I’ve wanted to be able to breathe better for years. When I ran* hard and I had to push my nose upwards in order to be able to take in all the air I needed, I wished my nose worked like that in a fingerless modus operandi, at all times. *Read “ran” as: ran, biked, skied, swam, or anything that got my cardiovascular and pulmonary systems at a level above 80% of their maximum capacity.
As of the last year, I found yet another reason why I wanted my nose to work in a different way. My inability to inhale through my nose left my body only one option, one that I couldn’t control once I fell asleep: breathing through my nose. Unfortunately, silent mouth-breathing was apparently impossible for me, so I snored as loud as a hog.
Sure, that’d happened for my whole life, but I’ve been sharing my life with Kelly… and I have intentions of living the rest of my life with her, so this was something that jumped to the top of my “things to do to make Kelly happier” list. Specially after keeping her from sleeping to the point that she recorded me so I could hear how loudly I snored: Click here to listen!
So that’s how I ended up in the Saint Mary’s operation room on Monday 18th of January of 2010. Doctor Anthony Zamboni took care of me, but it’s not like I remember anything. All I remember is going in the OR with a robe on, breathing through the Oxygen mask, and waking up feeling like I was in Jupiter.
The original procedure I went under was a Septoplasty. This was a pretty straight-forward concept to understand: my Septum was deviated, so the doctor was going to go in and straighten it out. Since I work at a fancy radiology center, I have access to my very own Computed Tomography of my sinuses, so check it out here:
However, when I talked to Dr. Zamboni about how much I wanted him to knock me out and use tiny little knives on and in my face, I explained to him that one of the results I was hoping for was the lack of snoring. He suggested putting me through a small Uvulopalatopharyngoplasty, where he would “just take out a bit of the soft palate”. This was only going to add 10 minutes to the surgery, and would greatly increase my air tunnel in the back of my throat. Since I figured that we might as well do all we can to take care of business, I agreed to it.
The recovery process from the surgery wasn’t too bad. This is mostly thanks to the excellent care that my loving fiancee Kelly provided. Lortab made me feel very little pain, and a lot of fun muscle relaxation moments. I’d have to say that the hardest part of the recovery was resisting the urge to pick my nose, which was 100% stuffed with a magically grotesque combination of mucus and blood.
10 days after the surgery, Dr. Zamboni removed the splints that were holding my nose together, and I took my first breath with my “new” nose. What a moment! I had never felt so much airflow through my nostrils, and in that moment I knew that the surgery had been worth the suffering and the $2.5k that I’d saved up to pay for it.
Since then, I’ve been thoroughly enjoying being able to exercise without having to put a finger to the tip of my nose. Additionally, Kelly claims to have been enjoying the more silent lack of saw-logging that used to come from me. Yay!
My resolution for this year is to become a US Citizen.
I looked into dual-citizenship, but apparently that kind of thing doesn’t fly anymore, so I’ll have to swear to forget all about how much Argentine government sucks, and promise to treat the flag of the United States of America as my own.
After thinking about it, it doesn’t seem like something impossible or impractical for me to do. In fact, it makes sense.
I’ve lived in the US for a while now, and I have a bigger sense of citizenship towards the USA than Argentina. I’ve never even voted in Argentina, and I probably never will because I’m not familiar nor personally involved in the politics that are going on there. However, I would like to be able to vote in the country that I live in, and that I will continue to live in.
The process is pretty simple:
Fill out a long form with lots of uncomfortable questions (Do you have the Taliban in your backyard?).
I’m freshening up on some civics knowledge, but lucky me, my fiancee is a US History teacher, so I have a good resource to study.
Forms are filled up, and the process will be officially started when I stuff them in an envelope and send them away, probably by the end of this week.
Oh yeah, I also have “secondary” resolutions, which are much more along the lines of the typical promise: Do a Century ride on my bike (like the Chico Century Ride), have a six pack by summer our honeymoon, maintain a positive attitude and continue to be a key member of the day to day operations at work.
Last Saturday was the one year anniversary of the first date that Kelly and I had.
Plans to make it a memorable event had been in the making for many days, and the payoff was grand.
We woke up early, and drove to South Lake Tahoe. Reservations for Montbleu and dinner were taken care of, and Kelly even scheduled us for a fancy couple’s massage at the spa in the hotel.
When we checked into the hotel, I was a bit disappointed about our view. Our window showed us the roof of some buildings, and a mountain that wasn’t even covered in snow. Yuck!
