Events of the day.

Events of the day.

 

Nap 8:30-8:45 AM

Jamie has a survey.

S complaing about strollers in the trunk of my car. S called to tell me this.

Missed morning snack. Email from cousin Shelly. About a week behind in emails on that other account lets call it xyz.com.

Chicken pox at Z's school. S called to tell me this.

Carol at work a crank in morning meeting.

Second meeting on same subject for 3PM.

S says she fixed garage door opener problem company came out for free.  S called to tell me this.

Running 837 report since 12:06 taking forever to run.

Tom tech reviewing my paper file storage.

Calls Carrie a dipshit (babysitter). No tee ball. No softball. Doesn't trust Carrie. Doesn't think Ashley is a good babysitter. S called to tell me this.

Ken (boss) gave me the turnover to tech review its about 6 inches of paperwork to read through.

On my to do list for post 5PM didn't get to during the day.

School work check email, print test.
Shower (done)
Shave (done)
Walk dogs (done)
Kids bath (done)
Lauren HW (none)
Shoshana HW (none)
Update blog (now)

Haft Torah
Hebrew
Parsha
Throw out contact lenses (done)
Sell Matrix movie
Strollers
Pack up movie (waiting for art work from L)
Alice movie
Two Towers
Tuck S in.
S snack.
Shelp laundry.
Go to bed at 11:30
Check book
Dishwasher.

Instead I went out at 7:50 and caulked the sump pump and dredged the ditch.

Gotta run S is talking to her Father. He paid for the new Van.

---

Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new Resources site!

Memorial Day 2005

There are so many hobbies I have neglected. Blogging, Parsha, Haft-torah (no I'm not a Bar Mitzvah boy just interested in learning more). Many Torah commentaries site references to Haft-torah. Only the Bar Mitzvah Haft-torah's are only selections of the full text. Also I study Hebrew, print my color photos, geneology, working on a Java Hebrew program, putting up a light, fixing the trim in the garage, planting a garden. Reading Lord of the Rings, watching A Town Called Alice.

Let's take a break from reminicing about Z's long adventures. They will come back. Today we got a new 2005 Nissan Quest. The old one 1996 Nissan Quest was a trade in. This one has a DVD player. I mowed the lawn, edged, trimmed and weed whack. One of those is redundant. I think weed whack means trimmed. I added blog rolling. The 1-click blog rolling doesn't work. I have 361 emails up to May 14 in my other email account. Most are about my brother's bachelor party. Ok this is too painful to think about.

Tonight we had flank steak on the grill. I also planted the rest of the flower garden. I got replacement for my $12 tomatoe plant. As my mother would say, "I bet your so pleased with your wife's ability to get nasty with someone to get you some refund."

Sunday we went to Cedar point. The tickets were free because Z is a make a wish kid. S pulls out this notice and we get free passes to lots of places. We brought a neighborhood girl, she is adopted. The parents are white and the kids Correy and Alisa are vietnamese. Very nice of the parents to adopt. The dad is kinda fat and is jovial. He sings in the morning outside loudly as he gets the kids ready. Alisa is R's age. I was with Z and L and S was with the older girls. Cell phones worked great for this trip. Sometimes I had the older girls as my responsibility. Cedar point is an amusement park. They won stuffed animals. I held the stuffed animals and they went on two water rides. Then another scary ride and I waited with Alisa. The only ride I went on with the older girls was the sky ride. With the little ones I watched most of the time. Tickets are normally $45. I don't like really scary roller coasters.

Saturday we can pretend I kept the Sabbath.

Friday was like a dead day at work. We bought the car that day.

Thursday I went to Plymouth to Joe's deli for lunch 12 miles each way. I have a coupon. My friend Karen at work paid so it was free. Thursday night we won at softball.

Chai Lifeline is wonderful

Chai Lifeline gave us money for five months. Thats not all. At the end they came out to visit us. On L's birthday, Z's birthday and R's's birthday they sent via Federal Express a balloon. Then they took pictures brought treats and presents. Then when the were leaving the invited us to their annual retreat on a Shabbat in January. It was all expenses paid too. Airfare included. They encourage you to visit relatives. My family was of course excluded since S can't stand them. We did agree to visit S's brother M in Philadelphia.

So we flew in early on a Friday morning to LaGuardia airport. Another family was picked up there as well. They flew in from Canada. S made us get up at 4AM. Chai Lifeline made us take the absolute earliest flight. We landed in NJ around 9:30. Then the van took us the four hours to the resort. All the food was kosher too. No car seat for Z. Now this was a limosine company. It was freezing cold too. If my parents screwed that up S would have been screaming at them forever. We complained when we got there. When the retreat was over, again no car seat. They drove us too Philadelphia.

The man of the family in the car with us was a Torah teacher in Canada. I had studied my parsha and asked him questions on the way. He was impressed. The man driving was the owner of the limosine company. It was his fault we couldn't arrive later. He was worried about getting back to upstate (Mundy I think) before sundown. So we got there before the conference even started. Everyone was exhausted. We tried to rest in the room and it didn't work. I was disappointed the candlelighting that started at 5:21 PM was completely self serve and disorganized. You walk and grad a 1 inch candle, that's it. Totally optional.

