Sheep Guarding Llama

Well, today is the big day. All four wisdom teeth are coming out. This will be my first ever attempt at oral surgery. I haven’t been able to eat since last night. And I have not had any water since the middle of the night.

Loopy is driving me down to the surgeon in a little while. He is going to have a really exciting day, when he brings me back from surgery he has to almost immediately turn around and drive Dominica to the chiropractor. She had her X-Rays examined more thoroughly yesterday and she has a pinched and a compressed disc in her back. So she is in worse shape that we had thought. Dominica is off of work at least until January. Bob is still sick too. His flu is going on and on.

On top of everybody being sick, my mother had a car accident yesterday and may have totaled her car. She is ok, though. I have not been able to get a hold of my parents to find out the details of what is happening.

The Calc II final seemed to go ok. It is all over now no matter what. No more classes for at least a month. Whoo-hoo! Tim is already done for the semester. Nate and Bob are done on Friday.

Not much news beyond that. The RX-7 is in terrible shape after picking it up from Ontario Mazda this week but it limped into storage and is done for the winter. In the spring we will figure out what to do with it. Dominica’s new blue PR5 is in and we are supposed to be picking it up for her on Saturday (she can’t drive so I have to drive it!)

Looking Back [Written May 15, 2009] – As you can imagine, I did not end up writing all that much about having my wisdom teeth removed as I was busy with other things.

Andy (Loopy) drove me down to Johnson City, New York for my wisdom teeth removal in the late afternoon.  Beacuse all four teeth are coming out together the decision was made to just put me under and do the entire thing that way rather than using a local anesthetic and making me be awake for the whole thing.  I am very thankful for that.  I’ve never so much as had a cavity so this would have been rather a shocking experience.

Andy waited for me during the surgery which did not take all that long.  I was feeling pretty good when it was done and I was allowed to eat whatever I could get down.  I was starving since I had not eaten in a whole day and having been under full anesthesia gives you the munchies.

The oral surgeon told me to go get super extra ultra strength Tylenol and to start using it right away before the anesthesia completely wore off because I would be really sorry if I did not.  I told him that I was not interested and that he need not write a prescription for me but he insisted so I took the script, but I decided to not even get it filled as there was no way that I was going to take medicine for a little tooth surgery.

As we left the doctor I told Andy that I was really hungry and wanted to go to McDonald’s.  Andy was a bit incredulous but decided that if that was what I wanted then that was what we were going to get – crazy as it may seem.  So we went to McDonald’s where I got a Big Mac and a large French fry.  I had very little problem eating it either.  It was fine.

We got back to the house on Observatory Circle in Varna.  I relaxed for the evening while Andy drove Dominica out to her chiropractor appointment.  He is quite busy today carting us around.

Well, I had quite the fever yesterday. I was in rough shape. Bob had the flu the day before and Dominica has been laid up since Friday morning with incredible back pain. So, we have practically become an infirmary. I am feeling much better this morning, though and Bob and Dominica have gone to work so I am assuming that everyone is feeling a bit better.

Tomorrow is my Calc II final. After 3pm I am done for the semester. I am supposed to be having a study group at my house this evening but I think that everyone is canceling because of the flu going around. But now I have to sit around and wonder if anyone is going to show up or not.

Well, I had to go get Dominica from work at lunch because she is much worse now and is not returning to work. I took her to the doctor today and she had X-Rays taken of her back. It turns out that she has a pinched disc in her fifth lumbar vertebrae. So she is in bad shape. She will be spending a lot of time with her chiropractor. At least she is able to spend some time getting good use out of my DVD collection.

Loopy got some new 3D glasses today that allow him to play Quake II & III in full 3D. It is really cool. He had to get a new monitor and some special hardware and software to do it but the effect is really nice. And we haven’t even had the chance to check it out at night yet. It should work even better in the dark.

