Finally a Slow Day

Because the last few days have been hectic we decided to relax a little today. All we did was go shopping. When I got to Florida I noticed quickly that I did not bring enough shirts with me, so we bought a few today at the Mall. After we went to the mall we went to a skateboard shop that is only a few blocks away from my mom's place. At the shop we bought a new backpack, so I can carry my new clothes. I also got a new skateboard! I can not wait to ride it. Surprisingly the guy who sold me the skateboard has been to Japan before, so he gave me advice on where to go skateboarding.

Since it is getting late I need to start packing, so I can get some rest before tomorrow.

South Beach Miami

Today my mom and I left Key West. This morning we headed out from Old Town in Key West and our final destination was home, but we stopped in South Beach, Miami along the way. In South Beach we walked around the historic district, ate lunch and went to the beach.

South Beach is a really cool place to hang out and the beach is really nice, but the traffic is horrible. We arrived in the historic district at about 2:30 in the afternoon and it by the time we found a place to park it was about an hour later. Finding a parking space is really hard to do on a Saturday afternoon. It is really trying on your patience because there are so many people walking around and shopping who do not pay attention to crosswalks or when cars have the right of way. There are also a lot of people who just want to cruise around and be seen driving around, so they add to the congestion. I am pretty sure that South Beach is always crowded on Sunday afternoons, but I think the congestion was compounded by the fact that Tonight the MTV Video Music Awards are being held in Miami. I think a lot of people came to the area to see a star or be seen by a star. I could not believe the number of people I saw who were trying so hard to be cool.

After we found parking we ate lunch at Jerry's Famous Diner. The food was really good, but I am not too sure why it was so famous. It may be that it has been open and in the same location for so long. Another nice thing about Jerry's is that it is open 24 hours. I think Seattle needs more restaurants that are open 24 hours because the ones they have now are not so great.

After lunch we walked to the beach and relaxed by the side of the ocean for a while. Even though the weather was hot the cool ocean breeze made the beach comfortable. I would have to say that South Beach is not necessarily nicer than Alki or Golden Gardens in terms of atmosphere, but the sand is really nice. The beach does not escape all of the beautiful people of South Beach. There were a lot of pencil thin woman and big buff men. I was happy to see that there were normal looking people on the beach though.

South Beach is also the place where Gianni Versace lived before he was shot and killed by Andrew Cunanan on the front steps of his home. After we left the beach we walked by the home and took some pictures. The style of the home is nice and it is surprisingly not too big. The property value must be very high though. The home is flanked by lots of hotels and condominiums. It would be sad to see the beautiful home be torn down and turned into condominiums.

During the time in South Beach I took pictures of the art deco architecture. Kagan, you might be able to appreciate it. You can check out the photos of South Beach in the gallery.

The Key West Vacation

Before I talk about what my mom and I did for fun today I will talk a little about Key West. Key West is the last island on the Florida Keys and it is longer than it is wide like a lot of the other islands in the Keys. Highway 1 enters Key West on the northeastern end of the island and then it splits into two roads which go around the edge of the island and meet back on the other end. The end of the island that Highway 1 hits is the end of the island with newer construction. It is the end of the island with large shopping areas with supermarkets like Publix and Winn Dixie. There are gas stations, K-Mart and even Home Depot on this end of the island. On the far end of the island is Old Town. It is the historic district of the island and it is where most of the tourists go to sightsee during the day and party in the evening.

An interesting aspect of Key West is the mix of people. First you would have the locals. These are the people who have lived in Key West. They are definitely the working class. Another group of people, who also work on the island, would be the people who work in the tourist industry and they are like long term tourists. They are always having a good time and probably don't need to worry about making money. Then you have the regular tourists who are only on the island for a short time. Akin to the tourists are the wealthy people who come to visit the island and are the ones who can afford to come in by boat and stay in the fancy hotels right on Mallory square. I think this mix of people create an interesting atmosphere. In Old Town people don't really show who they belong too, but on the end of the island which is newer, sometimes it is more apparent who people are.

