Week 52: Why I almost forgot to blog.

So, I’m finally at week 52.  This has been quite a year for me.  I did accomplish writing a blog every week, with one exception.  The exception was week 12, and I just posted a short thing saying I was too depressed to write because of all the violence that was happening in the world around me.  I think that was actually an excuse and I didn’t feel like writing for that week.  But other than week 12, I did complete what I wanted to do, which was put out a blog each week for 2017.

For week 1 last year I wrote about food.  I guess that was what was on my mind the first week of 2017.  I know there was a lot of things I wanted to write, but didn’t.  Sometimes it was because I just didn’t want to really voice my mind, and sometimes it was because I was too lazy to put it down in the blog.  There were plenty of lazy blogs for last year.

And now I’ve “resolved” to make videos for each week in 2018.  I wonder how much I’ll leave out of the videos I make?  I’m all set with all the equipment I need, but now I have to figure out the time to film things, and also what to film.  No one wants to see video of me just talking about stupid things.  So what else do I show?  Well, I do live in Las Vegas, and there are plenty of things here to show.  I’ll show what I can when I get time.  I’m not even sure what I’m going to be filming for week 1.  Wow.

I almost forgot to write this final blog.  Why would you forget, Robert?  Well, because I’m up to my eyeballs with flu virus.  Yes, that’s right folks, I’ll be starting out my 2018 with the flu.  Not a fun prospect, but sometimes you have to take things in stride.  I saw someone post something on Facebook the other day that said something like “If you’re sick, don’t go to work, or the store, or the library…etc”.  So what am I supposed to do, just lay in bed and wait to get better?  I don’t get paid to lay in bed, and I’m not rich enough to take too much time off of work.  I would LOVE to have a week to lay in bed and get better, but that’s not going to happen.

It might be fun if I could take some video at work for my first week of video for 2018, but I’ve signed a non-disclosure agreement and aren’t allowed to really discuss, or show anything about my employment, so I guess that’s out.  

Anyway, thank goodness for Dayquil.  I can chug down a bit of that and then head to work with all my flu symptoms somewhat gone.  I’ll feel good enough to work.  And since I just sit in a chair and look at computer screens while using a radio and phone, I should be fine.  I hope the dispatcher sitting next to me has some Lysol.  *chuckle*. It really won’t matter.  Once one dispatcher comes into work sick, we all get sick.  There was also someone else sick, so either I caught it from her, or she caught it from me.  Or maybe we both caught it from someone else?  Needless to say though, everyone will more than likely get this.  It’ll just be a matter of time.  And can we all stay home?  That would be no.

So week 52 ends with me being sick.  That’s why I almost forgot to write this blog.  I’ll do the best I can to get a video out each week for the coming year.  If I don’t succeed, blame slow internet.  Until you SEE me next year, ask why all you want.  And let’s move on to video life.

Week 51: Why are people nuts tonight?

Normally I go out to buy some groceries each Saturday.  That’s just my usual thing.  Usually it’s not that big of a deal, I go and get what I need and go back home.  There are always people out, but it’s nothing crazy.  Tonight, it was different.

People were manic out there tonight!  It was like a natural disaster was about to hit and people were desperate to stock up!  I understand it’s the last weekend before Christmas, but damn!  

First of all, it was dangerous just to drive to the grocery store!  People drive dangerously in Las Vegas, but tonight it seemed like people were just out of control.  They were running red lights and stop signs, racing down the road going way over the speed limit.  People seemed desperate to get where ever they were going.

Forgetting the crazy driving, I did carefully make my way around to run my errands.  One stop I made was a store called Walmart.  It’s a large department store that sells just about anything you need.  I just needed a few toiletries and figured I could run in and out fairly quickly.  Silly me!  There were people everywhere!  And not just people everywhere, they were shoving everything they could into their carts!  I saw one guy with ten bottles of shampoo and a gallon of milk.  Is he going to run out of shampoo before Christmas?  Maybe he was giving shampoo away for Christmas and needed a large supply?  It was insane, it was as if people were “hurricane shopping”.  You know, out buying things before a hurricane, or some other kind of natural disaster.  

I quickly found the things I needed and dropped them into my cart (trolley, basket, or whatever you want to call it.).  I figured while I was there I might as well check the grocery section.  Stuff was flying off the shelves there!  The chip (crisps?) section was decimated!  Just like the rest of the store people seemed to be grabbing everything they could.  I decided I would rather fight people at a normal grocery store instead of Walmart, so I paid for my items and headed out, again braving the crazy drivers until I could make it to my usual grocery store. (It’s a place called Winco.). Winco had a lot of people in it, but it wasn’t as crazy as Walmart.  Things seemed a bit easier here.  People weren’t as mainic, but things were still flying off the shelves.  Luckily I did get the things I needed today.  

