Archive for July, 2009

I’m a bit of a geek?

Jul 28

Posted by Daddy in Blog, Geek stuff | No Comments

I like toys. My toys are different from my son’s. Yes, I like his LEGO’s and enjoy building the new sets he gets. I will be disappointed when he decides he wants to build them all. I like my electronics. Gadgets, Gizmos, whatever. My desk is cluttered with things right now. Couple printers, my laptop, a 24″ HDTV monitor (serves as a 2nd screen for my laptop as well as my 1080p monitor for my Xbox 360), cable modem, DSL modem (I need to take that down), D-Link gaming router (DGL-4500…I love it), iPhone charging dock, Astro A40 headset MixAmp (awesome headset…as long as it isn’t hitting feedback that annoys the shit out of my friends online), there’s more…..

So, I’ve got my iPhone. I love it. I didn’t want a touchscreen. Not after my T-Mobile MDA (a.k.a. HTC Wizard 200). The thing was, I was always losing my stylus for the MDA. The icons were too small for me to hit with my fat fingers. So, when I got the iPhone from my little sister (thanks Kels and Mike), it was purely out of curiosity for what I could do with it. I’m on T-Mobile so obviously the standard AT&T iPhone wasn’t going to cut it. Jailbroken and Unlocked within 30 minutes of taking possession of it. I like to play with it…hell, I had the owner’s manual and the program to unlock the MDA six months BEFORE T-Mobile USA announced they were going to carry it. I am a forum member on quite a few geeky sites.

So, I’ve got my iPhone 2G phone. It isn’t the newest, or even last year’s model for that matter, but it works for me. Yes, I’d love a 32GB iPhone 3Gs, but I’m not about to spend $1,000 to buy it from a third party vender. It would be nice if Apple would just send me one to use and evaluate from a stay at home father point of view, but that is probably unlikely.

So, T-Mobile has the MyTouch 3G available. I have to say that my interest has been grabbed slightly by this handset. I played with the G1 (my buddy pre-ordered a couple) and I wasn’t so fond of the phone itself, but would like to give Android a go round. So I called T-Mobile tonight and asked them if a data plan was required (which it is) and asked if my grandfathered “data plan” would work. I was advised that it would not. I pay $5.99 a month for T-Zones Unlimited. With this plan I am able to: browse the net, send/receive emails, twitter, facebook, etc. all on my phone for $6 a month. Sure, it’s not 3G, but they don’t have 3G here yet. I fail to see the point in spending $25 a month for a data plan. Why not? Well, I have Wi-Fi setup at home, as does my buddy whose house I would be at if I was out of the house. Wi-Fi is going to be faster than the 3G….but I’m still considering it much to Kim’s dismay.

Maybe I’ll send an email to Apple and/or T-Mobile and see if I can get one of these handsets to try out for a while, review, and post my thoughts on them here…..

What a week

Jul 28

Posted by Daddy in Blog, Queen | 1 Comment

So, it is has been a VERY long week. Kim had her gallbladder surgery last Monday. So, eight days ago. In that time she was supposed to start feeling progressively better…but this was NOT the case.

Kim was feeling pretty good last Tuesday. One day post-op, up and about, just doing her thing. Then Wednesday she started hurting a bit. Thursday and Friday were AWFUL and Saturday was even worse. She had pain in her abdomen as well as in her shoulders…depending on how her body was situated. See, when she was sitting upright the pain would be in her abdomen. When she would lie down the pain would move to her shoulders. She was in constant pain and nothing was helping.

