Walking along the JC Waterfront (I only have a month left before my move to LA) Tuesday night and I captured this- One World Trade lit up in Red, White and Blue.

Lucky Man

Today I was for some reason up just as the first light was coming across the island of Manhattan. I had to fly for work cross country, and as we were coming in for final approach to San Jose, you could see the last rays of light on the west coast. It was at that point that I once again had a new appreciation for how lucky I am at times. Some people will never see something as beautiful as that, let alone twice in one day. Since I wasn't thrilled about having to work while on my vacation, this turned things around a bit.

My head has been spinning about a bunch of other things lately. I'll get into that later, but I wonder why I'm able to deal with anything professional, but when it comes to my personal life, I just can't deal with.

Marriage

In the past few weeks, the owner of my company has made comments publicly about getting me married at least three times. They have all been in jest -- I think -- but I wonder if at least part of the reason I'm not married is because of my job. I don't know if I could do the job that I do if I was married. I've said many times, I don't know how people are able to make it work. I have to say, those who do stay married are the exception.

I honestly think that my job cost me two relationships. I'm a firm believer in fate, and what will happen will happen, but I'm fairly certain if it wasn't for my job- and my dedication to doing a good job, I probably would be married now. That said, both of those women I met because of my job, so....

(Un)Fortunately, I can't really half -ass things. It's not in my nature. Because of that, I get enveloped in work and it gets to be to much. One of these days when the time is right, I'll get married. I don't understand what all the peer pressure to get married is though.

A perfect example of that would be J. She's getting married in a few weeks to a nice guy she met while traveling overseas with her mother. I've met him a few times and wish them all the best. I was invited to the wedding, unfortunately, I won't be able to attend the wedding because you guessed it- work. I had a dilemma about going anyway- If I should go with a guest or not. I'm not dating anyone, but at the same time, I would know very few people if anyone other than the bride and groom. I sent my regrets and a nice gift. She understands. I insisted that I get to see pictures of the wedding though, in particular of her in a dress. I'm still a bit surprised that she's getting married because she was always so anti-marriage. I guess people change.

I go back

I've been neglecting writing lately, and I think it has really been affecting me. I've always found that when I have an outlet, I'm able to keep my mind clearer/freer of distractions. I recently found out that a former colleague committed suicide. I don't know many of the circumstances, but I am still in shock over it. Outwardly he was one of the happiest people I worked with. I guess he kept things bottled up. Maybe there was something else going on that I didn't (and apparently none of our mutual friends) know about. RIP Swa.

I turned 36 this week. Not a major accomplishment or milestone, but I'm really beginning to realize that I'm not a young kid anymore.

I was invited to J's wedding, but I decided not to go. First, I didn't really have anyone to go with. I think this is a wedding where I'd feel slightly out of place. I'd really only know the bride, and no one else. The entertainment value of J getting married didn't outweigh this. The other issue was that somehow my office couldn't find anyone to cover me for the time of the wedding. It makes me wonder why I even have vacation if I can't take it when my truck is working. I did manage to take 21 days of vacation this year. 17 days of that was when my truck wasn't working and I would have been off anyway.


I'd been working on this bottom part of the blog for a few weeks. Surprisingly a friend posted something similar as a status recently. I guess I'm not the only one.

Have you heard Kenny Chesney's dong "I Go Back"? It talks about how certain songs forever hold a meaning in our lives, and hearing them will instantly take you back in time and place to days gone by. Listening to my iPod will bring all sorts of emotions based on what songs are played. Some will take me back to my high school days, some to wild parties that were had and no one knew about, some to previous loves, some to all night (and then day, and then night) edit sessions, many to good times down the shore with good friends. Then I realize that by doing that I'm living in the past.

Songs have also had meaning to me. I remember when I went away to college, a friend gave me a mix tape (yes, I'm that old that I got a mix-tape). She had put a lot of songs on it, but one really hit home with me- Desperado by the Eagles. I didn't date much in HS, and had a tendency to get wrapped up in pursuing someone and have blinders on to everything else.

"Now it seems to me, some fine things
Have been laid upon your table
But you only want the ones that you can't get"

I often wonder if she included it on the tape for that reason. I never asked her.

