September 2002 Archives

It's five day to my wedding - five days! We're getting our license this afternoon and then have to take the required Natural Family Planing course tonight (allways at the last minute...).

We spent the weekend to D/FW. On Saturday, we went to DFW airport to pick up my family with Hanka's family. There flight got delayed half an hour and it took them some time to get out from the plane (with three small kids) and through customs. By the time they appeared, Hanka and her mom were nervous wrecks. Mom and Dad, as well as my sister and her husband, look just the same as when I last saw them. Rafael, Aline and Moritz have grown a lot, though. The biggest change was in Moritz who was a baby last time we saw him and now is a very energetic two year old. We managed to load everyone into their rental minivan (thanks to everyone who contributed a child seat) and made it back to Ron and Hanka's. Despite the jet lag, the kids managed to stay up until past eight, without exhibiting any major crankyness!

On Sunday we everyone at Six Flags - we even managed to convince Danny and Joanna to join us. Jennifer's dad scored $25 tickets for most of us and my parents and aunt got in on senior tickets. That is totally weird since my parents are not seniors, no matter what their birth date and Six Flag's rules say! It will be a long time before I can think of them in those terms.

Six Flags was hot and crowded and we still had lots of fun. We spent the first half with my family - moving slowly from attraction to attraction and then braking for lunch for my family's first corn dogs. After lunch Jfer and I split off and spend most of the time waiting in line for a couple of "adult" rollercoasters. At the end of the day we dropped of Danny and Joanna at their house, picked up Homer at Jennifer's dad's and headed back home to Austin. We now have two days of relative peace (and chores) before my family descends on us.

My parents, sister and her family are arriving at DFW tomorrow. We're driving up to Ft. Worth tonight and will pick them up at the airport the next day. I am so excited to see them again. I's been over a year and a half since I last saw them, on New Year's 2001 in Prague. I never really realize how much I miss them until it's time to see them again.

I'm also looking forward to having them on "my turf" again and getting to show them around. We're going to Six Flags on Sunday and they'll be arriving in Austin on Tuesday night. Which means a very busy cleaning day on Monday. Still, it'll be cool to kick back on Sunday before the final pre-wedding rush week.

My Optura 100MC camcorder arrived yesterday and it's a little beauty. I am still waiting for a couple of accessories that I ordered on eBay. The plan is to get some heavy use during the wedding and on our honeymoon. And then it's going to be my excuse to buy an 17" iMac so that we can edit videos on it. I love toys!

Dear Lloyd Dogget,

Today, September 26, I have read an article in the Austin American Statesman by Chuck Lindell titled “Dogget Carrying Anti-War Message”. It describes, among other things, your efforts to get your fellow congressmen to pause for a minute and give the Iraq issues more thought before jumping on the President Bush’s war bandwagon. I would like to applaud you for taking this stance, however negatively it may be painted by the hawkish factions in the government.

I understand that it is politically dangerous to be directly opposing the President’s policies towards Iraq, especially for anyone running for election. The administration has been quick to paint anyone who does not fall in step with their views as unpatriotic or even treacherous, whether they are a politician, a journalist or an allied country. That’s why I am glad that there are people in congress that dare to take an unpopular and possibly politically damaging stance on this issue.

I question the motives and justification behind the President’s push for an invasion of Iraq. Besides the say-so of his spokespeople, I too have not seen a direct connection between Saddam Hussein and the terrorist network responsible for the September 11 tragedy. As a matter of fact, the terrorist network seems to have had more support from “friendly” nations such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Whenever I hear Vice President Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld talk in absolute terms about Iraq and Saddam Hussein, it worries me that too many people unquestioningly believe their pronouncements, without taking the effort to compare alternate sources of information. Anything said often enough, will eventually be perceived as truth – and we have been hearing the Iraq rhetoric for a long time now.