Another new thing is that I’m typing this week’s blog on a brand new iMac.  So far my experience with this new tech has been spent waiting for it to update itself.  It will take a bit of getting used to as it is different than my PC, but so far I’m loving it!  Time to take a few lessons in Final Cut Pro so I’ll be ready to edit my first video in two weeks!  

So again yes, next week will be the final blog for 52 weeks of Why.  I will have blogged for each of the 52 weeks. Except for one week.  I wrote that I was depressed for one week and didn’t do a blog.  But missing only one week is pretty good I think!  

2018 will be the year of video for me.  I’ll hopefully be recording and uploading a video each week with what goes on in my life.  I’d like to go to a few restaurants, maybe visit a few museums, and show off a few of the things around here in Las Vegas besides the casinos.  Maybe next year at this time I can show some video of the manic people?  Anything is possible.

So until the videos start, keep asking why.  I’ll be back with one last blog next week.

Week 50: Why do I think I need to film everything?

Why do I think I need to film everything?  Well, my life really doesn’t need filming, I guess.  I never did end up getting a new camera.  For now I think I’m going to start out with the cameras I have as I do have quite a collection of them.  Christmas time did eat a bit into my savings this year, so a new camera might be a bit excessive.

It might be different for some people in Orlando, Florida.  I watch videos on YouTube of some guys who go to Walt Disney World, or some other theme park every week.  And it’s fun to watch them, but there really aren’t any theme parks here.  Maybe I’ll have to exaggerate some of my life?  I am going to learn how to do a few special effects while filming.  Maybe more than a few effects.  Maybe I’ll be able to make things fun enough that people might just want to watch me each week?  I’ll have to put some thought into this.

So how do you know what people would like to watch?  Well, I’ll have to go with what I enjoy.  If I like it and think a video is fun, maybe everyone else will, too? I have a few videos I’ve done a while ago, but I think they would be too large to insert here in the blog.  One video has two of me sitting on a couch talking about two books.  I thought it was pretty clever and looked pretty good!  I checked and the file is around 6GB.  I think if I wanted to try and insert that here it would take a couple days to upload it.  And then I’m not sure I can just post videos that large into my blog.  Oh well, maybe I’ll get it out somewhere in another video one of these days.  Old footage sometimes comes in really handy!

I could edit some video from a few theme parks.  I do still have quite a lot of video that I’ve taken back on past trips.  I’m not sure whether my weekly videos should be about what’s currently going on in my life, or maybe show some of my past if that’s more fun?  We’ll see what I can cook up.  From what I’ve been seeing though, if I put my mind to it, I should be able to make some theater quality stuff if I just take my time and learn a program or two in depth.

You might be surprised what people would like to see.  I’ve looked up grocery stores in the UK before and was amazed by the videos I found!  It was thrilling for me to see what shopping was like across the pond!  Should I maybe show where I shop and what it looks like inside?  Would anyone in the UK, or anywhere else like to see that?  I do have friends from all over the world on my Facebook account and that’s probably where I’ll post the links to my videos after I upload them to YouTube.  Hmm, again I guess I’ll just have to gage my audience as I learn film making.

I’m currently waiting on some things to arrive.  Once they do, I’ll have to get started and learn what I can before my first video in January.  I’m pretty excited already!  So why do I think my life needs to be filmed?  Because it’s just something I want to do!  And it will be something left behind when I’m gone!

So until video one comes out, keep asking why.  One other thought, what should I call my video series for next year?  52 Weeks of Life, maybe?  I don’t know.  If you have other suggestions, let me know.

Week 49: Why I may go full Apple.

I’ve thought about this for a while, and I may just go full Apple this coming year.  Now don’t get me wrong, it won’t be cheap!  I’ll have to pay quite a bit to do this, but that’s why I go to work, isn’t it?  I’ve got a bit of money saved up.  I’m still thinking this through. 

I had another little “adventure” with my PC today.  It decided it had to download some updates and that’s fine!  I can respect it needing updates now and then.  So I let it do its thing and the download went on for a while.  When it was finally finished, the PC needed to be restarted.  Ok, so I restarted it.  First it was stuck on a “bios” screen and the keyboard wouldn’t work.  Oh no, not another problem!  I forced a shutdown and restarted the computer.  That should fix things, right?  Then all I got was the PC doing something, but nothing on my monitor.  I fretted for a bit and then tried another restart.  Again, nothing on the monitor and the computer seemingly doing something.  Well, maybe if I just went out and got some groceries things would be fine when I returned. 

I was pretty sure that when I got back from getting groceries the PC would still have nothing on the screen and be not working at all.  I checked, and it was fine.  I guess it just needed to install some things before it showed anything on the screen.  That seemed so unusual to me, though. 