There's an annoying pop song out there now by Katy Perry- TGIF that actually caused me to remember something from college. There's a line in there about skinny dipping after dark, and I had totally forgotten about a time I went skinny dipping with a girl named Grannie . I had totally forgotten about that experience until that song was in high rotation over the summer. She left after the first semester freshman year. I wonder what every happened to her.

There's an Adele song out now- "Someone Like You" that when I actually listened to the lyrics for the first time caused me to well up. It pretty much sums up my feelings. There really isn't anyone that I don't wish the best to. I often wonder why something happened, or didn't work out, but I have no ill-will. I figure I'm just as responsible.

Panty Peeler

Some of you have been waiting for this post for a long time, I know. I want to start by saying that I'm not proud of my actions, but at the same time, I don't really regret them either. With that, on to the stories…

For the several months I have been truly a single man. S and I had the talk and realized that we had two big problems in our relationship- 1) I'm not sure that I want to be married- ever, and 2) She's not sure that she wants to be married to me. With that, we went our separate ways. Well, as separate as I typically do. We still occasionally talk, have gone out to dinner a few times, she even went on my dad's 70th Birthday cruise since it was already booked. NOTHING happened. Since I was a single man, I ended up putting an ad on Match. I know lots of people who had success there and I figured what the hell.

So I end up meeting a girl for dinner and we had an OK time. She was very socially awkward. By that I mean she couldn't make eye contact when she was talking. She would look everywhere but to the person she was speaking to. That was a bit of a red flag. We met again with plans to go to a restaurant by my apartment and that's when the view took over. We did go to dinner, and went back to my place and well as The Lady in Red calls it, the panty peeler effect took over. We started fooling around a bit before calling it a night.

A few weeks later we met again for dinner, both saying we're not really looking for anything serious, just two people going out to dinner. I met her at the restaurant and she was dressed in such a way to accentuate her breasts. After dinner, we went back to my place to watch TV. We watched something off the DVR and she excuses herself to the bathroom. She comes out a few minutes later with her hair down, wearing a sheer teddy, panties and boots. It was an incredible outfit. I know what you're thinking- this is right out of penthouse forum. I've experienced some crazy things in my life as you know, but I really didn't see this coming from the shy, barely able to hold eye contact girl. Needless to say, we started fooling around and ended up in the bedroom. We fell asleep together, but she ended up leaving around 4am. I never felt so cheap and used. Oh wait, yes, I did- once in college. We had a good time and never talked about her changing act there. We still occasionally text, and we've met for lunch once since then, but with my schedule that's really all the time I've had available. We briefly talked and she understood my schedule and now doesn't think that she can handle it.

Through the magic of Facebook, people can reconnect with anyone. The person who used to steal your lunch money in first grade, The guy who you used to beat up in 6th grade, the first girl who broke your heart. You can also reconnect with people you were acquaintances with over the year, and perhaps learn more about them. The second story is about one of those people.

I'm alone a lot. Whether it be at night time in a hotel room, or when I'm home generally speaking I'm alone. I'll sit there and go through Facebook when I'm bored and read people's statuses, and occasionally comment. That's how it all started with M. She made a comment wondering how she got to where she is in her life. I've wondered that same thing many times. I definitely took a non-traditional path to my career and made sacrifices along the way. I'm not as close to my friends as I used to be. I always used to be the guy who kept in touch with people. As we've all grown up, I've fallen out of touch. It's not that we're not still friends, it's just we're all in different places in our lives. My life choices have cost me at least 3 relationships, mainly because I have put my job ahead of my personal life. At this point, I have very few close friends. If I was to get married, I don't know who I would pick to be my best man, let alone be my groomsmen. Enough with the pity party and on to the story-

After a few comments on Facebook, we decide what the hell, lets meet for dinner. We did and we both had a good time. We weren't really friends in high school, just acquaintances like I said. She asked if I was always this cool in HS, etc. We end up meeting the next time up by me and are talking and walking and the panty peeler took effect. We ended up kissing at the end of the pier where my apartment is, and headed up to my apartment where merriment followed. We have hooked up a few times, having a friends with benefits situation that I seem to fall into from time to time. She was out with another friend from HS at one point and mentioned that she and I had been fooling around and told her that I was amazing in bed and particularly in giving oral sex. Apparently that friend responded- I always thought that he was cute and wondered what he'd be like in bed. I didn't realize girls did that.

