's to be expected when you live next to a farming community.

While I don't have the swine flu, I do have an out break of posion oak. It started off as just one spot on my arm. Unfortunately, I thought it was a bug bite so I wasn't careful about spreading it. Now I have a large patch on my calf, two spots on my right arm and three on the left. Itchy, itchy.

I started physical therapy two weeks ago. Going into it I was very doubtful that it was going to help, but my pain has actually decreased since I started. However, while my days are going better on the pain scale, I am still having trouble sleeping through the night without tons of pain pills and sleeping pills.

Lastly, one word about out Lakers. Very, very sloppy play for a team that is suposed to be one of the favorites to win it all. Come on guys, try to play with pasion the WHOLE game.

Academy of the Arts, San Francisco Tour

Last weekend we drove up to San Francisco to tour the San Francisco Academy of the Arts. We did a tour a over a year ago but we didn't tour or look at any of the dorms. Crystal is gong to there this Fall and she has to choose her top three picks for dorms so we thought another tour would be good now that we know for sure that she is going there.

Crystal was so excited!

I checked my Marriott points and I had enough to get us two free nights at a brand new Marriott one block from Union Square which was perfect because it was right between the campus building where the tour was and the dorm that we were going to tour. We got an awesome room - nice size and a great view.

Here we are waiting for the tour of the school.

After the last tour Crystal was not sure if she wanted to major in Graphic Design or Animation. However, what really got her interest this year was a major called New Media. Now she is leaning towards majoring in this but she is going to take a few 3D Animation classes to make sure. Graphic Design is pretty much off the table. New Media is kind of a combination of Graphic Design and Animation. While Graphic Design includes designing the packaging of product (cereal boxes, CD covers, etc) and company logo's and things like that, New Media is more of the animated graphics you see on TV and Web Sites.

After touring the school we had lunch then went on the dorm tour. Crystal has to choose three dorms and her preferred room set up as soon as possible because it is prioritize by when they receive your request. We won't know which dorm she gets until about month before school starts - likely in August.

This is the dorm that is Crystal's first choice. The only bad part is that is right across the street from the Ambulance entrance to the SF Hospital.

This is the dorm that we got to tour. It used to be a hotel but was donated to the school.

This is the old lobby. You have to use your student ID card to get the doors open, but they also have a security guard in the lobby 24/7.

Here is Crystal in the hall way on one of the floors where the rooms are.

All of the rooms have bunk beds. Most hold two students, a few four and some, for those who can afford it (not us) are single rooms. The bathroom set ups are also different so you have to request your choice. Some rooms have a full bath, some have only a half bath and showers shared for each floor and some rooms have no bathroom at all, just one shared for the whole floor. Crystal is going to request them in that order.

This is a shot of the rec room. There were two students playing a video game when we got there, so of course every started watching them play rather than listening to the tour guide.

When we were walking between buildings of the campus tour and old Asian guy walked by with a huge cat on his shoulder. The cat was just kicking back on this shoulder like a bird. I thought he had an owl on his shoulder at first. I can't believe he trained a cat to stay up there like that. He was just walking down the streets of San Francisco. It reminded me of Harry Potter for some reason. I tried to get a good shot but this is the only one that turned out. This is from the back so you can't really tell it is a cat.

The day after the Campus tour we stopped by Santa Cruz on the way home to visit Amber. He had lunch with her, her boyfriend Josh and Josh's brother. This was the first time we met Josh's brother. He's a real nice guy - takes after Josh.

I was worried about going on this trip because of my back. Tania drove most of the way. Crystal even drove for a while once we got out in the middle of no where. It was the first time she drove the van but she did a good job.

When we got about an hour or so from the city it started raining so I took control and drove from there. Neither of the girls wanted to drive into the city any ways. On the way back I drove the first 2 1/2 hours and then Tania drove the rest of the way. My back held up great. No bad pain the next day, but most importantly, no hospital trip needed.

Another Amber Visit

The best part about having your children away for college is having come back home for a visit. Amber called on Tuesday and said she didn’t have to work this weekend so she was going to drive home for a visit. She left Thursday afternoon and was able to stay until Sunday morning.

It was nice to spend some time with her. She was having trouble with a couple of papers she needed to write for sociology so I proofed them for her and gave her a little advice on her writing style. A big part of my job is writing reports and over the years I have gotten better and better at it. I still suck at spelling and grammar. And I frequently change tense (past & presence) when I shouldn’t but I have people proof for those types of things. What I am pretty good at is figuring out how to organize the topic and lead to point. I’m not saying I’m great, but we’ll see how well Amber’s professor thinks I am. It felt nice to be helpful.

