New Commercial from Oliver's work

This is a funny commercial that debuted at our large company meeting last week. It is now playing on TV. Pretty hilarious seeing as there is no such thing as the character Mr. T is describing... It was made to look especially like him by BLIZZARD.

Thanksgiving inLA

We had a really nice Thanksgiving together. It was our first one together because Emily has had to work holiday shifts at the U of U hospital every previous Thanksgiving. We missed our families, but enjoyed spoiling ourselves at a nice restaurant with a famous 'rock'n'roll' chef. I made reservations and told Emily we weren't going to have to do any work ( cooking, dishes, etc. )

The restaurant was really artsy and fun, but the turkey dinner made it feel just like Thanksgiving should.

(PS: Click on the pictures to view them larger!)

The Surgery!

For those of you who don't know, Wednesday the 14th I went in for a small surgery. Its called a microdiscectomy. Basically the micro part means that its done with very small scope like instruments and the discectomy part means that the bulging part of my L5 Disc was cut off to relieve pressure it had been applying to my spinal cord and sciatic nerve.

The surgery was exciting, Emily had a test right before it, but was able to make it into the hospital to see me off. I was given the anesthesia and WOW that felt like being suddenly forced beneath a thousand pounds of warm water! The room got really loud and then I was out.

The next thing I recall was waking up and everything was very dark and somewhere far away I heard my doctor saying the surgery was a success. With all of my strength I lifted my hand to shake his. The next few hours were definitely the worst. Emily was told my recovery time would be about 1 and a half hours. Lets just say it was 4 hours. My body decided to have a lot of reaction to being sliced open and drugged. After all of that we took about 15 minutes to get out the the car (in a wheel chair) and started the drive home.

We stopped at Albertsons to fill a perscription and Emily slowly fed me crackers and water. I couldn't eat more than 1/2 of a saltine at a time, and she had to pour water in my mouth as I didn't have any saliva of my own yet. She was so nice to me. I should mention that the entire hospital staff were all very sweet also. They were glad Em was a nurse so they didn't have to go into tons of details upon my release.

Long story short - I took lots of drugs and healed for the next 4 days. Now I'm able to walk around and even bend a little without too much pain. Emily has been an amazing support - doing everything for me. She deserves all the credit.

I attached a couple images of the procedure. After which are one of me having a really hard time :) and one of my back. (they wrote yes on it to make sure they did the correct side!)

OR!

I just want to announce today that i did my first INTUBATION. for those of you who don't know.. in anesthesia for surgery you often have to put breathing tubes in patients.. so that means that i sedate my patient to knock them out.. ventilate them with a mask.. paralyze them.. (they're not breathing at all) and then get a scope and look down their throat and put a breathing tube between their vocal cords. anyway, i did my first one today! on a real person! (this picture is an example of an intubation on a dummy from some other website.)

pluto & stuff

i just learned that pluto is no longer a planet. did anyone else know that? it's been demoted to some other sort of space matter. anyway, a number of things have been going on, but we haven't posted pictures or anything.. so maybe i'll just list them.

oliver rode his motorcycle from LA to las vegas the weekend before last.. and upon coming back he had to split lanes because the I-15 was in the process of being shut down because it was on fire.. obviously he made it home. that was an adventure. he took some pictures of the weekend, hopefully they will be posted soon. (no pictures of the fire, no time to stop).

school has been cranking away, i'm doing well and i don't feel too stressed out. tomorrow is my first day at the hospital in the OR -- i've gotta check out the anesthesia machine and run through a few patient scenarios -- but not with real patients.

i'm sure oliver will post about this soon, but i just want to mention that the new hannah montana videogame is coming out from disney and oliver did a TON of work for it.. although his working title was not 'art director' he did have a major influence on the game and designed most of the stages!

take a look!

1000 miles! and thousands to go!

So I made it to 1000 miles (actually that photo was taken a couple of weeks back, I'm now at about 1600 miles!) I haven't done much to customize the bike yet, but upon Joe IV's suggestion, I got this cool skull gas cap! pretty awesome huh!? :)

strangest thing

okay, i just wanted to share something incredibly weird. a friend of mine works at a library in salt lake county -- a library i've never been to or lived near. today he checked out a book to a patron and while putting in the "due date" slip, a picture of me fell out of the book.

isn't that strange?

he's mailing me the picture.

Work Work Work

Well, we are really into it now! Emily has a full load at school now and we are really feeling it! Oliver is trying to keep up with dishes and laundry, but is mainly concentrating on work and learning to model in 3D. Here is a little video of a house Oliver modeled at home (not for Blizzard - sorry Blizz-fans). :)

catch-up

the last couple of things we've done we haven't brought the camera! here's a picture from a toursim site of the steps from the coolest beach we've been to! it was called thousand steps beach because in order to get there you have to walk down so many. here's a picture of the actual beach from a photographer's site.

that was a real highlight. we also went to a baseball game and BBQ last week. we got to see the anaheim angels play the indians. it was really fun, but the game was awful! i don't think anyone scored until like the 6th inning. everyone was striking or hitting a few fly balls.

well.. i've got a few tests coming up, so it's time to study.

Strange Mail

I think that California is one of the only places where someone would receive such a strange piece of mail!

drummin to mario

okay, a close friend linked this up on another site, "i really thought this might be oliver... is it?" it's not. but i laughed so hard watching it as though it was...

the last vacation

with school starting so soon, we spent the last weekend with aunt martha at the horseshoe bay resort outside of austin. we went jet skiing, got massages, went on a boat cruise, and tried opie's bbq. it was a lot of fun! we even tried out this awesome 18 hole putting green.

we didn't use our camera as much as marc and maureen used theirs.. so we've only got a few pictures and oliver took them all -- so he's not in any! when we get the CD from marc and maureen we'll show a few more.