Now don’t get me wrong, I love my PC!  I would have been heartbroken if something else was wrong!  I’ve had it for so long now!  If we go back a few blogs, I’ve even replaced the power supply in it all by myself.  I’m quite proud that I did that, by the way!  But let’s think this through.  I am planning on moving on to videos next year instead of written blogs and Apple products are pretty good at editing video.  A new iMac would also connect with my iPhone and iPad.  Hmm, now that’s something to think about.  My PC is pretty nice, but it really doesn’t connect to anything besides the internet.  I’d still have my PC, but would have something nice to edit video with.  Choices, choices, hmm.

There is something new coming called an iMac Pro.  The small bit of info I found says it will be released in December.  It’s December now.  So when do I get to see the overblown prices?  *chuckle*  Being serious though, I’ve had a MacBook for years and never really had any problems with it.  I still have it and the battery for it is no good so if I want to use it, it has to be plugged into an outlet.  But it does still work.  And it always was really nice to edit video with the few times I did it with the MacBook.  The big concern here is the price.  I’m going to have to probably pay around $2,000 or more, maybe even up to $3,000 for an iMac Pro when they come out.  Would it be worth that price?

Now you can get a “fusion drive” with an iMac.  That sounds so neat!  Does it work better than a regular hard drive?  If you ask Apple people they will tell it does.  I’m very curious about this.  It has to do with “flash drive” stuff.  It all sounds fantastic.  Again, this will come down to money.  Will I be willing to spend a few thousand dollars on something like this?  A lot of my life revolves around computers and electronic things at the moment.  I really would like something like this.  Again, this will take a lot of thought.  We'll see what happens.

At the moment I’m thrilled with fast food places that let me place an order with my phone, iPad, or PC and then just drive over and pick up the food.  And if I decide to buy an iMac I can just drive over to a nearby Apple store and pick it up.  I ordered and picked up my iPad Pro at the Apple store and that was actually pretty fun. 

Lots of thoughts in my head now.  It’s the end of the year and soon it will be tax return time.  That will give me a bit of extra money with my tax refund.  Is it time to go full Apple?  I wanted to buy a video camera with a microphone (still haven’t decided on one) for my videos next year so I could make sure I have good sound on the videos.  Why not make sure I have something that will help me edit things in a somewhat professional fashion?  I’ve been always been told over and over that the best thing to edit video on is always an Apple. 

Much thought will go into this as I continue to order Christmas things on Amazon.  I love ordering things online!  Until I figure all of this out, keep asking why.

Week 48: Why I love cameras and wings.

I need a new video camera.  Ok, that’s not really true, I already have quite a collection of cameras that can take video, it’s more like I WANT a new video camera.  I’ve decided that I want to do a video a week instead of a blog for 2018.  52 Weeks of Life.  How does that sound?  There are a few reasons for this.

One reason is that while growing up and even into adulthood, my father would always tell me stories about his life.  I loved them.  I would hear about his time in the U.S. Air Force, bits about when he was in high school, and how he grew up on a farm.  I loved the stories and still remember quite a few of them.  My father passed away back in September and now I don’t get to hear the stories anymore.  Anyway, back before he passed on I asked him if I could set up a camera and he could tell some of his stories.  I got a resolute “NO!” to that.  He didn’t want to do that at all.  It was his choice and I respected that.

But now I’m in my 50’s and writing a blog is nice, but you don’t really see anything that’s going on during the time.  You just get to read whatever I write.  Now granted if I do videos you’ll still only see what I want to film, but still the visual medium is much more fun than writing sometimes.  When I was pretty young I knew my Great Grandmother on my mother’s side.  I even used to write her letters (She lived up in Montana, far away from where I was at the time.).  Imagine what it would be like if I could sit down now and watch videos of my Great Grandmother when she was in her 50’s.  That would still probably be back in the 1930’s or 1940’s!  I know there are some old reel to reel movies, but I’m not sure who the people are on them and they don’t have any sound.  Not as much fun without sound!

Ask yourself what you did last year.  Do you remember what was going on in each month or week last year?  I may not if you ask me, but I can go back to this blog and select any week of the year and after reading what I’d written know how I felt, and what was going on at the time.  Imagine being able to go back when I’m in my 60’s and watch, or even show someone what was going on in my life in 2018 with videos!  I can’t pass that opportunity up! 

And this will not only teach me about filming and editing, I’ll hopefully learn more and more each week about how to edit and process videos.  Will I be much better at filming by week 22 next year?  Who knows?  But I think it’s still a fun thing to do. 

