looking good

trying to feel good

eating good

hmmm

So when I was in college and we were learning to draw blood for studies we started on a plastic arm with fake veins and blood and such in it. Then when that was mastered we moved onto each other.

Yes, poking each other in the arm was part of our school grade. Oh man, the people with no confidence hurt you soo badly.

Having talked with people who go to massage school, they practice massage on each other and volunteers. When you are going to hair cutting school they have dummies with replaceable hair for you to cut. And then people who are super cheap will eventually come into the school for a cheap student cut. That's pretty brave if you ask me.

But that got me thinking. The people who do waxing, estheticians, how do they learn and practice? Is there like a eye brow dummy? A brazilian dummy? Or do they have to practice on each other? YIKES. Talk about wanting to have a good "lab partner".....
Or do people go in off the street? Whatever it is.... I'm glad I don't have to do it.

Faca na Caveira

Today I am watching "Tropa de Elite 2", the sequel to the biggest movie in Brazil, "Tropa de Elite" that came out in 2007.

A dvd of the first movie was leaked before the movie even came out and I was easily able to get an English subtitled version of good quality of the web. This time they did a better job against the pirates and I have to watch a poor quality hand held camera version with no subtitles. Good thing I don't speak Portuguese. hahahaha. Or is that kkkkkkkk?

If you want to see epic, gritty, real movies about the crime, social problems and police in Brasil then these are the movies you have to watch. The story is told in a way you would never see from the typical Hollywood crap.

So I was chatting with someone who will not be named on Facebook this morning. We were chatting about my bike ride yesterday and such. She asked me what I think was an odd question though.....

and I quote "Ohhh, doesn't it hurt to ride your bike if you are dealing with a pussy infection?"

You know what, I think it would! Thankfully though I only have to ride my bike while dealing with an infection in my surgical scar.

civic fun

No, I don't mean getting busy in the back of a small, entry level Japanese car. And unless it's a 4 door, I can only imagine how cramped that would be....

What I really mean is I was selected for jury duty this Friday. Fun! The only thing is I have two doctors appointments on Monday, so I can't really be selected for anything that would take time.

See ya on the trolley!

picture pages, picture pages, open up your picture pages...

it's a sign i tell you, a sign!

ugh, what is this white cold stuff??

ugly even from a distance



8,000 feet does something to a fella....

the tram rotates in a circle while you go up the mountain. so no matter what you are always not looking at what you want to.

i parked in this lot and not one hot older lady even looked at me or said hi. stupid gay palm springs.

call ghostbusters, some spirit thing is leaking out of my neck!!

rule #1 for surgeons. eat when you can. and especially if it is a DELICIOUS french dip sandwich from Sherman's Deli.

rule #2 of surgeons. sleep when you can. rule #3? don't mess with the pancreas.

day 4 presentations. still no change.

yep, i drove around palm springs in my dirty taco. who wouldn't?

how the heck do i wear out the 'A' key before any other?

day one, presentation one. looking thrilled!

Famous people with Crohn's disease

Taken from the website IHateIBD.com is the following list of people, considered famous, who have/had Crohn's disease.

Shannen Doherty- actress in like 90210

Mike McCreaty- guitarist for Pearl Jam. a band I normally hate, but will at least stop saying it out loud now out of respect.

D.D. Eisenhower- general, president of the USA. you know, easy stuff.

David Gerrard- NFL quarterback. wow, that's impressive. must not have too much active disease after his resection.

Mary Ann Mobley- 1959 Miss America. must not of had any surgery scars.

Joe Rogan- really? wtf is this guy doing then drinking alcohol when he commentates during the UFC? comic, tv presenter and jiu jitsu brown belt.

