Bureaucracies and things

Just for the record, getting a title on a car that hasn’t ran for 10 years so you can give it away is a total pain in the butt in Iowa.  Firstly, the car was originally bought in California over 20 years ago.  The “nice” lady in Iowa, let us register the car with a salvage title since we couldn’t find the California title.    Flash forward 10 or so years, the car dies a painful death and we shove it in the garage, and stop registering it.  Flash forward to now.  We want to donate said car to Teen Challenge and let them have it.  So, Teresa goes to Iowa to get a real title, only to be told the title is still in California and we’d have to deal with them.  OK, so Teresa calls a couple numbers in California only to find out they no longer have record of this car ever existing in California.  They only track cars that leave the state for 4 years.  But they nicely wrote a letter to Iowa saying this fact and that California has no claim on the vehicle.   Teresa goes back to the Iowa DMV only to be given a form asking about our purchase of the vehicle 20+ years ago.  Um, the dealership doesn’t even exist anymore.  This is ridiculous.  So we are filling out said paperwork the best we can in hopes of maybe just maybe getting a title for this car that doesn’t work.  And they are asking for stuff we just don’t have.  Frustrating.  Just want to get rid of a junk car.  Give it away.  Plus we are going to have to pay for it.  If we can even get the title for it.

In happier news, D&D will happen tomorrow night.  The saga of Pineville will be written. I am happy that I am feeling so much better so I can run the game.  Being sick last week really sucked.  I’ll let ya’ll know what happens in Pineville and the mine on Wednesday.

My right shoulder hurts, and I am losing range of motion in it.  Could be I did something and just didn’t realize I did it or it could be GvHD.  But my left hip and right ankle also hurt, but I am able still move normally with them.  It’s weird.  I don’t recall doing anything to hurt myself, but these are real pains.  Teresa says Dr Alkhateeb can order a blood test to find out if its GvHD or not.  Don’t see him for 14 days.  heh.  Oh well.

Thursday is Thanksgiving so I am sure Danny’s game won’t be running this week.   Which is ok, Thanksgiving is important, so it’s all good.  We will resume when we do.

I found something I want for Christmas, but I have no valid reason for wanting it.  I want an NEW XBOX Whatever X.  Yeah, the one that does 4k and 1080p.  $399 at Target.  But the problem is there is probably no game that I want specifically for it.  If I presented GAME + GAME SYSTEM Teresa would be more apt to agree to getting it.  I will have to peruse the XBOX games and see.  Nah, didn’t see anything that grabbed my attention.  Just want the Game System to say I got the game system.

It’s cold here.  Not brutal yet, but cold none the less.  Wish we lived somewhere warmer.  Would be nice to not be cold for 4-5 months of the year.  The weather people have predicted less snow this year, but colder temps. Yuck, I hate both.  Since my leukemia I have been unable to control my inner body temperature so when I get cold I get ridiculously cold and when I get hot I get unbearably hot.  Iowa gives me the chance to experience both.

Now that Teresa is back from getting my meds, we are back to the great discussion of dinner.  Warning, it gets boring from here, cuz neither of us have any clue what we want.  She had today off, so she was home, so the regular menu is modified.  Hey, I picked the winner.  Casey’s Pizza.  Casey’s is a convenience store/gas station about 2 blocks from our house that used to have good pizza but its been well over a year since we ordered from them.  So its a crapshoot.  Lets hope for the best.

Gotta love Black Friday week

There is something special about the week before Thanksgiving… well more specific the week of BLACK FRIDAY.  Almost every online store has their Black Friday deals available all week or even longer.  So cool if you ask me.  Teresa right now is hip deep in the PlayStation store shopping for a couple new games.

Black Friday at Amazon is not as impressive as Prime Days, which is a bummer.  But I totally understand Amazon’s thought process, make Prime Days BIGGER and BETTER.

I decided on which Bluetooth headset I wanted.  I am going with Apple Airpods.  It was close between them and the Jabra elite 65t headset.  I might change my mind cuz the Airpods won’t work with a PC’s Bluetooth, but the 65t will in theory.  So maybe I haven’t decided just yet.  They are almost exactly the same price.  So that’s not helping me decide.  I’ll probably stick with the Airpods.

I have been trading emails with Con (that’s his name) at Affordable Scotland.  The name is ironic cuz he came back with the highest prices for what I am looking for.  But he is the only person to write me back so far and he asked good questions without making me feel like an idiot.  His suggested itinerary is almost exactly what I had in mind.  So that is way cool.  I like him so far, and liking who you are dealing with for a 2000+ dollar trip is important.

