Renewal

It’s been a while. I hate to say it, but the only reason I’m writing is because I can’t sleep (as some would say, "what else is new?") I don’t have any pictures to add, and that’s usually what reminds me to write. And I finally rented Julie & Julia tonight, and it reminded me that I have a blog to keep up. While recovering at my Dad’s house after surgery, I had a lot of time to think about a lot of things. One of which was my living situation. I was going to live with a buddy of a buddy that had just bought a house, and needed a roommate. The more I thought about it, the more I started looking into places of my own. I was tired of going from one place to another to help someone out for a little while. It was convenient for me, because I didn’t have to commit to anything. But, I figure there’s nothing wrong with a little commitment once in awhile. Only down-side is that it’s more expensive. But I decided I didn’t care. Turns out, there was a place on the north side that was cheaper than I could ever dream. AND, it’s safe and convenient. The worst thing in the world is when I get home from a late flight and don’t have anything close to get the things I need before I jump on a plane the next morning, or I’m worried I’ll wake a roommate up. I don’t think I’ll have much of a problem with that anymore. I moved in a little over a week ago and it already feels like home. Though – it’s taken a while. Most things I own, hiding in my storage unit, are things I had in college. Most of those things don’t exactly “fit” very well with me now. It’s been fun building a home (a small one, mind you, but still a home) that’s all mine. I doubt I’ll have any visitors, but I’d still like my place to be creative and very “Lindy”.

Along with the idea of an apartment, came several other transitions. I had a bunch of interesting (sometimes Percocet-induced) conversations since I’ve been home. I’ve enjoyed every one of them. There’s something to be said about someone bringing over 15 novels for you to read, because she knows you can’t do anything but read, write and play video games all day. Not to mention, the person who wants to take the day off of work to drive you to the hospital and back. And, my personal favorite, the people who don’t take any action at all…but you know they are thinking about you. At least you hope so. It’s a very interesting thing, being sick and helpless. Not only is it unpleasant, but I think a person is forever changed because of it. I know it’s dramatic, but before my dad came and picked me up from my apartment in Indy and drove me to his house before the surgery, I was in such a dark place. I was unstable emotionally and literally all alone in the world. It’s a place I hope I never see again.

I think my challenge is that I never ask for what I really need. I’m one of those people that would rather do what I need to do and not bother or upset anyone. I always think, “They have better things to do” and “I’m not important enough to ask someone to do that for me”, or “they would never tell me the truth anyway”. Now I’ve realized…there is only one way to find out if you’re worth it or not. Ask.

Next, was the realization that a lot of physical things need to change in my life. My lifestyle has changed to try and facilitate weight loss, and other measures to be sure I never experience that kind of pain again.

I feel like a renewed person…but more importantly, I feel like I’m defining myself. Let’s find out who Lindy really is. It’s funny – most people in my life probably won’t notice any change at all. I guess this blog brings out everything, doesn’t it?!

Recovery

It’s been hard. I have been truly on my own for about a week now, and it’s hard not to lift 10 pounds and walk more than you sit. It’s also amazing how much you use your left leg and left butt cheek in a day. Really – there are probably muscles in your butt cheek you don’t even know are there! I know they are there when I do something I apparently shouldn’t have. Whoo! It’s shocking – literally! Sends a shock right down to your piggy toe.

I see the surgeon on Monday, and I’m hoping they’ll grant me permission to travel again. Though, I’m not sure I’ll get my wish. I’ve had the worst pain since the surgery just in the last part of this week. Actually had to take a Vicodin on Thursday, and almost did today. Very odd…..was hoping to be pain-free right now. Granted, I have three bulging discs still, but I have lived with that and a ruptured one for a while! What’s the big deal?! Have been working from home for two months now (minus the three days I took off for the surgery)...getting a little cabin fever.

I’m doing alright though – spirits are up and I’m confident I’ll get better soon. Hopeful, anyway.

What is the Measure of Happiness?

Tonight, this was the topic of my thoughts while trying to sleep. How, really, do you measure happiness? I’m curious, because I don’t really know what to say when someone asks me, “are you happy?” In my brain, I always think, “Am I really unhappy about anything?”