I never believed the panty peeler theory that The Lady in Red was espousing, but now I have no choice but to believe in it. She wonders why I'm not having sex every night that I'm home because of the view. I really don't think of my self as a guy who could do that, and I'm not Barney Stinson, So I'm not taking that as a challenge. I've been thinking long and hard about my living situation and may end up giving up my apartment for a little while during NASCAR. More on that later.

Merry Christmas to me

Since I'm stuck in Wisconsin and can't get home due to the snow in Newark, I bought myself a few Christmas presents.

First I got myself an AppleTV. It's a pretty cool device that lets you stream video to a monitor via an HDMI connection. More and more hotels have the HDMI port brought out on the desk, so this was a no brainer. Especially since I'm going to be here for over a week. My second present to myself was a flip cam. They're cheap enough and small enough, I figured why not. a little HD video camera that records to flash memory seems like a cool thing.

With all of this time on my hands, I'm working on catching you up on goings on in my life, but it's taking a long time to get them written.

So much to write, so little time

I've been really busy lately, both work wise and in my personal life. I'll write more about that as I find the time, but wanted to give an update on things medically. I put some of the weight I lost back on. Between my back injury and the cruise I think it was bound to happen. I actually only put on 3 lbs while on the cruise, so most of the 15lbs I gained was a result of not exercising because of my back. When I saw the Doctor last Thursday, he wasn't happy with my appearance physically. He could tell that I put on the weight. When he called yesterday with my hba1c number, he was still impressed. It was 5.4 which is in the normal range. It's not as good as my number was last time, but considering I was on steroids for my back, it's pretty good.

As far as my back goes, it has been acting up again. I have the radiating pain occasionally. Now it the pain has moved to shooting down my right leg instead of the left leg. I went to see the pain management doctor, and will be getting an injection on Wednesday to hopefully help alleviate the pain. He thinks it MAY be related to the severe headaches I've been getting also. I'll update on that as I have time as well.

Thank You mystery Ex..

I got an email today from a dominatrix saying that an "ex" of mine was giving me a birthday present of a one hour session with her. She is a very attractive person, who is a redhead and apparently over 6' tall in heels. So she would fit the 6' redhead dominatrix I've been looking for. I have to admit that I am a bit nervous because I don't know for sure who gave this to me as a present. I have my guesses, but they're only guesses.

I haven't pissed off any exes that I know, so I'm sure that the gift is just that, a nice gesture. Right now, I'm planning on having the session on Tuesday afternoon. She knows that I have the plug, and would like me to wear it to the session. I told her I would definitely try, but I haven't worn it in public before. I can only imagine when the sensation will be like trying to keep it in while walking to the PATH, on the PATH and Subway or taxi.

I find out on Tuesday morning the exact location I am to go to. Any one want to own up to giving me this gift to help calm my nerves? Am I nuts for going?

Two steps forward...

One step back. More on that later

On Sunday night I took advantage of being in a city where a friend lives. I met my friend Bonney out for drinks after our game. I was able to take the DC Metro system from my hotel to her neighborhood to meet her. It was a nice 20 minute ride on the metro. While it doesn't run as often as I'm used to in the NYC area, it was clean and right on schedule. The downside to the Metro is that it stops running at 12am on school nights.

Catching up with Bonney was great. I hadn't seen her a years. Bonney is the one person I know who travels more than I do for her job. At one point, she didn't even bother having a home as she was traveling for 18 months straight. (In all fairness, of the 18 months, she wasn't working for 5 days. She had to go to a wedding and a few funerals). She has me beat on the states list also. She's only missing one- Alaska. She keeps looking for an angle to get there for work though, and had almost succeeded this summer, but her plan was foiled at the last minute.

Bonney and I met through Kristen. Back in the day, Kristen had visions of setting us up. She quickly realized that she and I always become friends with every member of the opposite sex, so nothing would happen. She was right. We've stayed in touch and commiserated over travel stories. She's been lucky in that many times she's flying on chartered aircraft so she doesn't have to deal with the flying public.

