Hey all,
Thanks for continuing to read forward.
After being at work for less than 2 weeks I surprised my workmates with my death. Oh yeah, that happened too. Nasty event, death is. I don't remember anything from it, I seem to have lost my memory for a period of time around it. Maybe just as well, not a lot to remember when dead and frozen and in a coma to follow. But this is the information that came to me, I can only go by what people have told me, and a lot of people are still hush hush about it. I am sure it was traumatizing for many, and to them I apologize. It was not my intention to die that day at work. But better there than while driving in my car or while sleeping at night alone in bed. At least by dying at work I had a chance to be saved. And I was saved. God has placed his angels in location to see to it that I, one of his children, survived to complete whatever mission it is I have in this life.
Anyway, as promised, here is what I learned:
On July 5th, 2012, I stood up at my desk, took off my reading glasses and while putting them on my desk I said, "oh uh" and hit the ground cold and blue. Dead by the time I hit the ground. My desk neighbor, Rigo, jumped up and caught my fall enough to protect my head and neck from physical damage. They thought I passed out, I was only back at work for 2 weeks and I was passing out before my surgery 2 months prior. It took a few minutes for them to realize I was not unconscious but that I was in fact dead. I had that lifeless colour, no breathing, no heartbeat. Yeah, I was dead. I was down for about 5 minutes when another desk neighbor, Son, started CPR compressions on me. He is so small too, maybe 100 pounds? But whatever he did was enough to get the oxygen flowing through my brain until Laura G found someone else trained in CPR to assist him. The next person was Linda, from HR, she kept the CPR compressions going while Rebecca called 9-1-1. I understand the EMT's got there some 13 minutes later. They were not able to revive me on site, neither with CPR not defibrillation, so they continued CPR on my body until I was delivered to the hospital. I was dead for about 20 minutes I understand.
What happened to me is called Sudden Cardiac Death. It is when the heart stops receiving electricity to keep it beating.
At the hospital, after reviving me via defibrillation and epinephrine, I was kept under hypothermic therapy (freezing my core temperature to about 70°F) for 48 hours. This slowed down the healing process, which is when the scarring and brain damage would occur I understand. Then I believe I was kept in an induced coma for another couple days after that.
I have no memory of any of this. I have no memory of 2 days before, of the 4th of July up on my rooftop with my neighbors watching fireworks, of falling at work. My memory is lost (damaged?) up to about 2 weeks after the death. I was calling work daily but I can't recall calling them the day following.
I was fortunate I recovered and that I was not converted to an unusable organ donor (I say unusable because the lymphoma I had makes me ineligible for organ donation). I am fortunate I had people around that did what they needed to do to save my life, my brain, my family and friends from having to go through another funeral. After months of Cardiac Rehab I now have much of my old body back, with a little hardware. :-) I did have a stent installed, then during the end of my rehab I walked out the Long Beach Half Marathon (3 hours, 31 minutes... not bad for walking only, not a step of jog was allowed by my doctors). Then I had an ICD installed. I now have, in my chest, a defibrillator. It is like a pace maker but it will hit me with 40 joules of shock if my heart stops again for 6 seconds. The device is also a pace maker but that is 3rd in function. The 2nd function of the device is the 3rd lead... it is a beventricullar resyncrony charge - it synchronizes my ventricles to beat more efficiently.
So, a nice little adventure I had. Now I am part robot too. Not only do I have my own mouse antibodies to protect me from ongoing lymphoma I now have a battery to keep my heart beating if it stops and to make it work more efficiently. COOL! I am borg! hehehe
Anyway, we can't let being 50 (almost 51) get in the way, can't let cancer get in the way either. And I sure as hell can't let death stop me. God keeps kicking me back so whatever my mission is must be a good one. :-) I only hope I can deliver.
Check my countdown timers. I have a few events I am doing this year... Lake Irvine Mud Run on Apr 6 '13, Orange County Half Marathon on May 5 '13, Disneyland Half Marathon on Sep 1 '13 (with my nephew Nick!), and also the Run For Your Lives zombie run on Sep 28 '13 (also with my nephew Nick). This last one is a full 5K mud run experience but while being chased by zombies so no time to rest. We will be both runners in 1 wave, but also zombies for a 3 hours shift afterwards. After all, I am a TRUE zombie now, I have been reanimated after death. Yikes! What an adventure this life is!!!!