I have moved into an apartment all by myself, as you’ve probably read. My dad came over this afternoon (in the midst of the snow storm), as he was in Indy for some credit classes. He came to hang up the items in my apartment that have been lying on my floor for over a week, and to take some things back to the storage unit for me. Since my surgery, I’m not supposed to lift anything more than 10 pounds, and I have to try to walk more than I sit. (Have you ever tried to do either one of those? Jeesh! Very hard…just sayin!) Watching the frames sitting on the floor leaning against a blank wall, and staring at all the boxes containing things I didn’t want around me, collect dust in my new apartment was indescribably hard. I feel useless. I moved into this place two weeks after my back surgery and the move-in day killed me. I didn’t do much (put away dishes and threw some empty boxes around…) as I hired movers, and my poor Dad helped with a lot of the really tedious things like putting together new entertainment centers for me, as well as moved a lot of heavy boxes to a higher place in the apartment so that I could do something while home alone. Even that was too much for my back/leg. Since then, the pain has been coming on stronger and stronger every day. Needless to say, it was driving me nuts not being able to do anything. I am so afraid that I’ve screwed my body up, and I won’t recover properly. Thank goodness Dad came today. It feels so much like my home now. Or at least like a comfortable, recognizable hotel room – which is home to me.

As I was making my dinner (slice of cheddar jack cheese, banana chips and a huge bowl of lettuce with a little vinaigrette dressing), I stepped out of my kitchen and took a look at my little living room. Suddenly I felt sad. Those items sitting in a storage unit right now are mostly things that mattered to me at one point in my past. Why don’t they matter now? Have I built a life as such that I don’t want anything around me to remind me of the past? I think the answer to that is YES. Traveling for a living, getting “lost” in one state or another, no one knowing where I am or what I’m doing, “love em and leave em” from one hotel to another…. I can do that. I’m actually good at that. It’s safe. It’s harder to get hurt when you don’t get attached. I know people who live their lives this way and are seemingly happy people. Who said I can’t do that?

But here’s the thing, and ultimately the big question. Am I happy? I don’t know that I’ll ever be, and how depressing is that?! One minute I’m bothered by a bunch of clutter in my apartment, and my incapability to do anything about it. The next minute I’m upset, because I feel cold and detached.

The scary thing about it is that I’d rather feel cold and detached than the alternative. I’m starting to appreciate the way my life is a little more, and I’m trying not to take anything for granted. But that doesn’t mean I have to dwell on relationships and analyze everything over and over again. I’ve taken a stand. No longer am I acting as if there is anything to live for other than my healthy life. My healthy life can include a lot of things and I’m looking forward to all of them.

This year started out pretty crappy, but I think, with a little work and a lot of hope, 2010 could be the year that I find happiness.

I Made It Out!!

WooHoo!

I am blogging from my phone and very exhausted, but I wanted to at least write and let everyone that I made it of there alive!! I was prepped and ready to go by 9:45, with my surgery scheduled at 11. But - they wheeled me into the OR at 10am. I was out of surgery at 11:40, and woke up in recovery at about 12:15. I was in a little bit of pain in recovery, bit it quickly improved.

I stayed in recovery for a while longer, because there were two patients in there with me that had some serious surgery (I can only guess that) and they both had a lot of family with them. They ran out of rooms to put all of us in. I was certainly in no hurry, so I let those two folks go ahead of me. I knew Dad and Kathy were told I was awake, and were calling the people on my list, along with their list!

Once they wheeled me back to my little visiting room, Dad and Kathy came back to find me eating a few pieces of cheese and crackers and joking around with the awesome nurses. (I took another dose of the perocet, so i had to get something in my stomach.) Everyone there was SO GREAT. That nurse team, the surgeon Dr. Eric Potts, and the OR nurses were just really awesome! I wish I could say I can't wait to go back, but I am going to try to make it so this doesn't happen again!

