Does this make me weak?

Hey, look who it is. It's my custom joystick. But wait, what's he sitting on?



It's an Amazon box! What is he hiding from me? Better open it up and find out!



Hmm, kinda hard to tell. I kind of feel like I'm looking at...



What the WHAT!?! That's right! =D



Enough with the suspicious stares! Enough already! I caved, alright! I'm weak!

But what's to come of the custom joystick? Well, unfortunately, it doesn't work very well. And at this point, it's not really worth fixing. I think what I plan to do is save up my money again, buy another joystick (the Hori Real Arcade Pro EX), and replace all of its buttons with the Sanwa buttons that I already own. That seems like the best plan so far.

Sorry custom joystick. You were fun to build, but the number of things I did wrong are not worth trying to fix. Maybe next time.

James Horner, you tricky bastard.

You thought you could put a fast one past me, but no sir! You've been caught!

Wife and I decided to watch an old classic tonight; Willow. Ah the good childhood memories. Well pretty soon after we started, I hear this quick trumpet line in the background. And then I hear it again. And again! It was driving me mad because I knew it was a very dominant sound from another movie.

BUT WHAT MOVIE?

I wracked my brain and scoured the web. I then turned to my DVD collection and started scanning. And there it was. I new it the second I saw it. Enemy at the Gates!

James Horner, you're busted! Thanks for making it impossible to enjoy Willow now without thinking about Russian snipers.

Are you serious?

Typical! That's the only word to describe it. This is the story of my life. Less than ten days after I finish building my own joystick, what happens? That's right, the MadCatz joysticks are now back in stock and ready to be shipped out to all who want one. Dang it!

So now I'm torn. Yes my joystick works, but it lacks quality and functionality compared to those made by, well, any retail manufacturer. I can now completely appreciate the $150 price tag on the Tournament Edition FightStick as I know the parts alone will run you over $100. And the retail sticks will last, which is very important.

I don't know. I just don't know. I'll hold off for now and live with what I've got. I'm just afraid this may be my last chance to snag one of those Tournament Edition joysticks.

Ugh, the choices life presents us.

Good ol' Chicago Ave

There seems to be a new, reoccurring theme in my life: my daily walk to Subway on Chicago Ave. It may sound simple enough, but that street is ghetto and full of surprises. For example, just the other day we found a lone pair of dentures sitting on a trashcan, waiting for their owner to return. And today, we saw a car getting towed that had been obliterated by someone who felt it necessary to sideswipe it and drive away. Or how about the crazy woman a few weeks ago who got so excited when she saw my coworker's retractable badge clip, asking with glee if it was a whistle or maybe even a loudspeaker!

Now that my joystick project has come to an end, this will make for a new, good theme as I continue my adventure in MN. Keep your eyes peeled for more craziness from Chicago Ave. I'll see you soon.

Here it is!

Here are those pictures that I promised. I ended up taking quite a bit less than I had originally planned, but you'll get the basic idea for how this project progressed. Enjoy!

It's finished!!

Oh my God, I'm finally finished with the joystick. And guess what? It actually works!! Who-da-thunk-it?!

I'll post some pictures of the finished product soon. It looks good on the outside, but being able to see the wires on the inside, as well as how I chose to lay it out, does not look so good after all. If I ever decide to make another joystick, the design I chose this time will be the last on my list.

Live and learn, right? =)

Progress Report

It's been a while since I mentioned anything regarding the joystick project, so I thought I'd do that now. It's coming along. The box (case) is assembled, the polycarbonate has been drilled and the Sanwa parts are all in place. The case didn't line up as well as I had hoped, but it's not that noticeable with it all painted black.

The soldering of the arcade parts to the Xbox 360 controller's PCB is an entirely different story. Talk about having zero luck. The solder never sticks; never, ever, ever! I even resulted to only hot gluing the wires in place, and while it works, it's not reliable and the wires still pop off.

What makes matters even worse is that the controller that I bought had the old PCB in it. Why is that bad? There's about 8 common grounds. What does this mean? I have to solder (or hot glue) quite a few more wires to the circuit board. I also had to damage my Sanwa joystick and solder extra wires to it in order to make it work with this PCB. Had I gotten one of the new PCB's, the entire board is wired to one common ground, which means you can daisy-chain all of the grounds and only have to solder one wire.

