Stunslinger.com Blog

Obviously my posting frequency has dropped off quite a bit recently, and I’m going to blame that on the move.  Things are smoothing out some now, so I should be back up and posting more frequently.

Anyway, in order to move our belongings we rented a 26-foot Penske moving truck and a car trailer.  This thing was massive, and we didn’t actually need that much truck, but it was a couple of hundred dollars cheaper than the shorter ones.

On the way home from the rental place, I almost killed somebody.  I should specify, had it happened it would not have been my fault.  I had to make a left turn onto a three lane road, so I lined up in the rightmost of the two left turn lanes…so that I could turn into the middle lane and then move safely into the slow right lane.  I made my turn, and afterward put on the blinker to move over.  Just as I began to merge into the right lane, a motorcyclist behind me decided it would be a good time to speed up and pass me on the right.  Thankfully I was obsessively checking my mirrors, and saw him come around.  So I corrected and he shot forward, but he could’ve been in a world of hurt.

I got the truck safely back to our apartment, and we got to the loading.  Or, more accurately, let the movers get to the loading.  They did a great job, and laughed at us several times for having way too big of a truck.  Wednesday morning we cleaned up our apartment, loaded the car onto the trailer and headed off.  About 300 feet down the road my wife called from the other car and said our trailer had a flat tire.  Sure enough, we hadn’t even made it off our street before I had to call Penske’s SOS number.  Luckily a neighbor down the street was very friendly and talked to us for an hour while we waited for the service guy to change the wheel.

After that, we got off down the road and had a mostly uneventful drive out of Utah.  When we stopped at the Flying J in Snowville, UT, I discovered that one of the tire straps had slipped off.  Turns out I had misunderstood how to attach the straps, so I had to fix that at the truck stop.

We made it to Boise that night, and then had a pleasant drive into Oregon on Thursday.  We had no more mishaps until we tried to return the truck and trailer.  In order to unload the truck we had to park the trailer, so to return it we had to hook it back up.  I lined the truck back up with the hitch, and my wife yelled up that she couldn’t lower the trailer hitch onto the truck.  The crank that raises and lowers the height of the trailer hitch wasn’t working.  Sweet.

I called Penske’s SOS yet again, and thankfully they offered to just tow the trailer away for me.  This made me happy, because I hate driving the gigantic truck with a trailer too.  So we packed up the truck and drove through terrible traffic to return the truck.  We arrived at the place, and the guy told us he couldn’t accept it back because he had to log in the truck and trailer at the same time.  What?!  Well, after not being too happy about it, he called Penske corporate (he wasn’t actually a Penske employee, he worked for Public Storage) and got it approved.  Phew.  After threatening to charge me $35 to fold the dozen blankets despite having no sign saying they needed to be folded, we got out of there.

And thus concludes the story of a boy and his giant moving truck.

Some weird/different things that have happened recently:

• I started running.  Very strange, indeed.  If you know me personally, you know that I’m not exactly the most fit individual out there.  Not only that, but I’ve never had positive experiences running.  In fact, I’ve had a number of excuses as to why I “can’t” run.  But, I gave up those excuses and decided to give running a fair shot.  I’ve run 2 miles for 5 out of the last 6 mornings.  Somehow I’ve been able to rack up 10 miles.  It’s still very hard, and I still am slow and walk way more than I want to, but I definitely have a sense of accomplishment.  Now I want to be able to run the Shamrock Run 5K in Portland on St. Patrick’s Day.  We’ll see.
• Our Dish Network is acting screwy.  This weekend our DVR/receiver has been a pain in the neck.  It is glitchy, freezes up, and randomly resets.  Of course I can’t call in for a fix or anything because I told them I’m canceling, since our new apartment has cable in the rent.  In fact, all of these problems started after I called to cancel…coincidence?
• People barged into our apartment.  Obviously, our apartment is up for rent, and our landlord has asked to show our apartment on a few occasions.  Yesterday he had an open house in the evening.  At 11am this couple was pestering us to let them look through the place and asking obnoxious questions.  Do they seriously need to know what all of our neighbors do for work?  Apparently they thought they did.  They also thought it necessary to complain on behalf of their “poor son,” who works 10 hour days with his doctorate in pharmacy.  Apparently this means he cannot for the life of him rent an apartment.  Yeah right.  Ugh.  Then, of course, they were back for the open house.  In fact, they were waiting on our steps 10 minutes early, so they could watch us as we left for dinner.