Within 15 minutes of being in my little visiting room, I was ready to go. I was hardly in any pain, and I was exhausted. Figured the quicker I could get back to Parker, the faster I could go to sleep to a Disney Movie!

My best buddy Amanda came to visit tonight, the day of the surgery, and I so loved her company. She also brought her homemade peanut butter pie (which I think is number 11 on my "Foods Lindy is Craving" list), and her lovely olive spread. She's so great. I think she thought I was faking it, because I'm moving around really well. I'm still weak and the incision is a bit painful, but I don't think it will take a long time to regain my strength. I am told that the last thing to come back will be the feeling in my left foot. After this roller coaster of a week, I don't really care about numbness!

One more thing: I was a little upset before the surgery, because they didn't actually do the incision in the top inch of my butt crack. DANG! It was pretty much right above it. My nurse, Joanie (who is really awesome! Have I said that already!!) took a picture of me and it is hilarious. Not sure that it is appropriate for the blog, haven't decided yet! Let's just say I have the picture and there's no reason why you people have to be exposed to that!!

More later guys...thanks for listening! I'll post again next week and let you know how it's going.
Lindy

PS. Again, please excuse the typos. Percocet along with blogging from my phone can be kind of challenging!

Sent from my PDA Device

Surgery on Thursday...

That's what keeps running through my head... "Surgery on Thursday", "Surgery on Thursday". I'm freaked out, to say the least. I've never had surgery before, so I have all the normal anxiety. At least, I think it's normal.

Dad and I went to see the surgeon on Monday, who informed me that I needed an operation to take out the disc herniation. He said it's something he would like to do as soon as possible. He was planning on taking a long weekend, taking Thursday and Friday off this week. When he saw my MRI, he decided he would come in and work a little bit on Thursday. It's pretty bad. His nurse kept referring to it as "HUGE". There was a project that I needed to do, and really wanted to do on the week of the 18th in Kentucky. I tried to talk the surgeon into waiting a few weeks to operate on me. He kind of laughed. He explained that with a herniation that big I will soon have to worry about becoming more weak in my left leg (the weaker it gets, the harder it is to recover), and losing complete feeling in my left foot...which is already numb on the left side. He also explained that the longer I wait, the more risk I have of being incontenent. At that point (actually it still took me a minute, because I want to do that project and Dad was looking at me like "Are you nuts?!"), I said.... "Um, Thursday it is!"


This is the closest photo of a disc herniation that compares to mine. Toward the bottom of the photo, you'll see a little dark section that is sort of spilling out of the vertebrae...that is a herniated disc. Mine is actually larger than this one, as it pushes the nerve into the spinal canal. I think this stuff is really cool...I find it really interesting.

It is an outpatient surgery, which will give me instant relief from the pain in my leg. The procedure will only take an hour or so, with about two hours in recovery at the hospital. I am expected to spend the following two weeks doing very little. I'm told it takes a month to heal, but after two weeks I could start driving. After the procedure, my leg won't have any pain, but my back will be in more pain than normal for awhile.

The surgeon won't take out the entire disc, so he said there is a possibility that the same disc will rupture again. I also have about three bulging discs that cause back pain, and he mentioned his concern about those. For someone who is 24, to already be having back surgery, it could be a very exciting future ahead of me! I'm excited about the pain relief. I'm just really anxious about the whole waking up part after the surgery! If I do wake up, I am going to make the necessary adjustments to my lifestyle so that I never have to go through this again. Or, at least not any time soon.

After the appointment with my surgeon, since my surgery was in a few days, we went ahead and ran over to St. Vincent's to do all of my pre-op tests. I didn't really have an appointment, only gave them 10 minutes notice, so I had to wait awhile for people to get to me. They did an EKG and took a few viles of blood. I think the nurse that did all of this could sense that I was pretty freaked out. She talked me through what was going to happen that morning and explained a lot of things to me. Her sister-in-law had the same thing done last year and said she gets along just great now. She was sweet to me, even though I could tell she was having a rough day.....

