My body hates me. It has every reason to. Short of subjecting it to the viewing of a Harry Potter movie, I've been pretty rough with it lately.

It started a couple of weeks ago when I decided to pound pavement and go for a good old-fashioned run. I've been working out very regularly on our elliptical exercising device, but in anticipation of an upcoming physical exam I decided to take a run lest a different variety of muscles are used between the different activities. The answer is "yes". I realized that about 15 feet into my run. Apparently the elliptical doesn't really require use of your quadriceps, strangely enough. I think the run clocked in at about 5 miles. Every step was a special treat. I felt like a pretty big pansy.

I only relate the next part of my story because of the entertainment value it may provide, although it is germane. My legs increased in soreness quite a bit over the next few days. One morning I got up to get the twins out of bed. I was carrying both of them down the stairs when I slipped a couple of steps from the bottom. I was able to hold onto Jaxon, but Mason took a little spill. He bumped his head and scratched his arm a little, but wasn't too upset by the ordeal. I, on the other hand, took quite a bit of meat off the inside of my left arm and off my left ankle. This was in addition to the general soreness of landing on your back and sliding down the stairs while carrying an extra 50 lbs. of weight.

So, next I went with R., D., M., J. and C. (J.'s friend) to Downieville for some mountain biking action. We rode the Big Boulder trail, which was all okay. The weather was a mixture of warm and cold with scattered showers. While coming down the first big downhill stretch after the first big climb, I incorrectly negotiated a little crop of rocks and ended up over the handlebars and on my stomach. Other than having the wind knocked-out of me I didn't notice any significant pain. I had some minor gashes in my arm (properly packed with dirt, so no biggie). My pinky hurt where my ring crunched it. When I started riding I started to feel some pain in my left hand. I finished the ride without further incident, but continued to feel some pain in my hand.

Over the next couple of days the pain in my hand failed to decrease and even increased a bit. I had difficulty bending my hand very much in any direction and it hurt to pick-up or pinch things using my thumb. I also began to notice some swelling in my wrist. The following Monday while pulling on my pants I felt a pop in my hand. I suddenly had dramatically improved use of my hand, although it was still sore. Based on my extensive medical training, I think that I dislocated my carpometacarpal joint. Anyway, I think that I'm recovering from that, although I still have some soreness in my thumb.

So, as I was recovering from all that stuff, the day of my physical exam (mentioned previously) came around. The exam wasn't overly difficult. Highlights included push-ups using my gimpy hand, sprinting 300 meters and then immediately running 1.5 miles in the late morning heat. I handily passed the physical exam but it will be a few weeks before I find out about the accompanying written exam.

**** NOTE FROM THE EDITOR ****

7/22/09 - The above post was written on 6/22/09 but was never published. I'm posting it now in it's original form and will follow-up with a separate post imminently.

Well, Bryce is growing-up quite a bit faster than we expected. He's now 4 years old. Just kidding! Actually, he is 6-months old today. He has been rolling completely over for the past few weeks, which has made things more exciting around here. You set him down in one part of the room and a few minutes later you have no idea where he went. He is becoming very good at identifying what he wants and then maneuvering across the room to get it.

In addition to being able to hold his own bottle, Bryce has also been eating a wider variety of food - sweet potatoes, applesauce, squash and the like. I wanted to give him some Mexican Pizza from Taco Bell, but Emilie said no. I'm sure he would have liked it. Everyone likes Mexican Pizza. That's a joke, too, by the way. Everyone knows you can't feed a baby Mexican Pizza until he's learned to eat a burrito.

More importantly, he basically sleeps through the night. He still tends to get up extremely early, but sometimes he sleeps until 7 or 8a.

With all the constant craziness in our house the past 6 months have gone by pretty fast.

I've had to become a little handier than usual lately.

When we bought this house there were a lot of shelves for storage built into the garage. When the previous occupants left they ripped everything out and left the garage bare, except for a billion giant holes in all the walls. In general, this probably wouldn't have bothered me except that I had to leave all my speakers at our last house because they were attached to the ceiling. We were told that anything attached to the house had to stay. And I still haven't been able to replace those speakers. So I'm a little bitter.

Anyway, after moving in and finding all the shelves removed, we brought it up with their realtor. We came home from church one week to find a pile of 28 2x4s, a bunch of aluminum hardware and a bag of screws and bolts stacked in front of our garage. Without any idea about how to put the stuff together, it sat piled on the side of the garage for almost a year. Last week I finally got sick of tripping over the parts and decided to try to piece it together. Miraculously, I was able to make two sets of overhead storage shelves that add about 64 square feet of storage to the garage. And I don't have to trip over that pile of lameness anymore. Unfortunately, those shelves were only about 1/3 of the total package. Oh, well.

