Archive for the ‘ randomness ’ Category
Before anyone slams me for the lame-ity of my last post, I confess it. Life is going well – lots of good time with friends and family, good books, even a little exercise here and there. There are many more stories to tell from my time in Freetown; I hope to get at least one more up there today. So, for all those needing their Matt fix, it's a coming.
There are things more dangerous than mosquitos flying around: Cow Abduction
Such randomness and abundance of choice struck me as humorous this fine morning as I perused Amazon's home page.
I felt peppy today and changed the header image. What do you all think? The picture is of my pair of wooden clogs that my floor purchased one year in lieu of a shirt to show our solidarity. The other shoe is proudly branded with "Brotherhood," the name of my floor.
I also updated the library plugin because of a bug in the previous version. Not that this makes much difference to you, but my life is ever so slightly easier now. However, there is a new feature for you, if you wish to waste another moment or two of your time. Scroll down to the bottom of the sidebar and see the new link titled "view full library." Click on it and enjoy reading a list of all the books that I've read since November-ish. The current count is 13 which very well might be a personal record for me in a five month period of time – sad in a sense, but hopeful.
Bono, an Irish musician, addressed several heads of state, including Bushy, on February 2 at the National Prayer Breakfast. If you think it's strange for a musician to address people at an event with the "Prayer" in the title, so did Bono. The speech is quite interesting, challenging, and worth the read.
Note: I'm really late on the band wagon here. Everyone and his brother posted a link to this speech over a month ago. I even watched the video before I came to Sierra Leone. But hey, better late than never.
Time that is. Seven days from now I'll be scrunched between a large Frenchman and a window on a jet plane over the Atlantic. It won't be the first time … at least in reference to the Frenchman. I once flew back over the Atlantic sitting next to a 300-pound Frenchman and his eight year-old daughter. She was cute. He wasn't so cute. I'm not small either. This perfect marriage of West meets old West (as in Europe) was only enriched by the fact that my seat's headphones did not work. I watched the very gloomy, dark movie Dark City and made up my own words. I turned it into a love story. What can I say; I'm a hopeless romantic.
But I digress (that's for you Wally). Anyway, it is true that I'll be traveling within the week. I'm going to take my first anti-malaria pill now ….
There it is. The deed is done. The type of anti-malaria medicine I've been prescribed has some fairly common side effects including "vivid dreams" (oh yes, I quote) and hallucinations. Please stay tuned to see if I am common.
I feel like I didn't get much done today, but this is a flat out lie. I probably feel this way because my desk is still messy. Much that was not done when I woke up is not in a complete status … whether that be truly finished, indefinitely postponed, or deemed unworthy of my time. I'm happy to say that most things fell into the first category. Sadly, my taxes did not fall into any of the three categories seeing that my TurboTax program got an attitude around 9 in the p.m. After a couple reinstalls, I'm back in action and ready to get back the money that the proverbial man has been holding for me all year.
I had lunch with my many of my old team members today from the small pharmaceutical company that has granted me a leave. It was great to see them and catch up a bit. I enjoyed talking about "business" for a little while, though I quickly realized that I missed the people more than I missed the work. 
So far my unemployed status feels mostly like a vacation – as if I should be headed back to work tomorrow. I'm sure that once I hit the ground in Sierra Leone that the vacation feeling will have stayed safely back in the States.
Welp, that's about all I should put in tonight. I need to get to bed and see what this medicine can do to me.
Things are going smashingly here in Colorado. We've had some great opportunities to relax and laugh. The weather has been beautiful for skiing and observing. I took on the challenge of the mountain on Monday and was beaten into a limping pulp. My legs were so sore by the end of the day that I was taking runs of beautifully carved turns (at least in my mind) 250 yards at a time. I would stop and rest every few hundred yards to rest my legs and ensure the passing ski patrollers that I was okay. All in all, it was a great day on the hill.
There are some more pictures posted in the gallery. Click on the image below to see them.
Four guys. One Accord (manual transmission, blue exterior). A stuffed monkey recently named Whiplash. … all ingredients for one heck of an adventure. I have ventured out to the great state of Colorado with Cam, Doug, & Scott to spend a week in Beaver Creek. I turned in my badge and proverbial gun (an HP laptop in this case) at 6:00 p.m. on Friday afternoon. I am officially without employment, having been granted a leave from the small pharmaceutical company for which I worked. The drive home was surreal: so familiar, yet with an undertone of finality. The full impact of what I'm going to do has not yet hit me. I'll be in Africa in a little under three weeks. I guess it is a little ironic that I'm preparing for my coming stint in equatorial Africa with a week in the mountains of Colorado. The last hour of our trip here was during near whiteout conditions. I won't be worrying about such things in three weeks.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to a week of great conversations and times with my friends. We stopped off in Denver on the way up and amassed a 12-person crew to eat dinner and catch up. After a few rounds of the name game we discovered that we're all practically related, having only two degrees of separation between most of us. The world is small. I plan on making mine smaller day by day. I should have plenty of time to think, write, and read up here, so you, the reader, may find a steady stream of posts to enjoy. For now I'll leave you with a picture of us at the border.
For all of you who were wondering, my root canal went quite well this morning. The good doctor took about 80 minutes to perform the procedure. There was very little pain, as the nerve was not infected before the procedure. Many people attribute the pain from the infected nerve to the root canal procedure. I believe this is incorrect. The procedure removes the nerve that would register the pain. Once it's gone, there should be no pain. The procedure was gentle enough for me to doze off several times, only to be gently woken by the words "please open wider."
My last week working for a small pharmaceutical company before I go on leave to Sierra Leone has proven to be an exciting adventure all its own! I'm running around tying up loose ends and having great conversations with coworkers. An additional tidbit of excitement has come my way in the form of dental work. My semi-annual cleaning revealed a weakening filling. Knowing my situation, the dentist recommended that I have the filling replaced before heading out of the country. Long story short, I'm getting a root canal in six hours. Don't worry; I won't post any pictures of my "procedure."
For those of you who don't know much about root canals, you can learn about them here.
I must say that my dentist has been wonderful about getting me in on a tight schedule and even calling the endodontist to set up an appointment for me before my insurance is gone on Friday. If you're ever in Indianapolis and need a great dentist, check out Dr. Taube at Kilgore & Taube, DDS.