Tooth-hurty 24/7

Last Halloween, while I took my boys out trick-or-treating, I sampled one of there Tootsie Rolls.  Or maybe it was Laffy Taffy. Whatever it was, it was one of those softer, chewy candies.  It was the last thing I expected to cause the pain I am in now.

Peanut Brittle, I'd understand.  Or a Gobstopper that I didn't have patience for.

Anyway, while I was chewing it, I felt some crunches that I knew didn't belong. They were from fragments of my lower back-left molar and its filling. Just a little less than half of both have been gone ever since.

Anything cold and/or hard has caused pain, so since then I've generally chewed with my right side.  It's odd that I learned from this that I actually prefer chewing on the left side.

Anyway, the day has come that I knew would eventually, and that is to say the pain is steady.  So it's time to go to the dentist.

I will be calling the dentist in the morning to make an appointment, and I hope that I can get in without waiting two weeks. I'd rather it not even be two more days of this, but I'm a realist.  Until I do get in, it will be popping my maximum 6 Ibuprofens  per day.

I'm ready to sheepishly admit to the dentist that I should have come in sooner. I just hope they don't tell me by doing so a year later I've caused more problems than what a simply cap, crown, or tooth pull would have fixed.

Until then, my clock has stopped at tooth-hurty.

Umpire passes away too young

I give professional umpires and other officials a hard time on my blog, but Wally Bell was a good one and a good man.  My sincere condolences to his family.

I am also moved by the fact that he died of a massive heart attack at age 48.  I'm 47 1/2, and just skipped a late-night session on my elliptical, to opt instead for watching baseball and downing two bowls of Lucky Charms.

The Dodgers-Cardinals game just ended. It's not too late to put in 15 minutes on the elliptical, so I'll go do that now.

A little Sunday BP

It was a gorgeous mid-October day in Minnesota today, so instead of watching the hapless Vikings (anyone who was "excited" about Cassell starting should, as I said even before his win against Pittsburgh, donate their brain to science), I hit softballs off a tee.

Today I did it a little differently from other days.  I typically find a field where the wind is favorable or at least neutral.  Today it was at a slight disadvantage, although it didn't blow more than 5 MPH for the most part.

Secondly, I practiced hitting the gap between left and center.  Normally, I practice pulling.  But from now on I will mostly be practicing the left-center gap.  Hit a line drive there, and it's a double.  Top it a little, and it still has a good chance of finding the hole in a five-man infield.

I got several past the 350' mark off the tee today, so that was definitely a good thing considering my choice not to pull.  Oh, and one more thing I did differently today was hit a lot more balls.  Four rounds of 30+ each.

Below is a picture of my left hand this evening, and yes I wear batting gloves. It's a good thing I don't bowl left-handed, because even though it's not my fingers that have blisters, a la The White Album, that one by the index finger might still sting even two days from today when I have league night, were I a lefty.

My wife thinks I'm crazy for taking BP off a tee when I won't be playing games again until next spring.  I doubt she thinks going to a golf dome in the winter is crazy.

I think should would agree that sitting through three hours of the Vikings is.

Update on John

I posted a while back about an old friend who was diagnosed with prostate cancer.  As he puts it, it was a 44 day roller coaster ride of his life being turned upside down and all around. Well, those are mostly my words; but he did say the entire process was 44 days.

Oh, what that means is from the time he was diagnosed to the time he was pronounced cancer-free, 44 days had passed.

Yep, cancer-free.  That's pretty cool.

Of course a lot of people were praying for him and now are thanking God.  I won't begrudge them for that. But I'm thankful for science and the people who use it.

Looking toward 2014

I've posted many things on this Blog in the past about resolutions, goals, plans, dreams, etc.  Many of them, if not most, I either did not follow through on, or let the momentum slip and reverted back.

Still, I'm naive enough at my age to already be looking toward what I consider my "offseason," which I loosely define as the time of year when I spend more time indoors.  Sure, I spend a lot of warm weather days filled with several hours of daylight indoors too, but my "offseason" is when I do better minding my weight, keeping my workout schedule, working toward goals, and such.

I'll try again to come up with some inspiring goals for the offseason and New Year as it approaches.  But one thing I am committed to is to try at least one thing, and hopefully more, well outside of my comfort zone. New, unique, exciting, and where failure is a very real and even scary possibility.

A few ideas:

1) Perform a set of stand-up comedy at an open stage.  I don't necessarily think I'm particularly funny, but I do find a lot of things funny every day, and the thought of putting a well-rehearsed act together to see if it resonates with others excites me.

2) Perform a musical set on an open stage.  I'm not a good enough guitarist to think that will impress anyone, but I pretty much perform for our two Westies at least every other night, and they don't seem to mind the singing.  Perhaps humans won't mind, either, and might even find it in their hearts to humor me with a nice golf clap at the end.

3) Bowl a major scratch tournament (or more).  I used to do this in my twenties, and failed miserably. Today, I have a different definition of failure, and thus should have no problem just doing it for my own joy of competing against others who are significantly better than I.  I've done this in golf tournaments and enjoyed it, so  bowling should really be no different.

4) Focus on a work project on my own, with no direction from upper management, on my own time, and not having anything to do with my day-to-day task management. My employer's annual Innovation challenge is too far underway to try that, but that doesn't mean I can't do my own personal challenge.

I'm not thinking too creatively right now, so I'll cut the list of possibilities at four.  But I want to get this documented, to put a little pressure on myself and not let my enthusiasm of the possibilities die.

I was in a management training course today, and one thing that stuck with me was a comment from another participant and former colleague of mine made a comment along the lines of, "My nature is to feel that if I'm not scared to death, I'm doing it wrong." I really want to pick her brain and see if I can develop that same trait.  I enjoy the nervous excitement of putting myself "out there," but not quite to the level of actually wanting to be scared.

Previous posts on my goals didn't seem to drive my motivation that much, but even at 47, I'm youthful enough to hope that this time will be different.