But I am excited about one thing......... They are going to write "YES" on the surgical site. You may not think this is great, but I do! The surgical site is basically the top inch of my butt crack. How HILARIOUS is that?! HAHAHA....awesome. I'm hoping I can talk the prep-nurse into taking a picture of it for me. :)

I know that all this is probably not a big deal. I mean, I'm going to look back at it in a year and think it was just something that happened to me...an experience. But right now, it seems like a huge deal to me. I have to be a little dramatic, you know.

Thanks for listening, everyone. I will blog again sometime after Thursday and let you know how everything went.

PS. To my fellow bloggers out there - are you guys having trouble posting pictures and videos? I changed the setting to the Old Posting Editor and it's still weird. I don't even have the option of posting a picture or video in the Updated Posting Editor. Any ideas?

Update on me and my Old Lady Back Issues

For those of you wondering...... I had an MRI done yesterday. It was rather difficult to make it as that morning I was in so much pain I almost passed out, and the roads were so bad because of all of the snow. I knew if I failed to appear for this one, it would take too long to schedule another one. When I got there, those folks took some pity on me. I think they saw I was in a lot of pain and wasn't feeling well (I was still queezy from almost passing out an hour before).

Just FYI to all those big people in the world....a closed MRI is no joke. When I got into the room and saw the tunnel that I would be laying in I laughed and asked the tech, "am I even going to fit in there?!" He replied, "it'll be tight." Haha - I just had this image of him starting to move the table with me on it through this tube and it cutting off my shoulders because I was too big! I made it in there, but he was right. It was a tight fit! I had to curl my shoulders up, which left my arms to drape over my waist. I swear my boobs were grazing the top of that machine! Haha. I had to lay as still as possible like that for a half an hour!

When it was time to come out, I had to get two little ladies and a guy help me up. What a great moment for my self-esteem! I asked the tech how it looked, and even though they aren't allowed to say anything, I could tell it was bad. He apparently called my doctor right after I left and sent her the films to take a look at asap. I made it to my car and pulled the films out. I'm no doctor, but I believe my response to what I saw was something like, "holy s***!!!!"

When my doctor called me personally yesterday, I knew it was bad. She was apologetic because I told her I thought it was bad three weeks ago (and she kind of dismissed it with a steroid pack and a speech about weight loss) and she couldn't have imagined it would be THIS bad. I have a degerated disc putting so much pressure on my nerve, that it's shocking I have any use of my leg at all. Not only that, but my lower back is so degenerated that at my age (turn 25 in February), it is so rare and unseen. She's concerned about my pain now, as every day it gets worse. She was nice enough to prescribe me Hydrocodone (Vicodin) a week ago, to which I told her would not be enough. I knew it wouldn't touch my pain. Not that I have taken any without a prescription, or anything....... Moving on: she prescribed my Perocet now. However - I have to go to her office, pick it up, then go to the pharmacy and take care of it. I guess she cant just call this one
in. Getting in the car and driving may not sound like a big deal to you, but rolling over in bed is a big deal to me. So - my dad is coming to save the day today. He is going to pick me up, run me around to get this Percocet and then take me back to his house in Parker. Passing out with no one around is a scary thing. I think it's best if I'm monitored for awhile. Plus - I really shouldn't be driving with those drugs in my system.

After she saw the films, my doctor called in a favor and was offered an appointment for a neurosurgeon on 2/15. She explained how much pain I'm in and what my back looks like and the neurosurgeon offered to see me on Monday. WOW. Must be bad. Apparently though, if my situation fits the specs, there is an outpatient surgery that gives instant relief. That's the rumor on the street.

So - it's now up to him...the neuro-dude...to decide if I'm eligible for surgery. If so, I hope it happens sooner than later. I'm ready to get rid of this awful pain and get back to work.

Thanks to all of you for thinking of me. I've gotten a lot of questions and concerns, so I figured it's best to blog about it. I'll keep you all updated through this....

Lindy
PS. Sorry if there are any typos, blogging from a phone can be challenging.

Sent from my PDA Device

"Everyone Knows It's Lindy......"

In honor of the best drunk dial last week - I had to go back and take a look at this. Thought it was worth posting too, because it makes me giggle.

