Kristin and I went to the dentist today. I’ll tell you one brief story to illustrate how awful it was. So they take about a million X-Rays of my mouth because it’s my first time there. They then inform me that they want to perform a panoramic X-Ray since I need my wisdom teeth out. I am well-acquainted with the panoramic X-Ray. In fact there is literally no dental procedure I’m not acquainted with (braces, fillings, root canals, multiple oral surgeries, bonding, fake teeth…I’ve had it all).

So I stand up, place my head in the machine and bite down on the plastic tube…Ready to go. The tech leaves the room and hits the button. Nothing. She comes back and tries again. Nothing. So the dentist comes in and starts shaking the whole machine while I am still biting the tube and still hve my head inside it and he’s yelling to the nurse, “Joo haf to shake it! Joo haf to shake it, wait for light to come on THEN do it!” So they both shake it violently for several minutes before deciding that they should probably let me take my head out and try the panoramic another time. Not the best experience.

* Editor’s note: I do admit that the dentist was indeed Arab and that some may feel that me using “joo” instead of “you” and “haf” instead of “have” may be deemed racist and or offensive, but I typed it both ways and let me assure you that this way is definitely funnier.

As mentioned above, Kristin and I went to the dentist today. It was an awful experience on so many levels, but we did find out that 2009 is the year of Jordan. At least according to Parenting Magazine, which names “Jordan” one of the top boy names of 2009. I know that admitting to my thousands hundreds dozens of readers that we were looking at Parenting Magazine could prove as quite the fuel for the rumor mill. That said, let me just show you a sampling of what the other magazines on the waiting room table were like:

Yikes.

Recently read  The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. I love good fiction, but rarely read it. The Alchemist is a story about a young shepherd named Santiago who is on a journey to fulfill his Personal Legend. It’s philosophical, it’s spiritual, and it’s entertaining. I couldn’t put it down.

Thanks, Chris Scott.

Many of the regular readers know that my grandmother gave Kristin and I a car about a year ago. It runs great and is a huge blessing to us. Unfortunately, several weeks ago the inside door handle broke as I was exiting the vehicle. It made for a bit of an inconvenience because in order to get out you had to roll down the window and use the outside handle. Luckily, my friend and drummer Chris Scott is an auto body man (the term ‘auto body man’ does not quite capture his abilities. Think “Pimp My Ride”). Anyway, Chris came out to take a look at it one night at church. He explained that it would be easy to fix if I simply ordered the part.

About two seconds later I grasped the outside door handle to enter the car and it literally snapped off in my hand. So now we have a driver’s side door with a broken inside handle AND a broken outside handle. Now in order to exit the vehicle one would have to roll down the window, lean generously out said window, grasp a piece of broken/jagged plastic and attempt to pull it. Since we have been waiting for the pieces to come in, there have been no less than two sliced fingers.

The good news is that Chris is meeting me at my office TODAY to fix both the interior and exterior handles.