Bottomline is that I'm having a really hard time right now actually finishing this project. It's very frustrating spending about 12 hours in one day and not being any further along than when you started.

Why does 2009 suck so much?

Is this some kind of sick, f*cking joke? I mean, really, what the hell? 2009 has thus far built itself up to be the year where nothing seems to go right. What now you ask?

My Xbox 360 just red ringed!!!

First we lose almost all of our money because we moved to a new state and the economy went to sh*t. Then I get a kidney stone and now have $2500 in hospital bills to pay. Then our cat gets sick and we have to pay $450 to find out he'd be better off dead. Next came the realization that Wife had accumulated far more in school loans than we had expected and it's now time to start paying them off.

AND NOW THIS!!

Here I am, building a joystick for my 360, and the damn thing breaks before I even get to use it. CRAP!! This is ridiculous! Now I'm going to be without the 360 altogether for a few weeks while I sit and wait for Microsoft to fix it. We're already hurting for funds as it is, but I know they're going to make me pay to send it in. THIS SUCKS!!

AARRRGGG!!!

UPDATE -- I tried the famous "towel trick" on my 360 and while it appeared to work, that wasn't entirely the case. The console will now turn on and get into the dashboard, but it locks after about a minute. I'm just going to send it in. Oh, and it looks like I don't have to pay for shipping, so at least that's something.

Fuuuuuuuck!!

If you're unsure of which emotion I was going for with this post's title, it's that of frustration with a touch of anger. Allow me to elaborate.

A little over a week ago I received what I thought was my total bill from my unfortunate visit to the emergency room last month. I couldn't have been more wrong. This is going to sting and sting bad.

We just received another one of those pre-bills that promptly says in bold letters, "THIS IS NOT A BILL!" but does still tell you how much money you're about to lose in the coming days when the real bill arrives. I thought the $338 bill was bad, but this one is for $1,175! SHIT!!

It gets worse...

I then signed up for an account with my health care provider and low and behold there is not one, but two more bills sitting there! One "small" bill for $175 and another much larger bill for $860! CRAP!!

So for those out there who haven't been adding this up in their head, we still owe $2,210. And if these bills are at all like the last one, they'll want it paid in full ASAP.

There's just no way. =\

Prime, paint, drill, screw.

Progress on the joystick has been slow, but anything is better than nothing. I've primed and painted all of the wood, and I recently screwed the frame together. It looks alright, but if this was a project for wood shop, I'd probably earn a C- at best. It pretty much boils down to one piece of wood that got cut at a slight angle, causing about a 1/8" gap in the final product. It's not really a big deal but it is noticeable. If I ever make another joystick I'll be sure to use a table saw.

What's next? I'm still waiting for my joystick and buttons to arrive from Lizard Lick. They are still trying to catch up on old orders, so I won't start asking questions for at least another two weeks. Once the parts arrive I'll start drilling holes in my sheet of polycarbonate. I want to make sure the buttons are spaced far enough apart before I start drilling the rest of the holes. Once everything is in place I'll move on to soldering the arcade components to the Xbox 360 controller.

There's still quite a bit to do, but I'm getting there. It may look like ass when it's finished, but I'm confident it'll play well.

Sleep well, little Libra.

Yesterday will hopefully go down as the worst Mother's Day I'll ever have to endure. Libra, our 13 month old kitty, had to be put to sleep due to kidney failure.

We estimate he first got sick last Wednesday, the 6th, when he threw-up the new food that Grandma had purchased for the cats. It seemed like a simple rejection of the food (as it was the first day), so we made sure to pickup a bag of the food he was used to. All seemed pretty okay as he had no trouble eating at the next feeding time. By Friday he appeared almost back to normal until he began to vomit again in the evening.

More vomiting ensued over the next two days. You could tell he was getting weaker as he wasn't moving very much on his own. He seemed very uncomfortable and he would cry a little whenever we picked him up. I started to think back over the past few days, and I realized that not only had he probably not eaten since Thursday morning, but I couldn't remember the last time I saw him in the litter box. We started carrying him to his water bowl, then to the litter box, then back to the bed. It seemed to be the only way to get him around the house.

The crazy thing during all of this was how much he tried to uphold or maintain his regular personality. He was still trying to cuddle with us and he really didn't want to be left alone. By Sunday evening we were very concerned, but being as poor as we are, we were hesitant to take him to an emergency hospital. Upon vomiting one last time, we decided money or no money, Libra needed help.

