Spent the holiday weekend with my girlfriend and friends up on the shore of Lake Superior. It was, for the most part, a relaxing couple of days made up of bonfires, cookouts, hiking, exploring and sitting on the beach. Still down in the lower 30's for evening temperatures, however, and spent all my time in multiple layers of clothing and wishing I had thought about gloves.
We grazed a deer on the way up but everyone, deer included, emerged from the incident unscathed.
Sunday night, however, was an experience I'd care not to repeat. After going out for a late dinner we turned in for the night. As soon as M. got into bed her head stuffed up solid and she couldn't breathe through her nose. Her breath got very wet and raspy sounding, like she had emphysema or something dreadful. I got very scared. She was scared. This sort of thing had never happened before...

I called 911 on my cell phone, which thankfully worked just fine up in the north woods, and found out where the closest emergency room was located (about 45 miles away). As soon as I got off the phone, M. started throwing up. I lost my scaredness and became very calm and focused. I put her in the car and took off through the deer-infested night, praying to whatever gods govern the lives of woodland creatures to please keep them in the ditches and not on the roads because hitting a deer at 95 mph would be a very bad thing. Even though I was exhausted from the day and it was well after 1:00am, I was so pumped up from adrenaline and concern for M. that I'm sure I must've qualified for some sort of Nascar event -- in her convertible Beetle.
Once into Ashland, Wisconsin, I hoped finding the hospital would be an easy task. I was zooming through the town, through stoplights and intersections, scanning the roads ahead when a cop (wouldn't you know it) pulled me over. I was so impatient as M.'s breathing, while improved, was still constricted and the cop was taking what seemed like forever to get out of his car. When he approached the window I handed him my license and said, "Look, I'm sorry, but my girlfriend is having difficulty breathing and I've got to get her to the hospital." He looked quickly at my license and simply said, "Ok." I took off and found the hospital another mile up the road. Time: 2:10 am. Gas tank: past empty.
The doctor examined her, said things looked OK (she was doing better by then) and figured she must've had a nasty allergic reaction to the beer everybody had with dinner. He told her to get some Benadryl and to stop drinking beer and cut out wheat, dairy and eggs until she can determine what sort of allergic reaction she may have experienced.
Being still wired, but feeling how tired I was underneath, I needed to get us back home quickly or I felt I would be too sleepy to safely dodge the animals of the woods. I found an all-night gas station and filled up the car and found out from the attendant that I could have cut cross-country and shaved a good portion of the distance off the trip. Of course.
We pulled back in to the Beach Resort around 4:15 am and promptly fell sound asleep until 11:00 am. Thankfully M. was just fine and we packed up and had a perfectly uneventful trip back home to the Cities.
Lessons learned: Find out where emergency services are located and what their phone numbers are when visiting a new place. Simple to do and it could be critical. Make sure you have fuel in your vehicle. Video games got nothing on deer in the ditches every few hundred yards during an urgent trip in the middle of the night.

Interesting little article over at NY Times about looking through photologs, although I thought they could have picked a few better shots as examples.

Another entry in Photo Friday, topic of Overlooked. I entered a photo I took while in South Africa back in 2000. A most wonderful experience and 5 weeks wasn't nearly long enough. I also had my eyes opened to conditions I'd only heard about. This is a photo of a township shack constructed out of discarded materials. You can't see the uneven packed dirt floor or the lack of electricity and running water.

Tooth, that is. A few days ago my bottom left wisdom tooth started getting real sensitive and then fully emerged from my gums. (What's with all the health stuff here lately?) I called the dentist this morning and asked to get in ASAP just in case it could develop into a problem and they were able to get me in at 3pm. Doc said it could stay, if I wanted it to, but it would probably continue to be problematic. Or he could pop it out. He was pleased to see I had short roots on it so I said go ahead and remove it. Yikes. Lots of novocaine in the face (it made my tongue feel electric during the shot, like a 9-volt battery) and he pushed and pried real hard on my tooth and out it came. Whew. But no matter how much painkiller is in your head (even my ear is numb), your ears can still hear that extraction sound and it isn't all that nice. Now where's my soup?

The doctor called this morning right before work and gave me the results of my colonoscopy biopsy: benign. Apparently everything about that part of my body is perfectly healthy and normal. So why do I still have pain in that area?

The Morning News has a fairly interesting critique on the new Matrix Reloaded movie. I have to agree with much of it, in retrospect. I was really bothered by the lack of visuals of the digging machines -- where the hell were they? Show them ripping through the earth, darn it. Then show them again! That omission is probably one of my biggest disappointments. But I still liked the movie a lot. You could also read this article about Matrix philosophy.

Roxio, makers of the wonderful Toast and Easy CD Creator programs, has today purchased PressPlay online music store from Universal/Sony and will apparently relaunch it under the Napster name. Big competition for the iTunes Music Store?

And I got to drive it. Yesterday my co-worker's significant other brought by his newly purchased car -- a very nice Porsche Carrara that formerly belonged to Terry Ventura. I've never been in a Porsche so when he suggested I take it out and "beat on it" a bit, I didn't stop to question him. This is the kind of car that would get me in a lot of trouble. Going over 60 mph in 2nd gear -- yeah, I like that.
Later in the day Dave brought in his newly purchased skateboard -- a locally (St. Paul) handmade Big Louie deck. Not quite as nice riding as the Porsche, but sweet in its own way.

The other day Meghan and I were commenting on the proliferation of the peeing "Calvin" stickers so common on vehicles (right up there with those fabulous "No Fear" stickers) and how sad it was that discourse had reached such a level and however in the world did Calvin, who I cannot recollect whizzing on anything, became the poster boy for intolerance of opposing opinions/preferences. Today I found this - check out their photo gallery. [via BoingBoing]

My entry for this week's Photo Friday topic: Candy.

