Eight Weeks of Winter: Starting Point

I kicked off the week with a brunch date with my brother. We ate salads at the European Street Cafe then played a dice game called farkle at my house while drinking the chocolate drink yoohoo. 

For work that night I went on a ride along in the northeastern region of the northwest side, getting to know the sketchy ghetto areas of Avenue B, Myrtle, Moncrief, Lem Turner, and Edgewood and the goings on of their crime and nonsense at 3am. Officer Snyder kindly gave me a tour of all the high crime areas such as the Raceway at 1040 Golfair, Washington Heights Apartments, and Cleveland Arms Apartments. 

We always get 911 calls and officer onview calls out in those areas, so it was cool to experience it in real life. Nothing too exciting that night, just a lot of disputes and suspicious activity, an armed dispute, a couple traffic stops, baker acting an individual to the MHRC, and a motorcycle accident with injuries that was much less exciting than it sounds haha. The guy had a dime sized scrape above his left leg. Good news for him, but disappointing after driving with lights and sirens high speed many miles across town when the man wasn't even badly injured. 

There was apparently a big Jaguar game on Sunday night. Apparently if the Jags won against the Patriots that night, we would've had a good chance to play in the super bowl. Everyone was excited enough about that game that we all chipped in at work to have chicken wings, chicken wraps, potato salad, and deviled eggs. The jags lost, but I still felt like a winner that night. I won because for the work party we ordered a hundred chicken wings, half spicy half non-spicy. People ravaged the non-spicy wings but many avoided the spicy wings and a lot was left over to go to waste. Anyone who wanted was able to take home leftovers the morning after. Anything not taken home in the morning was to be thrown away. Spicy wings happens to be a favorite in our house. The leftover spicy chicken wings we brought home from the party fed us for the next three days. Winner winner, chicken dinner.

Tuesday at the dentist I got my last imprint on my permanent crown. They would only do it if I could successfully complete on prescription of the antibiotic amoxicillin. That was the first antibiotic I ever completed, and it was an expensive root canal that would've gone to waste had I failed to complete the antibiotic, so I felt pretty good about both completing my antibiotic and getting the last imprint. I was there for several hours, and the very last half hour of the imprint my jaw was locking and even over the anesthesia I was feeling excruciating pain in my gums. Truly painful. I really almost tapped out, but the procedure was so expensive and that last bit was very important.

I ran a ton of errands Tuesday after the dental appointment. Some of the more notable ones included picking up my glasses from LensCrafters. I haven't had glasses in years. So the adjustment will be interesting. I added Josiah to our health insurance, enrolling us in the full family healthcare plan. This will be nice, because the family plan covers not only Josiah but all the future children, and though it seems a lot now for one child, the price does not increase for any amount of children we will have. All future children will now be covered for their hospital deliveries and pediatricians. It's a huge financial responsibility, and a great milestone I am happy to accomplish. I also stopped by Human Resources at the Police Building to change my direct deposit to VyStar instead of Wells Fargo. The main advantage is that I will get paid one day sooner every pay cycle. It's still two weeks between each paycheck, but it's still very exciting to receive my pay one day sooner than everyone else at work that doesn't bank with VyStar. 

I signed up for two races this week. I've volunteered at the Utah Valley Marathon and even signed up for a Frigid Race one year but had an arthritis attack which actually saved my dumb butt from the idea of jumping into a frozen lake during the dead of winter. Why a man with arthritis and several knee injuries ever signed up for an event where you jump into a frozen lake after running a race in the frozen winter in the Midwest is beyond me. Luckily the arthritis saved me before the race instead of killing me while at the bottom of the frozen lake. The races I signed up for this quarter are called The Donna and The Gate River Run. I'm excited to run them this quarter. 

Wednesday, apparently I had put in to use one of my leave days and was approved without knowing it. Before May I have to use up my holiday carryover from last year or else they will pay the holidays out for 8 hours rather than the full 12 of taking a full shift off. At the end of last week, I had to reset my password and I totally forgot what I set it to! I tried every combination of passwords that I had and could not get in! The system locked me out! So when my leave was approved, I was notified to my email and laptop, but I had no idea until I arrived to work all ready to work 12 hours, and the schedule showed I was actually off. 

I happily returned home full of energy. I wanted to do something nice for the wife. I checked out a few movies from the library, and we ate fried spicy chicken, played farkle, and watched The Angriest Man in Brooklyn and Third Person. The first movie was deep and comical. The second starred many big names like Liam Neeson and Mila Kunis, but was disappointingly lame. We were laughing at how bad the movie was. Sadly, after postwatching research, we found that the budget was $28 million, but they made less than $40 thousand their opening weekend, and just over one million in its first year. Meaning they lost $27 million with that movie. Flop. 

Friday I got a bad flat tire. I noticed it as I was pulling out the driveway. Geico sent a wrecker over to change the flat. We went to Costco where the tires are warrantied, and they said we needed to buy all new tires due to the differential and it being 4 wheel drive. 

After bringing the car to Costco for them to look at the tires, Rhea Josiah and I went to Seasons 52 to visit Kuya. We've been wanting to do this for a while and it did not disappoint. The food, service, and ambiance were all delicious. We got a hummus and bread appetizer and I ordered a chicken pesto flatbread and a chicken noodle soup. Kuya also brought out lemonades and entrees of fish for me and a steak for Rhea for us to try. We were so full by the time we left that we had to turn down his offer for dessert. Josiah definitely ate a lot more food than he should've that night. 

 
 

Saturday morning we went to Ikea with mom. It was our first time since the Jacksonville Branch opened. We were most impressed by the prices at the Ikea Cafeteria. It was only $2 for the Swedish American Breakfast of pancakes, chicken sausage, eggs, and potatoes! I got an order of that Swedish American Breakfast for Rhea and Mom, chocolate cake for them, and two orders of the Swedish American Breakfast for myself. 

I worked Saturday and Sunday night only 8 hour overtime spots, so I had time to go to church Sunday with Rhea and Josiah. It's always super nice to be able to go all together. A lot more rare than I'd like, but always a pleasure.

In the past, I never took advantage of the ten minute breaks between each hour block of classes during our three our blocks of church, but being used to high intensity and high stress during the night shift, I had to take a walk between classes and sit down on a bench outside just to keep my mind and blood active. Right before I went back in I reflected on how my stressful job has changed me to feel out of place when I have a day without stress or a period of time without people relying on what I say and type second by second to survive... and I felt something inside me breakdown with realization and shock, further validating my previous thoughts of possibly having PTSD. It's like I need stress now for my body to function properly. I thought about how much worse those feelings I was having must be for police patrol officers, firefighters, active military personnel, and especially soldiers fighting in wars.

I still need to figure out which tire place I'll be replacing my tires at.

That's a post. See you next week!