Things you won't hear in the U.S....

Having conversations with many different people over here from taxi drivers to co-workers, I've run into the following phrases/things that you won't hear or see in the U.S. (some have taken me a little off guard):

• Having some cracks. (I think it's actually spelled craigh, but with the Irish accent it's hard to tell)= translation- having a couple of laughs. You have no idea what was running through my head when I heard this one....
• Drinking Budweiser or Miller Light on ice - really... it's cold over here and these folks put beer on ice.
• The ladies get really dressed up to go to the pubs (and there really is at a minimum one pub per block). Short dresses, no tights, heels.... Again... crazy it's too cold for that
• The art of pouring a Guinness. The bar tender poured the beer, and like any good American my co-worker grabbed it instantly. However we learned that you must let Guinness settle, then tip it backwards and top it off. (my co-worker almost had his hand slapped by the bar tender for this behavior)
• The use of "Ye" in conversation- yes it's used in everyday conversation. "I'll be sure to get back to 'ye' in the morn"

I'm half way through my time here, so I'm sure I'll have more to add to the list by the end of the trip.

Ireland living....

I just wanted to give everyone and update on how things are going from Ireland, since I made it through week 1 of work here. It has been a great experience, but with any international travel there are a few things that stick out. First of all the weather is so different, and it's taking some getting used to. In the mornings in typically been very chilly with a little bit of drizzle, and then all of a sudden the sun comes out. Then wait about an hour and it's pouring again. Needless to say I've been the American in the office who wears two layers of clothes at all time because these folks are used to this chilly weather. Secondly the people at Dell Ireland are very regimented in their daily activities. The teams tend to arrive by 9, and go for exactly a 15min tea break at 10 AM. Everyone heads down to lunch right at 12:15, and 30 min later they are packing up their things to head back to their desks. They are so precise on the 30 min at lunch, you can truly set your clock by it. At 5 PM everyone is heading out the door, and the other night we didn't get out until 5:30 and the parking lot was empty. Third, driving on the left hand side of the road, no matter what the right hand turns paired with the round-a-bouts still scare me. Fourth, there are more pubs than eating establishments, really. You can eat in some of the pubs, but there are a limited number of restaurants here. Finally, the people are so helpful and nice here. No matter who you strike up a conversation with your taxi driver, the people at lunch, the people at the pub everyone has an opinion, and everyone will spend the 20-30 minutes to give it to you.

This weekend my co-worker and I have hired a driver to take us to Killarney, which should give us a peak into rural Ireland. Everyone in town has described it as "brilliant" or "lovely", so pending the weather holding out we'll be in for a treat! More to come...

Fall fun...

In less than a year of marriage, I learned that Patrick should never be sent to the Halloween store without supervision. We've been struggling with our costumes for this year's Halloween party, so we began to brain storm last weekend on our way to Dallas. Despite about using half of the trip to brain storm, we were stumped. While out shopping with my parents, we bought Brinkley a hot dog costume and Ranger a chicken hat. You can only imagine how thrilled our dogs were to be dressed up as a hot dog and a chicken. Since the dogs had their outfits, Patrick was inspired....


So tonight I come home to this:





No your not seeing double, but Patrick and Ranger both have chicken hats. Here's Ranger side profile, if you don't believe me:

Patrick was so proud of his purchase, and he couldn't believe that Party City had this hat for three years ( I can't imagine why.... ). So of course my response was "did you get a good deal on it?" The answer was no... he paid full price for his chicken hat. I give the hat 2 weeks until some way some how the hat will experience the wrath of Ranger. Just like the 2 office chairs, 3 doggie doors, 3 couch cushions, and numerous stuffed dog toys, this too will just be a $22 dog toy at the end of the day.

Even More Stuff For The Kainers!!