Anyway, it’s not like things are too bizarro here or anything.  Just enough to be frustrating.  And I’m stressed out from preparing for the move.  I’m to the point now where I want to both cancel the move and just have it over with.  We’ve been saying goodbye to all of our friends, which sucks.  I mapped out all of the truck stops between SLC and Portland, so I can refuel the behemoth 26 foot truck with trailer I’ll be driving.  Last stop is ordering the audiobook of A People’s History of the United States from iTunes.  I’ve been meaning to read this book, and I figured I might as well listen to it while I’m stuck in a vehicle by myself for hours and hours.  Plus, I hear Matt Damon narrates it, and does a good job.

Well, I should (try to) go to sleep now.  Lately I’ll feel tired, go to bed, and lay there wide awake.  I’m being active during the day (see above mentioned morning run), so it must be anxiety related to the move.  I’ll cross my fingers and see how tonight goes.

First of all, my wife has an ACL!  We are very excited about this, especially since after the last surgery we were so disappointed.

Our day began wonderfully, with a flat tire.  I had to run in to work for a few minutes to make a quick phone call, but was stopped just a few blocks away by a “whump-whump-whump” noise.  Crap.  My driver’s side rear tire was completely flat.  So I got to spend some quality time changing my tire out for the spare.  Finally got to work and made my phone calls.  I did feel sort of odd walking around the VA in a t-shirt, jeans, and flip-flops.  Not exactly a flip-flop crowd.

Anyway, we ended up running all the way out to Heber City, UT, where Mrs. Stunslinger had her surgery.  The hospital was actually quite nice, and I dare say it was a better experience than the one we were at last time, in Salt Lake.  Of course we had to wait much longer than expected, but overall it was a good experience.  The surgeon’s assistant came in and told us everything went well and she should be back to normal in 6 months.  He said there was absolutely no evidence of inflammation and the meniscus repair they did last time looked excellent.  Finally, good news after a surgery!

Despite all this good, I still have found something to complain about!  Last time we went through this ordeal we were given several pieces of equipment.  And when I say given, I mean we paid exorbitant fees for them.  We got a fancy brace that cost several hundred dollars, and a very expensive (and actually quite cool) ice machine that pumps ice water through a tube and into a bladder that is put on her knee.  Anyway, we thought, “It would be ridiculous to pay for these expensive pieces of equipment twice!”  So we brought our own, in an attempt to save a bit of money.

When we told the nurse, she said, “We’ll see if that will connect with ours.”  Apparently they can’t use the same bladder twice, so they had to check and see if our contraption fit with their bladder - and of course it didn’t.  So we had to put our perfectly good ice machine back in the trunk, and buy another one.  Then, when she came back from surgery they informed us that they couldn’t use the expensive brace.  Apparently the brace had straps that were too short, so it wouldn’t fit over the dressing she has right now.  Double sweet.

So, basically we had two perfectly good pieces of equipment that couldn’t be used.  I will say that the new ice machine is much quieter when running, and easier to refill.  But still…

It’s official.  Today we went to the orthopedic surgeon’s office to check out my wife’s knee.  He was happy with what he saw, and even had good news about the possibility of her having rheumatoid arthritis.  Since she hasn’t had any swelling in other joints, he said it’s likely if she does have rheumatoid, it’s a less severe version that affects just a few joints.  We still get to stick with the anti-inflammatory diet, though.

He was happy that most of the swelling has gone away, and cleared her for surgery.  Yay!  Now, we’re planning on moving back to Oregon at the end of the month, which makes things somewhat difficult.  We’ve found an excellent surgeon here, and we want him to perform the surgery, but his schedule isn’t exactly wide open.  Unfortunately the next opening he had was for September 5.  Crap!  But then the receptionist remembered that there was a likely cancellation for this Thursday, but it’s out in Heber City.  Now, we don’t really care about that.  In Utah, it’s a ridiculous distance to travel, but to us it’s no big deal.  So we wiggled my wife out of work this week and pounced on the Thursday time.

