Sam: Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, January 24th, 2026.
Sam: It's 2148 UTC as I'm starting to record this.
Sam: I am Sam Minter, no Yvonne Vaudet, and almost no me today.
Sam: So obviously it's been a big news week.
Sam: We have a whole bunch of things. There have been more sexual assault allegations
Sam: against Donald Trump's circling around right below the level where most media would cover it.
Sam: There's the whole Greenland nonsense.
Sam: Jack Smith did testimony. Trump's Board of Peace.
Sam: And of course, all sorts of stuff related to ICE and Border Patrol in Minnesota and elsewhere.
Sam: Just a couple hours before I'm recording this, they shot somebody else.
Sam: And there's that memo saying that they think they can enter homes without warrants.
Sam: There have been escalating protests. There have been all kinds of stuff going on.
Sam: But I think we're just going to have sort of a preemptory short little update
Sam: here to not break the string of like having a show every week for a long time,
Sam: because I'll tell you guys, it's been a week.
Sam: I'll mention Yvonne first before I get to me, because it's more recent as we're recording this.
Sam: We were going to try to do a regular show, but right a couple hours before we
Sam: were going to record today, and he has posted on the Convention's Corner Slack
Sam: about this, so I think it's okay to share, Yvonne's son Manu broke his arm.
Sam: And they're being treated appropriately at the emergency room or urgent care
Sam: or wherever they are. and they're, they're doing okay.
Sam: I mean, broken arm, but okay.
Sam: And, and I spent most of the week in the hospital and only got home last night
Sam: and I'm still recuperating.
Sam: I'll give you the really high level, which is that I hadn't been feeling great
Sam: for like a month, but the actual like specific symptoms were like rotating.
Sam: Like sometimes I spiked a fever, sometimes I didn't and was fine in terms of temperature.
Sam: Sometimes I was having sort of urinary tract infection type symptoms. Sometimes I wasn't.
Sam: Sometimes it felt like kidney stone pain, which I've had off and on since I
Sam: was 25 years old. So I knew what that felt like.
Sam: Sometimes I had diarrhea, sometimes I didn't. You know, all in all, it was a fun month.
Sam: I even went to the doctor once and they basically were like,
Sam: well, you seem fine to me right now.
Sam: What do you want me to do for you? And they sent me home.
Sam: But then a few hours after I put out last week's show, I had some food with
Sam: my son and then my temperature spiked from completely normal to,
Sam: Literally 105.1, which is not good for an adult.
Sam: And it went from like 98 something to 105 in the course of like 90 minutes.
Sam: Because of course, like whenever I start to feel even weird at all,
Sam: I'm like taking my temperature every 10 minutes because that's just,
Sam: you know, the kind of thing I do.
Sam: And I started throwing up. I threw up everything I'd just eaten.
Sam: And I, and one, once the temperature hit like 104, I'm like, fine, fine.
Sam: I'll, I'll, I'll like go to the ER or whatever.
Sam: And I was like preparing to like drive myself to the ER.
Sam: And Alex was like, no, no, absolutely not.
Sam: You are not driving anywhere. I could, I could, I was shivering so hard from
Sam: the fever that I could not speak,
Sam: I could not type properly into my phone to text people, and I could barely walk.
Sam: And so we did contact my mother to take me to the ER, and I managed to drag
Sam: myself to the front porch for her to pick me up. I went to the ER.
Sam: Oh, and I did take some Tylenol with supplementary oxycodone that I had around
Sam: for kidney stones. I took one pill of that.
Sam: By the time we got to the ER to knock down the fever, so much that the admitted
Sam: nurse was like, well, you don't have a fever anymore. Why are you here?
Sam: But luckily, once I got seen by the actual doctor, they took it more seriously.
Sam: I mean, I guess the incoming nurse just wanted to know what was the immediate
Sam: cause of you coming here?
Sam: And it was that fever spike, because I tried to tell her the longer history.
Sam: Anyway, once they had the longer history in mind, they set me up for the full
Sam: battery of tests, imaging, blood tests, urine tests, blah, blah,
Sam: blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Summary.
Sam: I was in sepsis. So for those of you who don't know, that's basically like a
Sam: bacterial infection that had gotten to my blood, and that's potentially life-threatening.
Sam: Really significant and rare form of bladder infection and kidney infection.
Sam: For those of you who like medical terms, let me see if I can pronounce these.
Sam: Emphysematos thylonephritis and emphysematos cystitis, which basically meant that not only,
Sam: were my kidney and bladder infected, but they were infected in a way that was
Sam: producing gas in places that gas was not supposed to be.
Sam: So as soon as they had all that sort of diagnostic information.
Sam: Well, they put me on antibiotics, like practically the moment I got there,
Sam: but they put me on stronger antibiotics.
Sam: And we're like, we're admitting you. And not only are we admitting you,
Sam: but you need someplace that has a urologist that has the right knowledge about
Sam: this kind of thing that's available immediately.
Sam: And so we're switching you to another hospital where that's available.
Sam: So I got a nice ambulance ride from Mill Creek down into Seattle and transferred
Sam: to another hospital. By the time I got there, you know, they'd been pumping
Sam: me full of antibiotics. I actually felt kind of okay. I was like texting people. I was like.
Sam: Given updates on the curmudgeon's corner slack. I was otherwise,
Sam: you know, whatever, but I actually started going downhill from there.
Sam: And I sort of lost track of time and space and where I was and what was going on.