It would be an understatement that say that 2009 has not been eventful for the Kainers. We now have something brand new and huge to add to our list of unexpected 2009 activities. On Monday afternoon, when I (Patrick) was at work, I started to feel some slightly sudden and partially severe pains in my belly. I have been experiencing multiple gastro-related symptoms for the last couple of years, so I am never shocked by any uneasy feelings that I may experience. The pains stuck around a bit, but I still felt good enough to go to the gym and try to swim a few laps in the pool. The pool was extremely crowded, so I just sat in the hot tub for a little while and then made my way towards the house.

When I took my first few bites at dinner, the pain came back and became much more unbearable. My doctor has been telling me to go straight to the Emergency Room if I ever experienced another "attack", as I have felt pains similar to this in the past. We packed up a few personal items, and drove towards the familiar St. Davids Hospital.

Naturally, we picked one of the busier nights at the ER to greet the staff with our presence. Multiple folks were wearing masks, so I immediately suspected swine flu was in our general vicinity, but luckily neither one of us have any symptoms of that. There was one slightly violent man experiencing a drug overdose and multiple other patients brought in by ambulance. One of our friends, Heather, is a paramedic and Kim saw her at the hospital when she dropped off a patient. She said that she dropped off several folks that night.

A few hours later my name is finally called and we get to wait in an actual patient room for approximately an hour before a doctor has a chance to come visit with us. Once the doctor arrives, he decides that an abdominal cat scan will be the best course of action, so I was wheeled into the cat scan room once the drug overdose patient was finished in there. About another hour passed and the doctor finally comes back into the room. He said the gallbladder looked fine (that is what we have been suspecting the issue to be); however, the appendix looked large and inflammed. The center of my pain was not where the appendix is actually located in our bodies, but he said it is not uncommon for the appendix to produce referred pain a little higher in the belly.

Come 3:00 AM, the hospital admits me into an overnight room. Kim heads home, takes a quick shower, lets the dogs out, and comes straight back to the hospital. By this time, the pain has worsened severely, and the nurses start treating me with morphine. I have never experienced morphine through an IV, so I was not ready for the feeling it creates as it enters your system. Although it provides pretty quick relief following the introduction into the IV, I temporarily felt like I was getting a lethal injection.

With the pain, mixed with morphine, regular staff visits to take vitals, and the fact that I was in a hospital bed, I managed about 1 hour of sleep on Monday night. The assigned surgeon came into the room mid morning on Tuesday and scheduled a 3 PM appendectomy. The surgery went well and I was rolled back into my room for recovery. Following the surgery, I was experiencing terrible pain in my shoulder of all places. The nurse was not sure what was going on, but treated me with strong pain medication once again. Finally, the surgeon stops in for one more visit before she goes home and informed me that they have to pump air into your body prior to the visit. The air collects in your diaphragm and refers to the shoulder. I am not sure how our nervous system works, but that sounds very strange to me. She said it would be gone within a few days, and I am barely even feeling it at all right now.

I then spent Tuesday night in the hospital as well. My good friend Larissa came to visit me, but all I really remember is saying hi and bye to her, so I slept while her and Kim talked. Per my request, and luckily without much opposition, Kim was willing to go sleep at home on Tuesday night. The last thing we need is for her to get sick too. She was an unbelievable help to me during the process and situations like this really make you realize how special your spouse really is. I would attempt to do for her as she did for me during this situation, but I do not believe I could ever be as amazing as she was.

I was scheduled for a release on Wednesday, but we had to wait until 5 PM before we were able to finally get out of there. My boss from my new job stopped in and dropped off some forms that would enable me to be provided paid time off, rather than taking unpaid time (I have only been at my job for a little over a month). It was quite a gesture and then a plant arrived from my new group at work. It was so wonderful to get home on Wednesday, although I was so sore, I could barely accomplish anything. Another set of great friends, Jeremy and Molly stopped in on Wednesday evening for a nice little visit. Luckily, I was able to talk to them a little more than I could for my other visitors.