I found a good map of Key West online. The Blues Skies Inn is where we are staying and it is located at the intersection of South Street and Vernon Street and it is on the southern side of the street nearer to the water. You can find it on the map. Just look for where Duval and South Street meet and then go two block northeast. It would be under the S of St in South St.

The little place we are staying in is in an older building. I am not sure what the style is, but Kagan would probably be able to tell me. I would highly recommend it because it is so close to the Historic district and with rooms costing about $100 per night is not too much more than the cheapest hotels and motels on the other side of the island. You can see pictures of the Blue Skies Inn in the gallery.

This morning I woke up early to walk around before my mom woke up. I walked down to the southernmost point and down some of the side streets along the way. When I went back to the Inn I had breakfast with my mom. It was relaxing just sitting on the porch watching people walk by and not having to worry about anything.

After breakfast we went to the Key West Lighthouse. Unfortunately the actual lighthouse was being repaired, so we could not climb up the tower, but we were able to walk around the grounds and visit the small lighthouse museum. Here is a short history of the museum and here our pictures of the Key West Lighthouse in the gallery. It was interesting to visit the museum to get a look into the lives of the people who spent most of their time manning the lighthouse. The history of lighthouses is pretty strong in Key West because their are so many light houses in the area, some of which are still in use today.

In the afternoon we ate lunch at Smather's beach which is near the Key West international airport. What struck me about the beach was that there were not too many people there. The weather was not extremely hot, but it was not bad either, so I spent some trying to figure out where people were. I guess that the local people have been to the beach so often that they do not need to go and any of the tourists would probably be relaxing at the little private beaches that most resorts have. Anyways, with less people it was nicer. After lunch we went back to the historic district and took a tour of the Ernest Hemingway house.

The Ernest Hemingway house is a two story home that was built by Asa Taft in the mid 19th century. For a more detailed history of the house you can visit the Hemingway Home Website. The house is full of a lot of interesting items from all over the world. There is a definite spanish influence on a lot of the furnishings. Ernest even took the gate from a Spanish church to make the headboard for his bed. Next to the same bed he has two odd chairs. One of which is a spanish mid-wife's chai and the other is the birthing chair. These chairs were not used for the reasons they were built for, but Ernest found them interesting enough to use. Another interesting aspect of the house is that it has 61 cats. Some of these cats are descended from the first cat to live on the grounds, a six-toed cat given to Ernest by a ship captain. I took a lot of pictures and you can see the pictures in my gallery of the Hemingway House.

After the tour of the house we went to a small private beach owned by a resort that the Blue Skies Inn has a relationship with. That meant we could pay a lower price for rooms, but we still go to go to the private beach and also use their pool. According to the map I think it was Dog Beach. At the beach I swam in the ocean. It was really warm water, so it was easy to swim out to the buouy and back.

In Key West there is a place called Mallory Square on the west side of the island at the end of Duval St. The square gives people an excellent view of the sunset, so we decided to watch the sun set. We made it just in time to see the sun going under the horizon. After the sun set we watched a local street performer. He is a pretty funny guy and he likes to get the crowd involved in the act, so I ended being part of a group of men who had to help hold up a rope that the he stood on, over a person lying on the ground, while juggling knives. I was the first person on my side, so I got a good view of him juggling the knives. During the act he made all the guys hold hands and then he told a joke about how we all 'came out' tonight. Then he told the crowd the man on his right was shaking, but the guy on the left, me, was not. All in all the act was fun to watch and if anyone is going to Key West they should try and find him to watch his show. You can see pictures of the sunset and some of the act in my Mallory Square gallery.

Right now it is about time for bed. Tomorrow we are going to South Beach, Miami. I think it will be fun, but very crowded since it is South Beach and the MTV Music Video Awards are tomorrow night in Miami.

The drive to Key West, third time was the charm

Yesterday afternoon my mom and I thought we were all ready to leave for Key West when we got the car back from the mechanic in the afternoon. The keyword was that we 'thought' we were ready. It was about 4 o'clock, so we were excited about getting to Key West around 8 or9 o'clock and then we would be able to eat a late dinner.