Sunday morning we dropped the two older kids off at Kim’s friend Christine’s house for a while (we thought) and headed off to one of Kim’s apparent favorite places….the ER. Ok, it isn’t her favorite place. It is among her least favorite places, but we’ve been going there quite a bit (the gallbladder operation was at the same hospital). After walking back and getting the exact same room and CAP (nurse’s assistant) they started doing evaluation. X-Ray…negative. General checkover…not a damn thing. Finally got her convinced to stay the night. Shortly before the original gallbladder doctor strongly suggesting she stay overnight in the hospital I talked to Kim’s parents. Long story short, Kim’s mom was back in the car on her way to us after being home for an entire day. Her dad would be here too, but the cat would need to be boarded and it wasn’t open on Sunday during the time they needed to leave. I’m pretty sure Kim’s mom broke her dad’s record for time to get to our house. I may be wrong….

Monday morning at 0700 they came to get Kim to go down for another HIDA scan. The HIDA scan is what allowed us to find out that her gallbladder was only working at 4% and needed to come out. Let’s see what it tells us this time.

“Bile leakage from an auxillary duct” was the diagnosis. Look out…here comes the soapbox (and some profanity…so if you have small children, please sheild their eyes). The cocky fucking doctor that removed the gallbladder has the balls to tell me that the duct that was leaking bile (and therefore causing Kim all kinds of pain) was usually tricky to see during the gallbladder removal procedure. (Yes, I’m sure there is a technical name for the procedure, but I don’t know it and will probably never be able to spell it correctly anyway). So, let me get this straight Captain “I’m a doctor don’t question my abilities”….this is something that everyone has? When a gallbladder is removed it should always be sealed up to prevent bile leakage? You couldn’t see it when you removed my wife’s gallbladder? You didn’t take the two fucking minutes to look around and prevent my wife from being doubled over in pain multiple times? You have the balls to show up in her hospital room and tell me this to my face? You are lucky my wife is sitting right here, and even in her medicated state was aware enough to tell me to be nice before you arrived. You’re lucky I didn’t put you in the ER.

Monday afternoon Kim was sent down for an Endoscopic procedure to place a stent. This stent sealed off the leak, and should allow it time to heal. She will need to go back in 2-3 weeks to have the stent removed. The existing bile in her abdomen should be “naturally absorbed into her system” and she should be completely pain free within 72 hours.

She came home from the hospital this morning and is doing well. She is in a MUCH better state of mind, and being. She is smiling, laughing, and able to enjoy being gallbladder free. Now….Honey…..about that arrogant piece of shit doctor of yours…..

How lucky we are

Jul 21

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I was going to post this yesterday. It was one of the reasons I went home during the surgery to get my laptop…the other being Kim said she wanted to watch Alias afterwards during recovery.

So, I am sitting in the waiting room waiting to go back to be with Kim before her surgery. While I am sitting there a couple of doctors came out to talk to patient’s families. It was at this point that I realized just how lucky we are.

The first doctor walked up to a younger couple and was talking about their son. His surgery was a success. I didn’t hear specifics, but the look of relief on the parents’ faces let me know that it was such a load off of their shoulders. They thanked the doctor about 10 times in 4 minutes. The doctor responded with something along the lines of how he was just happy it went well and that their son was going to be ok. I think his name was Josh.

The second doctor that came out really made me step back. He went to the other side of the fishtank to a couple that was sitting with their backs to me. I don’t know how old they were, but there wasn’t any white hair so I’m guessing they weren’t all that old. Either that or they were lucky that way. The doctor said they successfully removed two lumps, both non-cancerous. They had evidentially previously found cancer in the girl/woman who was operated on. I know this because they said they were going to give her a couple weeks to heal before the chemotherapy was to start. Wanted to get her to as close to full strength as possible after the surgery first. She is going to have to undergo chemo 5 days a week for 6 weeks. The doctor said they were short durations, at only 10 minutes each. He said her chances looked very good.

I sat there….taking it all in. I was worried about my wife having her outpatient procedure done. A surgery that would take about an hour and she’d be on her way home that same day. Only follow up would be checking to make sure the entries were healing properly. She wouldn’t have to undergo chemo, there was not really a question as to whether or not she’d survive the procedure, there wasn’t a possibility that what they removed may have been life threatening. We are lucky that the greatest concerns for us are: when will Kim’s tonsils come out, will Monkey need eye surgery, will Tank’s clogged tear ducts clear up on their own or will he need a procedure, and when will I find a job?

