Six Years

Today is my wife's and my anniversary.

Hard to believe it has been 6 years already as it only seems like 5 minutes, under water....

Sick!

Well last night Colm starting vomiting out of the blue and has very bad diarrhea so he spent today trying to get him to eat toast and drink pedialyte. He seems to be doing better but he fell asleep for the evening at 6pm so it is going to be an early morning.

Now I am feeling whatever he had and am myself running 102 right now. Thankfully he was only running a slight fever last night and was mostly normal today in that respect. I hate it when my poor guy is sick. It is so rare, this is only the 2nd time I can think of where it came out of the blue and of course he did not vomit until after he drank the fruit punch. Red puke on light blue carpet is always fun. Thankfully we have a steam cleaner.

I am going to hit the hay as I have taken my sleeping pill but not before text messaging Deb to bring me home something to eat. Sadly the kitchen at work is closed because I was looking forward to some pasta with meatballs or perhaps their Gorgonzola sauce I had the other day. Yum!

I will be back in the morning.

How can one person cause so much misery?

My ex-wife is at it again! She made all the arrangements for my sons travel for the holiday season. She told me (thankfully I save all my emails!) that our half of his travel would be $140 and that she would be sending him home on the 2nd.

Well this morning I get an email from her asking me if I sent the $140 with my son, which I honestly did forget to put in his bag. Not a big deal as they just got back home and my plan was to mail the money order to her. However in her email she goes on to say that she still needs to buy his return ticket home. WHAT THE HELL? He is supposed to be home in less then 1 week and I was told she already bought the ticket, that was one of the requirements for me to let him fly. Now she is saying that if I want, keep the $140 and buy his return ticket home.

I am so pissed off right now that I don't even want to talk to her. I forwarded her copies of the emails she sent me on Dec 6^th & 7^th telling me my half for his tickets would be the $140 and that it included the fees for him traveling by himself on the way home. Of course we all know how she is with the fees for a minor traveling by themselves.

What the frick is wrong with this woman? Why does she feel the constant need to lie to me like this? I hope she realizes that she has seriously jeopardized all future visits with her son. I will be double and triple checking any arrangements she makes and still questioning them as we go along.

Now I need to figure out how to get my son home as there is no way we can afford the plane ticket.

Some Christmas pictures

Here are some pictures from Christmas day.

The first one is my youngest and the look on his face was just to classic.


The next one is my wife holding my youngest nephew, my brothers little boy, while we were at my folks house. She was holding him every chance she got until I reminded her that 1-we agreed that we were not having any more and 2- even if we wanted another one my condition prevents that from happening.



This one is my wife, still holding my nephew, sitting by my dad and opening her present from our sons. This was the Arbonne package that she had been wanting.



And just one more for this iteration, my youngest son, my brother and his little girl. My brother and his daughter (who is VERY much daddy's little girl) were lying down watching "Polar Express" when my youngest decided to join them. Pretty soon they were all dozing off in the middle of the floor.

Christmas Day

So Christmas was a great day. I spent the morning with my family at home watching Colm unwrap his gifts from Santa. We were worried at first that he would not quite understand the concept of unwrapping but after the first one he was all over it. In fact we had to stop him as after he finished with his presents as he went on to try and unwrap the gifts we had for my niece and nephews.

Santa was kind to him, bringing Candyland®, Memory® for kids, crayons, markers, slippers, PJ's and some Play-Do® sets, which he just loves to play with his big brother. At my parents house is where he got some of the best toys a 3 year old can hope for. There Santa left him Tinker Toys® which I have been playing with for the last few days, a handmade wooden dump truck which is really cool, some more PJ's and a huge dinosaur set where you set up the village and then the dinosaur comes rumbling through destroying it. I thought it was funny that he got that as we bought my niece the second piece to the set without knowing what they would be getting at my folks house.

As for me, my plan for my wife's present went well, but I ended up being the one surprised. What I had bought her was some pieces from Arbonne. My sister is an Arbonne director and they had a kit with all the essential pieces on sale for $165. Now I knew that was more then my wife would spend on me, so I told her that I had only spent about $30, "the lie", and figured I would deal with the consequences later on. I knew she really wanted these things and would not buy them on her own, so we did.

The deal was that I would pay my sister a $20 week until I paid here her off but apparently before I was able to start paying her, my mother found out what was going on and paid my sister the whole amount as part of my Christmas present. So I guess the surprise was on me.

I got a kick ass pair of pajamas from my folks but the center piece was a giant butcher block for my kitchen. This thing is a good 3'X3' and 3" thick easily and came on a rolling platform with some shelves and a pull out basket. This is the butcher block that makes other butcher blocks jealous.

Anyway, it was a great day. It was really nice to spend a relaxing day with my family and not have to feel like we were all in competition with each other over who got/gave the biggest present.

Christmas

When I was a kid tonight was as I imagine it was and is for all kids, a tough night to get to sleep. The curiousity of what Santa might bring was far to much to allow you to just fall right into slumber. In 35 years nothing has really changed. I know that Santa does not bring me presents anymore, my wife told me last year, but the ancticipation of my whole family being together for the day, no one having to rush off to give the kids a nap, or run out to work the night shift and so on. A day for everyone to relax at my parents house and just catch up on the year.

My wife, who I truly believe is my angel, worked some long hard hours the last few days to have some extra money to do the Christmas shopping for the boys. I know she must be quite tired from those long days and while I did not have much to give her I did the best that I could. Tonight I made sure that our youngest was asleep by the time she got home. I know she missed the time with him but she wants to wrap his presents tonight as well she needs to still eat her dinner and relax from the last few days. I thought it would be nice to have him in bed and let her just have free run of the house, no kids tearing through the place, free run of the remote for the TV and some quiet time to herself to unwind from a busy week at work.

I am not sure what she had the boys get for me but I kind of had to lie to her about what the boys bought for her. I can't go into much detail here because she might read this after I am asleep but it took some doing and planning between my mother, myself and my sister to pull it off. So that things would not look suspicious I had to have them pick it up for me and pay for it up front and they will have it for her tomorrow when we get to my parents house. Needless to say this is something she VERY MUCH has been wanting and something she really deserves. For everything she has done for us through the years it was one of the few things that I could think of that might express how grateful we are to her. Tomorrow I will explain what it is and why I had to lie, just know that it was not a "bad" lie.

I wish each and every one of you a very Merry Christmas as well let us not forget that tomorrow also begins Chanukah, so a Happy Chanukah as well.

The ex-wife, part XLCVIII

So we discussed this at length (my wife and I) and we agreed that our son could fly to see his mother for Christmas provided what ever flight he would be on was straight through, no layovers, no stopping or anything like that and that the ticket was for an unaccompanied minor. Paying that extra fee would allow the aircrew to help him as need be and someone would be keeping an eye on him through the flight and then when they landed they would escort him to meet who was picking him up. My ex-wife handled making all the reservations and then I would just send my 1/2 of the cost with our son. When I last spoke with her about it she said she understood and agreed and would take care of it all.

One thing that would be happening is that over Christmas she and her family would be flying from their home to California to spend Christmas with her mother. What she thought would be better is if our son flew straight out to his grandparents house and had a few days with them before she showed up, which I have no problem with at all. In fact I have been trying to get her mother (her dad passed away before we met) to have more time with Edward and have told her several times that she is more then welcome to ask if he can come out and visit during some of his school breaks. I figure my parents get plenty of time with him, she should have the same opportunities.

So far so good right? Not quite.

My ex-wife sends me an email letting me know that she has purchased the ticket for him to fly out to California which is great. She was able to get a good price on the ticket and even better she told me that the airline does not charge a fee for unaccompanied minors, which is even better as that is usually $50 or so and it has to be paid by me when I drop him off. You cannot include it in the ticket price but I have no problem whatsoever paying it as it for my child's safety.

You would think something should have sent a warning off in my head when she told me there was no fee, but I have been trying to give her the benefit of the doubt. So yesterday when my wife took our son to the airport to fly I figured all was well and then I got the call from my wife. Apparently the reason there is no fee is because this airline does not consider kids 12 and older as unaccompanied minors. That's right, my ex-wife knew this and instead of telling me the truth or finding an airline that would allow us to pay the fee she lied to me. She understood quite well that if I knew the truth, that they would not watch him, I would have told her find a different flight. So, forsaking out sons safety she just flat out lied to us about it and that PISSED ME OFF.

What's the big deal you ask? Well on the plane itself there really is not one, after all his flight would not be stopping or changing planes. However, he would be flying into one of the busiest airports in the country. One where the terminals are not in the same building as baggage. Not having someone helping him would mean after leaving the plane he would have to find out where to catch a tram to the baggage terminal, then fight through the crowd of people to link up with his luggage and his grandmother. I have no idea what the hell my ex-wife was thinking, or perhaps she wasn't. No big surprise there though.

Now my wife and I sat down with my son and developed a plan long before he took off on what he was to do should he become separated (at that time we thought he would have someone from the airline helping him) or lost. In fact we sent him on the trip with my cell phone so he would be able to call us no matter what and especially if he needed some help. Before he took off my wife told him that once he landed to go to the ticket counter at the gate and request some help and should they not be able to then he was to call me right away.

