Today was one of those hospital trips I have discussed before. It was not one that concerned us, in fact the results were so predictable that Jan suggested the we just skip it. It was the once a year examination of her knee replacement surgery which went very well back in 2004, removed a lot of long term pain, and enabled her to walk without pain for the first time in years. I convinced her that she ought to go, so we packed up to drive the eighty miles to Augusta, GA, home of the Medical College of Georgia.

I was rather pleased to go to Augusta if we had to go somewhere because usually the cost of gas in Augusta is from five to twenty cents cheaper than in Statesboro. I know that everyone has faced some strange effects of the "Ike Spike" in gasoline prices but it was a shock to me. I filled up the tank in one car on Friday for $3.56 per gallon. Saturday morning I heard something on the radio that implied that there might be some price increases over the weekend so I took the other car to the Wally World station (which gives a three cent discount) and found that gas was now $3.89. I then completed an errand in town, and as I left for home the GATE discount station was posting a gas price of $4.39. The Standard oil station down the street was posting a price of $4.69. I turned around to see if I had misread the price at the GATE, and they were already posting a price rise. I continued toward home an saw another station that had posted a gas price of $4.99. things were really going bananas. By this morning the prices had leveled out to an average of about $4.29, but the thought of Augusta gas was tempting. Boy was I fooled. Most of the stations in August had a posted price of $4.99, and all of the discount stations had taken down their price lists and had no gasoline left. I found one Circle K minute mart that had posted prices of $4.49, but there were at least fifty cars lined up and a Dairy company eighteen wheeler was parked on one side of the island filling up all the tanks and the auxiliary tanks and taking up so much space that no on else could approach from that side. It was a little insane, and I decided (wisely it turned out) to wait till I got home to buy gas.

The second interesting thing was that as I was driving to Augusta I turned on the Neil Boortz show. I find Boortz enormously entertaining, but to my surprise, Boortz was on vacation and taking his place was Mike Huckaby-- yes, that Mike Huckaby. His enthusiasm for the McCain -Palin ticket was refreshing as were his comments about the media He pointed out that when there had already been eight "Republican" debates, there had been NO questions from the media monitors on Education, and only one on economics or the budget. He said that before one debate the candidates had talked with each other, and tried to suggest that since all of the questions up to that time had been on Iraq, Afghanistan, or Iran, and that since all of the candidates but Ron Paul pretty much agreed with each other on those topics, that they should give Ron five or ten minutes to express his opinion then shift the "debate" to other topics. The suggestion went nowhere, of course. Anyway, if Huckaby gets out of politics I would predict a really successful career as a talk show host on the radio. (Just what the Democrats need, another conservative talk show.)

The hospital appointment was refreshing because some of her medical care had been successful, and was still good, so we went away from the hospital somewhat happy for a change.

Since I last posted about Janet's health, the doctor in Houston called and requested a new CT scan so we got that done, and actally have a copy. It is a bit wild because it is set up so that we can see the entire scan the push a button and remove the exterior bones and go right in to the heart and aorta and even turn the heart and aorta around and look at it from all sides. Of course we can't understand what we see except that in the written commentary they discovered a lesion on Jan's liver which they find troubling. As if we didn't have enough "troubling stuff". It is fascinating to look at the scan, however. Jan says I ought to sculpt a model of it and decorate it with Christmas lights. Of course, the way things are going in Houston we aren't expecting any rapid decisions for a while, at least until they replace some windows in the hospital.

Oh well. Jan said yesterday that she is tired to postponing or canceling everything that we have planned in our lives, so I ordered tickets and we are flying next week to Vancouver Washington where we will see our Grand-daughter play the leading role in the New Blue Parrot Children's theatre production of Oliver. If that trip goes well, we will attend the party that our church has organized for the "over the hill gang" (My name for the three couples in our congregation that are celebrating Golden Wedding Anniveraries this year) on October 11, and then try to get to Ocala,Florida by Oct 18 for the birthday of one of my great grandchildren. (Of course this all depends upon the way the bodies hold up for the first trip and upon the decision of some doctor or another to decide that it is time for surgery.)