I view the policy of unilateral military aggression as unwise and nearsighted. The current, as well as previous, administrations (Democrat and Republican) too often engaged in campaigns without clearly planning for long term consequences – and this seems to be another such instance. In my view, an attack on Iraq will not server the goal of keeping America safe and to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

On the contrary, attacking Iraq will destabilize the region (the administration’s view that deposing Saddam will turn Iraq into a modern democracy is either childishly optimistic or sadly naïve). Unilateral action by the United States will reinforce local perception of America as an imperialistic anti-Islamic country and will only grow the ranks of potential terrorists. Additionally, if there actually are biological and chemical weapons labs and stockpiles in Iraq, it is more than likely that during the chaos of a war they would get out of the clutches of Saddam and into the hands of more volatile militants who do not have Saddam’s strong sense of self-preservation and who would be much more likely to use them against us.

The final, and in my mind most troubling, aspect of Bush’s preemptive strike doctrine is its effect on future world politics. Not only will America be perceived as an international bully, but other countries are likely to use the self-defense excuse to justify their expansion or attacks on other countries. Some immediate examples that come to mind are Pakistan and Kashmir, Chine and Taiwan, and Russia and Georgia. If these countries do attack their neighbors then the United States will no longer have the moral ground to condemn them for it.

Please keep up the good work and take care to focus on the long term well being of America over short term political expediency.

Respectfully yours

Stepan Riha

Man my teeth were hurting tonight. After the numbness wore off, my teeth started to ache something bad. I don't think it's the fillings, but rather soreness from those rubber door stops they used to prop my jaws open while they were drilling. I felt a bit like Maurice from Pulp Fiction during the Gimp scene...

Jfer gave me an Alieve and everything is fine now.

I had a two hour dentist appointment scheduled for today to get my five cavities taken care of. I learned a lesson from my previous visit and requested nitrous oxide for the procedure. They obliged and provided me with that nose mask thingy (which barely fit my schnoz) and I greedily started inhaling. While the shots were no fun, the rest of it passed fairly quickly and painlessly while I was floating through the procedure. I'm not sure why they call it laughing gas, since I did not have the urge to laugh, even when Dr. B. shared a golfing joke (about a minister going to heaven with the punch line being something about Tee-time on Sunday). Maybe it was his deliverance - it's weird that all his jokes seem to take place in heaven.

Since the fillings went fairly quickly and David, the hygienist had an opening, I transferred into his room for the second half of my deep cleaning. "Deep Cleaning" sound fairly benign, but in dentist lingo it is called "Perio Scaling and Root Planing". "Root Planing" sounds plain evil and since my shots were wearing off by the time David got going and I was off the happy gas, it was not a pleasant experience. The weird thing is that David strongly reminds me of Colin Mochrie from Whose Line Is It Anyway?, however that doesn't make it any better. He's actually a nice guy, and always inquires about our wedding (Jennifer is scheduled for her cleaning next week). Since we had time - and apparently I had not yet suffered enough - he also offered to remove some stains on my teeth (to look my best in the pictures). This is done with a sand blaster like instrument that sprays baking soda at very high velocity. It's fine when it hits the teeth, but half the time it felt like my tongue and lips were being tattooed. I ended up with a mouth full of grit and chapped lips. When he said goodbye, he reminded me not to eat anything for a while because I might bite my "numb" lip. I was sorely tempted to ask what he meant by "numb", but didn't want to sound like a whiner.

So I was released from the torture almost four hours after the appointment started. I had made the mistake of drinking a 20 OZ drink right before going to the dentist so I spent the last hour focusing on bladder control. In retrospect, it was probably distracting me from the mayhem in my mouth, so it wasn't a bad thing after all.

As I was leaving the dentist's office, I sang out: Free at last, free at last, Hallelujah, I'm free at last! - until the next cleaning in three months, that is.

On Thursday it finally felt like fall. After a day of intermittend showers, the evening turned crisp and cool under a striking blue sky. And it continued Friday and yesterday. We took Homer to Wallnut Creek park (after a very long hiatus) and enjoyed a wonderful walk.

