I'd have been a philosopher

In a conversation quite a while ago I was told that the only true motivation is self motivation. While I agree with the thought that you can't make someone be motivated, I think the person that passed this information on to me missed the point of the author of that quote. While it is true that only ones self can motivate one to accomplish a goal, there are motivating factors that cause that to happen. In using these motivating factors one can give someone else the tools to motivate themselves to do something. So rather than give up trying to get people motivated because, taken as it is written that is what one might do, use the statement as a starting point to draw your own conclusions and theories. I think that what the author of this particular statement meant was poorly worded and it failed in directing readers toward the truth, which is there is no such thing as selfless motivation. This seems to be the truth to me, but sometimes the truth escapes those who choose not to see it.

Facebook Again?!?!

In the past few months, I have come to like facebook. I have used it to check in on a few old friends and to even send a few people messages saying things that I was too young to have realized back in the day. So the real reason that I am posting today is that my Dad has signed up for facebook, as well as hi5 (Asia's facebook), and apparantly all other social networking sites. He is looking for 10 old friends. 10 friends that he hasnt talked to since 1975 when he and his family left everything they had in the world in the hopes of a better life. Just for some perspective, I looked up a friend from college and got about 600 results on facebook. I haven't taken the time to scroll through all of them to find Patrick, but I will after hearing my Dad's story. He gets 417,000 results. So now a few more numbers for you all. over 900,000 Vietnamese "went missing" during the years that we all in the US have learned to be the Vietnam war. Nine hundred friggin thousand. I have an uncle that did not leave the country (and by uncle I mean not my dad's brother, but someone that I would call uncle, related in some way but I am not sure of how). After the US bailed, the army came knocking and told most males over the age of 14 that they got to join up. So my Uncle refused and paid for his decision by having acid poured into his eyes, and apparently he was not the worst off of guys that didn't want to take part in the madness. So my point is, if they are still in Vietnam, they are 51 years old and may not have the ability to go online due to what happened to them or because they are in an underdeveloped nation. If they are able in those departments, what percentage of 51 year olds actually take part in online networking? Pretty much I don't think my dad will ever know what happened to his old friends. He barely remembers their names, but has lots of memories of being kids together, of school math team competitions, of soccer games, of hitching rides to school on tanks. He isn't looking to drop by their houses or to invite them out for a drink, he just wants to see that they grew up and made a life for themselves. I will never ignore or decline a friend request on facebook again. My dad has taught me, through this, that its not what you remember about people or a particular person that matters. What matters is that you should make yourself visible because of the guy that has fond memories of playing soccer. The guy that you didn't really hang out with, but when he closes his eyes and remembers being on that field he can still see you running in front of him at practice. You should join facebook and enter your school and graduation year so that guy can say "geesh, whatever happened to that guy?" and see. So join facebook or myspace or whatever so you can be found and seen and remembered, if only for my dad who is the guy that will never know what happened to any of his classmates. There were 120 kids in his class. He was one of 11 guys. After 5 years of looking, as far as he knows he is the only one left.

I'm Back

Funny that I have to post about buying a new laptop since my last post was about buying laptops... anyway I will be making the occasional appearance once again, on my new laptop.

Inspired by Josh...

So anyone that reads Josh's blog (linked to the right) knows he is a Mac and I am a PC. The most recent article that he posted over on his blog made me think about all of the similar articles and even some of PC's poor attempt at battling the Mac vs. PC commercials. Ok a little background info. A 17in mac book is about 2800 and a comparable Dell notebook will run you about 700. I was thinking what can you get on the PC side of the computer world if you actually compared dollars spent and not just processor power and hard drive size. Lets find out......

1.Dell Laptop 729.00

2.Surround Sound system 410.00

3.50in. Plasma TV 990.00

4.PS3 400.00

5.Wii 250.00

You could wire all of it together and run your laptop through your tv and surround sound system. And you would have just over 20 bucks left over after buying this. OR you might opt to buy THIS RIDICULOUS LAPTOP with twice the processor power as the Mac book pro and have 900 dollars to blow on really neat user friendly programs that will help you edit your bands music or organize your digital photos. You could probably even have Mac OS leopard installed on it and make the Mac-man really annoyed.

I was just thinking, maybe some of you are parents of teenagers. You could buy them a Mac or the 729 dollar Dell and THIS Mercedes from Craig's list. You would still have 71 dollars left for gas money too.