Meanwhile while he was flying I called the airline and tried to find out what we could do to get him some help on the other end. Of course the people I spoke to all told me the same thing, "This airline does not provide that service and you should have thought about that before you bought your ticket." Of course not one of them seemed sympathetic to the fact that I did not buy the ticket or that he was far to young to be wandering that airport alone but then I spoke with one person who gave me some information that would help. If my former mother in law took the reservation confirmation number and her ID she would be allowed to get a security document that would allow her to get through security and meet our son at the gate. Naturally I called her to let her know, gave her the information and then felt the weight of the world fall off my shoulders.

There is no feeling in the world like being completely helpless, sending your child off on a journey like this that for him while exciting could turn quite scary in a heartbeat. I mean a busy airport and a lone pre-teen looking very out of place. That is the making of a missing child story and I cannot for one second comprehend the fact that my ex-wife would put him in that position all over a few freaking dollars. Of course I also learned that from now on there will be either no flying or I will personally verify any tickets she buys before he flies.

My son however picked up on all this and while he was sitting at the airport with my wife he actually asked, "So mom lied again?" The boy is smart, he picks up on this stuff without us having to say a word to him. Of course he still remembers the time he was visiting his mother and against my distinct wishes she flew him from her house to her mothers (unaccompanied)then LIED to me about it. She then told him to lie as well or I would get mad at him. That's right, I would get mad at him. I had asked her to not let him fly alone because he was far too young to go by himself. Instead she told me that they had driven out to see her mother and he had not flown. She got busted when she used the suitcase we had sent him with as a checked bag and then never removed the name tape they affix to the handle. When we saw it we asked him about it, not suspecting anything wrong or perhaps someone else had used it. It took all of 2 seconds for him to breakdown in tears and explain what had happened. That's right, his mother had gone ahead and done whatever she pleased (even though I have custody) and then lied to me and instructed her own son to do the same. ARRRRGH!

Anyway, enough babble on this subject. We were able to jump through some hoops get him squared away. Of course the next time my ex-wife asks if he can fly to save time and I say no she will wonder why....

The birthday boy!

My little guy is 3 years old today! Hard to believe that 3 years ago you came into our family, brightened our day even more then we thought was possible.

Being able to have spent almost every moment so far with you, playing the stay at home dad, has been more rewarding then I could possibly have imagined. The way you smile at me when you are up to something to the way you ask me, "Daddy, did you hear me tell you I love you?", it is enough to warm my heart and make the darkest day bright.

I love you buddy and always will.

FINALLY!

So after countless months of waiting and at least 2 false starts I finally have completed the paperwork to enroll in the pain management drug trials through my pain management doctor. Not sure what took them so long but when I went to my regular appointment this morning I saw the nurse in charge of the patients for the program and asked what was going on.

Now the last time I spoke with her about this she promised my I would be the first person they contacted, and then she took my information to do so. However when I spoke with her this morning I made it in by the skin of my teeth. Apparently they had 1 opening left and I am it. Of course I did mention that she and the doctor had both promised to contact me MUCH sooner!

The intake was fairly painless, including the drawing of blood. I have no problem with needles but you never know how the person using them might be and I have had a few who forget the vein they are drawing from is only so big. They end up going in, out and then into flesh which is quite painful. I also had to give a urine sample, which is the first time in my life, which includes 9 years in the military, I have had to do so and be on drugs to pass it. It was a strange feeling.

If all is going well with the blood and urine workup then they will call me and we will go from there. The study lasts a year and will provide me with the meds for breakthrough pain as well as some cash for each visit.

The one thing that I did get a bit bent about is that for those who have been enrolled in the program for a bit were allowed to receive some of their money in advance to help defray Christmas shopping. Had I been called on time I could have been paid as well and as you all know we could really have used that money for Christmas. Arrrrghhh....

I also get a PDA to bring home to help me keep track of the meds, doses, break through pain and all the other pieces of the study that I need to keep track of for the doctors. The big thing for me is the free pain meds, while it is not all my meds it is one that costs me the maximum co-pay.

I will let everyone know how the study goes!

More snow?

I have been dealing with the freaking cold for the past few days so I have not been keen on being online. It would mean having to get out from under the blankets to type and that's not happening as long as we stay this cold!

We add to the top of the cold the snow. Last week we got 1/2 our annual snowfall in one day. This weekend we repeated that feat but thankfully most of the snow from the previous week had melted. It has been hellish on the roads though and my wife has forbidden me from leaving the house lest I slip as everything is pure ice.

Then we have to deal with the windshield. We were waiting until the weather cleared to get it replaced because it had a small crack. Of course with the freezing cold that small crack is now the entire lower half of the windshield and what would have been an easy task now means involving the insurance company. Thankfully we only have a $100 deductible on the new policy because the estimate has the repair at about $500 or so.

Now that Christmas is at my parents house my wife and I are planning on just sleeping late. Since the oldest is going to be with his mother there is no need to be up early to open gifts. The other 'nice' thing is that our youngest who will be 3 on Wednesday is not all that into gifts, yet. Not to sound cheap but with only a little bit of money for Christmas for everyone we have to plan everything. I have 2 nephews and a niece we have to buy for as well as my sons.

My parents though did call the other day and tell me I would be in a huge pile if I bought them anything. They know money is tight but how am I supposed to feel about that? Here I am at 35 feeling like I am 10 again, no money and still need to buy mom and dad something nice. Top that off with Christmas day is my fathers birthday.

Being that is the way things are right now I have come up with something else. It will let me give them something nice and not have to spend a ton of money, right now anyway. We are making a calendar for my parents, each month will have a picture of my family and then I will make sure all the important dates are noted. We will also include a day each month where we will do something for my parents, whether that be come down and make them breakfast/lunch/dinner, or take them out etc... I can make the calendar online and print it to the local Kinko's for about $20. Of course they then have a "family day" each month that we will plan. I will add some stuff like going to the zoo, maybe a family movie day or amusement park or something. I still need to figure out something for dad's birthday though.

edit: I love Bloggers dictionary. It generally has some funny assed suggestions for words it does not already have in it's memory, which by the way includes the words Blog and Blogger. You would think that a company called Blogger would include itself in the online dictionary. It also thinks my sons name is Colon and Kinko's should be Kinkajou.

To tired to blog?

The pain this morning was more then I was willing to deal with for an hour and change ride to the doctor. Since we have a Taurus there is not much leg room for the passenger so try to adjust the seat to get in a comfortable position would have been near impossible with my back the way it was. Of course the doctor wanted me to come in and see him instead of the nurse so it all it worked out as he did not have any appointments available this morning so we rescheduled the visit. Fine by me, I was really not in the mood to sit in the car that freaking long. While it is normally 45 minutes or so to the doctor on a normal visit, this morning would have been in rush hour on the business loop through the city. No thanks!

I am looking forward to climbing in to bed tonight. The extra meds are kicking my butt for the last few days, I did not even need my sleeping meds last night. I crawled into bed and was out by 10:30.

Flare ups are no fun...

I had a MAJOR flare up this morning that has sidelined me and probably will for a few days. I mean this was shear pain and spread across my entire back from my waist all the way through my shoulder blades and even though I took a maximum dose off all my pain meds I was still hurting.

The only way I can really describe a flare up for those who do no know is imagine all your muscles going into a tight spasm at once, and then not releasing. The problem starts because the muscles are doing more work then they should, making up for skeletal deficiencies caused by injuries or diseases. For me that happens because of the degenerative disc disease, the herniated discs, spondylolisis and spondylolisthesis. The muscles basically become tired and start to spasm, sometimes it is not so bad and a quick dose of a muscle relaxer helps get you through the bout other times like today they won't even touch it.

I am a bit ticked with the doctors office about this as well. Thankfully I see them on Wednesday and will discuss this with the doctor as I did not get to talk with him today. What happened is I called and left a message about what was going on and from there they usually have the nurse call you back to talk a bit about your symptoms before they decide what they want you to do.

Well the nurse called and told me that they would 1-call in a prescription for a muscle relaxer and then 2-they wanted me to come in today or tomorrow instead of waiting until Wednesday. They then put me on hold and never came back to the phone. I had to call back a few times and never got to speak to anyone, they just kept putting me through to the voicemail and no one returned my call.

Well if I am supposed to come in to see the doctor early wouldn't it be nice for someone to let me know what time they would like me to be there??? As well they called in a prescription for a muscle relaxer that I explained to the nurse does not work for me, skelaxin. I tried to explain that to her but that is when she asked me to hold while she checked on it and then never came back to the line. Frustrating indeed because the whole time I have been in pain and unable to do anything about it other then try to get through to a live person when I called.

Even more frustrating is that today was my wife's day off. I could have been down there if they had the time to squeeze me in but now if they want me to come in tomorrow I have no way of making it down there before my regular appointment. I will try to call them in the morning and see if they will do something because this stuff they called in for me is not doing the trick. Thankfully flare ups like this do not happen often.

C'est la vie.

