Viva Las Vegas!

What an awesome time. We arrived Saturday morning and checked in. Everything was so smooth and easy. We ate at the the Bellagio buffet and stuffed ourselves. We walked the strip a bit and then shopped at Miracle Mile. Afterwards we went back to the room and headed to the pool for some sun. We each had a drink and then headed up to the room. It had been a long day and the walking and the sun had taken it's toll, so we crashed about 7pm.

Twelve hours later (yep, TWELVE hours later) we woke up and walked the strip some more. We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant (I can't remember the name but it was the place where you bought a yard of Margaritas). There was more shopping, more walking, and more sunning by the pool. Later we showered and headed toward Treasure Island for the Cirque de Soleil "Mystere" show. We grabbed a quick sandwich at Canter's. The show was astounding. It was truly the highlight of the trip. And we were nearly in the show. The couple in front of us were the victims and we narrowly escaped. Whew! We walked back and went to bed.

I woke up Monday morning and whispered "Happy one year anniversary," to my wife. We did our best to sleep in but just couldn't. We walked the strip some more. We picked up a new pair of sunglasses for our daughter and Julie modeled them in front of the MGM and New York New York. We went to Mandalay Bay and I won $8 on a penny slot machine. We walked back, sunned by the pool, napped for a bit, dressed up, and went to the California Pizza Kitchen for dinner. We walked through Caesar's Palace on the way back to the Bellagio. That place is amazing. We caught the fountain show in front of the Bellagio and then headed in. In the Fontina Bar we noticed a World Poker Tour tournament taking place and I saw Danny Nguyen. Crazy! We had a drink and went upstairs to bed.

Tuesday morning we packed and headed home. Julie bought a book in Vegas and had the damn thing read before we reached Memphis. Man-o-man, that grrrl can speed read. I finally finished "Microserfs" (loved it) and read the 6-issue trade paperback "The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite" (loved it too).

Overall, it was a great trip (tainted only slightly by us locking ourselves out of our house once we got there). Four days in Vegas is the perfect time. We'll be back and we'll stay at the Bellagio again for sure!

Vegas, here we come!

We're nearly packed and just about ready for our Las Vegas trip. It will be a very relaxing four days, spent mostly at the pool of the Bellagio. I'm taking my camera and some books and plan on doing as little as possible. This will be our first time in Vegas and we will be celebrating our first year of marriage. We'll be landing about 27 hours from now...

In other news, we're taking the kids to go see Hellboy II tonight. We're all looking forward to that. The kids and I watched "The Host" earlier this week. It is a Korean film that was actually very good. Later that night Kelsey and I watched "Diary of the Dead", George Romero's latest installment of his zombie genius. I'm also playing the crap out of the game City of Heroes/City of Villains. Will picked it up two weeks ago and I spend an hour or two a night, on average, fighting good or evil with the super-heroes or super-villains that I've created. Good times!

Still Not 100%

I am still somewhat struggling with day to day affairs at work and at home. I had hoped to have bounced back from my hospital stay by now but I'm not where I want to be. I have energy when I wake up but ultimately run out before I'm done with the day. And it sucks. I'm used to being able to be on the go and do what I want when I want. But I just don't have the energy to get me through each day. Weak.

Well, enough of the whining. Life is good. I had a low-key July 4th weekend. My friend, Brandon, from high school was in town and I had breakfast with his family. We had planned on a little get-together with another friend, Duane, but the wife came down with a terrible stomach bug. We did manage to make the family reunion on my dad's side for the afternoon on Saturday. It was great seeing everyone. But I ran out of gas around 5pm and we reluctantly came home.

The kids and I watched the Korean flick "The Host" yesterday and then Kelsey and I watched "Diary of the Dead". Both movies were good. I was pleasantly surprised by both. Who's a huge Romero fan? Yep, this guy!

Julie and I leave for Vegas this weekend. I'm so stoked! I'm doing my best to finish up the painting Coco Monique before I go. I'm looking forward to a break - a real break and not a hospital stay or bed rest :)

Internal bleeding

A day or two before the birth of my lovely little niece, Emma Kathleen Galloway, I was suffering from some nasty bowel movements. The "output" was black (not dark but black). I was also suffering from some serious fatigue and also some body aches. I figured it was all of the excitement with the new baby and maybe some nerves thrown in. Saturday, June 14th, I was convinced by my mother and wife to go to the Immediate Care Center.

