Feelin' Good and Updating...

Man, that MSN Spaces has been giving me all sorts of grief. Crikey. Anyways, this is the third time I've tried to start this post now with IE crashing all the time. And don't begin to tell me about Firefox... I know ALL about it. Blah. Anyways, my MSN Space has some pics from the golf tourney, which I'll elaborate more on later.

Okay then... yes, I'm feeling much better this afternoon. Better enough to start posting. Between the last big post on Friday and the one today, I've had to sort through the weekend and my sore jaw. Despite having very little to do at the office over the last couple days, my jaw had been quite uncomfortable and really took away my desire to write too much... plus, I was holding blocks of ice to my face trying to quell the pain. But yes... today, I'm better. And I'll tell ya why first...



There isn't that stuff in an abscess in my jaw. A pleasant blend of pus and blood that had built up in the spot of where I took the ball. I went to the hospital in Strathmore last night, since I was registered there before and had a doctor take a look at it for me. He concluded quite quickly actually that I had a large infection creating an abscess and there were only two real options for me. Either he freezes it, punctures it, we drain it and then treat it with anti-biotics or I go straight to the pills and hope that it works over a couple weeks.

Hmmmm... I'm pretty sure that the discomfort of the abscess would keep me up if I was to just let it sit there and be treated by drugs. So, after I got a little bit of colour back in my face ('cuz the thought of the scalpel puncturing it set me off), he came back in and I agreed to drain it. The little bit of pain for the local anesthetic was totally worth the whole ordeal... and then spitting up the pus and blood made for a good picture... okay, so it's not that good.

I had to go back to Strathmore this morning to get an x-ray done on the jaw bone itself, since there wasn't a technician on at the time I was in last night. But that wasn't a big deal... I was in and out of there in a big hurry and I hope to hear what the results are tonight when the doctor starts working again.

So I guess I can go back to the beginning of the weekend and quickly reel off what was going on, which wasn't a whole lot, really.

On Friday night, Chris and I had, what he said to be six, at the Yardhouse... it wasn't too bad. We got ourselves kinda drunk and didn't spend too much money as a whole. I got enough money to pay for my golf and my weekend that night, really trying to keep it around $200 for the whole thing.



That's a pic of Chris and the Ashley I had been speaking of earlier... she was really the only one in denim, being as it was the first full night of the Stampede on Friday. The Yardhouse was great, 'cuz it wasn't all that "Stampede-y" and still just a chilled out place to go.

Saturday morning came... quietly. I felt okay and when I chatted with Chris in the morning, I was really surprised when he said we had six. I didn't think I gave him enough money for the bill, but he assured me I did. I thought, 'wow' to myself.

The afternoon was dedicated to the Wildfire Golf Tournament... I finally really agreed to it on Friday evening. I had sort of pencilled myself in and Dad did too, but I finally said that I would be up for it in the end. Then the worry was if Jeff was gonna show up, 'cuz he was gonna light it up for the first night of the Stampede.

When we met at the Wildfire before takin' off, Jeff was the last to show and didn't look too bad, despite his stories of spending tons o' cash on champagne and drinks all night in several different places.

There were quite a few people signed up for the tournament... I think it was 9 foursomes out on the course at Oxbow and we got a beautiful day for it. In the foursome there was...



Dad...



Benson...



Jeff...

and myself (no photo). It was best ball format for the round of 9 holes and we were the 7th of 9 teams to tee off... so we had a good day just sittin' around waitin' until our turn and our round only took 2 1/4 hours in total. So, that was quite alright. Jeff had a really good round, Dad played alright and Benny & I stunk it up really well. The foursomes' only rule was to make sure at least everyone had one of their drives used through the round. Benny's was used on the 8th hole and mine on the 9th. Even playing best-ball to the best of our (not really) honest ways, we were still only a few over par. Apparently, there were teams five or six-under. I mean, c'mon... nobody out there was really that good.

Then we all piled back onto the buses that we arrived at and went back to the Wildfire for dinner and prizes. Dinner was quite good... some okay steaks with roast potatoes and a wicked pasta salad, they were quite good, I must say... I went back for the potatoes and salad, rather than the meat. Ha ha. For prizes, I think everyone got something, which was really good. I ended up with a BBQ utensil set, a t-shirt and Greg gave me a $400 pair of Easton hockey skates for the only reason of their my size. Damn, their nice... good to know the right people, eh??

I took off home pretty early and had a quiet one at the house. I think if I remember correctly, Jen and I rented Syriana on Saturday night. This one couldn't quite keep my attention too well... with the weather coming over head of the house, it darkened the room quite well and just being lazy, both Jen and I sort of nodded off a couple times on the couch, but when she got up to do something else, I finally clued back in and finished watching it. It was okay... I should probably watch it again when I'm a little less exhausted from a day out in the sun and a couple beers.

Sunday was World Cup Final day... and I didn't have to get up to do anything for it. Hooray! Chris came up for a little bit into the first half... he had missed Zidane's 7th minute goal, but saw the rest of the match. Natasha showed up just before halftime and watched the second 45 minutes as well with me on the couch. She had just finished work and was exhausted as well... so when the match went into Extra Time, she went home to veg out there. The game finished in spectacular fashion, which I'm sure everyone knows... Zidane's headbutt and Italy winning on penalties, so I won't go into that at all.

