Jellied Moose Nose: April 2012

Saturday, April 28, 2012

A Man's Toilet (Warning- Lowbrow Subject Matter)

At around 33, I started noticing my feet were getting constantly injured while playing rugby. I always seemed to be hurting my big toes. One time when my right toe really hurt after JoJo stepped on it at Dave young's wedding with his size 14 feet I decided enough was enough, so off to the podiatrist. He xrayed my foot and asked how many times I had broken my toe. Uh, I didn't know I had. He showed me about a dozen small lines in the middle of the bone. Those are healed breaks. Great. But no new breaks, what gives?! He wasn't sure, probably just inflammation from getting stepped on. RICE. Rest Ice Compress Elevate. Good enough. But it kept happening. Then in a random twist of fate, after seeing an ortho for my knee that apparantly wasn't injured but hurt like hell and my ankle that wasn't injured but hurt like hell, my chiro friends masseuse say my foot and said the magic words, "that looks like gout." Her dad had been suffering with it for years. Gout. What's that?? Sure enough. I have it. Better still. After I finally figured out I have it all my relatives starting pointing out who else had it in the family, information I could have used years before, thanks. So I've been dealing with gout for a bit now, I turn 40 in June, so off an on for 7 years, a couple goutbreaks a year. Gouch!!! As I wrote not long ago, since moving to Cali it has gotten worse, so either my kidneys are shrivelling up or its a change in the weather/water/whatever. I decided to get on pills. Good idea dumbass. I hate big pharm and therefore the little pharm they produce, at least in prophylactic terms. Really is 5 years of studies enough for drugs, or 10 or even 20. Thousands of people die from pharm problems every year. Not this kid. I'll die from a good old fashioned heart attack like God intended, thank you very much. I'll skip the chance of liquified intestines or acute onset dementia. I might even be able to stave off cardiac issues for a few years with diet and exercise, right!! Areas I struggle with because I like the couch, naps and ice cream too much. Anyway, I bit the bullet and got on meds for Mr. Gouch, had to, quality of life was deteriorating fast. Pain sucks! So I went on Allipurinol, colcrys and indomethecin, which work amazing well at loosening the joints and eliminating the pain. But they do have side effects- loose caboose if you know what I mean.
All of that to get me to the story.
I started the drugs a short while ago and every so often it causes loose caboose as indicated, which sucks because things tend to come out in a bit of a... spray, making an unsightly mess in the bowl. Now lesser, low flush toilets don't clean themselves out very well, leaving the task incomplete. This requires a huge wad of TP, well aimed at the areas that remain and an additional flush. Sometimes even a wiping with the paper, which at best seems unsanitary and requires a double washing of the hands. Ick!!
Of course, a man's toilet solves the problem right away, no muss, no extra flush. I was wowed by just such a basin the other day. I had been in a meeting with the Garrison Commander after lunch for about 2 hours and things had time to...build to a crescendo. Between his office and my car was a mens room. Perfect. I darted in and chose the handicap option, I know, a faux pas generally, but when things aren't working perfect the extra leg room is definitely appreciated. I took my position on the throne and saw to this most executive of affairs. After finishing the all important paperwork, I rose, robed and proceeded to depress the manual actuator. Then something miraculous happened. A deep guttoral groin came from the wall and a woosh strong enough to create a vortex of air that messed up the part in my hair erupted from the toilet. A swirl of tsunamic proportions abraded the smooth porcelain clean of any effluence. I swear, the porcelain sparkled as if winking at me like in a television commercial for any of a handful of industrial strength cleaners. I literally jumped back as the mechanism finished with a shop vac strength suction, emptying the entire apparatus in one loud violent whirlpool of cleanliness. The basin quietly filled with sparkling clean water and came to rest as if the miracle had never occurred and I stood flabbergasted at it's efficiency.
All I can say is......I want one.

Friday, April 13, 2012

Limos for nothing and chicks for free

My friend Dave Young, who I played rugby with in SC, moved to Boston a few years ago. the new job he found up there has him traveling to military bases all over and this week he was in Vegas for some work at the Air Force base there, so i took a day off and we made a night of it. He was staying at the MGM so I rolled into town and parking in their free parking garage, how awesome is that. I parked right next to a fenced area that housed what I can only assume was one of the original deloreans from Back to the Future since this was MGM. We met up in the basement and headed up to his room for him to change and to catch up for a bit. after he changed we headed down to the casino and met a couple of his work mates. They had a big lunch so we decided to check out the craps table. Glad we did. We went on a pretty solid 2 hour winning streak. We walked away over a grand richer and ready to waste our new earning. I only accounted for about $150 of it but more than enough to make the night a bit more fun than my original budget would have allowed. We shot through New York New York and into an awaiting limo. I'm still not sure how that happened but we were off to the strip club, Spearmint Rhino. As soon as we walked in the door, we were mobbed by a gaggle of dancers. We literally had to beat them off with a stick. We found seats and enjoyed the show for a couple hours while imbibing in too many bourbon and ginger ales. I know, not the best idea for a gout sufferer but I took my meds, so didn't sweat it too much. We spent a few dollars more than intended and decided to head onto somewhere else. For some reason the idea of In and Out burger came up and we headed there for a double double. Unbeknownst to me, they have an off menu addition, the Animal. Which adds grilled onions and melted cheese to your burger and fries. My heart was happy I had missed the additions though. Afterwards, we hailed a cab back to the MGM for another round of craps, losing what remained of my cash then off to bed. It was a fun night. The next morning was breakfast at the MGM buffet, which my poor belly needed after the drinks and late night burger. Dave had a noon flight, so we parted ways around 10am and I drove up the strip admiring casinos. I made my way to Red Rocks Running to do some less than fruitful show shopping then on to Bass Pro shops, which also is connected to a casino. Gotta love Las Vegas, it never fails to try to separate you from your hard earned money. i didn't see anything i couldn't live without and made the 2 hour drive home. I decided to take a nap and ended up sleeping almost 14 hours straight before getting up to go to work this morning. I guess I needed it, I'm almost not 30 anymore. Probably the coolest thing during the night was the Saudi dude that dropped $2500 on the table in cash and blew it in like 2 or 3 crazy bets. Ah, money burning a hole in his pocket.

MGM lion in the entryway.

Roads. We don't need roads where we're going.

If you're ever in the area, give me a ring and i'll come join you for some craps and a show, there are lots of Cirque du Soleil shows in town.

Underwater Easter Egg

The Saturday before Easter we offered an underwater Easter egg hunt. Normally when I say that people have this confused look on their face but basically it was an easter egg hunt with some eggs that floated and some that sank each with prizes of candy or trinkets inside. The bunny made an appearance and we had around 200 families show up to splash about for a few hours.

egg coloring for the wee ones.

baby bounce house

kids are getting bigger

and bigger

bunny

Mmmmm hossenfeffer

the biggest kids were throwin bows to get to the golden eggs.

I never saw a goose though.

It was a fun event for all.

6th Annual Tour de Irwin

Fort Irwin Outdoor Recreation hosts a 41 miles bike race. It goes from Outdoor Recreation to 2 NASA sites in the area, the Apollo and Mars stations. It's uphill most of the way going and downhill coming back. Winners of the event tend to hover right around the 2 hour mark, this year was no different with a time of 2 hours and 4 minutes. Then the rider got a drink and turned around and did the course a second time, he's in training for an Ironman in May. His second time was just a bit off the pace of the first by only a few minutes.