I bought a GoPro camera to mount on a chest harness for the upcoming events, and I got a new laptop (first one ever for me!) to edit the video. I hope I can entertain you readers with my adventures.
I am currently in a coffee shop using my laptop (I feel so Hollywood, I should be writing my novel or my screen play. hehehe). I will update my countdown tickers in a bit. And I have some really great pictures to share with y'all from my day at the Holi Festival in Norwalk (Los Angeles) from a couple weeks ago. My nephew Nick was in town so he met me there.
Thanks for reading. Now that I am a heart patient I can't take my Adderall, so chatty chatty chatty. But it's better than death! :-)
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Catching up after recovering from food poisoning
Hello readers,
It has been a very long time since I have posted to my blog. I am sorry about that, some unavoidable events have become paramount and it has taken me months to recover from it.
First, I had to abandon my trip to Alaska. :-(
It's not that I wanted to, but 3 weeks before the Orange County Marathon (May 06, 2012) I contracted a bad case of food poisoning. I was thinking it had to be from some iffy chicken I cooked. It should have been fine but it was iffy. That evening I had the most uncomfortable gastric distress (ewww), and it continued for 2 days, 4 days, a week, 3 weeks!!! and it didn't go away. I did the Orange County Half Marathon (13.1 miles) but I did not finish pretty. I had diarrhea 4 times during the run (yes, there were porta-potties) and I had to learn from a stranger that toilet seat covers work for emergency tissue paper. OK folks, too much? Nah, facts of life. Anyway, it took me more than 4 hours to finish, but I finished.
4 days later I started passing out and took myself to the emergency room, had to hang out there for a few hours to find I had a 'mass' in my stomach. Not really the food poisoning I thought it was but it was something. I was hospitalized because the mass was what is called a 'phlegmon'... a pocket of infection protecting something. After a week in the hospital on IV antibiotics I was going to be sent home for home IV treatments but I had a tachycardial event raising my BP above 220 so they put me in telemetry to check my heart and learned whatever it was in my stomach needed to be repaired. So into an exploratory surgery I went.
The surgeon found a ruptured diverticulitis and the phlegmon was protecting my appendix. The surgeon had to resection out some large intestine and small intestine, but leaving my appendix. (Why? why not remove that unneeded unnecessary organ while in there!). Anyway, I had another week in the hospital for the recovery of that one... 2 weeks with nothing by mouth, no water, no food, no IV food, nothing to go thru my intestines. I did lose weight. :-) I wondered what would get me to do that. hehehe.
Recovery was boring, but it happens of course. I was out of work until the end of June. Needless to say, but I will anyway, my birthday trip to hike Denali and do the Anchorage Mayor's Half Marathon had to be cancelled. Can't really hike in the wilderness with an open abdominal wound, not with the wild animals up there. And the marathon would probably have been uncomfortable also.
Oh well, maybe next year. The Denali hike and the Anchorage Mayor's Half Marathon are still on my bucket list. Maybe for birthday #52. (I'm not making it a goal for #51, if you continue reading you will read why).
It has been a very long time since I have posted to my blog. I am sorry about that, some unavoidable events have become paramount and it has taken me months to recover from it.
First, I had to abandon my trip to Alaska. :-(
It's not that I wanted to, but 3 weeks before the Orange County Marathon (May 06, 2012) I contracted a bad case of food poisoning. I was thinking it had to be from some iffy chicken I cooked. It should have been fine but it was iffy. That evening I had the most uncomfortable gastric distress (ewww), and it continued for 2 days, 4 days, a week, 3 weeks!!! and it didn't go away. I did the Orange County Half Marathon (13.1 miles) but I did not finish pretty. I had diarrhea 4 times during the run (yes, there were porta-potties) and I had to learn from a stranger that toilet seat covers work for emergency tissue paper. OK folks, too much? Nah, facts of life. Anyway, it took me more than 4 hours to finish, but I finished.
4 days later I started passing out and took myself to the emergency room, had to hang out there for a few hours to find I had a 'mass' in my stomach. Not really the food poisoning I thought it was but it was something. I was hospitalized because the mass was what is called a 'phlegmon'... a pocket of infection protecting something. After a week in the hospital on IV antibiotics I was going to be sent home for home IV treatments but I had a tachycardial event raising my BP above 220 so they put me in telemetry to check my heart and learned whatever it was in my stomach needed to be repaired. So into an exploratory surgery I went.