I got to talk with my brother.  He agreed to go with me to Scotland.  We are talking about going the first week of October.  This is all assuming I survive this MDS/AML crap and I feel up to it.  But at some point, we are gonna have to put deposits down.  So we wait til Dr. Alkhateeb says I am gonna be ok.

I still don’t know what else to get Teresa for Christmas.  And I don’t know what else I want for Christmas either.  Well, I have stuff on my Amazon list that I could get for myself.  They would make excellent Christmas gifts for me.  But Teresa doesn’t have a list.  Furthermore, most everything we want, we just buy it all year round.  So there is usually nothing for either of us to get the other for Christmas, or rather 1 big thing and nothing else. For instance, I (she’s really doing it) am getting her a Kindle Oasis for Christmas and as far as I know, nothing else.   She is getting me a Bluetooth headset of my choice and nothing else as far as I know.  1 Big Item and nothing else.

I feel a lot better than I did a few days ago, but my cough sounds a lot worse.  Instead of a dry cough its wet and nasty sounding.  I don’t know if I am getting better or worse.  Have to be getting better.  The wet cough is an anomaly.  Yeah, that’s it.

I’m tired of taking all these pills.  It’s ridiculous.  I keep finding stray pills all over the place which means I dropped them while getting ready to take them.  Nobody should be forced to take so fricking many pills.  I’m sure I could get by with less pills.  Oh, don’t listen to me, I am just whining.  I’ll shut up about it now.

Did I mention its weird thinking I might have a future after all?  See, with blood stats being normal for so long, Dr Alkhateeb thinks the new stem cells might have destroyed the bad chromosomes.  And new healthy ones grew in their place.  Which is a very outside chance that it happened that way, but we will run with it.  And I will continue to plan my future.

Thanksgivingfest Saturday

It’s Thanksgivingfest Saturday.  My friends from the Gang are all at Bruce and Cori’s, while I am stuck here in Adel.  At least I got to Skype with Bruce and say hi to everyone, but that just made me sad that I wasn’t there having fun with them.  Everyone looked so happy.  It was nice to see them, even if it was thru Bruce’s cell phone.

Publisher’s Clearing House keeps sending me these “The prize money has been increased to $8000 a week.”  So, that just means more money that I won’t win.  7000 or 8000 doesn’t matter, odds are so slim that let just say they are not quite as bad as my chance of survival.  And if I survive it’ll blow all my luck for the future.  No chance of winning is what I see.  But I find it fun to play.

Speaking of playing D&D on Tuesday night will go on as scheduled.  Assuming my 5 players want to play so close to Thanksgiving.  With only 5 players, 1 missing for familial obligations means the game gets postponed.  I’ll have to ask.

I’m tired of being sick.  I can’t seem to get healthy for a long stretch of time.  When I get a good healthy run going, BLAM, something happens and I get sick.  If I had some GVHD it would be normal, but getting sick is just a pain in the butt.

Guessing Danny isn’t gonna run his game this Thursday, something about Thanksgiving.

Mom and Jim are coming the 2nd week of December now.  I’m hoping that I can be healthy for the visit.  I do not know what day they are coming, I do not know how long they are staying.  I just about know nothing about the visit except they are coming.  And this is a good thing if I can stay healthy.

Teresa definitely can not get time off to go to Scotland with me next Summer.  Mom could do it, but I worry about her knees and climbing castle steps.  Jim might be interested.  I think I will ask him later tonight.  He works 12 hours today.   UGH.  I’ll give him something to think about.

Teresa wants to go to the Harry Potter thing in Orlando.  But she can’t get time off for that either.  I say we are too old for the whole Harry Potter thing.  So, I’m gonna use the money that I have stashed to go to Scotland.

My last blog post kinda slipped by most people’s attention.  I only had 4 readers.  I have been averaging 15-18 readers most days.  Confused, I blame it on Facebook and their weird algorithm for sharing posts.  Oh well, if you read this, don’t feel obliged to read the last one, unless you want to.

OK, so its a video made of clips from movies.  Heh.  I like the song.  So have at if you will.

Somehow I came across this Monty Python video

It’s Friday and I feel A LOT better.   Last night my ear hurt, thought I had an ear infection to go with my sinus infection.   But today no pain.  WOOT.  I still have the cough but it’s calmed way down.  My nose has stopped its snot revolution.  I tell ya, the Doxycycline that Chris put me on did the trick.  Yay for quick fixes for what ails you.

Ya know something, I really missed talking with all the players in my D&D game this week.  Actual human (albeit over the internet) contact.  I miss playing the game too, but it’s the people I miss more.  Then with out playing on Thursday either, it was just a lonely week.