So now it is Friday and I have been home for a couple of days now. My belly area is still black and blue, but most of the pains I was experiencing have subsided and I will just need a little more time to get better. We don't know if this surgery will make me all better or not, as only time will tell that. For now, if nothing more, it is so clear in my mind that I am surrounded by such awesome people and I will always recognize this. I am praying that I will simply be better after this surgery, but will not be discouraged if something else comes along.

In conclusion, for 2009, we have now experienced the loss of a precious grandparent, a major surgery, a minor surgery, a car accident, a job layoff, a brand new job, and a new job within the same company. All of this has happened in our first 9 months of marriage. I guess we cannot say that it has not been exciting so far!

That is all for now--hopefully the next blog will come much sooner and will be of a much better subject. Until then, have a great weekend!!

Our little graduate

Tonight was a momentous occasion in the Kainer household... Ranger graduated from puppy school, even though that doesn't include keeping him from chewing everything. Ranger can now sit, stay, leave it, sit pretty (I know he's a boy, but he's still pretty), come when called, but Ranger is still eating us out of house and home.

So far he's chewed: the office chair, the dog pillow, 3 doggie doors (Steve & Marcy's included), more stuff animals at Ritsy's house than we can count, soaker hoses in the back yard, hoses for our watering system, a couch pillow, and the chair cushion for our outdoor patio. We are really glad that he's so great at all the tricks, but what we really want is the chewing stage to be over!

Some People Are Just Not Very Smart!

Kim and I went to see a movie yesterday. After we parked our car and started walking towards the building, I witnessed a small car side swipe a Chevy truck as he backed out of a parking space. The truck was parked and the owner was not present at the time. I decided that the proper thing to do was walk over to the car to make sure everything is ok. The driver saw us walking towards him and we noticed that he was writing down something in his car, so we assumed that he was taking appropriate action and documenting the incident, along with his insurance information to leave for the driver of the Chevy truck. Since he was doing this, we started to walk towards the movie, but still did not have the best feeling about the situation. We walked up a few rows and documented his license plate just in case. We never saw him get out of his car, so we prepared a note of our own with my cell number, the license plate number, and our account of the accident. As I purchased the movie tickets, Kim walked back to the truck to put our information on the truck owner's door. She noticed that no note was left by the guilty party.

We were angry at the driver of the small Kia, but were happy that we documented his information. As the movie concludes, we notice that the Chevy truck was still parked in the same spot, and the owner of the truck got there the same time we did. We approached him and his wife as they approached the truck. Both of them were extremely kind and appreciative that we provided them a note and gave them a recap of what happened. As we left this conversation and made our way back to our car, Kim happened to notice the very same Kia that hit the truck parked a few spots down from us. We verified that this was the correct car by looking at the front bumper with fresh white Chevy truck paint smeared the approximate distance that the paint was missing on the truck itself. I ran back towards the Chevy truck and asked the driver if he wanted to see the car that hit him. Similar to our feelings, he could not believe that the car was still in the parking lot. He walked around the Kia with us and I told him again to call if he needed anything.

A few minutes after we got home, my cell phone rang and it was the Austin Police Department at the scene of the accident. She asked a few general questions and I provided as much information as I could recall. Unfortunately, I was not able to give a description of the driver, but she said that there was plenty of information to take care of the truck owners.

Kim and I were both thrilled and excited that we not only witnessed the accident, but we were able to provide the necessary information to the police and to the truck owners. This kind of stuff angers me so much and I actually have a warm and fuzzy feeling that the Kia owner will be getting in even more trouble than necessary. I realize that this is a tough financial period, but people have to take responsibility for their actions, and this Kia owner did not. I guess he thought we did not actually see the accident since we did not walk right up to him. Unlucky for him, he had no idea that the Kainer detectives were on the case!!

Season of Showers

It's that time in life when friends are expecting babies, and the rest (like us) are just now getting married. My mom & I threw a shower for a dear friend that I've know for 23 years, and I just wanted to share my cupcake creations from the shower which matched the invitations: