Remembering 2007

Well I made it through another year. I wonder what 2008 has in store. I can't be anywhere near as painful. So what have I learned?

1. I was right a long time ago about parenting. No one has a clue how to solve everything that their child(ren) do.
2. Doctors have no idea what to do with their patients. They have a playbook and run it until you make it clear that it is either not working or it is not what you want to do.
3. Working at a place that values your input makes up for a lot of budget money.
4. Sites like Digg, reddit... have no real reason to stop people from gaming their sites. If they did I would not see ron pauls name on any of them 5 times a day.
5. My wife is THE best wife in the world. Dealing with me alone is a second full time job but she is so wonderful with Leah I do not know what I would do without her.

Corrie you are beyond any idea of what I thought a wife could be.

JM

A Night To Remember

Honestly I would rather forget it. I got home a lot earlier from work then usual and waited for Corrie and Leah to come home a few hours later. I am having back spasms again which seem to be worse then I remember them being since I injured it in 1992. I was dialed into work when they got home and I was informed that Leah was sick. I did not think much of it since I had today (Friday) off. I figured Leah and I would get some quality time together. Corrie apparently did not think that me being alone with Leah and not really being able to pick her up would be a good thing so she decided to stay home too. Bummer, Leah and I do not get out of our pajamas all day and I am pretty sure her diet suffers a little; but we have a lot of fun, she watches cartoons I play Battlefield. However she does not understand the nuances of BF2 and the fact that stopping to read a book is not good when you are flying a jet around mountains. Well anyway we planned a couple short family outings to take care of some errands. Well apparently she was more sick then we thought.



At 11:30 pm I got up because she would cry out then not make any noise for about 1/2 hour then repeat. So I snuck into her room and watched her, she was crying out in her sleep. Grumpy about having to get out of bed I went back in and put earplugs in. Well I can still hear most of what goes on in the house with the bedroom door closed, fan on and earplugs in. Last night was no exception. She did it again just as I was drifting off to sleep. I got up, tore the earplugs from my ears and went in to have a discussion with Leah about sleeping at night. I got in there and she was not crying anymore but was trying to breath so hard that her whole body tensed as she took each breath. I picked her up and was going to see if she would take some more decongestant. NOPE. She was having nothing to do with that. Her breathing just was not right so I called the nurseline just to make sure I was not being an over-protective parent. The RN on the other end heard her and said "do you think you can be calm enough to take her into the ER or should I call an ambulance"; this is a sentence I do not want to hear again. Not because she offended me but it hammered home that I was right that something was wrong with my little girl. I told her that we would be leaving soon and I thanked her. I walked straight into our bedroom and flipped on the light.



Corrie does not wake up easy. I find that getting drunks that have passed out awake and out the door much easier then getting her up. We both threw on pretty much whatever we found and went in. We waited for about an hour and got to see why ER Drs are skeptics about non specific injuries. The guy sitting next to Corrie had either a right knee or left knee problem, of which the Dr asked him about right there in the waiting room.

Apparently Leah does not like stethoscopes, she cried every time someone tried to use one. The doctor came in and ordered a nebulizer for her. She liked the first respiratory person that came in and took the treatment well. She reacted very well to the nebulizer and was better for a little while. However an hour later she needed another and again reacted well. They decided to admit her, however we had to wait until 5 am to get to the room.

When we got to the room we were greeted by the night nurse who Leah did not want to let go of! She had to be carried around and they went to get a balloon. We did another treatment and then Leah went to bed. Corrie went to get things from home and I tried to get some rest. The chair in the room was very uncomfortable and the cot that they had in there was just as bad.

Corrie got back and we both tried to sleep. We did not get to see a doctor until 9 am or so. She made it very clear that our doctor does not come into the hospital and that they have a clinic close to our house. No blood tests or any other tests for that matter. We waited around for quite awhile more and were told that we could go home as soon as the home nebulizer was delivered so we were happy when it arrived.