Going Pro

No no it is not Tyler that I am talking about, although his mother has done a fine job teaching him how to hit a baseball. This is about my uncle Allie. *misty wavy flashback* Nah that's just stupid. Anyway, when I was a kid my uncles always brought us places. Mostly to arcades, but a bunch of other places too. My uncle Allie has been a bowling enthusiast for, well as long as I can remember. He was unable to make it to Tyler's birthday party because he had a "bowling thing". Well that bowling thing was the city championship. He won it. It paid like 1500 dollars, not bad for 3 strings. So as the city champ he goes to the state championship. Should he win there he has an invite to bowl in the PBA. I hope he can pull it off because he really deserves it.
Another going pro story for you all today. My brother lives in friggin' Omaha. But the story is not about moving to Nebraska when you are in a rut. He drives across the Iowa border and hits the casinos when he has time and a few bucks to spare. It started out once a month or so. And he won often. Then he started going on Tuesday nights. He won most weeks, 5 of 6 or something silly like that. Last week he went on Tuesday night like usual, he won about $500. Then he went Thursday night and won $2000. He was kind enough to snap a shot of the slot machine and pixmsg it to me. So he was out with his girlfriend on Saturday and they hit the casino after dinner, $225. I told him that if he wasn't winning so much I might think he had a gambling problem. At work last night (Tuesday) he sent me another pixmsg......"Just won $1200" Are you kidding me? Who is that lucky? My brother that's who, because while he was waiting for the paperwork and to get paid, he hit for another $4000. So my question is at what point do you quit your day job and go pro? Also, is there such a thing as a professional slot machiner? I think he should have his business cards changed to T.C. Nguyen Professional Slot Machiner no matter what.

On Spelling and Grammar

So I have my email do an automatic spell check, not that my spelling is terrible, but because my typing is sub par. Anyway, I was wondering why there isn't an option to ignore something permanently? I mean EVERY time I send an email I have to "ignore" the fact that I mis-spell the word Tan at the end of my emails. For some reason I always want to spell it Tuan. Curious I know. But today I was annoyed at the spell check function. It claimed that I was incorrect with my spelling of the word "grey". I think I will get some support here, but if you think I am not correct I will just let you know now that you would be mistaken. Anyway, it made me think of all of the other words that I spell the correct way, but am corrected by the computer or smarty people. Light is the only correct spelling of the word. It is light yogurt, light salad dressing, and light (as in "Turn on the light I can't see a thing."). The word "lite" is a marketing gimmick that has only served to dumb down the population. Proof of this is how mis-spelling words for convenience or just for the sake of being different has taken over the internets and text message world. i dnt thnk n e 1 wnts 2 hv 2 reed stf lyk dis. Imagine the first book written in speed type. I mean it will save on printing costs and time, so u no itll hapn. And then where do we go? Stop teaching spelling and grammar in school? Or teach the fakey language as an alternative to actual language much like "intelligent design" is making it's way into actual science class? Either way, spell check needs to recognise Tuan as the correct spelling of my name, grey as the correct spelling of grey, and stop accepting lite as correct for anything.

This is how we do it

Today like most of the past week, Tyler had some trouble sleeping. He woke up 10 minutes into his nap, and proceeded to call for me. Normally I would just go up tuck him back in and tell him to have a good nap. But today he started crying and asked me to come up and snuggle him so he could sleep. "My teeth hurt,come snuggle me so I can sleep." My theory is he won't ask me to comfort him when he is hurt or sad forever, so I may as well take advantage of the time I have. Best part of my long day....... falling to sleep at noon on a Monday with my favorite kid (I can only say that for a few more months) curled up at my side.

Garden State

I like this movie. There is something about movies where nothing happens in any of the scenes, but in the end they all add up to something of great consequence. It seems that most movies I like have some profound statement about life, all told through scenes of nothingness...... I just connect with them. So if you have the chance, watch Garden State. But be prepared, it moves like The Station Agent. See it through to the end, and remember, it is the sum of the parts.

Facebook and the faceybookiness of it

Facebook. As legend has it, it's legendary ability to assist in e-social networking is the stuffs that legends are made of. And that my friends is just what I have found to be true.

Recently I broke my ban on Facebook and signed up for an account. I was talked into it when someone whom I know very well informed me that a friend had written about how they had recently been introduced to MarioKart on the wii. As I have also found myself addicted to the MarioKart, I needed to sign up for Facebook to look for other acquaintences with similar racing issues.