From the outside, it was obvious to them and everyone else that he was weak, sad, and dehydrated. Other than that, internal tests would need to be run to determine his condition. Their initial estimate for all the test they wanted to do was a minimum of $900, maximum $930. Not much of a difference if you ask me. We said no and asked them to reanalyze what they think needs to be done. We decided to just start chipping away at the list of tests, trying to analyze his symptoms closer in order to determine which test or exam to do next. They decided to start with the leukemia test, and when that came back negative, I asked that they next move on to checking his urinary tract. I had noticed that his urine was a little foamy in the litter box, as well as the stream coming out of him was almost paper thin. He was definitely struggling.

Well, his urinary tract was perfectly fine, but they did notice that his urine was "very deluded" (whatever that meant). They next decided to check his kidneys, and that's when it all fell apart. Libra's kidneys were failing, and they said it was just about the worst case they had ever seen in such a young cat. We were told that the condition of his kidneys were that of a 16+ year old cat. They asked if we had any lilies in the house as they are extremely toxic for cats. We have before, but not for a few weeks and Libra wasn't ever the one to eat flowers. The bottom-line was that something toxic got into his system within the last five to six days and there really wasn't anything that could be done to save him. Rather than let him suffer, we made the decision to put him to sleep. What we thought was going to be a good 15+ years of joy turned into a mere 13 months. Wife held him as they injected the overdose of anesthesia, and we watched him slowly drift off. We were both in tears.

This morning we could tell that Taurus, his brother from the same litter, was starting to realize something wasn't right. He was meowing slightly different as though asking where Libra was. No matter where he looked, his search always came up short. There's one more older cat in the house, but we'll definitely get another kitten for Taurus once Wife and I find a place of our own. He's never been without another cat, so we'll try to always keep it that way.

For anyone unfamiliar with animal emergency costs, I'll break down for you what it cost us. And please believe me when I say that we would have spent more if it would have made a difference.

ER Visit: $110
Leukemia Check: $75
Urinary Tract Exam: $50
Kidney Exam: $55
Euthanize: $80
Cremation: $90

Yes, you read that right. It costs more to cremate an animal than it does to put them to sleep. What's even worse is that it's just a mass cremation where they do a bunch of animals all at once. We knew we didn't want to take him home and bury him ourselves, so cremation was ideal for us. We also didn't want the ashes, so that's why we went with the "less expensive" mass cremation. We should have gotten the estimate before agreeing to it, but at that point we were feeling so distraught that we just wanted to get out of there.

Was there a lesson learned? I'd say so. Whether or not it would have made a difference this time around, I'll never hesitate to take an animal to the vet ever again.

I'm sorry, Libra. Sleep well.

Feeling better? Then pay us!

Crap! Three weeks, really? That's all I get?!

A mere 22 days ago, I suffered through some serious back pain that landed me a few hours in a hospital bed. The result? A kidney stone.

And now they expect me to pay for it!

I figured I'd have a few months at minimum before they started knocking. Or hey, how about a monthly payment plan? Nope, they want their money now! I have to pay $340 by the 25th of May. The total bill without insurance would have been around $5,300. Luckily my insurance kicked in THE SAME DAY as the kidney stone fiasco.

*sigh* I guess I know where my state tax refund is going. =\

Handsaws = Stupid

Okay, so far I've had two "if I could go back and do it differently" moments when it comes to building this joystick.

1. Cutting/snapping the sheet of polycarbonate was dumb. It's not accurate at all, which ends up leaving an edge that is crooked enough to be noticeable. And you have to score it so much before it will even think about snapping that you might as well just cut through the whole thing with a circular saw. Which brings me to the second item on my list.

2. Handsaws are stupid. I don't know what I was thinking. Maybe it'll be a good thing to own one day in the future, but right now it feels like $15 down the drain. Had I known ahead of time that I could actually get a circular saw for only $40, I probably would have just spent the money. Luckily the in-laws have one.

So half of my wood is now potentially ruined, not to mention the polycarbonate isn't sitting well with me. While I did manage to get the base of the joystick cut with the handsaw, I think I'm going to start over tomorrow and just cut everything with the circular saw. This should help it all line up better when I actually start piecing it together. And if I decide that the polycarbonate isn't good enough, I'll probably special order a piece from OnlineMetals.com and just have them cut it for me. That or maybe switch to aluminum since the cost is about the same.