George "the animal" Steele- old school pro wrestler. in the wwe hall of fame and such.

and for my next death defying stunt.....!!!!

having already beaten disease, war, pestilence, hunger and an inability to swim it is time for a new death defying challenge!

two weeks ago i was watching "i shouldn't be alive" or "when vacations attack" or something of some such ilk. anyways, dippy dude and city girlfriend come to palm springs and go on the tram ride. into the big bad san jacinto mountains. just typing that made me laugh. have these people ever seen real mountains? goodness....

long story short they get lost for 4 days, find a dead body from someone else who was on their route and start a forest fire to get rescued. then they break up. and cash in.

so to see what these two morons were about i am going to ride the tram to the top of the mountain and survey it myself. but i'll bring a cell phone. people know i am going. i'll have a jacket and food. anyways, i'm gonna go to the top, laugh at how dumb they were and then come back and take a nap by the pool.

tomorrow is only a half day at my meeting as saturday is a 12 hour day. ugh.

wish me luck!!! (i don't actually need it though)

Reason for the silence.

I haven't been feeling well. And it is all coming to a head today. Fever of 101 for days, no energy, no appetite. And then today my incision near my belly button swelled up super huge and spit pus out in large amounts.

So I am going to the surgery clinic to get my wound and infection attended to. Then it is off to my meeting hopefully.

If you had wondered where I was, now you know. Laying low and dealing.

Seriously

Anyone out there who actually has the time and money, want to go to Brazil the last week of July and the first week of August?

If you speak Portuguese that would be perfect! And if you are going to compete at the same tournament as me, even better! I don't care which team you fight for.

I just don't want to go alone and it seems most of my San Diego friends are backing out on me......

Well? (I know this is a long shot, but hey....)

no prostitutes this time

I am going to Palm Springs for most of this week to earn the Continuing Education Units I need to keep my nuclear medicine license. So Thursday through Sunday sitting in a hotel conference room suffering death by powerpoint from 8am till 5pm.

Now to explain the title. The first time I went to Palm Springs I showed up kinda late in the evening. I was going to visit my parents who were on a business vacation there and as I went to get buzzed into their hotel two young attractive girls walked in very close to me.

So I'm thinking mmmmm, cute girls. Then they get in the elevator with me and when I ask the floor they pick the same one as me. Now I'm thinking, hmmmm, maybe I'll see them by like the pool or something then. We get off the elevator and they are walking right behind me, super close. What? They are staying in the room next to me? Sweet, maybe they will get away from their parents or whatever and I can meet them since we're staying so close to each other.

Well when I and my parents were awaken in the middle of the night due to the ummm..... activities. Great! Now I'm the one who smuggled two prostitutes into the hotel and had to listen to them all freaking night. UGH!!!

How could I have been so naive?

I can tell you this much, this trip will involve prostitutes in no way. I promise!

Boring lectures, "networking", restaurant food, hot tubbing or using the hotels facilities. That's it.

Corte Madera

You know it's been a good day when you come home with mud on your truck, sun on your skin and carnitas in your belly!!

And now, the pics!!!









All photos courtesy of Killer and his Christmas camera.

2010 by the blog numbers

11,213 visits

4,896 absolute unique visitors

14,697 page views

97 different countries and territories visited

After the US the countries break down like this:
UK 203
Canada 192
Germany 92
Spain 92
Australia 58
Brazil 53

"i love cereal" was the most visited page beyond the front page at 1,428 visits

December 10th, 2010 had the most visits in one day at 141

This Dark Dream

When I was younger I used to have a dream that just terrified me to screaming about a black, ephemeral spirit type thing that lurked outside my bedroom. It was some sort of evil entity and it was totally out to get me. It could move quickly so I knew I would have no chance running out of my room to my parents room to be rescued. Normally that meant I woke up and just cowered in my room crying in fear, or occasionally screaming out loud for someone to rescue me.

As an adult I seem to have recurring dreams about people or more often zombies chasing me to kill me. And yes, I do die in these dreams. Horrible, frantic dreams where I'm doing everything I can to get away and I just don't make it. Then somewhat less often are dreams about water, whether I drown or am crushed by tidal waves. Again, an adult male waking up screaming from a vivid nightmare that seemed just too real. Notice how I'm writing this at almost 4am......