Day One: Sign up for Facebook, request my wife as a friend.
Day Two: Get bombarded with email (30ish) regarding friend request things
Get annoyed that my email was getting junked up
Day Three: Spent 2 minutes trying to find people that I know who play MarioKart
Tried to start a "Group" for MarioKart but found that there isn't a way
to restrict EVERYONE in the Facebook "community" from joining
Left a message for someone that I haven't talked to in five years.

I still haven't found anyone from my previous non e-life that plays MarioKart. There is not a way to search by geographic location or by interests. All I have found is that it automatically cross refrences your "friends" list with those of your e-friend's friends lists to "connect" you to other people you might find interesting. To sum up that "neat-o" function..... useless. Facebook first impression you ask? It is like the childhood game telephone. You know where you whisper in the ear of the person next to you and it goes down the line and the last person says something histerically funny that is not what the original person said. Yeah like that. So far it is useless, and if I tell a non-Facebook user that it is useless and they tell someone else, by the time it gets to the last person not on Facebook they say "IT'S SO AWESOME!"

We will see in the coming weeks if I find any use for an e-life, or time for it as being a parent of a little kid (turns 2 today) leaves little time for computing (aka wasting time on Facebook)

Money Does Not A Good Parent Make

I saw this the other night and haven't stopped thinking of it since. I often find myself leaving the TV on HGTV as the programming does not necessarily require you to give your undivided attention to it to understand what is going on. The other night there was a new show on called........... Property something or other...... or Realestate whatchamahoozie.... not important. The show is in reality format, and follows the life and work of Tatiana. She opened her own "Property Shop". She is a mother and a wife and a business owner. Good for her. Anyway, near the end of the episode, she was shown on the phone really late one night trying to make a deal. Then the next day on the phone trying to figure out why the deal didn't go through. Then in her office talking to an apprentice / protege about how to spend your time with clients. And as the show was ending it showed her getting in her car talking about being late for her son's birthday party. She walked in late to a place like Joker's where her son was celebrating his birthday with friends and family. And finally as the credits were rolling she was shown getting back in her car (son not in tow) talking about there being a master plan and that it wouldn't always be like that. She said that she did have a plan and that "it is not schlepping crappy properties" for the rest of her life. Okay. So the plan is to leave your children with a feeling of abandonment for their childhood. And then when they are off at college, or out in the working world, or have children of their own, they feel what? Oh Mom has time for me now, I should drop my stuff to spend time with her? Unlikely. I mean she is teaching them that her job is more important than they are. Having more free time when the kids are grown may not necessarily be the same. I bet that show "My Sweet Sixteen" on MTV shows parties thrown by wealthy parents trying to make up for the 15 previous birthdays that they couldn't attend or were late to. The kids on that show are generally the type that act as though someone owes them something........ maybe someone does. I am not knocking having a career, or having to work. I know stuff has to be paid for, I know sacrifices have to be made. What I am saying is that all of that time spent on a deal that didn't go through was not worth being late for her son's birthday. Even if she "saved the deal" and the business made all the cash, is that worth being late for your own kids birthday? I don't think it would be. Someday I will be able to look at my kids and say "This is why I chose to do things the way I did them..." and be proud of the example I set.
So needless to say, I will not watch "Property Shop" as doing so will only go to validate the example she is setting for her children.

Looks like we were all wrong about Obama afterall

Three words........ Considering a Labradoodle.

I don't know why I thought he wasn't an idiot. He is a politician and he is considering a labradoodle. That's twice the idiot that G.W. is.

