No pain here, but...

On Monday, I had two of my wisdom teeth pulled. After hearing many stories from people who knew I was going "under the knife," I was prepared for the worst. Since I am groggy this morning, I'll give you the short version.

The dentist gave me lots of novacaine, so I couldn't feel anything sharp. He didn't "put me out" or whatever, which would have been fun. But I did get to hear and see him pounding away at my upper wisdom teeth. I heard teeth cracking, and felt so much pressure at one point that I thought he was trying to pull an eyeball out of my mouth. Nice picture, eh?

Anyhow, as I was leaving, he gave me a list of instructions, and a prescription for vicatin. As master of the obvious, I said, "So, Doc, after this novacaine wears off, I should expect some pain?"

Dude grimaced and said, "uh, yeah..." It was actually at that point that he gave me the prescription.

So I raced over to Kroger and got the prescription. The pharmacist tells me about some of the effects of vicatin, and other things I can do for this impending onslaught of dental doom. He suggests Aleve, and says I can go ahead and take the Vicatin BEFORE I feel the pain, as a preemptive strike.

So, I follow all of his instructions, and race home before taking the vicatin.

Three days later, I have felt hardly any pain in my mouth. I have only taken four vicatin pills in three days, so maybe I've had it easy. Probably the most painful moment has been looking at all the blood, or holding my two former teeth and being amazed at how big they are!

Well, I do feel blessed (by God, my dentist, and apparently vicatin) that I am not another wisdom tooth horror story.

In other news, I have spent several of the last 24 hours watching CNN. By now, you all know about Hurricane Katrina, and it sure seems like even the worst of this is yet to come.

It's absolutely heartbreaking to sit there and watch what's going on - the destruction, the rescue efforts, the commentary - but I feel like I really must watch it. No (directed at the mayor Biloxi or whoever made that comment), this is not as bad as the Tsunami - not even close! But it is extremely bad, and it is getting worse, and it is right here in a large American city.

While I am personally grateful for my friends and family that we have NOT been affected by this... I am sick to my stomach just thinking about it. Even now, the rescue and relief efforts seem so helpless without communication, electricity, or basic coordination around what is going on.

Apologies...

The other night, I wrote a long, long update to this blog, and then somehow, my time online "timed out." Have you ever had that happen? It was discouraging, cause I had all of these great things to tell you about....

- More news about our new baby
- Gary's riveting trip to the Browns' game
- Adventures with Apple repair
- Headed to Lakeside (Lake Erie) soon
- Random Jennie updates
- Allie's newest favorite toy
- Allie encounters Pet Store
- et cetera

Well, I found a new program that will help me update my blog more often - it's called "Dashboard," and it's a part of Apple's new operating system ("Tiger"). Not that you care, but at least it should give me more chances to update my blog without fear that it will be deleted too quickly.

It's a...

Jennie and I are having a baby.

Today, we had an ultrasound, and found out the gender of said baby.

We are very excited and grateful to God for a healthy baby. We got to see the baby up close and in great detail today.

The due date for this baby's birth is still December 25th.

We will have a Christmas baby.

Sleigh bells ring, and we won't be listening.

We will be at the hospital.

19 weeks and 5 days from now.

I can't wait to tell you more!

We celebrated our trip to the doctor by going to Wal-Mart and buying a brand new CD to listen to. Can you guess which CD we bought? (Hint: the CD has nothing to do with the gender of our child.)

Book Review: Ghost Soldiers

I can't believe that I am just now posting this review. It was probably two years ago when, I believe, both Mike Arnold and Doug Clark at The Chapel highly recommended the book Ghost Soldiers by Hampton Sides. At the time, I wasn't very interested in reading books about war.

For whatever reason, over the past year, I have developed an interest in reading books about war. So I picked up a copy of Ghost Soldiers and started there. I like to go with books that someone I respect has recommended, so here's the respect for Mike and Doug. Ghost Soldiers is about a rescue mission that took place during World War II in the Philippines. Hampton Sides takes you into the life and experiences of what it's like to be a prisoner of war in the worst kind of circumstances. There were times while reading that I found myself crying or catching my breath. Much of the book surrounded the famous "death march" that the Japanese captors led these prisoners on from camp to camp.

The background, characterization, and historical information leading up to the attempted rescue by the 6th Ranger Battalion under the direction of General Henry Mucci was incredible. The strategy, testimonies, and intensity of the attack on the Japanese was a thrill to read.

Today, I saw the commercial for a new movie called The Great Raid. The movie is BASED on the book by Hampton Sides, and yes, I cannot wait to see it. It opens this Friday.

I thought the book was terrific, inspiring, and engaging - and I appreciated the fact that this was well-researched history, not conjecture or opinion.

If you are interested in being inspired, encouraged, and frankly "grossed out" - it is a book about War, mind you - then I'd highly encourage picking up a copy of Ghost Soldiers. It's one of the few books that I've read before seeing the movie. I suppose I can do a movie review in a couple of weeks after I've seen the movie... but, as I was reading the book, I thought several times how there's literally no way to get all of this stuff - especially the important history, thoughts, and personalities of some of the key characters (uh, I mean - actual people) - into a movie. So, even a fully-stocked DVD with lots of interviews has a lot to live up to with this book.

Since reading this book, I have picked up a couple of other war-recommended books like Band of Brothers and D-Day but have yet to start them. I'm not ready to dive head-first into this genre, nor do I have the time. Maybe one good war book a year. Ghost Soldiers was an excellent one to start with.