I did however get to spend the entire day lying in bed. Oh boy! I am glad though that I have the adjustable bed, it made the pain a bit more tolerable being able to adjust my legs and head into positions that took a lot of the stress off my back. After that I just kept my pain meds close by and took the maximum doses as soon as it was time for them and then just dozed off for an hour or so each time. Now that it is bed time though I fear that I will be up until the wee hours, unable to get a real nights rest and perhaps adding to the stress which means the muscles will not release anytime soon and I will be in the same boat tomorrow.

Other then that I just have not been in much of a mood to be on the computer for the last few days. One of those things that happens I guess. Most of the time I can't get away from the thing, it is constantly on so much that my youngest is always asking me, "Daddy are you going to check your email?" Of course that gave me an idea today. I am going to set up an email account for him and just send him short stories that I write or find and let him learn how to use the computer a bit more as well perhaps help his reading a bit more. If he is excited about checking his email to see what he as received he would want to read it as well. I don't know, just an idea I had. He is a super smart kid, his vocabulary grows everyday and the way he uses it is just amazing. I love to hear him talking, especially with his brother. They are like peas in a pod and Colm will just babble on when Edward is around him.

Well it is time to take some sleepind meds and try to get a good nights sleep. Perhaps tomorrow when I am a bit more coherent I will write a bit more about the boys.

Faith...

I don't talk about my Religion a lot, but I think that is because I find Religion to be a somewhat personal topic. However this evening I was reading a magazine that was lying around the house and they had an article, a brief one, on Pope Benedict XVI that really just pissed me off.

I am Catholic, born and raised on Long Island. I spent more then several years serving as an altar boy and regardless of all these claims of sexual abuse by Priests, I personally never saw it or heard of it happening. But that is not the issue I am writing about this evening it is the new Pope's affinity for expensive clothing and accoutrements.

I am curious as to what happened to the vows of poverty a Priest must accept when ordined? I know I have never seen a local Priest, heck not even a Bishop or a Cardinal wearing the expensive clothes Pope Benedict XVI has been sporting. Not even the Priest I knew who came from a quite wealthy family, he was as humble if not perhaps more so then the rest that lived in the Rectory.

The Pope's love for high fashion from those butt ugly pair of red Prada shoes and expensive sunglasses to the custom Gucci bags the Pope resembles more of a fashion icon then the head of the Catholic church. He even dismissed the long standing Vatican Tailor (since 1792) instead bringing his own designer with him.

Does Pope get a special dispensation from that specfic vow? I would expect that the Pope of our church should be setting the example for all our Priests and Nuns, living the most humble way possible for all the world to see. That he would instead of spending church money on lavish wardrobes perhaps allow that money to go to much more worthy causes. Does he perhaps believe that God wishes for him to dress in this manner? That somehow his position as the Pope requires him to have special favor and ignore those vows he took with his brother on June 29, 1951.

I believe in my religion, strongly. Enough that when I was getting married it was important to me to find a fellow Catholic. Someone who would share my views on Religion and raise our children with those views. We send our kids to Catholic school, even though we do not have a lot of money we find ways to make sure they can go. And while I am tightening the belts here at home, trying to be the best Catholic that I can, raising my children to be the best they can, sacrificing for the good of our faith, our Pope struts down the punti of the Vatican wearing my monthly house payment on his feet.

I just don't get it.

Who the heck is this guy?

It is a winter wonderland here with close to 10" of snow across most of the area but we are currently at -1°fahrenheit which is a bit better then the over night low of -8°. Of course this is the exact opposite of what happens in about 6 months from now when we are 90°'s and 100% humidity and I am hobbling around.

The last few days have been tough to get online or even get the computer as my son has been home from school and my wife has been off from work. I have not had my usual just me and Colm time and while I don't mind sharing the computer my wife was hogging it. Of course she used the premise that she was fine tuning her resume (more on that later on) but after about an hour I became suspicious and peeked over to see her playing a game. Oh, ok I see how this is going to be. It has been literally a good 2 days since I have been able to get on the computer let alone online.

My aunt was unable to come up for dinner the other night due to the weather. While we were still getting a good amount of snow causing a lot of problems on the road, including a 17 car accident involving 4 semi tractor trailers just down the road from my house. Of course that same spot has been the scene of many similar accidents through the years when we have snow like this. You figure the state would figure that out and do something to mitigate if not flat out prevent them from continuing to occur. Since there were so many problems on area roads/freeways they started to shut down some of the roads coming up North including the main road coming from my parents house to my house.

My aunt was able to make it out yesterday afternoon for a small bit to see us. I wish we had more time to sit and visit but she needed to get out to my sisters house for dinner and then her flight was heading back to Long Island at 4 this morning (WAY TO EARLY!).

Of course the boys were all to anxious to show off for her, both vying for her attention in their own way. My oldest pulling out his little kit bag of magic tricks and the youngest turning on the charm and continually asking to be hugged and kissed. Who can resist a toddler saying, "I need a big hug and kiss"? She was going in circles with them and trying to make sure they both got their fair share of attention.

However the piece de resistance was when one of my mothers associates husband invited himself in for tea. That's right, just came on in, took off his shoes and made himself at home.

My mother has a business associate who lives in my town and had borrowed a few items. Instead of having her drive all the way back to my mothers house to return them she let her know she would be here and that she could just drop them off in her mini-van during the lunch hour.

Well this woman sent her husband to run the task and while I have met him previously, that was about a year ago at my mothers house and was just in passing. A very brief introduction and nothing since then. However after he unloaded the car he just made his way back inside and grabbed himself a cup of tea like he was an old friend.

Perhaps if this had not been the only time in almost 10 years I have had to visit with my Aunt I would not be so critical but it was so I am. I was astounded at his lack of social awareness as well as the fact that he seemed completely oblivious to the fact that he was intruding on our day.

My back is killing me tonight. I spent most of the evening trying to "winterize" the back room as it has been FREEZING cold in that room and is killing me when it comes to the electric and gas bills. What changed from last year I don't know but I think I fixed the largest problem.

Where the back sliding glass doors are there was a good 1/2" gap between the tiles and the door where it looks like the mortar has come up and the wind was just whipping in through there. I bought a can of that expanding foam and filled the cracks in at the bottom and then up the side of the door where it joins the frame of the house. I can already feel a major difference in the room and hope it will stay that way. I just need to get a razor and trim back where it expanded past the edges or risk having the moron dog try and eat it again.

My aunt is in town and will be at our house tomorrow so I am off like a busy little bee to get everything ready for tomorrow.

A blog well worth reading

As many of you know I come from a very Military background. A former soldier as well as a brat growing up meant that I spent the better part of my first 30 years in/around the Army and to this day I still love all things Military. I spend a good deal of my time on Military blogs and bulletin boards. Not trying to relive the days gone by or anything like that, just trying to keep abreast of the happenings in the Military world.

As bloggers know, you read one blog and then click through to another and from there another. While cruising the blogsphere this evening I found one blog that is a must read but I will warn you that you will find yourself with tears in your eyes. This blog ,Learning To Live, is the daily life of a woman, Heidi, who lost her husband CPT Sean Sims in Fallujah in November 2004.

Rest In Peace CPT Sims.

Just some mindless jabber...

While other things might not be going so well around here I at least have a few things to look forward to.
1- My wife and family, they are always there for me.
2- My trusty laptop and recliner.
3- The upcoming season of The Shield! I have not missed an episode since it first came on the air in 2002 and is now on it's 5th season starting January 10th.

I know, some people hate it, call it lame but it actually has some very good sub plots that keep you wanting to watch to see what happens next. Very few shows have the ability to keep it up season after season and the only thing that really sucks about this show is that sooner or later it will have to end unlike ER which seems to just keep snowballing into oblivion. Hard to believe my wife and I used to watch that show almost ten years ago. Where has the time gone???

I hate that my wife has to work so hard for all of us. I wish I could figure out some way to get back to school and finish those last 30 or so hours to change my major to information systems. Get a bit more background in programming and perhaps start doing something small from home. While working in an office setting will probably never work for me as I don't know many employers who will let you sit/stand/laydown as need be every 30 minutes or so for the pain, I could perhaps start a small business writing code for local companies. While we are a small town we have some of areas largest employers as well as a ton of mom and pop businesses. Many of them need the applications for running their companies but they can't afford to hire a full time programmer and an off the shelf package does not suit their needs.

Anyway, seeing her have to work as much as she does bothers me. I know I have talked about this before, but until things change I will keep talking about it. I also need to be better about letting her know how I feel. I do tell her that I am sorry she has to work like she does and that I feel it is my fault but apparently I am not very good about giving her compliments. Then again I have never been very good about that or even expressing my feelings in general. Perhaps that was one of the real reasons behind starting this blog. With a certain degree of anonymity we tend to reveal a bit more about ourselves then normally.

Things here are going well but they could always be better. By better I mean we have our health and possibly a much better job for my wife. We both come from a restaurant background and she has been working a part time job at one a few night a week. Well the other night the area manager approached her about perhaps joining their management team. She has been a manager for a large national chain and has the background for this type of work as well she very much enjoys being in that business. While it is not a guaranteed thing just yet should she get the position the pay would be almost 25% more then she was making in her last management position.

