Time for the holidays

This is hard for me to do. Wishing everyone in a sincere way, Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas. The reason behind this is that I spent 16 years in retail. Every year they started putting out holiday items out earlier and earlier. I just got burned out. Even though I got burned out I still believe that you should wish people "Happy Thanksgiving" and "MERRY CHRISTMAS". It should NOT be "Holiday Season" it should be "Christmas". If you don't like it then you can leave. It has been "Christmas" as long as I have been alive. I AM NOT going to change it. The libs took prayer out of schools; took away the christian part of Christmas out of schools; (I am talking about the manger scene) but they never tried to take out witches and goblins. I am tired of people being WIMPS and CRYBABYS and whining about wanting "political correctness". I for one will NOT be politically correct. So for all you wimpy libs out there that may be reading this : Everyone have a Happy Thanksgiving' A VERY Merry CHRISTMAS, and a Happy New Year. ( By the way I am getting over being burned out on the holiday season little by little. Maybe there is hope for me yet.

Back to Dentist Day

I'm heading back to the dentist in about an hour for treatment of the notorious dry socket. Ooh, how fun! On the bright side, the dry socket isn't as painful as the toothache it replaced, but make no mistake about it, it still hurts. I will be really glad when this is all over and done with!

Update (6:30 PM) Just got back home from town from being at the dentist and then the apothacary. It is a dry socket and I have to go back Friday afternoon for another session of having it packed with that nasty tasting dry socket paste. Which, I might add is totally ruining the flavor of my tomato soup. It's a conspiracy against my tastebuds!

Another plus which I wasn't expecting, they aren't charging for the dry socket treatments, no matter how many visits it takes; Dr. Arthur and staff rock!

Al-Qaeda Won't Rest

Apparently the Al-Qaeda won't rest until the White House is destroyed. Why, they supposedly even have a whopping 12,000 fighters ready to go. Don't sweat it Al-Qaeda scum, the dems in office will do most of your dirty work for you, or didn't you keep up with the elections and pay thanks to the sheeple mentality of liberal voters?

Dentist Day: Return From

I left for the dentist at around 2:15 pm and got to the office about 2:40 pm, filled out the paperwork and was back in the exam room around 3:30 pm. They did several X-Rays of my teeth and then went to work on me right at 4:00pm, he didn't want to send me home with a tooth that bad and me in that much pain. It ended up being oral surgery instead of a simple extraction, and the surgery didn't end until right at 7:00 pm.

It seems I am quite resistant to the local anesthetic so he had to pump me full of three syringes from the start, then another shot directly to the tooth's nerve. I went through that once every 45 minutes or so, as the anesthetic was wearing off very quickly. One of the wisdom tooth's roots was fairly straight, while the other one was curled under (not curled out) like a fish-hook, literally in a 180 degree arc. Once he cut the tooth in two pieces, he had to pry the straight end out, and once it was out he went to work on the other one. He literally had to cut into my jawbone with the little power saw to get the tooth out, which he still had to carefully twist completely upside-down before it came out.

What made it worse was he said I had the strongest gag reflex he'd ever seen. I screwed up two X-Rays by gagging while the X-Ray was taken due to movement from my gagging on the little plate you bite on. He numbed my tongue special with local anesthetic to help reduce the gagging reflex, which helped but didn't eliminate it completely. He still had to stop and give me several 5 to 10 minute breaks to calm my gagging self down and regain some calmness before he'd go back after it. He said he's had some gaggers before, but I won the prize for gaggiest patient of all time (hooray me!). He also said I was the most difficult case as far as actual tooth removal he'd had in well over a year.

After it was all said and done, he said if he knew how difficult this procedure was going to be I probably would have been charged double what it cost me. I don't blame him, it was a doozie of a time for everyone concerned. The surgical tooth extraction itself ran about $165 (it would've been $55 if he could have just rocked it out of the socket), and with the other fees, it ran up to $280 for the one tooth and the whole visit. Whew! Got the good stuff though, Percocet for the pain which he said I'd be really sore tomorrow after having my jaw wrenched open for 3 straight hours, plus all the needles going into the jaw muscle, plus the jawbone having been sawn into, not to mention the incisions to the gums, and the extracted tooth socket itself. It took three stitches to close me back up, though he used the self-absorbing kind of suture thread, so at least I don't have to go back to have the stitches taken out.