Teresa has today off cuz she worked all night.  So we are having a traditional thanksgiving meal today, Turkey, Stuffing, etc…  Since we had unthawed the turkey for my family and they didn’t come so we had to do the turkey before it went bad.  Since we have a kind of a large turkey we are going to have leftovers for a while.  We decided that we are having Sweet and Sour Pork for Thanksgiving proper.  Yeah, we are such traditionalists.

Teresa and her mom have both decided on a Kindle Oasis for Christmas / Family Day.  My mother-in-law is a Jehova’s Witness so she doesn’t do Christmas anymore.  Anyhow, no Teresa and I are on the lookout for the Oasis to go on sale.  All the experts say it will go on sale for Black Friday, but Amazon did a huge sale on them for Prime Day.  So I don’t know.  But Kindle Oasis they want, Kindle Oasis they’ll get.

We still haven’t gotten but a little snow.  And what snow we have gotten didn’t stay around very long.  I know it’s not technically winter yet, but normally we have snow by November 16th, snow that lasts.  But they say we aren’t supposed to get much snow this year, just bitter cold.  I can handle that.  I got a monster of a winter coat that fits me again. lol  Losing all this weight gave some benefit.

Teresa and her mom are shopping for case covers for their new Kindle Oasis.  Teresa found orange and dragon, fell in love with it immediately.  Shirley likes a shade of blue. Teresa is not flying thru the pictures pulling pictures of every case that has that blue and sending them to Shirley.  I think its sweet of Teresa to do that.  I hope they both find what they are looking for.

I don’t read enough to warrant getting a new kindle, as a matter of fact, I think Teresa plans on trading in my old one for her new one.  I have my ipad that I can read off of just fine when I want to read.  Kindle for Ipad works quite well.

Apparently my desktop pc doesn’t have a Bluetooth connection, but my laptop does.  I am wanting a Bluetooth wireless headset with microphone.  Ones that just plug in your ears and go, but you can still talk.  I have big ears, and even the biggest cup sized headset I have found is just too small and begins hurting after an hour or two, especially while wearing my glasses.  So, Teresa is looking for the perfect set for me.  Or she was, until she got distracted by her mother. lol  Oh yeah, I can buy a little plug in to give my desktop Bluetooth ability for 12.00 dollars from Amazon.

I can smell the stuffing cooking.  It’s under the spatchcocked turkey.  Turkey is gonna take a couple hours per Teresa.  She told me to go eat something if I am hungry, I think I might just do that.  The stuffing smell is making me hungry.  I am sure we still have leftover lasagna that’ll work for me.

Planning my future as it may be

I feel somewhat better today.  Finally.  Too soon for the antibiotic to do anything, but I’ll take feeling better any way I can get it.

Still bummed that my family didn’t get to come visit.  Better safe than sorry.  And I really did think I was gonna end up in the hospital.  That leads to a really boring visit.  So whereas I am bummed they didn’t come, I’m happy they are coming the 2nd week of December instead.  Assuming the weather is agreeable.

Now watch, I’ll be really sick the 2nd week of December.  It’s a curse, I am not supposed to see my brother anymore or vice versa.  One of us has a curse and I am the cursed object.

Next Summer (2019) I want to go to Scotland, assuming I am strong enough.  I want to go and see where the Campbell clan comes from.  I want to see the bar that my cousin went to that has posted “NO CAMPBELLS ALLOWED”.  lol.  I want to have to  get a passport, I want to go to Scotland.  Not sure if Teresa would want to or be able to go with me.   Not sure if my mom’s knees could handle it.  Not sure if my brother could get time off.  That kind of sucks.  I would want to share this with family.  I will figure something out.  But this is what I want to do.

I got back into doing Publishers Clearing House (PCH) entries daily.  I sluffed off when I went to Mayo.  Now it’s 7000 dollars a week grand prize.  We sure could use that kind of money.  Like 16,000 a month after taxes.  That would be so cool.  Well, I know the odds of winning are ridiculous but a boy can dream, right?  Since I am not mailing anything in and doing it all digitally on my PC, it doesnt cost anything to enter.  So, I am gonna enter 2 or 3 times a day (they send out extra entries) and hope for I’m a winner on December 21.

Teresa texts really bad accident on the way home.  Then nothing.  Did she get into a really bad accident, is there are a really bad accident causing problems getting home?  Way to clarify Babykins.  Way to not make me worry a little.

It’s Thursday and there is no game tonight.  Bummer deal, I really feel like playing D&D tonight.  I wonder if I could collect my 5 players from Tuesday night and get them to do a Thursday.  Nah, too much effort would be required.  Just won’t play D&D this week.