So why do I need a new camera if I already have a bunch of cameras that could probably easily do the job?  I’ve decided I want one with an attachable microphone.  It’s just something I want.  I probably don’t need it, but I think sound will be an important part of the videos.  Maybe a new camera that I can screw some kind of lens on if I need it? (What the hell would I need a different lens for if I’m just vloging?  *chuckle*)  Being honest, if I’m going to do this, I should do it to the best of my ability.  I don’t want to just post crap on my YouTube channel.  Well…maybe it’ll be crap, but hopefully it’ll be good crap.  *chuckle* It can’t possibly be worse than some of the other crap that’s on television now!

I’ve looked at some cameras tonight in a shop called Best Buy and they are outrageous.  Anywhere from $400 on up and those are without attachable microphones!  I’ll check a few other shops next week, but I’ll probably end up ordering something from Amazon.  They have some very nice looking cameras with microphones starting at around $110.  I’ll see what I can find and hopefully be ready for all of this on Week 1, 2018!

Moving on to wings, I love chicken wings!  There is a place near where I live called Wing Stop.  They pretty much serve two things: chicken wings, and French fries.  There are all kinds of flavors of wings and one of my all-time favorite thing about this place is that I can order and pay online and then just drive over and they hand me a bag with my order in it! 

Now it’s not just the convenience of ordering online that I like (that’s actually really fun! *chuckle*), the wings are always fantastic!  The people working there smile and greet me happily.  I love the place!  It’s a bit on the pricy side, but still I do think the food there is well worth the price.  You can take a look at my order right here:

I ordered 15 mild wings and they smell wonderful!  A very nice treat for my weekend.  So off I go to eat my wings and finish up relaxing before my return to work.  While I do that, everyone keep asking why!  And think how nice this will be next year when I don’t just write about getting wings from Wing Stop, I'll actually show some video about it!  *chuckle*

Week 47: Why Black Friday and Saturday didn't seem black to me.

This weekend was what is called “Black Friday”.  The day after American Thanksgiving is usually a madhouse at the stores.  People have to get the Black Friday bargains!  There are usually fights and stampedes and all kinds of chaos!  I wanted to see all of this for this year.  I can remember wanting to go to the mall last year, but there was nowhere to park.  Every single parking space was taken the Saturday after Black Friday last year!  I couldn’t even park my car!

This year was different.  I went to the mall today and there were plenty of parking spaces.  I walked into the mall to look around and there were people all over the place, but most of them didn’t seem to be buying anything.  Most of them were just standing around and staring at cell phones.

I didn’t find much to interest me at the mall.  The place also had a really strong smell of incense, soap, and perfume.  Maybe there were other scents, but it seemed to me like those were the prevailing scents.  It would have been nice to smell cotton candy, or maybe cinnamon, or something a bit more Christmasy, but no, just the strong soap and perfume smell.  Almost enough to make you sick.

And so I moved on.  I figured maybe people were in the huge department stores like Target.  So I drove to a nearby Target.  Plenty of parking spaces and again lots of people inside, but the cashiers didn’t seem busy at all.  I picked up some almond M&Ms and used the self-checkout lane without waiting in any kind of line.  Lots of people in the store, but again no one buying anything.  Just a lot of people staring at cell phones.

Maybe the people were all at the grocery stores getting food?  Nope!  I drove to two different stores to get my groceries and didn’t have to wait in a line to buy anything.

I think online shopping is more popular than ever this year.  People will go out and look in the stores, but don’t seem to be buying.  I’d rather stay home and hang out than go out and stare at a cell phone in a mall!

Moving on, tomorrow is my birthday.  I’ll be turning 51 years old.  I’m fat, old, and cranky now.  You can say “No, 51 isn’t old, it’s middle age”, but I think you’d be wrong.  I really doubt I’ll live to 102 which means I’m past “middle age”.  I’m not totally unhappy, though.  I’ll have to work for my birthday night, but that won’t be so bad.  I think it will be better than if I was unemployed for my birthday.  I’ll hopefully be thrilled when I’m retired and don’t have to go to work for my birthday, but by the time I have enough to retire on, I may be too old to do anything, or go anywhere!  I’m sure I’ll figure something out.

So for week 47 I wonder why this Black Friday didn’t seem so black.  Is everyone really buying all their presents online?  As Alice would say, “Curiouser and curiouser”.  Down the rabbit hole we go!  Time to celebrate my birthday a day early this year and watch some movies and play a few video games.  Until next week when I’m officially 51, keep asking why.

Week 45: Why I didn't do much for Veteran's Day.

Welcome to Veteran’s Day!  I happen to be a veteran!  I’m not retired, or a wartime veteran, but I still served.  So what did I do this Veteran’s Day?  Not much.  At least I had the day off from work.  A guy at my work place suggested I go to one of the places in town giving veterans a free meal.  I think a lot of those places are really packed with veterans and even sometimes people who aren’t veterans, but are trying to get free food.  I’m not much for crowds, so that was out.

