Surgery a Success

Hi Everyone,

Earl had his surgery on Tuesday and it was short (only 1 hour 10 mins) and everything went very well. They were able do the surgery with a scope which was great news as it will make for a quicker recovery for Earl and it enabled them to get a good look around the lung, which was healthy and showed no other tumors and to remove the tumor. Earl had a bit of a hard time with pain...I am not too impressed with the pain management provided, but Earl is a trooper and made it through the pain. He was feeling more like himselft yesterday and he may even come home today.

I will update again later and share the rest of the story, but right now I need to get on my way to the hospital.

Debbie

Go Wings Go!!!!!

Hi Everyone,

Earl, Darby and I had a great weekend in Minneapolis/St Paul,,,,shopping and hockey,,,What else is there to life!

We left on Thursday, arriving in Albertville around 2:30, checked into our hotel and then headed to our favorite outlet mall. We shopped and shopped getting lots of great deals. The deal of the weekend for Earl was buying 2 NHL jerseys at the Mall of America for $32 US (total that is) and for Darby CROCS fir $2.99 a pair. Darby broke an all time record by buying 10 pairs of shoes!!!!!
We had a great dinner at a Thai restaurant, watched some TV and then crashed for the night.

The next morning we woke up had breaky and then headed back to the Mall to finish up. We stopped at our favorite hamburger place "Culvers" and headed into to St Paul. We checked in and then....guess what!....we went to the Mall of America, where we shopped and had dinner at Bubba Gump Shrimp.

Saturday morning we headed to the Xcel Energy Center for the Detroit Red Wings/Minnesota Wild morning skate. We had a difficult time finding our way into the arena until Andreas Lilja (who wears # 3) saw us and walked with us down to the dressing room. How cool is that! Once we arrived Earl was in his Happy Place surrounded by his favorite coaches and players. Darby and Earl were certainly made to feel at home and just visited and hung out with the guys. We had taken some pictures when we were in Detroit in November and had them blown up, so Darby and Earl had fun getting the guys to autograph them all. We hung out for quite a while and if you ask the boys I am sure they will have some stories to share with you. Earl wore his prosthetic to show everyone and was walking around without his crutches.....smiling broadly.

After we had lunch at the White Castle, we headed back to the MOA and finished some shopping, then back to the hotel where Earl had a little rest before the game.

We were at the arena by 6 and watched our team unfortunetly loose to the Wild. (5-2) But we congratulate Tomáš Kopecký, on the birth of his baby and on scoring a goal. What a way to celebrate the birth of your baby on the same day. After the game we ventured or should I say adventured our way down to the dressing room. There were quite a few Detroit fans, so we were thankful that we had our "Special Access Passes", but still had a bit of a struggle getting past security until Jiri Hudler (#26) helped get us through. We had a nice visit with Jiri, Chris Draper and Steve Yzermann, before heading into the dressing room. We hung out again and then said our goodbyes....funny we were almost the last to leave the dressing room.

Once again a very big thank-you to Mike Babcock and the Detroit Red Wings for making yet another dream come true!!!!! I will post some pictures, in a bit.

Earl heads into hospital tomorrow morning for surgery at 10:30...so please think of him and keep him in your Prayers.

Debbie

Geeks shall inherit earth; and Goons shall inherit Nepal !!!

They said: Geeks shall inherit the earth. Yours truly agreed to it, of course since it was said by the geeks themselves. But being a quintessential Nepali, he has now decided to add a condition, post agreement and sans shame (of course).

If geeks shall inherit earth; Goons shall inherit Nepal.

Before explaining, or rather defending his stance, yours truly would like to go in a flashback mode. Eventually, he made a trip to the cricket match again (quite a trip through the capital alleys… oops, roads, especially during the ‘rush hour’, where the only part missing is rush).  On a bright sunny day, Nepal played Malaysia, for what eventually would be its first title in the Under-17 category.

Now, yours truly is a blessed person. Eternally so… For he gets to sit in the press box. Now, the press box is a suggestive term, meaning what it should be (that is all the media people packed in a shoebox), and not what it actually is. Apart from various kinds of people, from almost all genres of life (except work), the press people (commonly known as journalists) also sit in this open box. The press people, for most part, account for half the noise in the stadium, which seats some 10,000 people (give or take a couple of thousand).

As Nepali bowlers were trying to restrict the Malaysian batsmen, the pressmen’s talks could not be restricted. Here, yours truly would also like to apologize for using politically incorrect (but sometimes morally correct) term. The sports journalists, apart from men of all shapes, sizes and moods (mostly queer), also includes the female life forms these days. While some refer to them as beautiful play things, yours truly, in the best politically correct manner possible to him, would say that quite a number of exquisite young beings (invisibly blonde) are also a part of the genre called sports journalism.

Now, we’re in an age where freedom of expression reigns supreme. So the sports journalists here are not restricted to the game, in fact they hardly seem interested in it – or maybe they’re faking it to the passers-by, so as not to let them know how intelligent they actually are. In fact, in his two recent days in press box, yours truly hardly had a moment where these intellectual beings would talk about cricket, apart from his personal favorite – who he likes to term as pseudojournalist, just because pseudo is his favorite word and also because this person acted more like half coach, half player, half journalist, half out-of-asylum nut and half human being, apparently with many halves not present at the same time. Now this person was genius. He exactly knew where the fielders should be kept, which ball was to be bowled, which shot to be played, what kind of dive a fielder had to take – only that everything would come in after the ball had completed its movement. I hope the players never hear him talk in press box, for they might pull him out of press box and install him as a coach (with horses pulling the coach, of course).

Now, yours truly is stumped as to why the number of sports journalists is increasing. Perhaps the cricket lunch is a bigger reason than the interest in cricket. Alas, it’s also probably the same with the audience, otherwise how do we explain what we saw at the end of the match. Almost everyone, with exception of a few sane heads, entered the ground. Poor young players could hardly blink before they were covered. The unruly crowd made yours truly think:

If geeks shall inherit earth; Goons shall inherit Nepal.

For if the gentleman’s game is robbed of its serenity by the crowd behavior – which steals the winning bat of Nepali batsman and throws missiles, almost injuring the players he supposedly supports – well Goons shall definitely inherit Nepal. If they don’t inherit, they’ll make sure they grab it.

The enlightenment came to yours truly much after, as a nation, we developed a sense what goon-ism is, and all the benefits associated with it. Traffic, industries, workplaces, government offices, and of course on lonely alleys; you name it, these super species have already inherited it. The latest update on this is, that the threatening someone and punching them, and being nice enough to show anyone gun, and ask for extended co-operation, especially in kind (can’t call it extortion anymore) – jewellery, cash, any valuables will do – has become the most preferred way of social interaction on the day.

As far as the cricket match is concerned, Nepal won with ease. And yours truly feels, the man of the match, and the tournament, should have gone to Cricket Association officials, who have had years of experience seeing this, but did not want to miss the cheap thrill as thousands of people swarmed the players as locusts. Well, is there anyone still alive who wants to know how much the pitch suffered, and along with it, the spirit of cricket?