I called the front desk and asked if we could upgrade. They told me that they’d have a nicer room available in an hour or so (for a small fee, of course), so we decided to take the offer. The new room would be facing Lake Tahoe, a sight well worth a small upgrade fee.
We had a couple of hours to kill before our massage appointment, and I had just the plan for that time. We walked over to the Heavenly village to catch a gondola ride to the top of the mountain. It was cold and windy out, but my hands were sweating.
Luckily for us, we managed to get in a gondola by ourselves. The sky was cloudy, but the lake was a very deep blue, so the views we were about to take in got us excited. Kelly sat with her back to the lake, as I took a few pictures of her with Lake Tahoe in the background.
I sat next to her, and whispered some sweet things in her ear. We kissed a couple of times, celebrating our anniversary with a very romantic and private ride. Seizing the perfect moment, I told kelly to “Look at the lake, it’s so pretty!”.
When she turned around to look back at me, she found me on one knee, with a ring on my hand and a huge smile on my face. I simply asked her: “Will you marry me?”, and she said yes. The ring went on her finger, and we spent the rest of the ride looking deep into each other’s eyes.
When we arrived to the top, we walked around in bliss, enjoying the landscape, the view, and our love for each other. Kelly had been questioning me about when I was going to ask for her hand, and little did she know that I’d been planning it all along.
When we first talked about such things, many months ago, she told me that she wanted three things: A ring (she showed me a picture of “a ring”), a private circumstance, and a surprise.
I took these things to heart, and made sure that they were true at the moment that I went down on my knee. Her face told me I’d surprised her. Being on a little cart dangling from a wire above pine trees and snow on the side of a mountain… that’s rather private, I’d say. Happily, the ring requirement was also met, and I did actually hear her say “wow” a couple of times. Success!
When we went back to the hotel, we headed to the front desk to check in into our new and upgraded room. Kelly totally pulled a move from Friends (the TV show) and announced to the concierge that we had just gotten engaged. Luckily for us, it worked! The manager was there by coincidence, and we got a free upgrade to a mini-suite.
We had our couple’s massage at the spa in the hotel, and it was wonderfully relaxing. It was a royal treat to our bodies. The therapists were super nice, and we both felt at the end as if they had transmitted a lot of positive energy our way. If they hadn’t disappeared after leaving the room for us to get dressed, I probably would have given them a hug.
The last item on our anniversary plans involved a fancy dinner at Evan’s, the fanciest restaurant I could find. It had great reviews on Yelp and Zagat, so we had to check it out.
Dinner was very tasty , and the things we ate were straight out of Top Chef. However, the highlight of the experience wasn’t the incredible food. There was a small wedding party dining there, with the bride wearing her white dress and the groom in a tuxedo and all. I took it to be a very good sign of the day’s events.
In the end, the weekend turned out to be out of a movie. We celebrated our year of falling in love with each other, and we also celebrated our promise to continue to love each other forevermore.
Our City of ReMO team kicked ass. When Don and I talked about Movember at the end of last year, we had a few things in mind:
Better planning and organization: Plan things in advance, spread the word, and try to make things run smoothly.
Bigger focus on the actual goal of Movember, and put the fun and good-looks on the second plane.
Raise a lot of money.
Reach out to more people in Reno.
Get local businesses involved.
It’s a big source of pride and accomplishment to be able to say that we can check all of those.
At the end of September, we laid out a list of things that we’d like to do, and we set our minds to make them happen. Before Movember officially started, we had a pretty well outlined calendar of what was going to happen, when and where. This helped us spread the word. This was a much better approach than planning things on the go, since most people make plans far in advance… So this year, we gave them notice, and the plans they made were to attend our events. Fantastic!
Talking about Men’s Health issues was easier than imagined, and it came naturally. When people asked us about Movember, it was the first thing we talked about. (The second thing was about how sexy we looked). I think this was in part because of our “experience” in the subject, and the conscious decision to focus on getting the word out.
Certainly, humor had its part and no talk about the actual reason behind Movember went without crude mentions of balls and assholes.
Our goal for this year was to raise $5000. At first, that seemed like a huge number, considering that last year we’d raised right about $1600. We figured that it was a good goal, a nice round number, and something that would definitely identify us as a “serious” group committed to the cause.
To our surprise and joy, the $5k mark was met before half of the month even passed, and this was before most of us even had decent moustaches to be asking for donations!
The first thought was to call it good and declare “Mission Accomplished!”, but we were just starting to gather steam and MOmentum, so we decided to step it up, and declare a new goal: $10,000. Ballsy move, one could say, but this was after all very much about the balls.