So now we’re good to go.  I’m taking time off work and my mom is flying out to help take care of my wife and help me get ready to move.  It’ll be complicated for sure, but in the end we’ll be back in Portland and my wife will have an intact knee!

Good day.

I’m tired, but I thought I’d drop some knowledge on you all before I retire to bed.  I don’t like spiders, and so I have put my brain to use finding efficient ways of killing them.  I actually thought of this a year or more ago, and have been field testing it before bringing it to my faithful blog readers.  Or, more likely, I never thought about posting it until now.  Take your pick.

Anyway, one of my biggest frustrations is that, while it’s easy to hit a spider that is hanging out on your wall, it is equally easy to lose track of said spider after the hit.  At this point there are three outcomes, two of which really suck, and one is tolerable: 1) You killed the spider (yay!) and squished it onto the wall where it remains (yuck).  2) You killed the spider, but it falls to the ground, having lost its super-spider-suction powers upon death, and you have to try to find the dead spider carcass (yuck again).  3) You didn’t kill the spider, and it runs away, or descends super quickly to the floor to flee the scene.

Obviously none of these options is optimal, so what to do?  I developed a new technique, which has proven more effective at killing the spider and minimizing the yuck factor.  I take a piece of packing tape (we’ve got a bunch leftover from our last move) and use that to hit the spider.  This tape, obviously with the sticky side down, traps the spider.  This way, if you kill it, it stays put.  No more searching the carpet to find a spider corpse.  Pull off the tape, seal it up into a little envelope/coffin and you’re done.  In the event you didn’t kill it, it’s now trapped in a tape pocket, and is easy pickings.  You simply smush, remove, seal and throw away.

Problem solved.  Of course, since I use clear packing tape, I actually see the smashed spider corpse, but it doesn’t bother me much.  Not nearly as much as seeing a spider run behind my bed or something.  Shudder.

I wrote the following in an email to a friend and thought I’d copy it here because it sums up my weekend and whatnot:

Welp…looks like starting in September I’ll be residing in SW Portland for at least one year.  This weekend we leased a place sight unseen (my parents went and looked through, and she emailed us video clips)…good location, newly remodeled, and a good price (rent includes all utilities and TV/wireless internet).  Can’t ask for more than that.

Tomorrow the new Against Me! album, the new Unseen album and the Broadway Calls album all come out.  ‘Twill be a historic day.

And I got a new cellphone yesterday…finally….helped my friend move in and now I have bruises on my arms and a swollen/scraped ankle (it got trapped beneath a large filing cabinet when I tripped).  Must sleep.

So my reverse workweek, Fourth of July extended vacation, whatever began on Wednesday and ended last night.  We slept in a bit on Wednesday, and then decided to brave the heat and head on down to the Sugarhouse Arts Festival a few blocks from our house.

They shut down a block of one of the main streets through Sugarhouse and had booths down the sides of the street and had a couple of stages for bands to perform.  When we arrived, I heard a mediocre cover of Back in Black playing, it was going to be a good day.  Turns out there’s a School of Rock Music in Salt Lake, and it was a bunch of kids from the school performing.  They rotated through, playing all sorts of covers, from AC/DC to Zappa to Allman Brothers to Guns and Roses.  It was fun to see the kids performing, although I’d like to see them in a few years when they feel free enough to really rock out.

The booths were your usual arts festival crap… tie-dye and all.  But I did get a really good philly cheese steak sandwich made by a local sandwich place.  It was a good couple of hours, but it also felt nice to get out of the heat when we came back home.

Then it was all Die Hard, all the time.  We watched all three Die Hard movies in the afternoon, even skipping watching any fireworks.  Out of the first three, I still like the third one the best.  Remember, watching these movies was my wife’s idea!

Then on Thursday, my wife woke me up with a blueberry pancake breakfast.  We went to see Live Free or Die Hard, which was awesome.  We talked about how weird it is that the series can avoid the traditional problem: sequels are worse than the original movie.  As far as I’m concerned, numbers three and four (Die Hard with a Vengeance, and Live Free or Die Hard) are the best in the series.

Then we went out to dinner, and back to the theater to see Knocked Up, which my wife went to see with friends a month ago.  I liked the movie, and absolutely cannot wait to see Superbad (from the same writers).  Then it was back to the house to eat Baskin Robbins Ice Cream Cake.  Badass.

