Seems to me that people are really worked up these days. I just got off the phone with my friends at Cingular and they have no record of the 20 minute conversation with a nice fellow over there last week. So, I had to start at ground zero again.  Of course, asking her to make a note in my account of our conversation was about as easy as pulling teeth from an elephant.  Probably due to the fact that she liked to talk more than listen. Then I was browsing around over at Topix.net and noticed that they have a pretty cool new feature where you can leave comments on any piece of news you find on their site. Pretty cool idea. But, the problem is that there are some really hostile people out there…dare I say fanatical. The recent news about VP Cheney shooting one of his buddies is of course, stirring up a lot of action on and off line.  But, it got me to thinking about the current state of affairs around here.  People are just plain angry. I tell you what, I liked it better when we had moderates with fiscal responsibility in office. I am talking about “Democrats” and “Republicans” who all knew right from wrong, overspending from insanity and had some decency.  The team out east these days seem more like they simply want to piss everyone off and start some kind of civil war in this country. Did I miss something? What the hell happened?

Technorati Tags: Democrats, Republicans, Chaos, Cheney

I don’t know why, but I seem to think that is a really funny line…especially when used at the right time in blogging.  I will be making my way up to Tahoe for the weekend, along with a good friend for some good snowboarding, beers, and Superbowl watching. It used to be a minor ritual, for a few years, but then kids and wives-to-be came along and it became harder to make. But, this year, I am making the trip back to Incline Village for the Kohut Invitational. Beers, darts, snowboarding and Mexican food. Maybe even a 44oz Sneaky Bandito if you will. It should be a great time and I am really looking forward to it.

Technorati Tags: Tahoe, Superbowl, Snowboarding

How do people like this get on television?  Worse yet, how is that that anyone listens to him? People who make statements like Pat Robertson has in recent months scare the heck out of me. I think we need to bring back a little bit of the old west in this country. What does that mean? Well, the way I see it, if you want to give someone the finger when you are in your car, and they happen to give you a black eye. Then that should be within your rights to do so…or theirs.  People in this country are being held to a lower standard of accountability every day.  Martha Stewart gets thrown in jail for some ticky-tack charge (the amount of money she made on that “insider trade” relative to her wealth makes me laugh out loud), while CEOs and executive officers of major corporations are allowed to lie to shareholders, pocket once-in-a-lifetime fortunes, and live the good life.  Time to take the country back from the radical fringes that have seized the opportunity left by the apathy of the masses.

Technorati Tags: Pat+Robertson, Ariel+Sharon, Politics, USA

Well, I just got over the most insane flu I have ever experienced. Not to toot my own horn (if that is what I am doing here), but I have been pretty tolerant of illness and such over the years, due to the fact that I am allergic to just about everything out there. I have asthma, I get rashes when it is dry outside, I am affectionately referred to as Bubble Boy by some.  This flu is something that I would not wish on anyone.  The only “good” thing about the flu is that it is very short lived. It started with me feeling bloated after a great Christmas Eve dinner at Danielle’s parent’s house with family and friends. At about 10pm I started to begin to feell bloated. I figured this was simply from the insane amount of food and wine I had consumed that night, the only difference (from other over-indulgence evenings) was the mild acid reflux I was experiencing at the time.  I tried to go to sleep around midnight, but I could not.  Not because I was excited about the gifts I had bought for Danielle, but because my feeling of bloatedness had now turned into a feeling that my stomach was going to explode if it got any bigger.  I was very uncomfortable.  I asked Danielle (told her) that I needed something like Tums or Pepto to make this feeling go away. We were at her brother’s house so she fished out some Tums and handed them over.  I popped two and felt some grumbling down below.  I figured they were starting their magic.  Not much if anything happened and I popped two more.  Still a little more grumbling and I was sitting up now in bed, pretty miserable. Danielle told me that I should “sit on the toilet.”  Wise words, so I did.  Well, that is when the fun party began.  The big D kicked in right away and it was, well the worst it could be.  But, it was a big relief.  But, after I stood up and cleaned up, I felt something in my mouth. Could that be? What is that? Oh, no. Not the saliva. Yes, that is the saliva.  Seconds later I was puking violently into the toilet. Well, that should take care of anything that was left because it was violent and complete and to be honest, I felt a hell of a lot better when all was said and done.

But, that is where the fun began.  Puking and Diarrhea were the least of my problems, I just didn’t know it yet.  I managed to get to sleep after that, but woke up a short while later with terrible aches and the chills. Clearly, I was running a small temperature, but I felt extremely uncomfortable. I will be honest, the normal aches and pains associated with the flu and running a temperature don’t really bother me all that much. These aches and pains were very thorough in their effectiveness and distribution. I felt terrible.  That managed to hang on until the early hours of the morning when the little people of the house woke up to start the Christmas morning magic.  I was staying in bed despite how much I wanted to see Syd and my Godson open their gifts.  It proved to be a wise decision because after about 30 minutes of the present opening going on downstairs I got violently ill again.   This time, after 4 full-throttle sessions, I had nothing left to give. I was very weak and dehydrated.  I was worked.

Rather than me give you more play-by-play, suffice it to say that the symptoms of this years’ flu are short lived but very severe. Should you manage to contract it, there are a few things that you will want to do.  Drink as much fluid/Gatorade as you possibly can stomach.. I was so severly dehydrated after day two, that I woke up to my stomach muslces in a complete cramp for 15 minutes. If you have never had this experience before (I had it once as a child when the on-call pediatrician prescribed a “conflicting” medication to the one I was taking….he didn’t check my file/chart), suffice it to say you think you are dying.  It is a terrible experience and if it happens to you, get a heating pad on your stomach and lay flat on the floor…and try to get fluids into your body.  Gatorade has more than just the necessary water your body needs, but also essential amino acids that your body needs to metabolize things related to it.  It took me a couple of gallons (literally) yesterday before I was back up to normal urine color (rather close to it).

I don’t really think there is much more that will help you other than fluids.  Drink a lot of them and stay away from everyone if you get this thing. It is terrible and you do not want to pass it along.

Technorati Tags: Flu, Influenza, 2005

You know, Daylight Savings sucks.  I happen to like the sun. Maybe it is just me, but this whole “daylight savings” thing really urks me. It is compounded by the fact that I have moved up to San Francisco in the past couple of years and now I get even less sunshine in my day because I live further north than I used to (I used to live in San Diego).  But, I really fail to see why we have to live with changes that were made during World War II.  Well, this is what I used to think.

I got a little pissy, so I did a little research on the web.  It turns out that what we call “Daylight Savings Time” is called “Summer Time” in the rest of the world (you know we always have to be different).  Daylight Savings Time was implemented to give people (like me) who are farther north from the equator, more daylight in the summer months, because there is much more daylight in the summer months. Apparently, there are a host of other reasons to keep Daylight Savings Time around.

So, I guess I will just have to relocate south during the “winter” months. Now if I can just figure out why SF is such a miserable place in the summer months….:)