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. =)