So today a Facebook friend posted a picture of the picture of our 1991 conference champion team in the trophy case at my old high school. That was my junior year in high school. We had a really good football team that year. I remember it like it was yesterday. It’s hard to believe it’s been 21 years. It’s nice to know we are still in the trophy case. My senior year playing football was a bit more disappointing. We were good, but we had a few key injuries and lost a couple of games so we didn’t win the conference. My last football game was in a playoff loss to a team that we use to always beat. To this day, not a day goes by without me thinking about it. I remember all of us bawling in the locker room. We weren’t crying because we lost. It was just a stupid game. We were crying because that was the last time most of us would be strapping that helmet on. We would never bash heads on the football field again. We would never be teammates again. Just typing that brings tears to my eyes. I don’t know what it is about playing football, but they were some special times. Seeing that picture makes me think that somewhere we are still teammates, still bashing heads, and having a great time on the field. It was 21 years ago, but feels like yesterday.

A lot has changed since then. They have a new high school, new football field, new football conference, and new mascot. It’s nothing like the “good ol’ days”, but these are the “good ol’ days” to the kids that weren’t even born yet when we were bawling our eyes out in that locker room. To them, that picture from 1991 could just as well be black and white. Ancient history. To me that picture means everything, it was just yesterday.

Well I arrived home last night, and it looks like winter finally showed up. I can no longer see grass in my yard. I can’t complain much. It’s been a great winter.

So where was I? I spend most of last weekend, and last week in hospitals. Early last week I was in Sioux Fall for my dads stem cell transplant. He has cancer, multiple myeloma to be exact. We actually got to sit in the room during the transplant. It was a pretty simple procedure. He was pretty drugged up, so he doesn’t remember any of it, but we just watched them drain six bags of cells into him, and that was it. Now it’s just a waiting game to see how successful the procedure was. He is pretty sick now, but he will gradually get better and after 100 days we will know if he is cancer free. Chances are it will come back. When they harvested his cells for the transplant, they took enough for two, so down the road he may have to go through this again.

After a few days in Sioux Falls, we drove to Minneapolis. My mother-in-law was still in the hospital after her heart transplant. She had a little bit of a bleeding problem caused by the blood thinners they gave her because they were worried about a few clots that they saw. She had to have two more surgeries because of this bleeding, and it was a little hairy for a few days, but she is doing good now.

I’m glad to be home. A week of hospitals, and hospital food was more than enough for me. The Wife is still down there, and plans on staying a couple more weeks.

We are seeing American Idiot today. I don’t really know much about the musical. All I know is it’s going to have some pretty awesome music.

I don’t remember if I ever mentioned that I started up my Tumblr again. If I didn’t mention it, well I did. If I did mention it, I guess I am going it again. It’s usually updated more than my blog, except for this week though since I am out of town.