After driving west to the Florida turnpike and then driving on the turnpike, it was only about 45 minutes into our drive when I noticed the water temperature light turn on. Seeing as how this was the light that turned on before the last two times we overheated I decided to turn around and head back home. It was a slow frustrating drive home because we were ready to go and we had even rented a room in Key West for the night.

Since my mom and I decided that we did't want to waste the money for the room we started looking for places to rent cars. Most of the were closed, but somehow my mom the number of a small 24 hour airport in Boca Raton, only 10 minutes north of us. They had plenty of cars to rent us. We were saved! So we drove up to Boca Aviation and rented a car. We weren't too sure what we wanted to rent. The compacts didn't sound too nice, so I asked the lady to tell us what kind of mid-size cars they had to rent. As soon as they mentioned the 2004 Ford Mustang my mom got excited and told me to rent the Mustang. She said it is was for sentimental reasons, but I didn't mind either way because she wanted to rent a nice sporty car.

So after we moved our luggage into the new car we excitedly started on our way to Key West at 9:00 pm. We stopped at the store so I could get some energy drinks for the long drive and then we got on the freeway. It was fun to drive the car to Key West because it was late and their was not a lot of traffic and traffic on the road was travelling at about 90 mph. It was a refreshing change from driving my mom's old 1984 Buick Regal. I was able to make up for some lost time by passing a few cars on the way. We got into Key West about 1:30 am, despite missing the exit to Key West around Miami.

We were both relieved to get into Key West. It was finally starting to feel like a vacation.

My Miami Adventure

Today was a pretty eventful day even though the plans my mom and I had made were not at all close to what actually happened. We were planning on doing a little traveling before I left, but those plans had to be postponed for a little bit.

Our plan was to head to South Beach in Miami. We were going to eat lunch near the beach and then we would walk along the beach to see all the neat art deco hotels that are still in South Beach. Then we were going to head down to Key West. Sounds like a fun plan, huh? We didn’t even make it further than North Miami Beach. My mom’s old car decided to overheat on the freeway. With smoke coming out of the hood of the car we got off the freeway and found a drug store parking lot. Right nearby we were able to find a gas station with engine coolant and a super market with water. After an hour of sitting around and fixing the car we were able to get I started. I thought that was enough, but the car started overheating again. I was able to pull into another parking. I looked under the car and it looked like the radiator was leaking. So, I filled up the radiator and decided that we should have it towed back home.

We went to the nearest mall to have the car towed. That was the closest place I could think of that had a pay phone. It felt weird to use since I am used to relying on cell phones now. The mall with the phone wasn’t so great either. Actually the mall was the worst run down mall I have ever seen. If Florida malls had an armpit, this one would be it. There were not even enough stores to fill the mall. I can only describe the stores as a collection of small clothing stores much like the ones you see in parking lots selling t-shirts and shoes.

We had to wait almost an hour and a half outside in the mall parking lot in our car. It was not so bad since we parked under the shade of a tree, but outside the tree’s shade it was almost 100 degrees! I was happy to see the tow truck pull up since it meant we would be sitting in air-conditioned cab.

The tow truck driver was really nice. He told my mom and I about the ins and outs of the tow truck driving business. It sounds like a pretty good type of company to own. He told us about all the different types of rates and how he gets more money when picking up people on the side road rather than AAA members. He also mentioned how it is better to have a towing company with a towing yard since you can get cars for free if people don’t claim them. Apparently it happens kind of often around here since drug dealers will flee the country if the cops or FBI are looking for them. The funniest part of the ride back home was when he started talking about the girl he was dating. The driver was 40 year old, who, despite being in the best shape, looked good for his age. Right now he is dating a girl who is 26 years old. You might wonder how he met such a young girl ….. well he used to date her mom! He was telling me that when I see him on Jerry Springer I can tell people he was the guy who towed my car. I thought that was so funny. He had me laughing for while, especially when he told me that the mom doesn’t know yet. I told him good luck. When he dropped us off at the repair shop I gave him a tip for being so entertaining and I told him he could go out and buy his girl a drink when they were at the club tonight. I almost like getting towed because you meet some really interesting people.