I am so very thankful for our health, and to be as fortunate as we are. We have a house to live in that we are not in danger of losing, we have cars that fit our whole family comfortably and are reliable, Kim has a wonderful job along with job security, and we have five overall healthy people in our immediate family. Take the time to stop and think how fortunate you are. You may have health problems or money problems, but there is almost always someone else who is having a far harder time than you are.

She’s home

Jul 21

Posted by Daddy in Blog, Queen | No Comments

Surgery went well…which is more than I can say for the staff. Long story short, after her surgery they came to tell me how it went. They called the house instead. Got the voicemail from my mother in law that the doctor called. So I’m sitting back in the corner in the “computer area” where the volunteer assured me that they’d let me know as soon as I could go back to be with Kim. After an hour I got bored with browsing online and got up to see if I could go back yet. Well…nobody was there. The volunteer and the receptionist had gone home. It was all locked up. Shit.

About 10 minutes later I got a call on my cell phone that I could come back. Really??? An hour and a half before I could sit by her? So I go back, and then I get to run down to the pharmacy to get her prescriptions filled. Since they closed in 30 minutes and all. I finally get them filled and head back up. I don’t even get to sit there for more than 5 minutes before they inform us that they’ve called for a wheelchair to take Kim down to the car. Wow. Glad I was able to be there for her recovery.

The surgery was success, and once she’s healed there should be no more issues…other than her tonsils. She is currently upstairs asleep and doesn’t need to wake up for at least another 3 hours for a med. Hopefully she’ll be able to skip that next one (pain med) and just wait until the mandatory one in 5 hours.

7-19

Jul 19

Posted by Daddy in Blog, Monkey, Nutty, Queen, Tank | No Comments

Wow, what a week. We’re prepping for Kim’s gallbladder surgery that is tomorrow. She isn’t supposed to eat or drink after midnight; which is pretty common for a surgery. However, Kim’s surgery isn’t until early afternoon. All in all it would be around 18 hours with no food or water. The biggest problem is that she is still nursing Tank and needs to hydrate. There was some “joking” at work with her co-workers about starting an I.V. saline drip. We’ll see what happens.

Also this week was poor Nutty’s losing his voice. He got that back and has been fine since, but Tank starting acting funny. We thought that maybe he’d caught what Nutty had and was getting a sore throat, but we hit him with some Infant Tylenol for his fever and he was fine. So then on Friday night we’d see how Tank did that night and possibly take him into the doctor during Saturday hours if need be.

Kim got a call from work at dinner time on Friday. She’d been given a mandatory A-Day. That means she doesn’t go into work, she is home on Available. So if they need her they’d call her and she’d have to come in. This was actually ok because she was debating about trying to get one for Friday night because Tank was sick. This A-Day proved VERY beneficial for me. I’m a sympathy puker. I can’t handle vomiting (except during childbirth for some reason). About 10 minutes after she got after the phone with work, Monkey looked at Kim at the table and said she didn’t want to eat her dinner anymore. Then she turned to her left (clearing the table) and let loose. Again, thankfully, Kim was home. She was able to handle that.

Yesterday morning Tank was doing ok when he was medicated, but was obviously not himself otherwise. He still had a fever so we piled in the car and drove him to the doctor’s Saturday hours. We were both really happy we took Tank down because we found out that Tank had his first ear infection. Great. I dropped everyone at home and went to get Tank’s antibiotic prescription filled. He has now had three doses, and is getting back to his old self. He is smiling and happy, but not on Tylenol or Ibuprofen anymore. Looking forward to having my good old Tank back.

So Kim’s parents are going to be here in a couple hours. They are coming out to help out with the kids while Kim is recouping from surgery. The kids have been asking if it is Sunday all week. They are more than a little excited to see their grandparents.