An extra bonus for this weekend was that Amber and Crystal really got along well. They never really fight much, but over the past few years they have kind of drifted apart in terms of being friends. This weekend they seemed like friends again. They spent a lot more time talking one-on-one than they usually do.

Dan and Barbara drove up from Orange County on Saturday and Alex, Jenna and kids came over also. I cooked up a turkey and we had a nice dinner enjoyed each others company.

Brennen performed in a play in Pasadena a few weeks ago (on the same day Max was baptized). It was a competition where the kids had to write the play themselves and make all the costumes and sets themselves also. I think it is called odyssey of the mind. They get judged on a lot of different attributes of the play. They ran into a few problems with some of their props and one of the kids skipped a whole section of the play. They were very disappointed with themselves but they still managed to win second place. Now they get to go to the state finals in Sacramento next month. If they were able to win second place with all the mess ups, who knows how well they will do next time if they can get through it error free.

Wonderland

My brother in-law is a middle school librarian. He also creates comic books - both writes and illistrates. Unfortunately, the comic books don't go far in terms of paying the bills, thus the middle shcool he must go five days a week. A few years back he was comissioned to write a follow up story to Alice in Wonderland. Tommy agreed to do it because they hired someone to do the graphics so all he had to concentrate on was the story writing. (yep, that's right. I have creative people on both sides of my family)

If you remember the orginal Alice in Wonderland, when the Rabbit meets Alice he first mistakes her for his maid, Mary Ann. Tommy's story follows Mary Ann as she returns Wonderland from vacation after Alice turned everything upside down. Many people begin mistaking Mary Ann for Alice and havoc ensue. It is very fun story.

While the orginal series came out in several soft bound comic books, this month, the Wonderland series was released in hard cover book form. It is very nicely done.

And while fat, ugly, over weight cats hate it; I really enjoyed reading the story. It is much nicer in book form because it will last longer and for some reason the story just seems funnier with hard covers. For kids of all ages who are discovering comic books, this would be a book to own. There are not any guns, monsters or violence that boys typically seek for in comic books, so it will probably be enjoyed more by girls than boys, I think readers of both genders will like it.

Two other comic series that Tommy writes are called Stitch and Skelebunnies. I like these better than Wonderland. They are full of the strang and weird and are written for an older audience than Wonderland. But not to worry, they are only GP13.

If you want more, you can visit Tommy's web site at:

http://www.tommykovac.com/

Or you can go Amazon.com and order a copy of Wonderland for $13.59. Some of his other stories are also available on Amazon.

Sorry for the advertisement, but hey! This is family. And it really is cool stuff.

Week End at Ruthies

Well, I’ll start off this post with a Mona Vie acii berry juice update. Tania’s doctor wants her to take three shots of the juice a day so we decided to become Mona Vie distributors because it will save us a few bucks. I am usually suspicious about these things but since Tania’s Lyme disease doctor suggested she drink it I thought I might well also try it. I take two shots a day and, surprisingly, the rate of my recovery has definitely improved since I started drinking Mona Vie. I can now walk up and down stairs without being “ginger” about it. Than doesn’t sound like much but it’s a give improvement from how I was six weeks ago. My “bad-pain” days have been reduced to about 2/3’s. Being a researcher, I Know this proves absolutely nothing but it is quite a coincidence. I originally planned to try the juice for only a month or so; I think I going to keep it up. If you want to try it, let me know and I can have a bottle shipped to you.


Now on another note:

It was great being able to see everyone at Max’s baptism. The baptism was a baptism (ho-hum), but the get-together afterwards at Ruth’s in-laws was something else. They are caterers, so the food was awesome. They served some spicy green beans with candied pecans that were incredible. A little heat with the pecans helping to bring out the sweetness of the green beans made it a perfect combination of flavors.

Unfortunately for Mom and Dad the real fun started after they left. Mom was sick as a dog and needed to get to bed early before the talent show started. We now all know where Scott got his creative talent. There was guitar playing, singing, skits and all the while the little ones were playing dress up and dancing around. I never knew Ryan could sing so well. Ryan and his friends did a few barbershop style songs that were performed to perfection. I think we saw a little of the Ryan that help Heather fall in love with him. But they weren’t going to be out done by Scott’s dad who sang a song about the woes of loving a fat woman.