Leah by this time was not willing to be cooped up in that room and was getting into everything. Leah's nurse came in and told us that she was not willing to let her go home yet since she was still having to get treatments every 3 hours, apparently she needs to go 4 hours. So I asked "so if she needs treatment and gets better after each treatment what does it matter if you do it here or we do it at home? " Apparently I was speaking in a different language because she did not understand me.

After one more talk with the respiratory lady we finally convinced the nurse to let us go. We got home put Leah to bed ate and then I waited for someone to finish some work on our house then we all slept for quite awhile.

Leah is doing well she needs to be nebulized a few time a day but other then that is pretty much the same little girl. I hope this does not happen for quite awhile or ever for that matter.

Fishing with a 19 month old

Corrie and I both like fishing. Matter of fact she is the one that e-mailed me about buying our boat first. On a side note she is the one that initiated our relationship and lets me know about it!

Okay back to fishing with Leah. Leah is about the most patient child I know. But when faced with a new situation and nowhere to go she gets a little stir crazy. Corrie and I talked about what we would do. I hate fishing alone and hate it even more when Corrie is there and not fishing with me. So I asked Corrie if the portable dvd player we got for signing up with satellite tv accepted batteries. When she said yes I knew we had a winning combination. Here is a picture that tells everyone how it went.

My weekend with Leah

Okay I have spent a couple weekends alone with Leah but not one where she is so mobile and so vocal. We have had 2 outbursts of crying and screaming, ignoring them is hard but I think it works well. She finally comes out of where she is and acts like nothing is wrong. She did the thing where she was not sure if I was still there and stopped crying and came out looked at me then went back in and cried some more. It was very hard not to laugh out loud.

She had a bath tonight and that went well. I let her play, then wet her head down(she hates that) let her play some more then washed her hair(hates this even more) and then I let her play.

Meals have been fun since I am not sure where her plates are so I have washed it over and over again. I think I am going to have to get Corrie to make up a cabinet listing so I can find things.

The Boat

Okay so apparently I have no idea how to take care of batteries. I have never had this much trouble with any battery I have ever dealt with. I have 4 that are not working. I finally bought a new one for the lawn mower but I charged up two of other batteries up and they tested fine(got a tester from fleet farm) and got over to Eagle lake to take the boat out for a shakedown and guess what? It would not turn over. Shoot me now please.

Small Rant

I play with my daughter and listen to her giggle and squeal and wonder why my father did not want to play with me. What was so wrong? I know in my head that he is the one that had the problem not me; but when I think about this stuff I feel unbelievably insecure and worthless. I look into my daughter's eye's and see the love and caring that she has for me and wonder what he did not see in me. He always called me disturbed and said I needed mental help from day one.

Leah

I have become more aware of how much I let go in relation to my day when I watch Leah. Take for example how much time that person in the car in front of you costs you when they do not travel the speed limit or the customer service rep who does not care at all about what has happened to your order.

Now let me explain Leah. She started screaming and bending over at the waist looking into a floor grate. I thought she cut herself or she stubbed her toe but as I got closer I found the problem. A kernel of corn from dinner had slipped out of her hand and plunged deep into the grate. She had the concerned look of a mother whose child was trapped and she could not help. I extracted the piece of corn and palmed it and asked Corrie for another piece of corn so that if she decided to eat it I would not have to shudder in horror. After I gave her the new one was in her hand she was happy and walked away.

Job

Well I have a NEW job. I was at Wells Fargo for awhile and found it to be very hard to deal with. I tried to get a server reloaded and was told it would take 6 weeks. DUDE! Okay so I talked with Steve S. and he put me on to a job with Microdynamics as their sys admin. I can tell I like it a lot more already with just one day. I walked in and did not feel tense. I hope that I can do some good there.

Views on Vista

I got a new disk from Alienware with Vista on it. I thought what the heck since I am going to be asked to support it here and at work I should at least use it.

Installation - Funny since Alienware sent me this disk you would think that they would slipstream the drivers into it. Apparently not.