Of course, "walk in wonderful fall weather" generally translates into "sneezing, itchy eyes and voluminous snot" for me. Which is what happened. I think it's the molds that I'm allergic to, since they are riding really high right now. Antihistamines work for me but I don't like the way they knock me out, so I'm battling this with a decongestant. This reminds me of another New Year's resolution, which was to get a doctor and get him to write me a prescription for Claritin, or something else that works without turning me into a zombi.

We went to a Waltz workshop and a Nash Hernadez dance at UT yesterday. We hadn't been dancing in ages and don't want to disappoint at our wedding. The workshop and dance was nice but it's awkward when you have to take frequent breaks to blow you nose. Or when you notice that during a spin it's not just sweat that's flying off your face...

Speaking of the wedding dance. We still have not picked a song, nor, really, a style. Jfer had some suggestions but they weren't really dancable. We have potentially an instrumental slow foxtrot, but it's an awkward tempo. So we wonder, would "El Tango de Roxanne" from Moulin Rouge be too weird as a wedding dance? Probably, considering that tango originated in the brothels of Bueno Aires and that the lyrics are about jealousy. Bust still, what a kick ass song...

Since my pillow mattress is on the softer side and gives Jfer a back ache, we sometimes sleep in the guest room on her old and hard, albeit smalle, mattress. When I wake up in that room, it often takes me a minute before I open my eyes and realize that I am not in the bedroom. Since the two beds are perpendicular to one another, I get this weird sensation when my subconscious awareness of my environment rotates by 90 degrees and shifts by twenty feet. It's a really freaky thing, too.

I remember as a little kid sometimes pretending that I was laying the wrong way, with my feet towards the head of the bed, and I would try to picture the world around me that way. Later I would open my eyes and everything would be 180 degrees wrong. Waking up in the guest bedroom is similar, except it doesn't happen on purpose and is that much more disorienting.

I hate going to the dentist. I don't know whether it's due to my early experience of eastern European dentistry or due to the fact that pretty much every single of my molars has a filling or two, but I hate it, Hate It, HATE IT! So when my old dentist, Dr. Reese, retired a couple of years ago, I took it as an excuse to "take some time off". I never gave it much though, except when the occasional tooth ached or when I wondered about my teeth before a scuba dive. However, I had been feeling guilty about not going (must be the lapsed catholic in me) especially when Jennifer was so diligent about her attendance and considering the fact that my dental plan is so much better than hers. So my unofficial New Year's resolution was to get reacquainted with dentistry. And reacquainted I got.

Prelude
The first meeting was a week ago when the dentist, Dr. Besperka, did a general examination (noticing just one cavity), took full x-rays and then the dental hygienist did a cleaning. I was told that I'd need to come back for a deep cleaning (to treat periodontitis) and for general consultation and filling of my one cavity. Oh, and the x-rays might show something else, too. I scheduled the cleaning for right after the filling in order to be able to use the same numbing shot. I felt pretty upbeat - my insurance covered most of the costs and I only had one cavity.

Prognosis
Today was my second meeting and things look a bit bleaker. Dr. Besperka set me down and went over my x-rays. I could clearly see the fillings, the root canals (oh yes, I have had several), etc. He also pointed to several "gray areas" which, according to him, represented cavities that needed to get taken care of. A total of six, although one can wait till next year (gee, thanks). So maybe he needs a new boat or has kids in college or something since this stuff starts adding up.

The worst part of the consultation was this one gray area (which even I clearly made out) around the tip of my worst root canal which, according to Dr. B, indicates an abscessed tooth. It doesn't hurt right now, which is probably because it's at the bottom of a tooth that had been root canalled by Dr. Mengele a couple of years ago (I still vividly remember him screwing that metal stint into the tooth). I'll be referred to an endodontist who, more likely than not, is going to have to go in from the side (through the gum). Oooh baby!

