It is supposedly the course of wisdom to not say anything when you have nothing to say. If I were that wise, this site would probably never get updated. Ha ha, I’m so witty!

My recovery is going well, occasional owies notwithstanding. The sun came out this morning, kicking off the usual sunny-day endorphine rush that tends to improve my outlook considerably. Who knows, I might just make it through the day with a good attitude.

Oh yeah, this is me we’re talking about. Tfppppt.

Ah! Ben called my office yesterday evening! Once again back from self-imposed exile! We should be getting together soon, Ben and John and myself, for gaming and gabbing and geeking. Life is good.

“How did it go?”

I was ushered into a room, asked to strip naked and swab the pertinent area with disinfectant. Then I was laid out on the slab, er, table and grabbed, jabbed, cut and snipped. Twice. We were out of there within an hour. (Wendi, bless her brave soul, stayed with me through the whole ordeal.)

“How do you feel?”

Mentally, I’m just fine. I never had any qualms about the vasectomy itself, so it’s not like I’m having second thoughts or anything like that. Physically, I’ve felt better. Most of the time I feel like I was kicked in the nuts a half-hour ago. Occasionally there’s a bit of stabbing pain just like when they jabbed me with the anesthesia. There are stitches over which I keep a steady supply of gauze. I’ll probably be able to stop doing that in a day or three.

“How are you coping?”

Lots of rest, lots of ice, occasional doses of Vicodin. I’m under strict orders to take things very, very easy for the first few days. After that I’m to take things easy. Note the difference? I put in a couple of hours on the computer or in front of the TV, then I go lay down again (usually accompanied by the ice pack).

“When will you be able to, um, you know?”

Perv. Technically speaking I should be “able” by this evening, but only if I’m very very careful and gentle. In reality, I’m not going to try anything until I don’t need the gauze anymore. I don’t know when that will be, and I’m not crazy enough to rush the process.

That about sums it up, folks. Hopefully I won’t be compelled to bore or disgust you with any more entries on this subject. Thanks for bearing with me.

I’ve put it off long enough. With all the stupid things I’m willing to talk about on this site, it’s kind of crazy that I waited until now for this topic.

Tomorrow morning at about 7:30, I’m due for a bilateral vasectomy. That’s right, we’re taking the last step towards having no more children. How do I feel about this? Before this morning I was completely fine, no worries. Today I’m stressing out like crazy. It’s probably a delayed reaction.

By this time tomorrow, of course, I won’t have to be stressed anymore. The procedure is very quick and simple, so I’ll be spending most of my day relaxing (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) at home. Hey, I might even be online. Stranger things have happened.

I’m also taking this as an excuse for a four-day weekend. I could probably return to work Monday without problems, but why not turn a chore into an opportunity? Sometimes you have to create your own silver linings.

The Kerezman Clan had quite the weekend this time around. Erica went to the chess tournament held at the Oregon Convention Center from Friday through Sunday. She ended up with a 2.5 ranking (two wins and a half-point “buy”) of which we are all very, very proud. When you figure that this is her first year of playing chess in a competitive environment, she’s done very well for a 2nd-grader. Way to go, Erica!

On Saturday we went to celebrate my grandfather’s 75th birthday. Other than Aunt Jean, we were the sole representatives of “our side” of the family. Granddad’s son Eric was there with some of his family and other relatives. We got to pig out on Mary’s wonderful cooking, embarassing stories were exchanged, and a generally nice time was had by all. We were there for over five hours; in our family that qualifies as a family togetherness marathon.

Sunday was spent with the girls going to the last two rounds of chess competition and the boys going to the office. Alexander and I went around to all of the sales cubes to run the software inventory data collection program John Graefe at Corporate put together. Everything went smoothly, and we celebrated by hanging out in the training room and eating mac-and-cheese. When the girls were done they came to pick us up, and then we rented some videos and collapsed in the living room for the rest of the day.

It was a splendid, busy weekend.

I took Friday off from work to visit OMSI with my son Alexander’s 4th grade class. We got to see the “Brain” exhibit, which was only mildly interesting; we watched a live broadcast from the KOIN 6 meteorology studio; we played in the turbine room a lot. Note to self: family membership at OMSI.

Saturday was spent at home with the kids. Sunday was spent at home with the wife and kids. Great quantities of Heroes IV was played by all. Considerable quantities of 4×4 Evolution was played by some.

We had pizza for dinner on Saturday night, while I prepared my infamous shells-and-cheese dish for dinner last night. Wendi insisted on doing the cheese layering, however. Since she wanted to so badly, I let her use the food processor to grate the cheese as well. That thing’s noisy, but effective.

And now you have the weekend update. I’m sorry it’s not as funny as that seen on Saturday Night Live, but them’s the breaks.

So we got our big wad of cash from the Feds on Friday. The plan is to pay off a lot of those overdue bills and whatnot that have been hanging over our collective head. We hate getting phone calls from collection agencies, man.

We did, however, do a bit of shopping. I needed shoes, Wendi needed shoes, Wendi’s dad needed shoes. So we trekked out to the Troutdale outlet mall for some shoes.

I’m sure you all really wanted to know about the fact that we went shoe shopping. Yep.

Ah yes, before we made that trek we stopped off at the local NoHo’s for some teriyaki chicken. Mmmmm, the best teriyaki chicken dish known to mankind can be found at NoHo’s Hawaiian restaurants. What, you don’t have one in your area? Your loss, neighbor.

On the way home we stopped off to pick up Heroes of Might and Magic IV. I’ll post a full review in a couple of days, but suffice to say that it’s just like the previous Heroes games, only prettier and more complex. This is a good thing.

We also picked up a Carmen Sandiego game for the kids, Final Fantasy VII (which won’t @#$%ing play on our computers since all of our machines have modern video cards installed, dammit), and 4×4 Evolution. I talked Wendi into that one based on the idea that Alex would want to play it with me. Turns out he’s beyond indifferent to the idea. Oh well.

Maybe I should have dropped the 4×4 and FF7 in favor of Might And Magic IX. 3DO hasn’t let us down yet, anyway.