The surgeon found a ruptured diverticulitis and the phlegmon was protecting my appendix. The surgeon had to resection out some large intestine and small intestine, but leaving my appendix. (Why? why not remove that unneeded unnecessary organ while in there!). Anyway, I had another week in the hospital for the recovery of that one... 2 weeks with nothing by mouth, no water, no food, no IV food, nothing to go thru my intestines. I did lose weight. :-) I wondered what would get me to do that. hehehe.
Recovery was boring, but it happens of course. I was out of work until the end of June. Needless to say, but I will anyway, my birthday trip to hike Denali and do the Anchorage Mayor's Half Marathon had to be cancelled. Can't really hike in the wilderness with an open abdominal wound, not with the wild animals up there. And the marathon would probably have been uncomfortable also.
Oh well, maybe next year. The Denali hike and the Anchorage Mayor's Half Marathon are still on my bucket list. Maybe for birthday #52. (I'm not making it a goal for #51, if you continue reading you will read why).
Sunday, March 25, 2012
I reached out for help and...
Hello Readers,
OK, this is a little bit different of a post than I would normally write. Normally I keep this blog for adventures and things I have done but in this post I will discuss a future adventure and the heartfelt gratefulness of someone being there when I reached out for help.
In June I will be flying out to Anchorage Alaska for the Anchorage Mayor's Marathon (aka Midnight Sun marathon). The marathon is scheduled for the 1st Saturday after the Summer Solstice (the longest day of the year). In Anchorage during the Summer Solstice there is no actual 'night time'. Of what I understand there are about 20 hours of sunlight and 4 hours of twilight but no darkness. Wow, what an interesting phenom. Most of us probably understand about the rotation of the earth creating a daily cycle and the axis of the planet designating the day & night periods and the revolution Earth takes around the Sun creating a yearly cycle, but that is all textbook for most of us. The thought of actually going to a place on the planet where it all comes together to create months of daylight and months of nighttime is almost surreal.
Anyway, on June 23rd this year is the Anchorage Mayor's Marathon. I will be running/walking the half marathon (this will be 2 weeks after doing the San Diego Rock & Roll Marathon). Jet Blue had a great deal for Long Beach Airport to Anchorage Airport and time worked out so that I can go to Alaska on the evening of the 18th. I will be taking my first train ride, ever, from Anchorage to Denali National Park and backpacking until the early afternoon of the 22nd when I get to take the train back to Anchorage to stay the night in a hotel to rehydrate and shut some heavy curtains to get some sleep to recooperate for the half marathon the next day. This is where my time problem happened: The train doesn't come into Anchorage until 8:00pm and I have to pick up my bib & timing chip before 6:00pm at the Expo. hmmm. It took me a while to remember I am a part of an International organization with chapters in almost every major city in the world. So going through the Mensa website and checking out the Alaska membership I contacted the president of that chapter to see if someone there can help me out to collect my marathon packet. I would not be able to do the marathon otherwise. Dana Spinney, of the Mensa Anchorage chapter, was more than willing to offer her assistance. And for this I am deeply grateful. Dana, through Mensa, was the missing key to allow me to plan my short vacation to include as much backpacking/hiking time possible and be able to include the marathon on my last day... for without her assistance I would have to spend 2 days in a hotel if I expected to do the marathon. And I am not really that much of a hotel-type person.
I don't really know what condition my feet will be in by the time of the marathon... 2 weeks before I will have done the San Diego Rock & Roll Marathon, and for a couple days before the Anchorage marathon I will be backpacking & hiking in Denali National Park (where there is no night time and there are plenty of wildlife (pronounced Grizzly Bears)) so I may not be hydrating or sleeping as I should before a marathon. Regardless, this is my birthday and this is an adventure I want to experience as much of as possible - whether I do it pretty or not. It's about completing, not competing. :-)
Dana, thank you for being there when I reached out for help. This is going to be my birthday adventure and I appreciate your hospitality and genersity in helping me. Perhaps on the 23rd after the marathon we can do a birthday dinner since we share similar birthdays.
I am looking forward sharing the pictures I will be taking.
OK, this is a little bit different of a post than I would normally write. Normally I keep this blog for adventures and things I have done but in this post I will discuss a future adventure and the heartfelt gratefulness of someone being there when I reached out for help.