Clarksville, Christmas and New Years

It's been awhile.  I've gone into hiding the past three or four weeks.  I wasn't into the holidays at all this year, and was a bit anti-social.  Not sure if anyone missed my blogging, but I should be back now......

I had an interesting month of December.  On November 30th, after my short visit to Aspen (for work) over Thanksgiving, I flew from Aspen to Nashville, TN.  I was doing a full installation in Clarksville, TN - which is about an hour from Nashville.  It was actually great - check out the pictures....

On the 18th of December, after work, I drove from Nashville (had to pick up a new rental car) to Indianapolis, dropped off that rental car, took a cab to my house, got into my car and drove to Dad's for our family Christmas weekend.  I got to Dad's house at about 2am, then jumped in the car at 10am with Mitch and his family to travel to Lafayette for my grandmother's Christmas.

Emily had never seen snow - so we had to play in it a little bit before we left for Grandma's house.  She absolutely loved it!

I moved to another, temporary apartment in Indy with a person I used to work with at the Westin.  Waiting on a few things to pop up to determine whether I'll stay in Indy or not.  I laid around a lot during the week of Christmas and New Years.  I have a pinched nerve in my left leg that is extraordinarily painful.  I had to move the week of New Years, so I kind of sucked up all of the energy I had available.  Sadly, I didn't do much during my 10 days off from work.

Next was New Years at a friends house that was fun, but pretty painful for me.  It was hard to be out and mobile.  Though, I did win a few games of ping pong.  Again, I didn't really get that into it and was snoozing away in my empty Dad's house by 1am.

Above:  Amy and I   Below:  This is after most of them had my punch!

So - I'm all moved in and immobile...just have to wait and see what the doctor has to say on Tuesday (tomorrow).  Hopefully they'll give me a lot of pain meds, as I'm still too young to operate on.  Nice.  Otherwise, I'm scheduled to leave on Wednesday to go to somewhere around Houston.  Maybe I'll get to see my buddy Brad, who just had a baby.  Well - he didn't, but his girlfriend did!

Happy Back To Work Day, everyone!

More of the Poconos, some Florida, some Colorado

View from the Tiki Bar in St. Pete Beach, FL.

Every time I log on to blog, I always think, "Gosh - I wish I had something interesting to talk about." I guess that's why I take a lot of pictures. Since reading what I'm writing is probably not terribly entertaining - at least there are photos to gaze at.

Here are a few pictures left from the visit in the Poconos. I really liked that area and hope I get to go back sometime.

I personally think this is adorable. I am sort of a specialist at a new product called Operetta - and I'm constantly singing some sort of song and adding in the word "Operetta". ("Operetta...won't you help me place this callllll..." OR "Operetta, etta, etta, ayyyy..." OR "Smooooth Operetta.........") So - below my number on their little dry erase board, they drew a musical note! Aww...

Okay - so besides Mac & Cheese - my comfort food on the road is cereal. Weird, I know. But - if I have the chance to buy Honey Nut Cheerios or Cinnamon Toast Crunch, I do! So - while waiting on some "techy stuff" to finish and run, I would watch TV in the theatre with a box of cereal!

This place was so cool. Imagine having a spa party or something in here.

Let's see...it was just last week, but I can't remember all of the details. I think I was expecting to be home a week after the visit to the Poconos, but on Monday evening I found out that 24 hours later, I'd be in St. Pete Beach, Florida. For those of you who consider my job very interesting and something they may want to do, or wish they did when you were my age, just think about the previous sentence for a minute. This isn't a job...this is my life...or lack there of.

I have never been to that side of Florida before, but it seemed less trashy than the other coast. Orlando is nice, but I don't really consider that when I compare Florida locations. Though, there was a very interesting illness that hit me in the middle of the night about two days into the trip, my back hurt so bad I could barely walk, and I saw the scariest looking BUG in my room one night - the hotel was GREAT! It was a swanky little place right on the beach. It had a barbecue restaurant basically inside it, as well as a little tiki bar out on the beach. It was great for a hectic four day trip. Here are some pics....