Just a Sinus Infection we think

Yup, Chris (my PA-C) declared me sick.  More specifically declared that I probably have a sinus infection.  He gave me DOXYCYCLINE which is an anti-biotic for sinus infections and pneumonia.  NO, I do not have pneumonia.  My nose feels like it’s gonna fall off though.  Dr. Alkhateeb oked the Doxycycline.  So, I start it tonight.  Hopefully we can nip this infection in the bud and I can get on with my life such as it is.

No D&D this week feels weird.  I got used to running Tuesday nights and it just feels funny that I didn’t.  But in my defense, I’m in no shape to run a D&D game right now, hopefully by next week I will be ok.

It’s only Wednesday, so I haven’t had a chance to miss the Thursday game yet.   But Danny cancelled it last Friday, so it definitely wasn’t going to happen this week anyway.

Soon enough I should have Monday Afternoon, Tuesday Evening, Wednesday Evening, and Thursday Evening all D&D all the time.  With my wife’s blessing, Go figure.

It’s amazing that Teresa is all for me playing every night of the week if I wanted to.  Hearing all these other players complain their wives won’t let them play more than once a week.  Teresa just wants me to stay busy, and not get thinking about my health.  Gaming is one sure fire way to do that.

A few weeks ago, I complained about the rest of the year going so fast.  Well, I recant that testimony and say now it’s going so slow.  It’s the time change I tell ya, it screws everything up.  Now time is crawling by.

Speaking of my health (just a minute ago I was at least).  My blood stats are NORMAL. Like Normal person Normal, not cancer patient Normal.  Which leads my doctor to shrug.  Seems the first step of the 20% miracle might just have happened.  We won’t know til around Christmas time if the first step happened or not for sure.  But being as my stats are Normal, I’ll just be happy about that.

Feel free to be excited for me about the above mentioned blood stats.

Teresa is almost on her way to get us Nacho Bell Grandes.  She is too good to me.  I would go too if I didn’t feel so miserable.  But Taco Bell is like 10 minutes away, so it would be silly for both of us to go anyway.

For giggles, I looked up White Hen Pantry.  The convenience store I worked at when I was a teenager and where I cut off the tip of my right ring finger.  Turns out that 7-11 bought them out and sold off a bunch of the stores to other brands,  I wonder what became of the one at the end of County Line Rd and Central in Lake Station.  It just might have been one of my least favorite jobs I had.  I spent most of my income on candy, lol.  Oh memories, why do you keep coming up.

I have to go, my head is about to explode.

I don’t want to be sick

I’m sick.  Sick enough for Teresa to contact Mayo.   Waiting somewhat patiently for a response from them.   My chest feels like someone is sitting on it, I got a cough, my nose wants to run, my head hurts, and I ache all over.  Can’t run a fever cuz I am on steroids.  Well, I proved you can before, but you aren’t supposed to be able to.   I got another virus of some kind and I am afraid it’s gonna put me in the hospital.  Either here or at Mayo.  Don’t care which one to be honest, except its easier on Teresa here.  I hate being sick, just delaying getting off the immuno-suppressants which is delaying further treatment.

I had to cancel D&D tonight.  Pineville waits another week.  I feel just too rotten to even try to run the game.  I hoped Tylenol was going to make me feel somewhat better, but it didn’t,  so the players got 4 hours notice.  I hope I don’t end up in the hospital cuz it means I might not be able run next week either.  One way or the other, Pineville and the mine are what comes next.

I just talked to my mother.  She is disappointed that they can’t come tomorrow.   I don’t want to get anyone sick.  So I asked if Jim could change his days off to the week after Thanksgiving.  Teresa was cool with that too.  So I wait to hear from mom or Jim.  I’m bummed, I really wanted to see them.

I DO NOT WANT TO SPEND THANKSGIVING IN THE HOSPITAL.  Just want to make that perfectly clear.  Holidays in the hospital SUCK.  Nothing good comes out of it.  Try getting released on a Holiday if you are better.  HA.  Like 2 doctors covering the whole hospital.  So we can just rule that out now.

I think Pucky and Mojo are worried about me.  They haven’t left my side except when I took them outside to take care of business.  This is above and beyond their normal hovering, even Mojo is following me around the house as I mosey o so slowly.

It’s day 2 of Teresa being back in the office.  She says its loud, that she was used to working in silence.  I can see that.  I miss her being here all day.   I miss looking up and seeing her sitting at her computer.  I miss having someone to talk to during the day.  But as I pointed out before, it was time for her to return to the office.  I am taking as good of care as I can of myself barring this assumed Virus.

Mom is coming for Christmas.  Jim is thinking about coming earlier in December.  I said just tell us a date and you are welcome to visit anytime.