My mom and I are hoping that the car will be fixed tomorrow, so that we can start out trip late. If the car can’t be fixed until Monday then we will probably rent a car and take that down to Key West if it is not to expensive.

And that pretty much brings me up to now, 4:30 am Friday morning. Man I should at least try and adjust my body to this new schedule, but it is so easy to just stay up when there is almost no reason to wake up early. It is also easy to just zone out and watch the Olympics for hours and hours. Go United States! I am glad to see use doing well, but I am also glad to see some of other countries win medals. I was really impressed with Elgarouj winning the 1500m for his country as well as the Greek woman, Finia Helka, who won the 400m hurdles race. She beat the pants off of the defending champion of the Sydney games in 2000, which was cool to see.

I will leave with a PG question from my tow truck driver, “Your bed or mine?”.

Settling into Florida

It has been a couple says since I arrived in Florida. I am still getting adjusted to the heat and the time difference. I can help the time difference part or at least try. I am not sure I can do anything about the heat besides using the air conditioner. Living in Seattle for most my life I never really understood what the air conditioner was for. Whenever I come to Florida I am pleasantly reminded by thick moist air.

We didn’t get back from the airport until Monday morning at about 2:00 am. I had some energy still, so rather than going to sleep I decided to just stay up all night. I spent some time tidying up. I am not what it was about the cleaning, but it was relaxing, so I kept doing it.

At about 6:00 am I was taking out the trash and I noticed that the sun had not risen yet, so I decided to grab my camera and head to the beach for the sunrise. It is only two blocks away, so I was able to get their in about 5 minutes. I walked around the beach taking pictures of the sunrise. It was really beautiful. The sky had turned all sorts of shades of yellow orange and there was even some pinks too! I think that some of the pictures turned out really nice. See my beach pictures for yourself to decided. I also got some practice taking photos of myself.

That day my mom and I went to breakfast at a small bagel bakery. Afterwards we tried to find an old bookstore that my brother, mother and I used to go to a lot a few years ago. The store was supposed to be in a shopping center called Mizner Park. It is a lot like University Village. When we walked to where the store used to be we saw that it was gone. It must have gone out of business or moved.

This afternoon I worked on getting my mom’s dial up connection working. I got it to work, but I soon realized how free Internet services are really horrible. I couldn’t leave the computer on the Internet for more than 15 minutes otherwise my connection would killed. That made it difficult for me to cook dinner, wash dishes and run Windows update at the same time. I am going to try and convince my mom to get some regular dial up service from her phone company.

I still haven’t figured how to deal with this time difference thing because I always end of staying up later than usual. I was even sleeping an hour ago, but now I find myself typing on my laptop at 2:30 in the morning. I should get back to bed so I can have energy to run errands tomorrow. The heat down here makes errands a tiring activity! I get to finally pick up the fourth Harry Potter book and I also get to replace the skateboard tool I had to leave with Eric in Seattle.

From Seattle to Ft. Lauderdale, Flight of Skateboard Disaster!

Sunday morning has come and gone and so have my adventures in flying. The flying part of the process is pretty much the same as I remember it, but the airport part has changed since the last time I went. I didn’t have any large problems between Seattle and Ft. Lauderdale, but there were a few days that I thought warranted sharing.

On Sunday morning I woke up a little before my brother, so that I could get everything I needed packed up and ready to go. When I was trying to figure out how to take my skateboard I thought I had a good idea when I strapped it to the side of my backpacking pack. Unfortunately I was wrong. As soon as I put my bag on the scale for weighing at the airport, the curteous, but seemingly disgruntled woman behind the desk quickly told me to remove my skateboard since it was going to destroy other people’s luggage. I had to hold my tongue and not point out all the people behind whose suitcases had similar hard plastic wheels sticking out of them.

