It all started with such promise. Then, in the blink of an eye, the entire season flashed before my eyes. Victor Martinez was pulled from the game and Kelly Shoppach was catching. What? *search search search* *search search search* Then I found it. The potentially worst fears realized.

"Victor Martinez left the game in the bottom of the second inning with a leg injury."

The same Victor Martinez that I just traded for in fantasy baseball.

The same Victor Martinez that is crucial to the success of the team.

Please, someone, anyone, tell me that he's okay!

I'm off to Baltimore tonight. I fly out at 4:46 and arrive at 6:05. Then it's about 90 minutes to Lindsay's parents house. They're located almost equidistant to Baltimore and Washington D.C.

It's just a quick trip though, as we're headed back to snow-town on Sunday.

Hillary Clinton: I'd be such a good world leader! Remember that time I went to Bosnia? I was in the middle of brokering a peace deal, and terrorists didn't like that, so they were shooting at me, but I stood my ground.

Sinbad: Um. I was there and I don't remember any peace meetings.

Hillary: No? Come on! Don't you remember? We were talking with those guys... about that stuff. Remember?

Sinbad: Nope. Don't remember that.

Hillary: Too bad I guess. It was really cool. I brokered one heck of a deal, all the while dodging bullets left and right.

Media: Hillary? Really? Bullets? You never left your hotel. No one came to your hotel either. In fact, you had nothing to do with the peace deal. Not only that, but there was no sniper fire.

Hillary: Wow. You guys have really bad memories.

Media: No we don't. Here, let me show you the film.

Hillary: Oh, that's right. Now I remember. It was all a lie to make me look good. Oops. Sorry about that. And by sorry about that, I mean I'm sorry that you found out I was lying again.

Lindsay is headed to Maryland today. That means I have the run of the house for the next few days. I'm flying to meet her on Friday. In the meantime, it's cereal city at the estate. I'll be watching Top Gear, eating cereal, and playing video games all night.

Oh yeah.

It snowed tonight again. It's Spring time! No more snow Ohio!

So I had my neurologist appointment yesterday. Basically he said that everything is okay, except that I'm getting migraines. To be precise, it went something like this:

Me: [sits down]
Dr: You have migraines.
Me: What?
Dr: You have migraines.
Me: But...
Dr: Yes, that's right. Migraines.
Me: How...
Dr: Exactly. Just what I thought. Migraines.
Me: When...
Dr: I see your lips moving but all I have to say about that is migraines.

Essentially the doctor had made up his mind while reviewing my other stuff and came to the conclusion that I am having migraines. I told him they weren't that severe, but he said there's different types of migraines and not all are knock you on your butt types. He then put me through some motor skills tests and listened to my symptoms and said "Hmmm. Interesting. Just as I thought. Migraines."

He said that he could give me medicine that I'd take each night so that I can return to exercising, or he said I could just "see what happens."

I told him that I had been trying to isolate what I was doing when the headaches started, and one thing that stuck out was this pro-biotic yogurt that I had started eating. I asked the doctor about that and sure enough... apparently yogurt gives some people headaches. Who knew? Certainly not me, that's who.

Since I had previously decided to run a clinical trial on myself, I had stopped eating yogurt about 10 days before. On day 1 of no-yogurt, I had my worst and longest lasting headache (about 5 hours.) Since that day, the headaches have effectively gone away.

Well, gone away until I decided to chase the dog on Saturday and ended up slipping on some ice, going completely horizontal in the air, and then slamming back down on my deck. Lindsay heard it from upstairs and said that it sounded like the clap of thunder that accompanied the lightning that brought down the tree that would later become the Wonder Boy bat in The Natural. Okay, so maybe she didn't say that, but I'm sure that's what she was thinking. What she actually said was that she heard a loud thud and wondered if I was okay. Especially after I stumbled upstairs in what appeared to be a drunken stupor.

So I told the doctor about that even too, and his response was... "Yeah. It's winter. We get a lot of that."

Great. Thanks doc.

I went to be tonight at 7:35 PM. Now it's about 10:30 and I'm awake. I'm not sure that it's a good idea to take a 3 hour nap right before bedtime.

I still feel tired though, so who knows. I know I've been feeling exhausted lately, so maybe this will do some good.

Tomorrow I have an appointment with the neurologist. I don't know what to expect, but I'll try to ask him all the questions that I can remember.

With all of this market uncertainty and continued fallout from the sub prime mortgage mess, there's no telling how much further we're going to fall. Part of wants to tell the investment banks to lay in the mess that they've made for themselves. If we were to do that though, I imagine there'd be a run on the banks like never seen before. It would make the Savings & Loan fiasco look like a best possible outcome.

At this point everything is going down without regard to merit. No cause is necessary to make a stock drop like a rock. My company has already lost over $60 per share while continuing to hit or beat earnings estimates. Today it was announced that Bear Stearns was bought for under $300 million. That's about $2 per share. Three weeks ago the stock was trading for $87 per share. The company was valued at $30 billion two weeks ago. Now it agreed to be purchased for 1% of that value.

The FUD that is flying around now is unbelievable. The good and the bad are getting killed out there. Any sign of weakness, no matter now small, means that a stock is losing 10% of it's value. I really think that the DOW is headed back down to the 10,000 mark.