Even as uncomfortable, painful, and unpleasant as the actual procedure was, the doctor and all his staff were absolutely the best people I'd ever dealt with. So much so that even though the procedure itself was unpleasant, the overall experience was a pleasant experience that left me in a good mood and with a very favorable impression of himself, his office, the and staff.

Dentist Day

Oh the joys of being me. I got shoehorned in to the dentist's office for a visit this afternoon. Wisdom teeth are giving me the fits, especially the bottom right one which half of it decided to crumble into a bunch of tiny pieces exposing the soft dentin and the nerve. Ouch! Didn't hardly sleep a wink last night from the pain, which would conveniently spike right as I'd start to drift off, jolting me back to a wide-awake state. Probably my luck will be just a few X-Rays today and then be rescheduled for extraction a week or two later, just so I can enjoy the pain and suffering and feeling like my whole head is going to explode. I've noticed dentists can be cruel like that, just for kicks I think. If I think about it, I might post an update on the situation here in this entry later this evening.

Saddam Gets Death Penalty

Looks like they gave Saddam Hussein a sentence of death by hanging. I guess that there's still justice in this world after all! But it ain't over yet, not till he's actually hanging lifelessly by the neck from a rope. I wish I could be there to see it all happen when they string him up. Now if I could just get a mailing address so I can mail him a "die slowly and suffer greatly" card.

I'm Heartless and Evil!

Heisted from Kurt over at A Trainwreck in Maxwell

Which South Park kid are you most like? Cartman You are just plain evil and heartless. Though you're sly, and you come up with brilliant schemes, you're pretty dumb and close minded. Other people hate you... screw them!

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

Red Wing Boots: Thumbs Up!

Around a year or so ago I broke down and bought a new pair of Red Wing 970 motorcycle boots. Finding a pair turned out to be a pain since the nearest Red Wing dealer was about 50 miles away (Boot Hill in Valdosta, GA) and they specialized in western style boots. I ended up having to try on a similar pair of wellingtons and then special ordering the actual boots I wanted through Boot Hill and having them drop-shipped from the Red Wing warehouse directly to my home. What a pain just to get a decent pair of boots!

Here's the thing though: I've tried wearing cheap shoes and boots and can't get away with it. They end up killing my feet after just an hour or two of wearing them (not to mention the fact that they start to fall apart within the first 6 months of owning them), so I have to be fairly selective about what goes on the ol' feetsies.

Anyhow, ordering the boots wasn't really the problem, it's my forgetfulness that's the problem. I was low on boot and leather care products in general and forgot to pick some stuff up while I was up in Valdosta. I even wrote a list of stuff I needed like boot oil and hoof-black. Don't laugh, hoof black works just as well as sole and heel dressing and costs less per measured unit, you just have to go the feed store to get it. Back to the forgetfulness before I forget to finish the story. I even remembered to take the list with me, and had it in my pocket, but I forgot the list was in my pocket, forget to check the list, and ended up coming home with nothing but a receipt for the boots I ordered.

No problem, I'll just get some leather care products here locally the next time I go to town. Seems people around here don't take care of their leather, there wasn't anyplace that sold anything for leather care around here except for regular old Kiwi shoe polish at Wally-World. No kidding, last time I looked, I couldn't even find any saddle soap there.

Anyhoo, a few days later the friendly UPS driver delivered a package with my boots in them. So much for the quoted two-week wait, they came in about 3 days after placing the order. I was impressed enough to fire off to Red Wing a thank you note via e-mail praising them for their swift handling and delivery of my order. In the e-mail I sent them I asked if they had any plans on selling their leather care products online (Red Wing does not sell any of their products online, only through authorized brick-and-mortar stores) and explained that I was out in the boondocks and it was a pretty far piece to go to get to a dealer, and the local establishments apparently didn't believe in selling any kind of leather care products at all. (That still gripes me how crappy and bass-ackwards these little towns around here are).