My dream the other night though, was something entirely new in my bad dream repertoire. The basic jist of it was that my Crohns disease was coming back and going to be a huge negative factor in my life. Not wanting to deal with it any longer I decide to kill myself in my dream. In my semi-lucid state of the dream I had read every word of my suicide notes I wrote to different family members. I had to "see" myself go through planning how I would do it and eventually picking a method. And going through with it.

I woke up feeling just soo horrible and lost. I was just totally dumb struck with disbelief that I had just dreamed that to such detail. I had a dream where I had to watch myself kill myself for goodness sake!

I would prefer to never have a dream again of any sort than to have a dream like this again. No wonder I find it impossible to sleep...............

sick and tired of being.....

you guessed it, "sick" and tired. technically i am not really sick per se, but i am not healthy either. it works with the phrasing, don't fault me.

actually i am sick of being 127lbs, no cardio, no upper body and totally compromised abdominal muscles. sick i tell you!!!

but i also have to be realistic. it hasn't even been 4 weeks since my last surgery for goodness sake. so i really should be happy about where i am at in the process and just keep working.

just keep swimming. just keep swimming.

Amazing!!

So one of my friends took up the gauntlet of making me a custom piece of clothing!! YES!

And since she used to work at a costume factory and has made things like an adult size, full on replica Pepe Le Pew costume my little project will be easy for her. She'll be done in two weeks, though she said it really is only one day of work she just needs that long till she has a free day.

So what am I getting made?? A totally custom hoody that will make me look like a shark!!!

I can't wait to get it!!! And you know I'll post up tons of pics!

I had a dream so disturbing last night I can't even write about it. How horrible is that?

Now I don't feel so bad about enjoying CSI Las Vegas reruns...... I know now there is something worse.

bad lighting

Since I seem to destroy point and shoot digital cameras (i should get a go-pro for my action camera) my phone has turned into my de facto camera. And it's not that good of a camera! But here are some recent pics.....


Two houses from mine the hillside broke loose in our December rain storm of record.
Looking up to her back yard. Our house had zero problems! Well not true, but not like this!
Hoody, no longer a hoodlum.
Crohns Foundation thingy. At a winery that makes good pizza. I was feeling super self conscious so I spent almost all of it sleeping in the truck.
This old Italian dude was soooooo rocking it on the mic.
The latest look at my scars.

Template for a Rowdy week

I am still unable to live my life how I want. But I know people who would like to live a Rowdy like life. As most people have a full time job I will give you the working Rowdy version of what used to be a typical week for me. That way you can pick and choose what you would like to do, and maybe by you living in a rowdy style, it will give me the hope and energy to make it to the time when I can too.

-upon waking up, before anything else in the morning. 50 jumping jacks, 50 body weight squats, 25 push ups, 50 sit ups. all in a row, non-stop till you finish. do this 3x during the week.

-go for a motorcycle ride. even better if with friends. but make sure you go fast enough that you have to really focus and your heart is racing.

-get on my mnt bike and do urban trials. find all the features around where I live and ride them. jump off of stuff, down stairs, wall rides, explore alleys and short cuts. basically act like you're 8 again and on your bmx bike.

-look at maps or get on the internet and find something within a hour of your house you have never been to. go there. who cares if it sucks, now you know. and you went somewhere new!

-go to the beach and run bare foot in the sand. you calves will hate you. your toes might get blistered. but all of these things will make you better for it.

-do the "challenge". this is ultra popular in my family and with some of my friends. we normally call it the family olympics and it is taken with quite a bit of seriousness as we are all very competitive. basically you go to a park with some good toys and such and one person does something. then everyone else has to do it. you keep track of who could do the most of the challenges. whether you picked it or not it doesn't matter, just who did the most successfully. mix it up, be creative. it is kind of like playing the game "horse" from basketball, but with your body!

-if i don't know anyone to play with, i'll go and just hit the tennis ball against the wall till i am tired. or tired of chasing the balls i missed.