She loved that company but the store she worked at was so short handed for so long that she was working 15 hour days 6 days a week as well they were keeping her on the closing shift for months on end even though all the other managers were rotating shifts. When she asked about why that was she was told that she was the only one who lived in the same town as the restaurant. Everyone else had to drive 30-45 minutes to work and driving that at the wee hours of the morning is dangerous.

Now we do not disagree with that point at all but everyone knew that when they took the job, it goes with the business. When she was working at a store 45 minutes from out house she was not given special treatment and she should not/would not expect it. She liked the job and the company but when dealing with crap like that it is hard to not want to leave. Top off the hours situation with the fact that a bonus schedule was part of the compensation package but not once in the close to 2 years she was in that position did they receive one. They were always given some excuse about why or how they "just missed it" but they never received a single dime in a bonus.

Since they are offering her a chance to move into management she is now working solely at the restaurant. The job for the state was a good one in terms of hours worked and time off but the pay was less then she could make waiting tables for the same time period. Since we are so short money right now we have to go where it is at and that is the restaurant. While it means she is back to working nights again that is where the best money is made. We would prefer a 9-5 job you really just won't find one in the restaurant business.

Of course there is another bright spot in the days and weeks ahead. My aunt, who I have not seen in a few years and before that it was a good 10 years, will be in town for the next week. She is flying back from Long Island with my sister after they spent this past few days at some convention they got for reading some book. Knowing both of them it was some self healing, new age kind of thing. Not my cup of tea but they seem to like it.

Anyway, while she is in town she will be coming to our house this Wednesday to spend the day and tour our fair Burg. She has been to town before but that was for my sisters wedding so there was a lot of hustle and bustle and very little time to do much site seeing. I thought perhaps we would do a little bit of site seeing, maybe go down to the river where they have been spotting the Bald Eagles in the past few weeks, and then back to the house for dinner. Not sure what I might make yet as my Aunt is either a strict vegetarian or a vegan so I need to find out before we start cooking.

Well it is 10pm and my youngest is still wide awake and raring to go so I think I am going to give him some chocolate milk and have him sit down with me for awhile. That usually works to help calm him down and get him to bed.

Thanks to all of you, especially Mare, Bridget and Saija for being here for me. There are many more of you who I can thank and I will do so over the net few days. The emails and phone calls have helped my sanity far more then you might know.

The weekend it here!

Sorry I have not been keeping up with this for the last few days. I have been fighting off this cold which seems to be more then I thought it was, more like a respiratory infection and I have been dealing with what is chunks of phlegm. I found Robitussen CF has no alcohol or anything like that in it so I can take it with my other meds.

Nothing really new here. Just trying to figure out how to get through Christmas with everything we have going on between know and then. My aunt will be here this week from Long Island, then we have 4 birthdays one on December 20, my youngest sons is the 21st, my dad is Christmas Day and my brother in law is the 26th and then New Years eve is my wife's and my anniversary. While each is easily manageable when you put it all together within that time frame it becomes a force to be reckoned with.

The back is ok, the cold weather we have been dealing with though sucks. The colder it gets the more I can feel the pain. Oddly enough this is the second fall/winter where when it has been as cold as it is that I swear I can feel the screws and rods in my back. Almost like they have absorbed the coldness and I can feel the cold metal pressing up against the muscles surrounding them. It does not hurt but it is quite odd. If you have ever grabbed a cold railing it is much like that only from the inside.

The pain that has been creeping up my back seems to have stopped, for know, at about the middle of the back. I was hoping that the numbness that came with it would go away even if just for a bit but it is still there. The good news is that I have now been numb long enough that I really do not notice it as much as when it started going numb. Yes, that does not make any sense, LOL!

I have been on medication for the numbness before, generally an anti-seizure med like Neurontin but I found that it had serious side effects. In fact I found out some very interesting information about Neurontin while I was looking up more information about it on the web. While I was on it I would become either very depressed or very angry with no real reasoning, complete mood swings that I did not have before.

Those experiences with that one medication have made me quite leary of taking any other kinds of anti-seizure medications unless absolutely needed. Of course I then found out that Neurontin is one of the largest drugs prescribed for what is called "off label" prescriptions, or non-FDA approved applications. Neurontin has been the subject of a multi-million dollar class action suit in which it ended up shelling out $430 million dollars to settle. The pathetic thing is that they paid such a large sum but it was a drop in the bucket compared to the close to $3billion they made annually off it's sales.

So for me that means unless they have some other way of dealing with the numbness I am stuck with it.

Still here...

Like most of the midwest, here in Kansas City it has been bitterly cold. I think this is as cold as I have seen it this early in my ten years or so of living here and topping it off we had some snow.

The snow was nothing major in my area, perhaps an inch or so, but for the time the snow was falling it was coming down with near hurricane winds which made seeing difficult. Of course we were out driving around I-435 trying to get down to Metcalf for an appointment and we could not see squat. What I love though is all those idiots who still drive like they are on the NASCAR track, doing 75 and weaving in and out of traffic.

The reason we were out is to visit with some lawyers and pick one to handle my disability case with Social Security. I have to say that I talked to quite a few lawyers before I found one that I was comfortable enough with to sign on the line. At first during our conversation I felt like taking all my papers, telling him to kiss my ass and move on to the next one. However he quickly made some comments that made me feel very confident in his ability as well as his enthusiasm for the case and I decided to finish out the meeting before I decided.

I filled out all the paperwork he needed to "retain" his services and he has filed the initial appeal papers so that the clock stops running for us and we can jump through the next set of hoops.

I am relieved to have an attorney handling this aspect of the appeal as well as relieved that we are moving forward rather then just refilling and starting all over again. However we have an uphill battle to fight and while I do not agree with the way the government likes to play this game I guess I have to deal with it if I want a decent shot at my hearing.

We also needed to find the boys some new winter coats. We had one for Colm that fit just a few weeks ago but when we put it on him the sleeves were a good 1/2" above his wrists. Since he needed a coat we figured we would hit the Old Navy down by my appointment to keep from having to drive all over Kansas City. Of course Deb found one and as she were paying and leaving the lady behind her actually commented about how "perhaps your son would like to wear that coat right now?" referring to how cold it was outside. Now we are not about to let our children go out in the freezing cold and while he may not have looked like it, he was indeed bundled up nice and toasty with several layers as well as a watch cap (knit pullover winter hat). I wish I could have been there to hear Deb tell her off. Seriously, where do some people get off??? If it was that bad and we needed a coat then he would have stayed home while one of us went out. Doi!

The rest of the time I have been working on the school website. They finally secured the domain name and server space so I had to upload all the files and test it for proper functioning. Of course as soon as it was "live" the school was emailing me all kinds of requests to change this that and the other thing. Easy fixes but they have had access to it the whole time I have been working on it and they certainly could have mentioned those fixes before I uploaded them. If this was a small site it would have been easier but it is 30 or so main pages right now and growing as well it has several databases that it will be running off of when I am done, so any change has to be made not just on 1 or 2 pages but every single one of them.

I did get a nice email from the school today asking me if I would like to take over all their websites, which is 4 right now. The kids from the High School have been working on that site but the Board of directors would like all the sites to have the same look and feel which is easier done if the same person/people are doing it.

I am ecstatic that they have that much confidence in my abilities and would very much like to take the position but I have to work out some details with them. When I took on the elementary school site it was in exchange for my sons tuition, or a big chunk of it. Now I am working on all their sites which if done in the private sector would be worth a lot more then the tuition. I am not greedy but this is going to be a lot of work and if I take on the task I am going to have to put aside several other projects that I have taken on which do pay.

I also am curious as to how it will work if the kids are doing some of the work but I am the Project Manager. Does that mean I would need to be at the school at a certain time for a specific period of time? If so then that too is a bit beyond volunteer. Of course since this is a private school there is no need for a teaching certificate to work with the kids in a capacity like this, and to tell the truth I would find it pretty cool working with the kids.

Yes, I am just babbling on now. My mind is actually a million places at once and no thought is consistant at this point. If I was 10 they would put me on Ritalin and give me detention. I guess for now I will have to just get some rest and start all over tomorrow.

What's that feeling? Oh wait, it's nothing...

The cold is back. I thought I was going to be shaking this as of last night but after my nap this afternoon I felt a bit worse. Perhaps it is this strange front moving through the area. We have been having a lot of odd weather with SERIOUS changes very quickly.

This afternoon we were in the 60's and then it dropped down to freezing with tornadoes and tons of hail. Tomorrow morning they are calling for at least 1" of snow which means 3-4" is possible. The huge swings in the atmosphere just suck!

I have been having some new symptoms in the recent weeks that I have not mentioned. While I have been experiencing bouts of numbness in my left leg and foot the recent weeks have seen numbness from the mid-waist and straight down. It is a strange feeling to not be able to feel, indescribable. Perhaps that is the "phantom limb" syndrome I have read about. I have not mentioned it to the doctor as I was hoping like the numbness in my leg/foot it would at least be temporary.

