I picked up 150 shares of NVDA yesterday @ $23.95 in the afternoon trading hours.  I wanted to get more, but already on thin ice in my trading account on margin. For the day NVDA has dropped as low as $23.15.  Due to recent market drops and fears of inflation and Intel (INTC) news and drop.  NVDA has dipped significantly from $34/$35 par share to $23/$24 range.  Yesterday, NVDA closed around $23.70+.   

     I also have some AMD stocks bought around $7.50 a few weeks ago.  AMD has been taking a beating as well, dropping to $5 range.  Too late to average it out, and I don’t have enough faith to put more $$ into AMD.  It came up to as high as $6.90 yesterday after news of new investment from Middle Eastern. 

    I have much more faith in NVDA pulling up then AMD but it’s too late to back off now.  If I remember correctly, the market always go down around the 2nd week every year in the past 3 or 4 years or so.  Hopefully I will remember not to jump in again next year and wait it out till the tech stocks have fully dropped.   Hopefully when the market goes up so will NVDA and AMD.  Right now, all I can do is wait for a greener day on the markets and hopefully some interest cut in the near future or take over news.  Please..Please…anything will help.

     At the regular annual checkup.  My primary took my blood and urine samples as usual. After going over the medical history of me and my wife, the doctor suggest that we both get a tetanus shot, since we never had one and it supposely is good for 10 years, we decided to go ahead and get the shot. The doctor warn us that it will hurt possibly 4-5 days. It’s just a shot, how hurt can it be right ? The nurse said it’s not that bad, in her case it only hurt her 2 days she said.  The nurse gave us the shot. My wife give out a little scream. I didn’t even feel a pinch. I was thinking ..humm..not bad…. We both went onto our regular schedule that day with work. 

      Nothing exciting, doing the usual at work as a software engineer, coding, browsing, coding, chatting…. As I was leaving work, I start to feel an akward musle cramp on my arm where I had the shot.  As I was driving, I realized that it starts to hurt weird.  It started to hurt so bad that I had to drive with my other hand all the way home.  A good thing, I took the shot on my right arm.  And I am left handed.  The reason to get the shot on my right arm wasn’t because I am left handed.  It was because my wife had the shot on her right arm, so I got it on my right arm so that we will not be running into each other’s bad arm on bed when we sleep.  So I have my strong arm normal, and my right arm hurting.  I stopped by at Autozone to get a head light, since one of my head light was out and we have a long drive that night planned.  And I changed the head light myself.  Not rocket science, but I had trouble reaching some places and screws, because by then I can barely use my right hand, so I was tring to do everything with my left arm only.     It was a struggle, but I managed. 

       When I get home,  I tried to rush and cook a few dishes, since it’s our turn to submit for charity breakfast and lunch for the monks at the local monastery.  My wife warned me not to cook.  According to our culture and believes, we shouldn’t cook when we have open wound, tooth ache, body parts hurting, stomach pain, etc., not sure how scientific it is, but we believe that the heat and small from the cooking can make it worse an swollen.   I skipped shower, we also belived that we are not supposed to take a shower, after a shot.   Anyway it would have been very hard to wash my hair with one hand, I thought.    It started to hurt really bad.  Around 11 at night, I start to feel fever coming up and my body started to feel really cold.  I took some Tylonol and Advil for fever and pain.  The fever and pain become moderate after the pills start kicking in,  the fever and pain start coming back after 3 hrs or so, my whole body was aching by then.  The whole night, I struggled to stay warm.  My fever was running between 102 and 103.  My wife was in pain too, but she wasn’t getting the fever like I was. The next day I couldn’t even get up,  I wife went to work and I was left alone.  The headache, fever and everything was killing me.   I decided to call my doctor and make appointment and went there.  By then the blood results from the previous day has came back, everything in my blood was good.  Except cholesterol was about 204, which is at the border line, and nothing to worry about.   The doctor took my temperature and pressure.  My pressure was a bit high, she said it’s probably because of the pain and fever.   According to the doctor,  there is no redness or swolleness in the area where I had the tetanus shot.  So she doesn’t think there is anything related to the shot.  Plus she said that it’s very very rare that anybody has bad reaction to tetanus shots.  The doctor took another blood sample, she said she just wanna make sure I am not coming down with anything.  The next two days, I keep myself medicated with pain killers and fever reducers.  As soon as the medicine worn out, the fever, the headache and pain come back quickly.  I tried to drink a lot of liquid and took tamiflu just to make sure I wasn’t gettting the flu.  After two days, the fever didn’t come back anymore, the pain on my arm has is no longer as bad anymore. 

Since I do a lot of yard work,  it’s probably a good vacine to have.  I got a lot of minor cuts all over my body from time to time without even knowing what actually caused the cut.    So with this tetanus shot, I will now feel a lot better and have less to worry about tetanus infection for each cut.   Later that week, as I was talking to a friend, I found out that he also had a very similar experience with Tetanus shot, he got high fever for a few days.  May be it was just the flu in my case, may be not.  I believe it was just my body reaction to the pain, but it’s just a bad cold or flu, who knows. 