On the day 30, the $10k mark was met with much rejoice. The final number is yet to be computed, because of cash and check donations, but the accomplishment is there, and it’s a wonderful feeling to know that we made it. If $5000 was a lot of money, we raised two lots of money.
Last year, we felt that our efforts in reaching out were successful when Anthony joined our team. We didn’t know him, and he joined because he thought it was a good cause. Our “campaign” had transcended the circle of people that we knew, and I took that to be a very good thing.
This year, that effect snow balled. The members of our team kept growing and growing. I received an email when someone joined the team, and I remember being excited when it showed that we had 25 members in our team. Quickly after that, our total was up to 40 people. And fifty… and a hundred.
Who were these people? Some of the names sounded familiar, but there were many Anthonies. We even got David Bobzien to join. Way cool!
Eclipse Pizza joined us last year in our official team, and we knew we could count on them again for this year. But what we didn’t know was how well other businesses were going to receive the idea of teaming up, and the response was a very positive experience. KRZQ (100.9 FM) gave us a lot of airtime with ads, and even put us on a show in the middle of the day! One of the owners of The Sierra Tap House, Zach, became very involved and helped us put together some very successful events. Shannon from SOAK Lounge invited us to her business which caters mainly to women, and organized a very creative and fun occasion. The Biggest Little City Club hosted us on a couple of different nights, and made us feel really good. We went to Butcher Boy for lunch, got Rockstar haircuts and had tons of fun bowling with a lot of the ReMO team at Starlite Lanes. The local restaurant Amendment 21 organized the Reno Beer Crawl with proceeds benefiting our cause, and promised to be a big helper next year.
Long story short: local businesses rocked our world. I’ll be making a longer write up about it all on the City of Remo website soon, so I’ll spare the details for that post.
On a personal note, none of this could have happened without Kelly’s support. Despite almost crying after seeing my clean shaven face after many months of sporting a goatee, she encouraged my efforts to make our team a successful one. As if putting up with a prickly upper lip wasn’t enough, she had to tolerate my distracted attention and need to be involved in a lot of things.
That is the job of a “Mo-Sista”, and she did it well without much reward. Rest assured, I’ll be making sure she knows how much I appreciate her.
Even more personal, and somewhat geeky: I was more or less “the” photographer of the things we did. I won’t be asking for money to take pictures anytime soon, but I’m pretty happy with the moments I captured in still images. Most of the pictures ended up on Facebook, if you’d like to see for yourself.
For the Stache-Bash (aka end of Movember party), I got to play with some fancy photo gear I borrowed from Mo-Bro Kyle Walker. The pictures from this event look specially good thanks to the lighting equipment and the improvised photo booth that I put together. It kind of made me want to have a flash and fancy umbrella to be able to do it more.
At any rate, I took pictures of my moustache growth on a semi-frequent basis, so if you’re ready to see how it all went, check it out right here:
Finally, I’d like to say thank you on a personal level to those who donated to Movember and “sponsored” my moustache. Thank you Kelly, Joan, Elinor, Kathy, Zach, Willie and Roger. My prostate and testicles appreciate it!
Today, Don and I went to one of our local radio stations in Reno (which also happens to be one of my favorites), KRZQ FM. They invited us over so that we could talk a little bit more about MOvember, and it ended up being more than just a little.
Don and I were there for more than just a little bit. We were on air for almost 24 minutes!
At first it was awkward knowing that my voice was being broadcast over the air, but after a bit I got over it, and it was just plain fun.
Did you miss it? Are you sad about it? Don’t be anymore, because you can listen to it below.
For the 3rd year in a row (see 2007 and 2008), I’m going to do this:
On the 1st of November MOvember, I will shave all facial hair.
During the rest of the month, I will only allow hair to grow above the lip. Well, maybe just a tiny bit under the lip, but not on the chin.
I will be asking for donations to “sponsor” my ridiculous appearance.
Make a difference, and raise awareness and funds for men’s health issues, such as prostate cancer.
Just like previous years, this is all happening in the Biggest Little City, the City of ReMO. My friend Don and I have been talking about this year’s Movember for a long time, and it looks like our efforts are paying off.
As of this writing, it’s not even MOvember 1st yet, but we have 56 members, and over $500 raised to benefit the Movember Foundation’s partners: The Prostate Cancer Foundation, and the Lance Armstrong Foundation (aka LIVESTRONG).
Our goal before this whole year started was to put Reno in the map by raising over $5000, but at this rate our hopes are shooting at double that figure.