I was invited to go see an air show at Nellis Air Force Base, but declined that, too.  I’ve seen an air show before I enlisted.  You stand around and look up as pilots zoom by in jets.  I wasn’t really impressed as a kid. And probably wouldn’t be impressed now.  I’d just be tired after standing around all day on a flight line.

So what does being a veteran mean to me?  It means I get a bunch of people telling me “thank you for your service", but that’s about it.  Do I get a benefit on my taxes for serving?  Nope.  Can I maybe decline serving on a jury if I get a jury notice?  Again, nope.  Maybe I get paid holiday pay for Veteran’s Day?  HAHAHAHAHA  that would be a huge no.

To me being a veteran meant I spent four years wearing a blue (actually most of the time it was green, or “forest” colored) uniform.  I figured the military would teach me a nice trade that I could use after I was discharged.  They taught me a trade alright, I was just never able to use it in the civilian world.  I guess I could have went on to become a spy, but sometimes those guys get shot in the head.  I’m not a huge fan of that.  The Air Force did actually teach me quite a bit, though.  I might bitch and complain about the military sometimes, but they did give me a fair amount of discipline and taught me how to handle things on my own if I need to.  I don’t regret joining up and if I had the same chance again, I’d still join even if it was wartime. 

So I didn’t do much today.  I visited with my family and went to the grocery store.  I bought some stuff that says it’s Salsa Verde Spicy.

Green and spicy, it looks wonderful!  I have some nice tortilla chips to dip into it and I’ll be digging into this stuff as soon as my blog is finished!

Another thing I really need to do is to buy myself a new computer chair.  The arm rest broke off my current one and if I don’t get a new one, I keep feeling like I’m going to end up stabbing myself to death when I accidentally fall. 

Doesn’t that look really sharp?  It is!  I’ll order myself a new chair soon.  I think it’ll run me around $100.  I may wait until after Thanksgiving when all the Christmas sales come out.  Maybe I’ll be able to get a chair on sale.  I’ll most likely order it from Amazon and have it delivered to my door.  I’ll have to put it together myself, but that shouldn’t actually be too difficult.

Well, that’s the blog for today.  I guess the only real questions this week are how will the green salsa taste and why haven’t I bought a new chair quite yet?

I’m still pretty certain that for next year I’m going to move on to videos every week.  So instead of 52 weeks of Why, we’ll have 52 weeks of life.  Live action bullshit!  I’ll have to figure out what to film when I don’t really go out and do anything.  *chuckle*  So until I end up doing that, keep asking why.

Week 42: Why I paid out the eyes.

Maybe the title of this blog should be Why I paid out the ass?  Eyes seemed more suitable, though.  For this week my little chore was to go and see an optician.  I can still see ok, but I need to renew my driver’s license soon and I’m sure that will be a whole blog and a half by itself.  But before I head to the Department of Motor Vehicles, I wanted to make sure I could easily pass the eye exam part.  You never know, right?

I had a nice appointment in the afternoon for the optician.  I’m not afraid of the eye doctor, but I hate going to them for two reasons:  Firstly they always do this test where they blow a puff of air into each eye one by one and I absolutely HATE that!  It hurts!  Yes, I’m being a big baby about this, but usually when they do it I get all pissed off and then whatever they’re looking for gets worse and they want to do the test again and again!  Maybe things will look better after a few more shots?  I just get angrier and angrier and the test results look worse and worse, whatever they’re testing!

Secondly I hate going because it ends up costing me a damned fortune!  Even with insurance these guys are outrageous!  Well let me correct that, the optician visit was only $10.  The new glasses and frames are what cost a fortune!  And they never have the frames you want!

My last visit was only a year ago, so they remembered me.  I’m not sure if I was that much trouble, or that nice about things, but they did remember me.  Especially when the eye air puff thing test started.  I don’t think she wanted to screw around with me much for this visit, so she just did each eye once and then said that was fine. 

Then I get to see the actual optician.  She’s very nice and wants to dilate my eyes.  No dice there, I don’t want my eyes dilated.  She’d like to take some photos of my eyes.  I don’t want photos taken either!  I just want to see if my eyes have changed and are bad enough that I won’t pass an eye test for my driver’s license!

She checks me over and then tells me that my eyes are a quarter better again.  A quarter of what, I don’t know.  What’s going on is that I’m extremely nearsighted.  And now that I’m getting older, my eyes have decided they want to be a bit farsighted.  This just corrects my nearsightedness!  So if I live to be about 80, maybe I’ll have 20/20 vision without glasses!  What a pain in the ass! 

So after what was a quick and painless appointment with the optician, I now get to deal with the people in the outer office.  They are expensive.  VERY expensive!  I take the prescription the optician has given me and give it to this very nice girl.  I also tell her I want the same exact frames I have now.  I like the frames I’m wearing, so why not get the same thing, right?  She types everything into a computer and then tells me the insurance won’t pay for the frames.  I’m not surprised, they barely paid for anything last year!  They apparently only want to pay for frames once every two years.  They’ll pay for an optician visit once a year, but not for frames.  Insurance companies really suck at the moment.  When they do pay, I think it's only about $20, or some shitty amount like that.

