BagOfNothing.com

• As a treat, I feed BunnyGeeding (actual name Buno, after Bono) baby carrots straight from the fridge. I wonder if it bothers him they are chilled and not room temperature.
• When I was in the hospital, I wondered if my dogs slept in my bedroom where we all usually sleep or did they just slept in the living room and by the front door waiting for me to come home.
• Texas paid bitcoin miner Riot $31.7 million to shut down during heat wave in August
• How the heck? – ‘Dinner plate sized’ device found inside woman’s abdomen 18 months after cesarean birth
  • An Alexis retractor, or AWR, which can measure 17 centimeters (6 inches) in diameter, was left inside the mother’s body following the birth of her baby at Auckland City Hospital in 2020.The woman suffered months of chronic pain and went for several checkups to find out what was wrong, including X-rays that showed no sign of the device. The pain got so severe that she visited the hospital’s emergency department and the device was discovered on an abdominal CT scan and removed immediately in 2021.
• New North Texas water show the only one of its kind in North America –  The free show uses the same type of equipment as the water show at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.
  • “This is the same exact equipment, everything as the Bellagio, just about one-fourth the size,” Jensen said. But Jensen says it is just as captivating.
• Gen Z women are ditching pads, tampons and embracing ‘free bleeding’ in latest trend
  • The trend is called “free bleeding”, which means that you don’t wear anything to absorb the blood when you are menstruating. To be even clearer, it is about not using anything to block your period flow.
• I guess I’m somewhat normal, I just never knew it had a name – What is the ‘call of the void’?
  • This feeling — which tends to be brief, entirely out of character and often involves thoughts of leaping from a high place or driving headfirst into an oncoming vehicle — is more widespread than you might think. In fact, it’s so common, the French have a term for it: l’appel du vide. In English, this translates to “the call of the void.”
• Football coach who won Supreme Court case for right to pray on the field resigns after one game
• I had no idea they were close friends – When Jimmy Buffett and Bono almost had their plane shot down

• It was fun opening up the comments on my birthday. There were some unique user names I hadn’t thought about in a long while that brought an immediate smile to my face. I’m talking about you Bizarro Big Tex and Ricardo Perry.
• Many warm things were written, and I’m grateful for them all, but this one really touched me: “I root for you every day.” I’ve always wanted to be rooted for. I never really felt it from my ex. She was rooting for me, but it felt more like she was fulfilling a role other than rooting for me personally.
• I feel my back is healing moderately well. But, I’m on the fourth day of a severely pulled left hamstring. It’s the same leg I had problems with that resulted in my most recent back surgery. I don’t think the pulled hamstring and back surgery recovery are related.
• Most of you know I’m a big fan of late-night talk shows. Of course, the writer’s strike has hampered my enjoyment. But here’s something kinda neat, five of the late-night hosts have teamed up to do a podcast.
  • Episode one of “Strike Force Five” hosted by Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers and John Oliver is here. All proceeds go to support their out of work staffs during the strike.
• It’s funny how I can root for TCU in the last game of the previous season and then root against them in their first game of the new season. It’s mainly because they have a Briles on the coaching staff.
• One thing that is going under reported regarding Deion Sanders change your Colorado is his assistant coaches. For instance, former Dallas Cowboys defensive coordinator and former head coach of the Minnesota Vikings. Mike Zimmer is part of the staff. His offensive coordinator was formerly a college football head coach.  Coach Prime is doing a good job of controlling the media’s attention.
• I may have not been a Parrothead or attended a single Jimmy Buffett concert, but I did enjoy his laid-back music. Heck, some of his music has helped me post-divorce. I thought it ironic that he once got called for a technical foul at a Miami Heat game. Things about him I didn’t know until his death over the holiday weekend:
  • He attended Auburn.
  • “Margaritaville” was written about a drink Buffett discovered at Lung’s Cocina del Sur restaurant at 2700 W. Anderson Lane, Ste 101, in Austin.
  • I didn’t expect Sir Paul McCartney to write something so touching about Buffett on Twitter.
• Less: “Everything happens for a reason.”More: “The cruelty you endured will never make sense because it was senseless.”

  You’re not obligated to find a positive twist or make it make sense. There is peace in calling it what it is.

• Ok the guy who committed fan interference on Sunday Night Baseball is actually kinda awesome pic.twitter.com/RPJifC4UjI

  — Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) September 4, 2023

• Something I’ll surely visit in December when I’m in Vegas for their concert.
  

  U2 have also announced Zoo Station, a two floor exhibit at the Venetian, which neighbours the Sphere. More here: https://t.co/ZfexoNviof pic.twitter.com/8ePfKnsnqo

  — U2Songs.com (@u2songs) August 30, 2023

I so wanted to blog today and respond to all the love and kindness that many of you gave me. But I think I must have bitten off more than I can chew. Other than when I was in the hospital, I haven’t taken any time off of work. And since I have no accrued sick time, I’m trying to make up the hours I’ve missed by working longer days. It’s my first new job in 12 years and I feel the need to make it good impression. But even working from home, it can still be challenging. I have aches and pains come and go with a few muscle spasms in between, and when they spazz, they hurt.