The one thing this does do is confirm that I need to go get that MRI to see what exactly is causing the numbness. If it is the arachnoiditis then there is little to no hope that it will go away however if it is the degenerative disc disease then perhaps they can do something to alleviate the numbness.

The problem is that I am confused as to how to feel about this. If it is the arachnoiditis then it is permanent and could possibly get worse, to the point I can't feel anything at all rather then just being numb. If it is something else, like degenerative disc disease, that means things like epidurals and possibly surgery at some point. Neither of which are options that I really see as options. I'm fairly sure giant needles into the spine or being sliced and diced ranks fairly low on most peoples lists, so that means a need to find an alternate method.

I guess the sad thing is that I really don't even care. Last year I would have been upset about this but for some reason, perhaps shock, it is not affecting me the way I would expect. Maybe it's because until I get an MRI to confirm it the numbness "isn't real" if you know what I mean.

I was worried about telling my wife about this but she handled it pretty well. I mean how do you explain to your loved one that your condition is getting worse, at times by leaps and bounds. While I may be the one bearing the burden of the physical pain she shares a lot of the psychological side with me. In addition to my problems she is the one who has to work 2 jobs which leaves her very little time to herself or to see her friends.

I have to say that my wife and the rest of my family have been great, I cannot say it enough that they have been very supportive of both my physical and emotional needs. Yea, to heat a guy talking about his "emotional" needs sounds pretty wimpy but I would dare anyone who thinks that to trade places with an arachnoiditis or any other spinal cord injury patient. The range of emotions you deal with, even in just a 24 hour period, is amazing. Obviously various things effect you from the injuries themselves and the medications you are on, but like I said, my family has been great. I could not have asked for a better support team.

Tomorrow I have an appointment with the lawyer about my Social Security appeal. I figure that I would rather have someone who is experienced in this are help with the case. Since I could possibly see 2 years or more of back pay the lawyer would be able to collect either a percentage of what I get paid or a flat fee. I forget exactly how they work it but I believe the most they can collect is about $5500 or 25% whichever is less. For me I would rather collect 75% then nothing which is possible if I tried to do this on my own.

Time to end the babble and hit the hay..

Tis the season

Well Thanksgiving is over and that means this weekend I will not feel bad for dragging out my Christmas decorations. Of course half my neighborhood was decorated by late last week, which reminds me, I need to get a picture of the White Trash Christmas house that is down the street from me. I kid you not, this has to be the tackiest, gaudiest job of decorating that I have ever seen and they do it every year. Two years ago they were renovating the house and that's right, they decorated the dumpster and the Bobcat front end loader.

"So what do you want for Christmas little boy?", the worst question to ask a 12 year old. Especially one that has had nothing but attitude and bad grades the whole year. The list is easily a page and a half, and of course I remember dreaming of all those toys when I was his age, and include toys that cost $500! WTH? Does he seriously think there is even a remote chance of those toys? I mean even if we could afford them I would have a serious issue with toys that cost that much. Top that off with his being Mr. Mouth with the bad grades... Worse is when his friends show up and they all have these things. "But Dad, so and so has one and his grades are worse then mine!" Yes, that is an actual comment. Of course he is going to his mothers for Christmas and then on to her mothers for a few days. I have no doubt they will send him back home with everything we have told him no about.

As for me, I am not picky and in fact I think I rather despise being asked "what do you want?" as it puts me in an awkward position. Do you tell them what is really on your mind or do you slough it off with the last thing you saw that was less then $30? Can't you just use your imagination? I mean anyone who is most likely going to buy me something knows my likes/dislikes and I am sure I would love whatever they grab, if they grab anything at all. Of course there is one thing I have had my eye on for the holidays and that is the Delphi XM2Go radio. No worries about a subscription I can handle that but these handhelds are great! They can be used with the headphones or you can use it in the car since it will work with the car radio. Of course it would work great with the gift I got last year, wireless speakers, which the transmitter plugs into a standard headphone jack.

We will just have to wait and see what Santa brings for me. In the meantime if I don't get the above perhaps someday 2 more people will sign up for and finish the requirements for my I-Pod on the left! That's right, just 2 more people to sign up for something and then I get my I-pod!!!

Colm and I are both sick and cranky so this will be short. Apparently we have both caught some kind of crap, sore throats, watery eyes and runny noses. My poor little guys nose is raw from it running more then the fridge.

I gave him some children's Robistussen for cough/cold and will give him some more here in a bit before bed. It seemed to help for his nap so I am hoping he will sleep well tonight and feel better in the morning. Myself, with all my other junk there is not much I can take for a cold so I have to just tough it out.

Dinner and family...

Yes, it was a LOWFAT cheesecake! Almost everything I make is lower in fat/calories but I have spent the time looking for the right recipes to make sure they do not taste like that. Check out Cooking Light magazine for some cool ideas. You have to remember, while the holidays should be about guilt free caloric intake it is difficult for me. Losing any extra weight for me would be difficult so I watch what I eat much closer then I used to. I promise you though that I do not do it at the sacrifice of great flavor.

Dinner at my brothers house was nice. It was good to see them and my nephew and niece as well as watch all the kids play together. Of course the funny comment of the evening was when my niece kept calling my brother, only she was calling him "Daddy" so my son decided he needed to correct her. He walked over to her and said, "No, that's not daddy, that's Uncle Artie." The two of them were like that all night depending on who was asking what but they played together very well for not seeing each other all the time.

I did feel bad for my sister in law though as my nephew spent the evening throwing up. The poor little guy, he is about 7 months old and it seems he caught a stomach virus or what have you from his baby sitters son. The poor kid, I felt so bad for him. My mother sat and fed him (I think we were all actually arguing over who got to feed him) some peaches and no sooner was he done then they came back up. Thankfully this morning though he is feeling better according to my sister in law.

While I was in some pain it was not too bad, well worth getting out to see my family. I only wish my brother and I lived closer together. I would have to say that he and I were closer growing up as we are only 2 years apart. Many of our childhood friends are the same and had we stayed in the same neighborhood through college I have no doubt we would probably have gone to school together and now work either in related fields or possibly at the same company. Funny how life happens while your doing other things.

I realized last night that December is a 3 paycheck month for my wife. That means we will have Christmas after all! I was starting to worry about presents for the boys as most of our money will be spent trying to get our oldest too and from his moms for the holidays. Now it will not have to be that way.

I already have our trees. That's right, I said trees. I set up what has become known through my family and friends as the Christmas tree forest. It started with a set of 3 trees, 2',3' & 4' that I got on sale a few years ago. I threw some lights on them and set them around the big tree and then one year we just stopped adding the big tree and buying a small tree to add to the collection. Now we have 6 trees in various sizes from 1' to 5' and will continue to add until I feel it is perfect. Each tree is then decorated a bit differently, allowing each person to have "their" tree they can decorate. It is much easier then everyone fighting over the big tree and what is going where. We also set them on some folding tables which we cover with some holiday related sheets/table clothes allowing for a fuller appearance. I might add 3 or so trees this year if I can find them on sale before Christmas but if not I will be able to find them afterwards (the best time to go decoration shopping!).

Ok, enough of the sappy crap. I am just hoping to give the boys a Christmas like I remember having as a kid. Of course an I-Pod would be nice!!! All this time it has been sitting on this page, 15 people have signed up but only 3 have completed the offer. Oh how it would be cool to have that I-Pod!!! LOL!

My back and legs have been killing me and I have not had a chance to sit down yet.

Tomorrow is "Thanksgiving" at my brothers house so I volunteered to bake something to help my sister in law get out of the kitchen that much earlier. Nothing worse then entertaining and being stuck in the kitchen the whole time. So I spent this afternoon putting together and baking a pumpkin cheesecake to shake things up a bit. Of course it called for making a base like meringue and I had to beat that by hand, which if you have never done is not a chore you would want to do all the time.

Anyway, the cheesecake is in the oven baking away and I am hoping that it all goes well or I will be up bright and early to make my triple chocolate bundt cake.

I went with the cheesecake as I thought shaking it up a bit would be nice but I thought it should still have that "Holiday" flair so I made it with pumpkin. It is also low fat, much LOWER then your normal cheesecake and it is all done without sacrificing any of that rich creamy flavor you expect from a cheesecake, hopefully!

Standing on my feet for the evening is killing me. It feels like I am holding the world all on my lower back and I am SO looking forward to my bed tonight. To feel that massage feature aid the blood supply back into my aching back and legs will feel so good. Sometimes it just lulls you into a blissful place that you hate to turn it off and come back to reality. The second it is switched off though that is exactly what happens and within minutes that pain is back.

Time to relax now. I have some reading I would like to do as my new ASP.NET book arrived today and I am looking forward to getting in to it. Yup, I am a nerd. I read ocmputer programming language books for fun and I even almost understand them.

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Early to bed...

I crashed early and hard last night and I am not happy about it. That means the one night this week my wife and I had some time to just sit and relax and I was out by 8pm. I missed the time with my wife and I missed Law and Order.