In June I will be flying out to Anchorage Alaska for the Anchorage Mayor's Marathon (aka Midnight Sun marathon). The marathon is scheduled for the 1st Saturday after the Summer Solstice (the longest day of the year). In Anchorage during the Summer Solstice there is no actual 'night time'. Of what I understand there are about 20 hours of sunlight and 4 hours of twilight but no darkness. Wow, what an interesting phenom. Most of us probably understand about the rotation of the earth creating a daily cycle and the axis of the planet designating the day & night periods and the revolution Earth takes around the Sun creating a yearly cycle, but that is all textbook for most of us. The thought of actually going to a place on the planet where it all comes together to create months of daylight and months of nighttime is almost surreal.
Anyway, on June 23rd this year is the Anchorage Mayor's Marathon. I will be running/walking the half marathon (this will be 2 weeks after doing the San Diego Rock & Roll Marathon). Jet Blue had a great deal for Long Beach Airport to Anchorage Airport and time worked out so that I can go to Alaska on the evening of the 18th. I will be taking my first train ride, ever, from Anchorage to Denali National Park and backpacking until the early afternoon of the 22nd when I get to take the train back to Anchorage to stay the night in a hotel to rehydrate and shut some heavy curtains to get some sleep to recooperate for the half marathon the next day. This is where my time problem happened: The train doesn't come into Anchorage until 8:00pm and I have to pick up my bib & timing chip before 6:00pm at the Expo. hmmm. It took me a while to remember I am a part of an International organization with chapters in almost every major city in the world. So going through the Mensa website and checking out the Alaska membership I contacted the president of that chapter to see if someone there can help me out to collect my marathon packet. I would not be able to do the marathon otherwise. Dana Spinney, of the Mensa Anchorage chapter, was more than willing to offer her assistance. And for this I am deeply grateful. Dana, through Mensa, was the missing key to allow me to plan my short vacation to include as much backpacking/hiking time possible and be able to include the marathon on my last day... for without her assistance I would have to spend 2 days in a hotel if I expected to do the marathon. And I am not really that much of a hotel-type person.
I don't really know what condition my feet will be in by the time of the marathon... 2 weeks before I will have done the San Diego Rock & Roll Marathon, and for a couple days before the Anchorage marathon I will be backpacking & hiking in Denali National Park (where there is no night time and there are plenty of wildlife (pronounced Grizzly Bears)) so I may not be hydrating or sleeping as I should before a marathon. Regardless, this is my birthday and this is an adventure I want to experience as much of as possible - whether I do it pretty or not. It's about completing, not competing. :-)
Dana, thank you for being there when I reached out for help. This is going to be my birthday adventure and I appreciate your hospitality and genersity in helping me. Perhaps on the 23rd after the marathon we can do a birthday dinner since we share similar birthdays.
I am looking forward sharing the pictures I will be taking.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Not much to share during these darker winter months
Hello All,
There hasn't been much to write about these last several months, since Sep actually. Sure, things have been happening, but nothing outdoors where I can take a camera along to share the adventures. I like winter but I think for me its for nesting; in my outdoor adventures I do like the sunlight and lately the days have been too short. I am a night owl, but night pictures are so dim and it really isn't very safe to take the type of hikes I enjoy by moonlight.
On Oct 09th, 2011, I completed the Long Beach International City Marathon. Half marathon really, but that was the plan. It was about the bling. I am back to getting into training and since I am a strong walker anyway it was about getting the medal to step up the motivation for a full marathon again. I will be making the plan for the real marathon but at this time I have not yet decided.
On Feb 05th, 2012, I completed the Surf City half Marathon (Huntington Beach). Again, it was about the bling and getting into a cycle. The Surf City medals are a metal medalian on a really cool wood surf board. Also like the Long Beach marathon, it was about completing, not competing. I am far from impressed with my finishing time; currently I am walking out the half marathons, usually in the back of the pack where the church walker ladies are. Don't let that sound like an insult, some of those ladies kick ARSE!
The next half marathon is the Orange County Marathon on May 06th, 2012. Now that I have been training I intend on completing the Orange County Marathon in 2 hours, 22 minutes. We'll see how that goes, but it's a goal. I will be happy with a 2:22. Heck, I'm happy completing so I'd be IMPRESSED with a 2:22. :-)
Upon completion of this Orange County half marathon I will receive a 4th medal for the "California Beach Cities Challenge". The California Beach Cities Challenge is a marathon series in that if a person completes any combination of half or full marathons in the Long Beach, Surf City & Orange County marathons, in order without missing one, the 4th medal is earned. This special 4th medal is a hybrid of the individual styles of each of the 3 marathons.