First use - Got used to answering yes and ok to security warnings. Not used to not being able to use my keyboard when coming out of hibernation. Reboot fixes but causes problems. Apparently most anti-virus providers have not solved their problems with MS and do not fully support it.

No real performance issues. Laptop scores a 4.2 out of 5.9 so I was not suprised.

All in all decent OS but needs more work and needs to be more intuitive, I feel like I am going back to NT4 with everything hidden from the user.

2 more weeks

I have to wear the walking boot for 2 more weeks and it really makes me sad. I want to just walk normally and not have some aparatus strapped to my leg. This is a picture of the x-ray I had taken today. Note that it looks like a deck screw.

Fishing Season Approches

Well it is almost May and I am thinking about taking my boat out to Eagle Lake for a break in cruise. I got the water off the tarp today to get something done on it. I think it will have to be the first week of may as I am going to get some stuff in may basement done.

Well I changed back to another pain killer. I was falling asleep at work on the new one. After I tried to get off them altogether for two days, I did not have any side effects (stomach cramping, shaking) or anything like that. I did have some severe pain so I talked to my doctor and he was happy that I had tried but based on what was going on in my foot, he was sure it would be a couple more weeks. I probably have to wear the boot for 4 more weeks. Woooohoooo.

Adoption

So guess what, discovery channel now has "adoption stories". So I am home today and I had to watch it. It reminded me of all the emotions and thoughts I had around adopting Leah.

I realized that when we were going through infertility stuff doors were being closed in front of us all the time; monetary, medical, insurance and many others. When we finally stopped dealing with it and took time off from it we realized that adoption was what we were supposed to be doing. All of a sudden doors opened for us that we never even knew about. We stopped wondering about things it all seemed natural.

A public declaration of my love for my wife

Corrie is the most beautiful, caring and giving person I have ever met. I cannot imagine life without her. She is the mother of my child and my ultimate love. When I hear people praise their wife I smile because I know what they are feeling. I may not show it often and I know that I owe her more then I can ever repay but I hope that she will let me try.

Recovering

I made it through surgery and well; it hurts. The surgery went well apparently from what Corrie heard from the doctor. I spent more time in recovery since they expected the surgery to go longer and the spinal did not wear off. I am more mobile now then I was after my shoulder surgery(go figure). The pain was so immense the first day that I could not take it and called the on call doctor. He told me I could take ibuprofen which the nurses in post op said I could not. I called in the next morning and got a different painkiller. While it did not take all of it away at least I could sleep a couple hours at a time and not feel like my foot was on fire.

Settling in

Well I have been at my new job for a few weeks and I can tell you that it is amazing!!! I wear jeans and a t-shirt. I work on servers that are not anywhere near me and I am okay with it.

I feel I can say some thingsabout what was going on. I broke a bone in November and told my old job that I needed surgery on it. I was told "if you have surgery, we will have to re-think your position here at ******. To say I was a little shocked is an understandment. I chose to keep my job and support my family. However now I can tell you that I should have done the surgery. I am in immense pain constantly now. Surgery is 2 days away and I cannot wait. They are going to insert a screw in my foot and get the bones together. here is a link to the surgery (radiographic so no blood).

http://www.wheelessonline.com/ortho/jones_fracture

Resignation

Well I resigned last week. It was kind of anti-climatic since I dressed up walked directly to my boss's desk and was prepared to resign. Problem was, he was out sick. So I checked the website to find out what to do. I was supposed to resign to his boss. Awesome! However his boss is an open position right now. : So I then tried the director, she was out sick too. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

I called my boss's cell and left a message to call me. After no call after 11:00 I called the HR guy who finally accepted my resignation. I am not sure but I think no one I know has had this much trouble resigning.

Please pray

I am going through some difficult times at work. Not the usual. I might not be there soon. I am disappointed, scared and angry. I know that we will be okay for awhile financially but honestly I just hate this.