Live and learn I suppose.

I can almost stop spending!

I'm starting to feel almost sick to my stomach with how much this joystick is going to set me back. I have to keep reminding myself that had I already owned all of the tools, this project would have only cost around $100. But as a result of me not owning any tools whatsoever, it's going to cost around $325. That really sucks, but I still think it's going to be worth it. I have quite a few fighting games on the Xbox 360 that I don't play very often simply because it's no fun with the default controller. I hope this helps.

Today I purchased the actual joystick components. The total came to about $80, but I also ordered a few extra buttons just in case. Had I not, it probably would have been closer to $65. Here's what I bought:

- (1) Sanwa JLF-TP-8T Ball Handle Joystick (green)
- (9) Sanwa OBSF-30 Pushbuttons (green)
- (4) Sanwa OBSF-24 Pushbuttons (white)
- (2) Sanwa OBSM Series 30mm Hole Plugs
- (40) .110 solderless quick connects

All of this came from Lizard Lick Amusements. Thankfully they reopened their store today. Even with all of my planning, I didn't noticed that they weren't taking orders while they tried to catch up on past orders. I'm tellin' ya, Street Fighter IV has literally taken every possible niche in the fighting game community by storm.

It's crazy I tell ya!

The things I miss most.

I think I've been feeling a bit homesick as of late, so I thought I'd write out a list of all the things I miss most from California. Let's begin.

- Family (that's a given)
- Friends (another given)
- Breakfast Burritos from Del Taco
- Great Khan's
- Getting away with showing up to work at 10AM.
- Lunches with Fresh at Carl's Jr.
- My 2007 Honda Civic.
- Goldenspoon

I'm sure there's more, but that's what's showing up in my mind right now. It seems like mostly food, doesn't it?

Power Tools

Today marks the dawn of a new era in my life. That's right, I now own a power tool. A Ryobi drill to be exact. This actually came as part of a long list of items I decided I needed to purchase. Home Depot provided me with just about everything I was looking for and for once I didn't hate my experience there. I guess when you're actually excited about building something that store doesn't suck quite so much.

Building something I say?

That's right! And since you asked, I am building an arcade style joystick for the Xbox 360. Ever since Street Fighter IV came out it has been next to impossible to find any type of joystick; good or bad. They're all gone! Well, almost all gone. You can always pay a little extra and buy one from a seller on eBay, but why pay a little more for something I know I'm paying too much for when I can just pay a lot more for something that may not even work in the end? Exactly!

Anyway, the standard Xbox 360 controller is just about the worst controller you can find when it comes to playing fighting games. It has horrible precision, which makes executing most moves almost impossible. So I've had enough and I want a joystick. I've been researching like crazy this past week, learning everything I can about building joysticks. And let me tell you, the community is out there and the information is not hard to find. In no way will my joystick be as amazing as some of the ones posted over at the Joystick Vault, but for now I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that I can even get it to work.

Tools and materials. I'm just about ready to start building. Along with my drill, I purchased drill bits, two hole saws, screws, hinges, wood, Lexan (polycarbonate), a hand saw, sand paper, a soldering iron, solder (obviously), and a wire crimper. So far I've spent around $175 (yikes!), which is of course way more than if I had just bought an overpriced joystick on eBay. But the bulk of my purchase was tool related and those will come in handy as time goes by. Had I already owned most of the tools, this project would have been a bit more reasonable. Not to worry, I plan on making more than one joystick, so they'll only get less expensive as I go along.

What materials do I still need? Crafting-wise I still need wire, primer and spray paint. Then comes the actual joystick components. That will probably run around $100, which I'm not ecstatic about spending, but at this point there's really no turning back. I need to buy an Xbox 360 controller that I can take apart and use as the guts of the joystick. Then the most obvious components: buttons and the joystick. I'll probably also buy a bunch of "quick connects" which are extremely cheap and will minimize the amount of soldering that I'll need to do.

All in all, I'm thinking this is going to be pretty fun. I've never done such a crafty project, so I'm looking forward to it quite a bit. Stay tuned.

It was a two millimeter monster!

Today will hopefully go down as my worst day of 2009. In fact, I'd be fine with it being my worst day of 2010, 2011 and 2012. I'll just start from the beginning.

