I have a gigantic kidney.  All the doctors are like, "That's one impressive kidney." and "Holy cow!" and "I've never seen a kidney that large."

And I'm holding up my right hand high (because my left arm is broken) and I'm like, "High Five!" because what else do you say to a doctor who tells you your kidney is gigantic?

Here is my impressive kidney (it's the big blob on the left smashing my liver into a thin paté).  It's about as big as a football (a NFL football). 

I wasn't feeling too hot and the doctor sent me to the hospital to get a "virtual weiner" (as my 8 year old calls it).

It is a tube placed into the kidney to drain it (a Nephrostomy tube).  I told the nurse that a nephrostomy sounds like a refreshing beverage.  It could be because I was extremely thirsty at the time after not eating or drinking for about 3 days.

Imagine 1.5 liters of urine hanging out in your kidney with no place to go.  Imagine the relief you would feel if this was in your bladder and you finally peed.  That's how I felt after getting this out.

My wife made me smile for this picture...but for the first time in several days I could actually kind of do it.

P.S.  This post was written with a lot of help from my wife Kaerlig who has been gracious enough to do a lot of things for me these past days, including giving me an enema which we have agreed to never speak of again.

On Thursday morning I fell off a ladder and broke my arm.  typing with one hand sucks.

In case I came off like an arrogant turd in my last post, I'll clear things up by interpreting my own dream.

1.  I like The Arcade Fire.  A lot.  I wish I could hang out with them.
2.  I'm actually very insecure and shy around high-profile people.  I was even more insecure as a teenager.
3.  In my dream I was a teenager, hanging out with cool people, and they liked me.

So in case you thought I just dream about how awesome I think I am, please understand it's actually the opposite.  In this case, I dreamed about not being as insecure and pathetic as I used to be.  I think it's kind of funny how I won them over by talking about being insecure.

By the way, did I mention I'm insecure?

Will you be my friend?

Last night I had a dream that The Arcade Fire came to my house (only it wasn't my house, but my mom's pre-remodel house) and hung out with me.  I was still a teenager, but I was way cooler than I was in real life.  Win thought I was cool and Regine became infatuated with me.  Win wasn't jealous though because of how cool I was.  The other members of the band were there too and they also thought I was cool, but I don't remember their names.

I remember sitting next to Regine on the couch and telling her how when I wanted to speak to someone, I became so self-conscious that I analyzed my words to the point of being unable to speak, and that this introspective tendency of mine was a self-perpetuating cycle.  She ate it up.

I don't know the interpretation of this dream, but I'm pretty sure that if you don't like The Arcade Fire, I don't want to be your friend anymore. 

It seems like it's been about a hundred years since I last posted. (How many posts start out with a variation of that sentence?)

I think I'll get a late start on my edumacation.

This is why I have a blog:

I like to write. I think I express myself better in writing than I do in person. At least I flatter myself to think so. But depending on the situation I can do pretty well in person too.

But it wasn't always that way. I used to have a really hard time talking to people in person. Was I making too much eye contact or too little? Was I saying "like" too much? Was there a booger on my face? And what the heck am I supposed to be doing with my hands? Pockets? Gestures? Straight down at my sides? Do I look awkward? Is my zipper down?

I think my mission helped me get more comfortable in my own skin. But nevertheless, writing is still more comfortable for me.  You don't have the luxury of the delete key in person.

So the short answer is that I like to talk, so I blog.  But there's more to it than that.

At first my blog was a place for me to vent my frustrations.  I didn't think anyone would ever read it, and I didn't care.  Then one day Jet Set Carina commented and I had an audience.

I started telling funny stories from my high school days.  This was partly because I went to high school with Carina and partly because high school was so traumatic.

Things went along pretty well like that for a while.  But then my blog hit stage 3 of blog development.  People I told stories about started reading my blog and sometimes getting angry.  (If you're keeping score, stage 1 was "no audience", stage 2 was "fun audience" and stage 3 was "angry audience")

Maybe those of you who have moved past stage three can help me out, because I still want to tell a lot of stories, sometimes at the expense of friends, neighbors and strangers, because there are funny and stupid things everybody does, and because self-deprecation, though my target is wide, is often more difficult to pull off.

But I don't want another episode like the altercation I had with my wife's grandfather over the things I said about the colossal douchenozzle Rick Koerber, so I keep my mouth shut.

I'll have to tell you about that incident sometime.

Get ready for your testimony to get ROCKED!!!

The above pictures are from an article in Zions Bank Community magazine. Pretty cool. You can read the article here. Just ignore the remarks by Giovanni Del Douchbaggio. He doesn't know what he's talking about.