Things have been busy since we have been back from vacation. Work has been crazy, because I had a lot of catching up to do and I needed to meet some deadlines. The weather has been hot and I’ve been dealing with some kind of something – allergies? I don’t know. It feels like it’s been going on all summer – kind of an asthma thingy, being tired, achy – that kind of thing. Anyway, stuff has been happening, so let’s do an update.
I had my dreaded doctor’s appointment today with my new urologist. I’ve been waiting two months to see him after the debacle of firing my previous doctor. The visit today went ok. I liked my new doctor and am sure I’m now in good hands. He listened to my long story of all I’ve gone through, didn’t try to rush me into anything, but did basically say that the only thing I can really do is go ahead and get a biopsy. So I scheduled a date for it. He took blood to do another PSA – this time the fancy percent-free/velocity one – and also did a DRE, in which he said my prostate is indeed large, but he didn’t feel any lumps or nodules. On the embarrassing note, he had a female intern/student and a male assistant in the room too who got to witness the whole DRE exam. Oh well, I’m sure mine was the 20th ass they got to see today and that it was a lot worse for them than for me. Unless this latest PSA test comes back with a super low number, it looks like it’s biopsy time at the end of this month.
Last weekend it was wall to wall storms and rain and lightning in our area. Lots and lots of rain on Saturday and even more Sunday. And then Sunday in the middle of the deluge – BOOM – a lightning strike that sounded like it was right on top of us. The bang, a weird noise in the air for a split second, and then all our smoke alarms started going off. My daughter is running around the house screaming that she is scared and I’m running around the house looking to see if our house is on fire. No damage – so we thought. It was a few hours later that we figured out the extent of what had happened. The lightning blew out our two tv’s, our cable box, and one of our audio receivers. When I say blew out – one tv will turn on but the HDMI inputs don’t work, the other tv, cable box and receiver won’t turn on at all. Awesome. There are other things that turn on, but we don’t know if they work until we get back the tv’s.- like our apple tv’s and our PS3’s. Well, since then we have contacted a mobile tv repair man who ordered parts for the tv’s and had the cable company over to replace our box. The tv that will turn on will work using the coaxle input for the cable, so we are doing that for now. I also ordered and already got a new receiver. The repair man said that the latest it would take to repair the tv’s is tomorrow, and tomorrow is tomorrow so hopefully he’ll be here and fix everything up. I thought about getting new tv’s, but he said he could fix both for under $500, so we’ll see. Plus, we have plasma tv’s and really like them and don’t want to switch to LED. Anyway, another big adventure.
We went to the beach last night because the hot weather broke and it was cooler and breezy and maybe I could get some surfing in. Well, I didn’t go surfing. It was kinda choppy and I didn’t feel like messing with it, but we did have dinner and go for a nice walk. While we were there this couple dressed in white showed up with a kid and a tie wearing man – walked past us and proceeded to get married. Right there – on a Wednesday evening! It was a nice moment and rather surreal.

We’ve been watching a few standout new shows. The first is The Night Of – an HBO mini-series about a young man being accused of murder in NYC and his experiences with the police, lawyers, and fellow inmates. They went the route of – the man is a Pakistani American – he is extremely likable and seems innocent – but you don’t know for sure. It’s an amazing show that is expertly paced and acted. Plus it’s got Michael K Williams in it – so indeed. I hope the guy didn’t do it and get’s out of prison! The second is Stranger Things – another mini-series, this time on Netflix. It takes place in the early 80’s and feels like a Spielberg, John Carpenter, Stephen King mash up with a mix of E.T., Firestarter, and Phantasm. It’s nailed the retro-ness. The third is Master of None – another Netflix original. It’s sort of like a less dark Louie with the lead being a wannabe actor millennial living in NYC instead of a 40 something Louie living in NYC. The second episode using two of the characters real non actor parents flashing back to their immigrant experience – is priceless.
Well, that’s about it for now. I’m rather beat and I’m sure I’m getting sick now. My throat is starting to hurt. Just in time for the weekend…