Yes, yes, I am delinquent again with updates for the site. Not as bad as I have been in the past, however. I was very busy working in DC last week and going to Nate & Bob’s Middle School’s Presentation of “Once Upon A Mattress.” Last night was the last of the six shows and it was excellent. I managed to make it to three of the shows this year. Bob, unfortunately, had to miss last night’s show because he has the flu and was unable to sit through the show. Dominica threw her back out on Friday morning and has been unable to move pretty much since then. Friday and Saturday were terrible but by Saturday night she was at least able to sit in a chair and watch movies to help pass the time.

I am working in Rochester today so I am making another attempt at collecting the RX-7 from Canandaigua. We will see if this manages to happen today. It would be nice to finally have that car dealt with and away for the winter. But at least I will get to drive it around today – “MLUVNIT!”

Not much else exciting going on around here. The show, the sickness and my working out of town have kept everyone pretty much occupied. At least Anne has been adding some content to the site to keep things interesting. I still have not had any time to add the Bio button or page to the site. Soon, soon, I promise.

Don’t forget that this weekend is the Lord of the Rings I: Fellowship of the Ring. Opens Friday, I believe. Some of the Llamas are heading to Binghamton to see it on Friday night. I will have to wait and see if I can go because I am having my four wisdom teeth removed (yes, Leanne, I know) on Thursday and I might not be able to make it.

If anyone out there is using Instant Messengers from Yahoo!, AOL, or MSN, then drop me a line. You can reach me at scottalanmiller on Yahoo!, itsallaboutscott on AOL or [email protected] on MSN. I am using a new messenger called Trillian now and it really rocks. Yahoo! Messenger was my main service but the newest version broke on Windows 2000 so I had to stop using it except when I was on my Linux box (once again, software designed for Windows that only runs on Linux) but Ken pointed me to www.Trillian.cc where you can download a free messenger that handles AIM, Yahoo!, IRC, ICQ and MSN for you all at once and it is really cool. So I suggest that you all go and download it and talk to me. Don’t talk to me forever though, I have work to do. If everyone is interested, we could put up a Llama IM page where you could go to get address of Llamas that you know.

Speaking of things running on Linux and not Windows… The Sims is one of the most popular games of the year, however, it was designed only to run on the old Windows 95/98/ME series (which Microsoft no longer makes and will never support again) and does not work (says so right on the box) with the supported and current Windows 2000, XP and .NET Operating Systems. But the funniest thing is that the Linux community has gotten The Sims to run on Mandrake Linux using the WineX libraries. So, it is official, Linux can run some Windows programs better than Microsoft can. If you want to try out Linux and the Sims, you can buy it online at www.transgaming.com or you can pick it up at a lot of stores in the area like Best Buy. Look for Mandrake Linux 8.1 Gaming Edition. Mandrake is far from my favorite version of Linux (Yeah, SuSE 7.3 rocks!) but it is the only version running the Sims right now so if you want that, that is the only way to go.

Nate, Tim, Loopy and I actually went out to the garage last night and played Christmas Carols on our brass instruments. Tim plays tuba and trombone, I play trombone, Loopy and Nate play trumpet.

Ok, I have to get to Rochester so I will talk to you all later.

Last night was the opening night of Nate and Bob’s musical at Boynton Middle School. They are doing “Once Upon A Mattress.” The show was great last night. Dominica and I saw the show last night. Loopy and I are going to the show tonight. Tim is playing tuba in the pit too.

There is another Anne update posted today. That is update number eight. I think that she might be writing more content going on to the site than I am. If you think that I have long updates then you should read her’s.

Bob has finally caught the Age of Empire’s 2 bug and is loading it up onto his computer today. We will see how long it is before he gets addicted to it too. Loopy has been working on additional taunts to add to the game so it is even more hilarious now!

November content has been moved over to the archives. This page is nice and fast to load now. Christmas is coming soon, only 2 ½ weeks to go. Hope you all have been shopping.

Thumb people. That is the theme of the day. Loopy has been hard at work making Thumb people out of the Llamas. Thumb Llamas I guess is more appropriate. If any of you have ever seen one of the Thumb movies like Thumb Wars: The Phantom Cuticle then you know what I am talking about. The weather is still way too warm here. You could almost wear shorts again today. In fact, I saw someone at the mall wearing short this afternoon.