Why am I doing this? It’s not about being irresistibly sexy anymore. I’m getting older, and 1 out of 6 men suffer from prostate cancer. This scares me, and I want to do something about it. Sure, I can eat right, exercise, and keep rodents away from my behind… but that would only go as far as making sure I’m one of the 5 guys out of the 6 that doesn’t get the cancers.
In other words, I do this so that the chances of a guy suffering from cancer hopefully diminish, and soon.
There’s certainly a fun factor to all of this, and that’s why we’ve planned lots of events with the City of ReMO that will keep people entertained. They are also secretly designed to have non-participants wonder why a group of 20+ men with moustaches are hanging out, with the ultimate goal of getting them involved by either raising awareness or funds -or even better, both.
A noble goal, with many pleasant side effects… all for the price of a shave, and looking like an ’80s porn star for a month.
Do you want to help? Awesome! Here’s what you can do:
Join MOvember. If you’re a guy, grow a Moustache. If you’re a lady, you can register anyway, and raise funds in honor of your favorite man.
In Reno, the option is obvious. Register with the City of Remo: http://us.movember.com/register/799.
Make a donation (which is totally tax deductible, by the way). A dollar, ten, or a hundred, it all makes a difference, and gets us that much closer to a cure or a better treatment. You can donate with a credit card or paypal: http://us.movember.com/mospace/1753
If you’re interested, stay tuned to the City of ReMo’s feeds on Twitter and Facebook. I will post my daily shots on Flickr, and at the end of the month, I’ll share a sideshow for your enjoyment.
When Kelly and I were in LA a few weeks ago, we happened to find a store that resembled an Argentine market. It’s called “El Gaucho Meat Market“. We ate some delicious empanadas there, and we also found that they sell the actual dough to make them. Of course we bought some, because I wanted to make some of my own.
My mom passed on her own recipe, and I got to it!
First of all, there were onions to be chopped. We don’t even own a chopping board, so I had to get busy on the kitchen counter. I wasn’t expecting the process to be so laborious, and it was probably one of the most time-consuming tasks of the whole recipe.
After chopping half a pound of onions, I had to cook them. I grabbed the biggest pot we own, turned the stove on and went to town. I was very pleasantly surprised as a very familiar smell started to invade my nostrils. It was a smell I wasn’t expecting to notice so early in the cooking process, but which I welcomed and took as signal that I was doing things the right way.
After the onions cook for a while, I put in a quarter pound of ground beef, and some spices (family secret!). The smell immediately turned into what I recognized as empanada filling, and everything was good in the world. Very good.
After the mix was ready, it’s empanada making time! This is the step where the acquisition of the special dough was critical, because it really does make the empanada unique. Maybe some day we’ll dare make our own dough… but baby steps!
The process was pretty easy, specially because I had some muscle memory for this step. When I was younger, I used to help my mom make them. Well, at least that’s what I remember. I probably only made one out of 3 dozens, but I still knew exactly what I was supposed to do, so I wasn’t afraid of messing up at this stage.
After making sure they all looked pretty, were nicely filled with all the mix they went in the oven. By the way, my mom’s recipe was perfect. There was no filling leftover, and all the empanadas had just enough filling! Quite impressive, specially after translating everything from kilograms to pounds.
Only twenty minutes later, we had this wonderful looking pieces of heaven:
They looked good. They smelled good. And they tasted great! They came out a little bit on the sweet side because I was weary of using too much salt, but that means that there’s room for improvement, and I know exactly what I can do better.
Kelly and I sat down to eat, and thoroughly enjoyed them. Her parents came over to visit for a bit, and we had them try them. They also enjoyed them, which was a big relief for me! And just like that, about an hour and a half worth of work in cooking was gone, in less than 30 minutes. But it was well worth it, because it was tasty, and I had a lot of fun doing it.
As soon as we figure out a reliable place to get more of the dough, I’ll be making a lot more and having people over to share the wonderful taste of this food that I very much love, and am proud of being able to make.
But first, let’s spend Saturday hanging out and relaxing, and not getting stuck in traffic with everyone else.
Instead, we left on Sunday. We checked in at the Oakland Marriot at around 2pm, and right away we got in the BART headed to San Francisco. More specifically, to the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood.
We’d eaten a small breakfast, so by the time we made it there, we were ready to sit down and eat. And what better place to do that than Cha Cha Cha! The place was busy, but luckily we got to sit at the bar right away. A pitcher of sangria, and 3 different dishes later (plus an awesome caramel-covered bread pudding for dessert), we were feeling quite good, and more than satisfied. This is definitely a cool place to eat, and the food is delicious.