I am hoping to be doing the full marathon for the San Diego Rock & Roll Marathon on Jun 03rd, 2012. The proceeds earned from this marathon (registration fees, etc) benefit the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, which as anyone who knows me knows I have a softspot for them since my own cancer was lymphoma.
In Jan['12] I had dinner with an adventurous dinner group called GASTRONAUTS. Google it, it's not for everyone but everyone there seems to have had a good time. People were nice, all walks of life (I actually feel a bit of a country bumpkin compared to most of them because those that I have met were world travelers and/or physicists and/or business owners, et al. Still, I am looking forward to the next gastronomical adventure.
This dinner was tagged as "A Cajun Feast at Villians Tavern" and featured NUTRIA (yup, swamp rat, river rat, call it what you will, it's a 4-6 lb rat!), 42 RSVPs and 50 lbs of nutria to share. yumm! I play, it was a fun night and the food was good. The meal was coursed, so it took a good couple hours to get through it, and here is the menu (pictures of the prepared foods are below):
° Grilled Lemonade with Thyme Syrup
° Turtle* Salad with Market Greens
° Country Rabbit* Pâté with Pickled Okra
° Crawfish* Boudin with Maque Choux
° Tomato Pie
° Braised Nutria* with Rockefeller Dressing
° Café Brûlot
° King Cakes
... and plenty New Orleans-Style punches
(* The snapper turtle, rabbit, crawfish & nutria were all trapped in cajun country, Louisiana, and flown in overnight for this event).
The afternoon started with the New Orleans-Style punches (one with rum, the other with rye whiskey, and surprisingly I enjoyed the rye whiskey). A nice time for the meet-and-greet and since I was one of the first people there (yes family, one of the FIRST, not one of the latest!) I got to meet a large number of the other diners. Then after taking our seats the dinner started with the apparatif Grilled Lemonade. Wow, who knew Grilled Lemons and vodka would make such a great tasting drink, sweet, but good. Those of you that know me also know I do not drink hard alcohol, but no worries, I did not get drunk, thank goodness my metabolism seems to burn alcohol off fast (is that the ADD?).
The first food course was the Turtle Salad with Market Greens... sliced marinated turtle meat (fried?) on frisée, a type of chicory I believe. Snapper turtle, friends, not the illegal stuff. Is turtle a salty meat or was the brinyness from a marinade? I like briny. I could have eaten an entire meal of the turtle meat., but on we went to the next course of Rabbit Pâté with pickled okra. Funny, it didn't taste like liver. I don't like liver, but the pate was tasty. The Crawfish Boudin (a 'sausage' for lack of a better word) wasn't my cup-o-tea but the first rule of the dinner club is to at least try to try everything presented to you. I finished it of course, food really doesn't have much chance of survival around me, regardless of what the food is. hehehe.
The Tomato Pie, well, can I say it was a DREAM! So much so that I looked up recipes after I got home so I can perhaps make it myself. If you have not experienced it before don't think of apple pie, think instead of PIZZA pie. Yup, savory, cheesy (ricotta mix?), a pizza between pie crusts. Seriously, a full dinner can be made of tomato pie and a salad. Now came the scary entré, the SWAMP RAT! Don't think of it and it wasn't bad at all. Actually, the course had a chewy and a pork texture... the small dumplings in it made the chewy, the nutria had the texture of pulled pork. I would have liked it far more without the rockefeller dressing (oysters!) because to me the oyster taste/smell along with the shredded pork texture reminded me of canned tuna. I eat tuna, but I did not finish the river rat. Not because it was rat, but because after 5 courses extending over time I WAS FULL.
The final course was Café Brûlot and King Cakes. The Café Brûlot was also imported from 'Noleans' area but the show was all Los Angeles. The coffee show consisted of igniting the coffee (alcohol) and ladling it over an orange with curled peel until the fire burned out and the orange oils saturated through the coffee. The orange oils and the spices (cinnamon? nutmeg?) reminded me of Christmas wine. Quite an interesting show.
hehehe. OK, so not much to share, but that has never stopped me from saying a lot! :-)
Oh, and today I went to the Scottish Festival & Games at the Queen Mary. My goal: eat haggis! Mission Accomplished.