Since the match went a little long, I called Tom and said I wouldn't be able to make it to the batting cages for the first part of our practice, which was okay, but he said we'd just practice on the fields at Shouldice afterwards, which was nice... didn't have to drive all the way up to Tuscany to play on the crappy diamonds. I got there in good time right after the match and they had only really got 10 minutes into batting practice, 'cuz Tom got there late, so I managed to get a few swings in. But when we started to play on the fields, the shitty weather hit and hit hard so we had to cancel the rest of the practice.

Another flurry of large hail and hard rain came on Sunday afternoon for a couple hours to clean the air again.

Sunday night, Jen proposed that we go for a walk to maybe go grab a coffee... this being at 8:30pm. Sounded good... there wasn't too much on the telly anyways. But when we walked over to Starbucks, they were just about to shut down and so we went over to the Yardhouse instead. D'oh! I still managed to kept $35 from the $200 I had left from the Friday night's withdrawl, so that was alright. But then it went a little pear-shaped...

There, we met this guy, Dougall, who is a chef for the Stampede Catering and does all the big functions around the rodeo and such. He lived in the area and was in for the evening. So we got to chatting with him and his stories of meeting all sorts of people and celebrities in all of his jobs across Canada, in hotels and movie sets, was quite interesting. So, we managed to make a new friend on the evening, which wasn't too bad, but I went over the $35 by a little bit, which was a little disappointing though... since I had to buy Jen one as well.

The storms came back Sunday night and Jen and I didn't make it to bed until after 1am watching all the lightning through the window at the front of the house. We chatted about all sorts of things regarding the house and such... but it was sort of lost to the night, 'cuz I don't remember quite all of it.

Monday morning was quite groggy. The late night and alcohol... plus, the jaw... made the day at work somewhat uncomfortable, but luckily the big annual report that was expected was actually quite easy to do... doing 200+ pages in 75 minutes, which is a pretty good tear, if you ask me. The rest of the day was rather quite easy as nothing much else had come in and then I just had the end of the day to look forward to and an 8:45pm game at the diamonds.

The weather was again quite rainy all day and there was kind of a thought that it might not clear up in time... but sure enough, by 6:00pm, the clouds had gone away and the evening was again quite nice. Neither Jen or Natasha showed up to watch the game, as they said they would... but Jen was in a bad state, with headaches and stuff and I think Natasha wanted Jen to come along so she had someone to talk to.

The ball game didn't quite go as planned... the bats again were a tad quiet against a pitcher we should have been able to hit. Maybe the time in the cage working at it's highest pace wasn't quite helpful to us or something. I, personally, went 0 for 2 with a sac bunt... which kind of sucked, but the plays in the field were quite alright. I got a bit of work there at second, including being at the end of a 3-6-4 double play in the fifth inning. Man, did that ever look good.



Aaron (pictured behind) pitched a good game and Ryan didn't play too badly at backcatcher (for once)... but unfortunately, we still lost 3-2... just coming up short in the final inning, trying to come back and earn the tie. Josh just couldn't muster up a hit with two runners in scoring position. D'oh!



Tuesday... woke up and was in pretty good pain. I thought I didn't get a lot of sleep during the night, but I wasn't too bad when I got up for alertness. But the jaw was awfully big and quite concerning. I grabbed an envelope from Alberta Health to get all of that sorted, but when I got to work, it didn't have any of the pertinent info in it... rather just forms to sign-up for it again. That didn't help me at all.

Dad then called me early in the morning... asked if I wanted to join the three of them (since Tegan was in town) going to Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump for the day. I was pretty uncomfortable for one, two, short notice and three, no real interest. But I did want to head out to Langdon to see Tegan after work... and let them know. So, I was gonna call them when I was gonna leave to see where they were.

When work had finished, they were stuck in traffic just outside of Nanton, 'cuz there was a huge wreck out there and they were waiting for ambulances and air ambulances to show up and clean up the wreckage and bodies, so they were gonna be a while. So, I decided to go home and try and find the numbers I wanted for Alberta Health and then wait for them to call again. They did a while later and I was out in Langdon for about 7pm. I was really clinging to an ice-pack when I got there and after we had a small bite to eat, they convinced me to go to the hospital then... not really getting much quality time with Tegan at all. And then that's pretty much where the story began.

Well, that wasn't so bad... the pictures make the story look a little longer than it actually is, I think.

Tonight, I'm back out to Langdon for a game with the Cruisers, which'll be my last ball game for the week, unless I go out with the Hooligans on Sunday.

Thursday and Friday are clean for the schedule... which reminds me, I should send my invoice to get paid on Friday today. Get in!!

Saturday... there's something that's goin' on I think. Oh yeah, Julie may need some help to move into her condo on Saturday... but I think there's something else to consider as well. Hmmm... and Sunday I think is pretty quiet as well. Fingers crossed that I can keep it somewhat quiet... and cheap.