campfire anthems

the past three nights i have been awakened several times from a reoccurring nightmare. i know this is probably going to sound silly, but, i think i really messed myself up on monday night, and i’m not just talking about the knife fight. each night, i have been reliving my incident. they are pretty graphic dreams too, like cutting off fingers and such. the first night, i even ran into timm in the emergency room. he was there because he accidentally stuck a knife in his forehead. we ended up getting stitches together. other times, however, my nightmares don’t turn out so friendly…like knives that come alive, animate themselves, and then attack me. i hope this stops soon because i am really tired today. i just want to sleep through the whole night. and i really don’t want to dream about timm anymore (i bet travis is jealous) because thats just weird. i wonder what this all means…

my lovely wife follows carlos whittaker’s blog. yesterday, he had a post about tattoos and that he wanted people to send him pictures of their tats and he would post them on his site. so of course, i had to jump on the bandwagon and send one over of the st. michael half sleeve tattoo i have been working on since september. maybe i’ll get some good feedback.

Attention. This just in. I had to take a 15 minute pause from writing this post in order to do a break out session with my realtor who just showed up at my office. apparently an offer we made on a house about 3 weeks ago is looking pretty good. the listing agent is taking 4 or 5 offers to the lender/seller to research credentials and see who they are going to sell the property to. pretty exciting stuff. pretty scary stuff. if we end up moving in, i’ll be calling you to help with landscaping. its a little rough right now. hopefully we can walk through it again soon so i can get some pictures to post.

you ever have one of those days? like from office space (great movie), i think i’m having a case of the mondays…except its now thursday. sometimes i feel like i deal with idiots all day long. not the people in my office that i work with, they are great, but the ones from other companies that i communicate with via phone and email. honestly, how hard is it to do simple math. for instance, did you know that 3 x 4 is 12? well someone didn’t and it made me mad.

if these people, that are charging you money based on the size of the ad run, can’t even do the math right, and then argue with you when you correct their mistakes, maybe what they should really be asking is “do you want fries with that?”

i just got back from the hospital.  they said that my stitches look good and i was healing good without infection but…

…there’s always a but.  the doctor is concerned by the lack and dexterity in my ring finger.  they told me i need to start doing some physical therapy on my own at home, stretching, and other exercises to help get my finger working again.  the concern that they expressed is because they said i cut through some nerve endings, and based on the extent of the damage, these endings can grow back quickly or not at all.  the nurse told me “its in god’s hands,” which are retty good hands to be in.  i guess worst case scenario is i sell all my guitars, replace them with left handed models and teach my muscles to play lefty from now on.  if it comes down to it i’ll definitely be up to the challenge.

so i get to go back to lrmc emergency room slow fast track today. they are going to unwrap my bandaging, clean my wounds and then wrap me back up. if i may, let me offer you some life advice. never impale your finger with a knife. for that matter, never impale it with any foreign object. the recovery thus far hasn’t been fun. i’m still battling the stiffness and hope that i can bend my fingers once i’m completely healed.

i bet they are going to wash me out with that burning iodine solution again. i can hardly wait. the best part about this is the random people making fun of me. like this guy from my church who shall be left unnamed. even the the major power outtages throughout florida, which is something his company probably should have been dealing with, didn’t stop him to make the time to call me and cleverly mock my “boy scouting” skills. and steve, stole my picture and edited it into a pink bunny. the laughs just keep coming. but i admit, my accident does deserve a good chuckle.

if you really want something to laugh about you should take a look at this.

i want kids like this one day. simply awesome!

i’m a bone head. last night when i got off of work i was suppose to meet a friend at my apartment to help him load up my old entertainment center (we got a new one) and take it to his place. the day was going swimmingly. i got home, dinner was prepared (and delicious), there was a young child to play with (emily picked up boone’s daughter for school since he had to go get a truck for the entertainment center)…everything was just good. once boone made it over, our friends kyle and emily came over so that kyle could help us move this massive unit. after much trial and error we finally made it out the door and down the stairs. this is where it gets good. boone wants to tie up the furniture in the truck bed, which is a very good idea considering the size and shape of the piece. there is a zip tie around the bungee cords so i pull out my handy pocket knife. as i began to slice through the plastic the blade gets stuck, and when it finally cuts through it also slide into two of my fingers. perfect! bloodied and queasy i rush to the emergency room.

i arrive. did i mention that it was a full moon last night, and all the crazies were out? well they weren’t really out, they were all just in the e.r. because of the severity of the wound, and the fact that i was actively bleeding through the home made bandage, i thought i’d be in and out in no time. i was wrong. after an hour in the emergency room waiting area, i was looked at and checking into fast track, which is a very misleading name. once checked in there i sat down and watched as this beautiful blond bombshell disgusting woman wearing see though pink velour pants walked out of one of the doctor’s rooms. apparently she felt that the entire world should see her underwear. this sighting, on top of the loss of blood almost made me lose it, but my wonderful bride lovingly had gotten me a dr. pepper, which helped calm my stomach.

after another hour in that waiting room i was finally taken into the coveted treatment room. a male nurse came in to assess the situation. he took of my bandage and thats when i noticed something terribly wrong. due the amount of bleeding i did in my kitchen sink, i thought that i cut the tops of the two fingers. wrong. i could now see that the knife blade entered one side of my middle finger, out the other and then into my ring finger. obviously a little concerned, the nurse ordered some x-rays to check for tendon damage, which was not something i was wanting to hear.

x-ray is taken, mainly just me waiting, a lot, dog bite girl, another nurse looking at my finger, more waiting, family guy on the television. ::fast forward:: i’m sitting in the suture room when my doctor comes in to fix me up. he tells me he is going to numb my hand with some sort of solution (novocaine on steroids) with an over sized needle. at this point i just want to get this all over with and go home. he slides the needle into the airy spaces between all my fingers and pumps the fluid in. i can feel my skin bubbling up with the fluid, since it needed space to fill before it made its way into my fingers. once this stuff actually took affect i felt pretty good. no pain, just tingly, like if you sat on your hand for about 3 hours. he stitched me up, more waiting, and finally left at midnight.

i have to go back tomorrow to get my bandage off, a good cleaning, check the stitches and get a new bandage. i was told that i can’t get that hand wet for 5 days and that i won’t be able to use it for 12-14 days. then, after i’m healed (12-14 days later) i can return to the hospital once again to get the suture taken out. until then, no guitar, no xbox, no left pants pocket, no fun.

it took me so long to type this all out, i’m just going to quit and wave goodbye now.

so this is what i was confronted by the last time i did laundry. there it was - this giant, ambiguous sign hanging on the tastefully painted orange wall. ::end sarcasm:: what does this sign even mean? should it say “may be slippery when we,” or is it sheepishly telling me “maybe slippery when wet” - like a confused student answering a trigonometry question in front of the class (shrugging afterwards).

this leads me to my next rant. i was driving along yesterday when this massive truck pulls up next to me at a red light. you know, the kind that looks like it could run over smalls buildings. anyways, i’m not going to go into how unnecessary vehicles like this are, rather, the lovely writing on his back window. i can’t quote it verbatim, but it said something like this, “if its too loud your too close.” ok, fair enough. he wants you to stay away from his vehicle’s personal space. the key word in his message is “your.” since when can proximity take ownership on anything? beats me. have you seen anything like this lately?

today’s devotion verses were nehemiah 5:6-11.  it talks about the burden that god sets on his people and how we overcome it/what we are to do about it.  as much as i would like to discuss this devotion with you today i feel like i am not suppose to.  its a pretty personal/private thing so i hope you understand.  if you really want to know go out and get “solo” and start doing some of these things with me.