Random thoughts...

Well this is... something.  A Hillary Clinton Christmas tree topper.  
http://www.dailywire.com/news/24386/merry-resist-mas-you-can-now-get-hillary-clinton-emily-zanotti#

^Going to keep that as far from my daughters as humanly possible

"won our election by a landslide"

That's a bit of a stretch at best

From what I understand about US constitutional law, she lost pretty generously. Not talking about the popular vote of course

SCORE!  Within Silence just posted that they're playing a show in their hometown of Kosice, Slovakia in February when my wife and I are planning on visiting her parents there!!!

The Alabama Senate special election.

I take no joy in Doug Jones' victory.  He has some good points, but he's gung-ho on abortion and on board with LGTB ideology.  So no one I would have voted for.

However, I do take some pleasure in witnessing the defeat of Roy Moore.  The guy gives Southerners and Southern Christians in particular a bad name.  Even before the allegations of him being a sexual predator came out I already held a low view of the man.  Hopefully, we've seen the last of Yosemite Sam.

Kerrick wrote:SCORE!  Within Silence just posted that they're playing a show in their hometown of Kosice, Slovakia in February when my wife and I are planning on visiting her parents there!!!

Sweet!  Which reminds me ..... I need to listen to the new album.

EDIT:  Oh man, I love the Babylon Bee:

http://babylonbee.com/news/write-candidate-come-sweet-death-received-15-vote-al-senate-election/

If anyone could spare a prayer or wish me luck, I would greatly appreciate it gentlemen.

Going under the knife again early tomorrow morning.  Hopefully what I eat tonight won't be my last meal.  Less dangerous of a surgery than my first one, but more dangerous than my last one.  

The hospital recommending me to make a will beforehand doesn't exactly help my nerves today either...

ThomasEversole wrote:If anyone could spare a prayer or wish me luck, I would greatly appreciate it gentlemen.

Going under the knife again early tomorrow morning.  Hopefully what I eat tonight won't be my last meal.  Less dangerous of a surgery than my first one, but more dangerous than my last one.  

The hospital recommending me to make a will beforehand doesn't exactly help my nerves today either...

Whoa.  I will certainly pray for you.  Don't know anything about your current situation since it's been a while since I saw you post regarding your health, but this sounds pretty serious.  I know you've been through some awful stuff in the past.  Praying that this will go smoothly and will give you the help you need.

Oumuamua, the first known interstellar object to enter our solar system, has so far shown no signs of being an alien spacecraft.  It's probably just a glorified rock.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/12/oumuamua-yuri-milner-interstellar-asteroid/548390/

I am simultaneously glad and disappointed by this. 

So Disney just purchased 20th Century Fox. It's insane just how much a company that started out making cartoons has become. On a side note, Disney (through their Hollywood Records record label) actually released Stryper's Cant Stop The Rock greatest hits album.

ThomasEversole wrote:If anyone could spare a prayer or wish me luck, I would greatly appreciate it gentlemen.

Going under the knife again early tomorrow morning.  Hopefully what I eat tonight won't be my last meal.  Less dangerous of a surgery than my first one, but more dangerous than my last one.  

The hospital recommending me to make a will beforehand doesn't exactly help my nerves today either...

Praying for you!

If this accusation is true, it's pretty sickening:

A Man Is Accused of Lacing His Girlfriend's Tea With an Abortion Pill.

Verbum Lux wrote:

ThomasEversole wrote:If anyone could spare a prayer or wish me luck, I would greatly appreciate it gentlemen.

Going under the knife again early tomorrow morning.  Hopefully what I eat tonight won't be my last meal.  Less dangerous of a surgery than my first one, but more dangerous than my last one.  

The hospital recommending me to make a will beforehand doesn't exactly help my nerves today either...

Whoa.  I will certainly pray for you.  Don't know anything about your current situation since it's been a while since I saw you post regarding your health, but this sounds pretty serious.  I know you've been through some awful stuff in the past.  Praying that this will go smoothly and will give you the help you need.

Andreas89 wrote:

ThomasEversole wrote:If anyone could spare a prayer or wish me luck, I would greatly appreciate it gentlemen.

Going under the knife again early tomorrow morning.  Hopefully what I eat tonight won't be my last meal.  Less dangerous of a surgery than my first one, but more dangerous than my last one.  

The hospital recommending me to make a will beforehand doesn't exactly help my nerves today either...