Treatment
After the consultation I was placed in a dental chair and they started working on me. First there was the cherry flavored topical anesthetic for the shots which I though was a placebo (it's not the topical part that hurts during a shot but the deep part, when he's rooting around for who knows what). After the shots came the drilling and filling. Which actually wasn't all that bad, even though they did not offer me N2O (and they claim to be "sensitive to their patients' emotional and physical needs"). I even warranted the cute dental assistant.

After the filling Dr. B gave me a couple more shots to prepare me for the cleaning - these came without the topical anesthetic and I decided that it had not been a placebo after all. The deep cleaning and scraping was bearable, although David had to keep fighting with my semiconscious tongue half the time (my tongue was winning).

The Future
So now I feel like my lip is still swollen and I get to look forward to next week's two-hour drill-n-fill routine and then another appointment to finish the deep cleaning. And after that, I guess, I'll have to get my abscess taken care of. But when all that is done, I'll rent Little Shop Of Horrors and sing along with Steve Martin.

Last weekend we a wee bit hectic. On Friday night we drove (actually I was driving) up to Dallas (which meant a bath for Homer the night before) to Ron and Hanka's. Since Jfer's cruiser had to store both Homer as well as her bicycle, the driver's seat back was pretty much vertical all the way. The next day the chicks got together and Jennifer got to do the first fitting of her wedding gown. I didn't get to see the results, but cousin Hanka thought it looked beautiful. Aunt Hanka seemed to be quite happy with her work - and promptly took over the creation of Jfer's veil, too. And Jennifer seemed very relieved after the second thoughts she had started harboring about her design.

After a yummy lunch we said goodbye to the Schells (and Homer said goodbye to Pepper, the guinea pig he spent most of the time obsessing about) and left for Houston. After having driven a few hundred more miles we arrived at Margaret and Jerry's house. We actually made it too bed fairly early (after Homer managed to fall into their pool) since the triathletes were getting up around five next morning.

I blissfully overslept - being woken up by Elizabeth's phone call. I quickly packed Homer into the car and headed to Katy to the Cinco Ranch Triathlon. I had to park over a mile from the site. I took a shortcut through an innocent looking freshly mowed field only to be engulfed by a swarm of starving mosquitos, no doubt carrying malaria, West Nile Fever and who knows what else. I don't think I got bitten too much and neither did Homer, although his coat was covered with those beasts. Still, it gave me another reason never to want to live in Houston.

I spent the next couple of hours in heavy mist interrupted by light drizzle watching and cheering Jennifer and most of her family. The tri looked well organized and not too hard since the area is pretty flat. Everyone finished almost unscathed. Jennifer did not do as well as in previous races (she decided at the last minute to enter the Cinco without training for it) but I'll let is slip.

After the triathlon we spent some time and ate some pizza at Kathleen's and then there was another long drive home. This time the bike's handlebar was mere inches from my face.

So we got Jfer's dress accomplished but nothing else besides. I also managed to leave my camera in Houston, so no more pictures untill the wedding :-| The wedding is less than three weeks away and I am starting to stress a little. Mostly about the fact that although our RSVP deadline has arrived we still have quite a few invitations sans response - and the acceptance rate has been on the high side so we'd be busting the budget if we ever managed to actually make one.

We got to go to the wedding shower thrown by Jennifer's work and organized an hosted by Lynn Wright. The shower, though different, was as much fun as the one thrown by Elizabeth. I don't think there was quite as much alcohol consumption (even though my co-workers attended) but it was fun just as well. Any time Lynn and John have a party it's a great success and food is always awesome. As far as the shower goes, we made out like bandids, so now we have to find room for all the goodies (which Jennifer will accomplish by getting rid of my stuff) and write the tank you notes.

Rita came into town for the shower, so Jennifer was busy shopping and doing other mother-daughter stuff with her. Due to this, the weekend turned out to be mostly chore-less for me - a nice break from all the traveling and wedding preparations. It'll be back to the grind soon enough.

Homer tolerated the visit pretty well, too. He had a couple of nice walks this weekend, the rain has cooled everything down nicely. This morning we saw two baby snapping turtles, maybe three inches long, in the park close to where in the early summer we saw the big monster turtle hang out. The babies didn't look as vicious, but I bet they already could have chomped down pretty hard.