And then there's my cell phone. Somehow the display cracked - probably during the putting together of the shelves, although as near as I can recall the display broke while sitting on my nightstand. Without a display I can't check text messages or see missed calls. This can be very inconvenient. I'm not eligible to upgrade my phone for less than 10 times retail price for another three months, but I found an inexpensive LCD for my phone on the interweb. Assuming I ordered the right part I'll need to figure out how to get the old LCD out of my phone and install the new one. I'll have to follow-up later and let everyone know how that goes.

I don't consider myself handy. This type of stuff scares me.

Let's turn our attention to Jaxon for a moment. Jaxon had a little freak-out today when he tripped and fell in the middle of the kitchen floor. While on his knees, he threw his hands over his head and hit the floor repeatedly in an angry fit. He was so mad at the floor that we had to laugh, but in reality it was kind of scary.

Jaxon also set himself apart from the others recently when he identified himself as a lover of delicious Hostess Fruit Pies. Mason won't even try a bite, Chase nibbles cautiously, but Jaxon takes the biggest bite his mouth can handle. Once the pie is down to about a quarter left he tries to hoard the remainder for himself.

Jaxon is funny because he's the least steady of the twins. He is also the more dangerous daredevil of the two. It makes for an interesting and sometimes frightening combination. He loves to climb the stairs using the little ledge on the outside of the guard. He likes to climb up on the edge of the tub and slide into the water, usually hitting his head in the process. I recently discovered that he likes to slide head first off the edge of Chase's bed. I think Chase taught him that trick. In general, his taste for adventure exceeds his capabilities.

His personality seems to be changing a little bit lately, too. He likes to wave a lot. Pretty much all the time. It's not really a wave, it's more like just opening and closing his fingers while he holds his hand stationary. He also likes to grin and sort of wink at you if you make extended eye contact with him.

Anyway, he's been pretty funny lately. I've got a few other odds and ends to blog about to get caught up. Maybe later...

Sometimes it's good to actually listen to what your kids are saying. Take yesterday as an example. The kids were playing in the backyard and Mason started crying. He came in to get comfort from mom and I yelled out at Chase to leave Mason alone. Once sufficiently consoled, Mason went back outside to play. Only a minute or two later he started screaming again and came in to get more comfort from mommy.

Before going outside to discipline Chase we queried Mason about what happened. He is good at telling us where it hurts so we can usually find out whether he got hit with a rock, stepped on something painful or something else. After asking Mason what was wrong he replied, "Bugs! Bugs!" Emilie then noticed that his legs were covered with ants.

The kids had apparently found some anthills and decided to sit and watch the ants. While sitting on the hill itself. As we were brushing off the ants Mason had a moment where he shrieked like a girl and kicked his leg in a way that conveyed his true terror. For about an hour he seemed to be having flashbacks to that moment when he had ants on his legs.

We were sure he was going to be up all night because of his ant nightmares, but the next chance he had to go outside he went right back to the ants. I guess the old saying is true: you can brush ants off the legs of your kids, but you can't make them stop sitting on the anthill.

Today is a historically significant day. Do you know why? That's right! It's National Doughnut Day!

Celebrate today (and the closure of Krispy Kreme) by treating yourself to a delicious treat from Doughboys Donuts. Don't forget to tell them Brad sent you! They'll have no idea who you're talking about, but I promise your donut will taste better.

Did you know that Coke never goes bad? Even in a million years Coke will not go bad.

Do you know why? The answer is quite simple and may surprise you. It's because Coke cannot become something that it already is! Coke is disgusting.

I usually try to be happy and lighthearted, but I need to get serious for a moment. I'm sure you'll all agree that the self-checkout lanes at Wal*Mart (or anywhere else) should be reserved for people with 10 items or less. Or, they could administer a proficiency exam to determine whether your skillz are such that you can approach the lane with more than 10 items. But probably never more than 20.

Another serious matter that I think we can all agree on: the red to black ratio in Red Vines Family Mix stinks. There is way more red licorice and not nearly enough black. And maybe the black twists should be branded something other than Red Vines.

If government wants to get involved in our lives, then let's deal with serious problems like these and leave the car companies alone.