Yesterday was a fun day. Doctor at 9 AM, MRI at Noon, results two hours later. How's that for fast service? Let me tell you, its fantastic having your mother work for a doctor for 30+ years and have all kinds of connections. They really help at a time like this. So the doctor said get an MRI, and see me in a week. The MRI came back relatively clean. No tears in any ligaments, no tears in the menisci (aka, cartilage), and despite the obvious trauma in the joint and fluid and swelling, all I have is a patella with micro-fractures. Thats right, not one little fracture, but a few. I don't know how many, but enough to classify as plural, and small enough that they're considered micro-fractures. Oh, and just in case you were wondering, your patella is your knee cap.

So that's the diagnosis. I waited all day for my mom to get in touch with the doctor for the prognosis. And it is this. No surgery needed, no physical therapy needed. I am to take it easy for awhile and keep my knee wrapped in an ace bandage. Try to elevate it as much as possible and keep hot compresses on it as much as I can as well. I have a knee brace to wear if need be, but I find it hurts me more than it helps me. I think I need to get back the use of the muscles in my leg, and the brace just hinders the full range of motion I could have and will need to work out. I'll wear the brace to bed so I don't twist myself up while I sleep. I have crutches to use if I need to, but I think I'll try to walk on my as much as I can, but again, just limit myself. No long walks or anything like that. No heavy lifting at work, and stay away from wet metal grates on NYC sidewalks. I have an appointment to see my orthopedic doctor on Monday for a followup.

In the meantime, I'm just going to relax and try not to further aggravate the injury. I'm walking much better now, but its still with a limp and it definitely takes me awhile to work the kinks out. It gets very stiff very fast.

So thats the update. Its not great, but it could've a whole lot worse.

Yes, I realize that is a very silly statement to make, but its the truth. They don't get along at all. And I'm the one that suffers. The city just goes on being the city that never sleeps. Me, I get the pain and the swelling and the probably inevitable knee surgery. A little history for you, in November of 1997 I went with Seth and his brother to see 311 in concert at the Roseland Ballroom. I walked into the place, and left out the back on a stretcher. Towards the end of the show I was jumping around and I must've lost my balance or just came down wrong on my knee, because my left one completely buckled on me and I hit the ground like a ton of bricks, as I felt and heard my knee go Rice Krispies on me, (snap, crackle and pop). I limped to the back of the place and just sat and waited for the show to end. I tried to walk out of there, but couldn't. Enter the paramedics and a three hour visit to the Emergency Room at some hospital in the city.

I didn't get home until about 8 the morning and spent the entire weekend laid up on the couch. Did I mention it was also Thanksgiving weekend? And my birthday? And I got a fake doctors note from my mom to get out of taking a test so that I could go home for a full week instead of just a few days? Yes, I know the concept of karma now, and karma kicked me in the ass that weekend, or more like it swept the knee Karate Kid style. Too bad I had no Mr. Miagi to massage it and make it all better. So after being incapacitated for a weekend I saw the doctor and got an MRI. That was Monday. Tuesday I got cleared for surgery by one of the doctors in my mom's office and Wednesday I had arthroscopic surgery to repair the torn cartilage in my knee. Fun stuff. Thursday was Thanksgiving, and Friday my birthday. I got to go back up to school on crutches for the next two weeks and then a month of physical therapy while I was home on winter break. Fun times I tell you. NYC and my left knee, there's a history.