There you go! All things that can be done in two hours or less, so you can even do them on work days if you are really motivated. Or don't have little kids to worry about. I hope you enjoy doing a little bit of Rowdy this week.

steady........ steady..........

So I am a little worried. I am healing just fine, scar wise and such. No hernia or anything like that. So that is not it, but......

Well I can't gain weight. In fact I am having a hard time even maintaining weight, even at my super low activity level.

I got out of the hospital at 129lbs. I am 126lbs currently. While not time to freak out in worry, it IS something that needs attention paid to. If I can't keep my weight up while I am just sitting around most of the day, what will happen when I am able to do all the things I want physically? Will I even have the caloric ability to?

I do not have much of a hunger urge, I am unable to eat very large portions. Missing more than half of my small intestine is definitely a challenge. But I really want to be able to meet all my nutritional needs by what I can take in orally. I do NOT want to have to be on TPN again.

My surgeon and GP joke that I should be happy I could eat McDonalds all the time and not gain weight. I don't think it is very funny. I went to the Vitamin Shoppe and got myself a whey protein supplement I am going to drink twice a day and a Super Green Food supplement I will drink each morning. The former to add a large amount of protein to my diet without the intestinal challenge of digesting all that meat. The second to see if all the probiotics and such won't just help me with the digestive process.

I also have two more months of Testosterone supplements to help with adding weight and mass to my body.

I'll let you know how it goes...

I think DD and I are pretty much birds of a feather.

Fill it out. Or more likely if you're a blog reader of mine you'll be printing this out and having some whiner you know fill it out.


Thanks Jive Monkey! I love this! I wish someone would give me a nickname freaking already so I could use something like this. There is not an animal or cartoon way to truly represent 'rowdy' so I need a nickname......jiu jitsu or otherwise.

Where's the beef?

Ahhhhhh, nothing like a 2:49am rumination on pop culture and one's digestion. Just to start among other things!

So unless you are older than 30 or really enjoy all the 80's specials on VH1 you probably don't get the "Where's the beef?" reference. It was a commercial for Wendy's way way back when I was a child. Accusing other burger joints of not nearly having the meat that a Wendy's burger does. The veracity of the claim I can not verify, for I have eaten one in the past 6 months at a Wendy's and I had fries and nuggets. The last burger I ate at a Wendy's would have to be 3 years ago.

I went to a friend's birthday party tonight, BP, where there was no doubt about the answer to the question of where is the beef? You give a Brazilian control of the gas grill and a huge pile of tri-tip and you are about to be amazed. They really do love to BBQ and make tons of meat. Soft, simple, jiucy just delicious cuts of beef.

What's the problem? Well with me there seemingly is always one. Due to now only having 125cm of small bowel along with all the other stuff going on in there, while a normal length of small bowel is 400cm to 800cm. Looks like I'm a little lacking in the guts department. Well the physiological nature of small bowel and the multiple sections I'm missing of duodenum, jejunum, and ileum have a newly noticed effect on me.

I cannot digest steak or beef in almost any form. Even ground if it is formed into patties. After having has different versions of beef over 3 meals this week, each ended with my in abdominal agony for hours. Strong urges to vomit, burping, shaking, abdominal pain, tremendous gas pressure and relief, sweaty feeling......You know, feeling like crap!

Pork or chicken or fish or seafood do not set this off, thankfully. Just beef. The only beef item I seem to tolerate is a french dip sandwich, for reasons unknown, but I attribute to the thin slices and the soaking aujus to help break it down.

Having gone though this experience in front of strangers and friends tonight at a birthday party I have a new plan. I am going to get some of this new thing called Super Green Food and drink some once a day. I am also going to as Myoplex twice a day in between meals to help supplement.

Learning how to take care of my body at this stage sure interesting!!!!
(now hopefully the two mg of lorazapam kick in and i sleep)

Weekend Update

Last night I had dreams where one, I married Tina Fey. Two I was on the Int. Olympic Committee to get jiu jitsu and pankration into the games for Rio. And finally that I was a body guard for an extremely eccentric old woman.