I took my pain meds at about 7pm after we ate dinner and by 7:30 I was having trouble keeping my eyes open. Now normally I would just doze in the recliner but the boys were still up and I did not want them to have to be quiet on my account, so I excused myself and headed up stairs. Now when my TV switched on and turned to 41 for Law and Order it woke me up, but I did not make it through the opening scene as the next thing I know my wife was telling me it was 6:30am.

This morning though I am feeling quite refreshed and have a ton of work to do on some projects. I made Colm his breakfast and got Max squared away and then sat down with my cup of Coffee. No sooner did I turn around to grab the laptop and I hear the slurp, slurp, slurp of Max drinking something only we are no where near his water bowl. Nope, he is drinking my coffee straight from the cup.

Thankfully my coffee is not 100% leaded. I blend it about 3/4 decaf and 1/4 caffeine as it does not seem to wreak havoc with my CNS that way. Nothing worse then "tweaking" from your coffee because you have a host of other CNS problems.

Well we are making some progress with Max and the house breaking even only after 2 nights. Thankfully we also own an upright steam cleaner and handheld spot cleaner or we would be having the carpet cleaned every day.

He is a good dog and I think we have all grown quite fond of him in the short time he has been here. He is a well behaved dog for being a puppy and he is a good looking and stout dog as well. I think he is going to make a great addition to the family.

Of course it took him some time to get used to going up/down the deck stairs to get to the yard but as soon as he figured that out he was all about getting down and running around. Of course that means those little freaking mutts from next door do nothing but bark when he is out. Of course they do nothing but bark when anyone is outside. Maybe Max will get tired of them and have them for a snack!

The dog has been playing with the boys non-stop and they all seem to be having a blast, especially my youngest who thought he was a dog long before Max showed up. He would crawly around the house, pant and bark at us and so on. Now he has a friend to do this with and it is a riot watching he and the dog run around the house.

Max is a "chewer" and I lost all my new magazines before I even got to read them which ticked me off. Right now he is playing tug of war with Colm. Colm took the towel from the back door and went to throw it in the laundry and as soon as he did that Max grabbed the other end of it and started tugging. We bought Max some toys but he seems to like towels, books and shoes much better. I have a few tricks to help cure him of that though.

This morning I got some pictures of the two of them, after running around they decided to lay down and rest on the kitchen floor. We are fine with Colm playing like that but we will draw the line at butt/crotch sniffing and/or eating from the dog bowls.

Snow!

I had my doctors appointment this morning and after having to sleep downstairs with the dog to keep him calm, I was dead to the world at 6am when I needed to be up. I have not been up that early on purpose in some time, probably years.

The forecast called for showers turning into flurries in the afternoon and as usual the meteorologists got it all wrong. What they really meant was heavy snow with some ice and winds. The drive to the doctors office took me close to an hour and a half instead of the usual 45 minutes or so and the whole way was alternating snow and ice.

The doctor was late getting there and I ended up waiting close to an hour and a half longer then I thought I would be there just to get in but the visit went really well. We talked about my ER visits since my last visit with him as well as the trouble sleeping. To help combat the headaches we increased the dose on my inderal and to help with the sleep problem he added Restoril, which is Temazepam, a drug in the Benzodiazepine class of drugs which includes Valium. I was hoping he would go with something along that line as I had good success with it a few years ago after surgery. I was able to get some rest without feeling like I had been run over by a truck.

The drive home was worse then the drive there, the snow chunks (not flakes), were alternating with blinding rain for the entire drive home. Since I went by myself I was not too worried but since I did drive myself I was not able to take any of my meds until I got home. Since my appointment was for 8:15 the plan would have had me getting home right at med time. However, since the doc was a bit late I did not even get in the office until I believe closer to 10 and then not home until 11:30ish.

I am glad the appointment went well though because as I said before anytime I ask for a med change or to add something to the medications I am already on I get worried. You really do not know how the doctor will look at that, how they will perceive your requests for certain meds. To ask a doctor to add something to help you sleep or to increase your pain med dosage is difficult no doubt. Thankfully I have a great doctor who I have developed a good raport with so when we discuss my health he knows I am not just "asking".

Well it is time to give the youngest a nap.

Max is here!

Well he is here. I spoke with the breeder earlier this morning and arranged it for my wife to be able to meet with him after work to pick up the dog.

He is a first generation Labradoodle with his father being a Labrador and his mother being a Standard Poodle. He is black with some rust/brownish highlights throughout and at just barley 5 months he is a monster of a puppy compared to what I was expecting.

He is purebred with his father being a lab and his mother being a standard poodle obviously making him the first generation of the labradoodle breed. Generally they sell for quite a bit of money, $800-1000 a puppy, but when the breeders heard about our situation they let us have him for free. We have decided to call him Max, as he looks like a Max, but since we can register him with the AKC as well as several other association/club's we will have to figure out his registration name. Thankfully they gave us his pedigree going back 6 generations easily.

People can really suck some times...

I did not make it to the doctor the other day. I changed the appointment to this week as when I woke up I was in such pain that I had to take my breakthrough meds. Since I was going to have to do the driving I figured it was safer if I re-scheduled for another time. This time I made it for first thing in the morning so I should be home by 9 or 9:30. I can handle the pain for a bit like that but when the appointment is not until noon, no freaking way.

My wife had an Arbonne gathering here yesterday. My sister is an Arbonne consultant so she did the demonstration and all that jazz. However I am a bit pissed at my wife's co-workers, the same ones who drop off all their Mary Kay bullshit, Kid's school fundraiser's, Girl Scout Cookies and so on and then harp on you until you tell them to F*#k off or you buy something. The same women who told my wife that they would all be here yesterday. One of the reasons my wife invited them was because she was using something from Arbonne at work one day and they all commented on how they loved it but did not have a consultant.

So we spent the afternoon cleaning the entire house. You know, the cleaning your house only gets when complete strangers might be coming over. Dusting everything, cleaning all the windows inside and out, bathrooms top to bottom and so on. We then prepped some food, bought the beverages, made pots of coffee and whatever else people might want as we were expecting 10-12 people.

It was supposed to start at 4:30 and the first lady, a friend and co-worker of my wife's showed up and that was it. No one else showed and not one of them even bothered to call and say "sorry, my kid chopped his hand off and we can't make it", they just did not even bother. I think I was more pissed off then my wife because I saw how much effort and how excited she was to put everything all together. Sure, it is a "sales pitch" as it were but no one is forced to buy anything and they sit around doing things that women like to do, playing with makeup, giving each other facial scrubs and soaking their feet. The same damned ladies who practically begged my wife to host the event, the same ones who ask us to buy crap from them did not even have the common decency to call, even if it might be last minute and say, "sorry, I just cannot make it."

I guess my comfort in this whole thing is that the lady who did show up was more pissed about it then my wife and as she was leaving said that she would be giving them all the "whatfor" on Monday at work. I hope she guilt trips their asses into blowing their entire paychecks.

Now personally I do not like to attend any kind of "sales" shows like Pampered Chef, Longaberger and so on. I have an entire family who is into that, hell my mother makes a very comfortable living as a consultant for a direct sales company. However I have the decency when people invite me to one to let them know that I do not generally attend those shows (perhaps I have been to one to many in my day) but that I would like to see the catalogs. I do not buy so that they might "owe me one" later on, I buy because I found something I like/need and in the even that I do not find something I let them know that as well. I am just floored at how inconsiderate some people can truly be!

I will say this though, Arbonne makes this foot scrub that is kick ass. My wife, and this is a big reason I love her, gave me a foot bath and then a massage using the scrubby stuff. Now as someone who has a lot of problems with my feet due to the nerve damage I have to say that this stuff is awesome. My feet felt so much better after she was done with them.

One thing I think I am going to try is getting a massage. One of the wives of the attorney's my wife works with is a therapeutic masseuse. She is also the mother of one of my sons classmates. Anyway, I thought perhaps I might give that a try to see if increased blood flow to the lower back and legs helps with some of the pain. I know some people have had great success with this and even though I have tried it once before I think perhaps it is the technique that was used that I had a problem with (I did not know they have different techniques).

A new pet?

It looks like we will be getting a new dog this coming week. I am anxious and apprehensive at the same time as it has been some time since we have had a dog in the house.

Our last dog, Shadow, was a rescue (up until now all our pets have been rescues) and I remember the first time I ever saw him. I told my wife that he was beyond ugly, he is what one might call Fugly (use your imagination). He was a Curly Coated retriever, jet black and about 100lbs. He looked like someone crossed a Standard Poodle and a Black Lab, that distinct retriever look with tight curly ringlets of hair.

It turns out he was the coolest dog I ever had and while we did not name him (he was about 2 when we got him) it was apt, he followed me every where I went. Funny that should be, I did not really want him nor did I think he was a good looking dog but he drew right to me and ended up growing on me. He would sleep on the floor by my side of the bed, at the end of the couch by my side and so on. He turned out to be a very faithful companion, he loved to play rough and due to his specific breeding (they are cold weather/water fowl dogs) he LOVED to run outside the second it was snowing.

I can still see him running around the yard the first year we had him, a jet black dog who was covered top to bottom, nose to tail in snow. We must have spent an hour trying to corral him to get him back in the house and dried off only to have him dart right back out the second someone opened the door. For a big dog he could fit through the tiniest of spaces.