Fast forward eight and a half years to last night. I head into the city to meet the girl I went to Pearl Jam with for drinks. We had a great time sitting in a nice little bar, eating, drinking and talking, although I did most of the drinking. Her friend met us there too, so we were just having a good time. 11 PM rolls around and they headed home, looking obviously exhausted. Me, being still somewhat buzzed, was not ready for the night to be over, so I call Seth, and find out that he's heading out to meet some friends at a bar close to his apartment, so I meet him there. Had a beer or two more and then he headed home, and I headed for Penn Station. I should've taken the subway, since it was raining, but it was also hot, so I thought the rain, and the walk would do me good. I should've listened to Seth, he said to take the subway, walking was a bad choice. I got to about 8th avenue and 42nd, right around the Port Authority bus terminal, about 8 blocks from Penn Station. I was walking on part of the sidewalk that was basically all metal grates. Metal, plus rain, plus me somewhat under the influence was a bad combination. I slipped on the slick grate, my knee buckled and did another milk in the Rice Krispies effect and I went down. I got right back up and started walking, albeit painfully, and I knew it was not good. I just kept telling myself, just get to Penn, get on a train, and get home and all will be fine. I somehow managed all that, despite the pain and trouble walking. I got home, only to find that someone put the safety chain on the front door. I nearly went ballistic. Thankfully the back door was chain free, but the staircase going up to it is a little more treacherous, even when you can walk on both legs just fine.

I went to bed and woke up and of course nothing felt better. I put in the call to the parents and headed to my moms office to get looked at by the doctor she works for, who said get an x-ray. I could've just gone to a radiologist, but they would've just snapped the x-ray and no one would've been able to read it until Monday, which is kind of pointless. So it was off to the Emergency Room for me. Got x-rays taken which were negative, a nice knee brace and crutches. Hopefully on Monday its a trip to the orthopedic doctor and an MRI to see the extent of the damage. Everything this time around feels exactly the same as the last time around, so I have a feeling I'm in for more of the same, like surgery and physical therapy. Fun times.

Like I said, Manhattan hates my left knee, with a passion.

Having a bit of a bout with it at the moment. Which is odd, because usually sleep and me are best friends. I came home tonight from work, popped on a movie, the 1978 original Superman, with Christopher Reeves, just to psych myself up for Superman Returns, which I'm going to see Tuesday night at a 10 PM showing. Its geeky, yes, but it beats going to a midnight showing, which I've done in the past, for things like Star Wars, Spiderman and Harry Potter, and the next day of work is always brutal. Maybe this'll be better. Anyway, back on point, I watched the movie but fell asleep at the end. Turned it off once it was over, and went back to sleep, again. Then, somewhere around 12:30 I woke up again, and haven't been able to fall asleep since. Hence, its 2 AM and I'm writing here. Anything to kill the time, or make me tired.

So what has been going on with me, you ask? Nothing much, just keeping busy. I've spent much of the past week working on my guitars, instead of playing them. I don't know if its because of the summer and the humidity and the wood swelling, but I've had to adjust them way too much for my liking. I managed to fix the problem that I paid those idiots $50 to ignore on my Strat, and since then its played much better. I'm still waiting for my next lesson to get the stamp of approval from my teacher. I basically took the whole damn thing apart, or as much as I could, and put it back together step by step, as guided by a wonderful guitar repair book someone on the Pearl Jam message board recommended. I think I need to buy another tool to make one more adjustment to my SG, so once I get that I should be in good shape all around. I guess this is one side effect of having no central air in my place. It gets hot, humid, and the wood soaks it all up and expands. I've taken to leaving them in their cases when I'm not using them to help protect them.

In other news I had one hell of a busy weekend last weekend. Friday night Brett came out for dinner and then some post dinner drinking with my roommate. That was a good time, although Brett used the occasion to pick a fight with his girlfriend. I don't understand the guy sometimes, or how any girl can put up with him, but hey, his life, who am I to judge? I just know if I was female, there is no way I'd put tolerate his crap, but thats just a big hypothetical. Saturday night I went to see Nine Inch Nails with my roommate at Jones Beach and damn, was it a great show. I've seen them four times now, and all through the years, they've never failed to put on an amazing show. Its not the longest show in the world. They're not Pearl Jam and playing for two and a half hours very night, but they play a good 20 - 25 songs, and put more energy into them as the night goes on. Its just fun to jump and scream along with it all. Very cathartic in its own weird way. Great show. Sunday morning I donated platelets and later that afternoon went to my parents and met them at a friend of their house for a Fathers Day BBQ. I had a good time, surprisingly. Drank and ate way too much in the sun, and was feeling it the next day at work. I'm getting old. I can't party like I used to, not that I ever really did party, but I think you get the point.