       I got my Wii in 2006 winter. Yes sir! 2006 winter. It wasn’t an easy find though.  At that time, everyone was excited and hyped up about Wii and PS3.  It was the first time these game consoles were gonna be avaliable to public in bluk at stores.  Wii wasn’t that hot at the time as hot as it is now, but with a very reasonable price, comparing to PS3 with blueRay, we all wanted to get one Wii just for the hack of it. 

      Me and some of my friends stayed up the whole night to go line up.  It was freezing cold outside, we been drinking and playing poker the whole night.   We drove around the neighborhood tring to spot a good place to line up.  The lines were long, long already, it was like not even 3 in the morning yet.  we decided to split up and line up @ Bestbuy, Circuit City and KMart.  Nobody knows how many Bestbuy was getting, or Circuit City or EBGames or any other store.  Me, my girl and two of our friends decided to give it a try @ Bestbuy near Tyson Corner, so our friends leave us there and head out to other stores in the neighborhood.  There were about 30 people in the line, some with bedsheets, blankets, sleeping bags, chairs, tents…

     After an hour or so, we realized that our chances are very slim.   We got calls from our friends who went scouting the other neighborhood stores saying the same thing about Circuit City and Target, they even went to a couple other BestBuys and the lines are just too long.  After a couple hours of waiting, the guy from BestBuy has come out and told us that they are getting 3 Wii.  Freaking 3, can you believe it!!!  Everyone in the line were so disappointed, they started to scream, curze and well … complain and complain, some started to leave.  Some unwilling to give up their spot in the line even though they know they are not really getting one, just stand around as if everyone infront of them is just gonna disappear and they will get the spot.  

       At that time, people are still pulling into parking lot  and coming in to line up.  We tried to explain them but they are unwilling to listen.  They were looking us weird, giving the look, like if you guys are not getting then why are we all still waiting, are you really sure they are only getting 3 Wii kind of look. For us, it’s a long story to explain, we were ready to go home, but we couldn’t leave because our friends has drop us there and took the car.  We called them and found out they gave up too @ other locations, but they said they drove around and at one particular KMart in reston, there is no line.  There, only one guy standing by himself according to them.  So we decied to go there after our friends came and got us  

        It was still pretty dark when we got there. The parking lot was empty except with a few employee’s cars and still just one guy standing at the door.   So we all jump out and line up there.   We found out from him that, a guy from Kmart has come out and told him that they are not getting any Wii, they have no knowledge of any delivery for Wii at all and that he shouldn’t wait.  Yet, he was still waiting in the dark in the cold.   We decided to wait it out as well.  Since it’s almost time for KMart to open anyway.   In a few moment, KMart opened up.  We all went in and started asking questions, and complained.  The management present at the time, told us that they have no knowledge of Wii delivery at all.   But they were very certain they didn’t get any Wii and there was no delivery scheduled for the day.   We been standing outside in the cold for a long time, with a lot of alcohol and coffee in our body, so some of us had to run to the restroom, while some keep complaining to the management.  We were pushing them to take our names, so they can call us when they get some, if they ever get it.  The lady there, she is nice enough but keep telling us that they have no policy to do things like that and that it’s all first come first serve, whenever the delivery comes, whoever is there will get it.  We kind of understand it, but kept tring and telling her how long we had been waiting in the cold and stuff.  Eventually, the management agreeed to take our names and info down and that if they ever get some, they will call us, but no gurantee that the products  will still be there by the time we get there.  Fair enough! So we all leave our names there with our phone numbers.   To tell the truth, we don’t really know if they are actually gonna call us, what if the lady is not there, when Wii delivery arrives, what if other people in the store wants it before they can even call us, there are a lot of ifs and only ifs.  Never the less, getting them wrote down our names and phone numbers on a paper was a enough victory to go home empy handed.

      In a few days,  two of our friends got the call from KMart.  KMart got 3 Wii!!! So I guess our friends got two and the other guy got the other one.  After two weeks or so, we also got the call but since we live a bit far away from there. We had to call a fiend who lives closer to go pick it up for us.  Me and my girl kept one and give one to our nephew and niece.   Man, I tell you, they enjoyed the bowling so much.  My little niece at the time was about 4 1/2 years old so she is not quite old enough for games but bowling, she can do it, and she can do it very well.   I  actually enjoyed my 300 yard drives and pars and birdies consistantly in golf.  And well,  screaming and yelling giving tips to one another, tring to figure things out, but all smiles across the room playing Wii sport that whole winter.   Even after a year, I am very suprised to see that Wii is still a hard to find item on the market.  This thanksgiving, well, the niece and nephew is still enjoying the Wii with their neighbor friends and I am watching KungFu series and Korean drama on Wii through Wii Internet via wireless.  From time to time, we still play games with friends and sometimes with our niece and nephew.  Even though my desires for playing Wii has somewhat worn out, my girl loves playing Dancing with the Stars game these days.   Well, it’s not really my type of game, but I don’t mind watching her enjoy the game.  Whenevr I think about that night,  knowing how everyone around me is enjoying playing the game, I realized that if Wii can make everyone smile and laugh like that, the effort we put in that night waiting in the cold and looking for Wii, was all well worth it….

 p.s :  none of us got sick even though we all stand in the cold pretty long without blankets that night