Today I met with my surgeon. More antibiotics. Three more weeks of low effort stuff. Not even light rolling. Dang it. And he passingly mentioned that I almost died during the emergency surgery. (surgery #2 of 3 in the past 3 months) I have some nerve damage near my belly button that could get better in about a year. I also have a part of my scar that needs some more time to heal on the other side of my navel. Ah, the joys of being me.

This weekend is stake conference, a birthday party and...... dang, I can't quite remember what else. Hahahahahaha.

Not Much

Not much has been going on. Lots of resting on the couch, napping and trying to start walking more and increasing my activity level. I feel I'm at the stage now, 3 weeks after the last surgery, that I need to start doing more if I am to accelerate the healing process. Too soon? I hope not.

I have had a very hard time sleeping. It seems that mixing pain medication and sleeping medication, both prescription, have a paradoxical effect of keeping me up all night and not allowing me to sleep. You would think that combination would just zonk you out, but no.

So I lay there in bed thinking thoughts like, how come race cars with their higher speeds and more violent crashes, don't use or need airbags, but your everyday car seems to have 6 to 8 of them now? I finally decided it was because of the type of harness/restraints a race car driver has versus a seatbelt and the fact he is also wearing a helmet and is in a roll cage. Things not found in 99.9% of street cars.

I can not wait for some of the edema in my abdomen to go down. I feel fat, misshapen and totally unattractive. Not fun feelings as you can imagine! Maybe I'm just impatient and unable to remember what the process is like from all the other times I've had to do this. I just wanna be the Rowdy I expect myself to be....

Thinking I would pamper myself a little over a month ago I went to Sephora and bought some fancy schmancy men's care shaving gel and face soap. It's crap. So back to Mary Kay's line of men's care. Of all things this seems to work the best for me. Who knew??

While I'm just sitting around, and you're just sitting around reading this if you come up with a topic you'd like for me to expound upon, leave a comment or email me. I'd love to do it.

PS-go away rain and cold. I hate you and living in San Diego means I should never have to see you!!

When my hair grows out this year I want to look like a lion. A human with a lion's mane. Good think I also can grow awesome sideburns.

2am ramblings or a short essay on travel

Being well feed, an appreciation of food is a good thing.

But better than being well feed is being well read. Taking into yourself an unlimited number of ideas, stories, facts, myths and images.

In the continuum of well feed to well read the thing that beats them all is being well traveled. In one way because you need to be well feed and read in and on your travels. Travel is the ultimate expression of freedom and experience we have in life today.

Nothing can beat being well traveled.

If you are not I have a true sorrow for you. For you are missing a vital piece in the enjoyment of a human life. The discovery, knowledge, nervousness, adventure, awe and effort that go into having a successful trip and be found in no other way or place.

Get out. Go. Do. Make it new.
Venice
Munich
Marrakech
Pompeii
Malaysia

1:11 on 1-1-11

So at 1:11pm on 1-1-11 I was at the San Diego Intl. Auto Show. For only $10 it was a great time. The layout was nice, the music muted and plenty of exhibits.

I would have wished for a few more models (cars not chicks), a few more concepts, more new exotics and really that is it.

It was nice to sit in some cars I had been curious about and see just what they felt like sitting inside and to check their interior. Some cars were better than I thought they would be inside, Camaro, Corvette, Fiesta, Fit and some were worse, 4Runner, Yaris, Scions.

By far the coolest part of the show was the Jeep experience. They had a bunch of man made obstacles in the corner of the convention center that really highlighted the capability of the Rubicon's suspension. If the line wasn't soo dang long I would have done it. By the time I would have gotten through the line I could have gone home, got my own 4x4 and driven out somewhere and done all this myself. Hahahahaha.

Pics! Obviously I seem to like the Fiat 500 that will finally be coming to the US.