Alesa flew to Maine on the 17th and had a great time visiting with Laura. I drove her to Sanford and Steve and Laura picked her up at Bangor before they all went golfing. It was a great trip for her and she has a lot of stories and thoroughly enjoyed herself. I did some food shopping while she was gone and she had many leftovers in the fridge, so I survived. I picked her up in Sanford on the evening of the 23rd. I am still nursing sciatica and bruised ribs so my activity was toned down a bit while I rested them. The VA called back last week and is scheduling physical therapy at a clinic (of my choice) near me for my sciatica. The bruised ribs are on the left and the sciatica is on the right so I get a few hours of sleep before I have to get up and do a bit of stretching to clear the aches before going back to bed for a few hours. I only have slight pain during the day and I did golf last Sunday so I am improving albeit slowly. But the ribs seemed to be getting sorer for the last few days and this morning I got up around 1:30 with a newer, more acute pain below and behind my sore ribs. No matter how much I stretched, I could not relieve the new pain and it began to concern me. So about 2:30 I woke Alesa and had her take me to the emergency room. Turns out I had a 2mm kidney stone on my left side almost to my bladder. That pain is gone and the stone will soon pass but I still got some pain medicine just in case and to help with the rib and sciatic pain. Hope to sleep like a baby tonight and golf tomorrow. Even played water volleyball today. An army buddy from Sioux Falls is following their local team at the little league world series and I followed them as well. The games were very good but they lost today in a final-four game. I am sure Sioux Falls is very proud of them. My condolences, Jim.