The only positive to come out of this are all the great buying opportunities. Once the correction hits, it will make the last bubble of 2000 seem tiny. You need to buy now and hold on for your life, because it will definitely be a bumpy ride. Now's not the time to invest anything you're scared to lose (not that there's really any time for that.)

I had my echo cardiogram stress test today. My heart is perfectly healthy. The doctor said my EKG is perfect. So my brain and heart are just great. What's the problem then? They stopped the test today when I told them that my brain was "tingling." Apparently the nurse didn't like the sound of that. It's kind of like when your hand falls asleep. It just tingles a little. It happens periodically.

I'm going to make up a new term for it. Tingly Brain Syndrome.

That's what I've got.

I was watching the last 5 minutes of Rudy tonight and it just occurred to me that he could've been the greatest player in the history of college football. He averaged a sack for every down that he played. Imagine if he had played every game.

He would've finished his college career with something like 2400 sacks. Wow.

Since I'm now all about the doctors appointments, I've got an appointment with the eye doctor tomorrow, the cardiologist on Friday and the neurologist next Wednesday. The headache today lasted about 4 hours and seemed to be directly behind my right eye. Hopefully they can figure something out soon.

Regular gas hit $3.45 per gallon for regular today. $4.00 will be here before you know it.

So I had my follow-up appointment today in order to go over the results of my MRA, MRI, and blood work. The good news is that nothing bad was found. No signs of aneurysm, blood clots, kidney problems, liver problems, etc. Nothing like that was found. The bad news is that the cause wasn't found either. The doctor referred me to a neurologist and a 24 hour urine test (more on that later) and a stress test. Let's hope it's multiple choice and not essay.

The urine test is where I get to pee in a jug for a full 24 hours, yay! I don't have to urinate for 24 hours straight, just collect all my samples for 24 hours. And now the really good part, I get to keep it in the refrigerator. Right next to all the blood I've been saving I guess.

My hard drive crashed on Tuesday and has since been in a perpetual state of repair. I think I'll be up and running by tomorrow, but I fear that everything on the old drive with the exception of my documents folder is gone. There's irony there, as my hard drive crashed as I was recovering files onto it from someone else's crashed hard drive.

So now, once I get my machine back and going again, I still need to recover theirs.

This is my brain. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My brain is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. My brain, without me, is useless. Without my brain, I am useless.

I didn't expect to feel this way, but it's REALLY cool to see pictures of your own brain. I have 356 other pictures that are similar to this.

PS Bonus points to those of you that recognize the phrase above.

All health news, all the time. Welcome to the second most boring part of the internet. What's worse you ask? The "Examining dental decay of blind yaks" blog.

My MRI and MRA are scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. I need to fast for them, but only beginning at 9:00 AM, so that leaves plenty of time for Taco Bell at 4:00 AM.

Then I have a follow up appointment with the doctor on Monday where he'll show me the results of my blood work, MRI, and MRA.

MRA, or Magnetic Resonance Angiography is the imaging of flowing blood in vessels using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). MRA is used to generate images of the arteries in order to evaluate them for abnormal narrowing, occlusion or aneurysms. In this case they'll be looking at the arteries of my neck and brain.

They'll shoot some dye into my blood in order to better see the arteries. Hopefully none leaks out, otherwise I'm in for some surgery.

Hopefully they'll give me a copy of the MRI so that I can post my awesomely awesome brain.

I had blood work done today and they're going to call me back to make an appointment to get a MRI and a MRA within a day or two.

I know some of the things that it's not, but no idea what it is yet.

I have to admit that I'm a little anxious about seeing the doctor today. It's probably nothing, but there's always a chance that it's more than nothing.

It could be some illness I have that I'm not aware of, then he prescribes me an anti-inflammatory and my problems go away.

Let's hope for that...

My appointment is at 3:00 PM.

So I had this grand plan for last Friday. In honor of the leap day, I was going to write about how different my life is now from 4 years ago. Instead, I didn't write anything. Good job, self.

Friday we went to a fish fry with another couple. I'm not particularly fond of fish, but it was okay anyway. Afterwards we went back to their house and checked out their pictures of Equador and the Galápagos Islands. They were there about 2 weeks ago and had some really cool shots and details of their trip.

Saturday we went to Cleveland's West Side Market. There's literally tons of great food there. We got some cheese that is especially good. I think we're both looking forward to going back in a few weeks. After the market we checked out the new Steelyard Commons area. Lots of shopping and dining options there. I thought it was pretty nice and would like to explore it more in the future.

Saturday night we had dinner with our friends across the street. After dinner we watched some of Major League, which is always great. Then we played some Euchre. I've only played a few times, but Lindsay really likes it. I think if we play a few more times, we'll all get the hang of it.

Yesterday we just hung out, made a great chicken pot pie from scratch, made a lasagna for Tuesday night, worked on our "marriage time" homework (which we have to finish before class tonight) and then went to Home Depot to get some paint for the living room. Our goal is to paint the room this coming weekend. Lindsay likes to paint and I don't mind taping, so we complement each other in that way.

Tomorrow I have a doctors appointment to try to get to the bottom of some frequent headaches I've been having, especially after/during exercising. Hopefully it's nothing serious, but given my family history, I'm eager to find out.