Busy Last Month: Travel, Health, Family, Home, and Fun
February 20, 2008:
It's been a while since I wrote an entry, so I thought I would do an update.
The weekend following the half marathon, Conan and I went to Duluth, Minnesota for a birding expedition. I utilized CouchSurfing.com for free lodging and used frequent flier miles to get a plane ticket. The host, Melissa, was absolutely wonderful. She showed us around the city, but still let us go off an explore on our own when we wanted to. Duluth was pretty much a college town on winter break. School hadn't started yet so it was still pretty quiet. The weather was fierce and we endured a cold snap where the highs never got above 4 degrees Fahrenheit (our car thermometer said -18 at one point when we were birding).
Conan scanning the snow for birds
Overall, I saw 11 life birds (mostly finches), picked up 11 new counties, saw my first rival hockey game with scalped tickets (go UMD Bulldogs!), learned what "real" cold was like, and obtained enough memories to last a lifetime. I hope Melissa can make it to Houston so I can repay the favor.
Meanwhile, my knee was not doing so well after the half marathon. I started going to a sports medicine doctor to get it checked out. He had me get an MRI on it and after another test, concluded that my hamstrings are too weak with respect to my quadriceps, so my quads had to work extra hard and they were pulling my kneecap and grinding into my knee, causing the pain and inflammation. Luckily, it wasn't bad enough to need surgery. At $30 a visit three days a week, I'm going through rehabilitation to get my hamstrings a little more balanced. So far it's helping a lot, so I guess I can't complain. If all goes well, I'll be done with rehab in 2 1/2 weeks.
We had about $380 in southwest airlines credits that were going to expire, so I offered to fly my brother out for OwlCon XVII. It was great, I love OwlCon, and it was great having Kyle as well as Conan there to share it with me.
Kyle and I playing Puerto Rico at OwlCon
We played Arkham Horror, Order of the Stick: The Shortening expansion, Runebound (which I bought later that weekend), Munchkin Cthulu, and Puerto Rico. We also played, between blocks, Zombie Fluxx (bought that weekend), Lost Cities, and My Dwarves Fly (won that weekend). I won both the Arkham Horror (by vote) and Puerto Rico (outright win) blocks and won a lot of great stuff. Kyle won the Order of the Stick Block and won a $30 graphic novel of the web comic the game was based on.
While driving to OwlCon, Kyle got a scary call from my mom saying that our cousin, Hilary, had her water broke after 28 weeks of pregnancy. The next few days were a scare and they finally birthed the baby at 3 lbs. 10 oz. After birth, they named the child (because they thought they had more time): Alec Christopher Flint Wagner. The baby is doing fine and breathing "room air." and my cousin had actually been discharged from the hospital after a scare with her heart slowing down. Alec will remain in NICU for 6-7 weeks, but it looks like he's going to be OK. I'm still waiting on photographs of Alec.
The finally, two days ago, we got started on our house. It has only been a couple days, but they've already completely torn out the bathroom floor. It's going to be so great to finally have some room to breathe!
And that's about all that's important that happened to me this last month. I've been actually following the primary this year, but it seems every candidate I pick is doomed to fail (first Richardson, then Edwards, and now it seems Clinton). But I don't mind, I think Obama will be a good president, he's just not my first pick.
Recent News
| 2010-02-24 - | Another Update |
Entries from 2009 (click to view)
Entries from 2008 (click to view)
Entries from 2007 (click to view)
Entries from 2006 (click to view)
Entries from 2005 (click to view)
Entries from 2004 (click to view)