There I was, sleeping, dreaming, not even knowing what was about to come next. It was 2:15 in the AM and pain was right around the corner. PAIN I SAY! I can't remember exactly what I was dreaming about, but in this dream, my back really started to hurt. As I awoke, I came to find this unfortunate back pain had followed me from my dream world into reality. It initially felt as though I had been sleeping a bit awkward and perhaps had tweaked my back a tad. Little did I know how much a tweaked back would have been a blessing.

As I started to try and walk it off, I quickly realized just how much pain I'm actually in. It's not going away, I'm starting to feel a bit nauseous, and I had this ongoing urge to use the restroom (both 1 and 2). This went on for about an hour or so with nothing coming out of any end. No success at all. But the pain did get worse. Finally, oh finally, my body made it clear that it was time for something to go. Vomit, and lots of it. That was gross. So I then felt a little better having at least accomplished something, but my back was still in horrible pain and we decided I should probably head to the ER.

Oh, and let me try to explain the pain. It felt like the worst knot I have ever had in my back. It was very easy to distinguish where the pain was (lower right), but it felt so deep that massaging it did absolutely nothing. This was one of the reasons I hesitated so much with going to the ER because it seemed like a lot of effort for something I thought I might be able to just work through myself. Anyway, I was wrong so let's get back to the story.

The ER. Should I have Wife drive me to the hospital and then sit in the waiting room for hours in excruciating pain, possibly barfing all over the place? Or should we call 911, pay a chunk of change, and just have me delivered right into a patient room with a doctor ready and waiting? Seeing as how the pain kept getting worse, and I found myself neck-deep in the trashcan again, we opted for the ambulance.

When my flashing escort arrived, I hobbled outside and let myself in. The paramedic analyzed my situation as we drove to the hospital, and his initial assumption was simply that I had tweaked my back and would probably need some strong painkillers or muscle relaxers. Seeing as how I was perfectly fine before I went to bed, I was a little skeptical, but hopeful at the same time.

Upon arrival at the hospital and after about 30 seconds with the nurse, I was told it was most likely a KIDNEY STONE! Not what I wanted to hear!

Then came the drugs. Oh those sweet, I.V. injected drugs. They definitely helped, but didn't relieve the pain nearly as much as I had hoped. At least they made me feel all funny and relaxed, so that was nice. A few minutes later they took me to get a CAT scan. That was probably more relaxing than it should have been, but I think the drugs were really kicking in at that point. I was so close to falling asleep in that giant, radioactive ring. Oh well.

As we waited for the results, all I could do was keep buzzing in the nurse and asking for more water because mine mysteriously kept disappearing (Wife, I'm looking at you). That's fine, I was only able to take in about half a sip every couple of minutes because even that made me want to "vom" all over the room.

The results were in. I had a kidney stone. Luckily it was only 2mm in diameter, and anything less than 5mm is almost always passable with no assistance. Thank goodness. Prescriptions were then issued, clothes were put back on (yes, I was wearing an awesome hospital gown), and it was time to head home. I think it was around 6:30am at this point. I almost puked on the way to the car, but luckily I was able to hold it down.

It's good to be home. I'm drugged, still in pain, sore, achy, but ready to sleep. I succeeded in falling asleep and managed to stay down for a few hours.

I woke up around 10:00am and managed to drink some water. Quite a bit actually. This was the first time since this whole madness started that I was actually able to swallow anything without feeling the urge to ralph. As soon as the water got into my system, I knew it was already time to try and pass the stone. And that I did. I succeeded with little to no pain and managed to catch the little bastard in the dunce-cap strainer they gave me at the hospital. I couldn't believe something so small could cause so much pain.

So that's it, right? Nope!

Wife decided to go get some lunch for us around noon, so my plan was to keep sleeping until she got back. Around 12:30pm I woke up and quickly realized my head should be back in the trashcan as soon as possible.

*More barf...*

I couldn't quite put my finger on why I was still throwing up (no pun intended). My head was hurting, but I didn't think it was a migraine (the only other source of pain that has ever caused me to toss my cookies). I decided to take a shower and I felt miserable the entire time. The more I thought about it, the more I realized how much food my body was missing from all of that yacking. Not having food tends to be my number one reason for getting migraines. I got out of the shower and quickly buried my head in the toilet as it was time, yet again, to throw up. At this point there really wasn't much of anything coming out. Just a lot of loud noises echoing off the sides of the bowl.

