It all started at work.  It was almost time for me to go home, and I started having gradual chest pains out of nowhere, and I didn't know why.  O_o  They continued on my way back to campus.  I wasn't sure if I was suffering a heart attack or what. I didn't want to sleep on the chest pains, so I went to the school security and they took me to the nearest hospital.  The doctors there placed me on a bed, put some IV into me and placed a blood pressure cuff on me.  A while later, I was put in a CT-scan to take X-rays of my chest.  They thought I had something that was very minor known as phemothorax, but they told me that the pains would go away in about 3 to 5 days. I felt reassured that it wasn't a heart attack. :) (I'm perhaps too young to have one, anyway, since I've been in a couple sports in the past and have a generally healthy body)  They allowed me to sleep the whole night at the hospital.  Before I left the hospital the next morning, they told me to go see my regular doctor in my hometown as soon as possible, and I did later that afternoon.  The doctor there told me that she disagrees with the hospital doctor's diagnosis.  She thinks that the X-rays were misread, and that I would be fine soon.  I am doing alright now; the pains in my chest have gone away.

Isn't that the weirdest thing for the chest pains to occur when you least expect it? O_o  I mean, the day started off normal, and then they just occured spontaneously later in the evening.  I didn't even remember doing anything that might have caused them (like if I ate something spicy or something that could give me heartburn), though one possibility could have been stress due to the approaching end of the college semester and the upcoming finals week, but I don't really know.  Again, I'm fine now.  :)

Here are a couple recent pics of me in real life.

http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n189/anders59/Picture006-2.jpg

http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n189/anders59/Picture005-2.jpg

I have also one of me with Terry Jones (of Monty Python fame), and one with his autograph. :D

http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n189/anders59/Picture003-2.jpg

http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n189/anders59/Picture004-2.jpg

Terry Jones was awesome.  He came to my college campus to discuss our misconceptions of the medieval era.  He was so funny in the way he gave his presentation. :P  I never thought I ever meet a famous person this close and personal in my lifetime. ^_^

I've been on several great vacations with my family.  One trip I'll never forget is the time when we traveled out west to go sightseeing, including Yellowstone National Park, in July 1997, and we stayed in a cabin up in the mountains for one night.  When we left the park the next morning, it was snowing hard, and we were driving in an old minivan, so my dad was being very careful in his driving on the winding roads down the mountains.  We made it out safely.