I was at the Tiki Bar on the beach having dinner when something exploded over us. The bartender urged all of the patrons to go out on the beach and see what was happening. Fireworks! So spontaneous...

A few from the Tiki Bar...

Sadly, I developed a pretty horrible cold while I was in Florida. I flew home on Friday afternoon, tried to rest and sleep as much as possible (which didn't work out very well), and was back at the airport on Sunday afternoon to fly to Aspen/Snowmass. I got a call a few weeks ago from the folks in the office letting me know that I had to work over Thanksgiving. Not really sure why I was the one that had to come, but whatever. It took me three planes to get here - making it a five-plane-weekend. And, in case you forgot, I HATE to fly. Hate it.

This is the view from the top of Snowmass Village.

I'm still sick, but I've been able to just relax these last few days. I agreed to work over Thanksgiving (I actually had requested the time off), as long as they flew me in a few days early so that I could see a good friend of mine that lives here. I hardly ever get to see him, and it's been great hanging out with him here and there. He works during the day, so I've just been relaxing as much as possible.

This may be the worst picture of me on the planet, but Nate deserves a SHOUT OUT!

My cold has gotten better - but is still kind of rough. I start working the overnight shift tomorrow, so I'll be pretty exhausted in the next few days. I fly to Clarksville, Tennessee on Monday and start a new month-long project on Tuesday.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. I hope it's a good time for everyone.......

Jim Thorpe and the Poconos

For those of you who don't know - this is Jim Thorpe. Well, it's not actually him, it's a statue of him, just to clarify.

HEY - before I explain my weekend adventure, I'd like to brag about the great hotel I'm staying at. I'm not going to lie - I'm sometimes afraid I'm going to see Big Foot walking along through the woods behind my "house/room". Other than that - it's AWESOME! Check out these pics....

Gated entry....saweet.

Once you enter through the gate, you have several ways to go in the 1/2 mile village! Usually - you'll stop by the clubhouse to check in, which is along the pathway below! YAY for the light posts. LOVE THEM.

In the club house there is a theatre (which I watched the last game of the World Series on...as you can see in the picture below...), a billiards room, air hockey and something else (can't remember if it's ping pong of fuseball), his and her sauna/locker rooms, HUGE lounge area and a "spa bubble". Okay - I am the only one that calls it a "spa bubble"...but it's really the coolest thing EVER. I'm going to try and take a video of it tomorrow to prove how awesome it is.

Theatre. Those chairs recline. Nuff said. (The first night I was here, they actually got a Walk In. The couple sat in the theatre and chatted a while with me. They were from the tiny town of New Bern, NC, where Nicholas Sparks is from. The woman had met him and we talked for almost two hours about him and his novels.

This is my building (the closest one in the picture). Since I'm the only one here, I feel like I own it. Kinda nice. There are like seven buildings, and they are only building more.

My dining room/kitchen area. Directly to the right (about the middle of the picture) is the master bedroom).

This is what both bedrooms look like. Pretty fancy, if you ask me. I like it a lot. Now - a guest can purchase just one of these, one bedroom with the kitchen and living space included, or both of them together. If that makes any sense. It does to me, because I'm here...sitting on the couch, writing about it. Kind of hard to explain though. You just need to come, visit, and check it out! It's pretty cool!

I found this little walking path (I guess that's what it is) on my drive to work. Yes, I drive up the lane to go to work. It's cold - shut up. I think it's cute...but this is where the deer hang out, so beee carefeee!

But - the coolest part of it all, is that the hotel is directly across the street from the Pocono Raceway. How cool is that?!

Allow me to recap my weekend for you (the last one, to clarify yet again).... I haven't had a weekend onsite where it's just me, and I literally only had to work like 2 hours. OMG. It's hard to explain, if you're not "one of us", BUT... When you're onsite, you know no one, you have no idea where the Hell you are on a map, and you have no work to do - it can get VERY interesting! My usual hobby during these times is to sleep. I never, ever, ever, ever have a regular sleep schedule. Just last night I was up until 3:45 and had to wake up at 7. Not cool. I'm tired in the afternoons, but wired at night (probably the reason why I find time to blog). Sorry - I digress...

