No, I'm not dead

- Came through the gallbladder surgery okay. Took a little longer to recover than I thought it would. All those folks who told me about going on cross-country trips two days after their surgeries and stuff like that were full of it. It was not easy; and surprise surprise, your body does miss the gallbladder. In fact, it spent a good three weeks thinking it still had one, which was not a lot of fun (I'll spare the details.) But all is well now, and my resolution for the rest of the year is to keep the rest of my internal organs, at least until I finish paying the bills for that one. And big props to my employer for not only being great about the whole thing, but sending me TWO big flower bouquets while I was recuperating. I almost think they like me.

- Kinda OT, but not - Blue Cross/Blue Shield of North Carolina has done a wonderful thing. They have made all generic drugs free for subscribers until the end of July. It was only a $10 copay before, but when I add up all the stuff I had to take pre- and post-surgery and how much $10 a pop would've cost, I count my blessings. I think this is a great program that should be extended, and it would be nice if the nice folks in Tennessee who have lost their TennCare could get some sort of deal like that from the state. I know it would make a big difference in the long run.

- Integrative medicine (a traditional doctor who uses holistic methods) rocks. I have had only one migraine in the two weeks since I've started taking doctor-recommended magnesium and a new method of thyroid replacement. This is a big thing for me.

- Work has been crazy. There's been this little controversy at Duke about some party and a couple of strippers. Seriously, it's been huge for us. Not even going to get into the controversy, because opinions are like belly-buttons...we all have one. Suffice it to say that I have my own theory and it's somewhere in the middle. And you know all the press about Durham being a poor urban city with this rich arrogant university in the middle? That's not quite right -- there are a lot of wealthy peope in the city, and a lot of them aren't white. There's not a huge middle-class there -- like in Chapel Hill, a lot of those folks have moved to neighboring counties to find lower taxes. And yeah, the crime rate is pretty bad there. But Durham's a nice place, and has a damn fine baseball park. It deserves better than it's getting from the national media.

- I will be visiting Middle Tennessee for Hypericon and some time with my family at the end of June. If anyone in Nashville is still reading this thing, lemme know if you want to do dinner sometime that weekend.

- The new Doctor Who (with Tennant) is terrific. I am enjoying Big Love on HBO (sometime I should write a post about polygamy, Mormonism, and that show.) Not really digging The Sopranos as much as I should. House is still ruling my world, and I've been acquiring the new series of Green Wing from the UK. And since they're closing all the Suncoasts in Raleigh (and Suncoast is great with stocking British stuff) I am now permanently broke.

- Heard about Bill Hobbs. In the interest of not pissing off the people in Nashville who actually still read this, I will stay silent on the matter.

- My great-great-great grandfather was an illegal immigrant and didn't speak English (most likely he spoke Gaelic.) Look at your geneology -- your ancestors probably were the same. What's wrong with letting people actually pay taxes to stay? I'm not really getting why that's such a bad thing, or why people are getting so damn offensive about this.

- Really don't know what else to say. If you've got a subject you'd like for me to post about, leave it in comments. I'll be happy to oblige.