I don't understand why sheep organs with oats & onions boiled for a few hours in a sheep stomach should get the bad reputation it has been given. It was actually quite tasty.
There hasn't been much to write about these last several months, since Sep actually. Sure, things have been happening, but nothing outdoors where I can take a camera along to share the adventures. I like winter but I think for me its for nesting; in my outdoor adventures I do like the sunlight and lately the days have been too short. I am a night owl, but night pictures are so dim and it really isn't very safe to take the type of hikes I enjoy by moonlight.
On Oct 09th, 2011, I completed the Long Beach International City Marathon. Half marathon really, but that was the plan. It was about the bling. I am back to getting into training and since I am a strong walker anyway it was about getting the medal to step up the motivation for a full marathon again. I will be making the plan for the real marathon but at this time I have not yet decided.
On Feb 05th, 2012, I completed the Surf City half Marathon (Huntington Beach). Again, it was about the bling and getting into a cycle. The Surf City medals are a metal medalian on a really cool wood surf board. Also like the Long Beach marathon, it was about completing, not competing. I am far from impressed with my finishing time; currently I am walking out the half marathons, usually in the back of the pack where the church walker ladies are. Don't let that sound like an insult, some of those ladies kick ARSE!
The next half marathon is the Orange County Marathon on May 06th, 2012. Now that I have been training I intend on completing the Orange County Marathon in 2 hours, 22 minutes. We'll see how that goes, but it's a goal. I will be happy with a 2:22. Heck, I'm happy completing so I'd be IMPRESSED with a 2:22. :-)
Upon completion of this Orange County half marathon I will receive a 4th medal for the "California Beach Cities Challenge". The California Beach Cities Challenge is a marathon series in that if a person completes any combination of half or full marathons in the Long Beach, Surf City & Orange County marathons, in order without missing one, the 4th medal is earned. This special 4th medal is a hybrid of the individual styles of each of the 3 marathons.
I am hoping to be doing the full marathon for the San Diego Rock & Roll Marathon on Jun 03rd, 2012. The proceeds earned from this marathon (registration fees, etc) benefit the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, which as anyone who knows me knows I have a softspot for them since my own cancer was lymphoma.
In Jan['12] I had dinner with an adventurous dinner group called GASTRONAUTS. Google it, it's not for everyone but everyone there seems to have had a good time. People were nice, all walks of life (I actually feel a bit of a country bumpkin compared to most of them because those that I have met were world travelers and/or physicists and/or business owners, et al. Still, I am looking forward to the next gastronomical adventure.
This dinner was tagged as "A Cajun Feast at Villians Tavern" and featured NUTRIA (yup, swamp rat, river rat, call it what you will, it's a 4-6 lb rat!), 42 RSVPs and 50 lbs of nutria to share. yumm! I play, it was a fun night and the food was good. The meal was coursed, so it took a good couple hours to get through it, and here is the menu (pictures of the prepared foods are below):
° Grilled Lemonade with Thyme Syrup
° Turtle* Salad with Market Greens
° Country Rabbit* Pâté with Pickled Okra
° Crawfish* Boudin with Maque Choux
° Tomato Pie
° Braised Nutria* with Rockefeller Dressing
° Café Brûlot
° King Cakes
... and plenty New Orleans-Style punches
(* The snapper turtle, rabbit, crawfish & nutria were all trapped in cajun country, Louisiana, and flown in overnight for this event).
The afternoon started with the New Orleans-Style punches (one with rum, the other with rye whiskey, and surprisingly I enjoyed the rye whiskey). A nice time for the meet-and-greet and since I was one of the first people there (yes family, one of the FIRST, not one of the latest!) I got to meet a large number of the other diners. Then after taking our seats the dinner started with the apparatif Grilled Lemonade. Wow, who knew Grilled Lemons and vodka would make such a great tasting drink, sweet, but good. Those of you that know me also know I do not drink hard alcohol, but no worries, I did not get drunk, thank goodness my metabolism seems to burn alcohol off fast (is that the ADD?).
