Thursday Notes

I had planned to post a new Reaching for the Stars entry today, but I can’t quite get the right flow to the piece, so I’m going to keep at it a few more days. Instead, some assorted notes to unload my brain.

Health

After nearly three weeks I think I’m finally beating whatever has been ailing me. S kept asking me in week two if I wanted to start taking antibiotics. Since I had no signs of sinus infection, I kept saying no. Sunday she forced me to start. Who knows if it was the meds or the illness finally running out of steam, but I’ve been getting better each day since.

I guess this is a good moment to share that late last year I had a couple more Afib episodes, my first big ones in four years. Each seemed to be triggered like the ones that led to my initial diagnosis: having a drink late in the evening.

The second episode was a little concerning because it did not seem to fix itself. I’ve had five of these events (that I know of) and each time my heart rate normalized after about 12 hours. Two weeks before Christmas, though, my heart kept beating faster than normal beyond that 12 hour window. No other bad symptoms – chest tightness, shortness of breath, etc – but where my resting heart rate is normally in the low 60s, it remained in the 80–90 range. When it didn’t clear after 12 hours I called my cardiologist, who asked me to come in for an EKG.

This was on a Friday afternoon before Christmas, and I have to pass two malls to get to the hospital. Traffic was a nightmare. But, you know what? Trying to get through holiday traffic to see your cardiologist must have been the right kind of stress because halfway there my heart rate slipped back into normal. I guess I should have left the house earlier.

The EKG read normal, my doctor had me wear an event monitor for two weeks and it came back clean.

Since then only once have I felt like things might be a little wonky, but my Apple Watch claimed I was still in normal rhythm. What triggered that? Having a beer one night after one of L’s games.

So, I’ve kind of stopped drinking. I’ve had a few drinks when we’ve gone out to dinner. But other than those I’ve had maybe three other drinks in 2024. Not that I was a big drinker before. I had already pared it back to having one drink maybe four nights a week. When I had two drinks at dinner one night last week it felt like five or six. I’m going to have to switch to low alcohol beer for spring break so I’m not passed out by noon.

Getting old is fun.

Career Change

No, not with me. I’m still manager of the house and kids.

S had a major change in her job recently. I won’t go into all the details but her organization went through some serious reorganization and adjustments of priorities last year, pivoting away from primary care and towards cancer and heart medicine. I guess that’s where the money is.

In her role as medical director S was responsible for passing word from above to the pediatric world of the changes. Changes she had been fighting against for months. The first eight months of last year were kind of terrible for her. And they were stressful around our house since she spent two days of the week here doing that administrative job. Often I could walk by her and feel the anger radiating from her body. Other times she would vent to me after contentious calls. She didn’t take it out on us but she wasn’t always fun to be around.

As part of the reorganization the network decided to eliminate her medical director job in August, splitting it into smaller, regional positions. They offered her what they claimed was a lateral replacement. She would go from managing over 100 docs and the org’s entire school-based program to about 10 pediatricians plus a handful of family medicine docs.

She told them to pound sand.[1]

Starting in September she was still home two days a week, but they became vacation days, burning through the time she never took off because she had been so busy. I wish I could tell you we spent those days doing fun stuff, but they were more a chance for her to decompress after a wild three years in the Covid era. She watched a lot of movies. I got annoyed with her being around. I counted down the days until January.

When the calendar flipped to 2024 she went back to seeing patients four days a week. Her current stress level is so much lower than it was a year ago. She is still super busy, but it is just devoted to taking care of kids. No more administrative BS.

Today was a perfect day to share this as it is her normal day off. Maybe we’ll go to the gym together, and then lunch. Maybe we’ll run some errands. Maybe she’ll sit and watch movies all day. Whatever it is, she won’t be on calls for 10 hours with her blood pressure steadily rising.

Cars

I can’t believe I haven’t mentioned this yet, but this is a new car year for me. You know what that means? The return of the New Car Chronicles!

I will preemptively tell you that this round won’t be as exciting as the last. With one kid in college, another headed there in 18 months, plus my wife having 50% fewer jobs than she had the last time I went through this process, my budget has changed quite a bit.

That doesn’t mean I’m going to get a crap car. It just means I will not be replacing my Audi with something as nice/nicer than it.

I’m already zeroed in on three vehicles with plans to start test driving after spring break. Watch this space for updates.

Royals Stadium

First off, I’m pleased to report that everyone I know in Kansas City who was at the parade Wednesday seems to have been nowhere near the horrific shooting. I’m sure the Founding Fathers had spraying bullets into a peaceful, celebratory crowd of a million people in mind when they wrote the second amendment.

The Royals released renderings for their potential new stadium on Tuesday. I have to say, they were gorgeous. But stadium renderings usually are gorgeous. I, like just about everyone else, immediately noted there was no crown-shaped scoreboard. While there was a water feature – right in the batter’s eye, which makes no sense – there did not seem to be fountains. Again, I know these are just renderings and can/will be adjusted, but seems like the people coming up with these knew nothing about Kansas City baseball.

Anyway, the pictures were dazzling. I do have questions, though. I’m in the camp that isn’t convinced that Kauffman Stadium, one of the best places to watch an MLB game, is obsolete. But there’s new ownership, and modern ownership groups often care more about building revenue generating machines than winning baseball teams.

One of the architects who spoke Tuesday said that the K has reached the point where its original concrete is beginning to deteriorate and could fail…sometime in the next 40 years. That seems like a pretty big window to require a new stadium in the next five years.

And, if I’m not mistaken, part of the tax extension being requested to pay for the new stadium will also fund further upgrades to Arrowhead Stadium. So I guess the concrete at Arrowhead is just fine since Kansas City taxpayers aren’t being asked to replace it, too?

I don’t have super strong feelings about the new stadium. As sterile as the giant parking lot around the K seems, that tailgating culture is part of being a Royals fan. How many dozens of hours have I spent in those lots before games, drinking, eating, throwing baseballs/footballs with friends? Taking 30 seconds to think back brings back all kinds of fantastic memories. Sometimes we did it when the weather was awful, and that became a huge part of our experience. That April Saturday in 1997, when Tiger playing round three of his first Masters in Georgia and a few of us braved sub-freezing temps to watch a bad baseball game. There were games when it was well over 100 in the parking lot and we powered through. There were days when we sat in the rain hoping the heavy stuff would blow through so the game would start. And there were a lot of balmy, summer nights where you got there early, told friends where you parked, and waited for the party to build.

I know with a downtown stadium the pregame stuff gets moved to bars and restaurants, which has some advantages. But you also lose most of what made pregaming at the K unique. You can’t walk into a bar with a President’s platter from Gates.

I’m not a Kansas City taxpayer and my focus is keeping the Royals in KC and competitive. If a new stadium makes that happen, I suppose I am for it. Even if the argument against the K seems flimsy to me.