Its GO time!

Yep, It was delivered today!! I have only been into 2 of its 5 mean gears and I got up to about 50 mph! :) Bliss.

Harley XL1200N

Proud Parents :)

BLIZZCON

oliver & i have a lot of catching up to do. last weekend we went to blizzcon, his work's gaming convention. it was wild. there were TONS of fans. the place was full, (tickets had sold out within a short time of it being announced & on sale, so it was obviously crowded). There were costume contests, bull riding (but it was designed like something from one of the games.. i don't know the name) and i don't know. all sorts of stuff. the slide show below will give you a better idea of what was going on.

i think it's exciting that oliver's a part of something so huge. he also had to wear a shirt from work that said "development team" on it, so he made some friends in the lines that were excited that he makes the games.

anyway, here are some pictures.

school

for those who don't know. i'm starting kaiser's nursing anesthesia program. i just wanted to announce that i picked up my books today. the letter telling me my books were available recommended that i bring a cart to haul them out. so, i bought a dolly at kmart -- you know, a little foldup kind that SAYS it carries up to 150 lbs.

the stack is 60lbs, and the dolly did fine.. sort of. i had to go down 5 short stairs to get out of the building and after that explosion and restacking, no problems.

Ward Luau

Last weekend was not only a birthday weekend, but our Ward LUAU!

Thanks to the nice hawaiian family in the ward, we got the treat of some native dancing (including the fire dancer) and some really good roast pig! Mmmmmm!

happy birthday!

so today is oliver's 30th birthday! we celebrated it over the weekend by going fishing! we had to show up before 5am to get the gear and get ready for the trip. on the way out of the marina/port area the captain got a bunch of live bait (sardines and anchovies) and we set out to sea.

it was cold on the way out & back in -- but it was perfect weather when we were just fishing. one person caught a big yellow tail tuna and someone else caught a barracuda.

in the end, we caught a few bonitas, way too many illegal bass (they were all too small and had to be thrown back) and oliver caught a ton of perch using squid as bait! it was a blast. the seals kept swimming up to the boat and trying to eat the fish & bait.. and by the end the seagulls were landing on the boat to eat leftover bait too. ocean fishing is crazy. it was a real adventure.

take a look at the slideshow below, or go here for full size pictures.

moved

okay, here are a few pictures from moving. we don't have any internet access at home -- the company here was behind like three weeks, so we'll have to wait for another 10 days.. anyway. we're in and i'll post newer pictures maybe this week if i can find another wireless connection. for those who don't know, oliver's birthday is next week! take a look at his present here. it'll be pretty exciting. we'll post pictures if we catch anything!

moving again!

our pod arrived! we had a 3 hour window of when it would be delivered.. so we went swimming in the pool for a half hour and then it arrived. it's pretty cool how they pick it up and drop it off all with a motorized frame that's not even connected to the truck.

we'll be doing the real move-in tomorrow morning... wish us luck. it'll be great to feel settled with all of our own stuff..

Local vegetation

The plant life here in California is pretty wild! I especially loved the strange pod sprouting flowers and leaking red juice!

library & whatever

first, oliver said i had to put a picture of myself up here...



that's from the del taco in barstow. oliver asked the lady that worked there why everything they made looked like the pictures.. he wondered why his tacos were the best ever. she said that the barstow del taco was the first. the original.

well, i've been reminded to post an update as to what oliver and i are actually doing.. oliver left his job at avalanche/disney interactive and joined the ranks at blizzard entertainment.. he's an artist for video games. (there's no relevance to the snow theme). i've spent the last couple of years as a nurse and recently got into graduate school for nursing anesthesia.

we're still getting settled in here in california. i went to the library today and also joined a great online site: www.goodreads.com. it lets me see what books my friends are reading and how they like them. if you're a member let me know.

First week & first day of work

Last Tuesday we went to Disneyland... we really tested out the GPS and made it take us there WITHOUT the freeway. you'd be surprised what lies on the other side of the magic kingdom.. i don't recommend visiting it on purpose. Anyway, we took a ride on California Screamin' ... which was pretty sweet.. but with all the rest of the lines and everything we didn't ride anything else.

We did, however, discover that there is ONE place that has Chase ATM's in all of California (Chase is our lame bank). That place is Disneyland. No branches, just an ATM. we're currently in the process of switching... which has been a pain.

Otherwise, we've found a place to live.. the honeymoon of the company-paid furnished apartment is almost over (see below). Don't get me wrong, it'll be so great to have all our stuff and finally feel settled.. but paying for it is another story!



Oliver had his first day at work. He called after being there for two hours just to tell me he got a bunch of free games and a t-shirt. What a great job!

Anyway, I'm new at this blog thing, email me if the pictures are too big or something.

move!

so, we packed it in and moved to california!
we bought a new car, it's a Honda Fit, a tiny sub-compact that can hold everything & gets good gas mileage.. + it's super cute.




(and that was one of the smaller loads...)
we put a bunch of stuff in storage and drove on out.. taking a brief stop in vegas.. which was obviously worth it. check out the goggles.

we went to the body show at the tropicana and kept west! made it to california... found our new temporary home. we also bought a nuvi gps and it's been SO helpful. it tells us how to get to where we're going... which is usually the beach.