The Statesman had an article about design finalists for a 9/11 Texas State Memorial. A couple of the designs, all of which feature twisted beams from the WTC, actually look decent.

The crappy one, "a circle of three limestone walls separated by wrought-iron fencing" around a WTC beam is lagging way behind the other two on Statesman's poll (at a measly 6%). On the limestone walls would be inscribed the names of Texans killed at the WTC and in Afghanistan. So the look would be of an imprisoned WTC beam encircled by a poor copy of the Vietnam memorial, I guess.

The other two both look decent, but I prefer the natural look of the reflective pool design. No big lists of names, just natural granite and limestone, a soft waterfall and the beams left to weather with time.

The third one, a granite spiral looks rather cool, too, but just sounds too busy to me. According to the project leader, "the events of the day — the fall of the twin towers, the wreck at the Pentagon, the crash of Flight 93 in Pennsylvania and President Bush's address to the nation — would be marked along the rising granite wall". Apparently, "as the day went by, the news got worse and worse, but Bush's statements, they were inspiring." Maybe my memory is fading, but I remember an inspiring speech by New York's Rudolph Giuliani and an eloquent and heartfelt address by Britain's Tony Blair. As for Bush, I remember him running scared from place to place and then eventually doing one of his incoherent speeches.

Now I had no idea that the state was actually planning to build an official memorial to September 11. The memorial will be build at the State Cemetery to "honor the five Texans killed in the collapse of the towers and the three Texans killed in action during the ground war in Afghanistan". The board chairman said that "these are Texas heroes" and (emulating Bush's speech pattern) "this cemetery is for Texas heroes, for Texans."

I really get annoyed by the superlative terms used whenever anyone makes some sort of speech or public comment (and they seem to always do this when talking about anything remotely connected to 9-11). It so takes away from the meaning of a word when it gets overused all the time. Why in the world would the five Texans who were killed in the WTC be "heroes"? Unless they did anything extraordinary they simply were victims of a terrible act, no different from someone getting shot by a mugger, or run over by a drunk driver or killed by a misguided bomb. There is nothing heroic about those senseless deaths. Yes, there were heroes on September 11, they include the fire fighters and other emergency workers as well as regular people in and around the towers that were helping their fellow men and many of which paid for their effort with their lives. But in my eyes, just getting killed by a terrorist does not make one a hero - no matter how many politicians, pundits or TV specials say so.

Aunt Hanka arrived in Dallas on Wednesday, so we went up over the weekend for her to get started with Jennifer's dress. We were originally supposed to take with us my sewing machine, since it's better than my cousin's, but that turned into also bringing my cutting table and a dress maker's dummy. After we packed all the stuff in and finally left (after 8pm on Friday) I realized in Georgetown that the machine didn't make it into the car. So back we went and tried again. We eventually made it to Jfer's mom in Arlington before one AM.

Visiting Hanka's was nice. Kacenka is getting cuter every time we see her and while she was a little shy on Saturday, she really opened up the next day. Jennifer and aunt Hanka nailed down the final details of the dress style (always fun when you try translating terms that you don't quite know what they mean in either language) and it looks really promising. We just hope there is enough fabric. We're going back in two weeks for a fitting.

On Sunday, we invited Ron, Hanka, Kacenka and aunt Hanka over to Jennifer's mom's for burgers. If you think about it, Jerry and Rita have an awesome "entertaining" back yard with its perfect lawn and meticulously maintained pool. My family really enjoyed the afternoon. The food was great and Kacenka spend almost the entire time in the pool. The only bad thing was a plumbing incident which kept Jerry and Rita tied up for quite some time. I took some pictures, although my camera was configured incorrectly so they're a bit grainy.

We came back to Austin on Monday - missed a part we were invited to in the afternoon but made another BBQ party at Kat's. This means we had burgers three times this weekend, but we weren't complaining.