I want new glasses, though.  It doesn’t make sense to go to the optician and then not get new glasses.  So I just pay the $265.  Yes, that’s how much it cost me for my new glasses.  They should be ready in 7 to 10 business days.  F&%$K!  So I don’t get my expensive new glasses for about two weeks or so.  How lovely, huh?

Is that the end?  Of course not!  I find a message on my phone shortly after leaving the optician’s place telling me that the frames I want are no longer available.  That’s just fantastic.  What the hell?  I called back and the clerk tells me they “manufacturer”  had a few other frames that were supposedly pretty much the same.  I wonder how “pretty much”?  I have to choose between the colors of gun metal, or gold.  I chose gun metal.  Maybe I should have chosen gold?  I certainly paid enough for gold glasses!

I’d like to think I’ll have my glasses by the next blog, but who really knows?  So why did I pay through the eyes this week?  All so I will hopefully be able to get a new driver’s license!  Until next week, keep asking why.  Then thank God every night if you don’t have to wear glasses!  You’re saving a lot of money if you can see well!

Week 40: Why I peed in a cup

If you read my blog, you’ll know I went to the doctor last week.  After seeing him I was able to get some blood pressure medication.  I’ve felt much better since taking that.  He also wanted me to give both a blood and urine sample.  I remember back when they would just take that stuff at the doctor’s office instead of giving you instructions to go and do it yourself somewhere.  The nurse did tell me I could go to some lab at the office and take care of it, but I was tired so I just went home.

I didn’t want to forget the test samples my doctor asked for.  And so I looked up the closest Quest Diagnostics for this week.  There are these Quest places all over Las Vegas.  They test everybody.  You go to them for drug tests for jobs as well as I guess tests from doctors.  I went to a Quest Diagnostics over three years ago for my drug test for my current job.  That wasn’t a “pee in the bottle” test though, it was a hair test.  The girl just cut off some of my hair to be tested.  Things wouldn't be that easy this week.

I decided to make an appointment at a nearby Quest Diagnostics because everything is easier if you have an appointment, right?  Maybe?  Hopefully?  I was hoping I would get to the place a bit early and they would slide me right in.  All I needed to do was give a little blood and urine.  But of course things can’t be that easy, not in the medical world.

After finding the Quest where my appointment was made, I had to sign in and give my paperwork and insurance card to the lady there.  Will they be charging me?  Nobody knows.  Maybe they’ll bill me, maybe they won’t.  That’s a bit disconcerting, but I pressed on.

After signing in I sat down in the waiting room.  I was about 45 minutes early, but was told I probably wouldn’t make it into the office to give my samples until my appointment time.  Lovely.  Now realize I really wanted to make sure I could pee enough to fill the cup so I had been drinking a lot of water all morning!  I really had to go!  I can’t go though, because I have to save it to pee in the cup when it’s my turn!  So I sat there trying to cross my legs for about 50 minutes.

Sitting in this waiting room was like sitting in a doctor’s office waiting room.  Everyone there pretends to be sick and dying and they all need to get in right away!  One guy is mad because he doesn’t have an appointment, but he needs his drug test finished by the end of the day!  They’d better take him right now!  He’s so important!  The people at the office seem to care as much about him and his importance as I do.  Take a seat and wait your turn.

“Excuse me, where’s the bathroom?”

I want to say that soooo bad, but I can’t!  I have to WAIT!  Most of the people in the waiting area are also staring at their cell phones.  One nearby man has some headphones, but decides not to use them.  He’s watching something with explosions and turns the volume on his phone way up.  Maybe he’s part deaf?  I don’t know.  Maybe now I’m not part deaf from listening to the crap come out of his phone?  I don’t know, but I STILL HAVE TO PEE!

Finally I’m called back.  I go back with this nice lady and she introduces herself.  She asks me whether I’d like to do the blood or urine sample first.  I’d rather get the blood done first.  That hurts, but I can easily pee all over everything with no pain at all.  And so she quickly sets everything up.  She was very nice and professional!  I was quite impressed with her.  She was fast without rushing me.  She easily slips the needle into my arm and I barely felt it!  That was great!  Usually it hurt like hell when I’ve had that done.  No blood was going into the vial, though.  She said my veins were deep down, so she had to wiggle the needle a bit.  There was the pain I knew!  That hurt like hell, but only for a second or two.  The vial filled with blood and then I had a nice cotton gauze taped to my arm.  Now the urine sample.  This turned out to be more difficult than the blood sample.