The first food course was the Turtle Salad with Market Greens... sliced marinated turtle meat (fried?) on frisée, a type of chicory I believe. Snapper turtle, friends, not the illegal stuff. Is turtle a salty meat or was the brinyness from a marinade? I like briny. I could have eaten an entire meal of the turtle meat., but on we went to the next course of Rabbit Pâté with pickled okra. Funny, it didn't taste like liver. I don't like liver, but the pate was tasty. The Crawfish Boudin (a 'sausage' for lack of a better word) wasn't my cup-o-tea but the first rule of the dinner club is to at least try to try everything presented to you. I finished it of course, food really doesn't have much chance of survival around me, regardless of what the food is. hehehe.
The Tomato Pie, well, can I say it was a DREAM! So much so that I looked up recipes after I got home so I can perhaps make it myself. If you have not experienced it before don't think of apple pie, think instead of PIZZA pie. Yup, savory, cheesy (ricotta mix?), a pizza between pie crusts. Seriously, a full dinner can be made of tomato pie and a salad. Now came the scary entré, the SWAMP RAT! Don't think of it and it wasn't bad at all. Actually, the course had a chewy and a pork texture... the small dumplings in it made the chewy, the nutria had the texture of pulled pork. I would have liked it far more without the rockefeller dressing (oysters!) because to me the oyster taste/smell along with the shredded pork texture reminded me of canned tuna. I eat tuna, but I did not finish the river rat. Not because it was rat, but because after 5 courses extending over time I WAS FULL.
The final course was Café Brûlot and King Cakes. The Café Brûlot was also imported from 'Noleans' area but the show was all Los Angeles. The coffee show consisted of igniting the coffee (alcohol) and ladling it over an orange with curled peel until the fire burned out and the orange oils saturated through the coffee. The orange oils and the spices (cinnamon? nutmeg?) reminded me of Christmas wine. Quite an interesting show.
 |
| Some Gastronauts on the patio of Villians Tavern (see, NORMAL people, not freaks that eat weird things) |
 |
| Turtle Salad with Market Greens |
 |
| Country Rabbit Pâté with Pickled Okra (sorry for the bad focus) |
 |
| Crawfish Boudin with Maque Choux |
 |
| Braised Nutria with Rockefeller Dressing |
hehehe. OK, so not much to share, but that has never stopped me from saying a lot! :-)
Oh, and today I went to the Scottish Festival & Games at the Queen Mary. My goal: eat haggis! Mission Accomplished.
I don't understand why sheep organs with oats & onions boiled for a few hours in a sheep stomach should get the bad reputation it has been given. It was actually quite tasty.
Monday, September 19, 2011
09/17/2011 - Zip Line Tour with my sister's clan
Hello Family, friends and other readers,
This past Saturday I went on another Navitat Canopy Adventures (aka zip line eco-tour), but this time I went with my sister's clan, sans the sister though. All-in-all there were myself, my brother-in-law Frank, my nephew Nick and his girlfriend Jenn, and my niece Lindsey and her boyfriend David. Our group of 8 was completed by 2 other eco-tourists, Luke & Luis. Our guides were Raymond and Jesse. They are the persons that protected us making sure we were each securely harnessed & cabled for our utmost protection and enjoyment. If you are interested in learning more about Navitat Canopy Adventures please visit their site http://www.navitat.com/wrightwood, tell them you heard about them from me.
Additional pictures of this event can be found in my alternate blog location. This primary location has a large assortment of my favourite pictures but there are so many to share I need to use the alternate site, that is also the place to find pictures of the guides and the other tourists, Luis & Luke. Click on this link to go there http://document-my-life-additionalpics.blogspot.com/ .
We were fortunate the overcast burned off before our 11:30am tour time. The weather was quite beautiful and at this time of the year some of the leaves in the forest were started to turn their autumn colours.
Lindsey was a natural at the line - such gracefulness, it was like she was sitting in a chair. Frank, he dismounted like a pro most of the time, and one of the the zip dismounts Nick performed I thought he was going to come in with a hand relaxing down as he cruized into the platform (show-off). David seems quite comfortable in the activities & harness (perhaps due to his work experiences of being a lineman(?)). Jenn, on the other hand, well, she did seem to have her own less-graceful style in braking (more like crashing into the guide's brake, hehehehe). Tostada Jenn, not burrito. Tostada. But in Jenn's defense, it did seem her arms are a bit short for the more traditional style of braking. It would make sense if you were there. But Jenn did get the additional adventure on one of the longer zips (1,100'-ish) when she contacted the destination platform (bam!) but then backzipped what must have been a couple hundred feet, leaving her dangling there to be rescued by one of our faithful guides. Appearantly he monkey-crawled the zipline, using both hands & feet, to help her back to the platform. I would have loved to have been on the platform on that side of the zip to have witnessed that activity. What an extra adventure too, I believe I would have loved to have been dangling there more than 150' above the forest floor. The view must have been remarkable; scary, but remarkable.
