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Vanilla Strange Gato

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Everything posted by Vanilla Strange Gato

  1. That was a satisfying watch. It would be great to get that ‘54 Strat into the hands of Eric Johnson to replace his original “Virginia” Strat, but the one in this video is Ash. Virginia was Sassafras. My guess is EJ and his magic canine hearing would be able to tell the tonal difference.
  2. We need people who DON’T have cancer to visit this board so we can put the fear of God into them about being proactive with their health, getting checked when they are supposed to, and not ignoring any changes in their body like a typical man (that’s a shot at myself).
  3. I didn’t want a port when it was suggested. I had already been thru that first big surgery and ended up with an ileostomy (reversed after a year) and knew I had a fight ahead. For some reason, getting a port made me feel like “I don’t want to be like those cancer patients that get chemo and are hooked up to tubes and IV’s and look sickly.” My colorectal surgeon said “No, you want that. You want to use that instead of having the harshness of those chemicals wear down the walls of the veins in your arms over time.” He was right, of course. It came in handy for other surgeries in the future and for administering contrast during scans. Had my Power Port for nine years. It served me well. You will be glad you have it for this part of the journey.
  4. Saw them open for Rush on the Signals tour in 1983. They were good. Their drummer in particular was good. Also, I think Mike Tramp had too much of the random hair band whiny voice back in the day, but damn if White Lion’s version of Radar Love and the video wasn’t greatness in those days. That was mostly because of Vito Bratta, but Golden Earring gave them something classic to work with.
  5. Oh, I beat it in 2007. It came back in my liver again in 2008. I beat it again and it came back in my liver once more and a lymph node by my aorta in 2009. I’ve been clear since October 5th, 2009. That day they removed the lower third of my liver and took my gallbladder as well. They removed the lymph node that was hot and a few others in the vicinity just in case. Then they shielded my organs as best they could, except for the aorta, which withstands radiation pretty well (????) and they performed intra-operative radiation therapy inside my body on the tumor bed where that lymph node had been, right there in the OR while I was open on the table. Instead of going five days a week for six weeks like I had to when I got radiation in my hips/pelvic area, they just zapped me once inside and I was done. I do not recommend doing any of this if you can avoid it. And if you have ever had a rib spreader used on you, then you understand the soreness that comes with that for a few weeks after. All of that was done at M.D. Anderson in Houston.
  6. I’m ready for Star Trek Enterprise sick bay open scanning technology. But hey, I want a teleporter so I don’t have to deal with TSA and long flights too. My primary site tumor was a foot long, weighed ten pounds, and had grown thru the back wall of my large intestine and was pushing on my spine. I had tweaked my back in the past so I thought my back pain was just associated with an old injury. Had about 60 lymph nodes involved and 6-8 tumors in my liver, with the two largest being in the lower lobe and they were Silver Dollar sized. My first CT didn’t know all the lymph involvement and only showed one little shadow on the liver. The PET/CT, however, made my liver look like the surface of the moon. I went thru shock and sadness and about three days and moved into being furious pretty quickly. It helped. Fuck cancer. All of it. Every form in every part of the body.
  7. I understand how CEA’s work and their relevance. Mine was 29 when I was diagnosed but I met patients who had CEA counts in the hundreds. hopefully they get a better blood test in the future.
  8. CEA was 3.0 or lower?
  9. Vanilla Strange Gato