Praying for you!

Thanks bros.

The pros:
My surgery was supposed to take 1.5 to 2 hours. It only took 45 minutes.
They found hardly ANY scar tissue.... which leaves me to believe the brunt of these bowel obstructions was from the hernia.
...which is now fixed. I will be grateful to be able to eat more vegetables!

I was bound and determined to make progress. My surgery got a late start, at 11am rather than 10am. I was leaving the hospital at 5pm... shortly after making 3 laps around the entire general surgery, using the back of a wheelchair as a walker.

My stomach is flatter. It looks normal now.... and not like an alien baby trying to burst out of my bowel from my lower right side. This will help the view I have of my appearance. I plan on hitting the gym hard after I'm healed in 2018. ...which will further help, plus give me my want of the benefits of having fitness goals.

My anesthesiologist thought single toking cannabis was a great idea for pain relief, and I'm happy to have that option instead pounding pills being the only method to reduce pain. I've been a 1-2 toke a day since shortly after being diagnosed with cancer (per the recommendations of my surgeon and oncologist.) and I've been up front with my use, since nurses, doctors and other medical professionals ask about "smoking". Its only honest to bring that up, but apparently none of them equate a couple tokes of cannabis a day as "smoking" which, hey, that's cool.

The cons:
I am in TREMENDOUS pain. The referred pain from the gas they used is minor, since the procedure was shorter... but they "sewed" a mesh into the stomach muscles around my hernia. ...if you can imagine taking a needle and thread to your own abdomen, you'd have a pretty good idea of my pain.

You guys familiar with that black kid in the wheelchair from Malcolm in the Middle? I talk that when I'm upright and walking. Deep breaths hurt to much, and I use more oxygen when I'm mobile. I'm walking with a staff (cool antelope head on top) because I do not have a cane.

Voiding my bladder is difficult... cause since the first surgery I have to "push" to pee. Everything takes a long time to do...

I'm worried that this brace around my waist that I have to wear for a couple weeks will cause back problems.... because it did last time I wore a belt for hernia pain.

I've had a more-than-usual amount of opiates and cannabis. While that's helping make pain management easier, I'm foggy and a grump. Like 70% normal Tom, 20% Forgetful Jones, 10% Lewis Black. My anger is getting pinged from this pain.

I'm putting jamming out to Orationem on the agenda for today. That's my go-to for the motivation to pray.

^

I'm happy to hear that all went well with your surgery (however I had no idea of the fact until now). However, I'm deeply sorry that you are going through such pain and turmoil, and I hope and pray that it will all get easier soon, and that ultimately you will be healed of all of this and without worry of what may happen. I'll be praying for you man, I hope you feel better soon.

Thanks bro!

Praying for you, Thomas.  I'm thankful that your surgery was successful, and I hope you'll be able to get through the pain and aftereffects soon.  It's good that you have the cannabis to help, and hopefully you'll be able to get off the opiates before too long.  You certainly have been through hell the last couple of years or so, and I hope that you'll be to get back to a normal life.

Verbum Lux wrote:Praying for you, Thomas.  I'm thankful that your surgery was successful, and I hope you'll be able to get through the pain and aftereffects soon.  It's good that you have the cannabis to help, and hopefully you'll be able to get off the opiates before too long.  You certainly have been through hell the last couple of years or so, and I hope that you'll be to get back to a normal life.

Thank you very much!

I'm already feeling a little better today than I was yesterday... but opiates aren't the friend of a colon cancer survivor. I'm feeling pretty clogged up on top of the surgery mesh pain.

I'm prescribed to take two .5 Norcos every 4 hours.... but I take them more like every 6 and take laxatives and stool softeners with them, and put cannabis in between opiates in the evenings. That's a so much better pain reliever. I take about 5 minutes to get down the basement stairs (like 10 steps), where I keep my "relief". After 1 toke (that's all it takes) I'm back up the stairs in 30 seconds.

If I was up and running normally, those are 5-7 second steps so.... I got a ways to go yet....

Wow Thomas I'm glad you're feeling better and are continuing to improve!  Praise God.

