drop a line

My good friend Shaela, who was my neighbor across the parking lot in Rexburg, blogs HERE. She is truly an artist with paper. Her scrapbooking pages, and scrapbook-y stuff, are absolutely beautiful and I'm always inspired to do more when I see her creations. She's doing a fabulous giveaway. Hurry, you only have until Monday to enter.

Dang that Jimmy Dean

So, on Wednesday I took a Jimmy Dean sausage/egg breakfast thing out of the freezer and took it to work with me for breakfast. For some reason I didn't eat it that day but I did let it sit out on the counter for an hour or so to defrost before putting it in the fridge. Then, on Friday I was hungry enough to finally eat it. I thought for about 2.4 seconds about how it had been left out and then placed in the fridge instead of frozen as it was meant to be but figured it would be fine. It tasted ok.

About noon on Friday I felt a little rumbly in the tumbly if you know what I mean and figured I hadn't thought it through well enough during those 2.4 seconds of consideration. I came home from work at about 6:00pm still cursing that Jimmy Dean. At about 7:00pm I realized the pain was all coming from the lower right side of my abdomen. I couldn't get comfortable in any position. Thoughts of the bill kept me out of the ER until 10:00pm when I decided I didn't care if I payed $300 to get rid of the gas pain I felt. It took a while. Finally at about 1:00am I got morphine (they decided I needed my appendix out. it wasn't the sausage after all). Morphine was my friend.

Then it all seemed to go by pretty quick. I fell asleep and the surgical team all got there at 6:30am, I went into surgery just after that time. I walked around the hospital enough on Saturday that they let me go home that night.

It really stinks being at home but not being able to do very much now. I can't lift more than 15 pounds for the next month. I can't even lift up Ana and Jack is almost 15 pounds as well. But I have progressed enough that I am comfortable enough to sit at the computer for a few minutes.

So, there is my latest story.

And I have done the prize drawing as well. In honor of my recent hospital stay I put all the names into my free mug they gave me and Ana drew the lucky winner. It was...





Terri !!!!!!!


I will put the CD in the mail by next Monday.

Peru day 2-3 to come shortly with more pictures. Really. I know you are doubting me on that but what else am I going to be doing? Really.

100 on 8-8-8

I recently returned home from Peru - well it was almost two weeks ago now. Either way I plan on doing one post for each day I was there with a couple pictures and specifics on what happened that day. To kick it all off I made a quick little mix entitled "Dave --> Peru" to give away. It takes you with me through my trip to Peru and back home. Yep, this is my very first giveaway and I am doing it because this is my 100th post!! You have until Sunday, August 17th at 5:00PM MST to leave a comment on this post to be entered in the drawing. The winner will receive a one of a kind CD complete with artwork which will probably look like this:



I only work with the best high tech programs like Microsoft paint. That is definitely not the final version but it will be something similar.

The following is the tracklist to the mix with a little something about each song:

*Holiday - Weezer, Blue Album
This song is mostly about me being excited and planning to go away for a while. I like every song from the blue album - there aren't a ton of CD's I can say that about.

*Long Line of Cars - Cake, Comfort Eagle
Traffic wasn't really that bad on the way to SLC. Mostly I really saw long lines of cars in Lima during rush hour on Friday night. It was pretty bad. Anyway, who doesn't like Cake right?

*Long Time Sunshine - Rivers Cuomo, Alone
This song mentions travel in some way a time or two. Also, I remember at one point on the flight from Atlanta to Peru it showed a map of the world up on the TV screens. It was a map showing the line between sunshine and darkness and it was in kind of a big S shape with the southern hemisphere showing more darkness being in winter and all. Anyway, I just remember looking at the screen just as we were crossing the line into the shadow and thinking about how much I enjoy the longer days of summer. That's all.

*Michael and Heather at the Baggage Claim - Fountains of Wayne, Traffic and Weather
It took a LONG time for my one piece of checked luggage to show up at the airport in Lima. I was not really to the point of being worried, just thoroughly annoyed. Either way, this was when I got to know better the first person I met who was coming down as part of our group. We were the only two from our group on that specific flight. This song was as close as I could get, there wasn't one called "Dave and Kristine at the Baggage Claim."

*Half the World Away - Oasis, The Masterplan
The two large cities in South America that I have visited do have a distinctive smell, something said in this song, but I wouldn't really say it stunk. Mostly it was kind of weird to think that my head was now pointing in a very different direction than everyone in Idaho after a day of flying in an airplane. It was surprising to me to see some of the differences between Santiago and Lima. Mostly, Lima seemed a lot more poor than I had thought it would be. I expected it to be more like Santiago. I think The Masterplan is my favorite Oasis album. I like when Noel sings instead of Liam. Is that bad? No, it isn't.

*Hold on Hope - Guided by Voices, Do the Collapse
Even though the great majority of my time in Lima was spent working, this is the only song for that part of the trip. Nothing specific from the song, just the basic feeling for all the things I saw. The area we worked in was called Huaycán, it was really poor but most of the kids we saw there were really healthy.

*Midnight Moon - Smoking Popes, Born to Quit
I am not quite sure how well the last song transitions into this one but that's ok. It kind of goes with why I have this song on here anyway. Every night I would be really tired from walking and working all day but I still had a hard time making myself get ready for bed and going to sleep. It was definitely the hardest part of being away from Erin for a week and a half.

*Waiting - The Rentals, Return of the Rentals
This song is actually for what Erin was up to while I was gone. There is a bit more energy because she was having a great time at her parents' house seeing her brother she hadn't seen for more than a year.

*Seatbacks and Tray Tables - Fountains of Wayne, Traffic and Weather
Yeah, I know, two songs from the same band AND the same CD on one mix. I couldn't help it, their last CD had a bunch of travel type themes. Just look at the title. Anyway, my iPod was dead but I found myself thinking of this song pretty much every time someone on the plane said this. FOW gets in touch with their... folky/country? side every once in a while and I like it in this song.

*Tongue Tied - Eve 6, Eve 6 (Black Fly album)
I don't hardly ever listen to this anymore but it was the best thing I had to go with the airport in Atlanta on the way home - 1000 faces... There were just so many people there and I didn't love the employees either. They said a couple things to me at immigration and later in the airport that I just didn't appreciate too much. Also, when I was in Atlanta on my way to Chile in 2002 I SWEAR one of the trash cans talked to me. Really - it wasn't a homeless guy hiding inside, I checked. Actually all it said was something like, "Be careful trash will be compacting now." I have mentioned this to a few people since it happened but I think this will be the last place I ever speak of it unless someone can back me up on the fact that it happens sometimes there. Maybe they got new trash cans or maybe I am crazy but I didn't get to hear anything like that this time.

*Landed - Ben Folds, Songs for Silverman
I love the piano in this song. It would be so cool to be able to play it. Other than that, I really like the song and it talks about a plane landing. My plane landed.

*See You - Foo Fighters, The Colour and the Shape
I like this song a lot too and it talks about how happy I was to be back with Erin, Ana and Jack.

So, there it is. Good luck to all, don't forget to comment even if it's your first time and you are a little scared...