By now Wife had gotten back with our lunch (and my various prescriptions), but I was feeling too horrible (again) to eat. I took one of my migraine pills and fell back asleep. I was up and down for the next few hours and finally managed to eat my "lunch" around 7:00pm. It made me feel a lot better, and also allowed me to take a Vicodin to help with the remaining pain. Oh boy did it help. That stuff is magical.

So here we are. It's the end of the day, I'm feeling almost back to normal and thinking I might actually be able to go to work tomorrow. I won't push my luck though. Oh, and how much do you think a kidney stone goes for on eBay these days? I figure that little A-hole set us back about $600 when you calculate in the cost of the ambulance, the ER visit, the CAT scan, a day (or two) of missed work, and prescription costs.

I should mount it in a ring or something because I might as well have peed out a diamond. What a freakin' waste.

Watchmen: The Review

Words can not describe that which is the Watchmen, but I'm going to try anyway. Here goes...

"Oh sweet, the tickets were only $5? Right on!"

Well then, I stand corrected.

Dr Slice reincarnated!

Who remembers Dr Slice? It was a soda/drink that was available back in the 90's. While it was basically a mixture of Dr Pepper and Slice, they for whatever reason also threw in a bit of cherry flavoring. In any case, this drink was awesome. It was one of my all-time favorites and I was even lucky enough to have it available on tap at the college I graduated from.

Then it went away. Then I was sad.

But no longer! Dr Pepper Cherry is here and it's the closest thing I've had in over ten years to drinking that sweet Dr Slice nectar. And to top it all off, Dr Pepper is already my favorite drink so this just made it all the better!

How 'bout them cherry doctor apples!

Let there be more bacon!

Tomorrow begins week two at the new bacon factory and I gotta say, I'm enjoying it. Obviously I survived my first day. In fact, week one was good, there was lots to learn, and it looks like we'll be pretty busy over the next four months.

This is actually a bacon contract, so I may be unemployed again come the end of June. Hopefully there will be room for me to stick around, but I'm not going to hold my breath. I'll keep looking for permanent bacon, and we'll see what happens.

Keep your bacon fingers crossed.

Let there be bacon!

I've decided to post now in case I don't make it through the day. Today I go back to work. Today I start my new job. Today the bacon starts cooking once again.

If I return safely, I'll tell you all about it.

Stay tuned...maybe.

Expensive, delicious water.

Here's an interesting tidbit I meant to write about some time ago.

Wife and I were at the grocery store, picking up groceries (as usual), when we entered the checkout line as it's always the final stop of our shopping adventures. It's pretty common now to see, along with the vast assortment of gum and candy, a small refrigerator with bottles (or cans) for sale of your favorite beverages.

So what, right?

Even in the great state of Minnesota, the land of lakes, I still haven't been able to get accustomed to drinking tap water. Don't ask me why, I don't know. It was gross in California, and it's still gross in Minnesota. The solution? Bottled water. Yes, I know there's such a thing as a Brita filter, but we have a fairly small fridge in the house that we're living in, so there's not really any room for a pitcher of water. So we buy bottled.

Aquafina to be exact. We pickup a few 24-packs of their 16.9 fluid ounce bottles. Total cost? Four dollars per case. That comes out to about 17 cents per bottle (or 1 cent per fluid ounce). Great, right? So what's the big deal? Let's go back to that refrigerator in the checkout aisle.

If you want to buy one bottle of Aquafina, it's going to cost you $1.50! Yes, you read that completely right. They open a case of water, place them individually in this refrigerator, and now the price has magically gone up almost ten fold. I can buy three bottles of cold water for MORE than it costs me to buy 24 bottles of warm water!

RIDICULOUS, I SAY!!

The end. =)

My Savior!

Back when we lived in the land of dirt and wind, they had these places known as "fast-food" restaurants. They were so very convenient, and in fact almost a little too convenient as it sure increased the Fat population. But I learned to live on this "fast-food", as did my uber-fast metabolism.

Fast forward a few months.

The fast-food scene is scarce out here in the land of snow. There are a few places scattered here and there, but nothing feels as convenient as I've grown accustomed to. What they do have an abundance of out here are Dairy Queens. Those seem to be everywhere. Thankfully, they now serve all sorts of food instead of the olden days of simply being an ice cream joint.

