My tombstone will read "I died from eating a balanced diet"

It has been an interesting week so far to say the least.  After meeting with the nutritionist for the first time, there were a number of areas identified that could be improved upon, one of them being the daily amounts of fruits and vegetables to be consumed.  Essentially, I needed to increase it from 0 cups a day to 2 cups of fruit and 2 and a half cups of vegetables because apparently cherry Pop-Tarts aren't considered fruit. 

Now I am a medical oddity, but not in the obvious sense regarding my brain function. I have discovered after about 4 years that include numerous trips to the hospital, several diagnostic scans and even exploratory surgery, my system does not digest roughage very well.  This includes eating large dinner salads, carrot sticks, celery, apples and I would imagine most species of trees.  I have tested negative for all of the obvious disorders and internists, gastroenterologists and a colon-rectal surgeon have no explanation for why this continues to be a problem.  I have had success in the past with small amounts of these foods, so I thought I would take a chance on Sunday and eat 6 baby carrots with some bread as a buffer.  Well, that did me in. 

I drove myself to the ER (I'm used to the ordeal by now and I can maneuver a car while in the fetal position) and they sent me home because I wasn't screaming loudly enough in pain at the time because apparently I need to be more liberal with my use of the pain scale.  So, I drive myself back home, get through the night and spend most of Monday in pain until I finally talk to my gastro doc and he tells me to go back to hospital and have the ER doc call him on his cell phone. Long story short, I am admitted to  for observation after a CT scan reveals a partial bowel obstruction.  One of the fun experiences I had this hospital visit was the privilege of having a nasogastric tube inserted which is the equivalent of having your transmission fluid drained through your nose. I got a shot of morphine before this was administered, but 2 minutes isn't quite long enough for it to kick in sufficiently.  After about 19 hours I get to go home and I am right back to where I started. 

So, the new eating plan isn't going as smoothly as I had envisioned and I'm not sure my life insurance will cover me for incidents involving a healthy lifestyle. Nonetheless, I am determined not to be defeated by the carrot stick and I will push onward and upward.  But first, I think I'm going to go drown my sorrow in a can of Redi-Whip.

I eat, therefore I am.

Food, I likes me some food.  I have never been particularly disciplined when it comes to my eating habits so usually if I saw something that I would like, I would eat it.  This means that I am a big guy.  I make wide right turns, I always calculate in my head the total weight of people in an elevator and look at the sign on the wall to see if I am endangering these folks.  And if you saw me in your rear-view mirror I would most definitely be larger than I appeared.

I've also noticed that as the years behind me are greater than the years before me and my body does not respond as well to trauma and shock that it once did.  I can walk down the street and oops, my leg falls off.  Or, I wake up with a stiff neck.  And most recently, I woke up one day and I noticed my left knee and hip were really bothering me.  What brought this pain on?  Sleep, yes sleep is now against me because I really don't remember being attacked by a team of ninjas and fighting them off at 2 am.

You take these two things together, and that means you have to start doing something differently. So, my wife and I are going to go see a nutritionist.  Part of this entails documenting for 4 days everything I eat to show the nutritionist. I know that the purpose of this is to determine what parts of my diet that I need to change, but part of me wants to have a little bit of fun with this.

Day 1

7 am: One peeled orange, where I ate the peel and threw the rest away.

8 am: 1 cup of coffee, with a half a teaspoon of cream and 14 teaspoons of sugar.

12pm: Lunch consisted two slices of wheat bread with 1 oz of White-Out spread on and something I found in a Tupperware container in the back of refrigerator, origins unknown.

3pm: snack - I intended to eat an apple, but just then I walked by a little girl selling girl scout cookies so I ate two boxes of thin mints.

6pm: Dinner consisted of 6 oz of grilled salmon with a light dressing of one can of cheez-whiz topped with crushed Oreos.

This probably isn't the best course of action to take.  One of my concerns is I will hear "Well for lunch, you can have 2 rice cakes and pretend your spreading something delicious on them and then make sure to drink 18 oz of diet caffeine-free room temperature tap water.  Make sure you don't put ice in it, those are just empty calories. Everything changes, and this includes my diet. But at night, I can still dream of the deep-fried Twinkies and Oreos I ate that one time, and then wake-up with a mouthful of pillow feathers.

This thing tastes funny!

So, I bet right now you're thinking to yourself, "Will this guy ever shut up?" Yep, I'm pretty much just blurting out what's on my mind.  Also, this blog doesn't yet look the way I want it to, and that's partly because I don't like to read directions.  I don't.  I will buy a DVD player, pull it out of the box, hook up a bunch of wires to the plugs on the back of the devices with all those nondescript acronyms, and then if it doesn't work after I sit there pushing buttons for 10 minutes, I will then open up the directions.  I will buy a car, start driving it down the road and will wait at traffic lights and quickly read the owners manual to try and figure out how to set the clock or turn off the windshield wipers.  That's just how I am.

So, I haven't figure out yet how to add all the little buttons, and doohickeys to the sides of this thing and I don't yet know how to make the background all sparkly and filled with puppies and rainbows.  And just maybe, someday I might set-up an e-store where you can buy drink coasters with my face on them.  But, this blob will change and evolve and probably look a little better over time.  Now, does anyone have any puppies I can superglue to this page?

I love music and unique artistry, this guy is very cool!

Shopping Malls: The next Weapons of Mass Destruction

As life the U.S. becomes more regulated and restricted everyday, I've noticed there is one common location where there seems to be absolutely no oversight or concern for the well-being of the average American consumer. The shopping mall. I was in the mall this evening and it amazed me that everywhere I looked, there were things going on that would normally cause 50 agents from the Department of Homeland Security to swarm the joint in 10 seconds if it was anywhere else. If this sounds crazy, consider the following:

- In any department store, there are cosmeticians wearing white lab coats.  Why? Are they putting eyeliner on one customer then the next minute they're testing the white powder in the envelope for anthrax?

-There are 3 dental chairs right next to Auntie Anne's Pretzels where at any given time, a dental hygienist is performing teeth whitening procedures.  RIGHT NEXT TO THE PRETZEL SHOP! People should not have any type of dental or cosmetic work performed 10 feet away from a food kiosk in a mall!

- You will always find a common area or children's play area that weary parents let their children loose in for about 25 minutes that turns into an unsupervised UFC steel-cage match.  This is known as a "character-building" opportunity for these kids.

- You will be assaulted by no less than 17 kiosk employees trying to smear age-defying cream on you, strap a fake pony-tail to your head, make you wear sheep-skin boots that are hideous, or stab you in the head with a "massaging rake." Many of these encounters could be the subject of some sort of Law & Order" episode.

I am afraid for our future and the future of the children of this country.  But the next time I do need to go to the mall, I'm going to make sure the Revlon lady at Macy's tests my Cinnabon for Avian Flu.

What did I just step in?

Okay, first things first.  This isn't a blog.  Most blogs have a particular theme, or an underlying goal that is trying to be accomplished.  They are clear, structured, and usually consistent.  This definitely ain't that! This is a blob.  No clear form or structure, at times unrecognizable, and just a big pile of "What the heck is that?" This is a blob.

Secondly,  I really don't know what I'm doing here. Not at all. This is going to be a bit of a creative outlet for me.  Well, it will at least me an outlet.  It will be away that I share some of the things that I find amusing or something that just popped into my mind like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. And I may be the only one amused by it, I don't know.  I may write something, post a funny video, picture, or whatever happens to catch my interest or imagination. And occasionally, you may see something more serious blobbed.  But mostly, it's about the weirdness that is me.  So there you have it, see I told you this wouldn't make a whole lot of sense!