I just got back from a four-day defensive handgun course out in Nevada.  Veronika and I made a road trip out of it which was fun in itself (though we didn't have time to stop much at all since it's an all-day drive as it is).  Veronika did great and improved a TON.  She's always been a killer shot, but she learned how to draw from a holster, shoot quickly (and accurately), perform both tactical and emergency reloads, clear all three types of malfunctions, move through buildings, and the like.  There's also some classroom time when they teach you some morals/ethics of using potentially deadly force, situational awareness, etc.  We made new friends and one of the highlights for me was winning the "man-on-man challenge."  The last day they set up two sets of three steel plate targets.  The first target is the "hostage shot" and you have to hit a ~5"x7" plate right next to the "hostage" (and if you hit the hostage, you lose) at I think five or seven yards.  Then at 15 yards are two other silhouette targets that you have to shoot.  The students (about 20-30 per class) get randomly paired up and whoever shoots their three targets - without killing the hostage - wins that round.  The other person is eliminated from the game.  This continues until someone wins... and this time it was me! 

Here's a promotional video that gives a pretty good idea of it.

I found a video of what the man-on-man challenge looks like:

ThomasEversole wrote:

Thanks bros.  

The pros:
My surgery was supposed to take 1.5 to 2 hours. It only took 45 minutes.
They found hardly ANY scar tissue.... which leaves me to believe the brunt of these bowel obstructions was from the hernia.
...which is now fixed. I will be grateful to be able to eat more vegetables!

I was bound and determined to make progress. My surgery got a late start, at 11am rather than 10am. I was leaving the hospital at 5pm... shortly after making 3 laps around the entire general surgery, using the back of a wheelchair as a walker.

My stomach is flatter. It looks normal now.... and not like an alien baby trying to burst out of my bowel from my lower right side. This will help the view I have of my appearance. I plan on hitting the gym hard after I'm healed in 2018. ...which will further help, plus give me my want of the benefits of having fitness goals.

My anesthesiologist thought single toking cannabis was a great idea for pain relief, and I'm happy to have that option instead pounding pills being the only method to reduce pain.  I've been a 1-2 toke a day since shortly after being diagnosed with cancer (per the recommendations of my surgeon and oncologist.) and I've been up front with my use, since nurses, doctors and other medical professionals ask about "smoking".  Its only honest to bring that up, but apparently none of them equate a couple tokes of cannabis a day as "smoking" which, hey, that's cool.

The cons:
I am in TREMENDOUS pain. The referred pain from the gas they used is minor, since the procedure was shorter... but they "sewed" a mesh into the stomach muscles around my hernia. ...if you can imagine taking a needle and thread to your own abdomen, you'd have a pretty good idea of my pain.

You guys familiar with that black kid in the wheelchair from Malcolm in the Middle? I talk that when I'm upright and walking. Deep breaths hurt to much, and I use more oxygen when I'm mobile. I'm walking with a staff (cool antelope head on top) because I do not have a cane.

Voiding my bladder is difficult... cause since the first surgery I have to "push" to pee. Everything takes a long time to do...

I'm worried that this brace around my waist that I have to wear for a couple weeks will cause back problems.... because it did last time I wore a belt for hernia pain.

I've had a more-than-usual amount of opiates and cannabis. While that's helping make pain management easier, I'm foggy and a grump. Like 70% normal Tom, 20% Forgetful Jones, 10% Lewis Black. My anger is getting pinged from this pain.

I'm putting jamming out to Orationem on the agenda for today. That's my go-to for the motivation to pray.

Thomas, I thank God for His graces in your life, and will continue pray for your continuing strength and recovery.

Kerrick wrote:[gun stuff]

This kind of thing is not that important to me, but it is one of the little things that make me a bit more open-minded about moving to the US someday. I mean, you never know where work will bring us

Andreas89 wrote:

alldatndensum wrote:I finally got my new water heater installed yesterday.  We can once again take a hot shower!  Thank You, Lord!!!

One of the reasons why moving to the US doesn't seem appealing to me. I'm taking hot water for granted here!

So having firearm training available is a draw to the USA but having a water heater that breaks is a down side?  Appliances don't give out where you are from?

LOL! As you can see, I'm kind of on the fence about it.

And yeah, even here in former Eastern Germany, hot water is something we pretty much take for granted. I don't think we were ever out of hot water here.
Hence my spoiledness...

Andreas89 wrote:

Kerrick wrote:[gun stuff]

This kind of thing is not that important to me, but it is one of the little things that make me a bit more open-minded about moving to the US someday. I mean, you never know where work will bring us

Well you could always visit and say hi first, see how you like it!

Thanks Kerrick and Sentient6! I appreciate it.