After eating, we went for a little walk around Golden Gate Park. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t cooperating, so we didn’t get to enjoy the beautiful gardens as much, but that’s not saying we didn’t have a good time.
We walked through one of the many gardens, took some silly pictures, and headed back to the Haight.
We went into a few of the shops, killed some time and had some fun. Kelly even found something to wear at Burning Man that we could afford -because there are LOTS of things that would be great for Burning Man, but they’re just too expensive.
On Monday, Memorial Day, we headed out to Berkeley. We stumbled for a while looking for a place to eat, and we ended up going into Ann’s Kitchen, which served a glorious American style breakfast, perfect for the occasion.
The weather Gods (or the spirits of all those fallen soldiers) made this day much nicer, which we welcomed as we walked up and down Telegraph street, and checked out the shops and the diverse crowd that was doing the same thing we were.
We also checked out the UC Berkeley campus, where we proceeded to shmoop on the grass by the library. Good times.
With a lot of time to kill, we went on Wikitravel to see what we could do in the area, and that’s how we found out about the Indian Rock Park. Finding it curious enough, we went and checked it out.
Sure enough, it was just a big rock. But lots of people were there, mostly hanging out, and some practicing rock-climbing, some others photographing and at least a couple smoking marihuana.
From the top of the rock you can see most of the Bay. Sadly, it was mostly covered in fog, but despite that, we enjoyed the panoramic view.
However, the main event of our trip was a Flightof theConchords concert. They toured the US in 2009, and this was their last stop. We HAD to see them, since Kelly and I both enjoy them.
At around 6pm, we sat on the balcony of the Berkeley Community Threatre. The opening act for FotC was ArjBarker, who played Dave in their HBO series. Little did we know that he’s a stand up comedian, and his routine was a great ice-breaker for what was to come. His style was sometimes very close to Dane Cook, but that’s alright by me, since it makes me laugh.
But then, it actually happened. Lights went dim. And …
Of course, that video is not from the same performance that we saw, but it was similar, and set the tone for what was to come: over an hour of silly songs, and the goofy kind of humor that only New Zealand’s fourth most popular digi-folk paradists provides.
There were lots of laughs, some songs I’d never head before, and a lot of singing along with Bret and Jemaine. It was a great live show, and some of the antics that they put on onstage were worth the ticket and the traveling.
To sum it up, we had a great time, and it was a weekend that won’t be forgotten. Or, to use the vernacular, an EPIC WEEKEND.
Today is the official Bike to Work day in 2009. I hope you rode your bike if your commute is less than 10 miles one way!
As for me, I started the day early. I took off at around 6.45am, and headed to one of the participating coffee shops, the PurpleBean. I showed my helmet, and they hooked me up with free coffee! Yeah!
The barista was very friendly and attentive, and asked me what I wanted. I told her I had no clue, since I never drink coffee… so I asked her to make me something sweet, and she served me a Mocha. It was delicious! I sat outside while I drank my coffee -it’s kind of hard to sip on a very hot beverage and ride in traffic- and watched the day roll by. A lot of people in their car checked me out as they got their coffee at the drive-thru, but at least there were banners everywhere that explained why there was a silly guy sipping on coffee next to his bike. I nodded at those that established eye contact as I chilled out.
After finishing my coffee and leaving a small tip, I moved on to the Reno Bike Project.
Just like last year, they were doing free breakfast, which included pancakes, bacon, hash browns, fruit and coffee. However, this year was better than last. It was at their new location, which is a lot more visible, welcoming and easy to find. There was also a DJ, who was playing some very cool chill-out music.
The RBP staff did a great job at keeping the food available, and there wasn’t even a line to get food! They opened their garage door and set up a small kitchen facing 4th street. It was perfect, and it showed that they thought it out very well. The RBP continues to be a kick-ass place, and I’m really glad that they’re only a couple of blocks away from work. I hung out at the Pancake Feed for about 30 minutes, and chatted it up with a few strangers. JP Zunini (whom I met when I was an exchange student) from KRNV was there and interviewed me, so I might be on the news.
A great way to start a Friday, and now I have a lot of positive energy from having had such a good start to the day. If you’d like to see how my ride went, you can check out my bike route here.
Say I have a USB drive with suspicious viruses that would affect a Win machine. On my Mac, what do I use to scan it for viruses?about 19 hours agofrom Tweetie
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