When our youngest was born we were concerned about how he might take it but he was great. Colm would crawl around the house and find Shadow. As any baby might like to do Colm was no exception and would yank on the tail, ears and all those curly locks and not once did Shadow growl or snip. Nope, he would just get up and move away. When he discovered that the baby could not climb the gates you would generally find him on the other side of the Kitchen gate just lying there peacefully.

Then one day Shadow stopped being so active and the more he walked, the more pain he seemed to be in. The vet gave him some meds and for awhile he was back to his old self but then the meds stopped working and it was time to decided what we should do. It turns out that Shadow had a problem very similar to my original injuries, but his were much worse.

Surgery was an option but even with that the vet told us there was no guarantee it would work and most certainly Shadow would live out his days in pain and with out the ability to romp and play like he loved to. Talk about a tough decision, here I am fresh off surgery for the same thing and not once did someone consider putting me down because of my back.

I talked with my wife and the vet and we all agreed that Shadow was in too much pain and the only thing to do was have him put to sleep. I will never forget that morning, it was cold and misting all day. A very dreary day to be sure and I with my back had to get the dog with his back out of the house and in to the car. It was if he knew what I was doing.

In all the years I had my friend he never once was menacing towards me, never. That morning as I drew the leash he coward in the corner keeping his distance from me. The leash meant walking and walking meant pain so I had to re-think this. I ended up having to try and carry him to the car, it was the only way to get him in it. The whole time he was biting and scratching me, like a trapped, scarred beast. The poor guy must have been so scared.

We got him to the vet and they asked one more time if this is what I wanted. It was tougher to say yes that time because it was permanent. Then they asked if I would like to stay with him until he was gone but that was too much for me. I said my goodbye to him and he nudged me one last time as if to beg me to throw the ball he loved to play with.

Well it has been some time since Shadow left us and while we have looked at other dogs, none of them ever seemed right. We did have a dog for a small bit. A little mutt we adopted who spent his afternoons tearing the house apart. We were told he was well behaved and that the foster home he had been in had no problems, he was nothing but a pain in the ass for us. We had to give him back, gladly.

Now we have been offered a pure breed dog for free. It is a 4 month old puppy and is a labradoodle. That's right, a mix between a lab and standard poodle, just what I thought Shadow was when we first met. We have to call the lady on Monday but apparently this is the last of the litter which has been selling for close to $1K per dog but at almost 4 months it is getting tough to find someone who will buy him. Knowing about Shadow and my back and how I would love to have another dog they offered it to my wife the other day.

I do not know what color it is, heck I don't even know if it is a male or female. However I do know that I will need to stock up on vacuum cleaner bags as curly coated breeds, especially larger ones, shed 3 times their weight in fur everyday. I love dogs but I hate being covered in dog hair.

Anyway, we will see how things go.

Seeing the doc tomorrow...

Hum Drum day. I spent most of it trying to fix the website I am working on but sometimes you can be too close to the project when there is a problem. That in mind I decided to call it quits after about 5 hours of looking at the screen.

I have a doctors appointment tomorrow. I want to talk to him about the pain being higher then the last few months. I am hoping that he will let me get another MRI, since I have a PPO I can get by with just a prescription. After that I can set it up with the place by my house and just walk on over. I know, I hate MRI's but I need to get this done so I can have it for my Social Security appeal as well I am curious to see what else is going on.

I am also going to ask him to switch some of the meds around. While the adjustable bed does work well and has seriously reduced the number of nights I have trouble getting some sleep there are still 2-3 nights a week that I have trouble. It makes for very LONG days when that happens as they tend to be the days when my youngest is up bright and early. Being well rested makes a very big difference in the pain levels too which is why I am big on getting a good nights rest.

I am always anxious about going to the doctor when I am going to ask for a med change or to add something to the litany of pills I am already on. While I have a legitimate need for the meds I am on and for what I might talk to the doctor about, I don't want to seem like I am a hypochondriac.

Until tomorrow...

Lazy days of fall...

I woke up this morning with a slight headache but this does not "feel" like one of my usual ones, more like someone has set loose a ping pong ball and it is just rattling around inside my head.

I took all my meds and hope that they start working soon but if not then it is off to the bedroom with some phenergan and the door shut to relax. Maybe put the massager on low and just lie down in bed for 30 minutes or so. Whatever it takes to get rid of this thing because we are going to my parents for dinner and my sister and her family will be there. I would like to not be in a "funk" while we are all together.

I also plan on stopping by Foozles which is a great book store. I am looking for some books on ASP.NET which I am working on learning. For those who may not know what it is, basically it is a way to develop more intricate web based applications. Foozles sells a lot of new/nearly new books for WELL below their cover price. Last trip I made there I saved close to $150 on 4 books which with tax cost me less then $10, for all of them. While the deals are not always that good you can generally get a $50 book for below $15.

A small donation and an old friend...

The last few days have gone by slowly. Not sure why, perhaps it is the change back to standard time.

I got a nice letter from my sons school today, totally unexpected. Usually the only things I get from them are from the Sisters (it is a Catholic school) letting me know how much trouble my son is in or how he is not doing his work. Nope, instead this was them letting me know that someone has donated my sons tuition, or at least a substantial portion of it. I was floored.

It is no secret that financially things have not been going well here. With social security taking forever (we are on an appeal) and no income from my end and my wife having to work 2 jobs just to cover the bills, things have been tight. Thankfully the school has been great and has allowed me to design and develop their website on lieu of a portion of the tuition because without that he would have to go back to public school.

Now with someone donating towards his tuition that should leave us with very little if any to pay. It was one of the things I have been sweating for some time and now it means I can sleep a little easier.

In other news...

My sons good friend is spending the night. He is a good kid, the same one who spent a lot of time with us while his ad was fighting the war in Afghanistan. When his dad got back from the war they moved about a half hour away, not too far but far enough that with their busy schedule and ours it has been tough to get the boys together. Apparently he was in town visiting his grandparents and they dropped him off to play for a bit.

The back has been a bit out of sorts lately. It really feels like the arachnoiditis or perhaps the degenerative disc disease is affecting me a bit higher then normal. Generally the pain, or the worst of it, is centered in the small of the back. The last few weeks it has been in the center of my back, right where the muscles run and that causes some wicked spasms. I have had to pop robaxin a lot more then normal to help with those. A fill (180 pills) normally lasts me 4-5 months easily but this last fill was more like 2. I prefer to not have to pop them all as they affect all your muscles and after a few weeks you literally feel like a limp noodle.

Time to make some dinner for the boys. They are in the middle of destroying the kitchen for Ramen (I told you we were broke!) so perhaps I should intervene.

Some more later....

Bird Flu vaccine?

So last year there was a shortage of vaccine after one of the largest manufacturers and one of the very few allowed to make it for the US, had some issues that led to contaminated vaccines. That meant a huge shortage for people here in the US and now this year it is happening again!

That's right, the same company that had the problems last year is claiming that they are way behind in production of this years batches because of their problems from last year? WTF?

They had 1 year to get ready for this season and in that time if they thought they would not make it then they had a responsibility to alert the government long before they have done so.

I had a list of 4 places in my area that were offering flu shots for either free or reasonable rates. Since my wife works with the general public she gets hers through work but the boys and I are left to fend for ourselves, so I started to go around to the places that were listed only to find signs stating they had no vaccines. Not that they had a shortage or even that I was late and they were out but that they had none what so ever.

I figured since that was happening then perhaps I should bite the bullet and pay the higher fees that some of the other places were asking. Guess what? They do not have any either.

This is a complete crock of shit. I have traveled or called the greater metro area, that is an area that houses somewhere about 1.5 million people and either none of them have any or they are so short they have had to restrict who they will give it to.

What the hell has our government been doing for the past year? Why have they not allowed more companies to produce the vaccines? How complacent can they be when it comes to this? I am very pissed off that they have allowed this to happen, especially in the wake of a strain of flu that could rival the flu pandemic of 1918.

Pet Peeves

I got a phone call this morning from our youngest sons medical provider inquiring about which plan we would like him on. WTF? Which plan? Well that would be the plan we signed him up for when we sent in the paperwork.

Now the problem with the call was that this lady was either very soft spoken or was working with a crappy head set because I could barely hear her prompting me to continue to say "I'm sorry but I cannot hear you very well, could you please repeat that?" which was followed by her actually saying/asking "well then can I speak with your wife?" WTF?

I explain to her that she is coming through so low that I can not understand what she is saying and top that off she is asking me to make decision about my medical plan. I repeated myself several times letting her know that I could not hear her as well she was asking me to make a decision about a medical plan that I have no information on. I explained to her that I was not prepared to make a decision on the plan if I did not have the proper information on the difference between the plans and better yet I did not understand why I had to change our current plan at all. We have received nothing in the mail about this. Each time I said something she responded with one of my all time pet peeves... "uhmm..." Arrrrgh!