While we were hanging out on Sunday night, we hatched a plan to make a surprise visit to Kristen in Arkansas. Kristen has always said that the only two people who she has a chance at seeing in Arkansas would be Bonney or me because of our traveling. From what I've been able to tell, she hasn't been adjusting well and she really wants to seem some familiar faces. We sent her a picture of the two of us together enjoying our beers and got an immediate response. When we told her we were in DC, she responded "Ahh... civilization". I'll believe the Arkansas trip when I see it. To try and get our schedules together will be a huge problem. Bonney also has the tendency to flake out on things like this also. We're going to try and plan it while it's still fresh in our minds though.



Back to the title of this post
This morning I woke up and had pain in my lower back again. No pain down the leg however, and the tingling seems to be staying away. So, the no tingling is huge, but having the pain in my back is more annoying because it does cause me to limit my activities.

Sidenote
I really think that traveling should be spelled travelling.

Missing.

I woke up today and I felt different. It was as if I was missing something. The tingling I have been living with in my left leg is gone. So far it hasn't come back. This is hopefully a good sign that the end is near in dealing with my back.

Awkward moment

I have so much to write, but so little time. I wanted to get this one out there before it got too far gone. I went out on Monday night to meet J and her fiance'. I think I wrote about how I was surprised when she told me she had gotten engaged, especially since I didn't know she was dating anyone. He is from Ireland and is currently living in the UK.

So, I meet her and Vince (the fiance') and several others at the bar, and I'm introduced to him. She screws up the introduction- It went "Kevin, this is my friend Vince, Vince, this is my fiance' Kevin." The look on her face was priceless when she realized what she just said. Vince seemed like a nice enough guy, but was definitely not what I was expecting. In fact, he may have been the last person in the bar I would have picked for her.

Their interaction with each other also seemed off. There were no PDA's. In fact, there was very little interaction between them at all. They were just sitting next to each other, not much talking and no contact at all. If they're happy though, that's all that matters.

Catchy tunes...

Don't you hate it when you're going about your daily business and a song is playing in the background and then you get it stuck in your head all day? That happened to me the other day. I googled trying to find the name of the song, and it came up- "Aint No Rest for the Wicked" by Cage the Elephant.

Working at Rock N Rev in Sturgis, I saw Cage the Elephant perform live. They put on what was in my opinion an awful show. I don't recall them playing this song, but they very well may have. The lead singer looked like her was having seizure on stage. While it wasn't my choice of music, and I couldn't see the appeal in it, I figured the kids must like it. Imagine my surprise when I found out that they sang a song that I liked.

Yes, I did buy the song on iTunes.

New doesn't=good

In recovering from my back injury, I'm feeling new things now. The latest is an occasional numbness in my mid back. I can't place anything that causes it to happen or to not happen. If it continues through tomorrow, my Nuerosurgeon told me to go to the ER. Great.

Never Forget

Approaching the 9th anniversary, I share with you this picture taken September 11, 2009. I'm not one big into revenge. I simply say Never Forget, and Thank You to all the brave men and women who worked tirelessly at ground zero.

Manged Healthcare

I just went through an ordeal with insurances over the past 3 hours. Basically because I got hurt in a hotel that I was in for work, it is covered under workman's comp apparently. Even though I wasn't working at the time. "They" decided that we're covered under workman's comp from the moment we leave our homes until we get back home.

Workman's Comp also initially decided that I didn't need to see a Doctor today. Well, they weren't sure that I needed to. Since the claim was just filed, they didn't have time to review it. They decided that they weren't going to approve the visit. Since it's now Workman's comp, I can't pay with my insurance, and they Doctor won't take me if I'm paying cash. In the end, it all got worked out, but it was a lot harder than it needed to be. Mike who I work with texted me after I told him the story "Government managed Healthcare. If you think it's bad now, just wait."