Three Jobs Is Too Many

No I don't actually have three jobs, but that seems to be what people think. I had to go to Home Depot for work the other day. I had a cart and stuff in the cart and was shopping for light bulbs when a woman approached me. "I am looking for a chain for my snow blower. Is that something that is usually covered by warranty?" I was like "Um I couldn't tell you." She went on to say that it would be and she was going to buy the chain and blah blah blah. Blah blah bring it in to be fixed. "Can you show me where the chains are?" I said no and that I wouldn't know where to start. She pointed out how unhelpful I was and started walking away. "I don't even work here!" I thought it was odd for someone to just walk up and assume someone was working and then start making demands of them. Whatever. I had stuff to do and more errands to run. I finished my shift (aka shopping) at Home Depot and headed to my favorite retailer.... Wal-Mart. When I pulled into the lot I was annoyed at how busy the store was. I parked two towns over and walked through the unplowed lot. When I got in I saw that there weren't any carts. I turned around to go back out and find one in the lot when I saw a woman carrying a baby (very new looking baby) and a diaper bag. She saw that there were no carts and wasn't impressed. I went over to her and let her know that I was going out to get myself a cart and that I would get her one. I ran out and grabbed 2 carts. When I got back in she thanked me for my help. I pushed my cart toward the automatic doors when this old lady threw her purse and oxygen tank into my cart... "I was next!" I was next? Next for what? I replied. "I was next in line for a cart." I told the old lady that I didn't work there I was just helping that other girl because she needed help and that she was rude. I told her that if she asked me politely I would consider letting her have my cart and that I would get another. Then the hag says "I didn't know you didn't work here." I said "You are rude. You can have the cart, but don't expect Santa to be stopping at your house this year."

What the hell is wrong with people?

crashed my car while I cried and peed my pants

Today I was debating whether or not to make a BJ's run while Ty was spinning in the livingroom. He kept saying "I'm so dizzy. I'm spinning." It reminded me of the song "I'm so dizzy" by Tommy Roe. So I told him there was a song about spinning and that I would let him hear it. I busted out the old youtube trick and played the song for him. He said "I really like that song dad. I do, I do." I asked if he wanted to go to the music store and we could buy that cd, and then go to BJ's. He thought it was good.
I picked out a compilation with "Dizzy" on it because Tommy Roe's cd was probably not awesome. Also on the disc is a number of good tunes. I thought he might like "The Lion Sleeps Tonight". Actually I knew he would like it, so I played it. That is when I started laughing so hard that I started crying and peeing and crashing. Aparently the song goes "Where Nemo went, where Nemo went, where Nemo went and not A-wimoweh, a-wimoweh A-wimoweh, a-wimoweh. Who knew?

Calling all astrophysicists

So I have been doing a lot of refinishing of floors lately, and have had around 40 hours of quiet alone with my thoughts time. I can hear the "Oh no!!" emanating from a certain cubicle in a certain hallway at MSC. But enough about my wife and on to my thoughts.
It all started with the thought "I wonder if the word orange was first used to reference the color or the fruit?" I can't really prove either, so on to more pressing issues.
In conversation about nerdy science stuff, the topic of super slow motion was brought up. I am going to be forced to write the following in train of thought format as it doesn't make sense to write it any other way. So you have all seen the water drop stuff I am sure. But why does it first send the water around the initial impact point straight up? It must have something to do with how the most efficient way for energy to be released is in a sphere. Oh and it will take the path of least resistance. So the path of least resistance in this situation is not down into the water but up into the air. Maybe the energy that travels up from this impact pulls the surface of the water up with it.....Kind of like how gravity pulls things down. Wait what is gravity again? I wonder if it is the result of the centrifugal force from the spinning of the planet. I mean if the centrifugal force of the earth spinning is pushing everything away from the center of the earth that would make sense, but it doesn't because of gravity...... maybe gravity is the result of centrifugal force bouncing off the contents of the earth and atmosphere and pulling things back toward the center. Like those guys that break cement blocks in "competitions". If they have enough force they break them all, if they don't they "get double the force back into their arms".... no doubt a result of their initial 1000 pounds of force exerted into the cement plus the force that bounces off the unbroken bricks....that would probably feel like double the force.....anyway is gravity just centrifugal force that is too weak to push all of the mass out so it bounces back toward the center?
So if anyone knows let me know. And if anyone thinks my brain doesn't work like it should let me know that too. Finally, if anyone thinks of stuff like this too, let me know. It is nice to not feel alone in insanity.

Are you still talking about that?

Quite a while ago I started referring to myself as American-Asian. Mostly because I am American of Asian descent. That's right folks, I am American first. I would have thought that some super-PC person would have made that change a long time ago. I am one generation from being Asian, on my Dad's side anyway. My point is African Americans are several generations from being anything African, but who am I to judge. I understand the importance of being the first of something, but not celebrating it for being the first. My issue with this stems from a statistic I heard on the news. 46ish percent of "Whites" voted for Obama. 60ish percent of "Hispanics" for Obama...... 95ish percent of "African Americans" voted for Obama. 95 percent of African Americans thought he was the best man for the job? Really? 95 percent agreed that he would do a better job as president. I wonder how many percent of that vote was racially motivated. One might even say that a large percentage of "African Americans" didn't vote for John McCain because he is white. Racist bastards! That's all I have to say about that..... except that I also voted for Obama, I think he will do a better job fixing the things that I think are more important to fix. I did not vote for him so I could be part of "making history by voting for the black guy."

