I’ve been updating all of my websites, mostly because they’ve been sorely neglected for the past couple of years. Not just completely new designs but ten brand new Blogger layout templates for Free Blogger Skins and I’ve also updated a few of the older most popular templates.

I’ve also just started up a brand new website called Laff Away that’s a collection of all the funny junk I can find all over the web, mostly reposted mixed in with some of my original content. I plan on putting up a lot more original stuff as I go. I found a photo of a laughing puppy and thought it would make a cute logo and that’s him on the left. Check it out if you please and give it a bump on Facebook if you don’t mind =).

In other news, I did a job for a client in New York and I finished it last week. He needed a lot of modifications to the site for new features mostly, not a complete redesign. When it came time for him to pay me he said he was “working on the money” and I haven’t heard from him in over a week now. And he’s not replying to my emails. At least I didn’t send the him the updated template and he’s not going to get it until full payment is cleared. I should have gotten a down payment but I waived it because the website has been there for years and it has in excess of 5,000 posts, I really didn’t think he would stiff me. I’m not going to mention the name of the website yet but I will if he doesn’t come through. Live and learn… I guess.

Have you ever had a swollen saliva gland? I had an issue with mine for the past several years on my right side. It would intermittently swell whenever I ate anything and it never seemed to have a pattern. The name of that gland is the parotid. The swelling was caused by saliva not being able to come out of the duct, it would keep producing but since it couldn’t escape it backed up and became swollen. The end of the duct makes a sharp turn as it passes through the muscles in your cheek and the doctor thought that was where the blocking was occurring. The swelling never lasted long, maybe a couple of hours at most. Sometimes It wouldn’t bother me for up to 6 months at a time and then it would flare up. The swelling was pretty damn painful and looked balloon like just in front of my right ear.

I did see an eye, nose and throat Doctor for it a few years ago and he dilated the duct with a small probe and it didn’t bother me for a very long time. But it eventually it came back and every time I decided to go see another doctor it would go away. Until about two months ago when it got really bad and the swelling didn’t go down for several days. I got in to see an oral surgeon and he thought it might be a stone in the duct so he did some X-rays but nothing showed. He did warn me that if there was a stone it might not be dense enough to show on X-rays. He was able to clear the swelling like the previous doctor and it didn’t bother me anymore for almost two months.

Then it came back again, really, really bad and I decided to put some some pressure on it to try to force out the blockage. After lots of very painful squeezing a stone came out! It was about the size of a grain of uncooked rice. What a relief! No signs of any more swelling since then and it’s been over a week now.

Well we haven’t flooded out yet,we still have our fingers crossed. The tornados in the news are just freaky, why so many? My heart goes out to all those caught in them and for the lost loved ones.

That’s all I have today! Hope you all have a great Memorial weekend!!