Mike Munhall

I’m still here, even though I haven’t written in a while.  I’ve been spending most of my “blog time” working on my new photoblog.   Check it out:  http://www.mikemunhall.com/photography/.

I got a Honda Element after the Jeep was totaled.  I still have to take a few pictures and show it off.  I love the Element.  I absolutely love it.  I’ll provide details in another post.

Dorrie and I took a week off from work during my spring break.  I was sick the last two days before I took off for vacation, sick through the weekend, and sick the first two days of vacation.  It sucked.  But, I’m over it and somehow Dorrie escaped without getting sick at all.

Cash is doing very well.  I think he likes us.

OK, now go check out that photoblog.  Chop chop.

Tonight, as I’m finally getting over the flu and finally getting my vacation started, Dorrie and I are dealing with another episode with our cat Simon. Around 10:00 tonight we found him wandering around the house, disoriented, and just acting very strange. He would wander along a wall and when he encountered an object he would drag himself over it and continue his examination of the wall. Occasionally he would get himself stuck in a corner and couldn’t figure out how to get out.

This got progressively worse over the next 15 minutes as he would traverse the same path over and over and get stuck in the same corners. No matter how many times we would help him get unstuck, he’d get himself stuck again in the same places.

Simon has been diabetic for about five years now. We had a hunch that Simon was suffering from hypoglycemia (low blood sugar). We gave him a few drops of Karo syrup and watched to see if he perked up. After 10 minutes there was no change. Time to call the emergency vet. Again. On a Sunday night. Again. Just before bed. AGAIN.

We brought Simon to the emergency vet to have him checked out. We let the vet tech know what we observed in his behavior and gave details of how much Karo syrup we gave him. Incidentally, Simon did perk up just a bit on the way to the hospital, so our suspicion that he was suffering from low blood sugar seemed appropriate. However, the vet said that Simon’s blood sugar level, while low, wasn’t entirely dangerous. She did a few other tests that came back without any strong indication of what was happening with our cat.

The vet decided that the best course of action would be to let us keep tabs on him overnight and call his regular vet in the morning for a battery of additional tests. On a hunch (this is the second hunch of the evening), I told the vet what I told the vet tech about giving Simon the Karo syrup and about how he perking up just slightly on the way to the hospital.

You could almost see the vet put the pieces of the puzzle together along with the missing piece that I had just given her. She said that his glucose level was where she would have guessed it would be for him to have suffered from dangerously low blood sugar and then given a small amount of syrup. Without that information, there’s no telling what Dorrie and I would be doing with our cat right now. The vet tech dropped the ball by not giving all the information to the vet.

Anyway, this is much too long of a story already. We’re home. It’s now Monday, and after some more syrup and a light snack, Simon is now sitting quietly on the floor wondering what just happened. We still have to get him to his regular vet in the morning, but at least Dorrie and I can get some sleep.

Good night.

I’m just now getting over the flu. It hit last Wednesday after school. It lasted a total of four days. This flu is a doozy. It’s the typical aches and fever, and lots of, ummm… well, let’s just say I spent a lot of time in the bathroom the last few days.

My friends from Albuquerque were in town this weekend and I missed them because of the bug. I missed two days of work last week, and I was supposed to be starting a week-long vacation. Great way to kick start a holiday, huh?

To top off my shitty week with the Jeep, I had to take Simon the emergency vet last night to have this really nasty, pus-filled, black, red and white infection looked at.  It turned out to be only a minor emergency and Simon will be okay (I won’t go in to the gross details about his blocked anal gland).

I usually like to have at least one photo or image with each post.  Not this time.

The adjuster came to look at the Jeep this morning.  It’s totaled.  There was significant frame and suspension damage.  This is especially shitty because I just spent $2600 on service and new tires.  Pardon my frustration, but what a fucking drag.

I was in a wreck last night. Nobody was hurt. Here’s what happened: It snowed all day and the temperature had been just right to turn all the heavy, wet snow to a solid sheet of ice after the sun went down. I was coming from home school and driving up Wildcat Reserve around 7:45. I was traveling about 50 yards behind a white Bronco-like vehicle. The Bronco was simply going too fast and just lost control while going up a hill. He (or she) spun 180 degrees and into oncoming traffic in the opposite lanes. A guy traveling in the opposite direction in an Avalon had to swerve to avoid hitting the Bronco and, of course, couldn’t control his car on the sheet of ice. He spun out of control and into my lanes. I swerved to the right and braked to avoid a head-on collision. I avoided the head-on wreck, but the back of the Avalon nailed Hans on the driver’s side door.

My Jeep bounced off the Avalon and I was thrown slightly toward the passenger side. After I got my senses back together, I tried to pull off to the side of the road, but realized that I was already halfway on the grass embankment on the shoulder. Meanwhile, the Avalon that hit me was sliding down the hill that I was just traveling up. It eventually came to a rest. I was near the top of the hill, the Bronco was on the opposite side of the street on the other side of the crest of the hill, and the Avalon was on the bottom of the hill about 100 yards away.

The driver of the Avalon got out of his car and started walking up the icy street. We met about halfway, made introductions and verified that we weren’t hurt. The driver’s name was Dave, and he turned out to be one of the nicest guy’s I’ve ever met. Too bad we had to meet in an auto accident. Dave and I waited for the driver of the Bronco to get out of his car and walk over to us. However, he just turned around and continued driving to wherever he was going.

We called the police, who said that because they were on accident alert they don’t respond to accidents unless someone was hurt. Because the driver that caused this accident took off, however, the police considered the incident a hit-and-run so they came to investigate and try to track down the criminal prick that bolted after the wreck.

Anyway, I sit here now, after about an hour and a half of phone calls with insurance adjusters and rental car agencies. Hans was towed to the house last night and is awaiting a visit with adjuster tomorrow morning. He has two flat tires, some wheel damage, a bashed in door, some dents and scratches along the entire driver’s side, a shredded steel step side, and possibly some damage to the frame from where the side step was attached and then torn off.

I’m not upset at all. This is just simply a pain in the ass to have to deal with. The wreck wasn’t terribly bad. I wasn’t shaken from the impact since I could see it all about to happen in slow motion. Not the kind of “Nnnnnoooooooooooo!” slow motion where everything slows down to a surreal speed like in the movies, but a 25 mph slow where you can literally see it coming from far away and just can’t do anything about it and you say, “Well, here it comes. Position yourself. Hang on. I wonder what’s for dinner? Dorrie’s going to panic when I tell her I was in a wreck. These roads are really slick.”

And then, BANG! ARGH! SCREEEEEEEETCH! Hissss…..

Here are more photos: Flickr Photo Set