She tells me the doctor wants my “equipment” washed with soap before I give the sample.  I then have to dry it carefully and clean it off with a towlette she gives me because there can’t be any soap in the sample!  Soap in the sample is a huge no-no!  And so I go into the bathroom and get ready to wash my “equipment” with some soap.

Now the difficulty begins.  The sink is about a foot and a half taller than my “equipment”.  How the hell am I supposed to wash it when I can’t even get it in, or really near the sink?  What the hell am I supposed to do?  Finally, I just get a bit of soap on my fingers and try to reach down and not make too much of a mess.  This is while still holding the sample cup.  My pants want to fall down, but I for some reason don’t want them around my ankles.  I do the best I can with washing off my tip.  I’m not sure how to dry my hands while still holding this sample cup, so I just open the towlette and try to clean myself the best I can.

Now keep in mind, my body realizes I’m in a bathroom and have pulled my pants down.  It’ takes every last little bit of self-control I have not to pee all over the floor while I’m washing the “equipment”.  For crying out loud, why was this so hard?  Ok, I’m finally ready to fill the cup.  I go over to the toilet and start to go.  I shove the sample cup under the stream.  For a split second the stream is disturbed and some of it goes on the floor.  Shit.  I’m peeing like mad too and the cup fills up quite quickly.  I don’t want to over fill it, so after it’s filled a bit, I pulled it away.  I’m still holding my pants up trying not to let them slip down around my ankles.  Is the cup full enough?  Maybe not?  I don’t know how much they need.  Maybe they need it full right to the brim?  I shove the cup under the stream again and fill it up more.  Now I’m wondering if I’ve filled it up too much.

Finally I finished and screwed the top back on to the sample bottle.  It is full almost to the top.  I’m hoping I didn’t get a whole lot of pee on the outside of the cup.  Now there’s a bit of pee on the cup, on my hands, and on the floor, the toilet, pretty much all over.  I wonder who cleans that bathroom.  Oh well, I pull my pants back up and set the cup down on the sink so I can wash my hands.  I’m guessing that some of the urine on the cup is now on the sink. 

I quickly placed my sample where I was told to place it when I was finished and headed out on my way really glad that was finally over with.  So why did I pee in a cup?  Because the doctor wanted it.  Hopefully I’m healthy and don’t need to do this again for a few years.  Until next week, keep asking why.  And I hope that bathroom wasn’t too difficult to clean.

Week 39: Why I went to the doctor.

This week I had to go to a “health check” at work.  To be completely honest, I really didn’t HAVE to go, but if I go to these things once a year, they give me a large discount on the health insurance that’s taken out of my pay check.  So I think the discount is worth the trouble.  Usually each year they tell me that I’m fat, and my blood pressure is a bit high.  Actually for the fat part one lady said “Your body mass index is not where the company would like it to be.”.  

I really wasn’t looking forward to the health check, but I was a good boy all night and fasted and didn’t eat or drink anything besides water.  I get there and they prick my finger to take some blood.  That always hurts, but at least they aren’t taking a tube full of blood from me.  (I’ll be giving that up anyway, but more on that later.) 

And then this old man says it’s time to take my blood pressure.  I wasn’t looking forward to that.  So he fits the cuff on my arm and starts to pump.  I don’t remember people having to make the cuff that tight.  It felt like he was trying to pump the cuff up enough to snap my damned arm off!  He finishes and then tells me he has to do it two more times. 

After taking my blood pressure two more times he goes and gets another woman.  She proceeds to tell me how bad my blood pressure is.  Normally when they see blood pressure that high, they immediately call the paramedics!  Did I want to go to the hospital?  Did I want an ambulance?  This was serious!  I might die at any second!  This was a genuine medical emergency!  The lady went on and on and then made me sign a form saying whether or not I wanted paramedics.  Obviously I did not want paramedics.

And so I went home.  Now I was upset and even though I hadn’t eaten in about 24 hours, I was no longer hungry.  I was worried and wondered if I should go to an emergency room.  I had been fine up until then, but the lady kept telling me how serious it was and how I needed treatment IMMEDIATELY!

I waited until office hours started and called my doctor’s office.  I asked about an appointment and was told he had an opening at 10:40 that morning!  Fantastic!  Maybe I could get in before I had a stroke, or heart attack, or just died outright!  And so I waited and worried.

Finally, I headed to the doctor’s office.  There was a bunch of people in the waiting room waiting to see different doctors.  Most of them putting on these dramas trying to show everyone how really sick they were.  I ignored everyone.  I was called back to an examining room and the nurse took my blood pressure.  I asked if it was high and she said yes, but she didn’t seem all shook up like the pushy lady at the health check did.  The nurse left and I waited for the doctor.

