The R.A.N III Experience

Hawaii

Per usual I’m tardy to the party (“Good things come to those who wait, so I’ma be at least about an hour late…” as Kanye says) when it comes to updating the blog. As some of you may know I was in Hawaii about 3 weeks ago and I have to say it was absolutely ridiculous. Here is a quick recount of some highlights.

I flew into LAX on Saturday May 14th and had some time to kill so of course I had to find a good bar and being in Cali it was simple to find a bar boasting the best margaritas (best in the airport or best in Cali I have no idea). This seemed like an easy decision so I rolled in and got a big ass margarita (which was actually really good). After 2 margaritas I got a phone call from Lo, her and my parents had just landed. Not long after I was joined by 4/5 of the family. Not long after this we were back on an airplane and flying over the Pacific Ocean.

Upon arriving in Hawaii we were greeted by my cousin, Chris who brought us fresh leis. Getting leid by my cousin was not so much what I was hoping for but nonetheless it was cool of him to bring leis. After a quick drive from the airport we arrived at Hawaii Kai, Oahu, the city where my aunt/uncle live. At this point we were joined up with Amy who had arrived earlier in the day from Chicago, the Nalette/Stump clan was nearly complete sans Uncle Jim who was stuck in Saipan and Matt who was in Cali with preggo wifey.

The Stump house is gorgeous. It’s a ranch-style home in a gated community, basically the last one on the street that abuts up against a championship golf course. Complete with in ground pool and jacuzzi which I spent probably 90% of my vacation in.

I’m not going to talk about every single thing we did, that’s what pictures are for. I’ll tell you that snorkeling at Hanauma Bay was really bad ass, I wish I had an underwater camera for that, it was absolutely gorgeous and it’s one of the top rated snorkeling sites in the entire world. Also, taking the hour drive to the North Shore of Oahu was unbelievably amazing as well as visiting Pearl Harbor (somber, yet very educational).

The nightlife was fantastic! Most of the time we ended up going to downtown Waikiki as this is where everything is popping off. I experienced all kinds of bars, from your hole-in-the-wall, to your swanky, to your on the beach, to your college spring break spot, to your Irish Pub and everything in between. One of my favorite things to do downtown (after imbibing in drinks, of course) was to yell at the prostitutes on the main strip in downtown Waikiki, entertainment for days.

All in all, this was 100% one of the best vacations we have ever taken. I met a lot of really cool people (friends of my cousins), got lots of sun, and relaxed like it was my job. It’s hard for me to believe that people actually work in Hawaii, I feel like if I ever moved there I wouldn’t want to do anything…ever.

I haven’t updated the site with photos yet, if you’re on Facebook you can see them there but I’ll get them uploaded later today or tomorrow and update appropriately.

Oh, These Knees

It seems as far as I can remember that my knees have hurt me in some way or another.  In high school I played football, lacrosse, and roller hockey and even then they weren’t perfect.  Probably about a year ago my left knee started bothering me more than my right knee (which seems to always have been the worse one).  Acting like a stereotypical man I assumed it would just get better on its own and that seeing a doctor would be a waste of time and money.  Unfortunately, for me it never got better, in fact it started hurting more.

Fast-forward to about a month ago.  It became clear to me that the worsening pain in my left knee would need to be addressed.  Luckily, my team leader at work informed me of his orthopedic surgeon who just so happens to be part of the best orthopedic teams in the country.  I’m speaking of Rosenberg Metcalf Cooley (RMC) the orthopedic clinic at Park City.  Before I get into what’s wrong with my knees, here is a little info about RMC.

RMC is highly regarded and one of the best orthopedic clinics in the country.  The doctors here do a lot of pro athlete surgeries.  In fact, Dr. Metcalf and Dr. Cooley both worked on Tiger Woods’ knee after he tore his ACL at the PGA US Open in 2008 doing the ACL repair and two scopes.

My surgeon is Dr. Cooley.  Not only is he a Harvard Medical School graduate but he is also the U.S. Ski and Snowboard team physician, as well as the physician for the Park City Olympic venue when the winter Olympics were here in 2002.  Most people are nervous for surgery; however, knowing that I have the best doctors in the country doing this gives me a lot of reassurance.