I truly hope that he's wrong, but I fear he's right. I think that while the intention of correct with the Healthcare Bill, I'm afraid the execution of it is going to get screwed up. My being allowed to go to the Doctor today basically came down to a financial decision. Was it cheaper for WC to pay for the appointment or to have to pay whatever fraction of my Salary for the week I would get if I wasn't cleared to work. Healthcare shouldn't be a financial thing. It should be a care based thing, and everyone knows that. Unfortunately those currently in control of healthcare are business people, not medical professionals.

The Doctor (who MIGHT be a year older than me) said that I do indeed have show classic symptoms of someone dealing with an impingement of the S1 nerve on the left side. Typically they try and let these things heal themselves, and that takes 4-6 weeks. They try to manage the pain as best they can while the body heals. The fact that the pain is going away shows that steroids are working and he says that's a good thing. The bad news is the course of steroids will start to wear off, and the pain may come back. If it gets unbearable, I can go to a Pain Management specialist and essentially get epidurals right in the spot where the pain is. This would be a higher dose, right at the disc. There would be 3 shots over 3 weeks. I'm currently scheduled to go back and see him in 3 weeks to see where it is going. I'm to call him if the pain gets worse again. As for the tingling, that's a sign that there is never damage, either chemically from the stuff that was in the disc, or physically from when the disc ruptured.

I get to work still, just not lifting anything over 10lbs. I leave for Philly in the morning.

Update

I'm still in some pain, and the tingling hasn't gone away at all. In fact, it spread to the outside of my left hand. The pain has lessened, which tells me that the steroids are probably working. I was able to get an appointment for Wednesday evening with a Neurosurgeon, so hopefully I'll find out more. I'm currently scheduled to leave for work again on Thursday morning, but that's up in the air.

As far as not being able to lift anything, that's tough in every day life, especially when you live alone. How are you supposed to do laundry, dishes, etc?

Nothing completes a day like a trip to the ER

Yesterday I spent around 5 hours in the ER at Caritas Norwood Hospital in Norwood, MA. The staff at the ER was very friendly and took good care of me. I couldn't have asked for better care. How did I get there you ask? I slipped on the anti-slip mat in my shower in the hotel that morning, and caught myself with the grab rail. In doing so, I managed to wrench my back something fierce.

I was able to get finish showering, get out and get dressed, but something just wasn't right. I had pain shooting down through my groin and down my left leg. As I was leaving the hotel, I let the front desk know that I slipped on it and I'd like to see it fixed as it was dangerous. They said they'd take care of it for me. During the 20 minute drive to the stadium, it was getting much, much worse by the minute. The pain in the leg was accompanied by a tingling. When we got to the stadium, I stayed in the car, took a Vicodin I had for my upper back issue and hoped it would get better. The vicodin didn't affect it at all. I watched everyone else set up, and when they were almost done, had one of the drivers take me to the emergency room as it just seemed to be getting worse.

Long story short, they did a reflex test and my left leg was found to be weak in reaction and the tingling concerned them still. They did an MRI and found that I had a "severe" herniation of L5-S1. I was relased on a course of steroids to hopefully bring down the inflammation around the nerve root, Percocet to help alleviate the pain and instructions to follow up with a neurosurgeon here at home. I'm also not allowed to lift anything. Of course I had to break that a little bit in order to get home, but I managed to pull my suitcase everywhere, and have the cab drivers handle my luggage in and out of the cabs.

If anyone has any recommendations for good neurosurgeons in the NY Metro area, I'd be glad to take them.

Mystery Solved

I fly alot. So much so that I fall into a special category for my airline that represents the top 10% of their fliers. I have over a million frequent flier miles. Imagine my surprise when there were 14 people upgraded ahead of me on a recent flight from EWR to DEN. I don't get upgraded on every flight, but generally if there are 14 people upgraded on a particular flight, I'm going to be one of them. Flying from DEN back to EWR 4 days later, there were 15 people upgraded to First Class, and I was still # 5 on the list. I haven't flown any less this year than in the past. I had to get to the bottom of what was going on.

Come to find out, that many of these people who were upgraded either paid their way into First Class or used miles to upgrade. Continental recently began offering this as an option to customers, and the fees for this varies. Usually it's 15,000 miles/segment though. I never thought that there would be that many people who would pay sometimes $300+ for it. Kudos to Continental for apparently finding another revenue stream.