Finally my doctor came in and we spoke about my blood pressure.  He then told me he hates stupid people who try and frighten people telling them they need to go to the hospital immediately for high blood pressure.  He told me that yes, I might have a stroke if my blood pressure stayed at its current level for 30 more years!  He said it wasn’t as huge an emergency as the idiot lady was making out.  That made me feel better. 

After chatting a bit more my doctor said he wanted to check on a bunch of things and he would be prescribing me some blood pressure medication.  I like my doctor because he’s very thorough.  Whether you want him to or not, he checks everything!  And so after he left, the nurse came back into the room with a big electronic thing to check my heart.  She connected all these wires to me and told me not to move.  That only took a few minutes.  Then she told me the prescription had already been sent to my local drugstore/pharmacy and that the doctor wanted blood and urine samples from me.  I couldn’t seem to urinate right then, so I decided to put that off for a bit.  I can get that done somewhere close to home later on. 

I didn’t get a written prescription.  It was just “called in” for me.  It turns out that the prescription was sent to the drugstore/pharmacy that’s right across the street from where I live!  A perfect location!  So I picked up my blood pressure pills and finally went home for some sleep.  I’d been up and awake worrying about all of this for quite a while!

After taking my pill, I can say I do feel better.  I don’t seem to get out of breath as much as I used to, and I do feel like I have a bit more energy.  I just kind of feel better overall.  So actually maybe it was a good idea for me to go see the doctor.  I probably didn’t need to be frightened into it, but still it was a worthwhile trip.  And the doctor expects to see me again in a month to check on how my prescription is working (and probably discuss my urine and blood so I’d better actually get that done!)

So why did I go to the doctor this week?  Blood pressure, simple answer.

Before I end this week’s blog, one quick thought.  I was thinking about things and it’s a good writing exercise to do these blogs each week.  And then years later I can look back and remember what I was doing, and how I was feeling during each week in 2017.  We need to move forward, though.  Evolve and move forward.  So what would be the next step?  Maybe videos?  I have a number of cameras and I don’t use them as much as I’d really like.  So I was thinking that after finishing up my 52 Weeks of Why, maybe for 2018 I should do 52 Weeks of life and post a video of what I do and think each week?  I wonder how many people would watch that?  Just a thought.  Until next week, keep asking why.

Week 36: Why did he fish?

This was a sad week for me and it would have been easy to just skip the blog and not write anything.  I don’t think my father would have liked that, though.  My father passed away this week on September 5^th.  His memory does live on.  This week’s blog honors some of that memory.

My father loved to fish.  He was also named Robert, but went by the name Bob.  And boy did Bob love to fish!  I don’t know what it was about fishing that made him love it so much, but it seemed like it was his favorite thing to do.  Well, that and horse racing.  A perfect weekend for him would have been a trip to a casino on a Friday afternoon to place some bets for the Saturday horse races, and then packing up a motorhome or trailer (I believe they are called caravans in the UK) and driving back to Idaho for a bit of fishing.

Now a fishing trip with Bob wasn’t just the usual drive to your destination and fish type of trip.  Bob wanted to fish everywhere.  So you would start down the road on the way to Idaho from Nevada and after you got out of town and into a few remote areas, he would pull off to the side of the highway.  Maybe at some rest area, or something like that.

He would tell everyone to go to the bathroom if you needed it, or to maybe just stretch your legs.  We would use the facilities and then head back to the motorhome.  Bob would be nowhere to be found.  After waiting a few minutes, we would walk around to find him.  He would usually be out behind the rest stop at some small hole with water in it, trying to catch fish.

You could try and tell him it wasn’t a stream and there were no fish there, but he wouldn’t believe you.  He just wanted to try his luck.  And so we would give him a few minutes.  Soon, we would be back in the motorhome and on our way.  About ten miles down the highway, he would pull over again wanting to “check on something”.  He would be out of the motorhome and off to some tiny stream that he saw again trying to fish.

And this would be your drive on the way to Idaho, stopping every ten miles or so because he saw a bit of water.  There might be fish in there so we would have to stop.  You can’t blame a guy for doing what he loved, though.

Getting to Idaho, his plans would include fishing, fishing, and more fishing.  He loved to go to places with small creeks running here and there and catch rainbow trout.  To this day, I hate the smell and taste of trout.  That fish will always bring back fond memories of my father now.  He would fish until it was dark out.  And out where he fished, there were no street lights, or any lights for that matter, so you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face.  But he would always still want to “try one more spot” before we left.

Soon I’ll be traveling to Idaho for family trip to celebrate my father’s memory.  And as we drive along, I think I’m going to ask to stop every single time I see a bit o water.  I’ll want to fish.  Actually, I hate fishing and will probably just stare fondly at whatever little pond I find, but I’ll still want to stop.  My dad will need to fish.

Until next week, keep fishing.  And also ask why occasionally.