RMC has two locations, one in Park City and one in Murray.  My initial appointment was at the Murray office with Cooley a month ago.  I went in obviously hurting and I expected to see the doctor for maybe all of three minutes which during that time he would just tell me I’d need to get an MRI.  My experience was actually quite different.  They started off by x-raying my knees at a bunch of different angles to make sure there weren’t any bone fractures.  After this, Cooley came into my room and pulled up the x-rays on a computer and gave me a play-by-play of what he saw and didn’t see from the x-rays.  Finally, he had me lay on the bed while he worked my knees, feeling for grinding and listening to what kind of sounds my knees made.  I’m not sure what he did to my left knee but pushing on a particular area and having pull my knee toward my chest caused it to really hurt, this is how he determined that I have a torn medial meniscus.  My right knee has what is called chondromalacia patellae, or softening of the articular cartilage of the knee-cap.   After my diagnosis had been made he told me about the surgery and that I could do just the left one or he could do both knees at the same time but it was really up to me.  He was really informative and I didn’t get the sense that he was rushing to get out of my patient room to see the next person waiting so I really had a good experience here.

The earliest surgery time for me was May 3^rd, as I’m writing this means its tomorrow (check in at 9 AM, surgery at 10:30 AM).  That is also eleven days prior to the Hawaii vacation.  I decided that even though Hawaii was two weeks after this surgery date/time that I would go ahead and do both my knees.  My thought was that at some point I’d probably need the right one worked on so I’d rather just do them both at the same time and get it taken care of now, especially while I’m young(ish).

Well, it’s 11:19 PM and I have to get up early for this! Since I am going to be under anesthesia I needed a ride home, lucky for me though, Carrie was awesome enough to take work off and do it. Well, bed time for me, wish me luck. By the way, below is a random picture of one of the x-rays I snapped. It really means nothing, I just think its cool.

Random Nonsense

It’s been a few weeks since the last update and I haven’t forgotten to write some new stuff I just haven’t had anything really profound that I wanted to talk about.  The weeks are all the same: work 8-5, gym 5-7, then relax and repeat the next day.   Obviously, I’m trying to get into good shape here for the upcoming Hawaii adventure as well as having to don a tuxedo in July for the big wedding (not mine – duh).  My working out has been going quite well.  I can leg press 400+ lbs, squat 210, and I’ve maxed out Planet Fitness’s dumbbells (75 lbs) for dumbbell bench pressing.  Equally impressive, my mile time has gone from 11+ mins to 8:50 and I can run 2 miles in about 16:40.

Unfortunately, all of this hard work has been rough on my knees.  It’s becoming a daily struggle, especially for my left knee to do any kind of plyometric activity.  I’ve tried ice, patellar tendon straps, drugs, you name it, and nothing seems to work.  My team leader at work has hooked me up with his orthopedic surgeon (who works directly with the surgeon that fixed Tiger Woods’ knee after he tore his ACL) who at some point I am going to call to make an appointment.  Frankly, I’m hoping it’s something that can be cured with surgery or physical therapy so we can just get it taken care of and fixed and I can be on my merry way with working out.

Last week I decided that it was time for me to buy an Xbox 360.  I honestly am not sure what propelled this; however, streaming Netflicks is awesome as is the Gears of War franchise of games.  I decided to go with the 250 GB Xbox because frankly I didn’t want flash memory which the 4 GB one has.  The downside to this was that every single place in Utah was sold out of the 250 GB only Xbox system and if I wanted it I had to buy the combo pack that includes that PLUS the Xbox Kinect (which is basically Microsoft’s answer to Nintendo’s WII).  I bit the bullet and got the combo pack.  I figured that having the Kinect was really like having a Xbox and a Wii all at the same time so why not?

On Friday, Carrie, AJ, and I tried out the Kinect and let me tell you – it’s pretty awesome.  Granted, 2/3s of us were intoxicated while playing, but even so it’s very accurate and not having to hold a controller really gives you a sense of freedom.  The only game I have for it is the one that comes with the purchase of the Xbox+Kinect but it’s still pretty legit.  I definitely would like to get Dance Central so I can kick Bobbi’s ass at dancing as well as Kinect Sports as I’ve been hearing it’s pretty fun.  One of the cool features of the Kinect is that during game play it takes snapshots of you and your friends playing that it shows you afterwards and you can even upload them online.  I’ll have to look at them again and see if there are some good ones I can put up on here for laughs.