The wonderful Dr. Quaye took his stool sample (Julie left the room for that) and I joked with him as he became "acquainted" with me. He smeared the sample on a test strip and squirted a fluid on it. He explained that what we didn't want to see was blue as that indicated blood in my stool. Not too many moments passed before the strip was blue. Smurf blue. Solid smurf blue.

The doctor assured me that there was nothing to worry about. They were going to take some blood and I would probably schedule some procedures. The doctor left. The nurse took my blood. The doctor returned. And the look on the doctor's face made my heart drop. "Mr. Brinley, this isn't critical but it is serious. You need to go to the hospital right now." Uh oh!

I was admitted that night and spent the next seven days at Audubon. I received two units of blood as my hemoglobin dropped beyond the doctor's comfortable threshold. I developed an infection from the bleeding and was put on antibiotics. I was given Protonix to help solve the problem. I was administered morphine to help with the pain. I was given Fenegren for the nausea. I was poked every 6 hours. And I had, in order, the following performed: EGD (camera down my throat), colonoscopy (camera up my butt), ct scan, ultrasound, some test where they took my blood and irradiated it and then injected it back into me to watch, and then a small bowel follow-through.

We never found a smoking gun. But the bleeding stopped. My hemoglobin has been going up. My strength is returning. And the surgeon is blaming the whole ordeal on the Naproxen I was taking for my swollen knee. He says to stay away from Naproxen and most other anti-inflamatories like Advil and Alleve. I'm only to take Tylenol and I'm supposed to limit my alcohol intake. I'll also be on Protonix for the foreseeable future.

Sorry to give everyone a little scare. And thank you all who visited. It was nice to see you all, even when I wasn't the most coherent. I want to especially thank my wife who barely left my side. And my parents as well, who were bouncing between hospitals visiting me and then my sister.

Emma Kathleen Galloway

I'm an uncle!!! My sister had a baby grrrl this morning. She had the baby completely naturally (I know, everyone says that she's crazy). I saw her this afternoon and she's adorable. She was still in the nursery because she's nearly a month early and is experiencing some trouble breathing... possibly due to underdeveloped lungs. But Melissa, Jeremy, and the baby are all doing well.

I find her birth date to be fascinating. It is exactly 17 days after Melissa's (May 25th) and 17 days before mine (June 28th). I'm no astrologist or psychic, but that's gotta hold some kind of cosmic weight :)

Welcome to the world, my new little niece. I'll always keep a watchful eye on you and promise to love you forever!

In space no one can hear you scream.

The kids and I sat down and watched Alien and the special edition of Aliens last night. Will claimed that he was ready for a scary movie and I figured that either of these, mixed with a good amount of action, would fit the bill.

The kids were turned off by the slow, suspenseful pace of Alien. They were bored with the mounting tension. Kids these days! They were happy when the movie ended. They liked it but it was more "meh" than "yeah".

The second one grabbed their attention almost immediately. As I imagined, they loved Hudson from the beginning. Will kept pointing out all of the similarities between the movie Aliens and the Halo video game franchise. I explained that Aliens was truly a milestone movie that helped shape the genre. The action kept them interested and the aliens kept them on their toes. Aliens is one of my favorite movies and the special edition had many scenes that weren't in the original. It was pretty cool!

That damn bluish-grayish egret/crane!!!

I drove up the driveway the other day and was amazed to see a huge, bluish-grayish crane/egret taking flight from my little pond in the backyard. It was as tall as Will and was a sight to see. Later it occurred to me to check on the goldfish in the pond as my bluish-grayish friend was possibly stopping by for more than just a dip. I counted the goldfish and... GODDAMMIT!!! What was once a happy family of 15 goldfish was now a terrified, broken family of 11 goldfish. And that avian bastard ate one of my prized gargantuan goldfish. Shit!!! I had two huge goldfish that I had nicknamed the "Big Daddies" and only one is there. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr!

The leopard goldfish is still there. The milky one with the bright orange spots is there. Blackie is still there. So I guess he got one of the Big Daddies and a few of the smaller ones. Bastard!

"You need some terracotta in there to protect them from predators," was a statement that my friend and botanist Matt had told me. And that statement is searing in my brain right now. How serendipitous was it that I received a call from him the next day? Well, I asked him to come out and help me out with the pond. I don't want to lose my other Big Daddy or any other fish to that bluish-graying egret/crane bastard again :(