After I had my boarding pass I went to the gate with my brother, dad and Sandra. We had a little bit of timr so we had some coffee and then I had to get in line to be screened through a metal detector. This was pretty normal, but now anyone without a boarding pass cannot go through. That meant I had to an early goodbye to everyone accompanying me.

I thought I was free and clear when I walked through the metal detector. Not only did I have to empty my pockets of all metal belongings, but I also had to take off my sweatshirt and my shoes and remove my laptop from its bag. This was a definite change from the pre 9/11 screening process. I guess I have that crazy shoe bomber to thank for the shoe part.

After I walked through the metal detector and thought things were fine an attendant came up to me and told me she had to ask me some questions. I wondered what she wanted, but then I noticed two other attendants pointing at the screen on baggage machine as though they were trying to figure out what something was. The attendant only wanted to tell me that I could not take my skateboard tool with me on the plane. I guess they were afraid I was going to dismantle the seat I was in. After I called my brother to take the skateboard tool home with him I was finally ready to board the airplane.

After a short subway ride to the Northwest Airlines terminal I hopped on the Boeing 757 and sat down in my seat near the back of the airplane. I was ready to start, but instead I started up conversation next to me. By the end of the flight I leaned that was not only a computer science major, but he also had a twin brother and he liked to skateboard. What are the odds? Needless to say, he was easy to get along with.

When I touched down in Detroit it was about 8:00 pm, their time, 5:00 pm Seattle time. I was kind of hungry because until then I had only eaten half of my meal on the plane, due to wisdom teeth surgery reasons, and only drank a cup of coffee. I had a pocket full of Chinese cash (thanks Paula!), but I had neglected to get some American cash and since no one accepted credit cards I couldn’t get anything to eat. I decided to pick up the third Harry Potter book and wait for the snacks on the flight.

My energy level was dwindling and I just wanted to get to Florida, so I could rest and relax by the time I boarded the airplane. I walked down the aisle and I put my skateboard in the overhead compartment just like I had done before. Remember, I couldn’t keep it with my other luggage since it would destroy every one else’s luggage. I plopped in the seat and opened up Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. After reading a few pages I heard a stuardess say ‘ Who’s is this?’ while grabbing my skateboard. After I said it was mine she proceeded to proclaim that we really needed to do something about it since it was likely going to fly out of the overhead compartment and kill the man sitting below it when it was going to hit him in the head. I said she could do what ever she wanted to with it without adding some choice words that would have reflected my mood about dealing that the situation and her ridiculous comment. It was nice to hear everyone around me making jokes about how ludicrous her statement actually was. I tried to get back to my book when I noticed a nicely dressed man who must have been a pilot or co-pilot. The stuardess proudly explained to him that the skateboard had been dealt with and the man sitting beneath was not going to die. I just wanted to tell everyone that they could be calm again because the crisis had been averted. I was glad that I was tired.

The landing was fine and after meeting my mom and getting my luggage we drove home.

I really hope the rest of my flights are not as much of a hassle. I also hope that I have to deal with people who think skateboards are going to destroy things and kill people. If anything, a 20 pound bag falling with hurt more than a skateboard. I forgot how much it bothered me to receive people’s ill conceptions of skateboarding.

Soaking up the KBs on the last night

Well, this is my last night in Seattle. I had a nice dinner with Sandra after seeing her parents. We all talked about my trip and the olympics. The evening was pleasant. I don't think I would have liked to spend my last night in Seattle any differently.

Right now I am trying to use up the fast internet connection I have at home while I have it. I have been uploading pictures and chatting online with my friend Alissa. We are both flying out of Sea-Tac tomorrow, but eventhough we will both end up in China we will be going opposite directions at first. She will end up in central China and I will arrive in the north east.

She will be doing linguistics research in Chengdu located in the province of Sichuan. I think it will turn out to be very interesting. During her stay she will also have a blog for people to read. If you want to also see what my friend Alissa is up to, just read her blog.

