she wants La Choy crispy rice noodles sprinkled on top of her cake and ice cream.

I had a final follow-up with my infectious diseases doctor this morning.

After looking at my ultrasound results from last Thursday, he said my liver and spleen were still slightly enlarged but were no larger than the first ultrasound showed during my hospital stay in June.

He is now passing the baton to our family physician so I won’t be seeing the three specialists anymore unless I feel it’s necessary.

Even though it’s a little late in the game, I requested that a copy of my records be faxed to another infectious diseases specialist in a larger North Carolina hospital for review.

Never hurts to get a second opinion, eh?

I’m such a sucker. There…I said it.

Eliana has been begging for a Nintendo DS for a long time. Carmi even said the child prays for one every night. So I crumbled and bought her one.

Doggone it. I took Eliana and Karys to summer camp this morning and walked them in. In the main room, one wall was lined with kids and each kid had his nose buried in a game console. Eliana moped over to the group, dropped her book bag and watched with a long face as the others clearly enjoyed themselves.

I witnessed this same scenario play out again and again but this time my heart really ached for her.

Carmi and I have been telling Eliana that we would consider buying a DS for Christmas. Well, Christmas came in July and the smile on her beautiful face (plus the big hug she gave me later) made the purchase worth every penny.

The 2008 Beijing Olympics are just 10 days away and Garmin has released the City Navigator China NT 2008 in conjunction with the games.

This new application stores nearly 7 million points of interest on a microSD/SD memory card which is compatible with a Garmin navigational device. The names of locations will be displayed in Pinyin. Beijing won’t be the only city to benefit from these maps, though, as they extend to over 980 other Chinese cities, just in case you’d like to take an extended tour after the Olympics is over.

Tourists’ will definitely find these handy, that’s for sure - especially when you’re in dire need for the nearest restroom.