Cents from AdSense

I just checked my Google AdSense for September and I've finally had a click-through. Which translates into a $0.04 commission for me. Wow. One of you out there actually clicked on an ad and made me some money. Bless you, kind reader.

Now I just have to update my tax information and figure out how to get them to cut me a check... I gots bills to pay after all. :)

How about a nice sharp stick in the eye, huh?

Last Monday, around 10am, I suddenly developed a spot in my left eye that seemed as though someone had taken a flash photo of me, except that nobody had and the after-image didn't go away. It was irritating, and by evening it had grown into a ring-type shape.

In addition to the after-image, the area was also blurry and kinda acted like a blind spot in that items in that area weren't as sharp and a little muted colorwise.

In a disappointing first, Google failed me in trying to figure out what this was. So did Yahoo and Ask for that matter.

When Tuesday rolled around and it was still there, I decided to set up an appointment with an Opto... oftho... ophta... eye doctor. After staring at a bunch of charts and having my eyes dilated and examined, the doctor came back with Central Serous Retinopathy (or CSR to the initiated).

Basically, a vein in the upper layer of my retina is leaking fluid (but not blood) and this is causing a bulge in my retina that's manifesting as a blurry spot in the center of my vision. Apparently I've had this before since there's some scarring on my retina, though I've never had these symptoms. My left eye did start going slightly out of focus a while back, but only slightly and I figured it was just part of getting older and getting closer to needing glasses.

Apparently CSR is a fairly common thing in males (check) aged 20-40 years (check) and it's usually brought on by an episode of stress (check, heck, infinity-check).

The tough part is, there's no treatment for this, though it does eventually go away on its own. I can expect a few weeks or months of this wonderfully distorted vision and then it's a total crapshoot if I'll return to normal or if I'll always have some limited blurriness and bad night-vision in that eye.

So driving and working in front of a monitor all day has been fun. I've developed a bit of vertigo at times when walking, mostly due to the fact that my left eye can't really see much at center vision other than general shapes and colors. Depth-perception is right out the window and good luck trying to read the alarm clock in the morning.

I love how the body sometimes deals with stress, putting you in situations that would seem to make things even more stressful. "Wow, I'm really stressed out. I know, let's screw up my vision! Yeah, that should make the stress go away!" Sheesh.

The 40 Year Old Virgin

We Tivoed (is that a word?) The 40 Year Old Virgin a few weeks back and settled in to watch it last night.

Hysterical. I started laughing from the moment the movie started and Steve Carell walks through his room of action figures and I really didn't stop laughing for longer than a few minutes until the credits rolled. Totally infantile in every way, but not as crude as American Pie and its offspring... more like a Kevin Smith film. Basically, it's a guy film.

Apparently, they had to remove 15 minutes of footage to avoid an NC-17 rating. Kinda makes me curious to check out the Unrated version. Anyone out there seen it already?

Episode II - Attack of the Stones

Y'all remember the Kidney stone that my pregnant wife just had removed. Well she started having some pain around her ribcage the first week of September that she described as "like a metal band tightening around [her] bra-line".

The best the docs could tell us was to give her some Tylenol-3 (hooray Codeine!) and Zantac and have her rest in a tub. While this worked, she was continuing to have episodes so we scheduled a visit to the doctor's office.

Everything kinda happened quickly after that (but don't worry, it's a happy ending... kinda). She got there and the doctors hooked her up to a monitor to listen to the baby's heartbeat and see if she was having contractions. Which she was. Every 1-2 minutes.

She called me on the way to the Maternity Ward in tears, worked up over the fact that she was headed back when we'd figured we wouldn't be back there until it was time for her to give birth in November. I skipped out of a training session I was in and took the rest of the day off to be with her.

A few shots of whatchacallit and she was no longer contracting, but the doctor on duty was concerned about her recurring pain (FINALLY! A doctor that listens!) and scheduled her for an ultrasound. What seemed like an eternity later, the results were in: Gallstones.

You're shitting us, right? First kidney stones, now gallstones.

"Look at it this way hon," I told my wife, "there's no other organ that makes stones." I have no idea if this is the case, but I've never heard of a spleenstone, have you. Nope, just kidney and gallstones.

So we're not entirely sure if this means that she's going to have to deliver via c-section or what other considerations there are going to be, but at some point the gall bladder's coming out.

For now, we're managing her diet to keep out saturated fats and prevent more episodes. Which is interesting, but not as difficult as we'd first feared since there's so much fat-free food out there.

So, yeah, it's been an interesting month.

First Anniversary

Ask me how hard it is to believe that it's already been a year. Go on, ask.

Really, really hard. Really.

Add to this the fact that in that year we've sold a house, moved across the country, changed jobs and become pregnant and you begin to realize just how fast the year has flown by.

That said, it was nice to have a three-day weekend to celebrate.

That said, we didn't get to do much celebrating because my wife was recovering from kidney stones.

That said, we did do some low-key celebrating. I cooked up some New York Strip steaks with rice and veggies. No champagne (pregnant) though we'll be sure to break open a bottle at some point and drink down some bubbly.

My mother-in-law sent us our cake, which has been taking up a bit of space in her freezer for the past year. We defrosted it and had a slice. It wasn't bad, though it wasn't as good as I remembered it was a year ago. It was almost like a year in the freezer had taken a bit of the taste out of it. Beyond that, the thought of eating something a year old was a bit... eww.




My folks sent us a clock, which is the contemporary gift for a first anniversary. Traditionally, the gift was paper. Not sure how that evolved. Not just any clock though, it was a clock that my Dad and I restored years ago and which was in my old room at their house. It's a gorgeous clock with brass accents and weights and one I've always liked for its beauty and sentimental value so it was a treat to see it emerge as we opened their package.

So over the next year we plan to take it muuuuch slower. With the exception of buying a house, giving birth and learning how to be parents. Yeah, so much for that "slow" plan, eh?