Well since I have most of my pictures uploaded and all the source code I need to work on for my flight tomorrow I am going to call it a night. I want to wake up nice and rested, so that I can remember the goodbyes at the airport tomorrow.

I must say that even though I have been preparing for this trip for a few months now and that it was postponed from earlier this summer until now, I still don't feel like I am leaving yet. Even though I will be starting school in 2 weeks (who is lucky now?) I still have a feeling that I am going to be waking up tomorrow morning to go play basketball with my brother and Kagan just like I have done all summer. I think it won't really hit me until I am leaving Los Angeles and I will see the West Coast shrinking into horizon.

My Mailing Address in Beijing

If you guys would like to mail me stuff in China, like postcards, then you can send it to the program office on campus. Using a chinese address will decrease the likelihood of the mail getting lost. By the way, use UTF-8 encoding to view the Chinese characters.

In Traditional Chinese Characters:

柯俊恩 (Jon Keto)
北京 100084
清華大學
文北樓502室
國際聯合漢語培訓項目

In Simplified Chinese Characters:

柯俊恩 (Jon Keto)
北京 100084
清华大学
文北楼502室
国际联合汉语培训项目

In English:

Jon Keto
IUP
Wen Bei Lou, Room 502
Tsinghua University
Beijing 100084
CHINA

Supplementing my mindspace

Because pictures are worth 1,000 words I wanted to supplement this blog with an online photo gallery. From the advice of my friend Alissa I decided to use Coppermine Photo Gallery. I added some photos from some great camping trips of the past. You can view them here, at my photospace. Enjoy the photos and check back for more pictures soon!

The Extraction

This morning my wisdom teeth were extracted. Generally it was a pleasant experience. My appointment was at 10:15 am, so my brother and I took the bus downtown to get to the Medical Dental Building on time. We got downtown a little earlier than need be, so we had some time to kill. I asked Eric if he wanted to get something to eat, not realizing how hungry I actually was. Knowing that I couldn't eat anything before my surgery Eric just had to tell me how great his cinnamon twist was.

I didn't have to wait long before it was my turn to get the laughing gas and the IV sedatives. While I was reading a magazine in the waiting room I noticed an elderly woman with her daughter over the latest edition of Ocean Drive magazine. By the way, that magazine is ridiculously crappy. It was a bunch of advertisements for condos interspersed with photos of local celebrities at recent social events. Anyways, back to the important story. The elderly lady was called in for her general anastesia. She must have been a fairly independent old women because she snapped at the nurse when she offered to help the woman through the door. This should have been a good signal because only minutes after she left she started screaming as the laughing gas was administered. It sounded just like the cliche moments you hear about old dentists where screams can be heard from the waiting room.

Well, enough with her experience. It is time to talk about my experience with the laughing gas.

I have never had any sort of surgery before and even though gettting your wisdom teeth out is a pretty low risk operation I was still a little nervous because of the nerve that the doctor warned me about. The nurse was very nice to me as I entered the operating room and she reassured me that I did not have anything to worry about, especially after the gas.

I relaxed in the dentist chair and the the nurse reclined the chair and adjusted it for height. Afterwards she put laughing gas tubes over my nose and told me to take deep breaths. I took a few of them while she put on various body monitors for blood pressure and heart rate. She asked me how I was, but I still hadn't felt anything. She replied by telling me it that it will creep up on me. All I could think about was drinking on the camping trip when those tequila shots snuck up on me also. After a few minutes I knew what she meant. I can not really explain the feeling, but is like getting buzzed while drinking, only more intense and it makes you smile.

After I had enough gas another nurse came to put the IV in. I was impressed with her work because once my vein was ready all I felt was a slight pin prick and the IV was in. After I felt my arm get cleaned off they took the turnikit off and that is when I noticed they were wiping off the floor. Jokingly the nurse said she hit a good vein and it must have squirted because the two nurses were wiping off the floor. I guess people have been right when they say I have good veins.

