It's three days after open-heart, bypass surgery and I'm sitting in my chair in my hopsital room waiting for the nurse to come by and nag me about walking the halls for exercise. Can you believe that? Just three days ago they stopped my heart for 90 minutes so they could add three grafts to repair the blood circulation.

Now I'm tired -- a walk around the halls poops me out and I take a bit to recover. It will be several weeks before I'm back to almost normal.

I think I will be going home Sunday or Monday, so you should see me at my desk cam soon. Take care of your heart.

The new year has taken quite a turn for me -- I had a heart attack on the first. It couldn't really be a heart attack I thought. I mean my blood pressure and colestoral have never been high enough to be a problem and I finished the Portland Marathon just a few months ago . The pain hadn't gone away by Friday so we decided it was time to check with the doc.

My regular doctor was taking the day off but I had him paged and he suggested the emergency room. Since we were sure it wasn't really a heart attack, we went to a doc-in-a-box place only to have them tell us that they don't have the facilities to handle what might be a heart attack (this after waiting and hour). So finally to the emergency room of our local hospital.

They took blood and did an EKG and kept shaking their heads because I didn't "look like I'd had a heart attack". They gave me esophagus numbing stuff to see if it was a stomach problem. The finally the lab work came back and, low and behold, the "something happened to your heart" emzimes were elevated. And the cardiologist looked at the EKG and he said some thing wasn't right.

So, Friday night was spent at that hospital being monitored and pumped full of blood thinning and platlet taming potions. Saturday I was transported in an ambulance to the big cardiology center where they continuted to monitor and pump me full of chemicals.

Saturday, I had an angiogram. That's where they run a tube up an artery in your leg to your heart, inject die and then look to see where the die goes to find blockages and constrictions. The cardiologist figured that, since I was a young fellow, they'd find a small constriction that they could fix with a stint and send me on my way. Saddly, they found several problems and I'm now scheduled for triple by-pass surgery tomorrow.

I'm writing this from my hospital bed and, after open heart surgery, I probably won't have many updates for the next week. If I'm one of the 1.5 in a hundred that doesn't survive this major surgery, you might not hear from me at all. But, I'm rather young for this surgery so my chance of survival is very good.

Wish me luck.

We actually got some snow!!! While there are those that live with it and those who will say "what's the big deal" and those who will say "that's not as rare as snow in Florida", getting snow around here is rare and fun.

It wasn't much of a snow, though. Things were white in the morning but my 9am, the roads were just wet. When it froze last night, the streets were pretty much dry so ice wasn't a problem. But still, snow!!

This holiday week lead to an unexpectedly large "miscellaneous" section in our local police blotter but most of them were DUI's and MIP's (a lot of alcohol was misused this week). There were a few notible entries (and, as I've said before , this is exactly as it appears in the paper):

• It seemed a perfect plan: Set up barricades in the road near West Waluga Park, then, when people get out of their car to move them, jump up and pelt them with eggs. But, alas, police located the four juveniles responible and turned them over to their respective parents.
• A suspicious vehicle seen driving in circles at the High School was determined to be a father teaching his son to drive a stick shift.
• A man wo bought copper kettles in Jordan called police wen something fell off them -- drugs, he suspected. Police tested the mystery crud fr opiates and THC, and still don't know what it is.
• When he ran a stop sign, she threw her gloves at him. When he stopped to confront her, he threw her hand truck over an embankment, climbed back in his truck and left.
• A woman said her night vision glasses enabled her to spot her ex-boyfriend walking around her home.
• Two neighbors can't agree where a fence between their properties ought to go, and what's more, the one who's not building the fence suspects the fence-builder is drunk.
• Cape-draped, sword carrying juveniles were reported standing in the traffic lanes in front of the Lake Theatre. Police found the group waiting to see "The Lord or the Rings" and told them to stay out of the street.

Merry Christmas to everyone all over the world!!

We've just finished opening presents this Christmas morning and people are assembling toys -- radio controlled cars and power tools. Toys for all ages. We'll start cooking breakfast soon.

Santa also gave all the kids Airzooka's so there are battles ensuing around the house. You just don't know when a blast of air might hit you.

A few people have joined us in our Christmas morning chat room and you can see the mess on ChristmasCam . Merry Christmas!!