Tomorrow is the day for Kim…normally people would be nervous or uneasy going into a surgery. Given that Kim is a nurse…well, she seems to be fine. One thing I’ve learned over the years is that when it comes to medical things, if Kim isn’t worried, then I don’t worry.

Checking the stats for the site

Jul 17

Posted by Daddy in Blog, Geek stuff | No Comments

Just figured I’d use some of the many “tools” provided by the web host. One of them is called “AWSTATS” and basically gives me all sorts of random statistics about the site and its visitors. I can look and see that bots for Yahoo, Google, MSN, and a few others have crawled my site, and that the most active day is Friday. Really? Friday?

Apparently I need to be more diligent about posting blogs, and start inserting jokes and such. Have a friend from WAY back who is going to send me some recipes soon. I really hoped to have more of them up on here by now, but haven’t sat down to do it. Coming soon……

Ironic

Jul 16

Posted by Daddy in Blog, Nutty | No Comments

Nutty is just like me. We love to talk. We can go on and on and on. So, it was funny yet also sad when we got up on Tuesday morning. See, Nutty had lost his voice. He had complained about a sore throat for a day or so before, and then…nothing. It was hard not to laugh a little when he squeaked out “Good Morning”. Then he went weezy. For the next two days he could do nothing but weez. We tried to get him to not try to talk, and instead whisper at most. Which he did. But the problem was the non-stop whispering.

Thankfully, his voice has now returned. He is chatting us up once again.

7-14 Random Thoughts

Jul 14

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I’ve been thinking about this for a while. I’ve been smoking for a LONG time. Let’s just say it is greater than 50% of my life. Yes, I know it is a nasty habit, and yes, it is most likely going to kill me one day. So that’s where this random thought came in….

I smoke four packs a week, and buy them on Monday and Friday (2 packs at a time). Each trip to buy two packs is $10. So that is $20 a week, and $1,040 a year. Damn that’s a lot of money. So I was thinking…I’m paying the Tobacco Industry $1,040 a year (current prices) to basically kill me.

So my question is….is that a paid suicide, or am I taking out a contract on myself?

And it is over

Jul 10

Posted by Daddy in Blog | No Comments

T-Ball has come to a close. He played in his last game this year. On the way to the game I kind of pressured him to pick which sport he liked better: soccer or t-ball. His first response, “I like all the sports I’ve tried…and I have to try them all.” So I asked him what other sports he needed to try.

Nutty: “Golf, tennis, volleyball, basketball….” Then came something I was so not prepared for….

Nutty: “and Lacrosse.”

WTF? How does he know what Lacrosse is? Well, the high school around the corner from us does have a Lacrosse team, and we’ve driven past them during practice…and I guess I told him what it was.

So, in any case, he said if he had to pick only one it would be soccer. I figured that much on my own, but reassurance is never a bad thing.

Quest For Recon

Jul 10

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It continues. So many games played on Bungie day…never got a game against Bungie’s team. Basically if you were lucky enough to get matched against Bungie’s four man team (out of the upto 190,000 players in the playlist) and you beat Bungie’s team…well, you’d win recon. There were other things I could have gotten it for…but nope.

Recon is a type of armor your Halo character can wear in online matches. It is rare and hard to get. I play with a Bungie employee quite regularly (oddly enough, he is the one that oversees their website), and get a bit jealous that he has it and never wears it. Guess it is like me rubbing in the fact to my dad and brother that I have hair, but shave it bald out of pure choice (I get hot in summertime).

Tags: Bungie, Halo, Recon

Another At Home Daddy

My life is: Nutty, Monkey, and the Tank.

Archive for July, 2009

I’m a bit of a geek?

What a week

How lucky we are

She’s home

7-19

Checking the stats for the site

Ironic

7-14 Random Thoughts

And it is over

Quest For Recon

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