    Rush

    Well this stinks for Alex. Commenters are saying broken string but I'm not seeing it Looks like he's trying to get a string to go back into the nut slot at one point?
  10. Dude. M.D. Anderson is like a model convention on some floors. You need to explore other floors. They don’t seem to have the Barbie convention that is the pharma reps I encountered at Methodist. Pharma rep interviews must be tough. “You’re really really hot. Can you memorize the fact sheet about the drug we are pushing. Ok. You’re hired.”
  11. I sent them money for (checks calendar in my memory) eight years and I never got a cup! Or maybe they offered it after my liver resection surgery and my wife told them no. It’s awesome to get requests from the M.D. Anderson foundation for donations while you still have a five-figure balance that gets $3000 added to it every quarter when you go in for an MRI. Now I want the cup they owe me.
  12. They used a replacement in the 90’s when Christine’s fear of flying (or maybe it was all travel) kept her off the road.
  13. It’s pretty crazy.
  14. https://www.metallica.com/tour/1985-02-28-houston-texas.html https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/iron-maiden/1985/the-summit-houston-tx-53d3abad.html
  15. If you are an old like me and grew up in the Houston area, you will recall a radio show that came on at midnight on the weekends called Metal Shop. Hosted by Linda Silk on KLOL. It was the only show you could hear Metallica on the radio in their early days. They were too fast and thrashy for mainstream album rock radio. I had only heard them a few times in high school and seen some stuff about them in Circus and Hit Parader magazines, or maybe a Kerrang! that a classmate brought to school. In 1985 I went with a buddy from my high school band and my big brother and one of his co-workers to see Iron Maiden and WASP at The Summit. It was the Powerslave tour, and it was excellent. And loud. Between WASP and Iron Maiden they announced that Metallica was playing at Cardi’s with Armored Saint after the Maiden show and it was all-ages and you could get in for $5 or something with your Maiden ticket stub. Again, if you are from the Houston area in that time frame, you remember the ads: “it’s ladies’ night at Cardi’s!!!” It was a school night for me and work night for my brother, but we went anyway. My friend called his dad to tell him he would be home later than planned and that he had no choice because he didn’t drive. His dad was pissed, which is a bummer because his dad was a guitarist in a band in high school and still hand a kind of Spicoli vibe when you talked to him. We went to Cardi’s. It was packed. Armored Saint was finishing their set when we arrived. As they left, the crew rolled off their wall of Marshall’s. Behind it was a larger wall of Marshall stacks. M Cardi’s ain’t that big. Iron Maiden could have used this setup in the Summit and still been too loud. This was the Ride The Lightning tour. Cliff was still alive. I got to see my first ever bass solo that night. Everything was 100mph and they played like they were trying to kill us. It was raw and powerful. I was screaming in my brother’s ear to tell him something and he couldn’t make out one word. To this day I still do well on audiograms that are administered at work. I’m not sure how. The next morning I was very late to 1st period. I woke up on the living room floor. I had passed out waiting for my brother to get out of the shower around 3:30am. I was wearing a Powerslave shirt I bought for my cousin who couldn’t go. I got up and went to school. No shower. Bed head from sleeping on the floor. Smelled like pot smoke and cigarette smoke. Giant black X’s on my hands. Made it to school and walked passed the attendance office without getting an admit. Went to Algebra and opened the door with maybe two minutes left in class. Mrs. Allen turned and started pointing and grumping at me. The class was pointing and appeared to be laughing. I could hear nothing but ringing. I said “WHAT? I CAN’T HEAR ANYTHING YOU ARE SAYING!!!” I got detention. And went to choir and told the director I would not be able to participate for a few days until the ringing stopped. I didn’t smell good. People usually knew if you wore a concert shirt to school the next day that you had gone. They could smell me and knew that I had gone. It was totally worth it.
  16. Pretty sure I don’t fit into my concert jerseys from the 80’s.
  17. I actually like the songs her band does in that movie.
  18. Glad you brought up that Super Bowl appearance. It was so great after 9/11 had everyone reeling and in a fog for a long time. And the whole country being polite to each other for a long time. John McClain of the Houston Chronicle was on sports talk radio in Houston the week after that game. The hosts asked him about the halftime performance. He said he didn’t know much U2 and didn’t care for their music, but when those two massive black cloths rolled down from the top of the Superdome and “Streets” started playing, and all those names started scrolling down those cloths, he said everyone in the press box had tears streaming down. It was a special moment for sure.
  19. Underrated.
  20. We have reached the end of the list for band names. Wow.
  21. As someone else stated, there are many. I could do a whole page just on Rush and Van Halen. There is something special about this one. Plus, it’s fun to play.
  22. They know how to set the mood in that stadium.
  23. Everything on their site looks like I’m not worthy to touch it. That 1954 Strat is almost as much as my first house.
  24. If you saw the movie “Rock Star” with Mark Wahlberg, specially the scene where he wakes up from some bender and sees the “chick” from the night before standing up to pee, I would say this rock & roll lifestyle is going according to plan.
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