Behold the FLAMETHROWER!

Do you hear the angels singing? This little number will single-handedly save me whenever I find myself showing signs of hunger. It took me two months to find, but by golly I found it!

Thank you, DQ. Thank you.

Drugs are bad, mmkay?

This is what we are always told. But I'm not only talking about the ones you get on the street, because those damn prescriptions will get you, too! Even if the drug is doing you a world of good, unless your medical insurance kicks ass, you're gonna get your ass kicked.

Back in the day when I was still employed in California, I was a life-long member of Kaiser Permanente. I bitched and moaned whenever their rates or co-pays would go up, but all in all I figured I was getting a pretty sweet deal. Now I understand just how sweet that deal really was.

Exhibit A - A two-month supply of Prozac from Kaiser. I suffer from minor depression from time to time, but I mostly take it to deal with anxiety. Total cost? Ten dollars.

Exhibit B - A one-month supply of Prozac from Medco. I was ecstatic when I found out my prescription from Kaiser was still valid and I wouldn't need to see a new doctor to get a new prescription. Unfortunately my excitement didn't last long as my jaw hit the floor when it came time to pay. Total cost? Fifty dollars!

So there you have it. With Kaiser, my happy drugs were costing me about five cents a pill. And now, with Medco, they are 84 cents a pill. That's super weak.

I think the moral of the story is this: if you have anxiety as a result of worrying about being able to pay for the pills that are supposed to cure your anxiety, why take them at all? I'll tell you why. Because it's super bad for your brain to just stop taking them, that's why!

They've got me by the gonads.

A huge dose of Minnesota.

Today I crossed the line. Today I may have become a Minnesotan. I was awoken this morning by the buzzing of my cell phone. It was my good friend Dot. "We're going sledding. You in?" Heck yeah I was! I had never been sledding and I knew it was something everyone kept saying I had to do. There was only one problem: I didn't have all of the necessary clothes to have as much fun as possible.

It turns out we had to stop by Target to try and buy a sled. We decided to look for the things that I was missing. I already owned a pair of snowboarding pants, so I was almost set in the "below the waste" department. What I didn't have was a waterproof jacket and snow boots. We've been living in MN for two months now and I have gotten by pretty a-okay with just my Converse. Today was the day that I wouldn't. And get this: none of the stores that we visited had boots. None of them! But I did find a great jacket at Target for only $25 so at least I was set in that department.

By the end of our sledding fun, my hands and feet were FROZEN. It turns out I needed waterproof gloves as well. What did I think of sledding? For the most part it was awesome. It's a little bit painful on the ol' tail bone, but a little extra padding in the sled would help with that. I was wearing three pairs of pants and I still hit a few painful bumps. Oh, and for whatever reason I didn't bring my scarf today so my beard was quite icy by the time we were finished.

Next came the hot drinks to thaw out our frozen toes. Mint hot chocolate, yum!

Now, at this point we had two options. One was to go home and play video games. The other was to finally get me some hockey skates so we could hit the ice. Guess what we did? $43 later, I had a NEW pair of hockey skates. Add on some $20 boots and I'm set for the next round of sledding!

We went to two different ice skating rinks, but because it was Sunday the lights had been turned off early. Psh, lights. Who needs lights? We hit that ice in the dark and shredded it up for a good two hours. It was awesome! That was the first time I have ever ice skated outside, let alone played ice hockey. Growing up in California, the only ice skating I ever did was at the local mall with my Grandpa, and that was only a couple times as a wee child. As for hockey, I spent a few middle-school years playing roller hockey with friends. It's definitely not the same as being out on the ice. I'm already looking forward to round two!

So there you have it. A big ol' slap to the face from Minnesota. Wham, bam, thank you, ma'am!

Meeting People, Making Friends

Two months later and here we are: still cold but living a-okay. I've met a lot of good people over the past 60 days and I thought I'd share the list with you. I'm only going to put their initials (both if I can remember everyone's last names), and only for the people I've seen enough to get that friend vibe from. Let's do this.

AB, AH, AY
BB
JA, JR, J
KF, KM, KM
LM
MM, M
NS
PM
TJ

I think that's about all I can remember so far. But hey, that's way more than I expected so early on in this new chapter of my life, so I'm completely happy about it. Thanks for letting me get to know you! =)