My weekend: Friday night I can't even remember really. I think I worked until like 7-ish and then talked on the phone for the rest of the evening. OH wait....I talked online until really late that night, I believe. (Thanks a lot for keeping me up, Jeffy.) On Saturday, I made it in to do some work at about 10am, and left there by noon. Again - Saturday is a blur, as I really don't remember doing anything at all. Sunday was exciting! I woke up at 1pm, to make it to the Blakeslee Inn, about ten miles down the road for brunch. OMG - it was great. Not only did they have a SLAB full of fresh fruit and king crab legs EVERYWHERE, but they had this crab mac & cheese that was TO DIE FOR! Next, I came back to my "house" to grab my camera and pee (yes, I have issues peeing in public places. I don't want to talk about it!) Then, I went back to the town of Blakeslee, in search of a magnet and postcard (I buy a magnet for myself everywhere I go, and I send a post card to a really great friend of mine. She's keeping track of my travels...like the Beatles......err....something.) I stopped by a place that had ski gear and a purple wall. I walked in and immediately started chatting with the Apalachian locals - my what fun they are!!! Mike picked out my magnet for me, and Mark looked up the score of the Colts game. Unfortunately, I think my $5 was the only money they made that day. :( While I was checking out, Mike was telling me that I should drive down the mountain and go visit the Jim Thorpe Memorial. I didn't even know I was on a mountain, so that intrigued me...not to mention what he had to say about this man named Jim Thorpe.

Here's the link to find out who Jim Thorpe is: http://www.cmgww.com/sports/thorpe/bio.htm

I got a kick out of hearing Mike talk about how Jim Thorpe's wife drove across the United States looking for a town to name itself "Jim Thorpe" and build a memorial to him. Wow - must have been quite a guy to make you think it was okay to prostitute out his dead body. I had to go visit this poor schmuck. So - I went.

Just FYI - I didn't even know I was on top of a mountain in Long Pond, PA (population about 3000), until I drove down to see Jimmy (that would be Jim Thorpe to those who don't know him). WHOA. That was a steep drive, but it was AWESOME! Here's my photo documentary...

Through the rear view. That was when I thought I had gone down the mountain already. Believe me - that was nothing.

The statue. On the plaque it has a quote from a guy who was a King back in the day. The King said to Jim Thorpe, "Sir - you are the greatest athlete in the world." Err...something like that.

The thingy with his body in it...

The town of Jim Thorpe...

Interesting mix....but beautiful horsies.

This reminded me of Central Park, for some reason. If you notice - the leaves are all the way up to the bottom of the benches.


I was losing the light, but that is a railroad. They had an actual active rail road going straight through the old town. Notice the mountains in the background. What was up - had to come down!



Cool building...


The plaque in front reads, "ANTHRACITE - This black diamond is a piece of the mammoth coal vein found in the Panther Valley. It was placed here on August 28, 1976 as a monument to the enterprising spirit of men such as Josiah White and Erskine Hazard, whose early pioneering efforts produced the second American Revolution, the Industrial Revolution. This monument was made available through the generosity of the industry and the miners. Anthracite was first discovered near here in Summit Hill in 1791. Weight: 15,100 lbs, Content: 99% pure carbon" The county it sits in is called Carbon County.



This mansion is a museum - but I think they're remodeling it.

And at my back, while watching this old town work, was this neat little river.

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SHEW!! That felt like a book - but I think this place is great. I should be traveling back to Indy on Wednesday. I have travel right now to leave on the 22nd of November to work a site in Aspen over Thanksgiving. It won't be so bad to work during that time, because I'll be able to hang out with some of my friends in Aspen. The pictures of that trip will be awesome, at least!!

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I hope you're enjoying the semi new music I've uploaded to my playlist. My favorite right now is the song by Jason Mraz called "1000 Things". I do love "Everything I Can't Have" by Robin Thicke too. ENJOY!