The nerds (and I say that lovingly) were out in full force last night for a special sold-out preview screening of the new Matrix movie: Matrix Reloaded. I won't spoil anything by giving away details, but you will be amazed at the effects and scenes in this film. Sure, sure, maybe the story line isn't all that strong and it suffers a bit from the trilogy "middle movie syndrome," but damn, if some scenes don't take your breath away, you're already dead. There were three or four scenes where the entire audience burst out in cheering and clapping. I'm already ready to see it again. No doubt you'll hear praise and critique from all over, but know this: Matrix Reloaded is a million times better than Star Wars Episode II.
Make sure you sit through the long credits (perhaps the longest I've ever seen. Guess we know who's been keeping people employed lately) as you'll get a special treat at the end. The 35% of the nerds who left during the credits will be pissed at what they missed.
Thanks go to Bill for nabbing us the special tickets.

The PlayStation Portable (PSP) will be coming out next year. Sounds like an amazing and fun little box. Other news here, including an add-on camera for projecting the user into the game!?
UPDATE: Price Cuts! Woohoo! Gonna go get one now... Although the new model has a modification for better playing of home-made DVDs.

This week is the big E3 show (electronic entertainment expo) and it has been a place for not only game developers to show off their hardware and software, but also a place to introduce price cuts. I am hoping very much for a price cut in the PlayStation 2 (down to $149) as I've wanted one since they came out but couldn't really justify the purchase in my own mind. I think I can now. I have to play DDR and GT3 (or GT4?)

I decided to post my underground parking garage shot from the other day to today's Photo Friday assignment of Urban. I found this person's submission to be hilarious.

Overheard at the bookstore/comic shop:
"It's like Hill Street Blues... but with super powers!"

Having a day off from work (and a fresh clean colon!) means I get a lot of stuff done. Not always. Maybe just today. But it felt great to be out in the air and sun all afternoon. Sweating, working, breathing. Aaahh.
The things I accomplished today:
3,748 dandelions expunged from the lawn.
First lawn mowing of the year.
Trimming of plant life (where needed now that leaves are out).
Clean up of brush pile in driveway.
Partial removal of "cute" brick oval in yard.
Removal of scraggly tree.

The tree removal process was quite good, almost MacGyver-ish. And I got to put some of my Boy Scouts skills to work. The reason the tree had to be removed was that it was very scraggly and growing at a 65-degree angle towards my neighbor's yard to avoid the deep shadows of the giant maple tree in my lawn. Armed only with a small cross-cut saw and some rope, I was able to remove the 7" diameter tree all by myself. I needed the rope to provide directional tension so as to avoid knocking my neighbor's power line out of her house. Not a desired outcome. I climbed up a carefully balanced ladder and affixed the rope and then ran it over to a very solidly installed post on the chain link fence on the opposite side of my property. Using the post as a crude pulley type of device I was able to pull the tree away from the power line. I cut a big notch in the side of the trunk and then re-pulled and re-tied the line. More cutting of the notch. Re-tension and re-tie. More cutting. Much more pulling. Finally got the trunk to break towards my lawn and with a final push from me the trunk broke free and the tall tree landed right where I wanted it to. Everybody sing!

I survived the colonoscopy this afternoon. Actually, the whole thing went very well. The very worst part was the prior two days of very restrictive "eating" and drinking 37 gallons of Nulytely (liquid laxative stuff). Liquid should only come out of one main orifice in my opinion. The actual procedure was not painful, just weird, and I was very calm throughout the ordeal, which was great as doctors and hospital environments tend to make me very apprehensive. Doc says everything looks healthy and normal. Take a look inside for yourself. This makes me greatly relieved (no pun intended) in one sense but in the other it means I need more tests to find out the cause of the pain.

Remember how nervous you'd get before that big exam? How you'd get dry mouth and a queasy stomach? Yup, that's me. I've got to go in for a colonoscopy tomorrow and I'm a nervous person around doctors anyway... but add in a very restrictive diet (liquids only) along with some "liquid stomach plummr" and I'm feeling, well, kinda out of whack to be polite. And I'm just craving that left over fried rice sitting in the fridge! But this has to be done - I've had abdominal pain on and off for several months now and I'm tired of it affecting my life.
To my five readers: please don't post any horrible stories in the comments about nasty ailments or conditions - I don't need any help in that department. My imagination has been running rampant for some time.

Apple sold 1 million songs through AppleMusic last week, becoming the largest online music distributor. Amazing if you think about it: this is only Mac OS X users with the latest software. Not older Mac OS X users, no OS 9 users and only the North America market. No international users and, as of yet, no PC/Windows/Linux users. So Apple becomes the biggest digital music source using only a portion of their 5% market share... I think you can see where this has the potential to go. Apple stock is currently around $14-15/share.
By the way, for all the Apple doom-and-gloom watchers out there that claim Apple will disappear with only a 5% market share, do some research and find out how much market share BMW has of the automotive market, ok? Thanks. And for those of you who love your Wi-Fi (wireless) connections, let's remember how that came to be, eh?

"Baboons 'protesting' at the killing of one of their group have disrupted traffic on the busy Tororo-Jinja highway in eastern Uganda. This is the second time the animals have behaved in such a manner on the same road. The trouble began after a speeding lorry ran over a huge female baboon... According to eyewitnesses, the driver deliberately swerved across the road to hit the female who was eating white ants. Soon afterwards, an infuriated group of baboons converged at the scene of the killing and surrounded her body. They sat in the middle on the road for about 30 minutes causing a temporary traffic jam." [via BBC]