I sent my boys out of the room hoping that the background noise being gone would help but I was wrong. So I explained to her one final time what my situation was, that I could not hear her as well I was not willing to discuss this information without validating who she was or having a hard copy of it in front of me. If she wished for us to do something they would have to either email, fax or send us a copy of the paperwork on the plans. Of course that was met by the "uhmm..." so I told her that she would either just have to call me back with a better connection or give me their number and I would call them when I had time to find out what she was talking about.

Amazing, a 2 minute conversation that was more frustrating then trying to teach a blind man to dance.

We just got the word that my sons great grandmother has passed away.

I know, most people are not close to their great grandmother or perhaps their great grandparents passed away before they were born or when they were too young to understand. Well, after my divorce and my ex-wife had custody of my son for a few years his great grandparents lived with them. Now my former spouse had ulterior motives, as she usually had but that does not matter. It meant that my son was basically spending more time with Viola then he was with his own mother.

After I got custody of him she always made sure to call him at least once a week, she always sent him care packages, birthday presents and so on. She did more for him then his own mother did, hell she called him more then his own mother. When our youngest was born Viola would always include things for him in the care packages as well she would send him birthday and Christmas gifts. She treated him as if he were her own grandchild .

Viola apparently feel ill a few weeks ago, out of the blue. I got a call from my former wife letting me know they had taken her to the hospital and she was not doing well. I guess at some point they tried to take her off her medications or change them and she fell into a coma. They were not optimistic she would survive that day let alone that week but she started to show signs of improvement a few days later and they were able to remove her from the respirator and then a few days later the feeding tube.

The last word we got was that she was improving to the point she would be moved to a managed care facility but she would most likely never be well enough to live on her own again. Truly sad for such a woman who has always been very independent as well her husband is still living and would need to be there.

We prayed for her and we have thought about her and were very happy to hear that she had been doing better. It was to the point that while we continued to pray for her it was no longer for a "recovery" but more for her to maintain. So when I got the call this evening that she had passed away, I was floored.

Rest In Peace Viola.

Offered a new position...

My dad called me this morning asking what I could only think were rather weird questions.

I had been out grocery shopping with the boys and missed the first call but while we were putting the groceries up he called me back. When I told him that I had been at the store I got the "Oh, so you can drive?" of course I had to answer "Sure, if I am staying in town and keeping it to a few miles" and then it just went from there. He was asking me about my meds and when I take them and how they make me feel and so on and the whole time I am thinking "He is going to ask me to do something" but we just weren't getting that very fast. I mean it was like an Abbott and Costello routine.

We finally got through the questions and he told me that he has a client who is looking for an entry level programmer. Ah-ha! I would love to get in on the ground floor, while I do not talk about it much I do now how to code a bit in Visual Basic 6 and have been working on learning .NET which this position is using.

I mean I was ticked when I found that the job would be like a 45 minute drive s I would love to go for it. Especially when I found out what it was paying, my wife would be able to quit both her jobs and I would still be making about $5 an hour more then those 2 combined. I mean we were looking at a salary that would put us back where we were 2 years ago, which was quite comfortable.

Even though the job was only an initial 2 month contract to hire I am sure that at the end of the 2 months they would see that I could be a valuable asset and would make it permanent. My concern though is that would not be guaranteed and in order to take the position my wife would have to quit her main job, which she just started as well she really likes it.

I decided that I am going to enroll in some classes in the spring to learn more about .NET programming. Perhaps if I was feeling a bit more confident in my skills I would be jumping all over this. Sure, I would still need to figure out the driving thing but for that kind of money I am sure we would work something out.

Halloween

My small city has passed a law that starting this year anyone convicted of a sex related offense is not allowed to give out candy on Halloween. Since the city also has an ordinance that covers Halloween trick or treating they have added the sex offenders to the law. What happens here is that you may only trick or treat between 6 and 8:30pm and you may only go to houses that have the porch lights on. I actually agree with the lights on issue for safety but in this town it just seems as if Halloween is dying. We don't even take the kids out here anymore and instead we drive to my parents house 30 minutes south. The oldest made a killing there the past few years but this year said he was just not interested in going out so instead we stayed home to hand out candy.

Our youngest is now bouncing off the walls. He figured out what the hub-bub is about right after the first trick or treaters came by and so mom took him to a few houses on our street. Next year he will be able to go out but this year he is just a bit too young to really understand it all so he is handing out the candy. Each time the bell rings he hauls for the front door with the bucket and he wants to be the one putting the candy in the bags. This year it is Mike & Ike's, Chewy Granola bars and Reeses Peanut butter covered peanuts (think Peanut M&M's)

I think I am thankful that the oldest did not want to go though as I am not sure my back would be up for that distance. Add to it the little guy who will not hold your hand for too long before trying to break free. My wife is not a big Halloween person and in the past I have basically had to drag her along. I wish my back were up for it though as Halloween has always been one of my favorite "holidays", especially when they are giving out Snickers® bars! YUMMY!

Since it is a "lazy" night this evening I am just sitting in the recliner blogging and listening to some tunes from my youth on Rhapsody. This is the last month I will keep them tough as I just found out that with my DSL subscription (SBC.com) I get the premium music channels from Yahoo Music, so there is no sense in paying the extra $10 a month for something I am getting already.

LOL! The doorbell just rang and when Mom ran off to answer the door Colm stole her piece of pizza. Hahahaha! He is as proud of himself as can be as he is cramming this piece down his throat. Ooops...there's the bell again so they are all off and running to the door. That kid is going to be tuckered out if they keep coming at this pace.

To PB- thanks for the call brother. I need to get better about calling you. Hope the kids had a good time trick or treating.

I just read that Gerard Depardieu has decided to end his acting career. Of course I did not realize that he even had one.

He made like one movie in the states that was a minor hit?

It has been a LONG day for some reason. Not a long day like we have been traipsing all over God's creation but long as in it seems like someone stopped the clock and it started way too early for me. Now it is barely 17:30 and it seems like it is midnight. If this is what they call standard time I would prefer to go back to daylight savings.

I do not have a problem with Seasonal Affect Disorder and I enjoy the daylight ending early as that means the cool weather is here to stay. It is time to get cozy and settle in on the couch with my wife and watch the idiot box or maybe do some family indoor activities as it is too dark to go outside. Whatever we decided though this family seems to come even closer together in the fall/winter then the rest of the year.

My back is feeling ok today and my foot is doing well so in the grand scheme of things I am good to go. However my stomach has been somewhat upset this afternoon and even a few Tums® has failed to help settle it down. It looks like it may be time to get out the phenergan at bedtime, but only if the soy milk does not work. I have found that in many instances when all else fails my chocolate soy milk works quite well to settle my stomach. Yes, I said soy milk. I have found one brand that I really enjoy and even then I will only drink their chocolate (I drink the Light versions).

It can be a bit expensive but I really enjoy it versus regular milk (I have a problem drinking fluids from other animals) and when it comes to the nutritional value of soy versus milk, the soy I drink is lower in calories then many of the varieties of milk save Skim and even then they are dead even at about 90 calories per 8oz serving. However soy also has an advantage over regular milk that adds to the fact that it was not squeezed from an animal and that is it has some body to it. It is silky and that adds a dimension to drinking it that really makes it an enjoyable beverage.

Now there was a time where I would not drink soy either. I would only drink Almond milk but the problem was that it was not only more expensive then soy, when you live in redneck central and the nearest "big" town is 45 minutes away it is hard to find. How I started drinking the brand of soy that I do I cannot recall but we are able to find it at both the major grocery stores in town.

Dead toenails?

I am not sure what the heck happened to my left foot but over the last few weeks the big toenail turned black, like it had dried blood under it but I do not remember smashing it. Since my wife has been giving me a hard time about it I decided last night to take a closer look at it and while I keep myself very well groomed (I cannot STAND long nails) I decided to see if I could trim the nail back any further then it already was.

During this exercise I noticed that my nail had no feeling at all. You know how usually if you try to trim to far you can feel it? Well not this time which kind of told me that the nail was dead to some extent. I worked on it for a bit trying to clean the blood from under it when I realized I could fit the file all the way under it and to the cuticle. It was then that I decided that I needed to excise as much of the dead nail as I could and then put on a triple anti-biotic ointment and a bandage for a few days to prevent an infection.

I started to clear away the dead nail and when I got about half way down the toe I uncovered what appeared to be a blister of some sort. The clipper accidentally snipped a part and the clear liquid (water) you see under burn blisters ran out. I finished clearing out much of the nail and wiped out the blood and other fluids, applied a healthy dose of the ointment and then put on some waterproof bandaids for the day.

I ended up leaving the outer portion of the nail on, like a big "U" as it was still alive and I could not cut it out without some pain but the middle of the nail is gone.

Now I have no idea what happened or what I did to cause the problem in the first place and I was quite surprised to find that most of the nail was dead. I think I have lost on nail in my life and that was when I was a kid and smashed my hand with a ballpeen hammer, of course then you expected the something like that to happen.

I feel like I am falling apart bit by bit. Each day it is a new ache or pain or something else "breaks." It is perhaps more frustrating because before all of this I was very healthy and while I am not able to continue a regimen of physical activity I have been able to keep myself healthy by eating properly and doing the limited exercises that I can do. We will see what happens.