Really? Really!

Fuck this guy and everything he stands for. Kids need both parents, and lets face it, fishing boat operator wouldn't provide as much for the family as VP would. As VP their kids would be able to go to college anywhere and probably for free. As fishing boat operator the kids could go to community college if they worked full time and paid for it themselves. And for the record... Fathers are more than capable of taking care of the kids every bit as well as a Mother. So how about we make our political decisions based on politics and not the preconceived notion that Dads are useless members of the family whose worth as a family member is measured only in how much money we can go out and make.

Olympics

As the closing ceremonies fast approach I have been thinking of these and all Olympics. I have enjoyed these more than the past ones as I have been able to watch more of the games / events. The thing that I have enjoyed most is the telling of the stories. Torres making a go of it at twice the age of her nearest competitor. The women's beach volleyball duo announcing their hiatus from the sport to "work on the team of the future", ie. have babies. Even in the less flashy, though much more historically significant, men's marathon. One of the runners had been a "day worker" making as much as 30 cents a day collecting wood. I felt the electricity from Bolt's historic runs in the 100 and the 200. What I really found interesting is how our man Jacques was forced to conference with the Georgian President to convince him to let his country's athletes stay in China and compete. I don't know why, but I was unaware of the boycott of the Moscow Olympics, and the L.A. games. After consulting the all knowing Wiki, I found a new satisfaction in these Olympic games. I was happy to see the athletes give their best effort even when the results left them off the podium. I rooted for the Muslim sprinter who ran in some full body suit in an effort to respect her faith's showing of skin even though it is clear that it would be a hindrance in achieving her golden goal. But at least she got to compete. I would hope that the world has become small enough that we can truly set aside our political differences to let the athletes compete in all future Olympic games. I mean you can see that for the vast majority of athletes in the majority of events there is a small window for peak performance. I lost my ability to feel bad that some guy worked his whole life to win an Olympic gold and came up a few hundredths of a second short when there were countless athletes that worked just as hard for just as long and were not allowed to compete because of their government's pigheadedness. So whether it was Phelps in the pool or the 4X100 relay teams on the track, I was happy to see our athletes compete even though we in the US may disagree with how China runs their country. As far as being a successful Olympic Games, the device by which we measure should not be in a count of medals, but in a count of countries involved.

Just the guys

HEY! ANYBODY THERE?

Yeah it's been a couple weeks, but whatever. In case you don't know, this week it is just me and the little guy at the house. Rae was dragged kicking and screaming off to DC for work. So that leaves us. Tyler is still too young to understand what 4 days really means. It isn't 1, and it isn't 2 (which only means more than one). It is 4. He asked me earlier "Mama?" and I gave the patented response "Huh?". It is what is best to figure out the boy's mood. If he tells me that she went bye bye then he is good. Anyway, he went to the door and pointed to her car, "Mama car?" Yup, that's her car buddy. "Mama?" Again I replied "Huh?", a bit worried he was going to have an I need mama breakdown. "OOOH! bye buh." Yeah bud, but she went on a train to work. It is usually just she went to work, but I was hoping that differentiating between on a train to work and just to work might make explaining it to him later a bit easier to understand. He gave me the most puzzled look. So I guess he picked up on that little hint of something is different. Then just as loud as he could, and with the biggest smile he goes..."MAMA WOO HOOOO! HAHAHAHA MAMA WOO WOOOOO!" Let's hope the enthusiasm of Mama on a train continues throughout the duration of this first time away from Rae for more than the usual work day.

On another note, I think I may have come off as pissed about Tyler's incident. I know that people mean well when they ask about him, I just wish they would think before they spoke. I mean what if I went around saying "Oh, what happened?" and when the random stranger asked me "What are you talking about" I said "Oh you poor things. Is it genes or a thyroid problem, or just a twinkie issue? Because I feel bad that your kid is morbidly obese, and I want to make you uncomfortable talking about it as I am a total stranger and I know that my pity on your children for their fatness will make you feel better." Think about it, that's all I am asking.

Please feel free to ask...

Ok so not everyone got it. So here are a few FAQ's that I will answer for you all.

Will he have a scar?
Yes.