Bonus- For those of you who read this and guess on the Airport pictures on FB, the Great Lakes Brewing Company picture is from Cleveland.

The Corset Affair

I'm not sure if I've shared this story before, but I'm staying in the same hotel that this happened in, so I figured it worth sharing again.

While working The Finals a few years ago, there were many, many interesting things going on. Ok, not really. One team kicked another teams butt in 4 games and we were all left asking the question, why are we here? Being in Cleveland this year, it did give me the opportunity to be close to Pittsburgh. C and I decided to get together for dinner on the Friday night. We made that plan early, before we knew it would end on Thursday. As things went, we had to work on Friday anyway to get everything out, so our dinner plans were still good. We agree that she'll come out to Cleveland and we'd go out for dinner. In the days leading up, she tells me that she is going to this wedding that she doesn't really want to go to, and that she has to wear this dress, and all the things I'm used to hearing from her. Keep in mind that when we were together, we went to 20 weddings in 18 months. No one, and I mean no one should have to go through that. She was in a lot of the weddings. I know she really doesn't want to have to wear the dress the whole time. She then called later in the week and said she had a really big favor to ask, and I was the only one she knew who could possibly help her with it. Interesting I thought. Without hesitating, I said sure. That's the kind of guy I am. I didn't know what I was in for.

She said I needed to tie her into a corset so she could unhook it from the front and put it back on when she needed to actually put it on. I figured that this had something to do with the dress she needed to wear for the wedding. I recall at least one bridesmaid dress that she wore that this was a requirement for. I did think this was rather odd though. I knew that she wasn't dating anyone serious, but surely she had someone else she could ask to do this.

Being modest, I wasn't allowed to watch as she took her shirt and bra off, despite I'd see her in that state many times before. She placed the corset loosely on and walked back to me so I could lace it up and tie her in it. She looked damn good wearing the corset and jeans. It was a good look for her. Then I notice that she's wearing basically a G-string as underwear and call her out on it. She would wear thongs if she was wearing a skirt or something that would show panty lines. A g-string with jeans was definitely odd for her. She was a little embarrassed and said that one of the guys she was seeing at the time liked her in it. Then came the truth about the need for the corset. It was for the wedding, it was for him. He liked the sight of a woman in a corset, over him.

We had an uneventful dinner that night and parted ways. While she was on the way home, we were texting back and forth, and I told her that all she needed was a riding crop. She responded she wasn't submissive, and I told her I know, but I was. It apparently was the first time that she heard that from me. I know that I had told her earlier on, and she was interested. Or at least that's what I thought. We continued to talk about it for a few days via email and texting. We both learned a lot about each other that we didn't know. It was probably a conversation we should have had years earlier while we were together. I told her about the photo shoots that I had done.

Her birthday wasn't too far away, so being friends I got her a few presents- A new corset, a riding crop, leather gloves and liquid latex. The sad thing is it was probably the best birthday present I ever got her. I hope she got some use out of the gift. It was shortly after then that she met her now husband.

On a side note, something I've been told before is really hitting home right now- I'm a much better friend than boyfriend. Apparently I suck at being a boyfriend.

Plagiarism

I inadvertently stole the title of my last blog from another blog I read. I didn't even realize that I did it, and it was fitting.

My back is still bothering me. I had to drive 350 miles to help my dad get a new computer setup. Sitting in the car for that long sure did a number on my back. Also, driving all over the state didn't afford time for me to take either the Skelaxin or Vicodin. Once I got home, I did and was able to sleep comfortably.

This morning, my back was sore in a different area- the low back. I didn't let this stop me from doing my back stretches. My back was sore later this evening when the drugs wore off. As I'm typing this, I'm noticing that I'm getting dumber. I'm typing phonetically, and not correctly. (I'm fixing this, but it's taking a lot of concentration.

As for my A1C, it was 5.3 again. That's great news. I'm to finish the medication that I currently have in my possesion- about 2 more weeks worth. After that, I'm to stay off it, although continue testing myself. I'll go back to the Doctor for an A1C, and if that comes back well, I'm off for good, but I'll continue to be monitored. One can only hope.

My love life is complicated as always. I'm at the point in my life where I need to make some real tough decisions of what I want to do.