Two different topics in one post, nope:

So why did I combine the Mon Vie update with this story. Well we hit traffic on the way home as typically happens. The 75 minute drive turned into a 150 minute drive. When I got home my back was fine, but the next day I would pay. I am not supposed to go on long drives, but I have been feeling so good lately that I didn’t think it would be a problem. I should have made Tania drive, but I like listening to my satellite radio and Tania hates driving so we took my car. I thought how bad it can be.

I learned exactly how bad it can be on Sunday. Sunday morning my back was a little more sore than normal. It was a little stiff and tight so I took a muscle relaxer. After lunch the pain was increasing so I laid down on the couch with my computer on my lap and did some home work for a few hours. When I finished I could hardly get up and once I did, I couldn’t straighten out. My back was super stiff. I decided a soak in the jacuzzi tub would be just the ticket to loosen me up.
Well, the hot bath did little to relive the pain, in fact it was hurting more now than before getting in the tub. I had to take a deep breath and hold it to fight off the pain enough so I could lean forward to get out of the tub. When I stood up I started getting tunnel vision so I sat on the edge of the tub till it went away. This frequently happens when standing too quickly after a long soak in a hot tub. After it went away I stood up and walked into the bedroom while drying myself off. The tunnel vision returned but this time I also felt numbness starting to invade my arms and legs. I knew this feeling. I have felt it before. I was passing out, fainting. I tried to make a few quick steps to the bed.

When I woke up, I body was laying on the bed with my legs hanging over the edge. My back pain was now excruciating and getting worse. I was able to get into the bed but after that I was in so much pain that I could not move. It took about 15 minutes for Tania to hear my cries for help. She gave me a Norco (super strength vicoden) and then dried me off (I was still soaking wet from the bath). It takes about an hour for Norco to kick in so an hour later when the pain was even worse, I took another. This whole time I was also freezing. Tania put two blankets on me and had to turn up the heat three times before I stopped shivering.

Two hours after the first Narco (and one hour after the second), the pain still hadn’t gotten any better. I tried with all my might to get up. I thought that maybe if I could get on my feet I would be able to shuffle up the stairs and to the van so Tania could take me to the hospital. It took me about 15 minutes just to roll on my side. Trying to sit up was impossible. We even tried wrapping a rope around the top of the bedpost so I could use it as leverage to pull myself up. Nope, bad idea.

We finally gave up and called an ambulance to take me to the hospital. When the paramedics arrived, Tania quickly took the rope down from the bedpost. Who knows what ideas that would have given them? Any ways, a paramedic can normally give up 10 ml of morphine to help a patient in pain. However, because I took the Norco earlier he had to call in to get approval for the morphine. They gave me 4 ml at the house… no relief. They gave me 2 ml more on the way to the hospital… still not relief. Once at the hospital they gave me more morphine… still no relief. Then they gave me a cocktail of dilaudid, toradol and zofran . Dilaudid is in the same family as morphine but a little stronger. Well THAT DID THE TRICK. The pain finally started going down.

Several hours and who knows how much dilaudid later they let me go home (it was about 2 AM). I was still in great pain but I could get up and walk. Today (Monday) my pain is manageable with Norco, muscle relaxer and laying down all day. Hopefully, I will be back to my normal pain level in a few days. I don’t know who I thought I was – someone who can drive a car for 2 hours? Well, time to wrap this post up. Who knows about the Mona Vie. It may have helped me decrease pain level but it is definitely no wonder drug. But still, I don’t think I will stop drinking it just yet. …who knows?

Back Update

Things keep moving along with the back. I am still taking 2-4 Norco pain pills a day (24 day), but I am able to do more without paying the price for the next few days. On Saturday I hanged a few curtain holders so now Tania has no excuse for not getting the curtains done. I was a more sore than normal that night but Sunday back to the usual pain level so I decided "what the heck" I might as well push my luck and see what else I could get away with so I did some gardening. Moved some plants around and did some weeding. Again, my back was sore afterwards so I didn't do anything but lay on the couch and watched the Laker game the second half of the day. Come Morning morning - I woke up at 4:30 in pain and couldn't get back to sleep. I took a muscle relaxer and went upstairs on the couch so I wouldn't wake Tania. This may sound bad, but it is actually what happens most mornings. By the time it was time to go to work... hurray!! The pain level was no worse than normal. What is life coming to? I am actually happy that I can do more chores around the house.