You may not know this, but I'm an old man.

Wow, more than 10 days without an entry... I committed a blog-sin. I apologize to my readers (yup, both of you) for the absence. In my defense, a lot has been going on lately - some of which I'll be writing about today.
  First and foremost, I have the body of a 60+ year old man. I'm serious. In 2003 I missed the first half of my high school graduation because I was in the emergency room. What was I there for? Kidney stones. Kidney stones, a problem most people never have to think about until they're much older. And I've had quite a few of them by this point in my life. Now I have yet another old man condition. I have shingles. I shouldn't even be at risk for it until I'm much older - hell, the vaccine isn't even recommended until you turn 60! To quote the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke: "About 25 percent of all adults, mostly otherwise healthy, will get shingles during their lifetimes, usually after age 40. The incidence increases with age so that shingles is 10 times more likely to occur in adults over 60 than in children under 10." Ridiculous, isn't it? Anyway, shingles is basically a resurgence of the chicken pox virus that stays dormant in your body (yup, the pox never actually leaves you after you've had it), only this time it attacks your nerves specifically. So when you get shingles you don't get the characteristic spots all over your body, just concentrated in a few batches or as a band around a single nerve cluster. Additionally you can't spread the virus through the air (by sneezing, coughing, talking, or anything else) because shingles doesn't infest your respiratory system like chicken pox does. The only way to spread it is through direct contact with the sores (or obviously by touching your sores and then touching somebody else before washing your hands). And you can't infect somebody with shingles - you can only give them chicken pox, and then only if they have not had them before. They say shingles can grow to be quite painful along the infected nerve. It's also not uncommon to end up with long term or even permanent nerve damage due to the infection. But honestly, so far it hasn't been that bad. I'm a little more than a week into the infection and it's been fairly manageable. I rarely itch and my spots (a large patch on the small of my back and smaller patches on my inner thigh, butt cheek, and shin) only hurt when something accidentally bumps or brushes against them. The medication is kicking my ass though. I'm taking Acyclovir and almost immediately after taking a pill I always feel weak, woozy, kinda silly, and get a fairly harsh headache. Ah well, I can handle it. Supposedly shingles typically last around 5 weeks or so, so I've still got a fairly long journey with this stuff. Sucks that it has to be at Thanksgiving though - it's my favorite time of the year!
  Speaking of the holiday season, we reach my second point for today... my birthday. Being born between Halloween and Thanksgiving, my birthday has always sort of marked the beginning of the winter holiday season for me. For birthdays and Christmas in my family, we always do wish lists. I usually try to put at least 5 or so items on the list and range the prices from 10 bucks to about 60 or so. This year I think I got everything I asked for on my birthday (man, what am I going to ask for on my Christmas list?)! My list was fairly modest, but that's excited none the less. Here's a quick list of my relevant loot:

• Large book-style cd wallet, holds more than 200.
  
• 7in high-quality santoku style kitchen knife.
  
• A couple of heavy-duty high-quality nonstick pans (nice to have finally have a few that aren't just cheapos).
  
• D&D core book set to replace those lost and/stolen by the moving company a year ago (technically I got a Borders gift card, but that's what it was for).
  
• Neverwinter Nights 2 (PC game).
  
• Enough money to buy a new graphics card that can actually play my new game.

All in all, I was pretty happy with my birthday. Not only did I get some fantastic presents, I also had some incredible food. Duck a l'orange special ordered from this great little gourmet marketplace down here, almost-free crab legs at the Jolly Roger seafood joint, and many helpings of Brenda's ever-incredible chicken cordon bleu. I couldn't have asked for more.
  The final point worth mentioning today, is the upcoming move. I'm not sure whether of not I've already mentioned it here, but come early 2008 we're moving away from our dreary little town of Currituck, NC and heading back home to the DC metro area of Northern Virginia. We've officially told my parents (we're renting the top-floor apartment from them) and now we're looking for places and starting to put in applications for employment. We miss the convenience of life of there, and more importantly we really miss our friends. But the rent prices are much higher - so every pray or cross you fingers that we'll be able to find a suitable place that we can really afford. As for jobs, I put in an application to the work in a Marriott kitchen with a recommendation from a friend who works there. It may not be my long-term career choice (eventually I'd like to go into something in finance, preferably as a financial planner), but the culinary world is hobby I'm fairly passionate about so I'm still excited about the prospect of learning as much as a I can in a commercial kitchen. Once we're settled and I can afford it, I'm plan on taking some classes to work more towards my goal in finance.

Well folks, that's it for now. Sorry about the lapse in updates. I'll try to get better about that. I know I have at least two more posts I want to make before November is over - a really good eggroll recipe I created by adapting a slightly similar recipe from Gourmet magazine, and a hottie post starring a woman I think is probably the single most attractive lady alive. So look forward to those and thanks as always for taking the time to read!