Sam: And I don't remember all the details of everything, But bottom line,
Sam: this was also like,
Sam: I did have kidney stones up in there that were not coming out on their own,
Sam: that were in positions that were problematic and were probably triggering the infections.
Sam: But where everything was, they were unable to sort of get to them in the ways
Sam: they would normally get to a kidney stone. they needed to drain off the infection.
Sam: So they, you know, they, they basically needed to insert a drain into my right kidney.
Sam: So I had a procedure to do that. That was fun. That was exciting.
Sam: And while they continued to pump me full of, you know, powerful antibiotics.
Sam: And so I've been, I was in the hospital draining and, and, and while they were
Sam: carefully monitoring all my vitals and stuff.
Sam: I guess this was, I guess, Monday night was when we went to the ER.
Sam: And so I was in the hospital Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday into Friday,
Sam: finally came home Friday night. And, you know, sort of,
Sam: I was probably the least with it and everything, you know, maybe Wednesday, Tuesday, Wednesday.
Sam: I don't know. Like I said, my memory is hazy and vague.
Sam: The actual procedure to add the drain that I needed was like Tuesday afternoon, I think.
Sam: Anyway, I'm feeling a lot better now. I'm home.
Sam: They are not done with me. I have to, I've got this surgically implanted drain
Sam: in my kidney that's going to be with me for a couple weeks probably while I
Sam: continue to take antibiotics to make sure the infection is completely knocked out.
Sam: And then I need to go back in for them to fish those kidney stones out of me
Sam: that were causing the problem in the first place.
Sam: They did not want to try to attempt to do that while the infection was raging.
Sam: So I'm basically, you know, not.
Sam: Full speed for at least a couple more weeks, but yeah, that,
Sam: that's where I am now. I'm home, I'm recuperating.
Sam: My stamina is very low, certainly for physical things,
Sam: but even for mental things, I'm finding like the amount of time I can like maintain
Sam: sort of concentration on anything is relatively small.
Sam: I'm sure that will inch its way up over the next couple of But at the moment,
Sam: I'm still sort of like, yeah, I want to be lying down doing nothing,
Sam: watching TV with Alex or whatever, or sleeping.
Sam: I mean, some of the time in the hospital, I literally slept like 90% of the time.
Sam: I woke up when the nurses were needed to poke and prod me for one thing or another,
Sam: and then it was right back out of sleep.
Sam: Anyway, that's been my week. And meanwhile, Yvonne's son breaks an arm.
Sam: Brandy got excused out of the legislature for a few days so she could come home
Sam: and take care of Alex and a few things at home and actually be there when my
Sam: first procedure happened.
Sam: And she's going back tomorrow. And so I have to figure out how to,
Sam: you know, basically take care
Sam: of myself and get Alex to school next week and all that kind of stuff.
Sam: But, yeah, I've been distracted.
Sam: So, like, I know all this stuff has been happening in the news,
Sam: and I have been paying some level of attention to it, but I'm not really prepared to, like...
Sam: If Yvonne was here, I would have the two-way conversation with him.
Sam: I don't think I'm ready to have like a one-hour-plus monologue on all this kind of stuff by myself.
Sam: But I just wanted to give you an update on how I'm doing.
Sam: Yeah, it's been a fun and exciting time.
Sam: But they were able to knock the infection out of me fairly quickly.
Sam: They were happy to see me recover as quickly as I did.
Sam: At least one of the doctors seemed to be a little surprised and thought it would take longer.
Sam: But, you know, I'm not done yet.
Sam: But I think I am over the hump and home,
Sam: and now I just have to maintain this stupid drain sticking out of my side and
Sam: manage to do the things I need to do, but I'm probably going to,
Sam: at least for the next few days,
Sam: stick to the bare minimum and try to slowly ramp up, but try not to rush myself either.
Sam: And, yeah, that's it. So, sorry, this is not, like, the most exciting,
Sam: entertaining episode of Curmudgeon's Corner.
Sam: But it's about what I have in me today.
Sam: So, you know, like, sometimes when I do these solo shows every weekend,
Sam: I'll do one segment, wait a while, record another segment, wait a while,
Sam: do another segment, wait a while, put them all together at the end.
Sam: No, I'm not going to bother doing that. I've done what I'm going to do,
Sam: and hopefully Yvonne and I will be able to do a more normal show next week.
Sam: But in the meantime, I'm going to wrap this up, and I'll get this out sometime
Sam: in the next 24 hours, and maybe, maybe 48. I don't know.
Sam: I don't want to make promises when I'm in my current state.
Sam: Anyway, I'll get it out, and hopefully next week we'll do a normal show.
Sam: And apologies for the short show, but, you know, at least you got a show.
Sam: I'm maintaining the we have never missed a week thing.
Sam: Damn it. I was prepared to record a short thing on my phone from the hospital
Sam: if I needed to, just to maintain that streak.
Sam: But I didn't need to. I'm at home. I'm doing my normal setup.
Sam: You know, whatever. Anyway, for those of you who were on the Curmudgeon's Corner
Sam: Slack or my various family chats or whatever and have already expressed your good wishes, thank you.
Sam: I appreciate your support and I am feeling a lot better and sort of working
Sam: my way up. For those of you who this is brand new news, the worst is over. I'm feeling better.
Sam: But it's time to go back to the living room, sit in a comfy chair,
Sam: have some cold water, and watch more TV.
Sam: Okay, that's it. Thank you, guys. Here comes the goodbye outro thing. Here you go.