Less than 5 hours later I received a response from Red Wing, which again surprised me as I really wasn't expecting any answer at all, considering that 95% of all companies I contact via e-mail with questions about their products or services never respond at all, and on the rare occasion they do it's closer to 3 or 4 weeks before I hear anything from them. Well, not only did Red Wing respond in a timely manner, but it was the head of the marketing dept. that returned my e-mail to me. He said they were looking into the idea of selling care products online but hadn't made any firm decisions as to whether they would or not in the near future. He thanked me for my commending them on their swift fulfillment of my boot order and asked for confirmation of my mailing address and order number, so I fired off another response answering his confirmation request and thanking him for his swift reply to my e-mail and that it left me with a favorable impression of their business on a whole.

As far I was concerned, the whole exchange was finished and decided I'd just head back up to Valdosta the next time I had the chance with the specific purpose of getting the leather care products I needed. It turns out that trip wasn't necessary at all, since two days after the e-mail exchange with Red Wing I received not one, but two boxes in the mail from them. I wondered what the heck was this? I opened the first box and inside were full-size products including tubs of Mink Oil, Leather Conditioner, and a few bottles of Boot Oil. In the second box found Silicone Waterproofing, Leather Dressing, and a note saying thanks for contacting them and that they hope these gifts they sent will meet my needs, and that if I had any more questions or comments to feel free to contact them any time. Wow! I was like a kid on Christmas morning opening presents under the tree. Not only did they save me a trip back up to Georgia, but they sent me enough leather care products to last me for the next 5 years!

Needless to say, I'm more than impressed with Red Wing now, and my impression with their boot quality is more than favorable. A year later and boots are still like brand-new and and just as comfortable as the day I put them on for the first time. The leather is thick and heavy too unlike lesser brands, but still supple and flexible. Though I don't plan on trying it, I believe they'd hold up to taking a spill at triple-digit speeds without the asphalt eating all the way through them, and thinking about it I bet they'd make great boots for welding, I think they'd hold up to hot slag dropping on them much better than lesser boots and possibly save your foot from the slag burning all the way through the leather and leaving a nice crispy spot on top of the foot. Not that I'm going to purposely try and test that theory either, but it's nice to know they build 'em tough enough to handle a truckload of abuse.

In any event, with customer support like that and product quality to match, I've found a brand I think I'm going to stick with for quite some time to come. They seem to be holding up way better than the any of the other brands I've put through their paces, plus they're much more comfortable to boot (pun intended). I'd never bought a pair of Red Wings before because I thought they were always a bit too pricey, though actually affordable compared to the likes of super-premium brands such Wesco or CruiserWorks, but after wearing them for a while now, I'm kicking myself (again the pun is intended) for not buying them sooner, because quite frankly, they're worth ever penny.

Thanks, Red Wing, for putting the customer first.

Finally an apology

It seems that Mr. Kerry has apologized for PART of what he has said. Even people in his own party has had enough of his mouth. I doubt that will change anything, but at least it is a start.
Now if we can get him and his whole party to see the light.

Can't keep his big mouth shut

John Kerry has a very big problem. He can not keep his mouth shut when he should. He tends to say things then change his tune. "I actually meant this." B.S. He meant everything he has said. Then he doesn't apologize for anything. One thing that has me riled up is when he said " Go to school and get smart or go to Iraq." He says he was talking about Bush. Then answer me this Mr. Kerry; If you think you are so much smarter, why is it that President Bush made better grades at Yale than you did? You say Bush is stupid, then maybe you are more stupid than you let on. Maybe someone needs to put you in your place. And I am the politically incorrect idiot to do it. I am sure that there are others that feel the same way I do. Think before you open your mouth. You only have two feet to stick in there. Unless you have your head stuck so far up your own butt to get them in there, although I think there is still plenty of room.