Like bad scarring....or?
Yes horribly disfiguring, can't tell if it's still a person or "The Fly"

seriously?
Yup, thanks for asking.

What kind of dog was it? (I have 3 answers to this one)
1. Pit bull, why do you ask? Are they usually known to be aggressive? Huh. news to me.
2. I can't be sure, what kind of dog jumps out of a tree whistling "Dixie" and snapping at children?
3. THE REAL ANSWER: doesn't really matter does it?

You don't think this is the only trip to the emergency room for you guys, having a little boy and all?
No, I know, but it had better be the only trip that involves emergency plastic surgery on his face. Thanks for your concern.

Maybe the not smart questions and comments come from not knowing how serious it really was. I have tried to explain it without going into too much detail, but the next stupid question gets all of the details. I assure you that you don't want to be that guy.

Week From Hell

Well it's Sunday, and Sunday is the end of the week as far as I am concerned. This week has sucked. Nah, sucked doesn't really work for me. It was just junk.

Monday was normal. Tuesday was fishing day. I went, with Casey, to Trip lake or pond or whatever. No fish pond more like it. Then, as usual, my phone rang at a few minutes past 8pm. But it wasn't my wife letting me know that she was on her way home and asking if I were close to coming home. It was my father in law. Tyler was crying in the background, and Rae was yelling "Just tell him to meet me at the hospital."

Tyler had been bitten by a dog. If you know Rae then you know that she can make things sound worse than they are. But this time was different, she was calm. "The ambulance is here and we have to wait for someone else to come to ride in the back with us. Just go to the hospital, we'll meet you there." I asked how bad it was. "It's fucking bad, hurry up."

When I got to Maine Medical Center, I was shown to some sort of xray room or something. I wondered for about half a second why they weren't in the waiting room. Then I opened the door............

My little man was wounded. Not hurt, wounded. He was sitting all tuff with blood all over his tiny chest. Not a tear in sight. I can't be sure that I was breathing, but I didn't black out so I must have been getting oxygen somehow. When the shock of seeing my little boy in that condition dulled, I asked him if he had a boo boo. "yes" *pointing to his head* I gave him a kiss on his head.

When I went to the bathroom, I heard the doctors say something about calling in the plastic surgeon, I gave them my opinion. "Yeah, hurry up and get him here."

I don't know how long it was, it seemed like hours, but it seemed like minutes at the same time. The next thing I know, Dr. Vaughan(sp?) was in and talking about surgery and going under anesthesia and problems / concerns. I signed a bunch of stuff and my little guy was rolled into the OR waiting room. He was finally given some meds around 10:30. A bunch of more questions and more signing, and he was rolled off with Rae to have emergency plastic surgery on his little face.

The last place Rae or I would have ever guessed we would be is Barbra Bush Children's Hospital. But that's where we were. What the fuck just happened? How did we get here?

I had accepted what happened almost immediately. The hard part of all of this is that my little man has been in so much pain. Wednesday he had some swelling, and a bit of a black eye. Thursday he looked like he had gone 12 championship rounds with Mike Tyson, but he gave us a smile. Friday he told me that bees were in his head. I can only assume that he had a headache. Saturday I asked if he was feeling ok. "no, owie" *pointing to his left cheek* And today, Sunday, he has been touching his cheek and asking for kisses. He touches his not hurt cheek then his stitched up one then the ok one again. He knows.

The first time he walked by a mirror, he froze and just looked. It was when his left eye was almost completely swollen shut. He did his Family Guy "SSSSSSSssss, aaaaahhhhhhh. Ssssssss oooooowwwwwwwwww......... ssss aaahhhhhh. All while pointing at his bandages.

Tyler is going to be ok. The surgeon said that he was happy with how the surgery went. The important muscles, nerves, salivary ducts, eye, and tendons seemed to be ok. He is improving in mood everyday, and will no doubt be back to his old self after this ordeal faster than his mother or I will.

Now my pet peeves of the whole situation.

1. Don't assume that you have ever been hurt as badly. Falling off your bike when you were 12 wasn't as bad.
2. Don't ask what type of dog it was. I guarantee you that neither Rae nor I would throw Ty into a caged ring with a rabid pit bull. One of the nurses asked if it was an aggressive dog. I think I snapped at her when I said "Does it matter? No it doesn't."
3. We already know that he is going to have a scar. Your pointing it out won't be news to us, it only makes you an asshole.