I also had a somewhat busy week of work. We're working on this whole disaster recovery scenario thing and got in all the hardware we're going to need for it on Monday, so we threw all that together, which is always fun. There's just something about popping memory and hard drives into servers that I just enjoy. Don't ask me why, I don't know. We've spent the entire rest of the week waiting for the rest of the bits and pieces for it to come in, then for the electricians to wire up a special plug to power it all. Fun times. Should be an interesting learning experience, since I've never done anything like this or worked with some of this software. There's nothing like new things to put on your resume, right?

Tonight, since its technically already Friday, I'm heading into the city to meet up with the girl from the Pearl Jam concert. We're grabbing some drinks and then who knows what. I don't know what to expect from the whole situation, but I'm looking forward to it. I guess I'll have more to report on that tomorrow.

Anyway, I'm going to try to go back to sleep now. Have a great weekend everyone!

Sorry for the lack of entries, its just been a little crazy over in my nexk of the woods. Busy at work, busy at home, barely any time to kick back and rest, which is my preferred mode of operation. I had a somewhat busy weekend. I went out with my roommate on Friday for some beers at a bar that we practically live behind, then came home and passed out. Saturday I went to my parents for awhile, had a good guitar lesson, finally spoke to the girl from the concert, and then headed home to watch a movie and pass out, basically. Sunday I had to go to the wake for my manager, and that was about it for the weekend.

While in my lesson on Saturday my teacher and I both heard a very weird noise coming from my Strat. He didn't know what the hell would cause it, nor how to fix it. So Monday I dropped it off at a local shop to get it looked at and setup. Big mistake. They were a bunch of idiots. Not only did they not fix it, I find that the whole guitar plays and sounds like crap now. I was going to take it to Guitar Center, but I'm not too thrilled with them either. I have some tools and whatnot on the way to me, so I'm going to attempt set it up myself, take apart where the noise is coming from and see if I can get it up and running myself. If not, I'll ask my teacher to take a look. If I'm going to pump more money into get it playable again, I'd prefer to throw it his way.

That kind of pissed me off to no end though. The guy at the music shop was playing it, saying nothing was wrong, meanwhile I hear the sound that it should be making. He played it for like 10 minutes, showing off no less, and says "I can't fix it if it isn't broken." If the guitar didn't cost almost a grand, I would've smashed it over his head! Ass. So I went home and put it away and worked on my other guitar. Changed the strings, cleaned it up as it has a tendency to get dirty easily. Especially the neck and fretboard. Every time I change the strings I put this fretboard conditioner on it so that it doesn't get too dried out. I'm always afraid that it looks like the wood is going to crack. I guess thats what I get for buying a used guitar, but I still love it, especially with a new pedal I got. Speaking of, need to sell those old ones.

Monday was the funeral for my old manager. It was an interesting experience, as it was at a Greek Orthodox church. So basically, there was a lot of chanting and singing in both Greek and English, and a lot of talk about going to sleep, which is I guess their preferred euphamism for death. Sad stuff though.

Other than that, nothing to report. Busy at work, or at least trying to be. Alright, time to get back to it.

The day started out as depressing as can possibly be. My dad sent me an e-mail saying that a guy that worked in his office, a guy who used to be my manager when I worked in their IT department passed away last night, at age 44 from pacreatic cancer. I knew he was sick, since my brother still works there, and for him. My brother told me about it back in mid-April, like a week before my gig. And here it is, a month and a half later, and he's gone. Crazy. I feel really bad about it, mostly for his family, which consists of his wife, and three kids, ages 12, 9 and 7. How much does that suck?

Alright, thats enough mood killer from me. Nothing new on any other fronts. Hopefully when there is there will be some cheer to spread around.

That title says it all. That's what its all about, my dear readers. This past weekend was Pearl Jam fest in my neck of the woods. Two shows, Thursday and Friday night, a little more that 5 hours of Pearl Jam goodness spread out over two awesome evenings. The rundown goes as follows...