Finally, March Madness is almost over and I will undoubtedly lose to my father in our own bracket challenge which means I owe him cocktails and a cigar when we’re in Hawaii (is it May yet?).  You can’t blame me, first time no #1s or #2s have made it to the Final Four?  That’s crazy, but it happened.  I guess I’m going to continue to pull for VCU to win the whole damn tourney now.  How amazing would it be if an 11 seed won it all?  At least Florida and Duke lost!

The 3 B’s of Hawaii (or 4 if you’re my dad)

In approximately two months I will be lounging on a beach in Hawaii.  No, seriously.  The dad apparently got some bonus money that he and the mom decided they want to use to fly the whole family down to Honolulu to visit the Stump clan.  I have to say I wasn’t against this idea at all.  I’m taking off from Utah on May 14^th where I fly to L.A., at this point Amy and I reunite on our plane as we fly down to the rainbow state.  I have to say the word “excited” really doesn’t do justice.  I mean, Hawaii has the 3 B’s on lockdown (the dad added the 4^th) – beaches, babes, beer, and bourbon.  We are going to dominate Hawaii.

Another exciting thing to point out about this adventure is that (randomly) at the exact same time I’m in Hawaii my friends Chandra and Scott will also be vacationing there.  Same island and all!  It is definitely a priority that we get to hang out at least for a few hours and knock back some drinks considering I don’t see  them anymore due to them bailing out of UT for year-round warmth in Cali (can you blame them?).

A few weeks after this great trip ends Laura and KP are going to be flying out to Utah to basically rock out with me for a few days.  Tentatively, they will fly in on a Wednesday evening, I’ll work Thursday while they go hiking or something and then I’ll take Friday off in which we will probably go camping in the Uinta Mountains.  I’m hoping that Matt and Bobbi will be able to come with for the camping but now that Roberta is preggo there is no telling if it will happen or not.

And finally, the weather here in SLC is beginning to slowly but surely warm up (albeit the random ass snow storm we had Monday).  In fact, it was damn near 60 last Saturday which provoked me to take the CBR out from winter storage in the garage.  I was a little nervous to ride it again since it’s been like 4ish months or so but, it’s just like riding a bike (literally).  I can’t wait until its regularly nice out!

Twitter Fam

Some of you may have heard me talking about my “Twitter friends”.  This post is going to outline the whole twitter friends story so I don’t have to explain it every time someone asks me.

A few months ago Chandra tried to set me up with her friend, Lindsay to which I agreed.  The following weekend Chandra, Scott, Lindsay, and I went out to some restaurant (and this restaurant’s name is escaping me) in Trolly Square.  And although the date went well, Lindsay and I really didn’t hit it off like that.  However, she was a cool chick and we continued to be friends, “following” each other on Twitter and speaking fairly regularly.  It was this act of accepting to follow one another that really got the ball rolling.  About a month or so after the date Lindsay invited me to a party in which she claimed to really know no one, but knew them via Twitter.  At the last minute I decided that I’d show up to this party.  As usual I rolled in fairly late, hey, it’s like Kanye West says: “Good things come to those who wait, that’s why I’ll be at least an hour late…”.  So I called Lindsay, letting her know I had arrived, she came out and we walked up to the house where I was immediately introduced to the home owner (Jeff).  I knew right away this dude was legit and we proceeded to talk for a while.  Throughout the night I met many other Twitter folk.  I could sit here and name all the Twitter names of people I met, but that isn’t the point.  The point is, via this one simple blind date I have met at minimum 10 pretty awesome people that I’ve hung out with on multiple occasions (including tonight!) and I’m so thankful for it.

It’s not normally my style to randomly go to parties in which I know no one (like I did on that one faithful night).  I mean seriously, I went to this party of roughly 25 people and only knew 1 person there but I feel like at this point of my life I have nothing to lose.  I’m willing to do just about anything  if it takes me out of my comfort zone and gets me involved in new things.  Going on that date was one of the best decisions I’ve made since I’ve been in Utah, no doubt!

So if you ever hear me talk about my “Twitter friends” you’ll know what I mean.  God bless um.