Now my wife is at work, and I’m hanging out by myself.  My big event of the day was getting my haircut.  How things change…

The last few mornings I’ve been eating oatmeal for breakfast (until recently I didn’t realize how easy it is to make in the microwave).  I like a bit of brown sugar on my oatmeal, but unfortunately our bag of brown sugar had turned into two large rock-like pieces that I couldn’t deal with.  Once or twice I was able to rub them together and use the little bit that sluffed off, but that wasn’t good enough.

So I searched the interwebs and found one quite quickly.  I put the container inside a giant ziploc bag with a damp paper towel and let it sit all day.  Today I went to feel it, and it had de-clumpified.  No more giant brown sugar rocks!  I was happy, I thought I’d tell you.

Time to go to work.

Yesterday was Earth Day.  I know, I know: yes, that “holiday” is still being “celebrated,” and it actually seems to be growing in popularity as people actually start caring about the environment.  Wired magazine even included the term “ecosexual” in this current issue to describe people who are all up in the environment’s grill.

Anyway, Home Depot actually did something useful yesterday: they gave out compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs)!  Company wide they set out to give away 1,000,000 CFLs, which (if each one replaced an ordinary incandescent bulb) would reduce CO2 emissions similar to removing 70,000 cars from the road.  I do think that’s pretty cool.  And yes, Home Depot did plan to benefit from this giveaway through an increase in sales.  I never said they weren’t a business, but I think this is absolutely acceptible.

So Sunday morn I awoke and headed down to my local Home Depot with my mom in tow (hey, why not try to get two bulbs?).  Now, I had read about this on the internet, so I didn’t know how it would actually play out in the stores.  Not to mention that I live in Utah, which doesn’t seem to be super concerned with reducing our carbon footprint.

We walked around and found the lighting section, all the while looking for an indication that there were free CFLs.  We saw none.  No signs, no helpful people in orange aprons handing out free CFLs, nothing.  Ok.  Maybe we should check the advertisement, certainly that would have something about it.  Nope, nothing there either.  What the?  Finally my mom asked someone, and they gave her two and told her we needed to buy something to get them free.

Again, I have no problem buying something (I bought a few more CFLs) to get a freebie.  What did seem odd to me, is that this is the only promotion I’ve ever seen that had literally no advertising.  If the goal of Home Depot was to promote the use of CFLs to improve the environment (or even to boost their sales), don’t you think they should have some sort of advertisement?  Was my Home Depot the only one this way, or was this a company-wide policy?  Weird.

Anyway, I still give them kudos.  I got my two CFLs for free, plus two more I bought.  I installed three of them when I got home, and they work great.  In fact, the light is more accurate than the incandescents I replaced.  I have a green shirt that always looks brown in my bedroom, but now in front of a CFL it is obviously green.  Not to mention the energy savings, and even the heat savings (CFLs operate around 90 degrees, incandescents around 325 or so)!  So I say, yay Home Depot and yay CFLs.

Too often people forget there are numerous little things we can do to reduce our emissions.

I wanted to give you a quick update on my wife’s ACL reconstruction surgery.  We went in to the hospital yesterday at 11am and got her checked in.  She was told she was to be taken into surgery at 12:30pm.  Apparently there was a traffic mess coming down to Salt Lake from Park City, where her surgeon has his office, so she didn’t get into surgery until 2:15pm.

Apparently when the surgeon cut her knee open he discovered chronically inflamed tissue that he was concerned was rheumatoid.  He removed the problematic tissue, but because rheumatic tissue releases excess digestive enzymes he did not think an ACL graft would be successful.  He was able to repair a partial tear to the meniscus, but her knee is still lacking an ACL.  He sent the tissue to the pathology lab, and we should find out late next week if it is rheumatoid.  That would not make us happy.  But we’re remaining positive.

So now, my wife is recovering from surgery.  Her leg is in an immobilizer and she can’t put any weight on it.  She has to do exercises every hour, and take Percocet every four hours to manage her pain.  She’s a trooper, but this is very discouraging.  She essentially has to go through the whole healing process, and then probably have another surgery down the road.  Yippee.

Thoughts and prayers are appreciated.