• I’m back. Pun intended.
• So, how did my back surgery go? Well, it was supposed to be a simple one, and I guess it still was. It was supposed to be an outpatient procedure that started at 2:30 p.m., and I was initially told that I should be home by 7:00 p.m. That didn’t happen because they found a spinal fluid leak. From what I can remember (I was waking up from the anesthesia), a dissolvable patch was placed on my spine to stop the leaking. However, I needed to stay overnight because I had to lay flat in bed until the next afternoon or until my surgeon cleared me to ensure the patch stayed in place. Once I was cleared, I could sit at a 30° angle and, after a while, something more normal and even walking around.
• The dogs and that damn bunny needed to be taken care of. I expected to be home early enough to feed them. I had no idea I was going to have to stay three nights in the hospital. Thankfully, BoyGeeding and DaughterGeeding were able to talk their mother into stopping by a few times per day to let the dogs out and feed them.
• Laying flat on my back for about 20 hours was excruciating. I know others have gone through much worse, but this was hard for me. As if wearing compression socks wasn’t uncomfortable enough with the catheter stuck up my private, bed sores were getting to me, and I started to panic as I felt a sense of claustrophobia. I guess I was having a panic attack. I was having a hard time breathing even though I knew nothing was constricting me from doing so, and I had an oxygen line under my nose. There was talk of giving me a Xanex, but they ended up giving me Valium instead. Here’s a little something if you are interested in the difference between the two. Basically, Valium will take effect faster and is longer lasting.
• I had to eat and drink during that time, lying flat on my back. It was odd, counterintuitive, and difficult. It was just a very unnatural thing to do. Thankfully, at least one elder came by to visit to help pass the time. And time, let me tell you, was monotonous and could pass fast enough.
• When I got the clear to sit at 30°, I thought it was a good thing, but it triggered back spasms, and they were painful, and I had no idea if they were going to stop. I yelled at the top of my lungs for help crying out in pain because I didn’t know what to do. I like to be the “perfect patient.” You know, the kind that never complains. But I was now way past that, clinging to the side of the bed. Thankfully, the surgeon walked in, and I cryingly told him I was in the worst pain in my life. He said I shouldn’t be hurting much from this surgery, which he thought went well, but muscle spasms occurring near the area operated on can cause problems. They upped my morphine and gave me a strong muscle relaxer. I was able to calm down and thank God I was no longer hurting, but I was scared to move an inch, thinking it could start up again. Which it did about three more times as those medicines wore out.
• I was told if I could walk, I could go home on Saturday. I couldn’t walk. It was so painful just trying to stand. I tried to walk again on Sunday, but no luck. Thankfully, PT came in on Sunday and Monday to work with me, and I was able to make a little progress.
• It hurt when they removed my catheter. But for some reason, I am cursed with the inability to urinate on my own after anesthesia. They also said one of the qualifiers for going home was the ability to pee on my own. It simply wasn’t happening, no matter how hard I tried. I was reminded of a Beavis and Butthead episode where Beavis couldn’t or forgot how to pee. It hurts having a full bladder and not being able to get it out. So, I humbly asked the nurse for a catheter. The first one she got didn’t work; it wasn’t going through past my prostrate for some reason and was curling up. She asked me if I could feel it curling up. I told her I had no idea what that felt like; I simply just didn’t know. So she had to get another one, a different type. Thankfully, that one worked, and I had complete relief, though I wished it poured out of me much faster. Thankfully, later in the day, I could go on my own.
• I wish I were loved enough to have someone there as I went through all this. But, this was an opportunity to work on adversity and resiliency.
• My original ride home could no longer take me home, but thankfully, my associate pastor helped out.
• It’s nice coming home after a few days and seeing how happy the dogs are to see me.
• I want to tell you more, but I can’t think of them right now. If they come to me later, I’ll let you know.
• I’ve already set the DVR to record – A tribute to honor the life and legacy of television legend and animal rights activist Bob Barker is set to air on CBS on Thursday, Aug. 31.
• Gunshot Victim at White Sox Game Reportedly Snuck Weapon In By Hiding It In Her Fat Folds
• This Texas town has about 250 people. It has 50 sworn police officers.
  • The city limit sign on the side of State Highway 155 reads “POP 249.” In a town of barely 250 residents, there are 50 full-time and reserve officers in the department. That is five times the number of cops than any town its size, according to Texas Commission on Law Enforcement records.
• I was really impressed with this new software that’s supposed to help response times during school shootings. – I really recommend watching the video. Personnel is able to see what’s going on in each classroom in real time and lock down any room immediately.
  • When an emergency happens in a school, response time is critical, so Ivo Allen created 911Inform, a security software designed to connect on-site staff, dispatchers and first responders simultaneously for anything from a fight to a health issue to gun violence.“We basically connect into the phones in the building, the camera system, the HVAC, all the technology that’s in the building,” Allen said, noting schools that have implemented the technology have seen a 60% reduction in response time.In a demonstration of the technology, the system immediately picked up a 911 call made by Allen from inside a school and instantly showed where the call came from. The system allowed him to see the location of the classroom, the best route from the nearest door, and it can show live surveillance cameras.“With one touch I can lock down the building,” Allen said.
• Companies are now “quiet cutting” workers. Here’s what that means.
  • While reassigned workers remain employed, the reassignments often land them in roles with titles that are less prestigious, come with lower pay, and are more demanding.
• Wyoming spends $136,000 on each prison inmate annually, while Mississippi spends $18,410. The average state spends $45,771.
• Thanks for dropping me a line, Erin. That unexpected message brought a smile.
• “Only a Sith deals with absolutes.”
• Beyonce and Taylor Swift need to collaborate. Just think of the hysteria that would occur.
• It’s my birthday, and I can cry if I want to turn on comments for a day if I want to. Here’s your one-day chance to tell me I’m a commie liberal, horrible father who deserves all the bad stuff that’s happened to him over the past three years and deserves to rot in Hell.