So anyway, thanks again for reading on through my rambling. I enjoy the zips and eco-tour and I hope my sister's clan enjoyed it equally.
Some of the pictures below were taken by the professional platform photographer supplied by Navitat. I have credited those pictures, all other pictures were taken by my trusty digital Fujifilm FinePix A820 camera. A little point-&-shoot camera but it takes some really nice pictures.
Please click here for the additional pictures that I did not put on this primary page: http://document-my-life-additionalpics.blogspot.com/
This past Saturday I went on another Navitat Canopy Adventures (aka zip line eco-tour), but this time I went with my sister's clan, sans the sister though. All-in-all there were myself, my brother-in-law Frank, my nephew Nick and his girlfriend Jenn, and my niece Lindsey and her boyfriend David. Our group of 8 was completed by 2 other eco-tourists, Luke & Luis. Our guides were Raymond and Jesse. They are the persons that protected us making sure we were each securely harnessed & cabled for our utmost protection and enjoyment. If you are interested in learning more about Navitat Canopy Adventures please visit their site http://www.navitat.com/wrightwood, tell them you heard about them from me.
Additional pictures of this event can be found in my alternate blog location. This primary location has a large assortment of my favourite pictures but there are so many to share I need to use the alternate site, that is also the place to find pictures of the guides and the other tourists, Luis & Luke. Click on this link to go there http://document-my-life-additionalpics.blogspot.com/ .
We were fortunate the overcast burned off before our 11:30am tour time. The weather was quite beautiful and at this time of the year some of the leaves in the forest were started to turn their autumn colours.
Lindsey was a natural at the line - such gracefulness, it was like she was sitting in a chair. Frank, he dismounted like a pro most of the time, and one of the the zip dismounts Nick performed I thought he was going to come in with a hand relaxing down as he cruized into the platform (show-off). David seems quite comfortable in the activities & harness (perhaps due to his work experiences of being a lineman(?)). Jenn, on the other hand, well, she did seem to have her own less-graceful style in braking (more like crashing into the guide's brake, hehehehe). Tostada Jenn, not burrito. Tostada. But in Jenn's defense, it did seem her arms are a bit short for the more traditional style of braking. It would make sense if you were there. But Jenn did get the additional adventure on one of the longer zips (1,100'-ish) when she contacted the destination platform (bam!) but then backzipped what must have been a couple hundred feet, leaving her dangling there to be rescued by one of our faithful guides. Appearantly he monkey-crawled the zipline, using both hands & feet, to help her back to the platform. I would have loved to have been on the platform on that side of the zip to have witnessed that activity. What an extra adventure too, I believe I would have loved to have been dangling there more than 150' above the forest floor. The view must have been remarkable; scary, but remarkable.
So anyway, thanks again for reading on through my rambling. I enjoy the zips and eco-tour and I hope my sister's clan enjoyed it equally.
Some of the pictures below were taken by the professional platform photographer supplied by Navitat. I have credited those pictures, all other pictures were taken by my trusty digital Fujifilm FinePix A820 camera. A little point-&-shoot camera but it takes some really nice pictures.
Please click here for the additional pictures that I did not put on this primary page: http://document-my-life-additionalpics.blogspot.com/
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| Photo credit: Navitat photographer |
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| Photo credit: Navitat photographer |
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| Photo credit - Navitat photographer |
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| Photo credit: Navitat photographer |
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| Photo credit: Navitat photographer |
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| Photo credit: Navitat photographer |
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| Photo credit: Navitat photographer |
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| Photo credit: Navitat photographer |
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| Photo credit: Navitat photographer |
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| Photo credit: Navitat photographer |
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| Photo credit: Navitat photographer |
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| Photo credit: Navitat photographer |
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| Photo credit: Navitat photographer |
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| Photo credit: Navitat photographer |
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| Photo credit: Navitat photographer |
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| Photo credit: Navitat photographer |
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| Photo credit: Navitat photographer |
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| Photo credit: Navitat photographer |
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