A Haiku from the heart… err… stomach

Holiday feasting,

Taco Bell after midnight,

Bowels liquify.

Back to doing rahs-rahs with the porcelean cheerleading squad…

Holiday party marathon

Just wrapped up a very long and very fun couple of weeks that were jam-packed with holiday parties. Last night was the St. Joe’s Hospital party. It was held at a local night club, closed to the public, and open only to the folks in the ER at Joe’s and the rest of us crazy emergency services folks. It was a blast. One of the fun pictures from the night:

On the right is my friend and paramedic compatriate, Tatiana. On the left, and particularly noteworthy, is Marie.

Thought y’all would enjoy that.

mouse tally – 5

Got a fifth mouse. The cat that seems to enjoying free room and board in my garage is not doing a good job of population control.

Ding! Take me out, I’m done!

Whew. I consider it to be a pretty major accomplishment to have survived last week’s aikido classes, and then this weekend’s kenshu classes (separated by the HVA Christmas party), working an 18-hour at South Lyon, and then my Kyu test last night. And by surviving, I mean without any major lasting physical or emotional trauma. So today is decompression day…. or more like falling-asleep-at-the-desk day. I feel pretty good about the test. I know that I made mistakes and there are many things that should have been better, but the training and preparation period leading up to the test was rewarding and a good growing experience for me. Also, after the test, many of the other students at the UofM club who are my juniors commented on how much they enjoyed watching the test and they were impressed by it. So whatever the outcome of the test, it was a postive experience for me, and a positive experience for the other students, so I’ll consider it a success.

zap! zzzt! fffft! thbbt!

Once upon a time, I spent my weekends relaxing, watching cartoons and playing with Lincoln Logs. Oh that was a long time ago.

Okay, so I never really spent all of my day watching cartoons (thank you, thank you, thank you, Mom and Dad… seriously.) And Lincoln Logs were more oft used as swords or balloon-beating/chasing implements. [whack! thud. ow.]

But this last weekend was… well… it was… full.

I sort of miss the relaxing weekends with no worries, no obligations, and no breakfalls. But on the other hand, I can sit and watch cartoons and play with Lincoln Logs when I’m 90. And hopefully, I’ll remember my lesson… ne’er the twain shall meet.

Oh, I thought this was sort of amusing: Big Room. I always refered to it as that big monitor with the 600million-to-1 contrast ratio… and a high enough refresh rate that it doesn’t make my eyes go screwy.

Master and Gladiator

Saw “Master and Commander: Far Side of the World” on sunday with Matt. I’m not sure why it’s been reviewed so highly. It was a fun movie, and I didn’t feel like I wasted money to go see it, but I nearly fell asleep a few times and was not entertained or challenged by the surprise plot twists that were so plainly foreshadowed. All that I really found interesting was the historical context. Anyhow, I totally disagree with the reviews. This should have been a rental… albeit a rental dvd played on a large tv with a good dolby digital sound system.

Adding to the fleet

Finally got the title transferred (is that one ‘r’, or two?), insurance started, new plate and registration secured (not in that order) on the ‘92 F-150 that I bought last friday. So today I took it out on the road for the drive that wasn’t just a few miles down the road. I was surprised that it handled much better than I expected. The stick on the floor is nice, as is the overdrive, which lets it chug happily along at 75mph at just under 2000rpm. Still getting used to the clutch though, but I guess that’s the case with any different manual trans car than the one you drive every day. So in all, I’m very happy with the purchase, but with 157k miles on the vehicle, I probably won’t be driving it very far on a regular basis.