I took off Thursday and Friday, just because I had the time off and because I knew I'd have to leave early Thursday to get to the show on time and because I knew there would be no way in hell that I'd want to go into work the next morning. So I relaxed at home for most of Thursday, waiting for my roommate to get off early from work. He came home and we headed out to New Jersey for the show. Unfortunately we left completely unprepared to tailgate or anything like that. We got to the arena, picked up our tickets and started trolling the area around his car for people we could bum or buy drinks off of. I must admit, considering we went empty handed, we went into the show pretty drunk, and loving it.

It started to pour at about 8, so we made a mad dash into the arena to stay dry. Took our seats and waited for Pearl Jam to take the stage. They came out a little bit before or at 9, didn't leave the stage until 11:20 or so. They played one hell of an impressive set. Rocked very hard, and I loved every minute of it, that wasn't a bit blurry. They closed their main set with my all-time favorite song, Rearviewmirror. I was tempted to text the bitch ex at that point, but thankfully I couldn't remember the number. Let this be a lesson, don't drunk dial, or drunk text message anyone. The first encore consisted of some slower tunes, and ended with some rarities that they never play. The second encore was damn good as well, and that was the show. Awesome seats too. The fan club rocks like that. We went home and I passed out.

Friday I spent relaxing at my parents with Keyser, trying to recover from the previous evening, which wasn't easy. Midway through the afternoon I got a call from Seth's brother who was supposed to go with us to the show and take my second ticket. He mistakenly thought the second show was on Friday, not Saturday, so he took Friday off, but when he realized his error he couldn't get someone to cover for him on Saturday night. That started the mad scramble to find someone to take the ticket. Between Shari, Seth and myself we couldn't find someone to take it. To be safe, I posted a message on the Pearl Jam message boards saying I had a ticket, and within 10 minutes I had three responses. Two from guys out of state and one from someone in the city, sex unknown. Saturday we were waiting to hear from one of Shari's friends, but never did, so at about 3:30 I called the person in the city, since they were closest, and it turned out to be a girl. So that was promising. I offered her the ticket and she said yes, so one problem solved.

Despite the torrential downpour outside we made it to the arena at a decent time, found a good parking spot and picked up our tickets. Amazing seats again. I mean, like 45 degrees to the side of the stage, 15 or so rows back. One night I was on the rhythm guitarists side, the second night on the lead guitarists. So we started tailgating a bit and this really really cute girl came around asking if we had a ticket for sale. I was so tempted to say yes, but I would've felt bad about the girl that was on a bus from the city to take the ticket I promised her, so I refrained from offering them to her. I called the girl and got an ETA, and we set a meeting place. I went to meet her and she described herself as wearing a grey hooded sweatshirt. While I was waiting for her I must've seen at least two or three hideously ugly girl in grey hooded sweatshirts making their way towards me and I almost crapped my pants. But it turns out the girl in question was quite cute, and really really nice as well. She came over and hung out with Seth, Shari and myself before the show, and then we all went in.

Another amazing show, better than the first night, and way longer, by at least 20 minutes. They played even more rare and rocking tunes, and it was just an amazing show. Exhausting almost. At one point the lead singer had the lead guitarist on his shoulders while he was playing a solo. And the guy didn't miss a note. Damn, thats talents. And, the company was good, which made me glad I didn't give the ticket away. The show ended and she was going to hop on a bus, but I offered her a ride home, and asked if it would be OK to give her a call sometime, to which she said yes on both accounts. So that was really cool. Maybe something'll happen there, maybe not. Time will tell. We had a nice drive home and that was it.

I am beyond exhausted today. I didn't really sleep late this morning because I got up to go donate platelets again, then I had to bring my dad's truck back to him. I borrowed it because it was much roomier than my Jetta, and it has a GPS system, which came in handy navigating through Queens to find the road home. The platelet donation wasn't so bad, since I was rocking out to the bootleg of the Thursday night show while I had a needle in each arm. Good deed though.

Anyway, so that was my last couple of days. I'm exhausted and am just resting in my bed, and will probably pass out after the Sopranos. Hope everyone had a good weekend too.