It was nice to see the doctor come in before I was too loopy to remember anything. We chatted about the Olympics for a little. I told him that I watched the Chinese ping pong team get upset by the team from Sweden. The he told me some interesting stuff badmitton and how the birdie flies at 100 mph. Then ..... I don't remember anything until a voice said we were going to get into a wheel chair.

After the voice I don't remember going downstairs, but I do remember getting in the car. After what seemed like a couple minutes we were at the local Safeway on top of Queen Anne. Eric if I wanted to go inside and pick out some food. I was only too excited to start walking around. I think I forgot the fact that I was still somewhat sedated and I have an ice pack around wrapped around my head. I got out of the car to only cough a little bit and then spit out some blood, which then made my teeth all red. I am sure I looked like a mess when I smiled to people in the store. I might have even scared them. Eric even tried to get the lady giving out free samples of sandwich to give me one. We picked up the food pretty quickly. It was good because by the time we made it to the checkout line I had to lean my head on the handle of the shopping cart I picked up for support. As we walked outside I noticed that everything was getting increaslingly brighter until most things were white. luckily Eric opened the door in time for me to plop down in the front seat.

After all those adventures it was time to head home and read up and eat ice cream!

Now I feel pretty good. I have a slight head ache, but all in all I am fine. I can't think straight and walk around and use my computer, so I am content. Right now I am just waiting for Sandra to come over and bring me some congee. She went to a movie tonight and promised that she would bring me some food and check up on me. I can't wait for her to come because I am sooo hungry.

Oi, Me Bothersome Teeth

Over the last 8 months I have been to the dentist quite a few times. This is mainly because the first time I went back to the dentist this year, it was the first trip in about 8 years. I thought it was about time to check out my teeth.

Needless to say the trips went well and my teeth were cleaned. I was pretty happy with everything they told me except that my wisdom teeth should come out. I knew they were right, but I really didn't want to spend all the money before I could get some insurance. So I kept telling that I would do it, but I never made a plan to get them out in hopes that I could handle a few more months. They never really gave me a lot of pain and on a couple times they hurt more than a day.

Eventually I decided to get my wisdom teeth taken out by a surgeon that referred by my dentist. I figured that if I was going to be in China that it would be good for me to not have my wisdom teeth. That way I would not have to deal with them. My feelings were reinforced when I went to consultation and the doctor decided he would rather tell jokes rather than look at my teeth and tell me what was wrong with them. After that I decided to cancel my appointment, which made me happy.

Everything was going well until I returned from a camping trip. The day after I got back one of my teeth was irritated to the point where it swelled and caused pain when I swallowed. I finally had to bite the bullet and decide to get them taken out. I was not really looking forward to dropping a lof of money before I left, but that had to better than needing teeth pulled in China.

After a couple quick phone calls with some dentists and an oral surgeon downtown I was able to schedule my consultation for yesterday and my surgery today. During the consultation I told my doctor that I did not know what was wrong with my teeth, so he explained all that was wrong.

Since my wisdom teeth have been in about 5 years longer than they should have, they have had plenty of time to make themselves at home in my mouth. My two top teeth were a little less troublesome since they had grown in fully. They were just growing at an outward angle and pushing on other teeth. They were also slightly hard to brush behind as well.

My bottom wisdom teeth were a different story. They were impacted, which means that pieces of the lower jaw bone are on top of the teeth and that does not allow them to fully grow in. Even though the teeth were not coming all the way out my gums still wanted to give them a chance by opening a big hole over them. This raised issues because bits of food could make their way under my gums and there would be no way to brush the food out. Eventually they would have probably just rotted out of my mouth. Letting that happen was not an appealing option, so I knew they were definitely coming out.

On top of all this my lower teeth were not only impacted, but they had some nice curled roots which means the extraction was going to be a little more complicated than usual, but what can I expect for waiting so long. Adding insult to injury my oral surgeon warned me about the nerve in my jaw bone which the curled roots of my tooth on the right side of my face. He only said that I might have a numb lip for the rest of my life if he damaged the nerve. That kind of motivated me to pop for the general anasthetic.

I will tell you more about the anasthetic later.