There were some very traditional Chasids there. Services around the clock. We were able to watch TV in our rooms. They used keys instead of automatic locks. For Friday night services I was treated to more Parsha drash from two sermons. Once again glad I studied. The Torah guy on the limo put the good word in about me to the Rabbi who's name was Rabbi Simchas I think. Everyone there had a son or daughter with cancer. They had young volunteers who watched your kids for you so you could attend the discussions. All services were divided into men and women. Swimming was divided too. After much wine, kissing the kids good night and song (can you tell I'm reading lord of the rings? so my writing sounds like that?) the men met with their psychologist and the women theirs. I broke the ice. I was on time and the rest were twenty minutes late. My tounge was loose from the food etc. The song was good too. Our group was one of three groups. I only imagined what the women were discussing. Much Hebrew was sprinkled in everyone's speech. So I was glad I studied as much as I did and still try to do. When we all met up.

On Shabbat morning S called me an asshole and every other name in the book. For no apparent reason at 7AM while I was changing a dirty diaper. There were 5 meals that day. Apparently it was the usual charge not helping and my parents were from Fuckwhole land.

So we had a quick breakfast and there in the buffet one chasid women says to the other how was your night and the other says baruch Hashem it was too short. Then off to services and another breakfast. At this breakfast I ate nothing since it was my second breakfast. I treated it like a cocktail. Hey I can't help it I was depressed. My wife was being a complete bitch and everyone else was can't you feel the love and spirituality and shabbat shalom etc.

My men in the group said drink some whiskey it loosens the tounge. I was twenty minutes late. My next drink was left there by me and I said sure whatever you say. I was one of the early ones. Some decided to skip. I wanted to get my "money's worth" and go to all sessions. The kids were taken care of so why not listen to all the guys stories. Finally around 4:20 I passed out in my room for 20 minutes before another service. Baruch Hashem a shabbos nap. More meals. Saturday night was a carnival. I was watching Z most of the night and taking pictures of the two of us while drinking more whiskey. It looked like apple juice.

Chailife is wonderful

My son has more to tell. I forgot the broviak came out in a scheduled surgery. Unlike the kidney drain tube, see earlier post. This was a 2 minute surgery in November of 2003. My wife was upset she wanted him to have as little anasthesia as possible. She got her wish. The surgery was around 9AM. At 9:15 AM he was done and riding a toy car around the recovery room knocking into people.

Other things. There was a group called Chai lifeline who also helped during the chemo period. His chemo only took about the length of time it takes to get a flu shot. ONly we had to wait for 3 hours each time. And he was only two years old. They are very religious. They are known to us through our friend in Chabad of Ann Arbor. My oldest daughter called R went to Sunday school through Chabad the year before she went to kindergarden. The next year the other daughter L went to Sunday school through Chabad in diapers when she was 3, two years before kindergarden. We didn't send her the next year when she was 4. It was too tiring to get up early on Sunday morning.

It was at this point I had become more "religious". We joined the conservative temple. During L's Sunday school I noticed the Chabad curicula was new to what I learned in Sunday school. I then became interested in reading Parsha online. I still read them. On the third time around things start to sink in lol.

Well I am not proud of handouts. We get plenty from my FIL. Chai lifeline gave us $200 per month during the chemo months. This went to pay a cleaning service. We kept our regular cleaning lady $60 per week every so often plus the other company at $70 per hours for 3.5 hours every so often. It was a nice gesture. They are based in Chicago and would have done much more if we lived in Chicago.

Then in Fall of 2003 they invited us to a retreat for Jan of 2004. All five of us went to the catskill mountains. It was alot of fun. Very religious Jews there.

Wrapping up Z's story

I am blogging in between Law and Order commercials. Z gets a cancer check every three months. My wife lets call her S gets very nervous for two weeks. This has been going on for awhile now. The last time was May 5, 2005. He is fine now. Before that was Feb 2004, May 2004, Aug 2004, Dec 2004. So now I have completed my story I can go back to telling my day to day story. Tonight for dinner I had a roast beef sandwhich. For lunch I went to A&W with Tom from work and had a double cheese burger with no cheese. Then I had a rootbeer float. Little did I know they ice cream in them. Oh well I can't win. I also forgot to have them hold the mayo. I usually have mustard on a sandwhich, but I hate to be a pain.

Mini Chemo story

There was one time after Z recovered from surgery we were worried. He had a enlarged nodule on his CT scan. Dr Mody was very good at explaining these radiologist make up stories where no problem exists. Z never got chemo in the infusion stations. It was always on a bench.

Z in June of 2003

So Z gets out of the hospital. He gets a tube in his chest. The technical name is broviak tube. Who is Broviak and why is this tube named after him. This allows for blood draws and chemo therapy. Quite a concept. Blood is pulled out and chemo pushed in. The first time I went to the infusion it was interesting. They have the room made up like a play room. There are 6 little infusion areas. These are like dentist chairs or hospital rooms with curtains you pull back for privacy. No one does since its never that crowded and it would be very clostraphobic being enclosed like that. There lots of toys. A computer. Two low tables for arts and crafts. There is an office and a medicine corner. Z likes to pull all the pills, tubes, gloves out of the medicine corner. He gets the look down apon treatment. He has all his hair and causes a mess. They aren't very nice. In the other part of the cancer unit he is weighed and measured every week. They check blood pressure and heart too. This is a bit much for the two year old. Every other Thursday he gets chemo and the other Thursday he gets a checkup with no chemo. So we see Dr Mody every week for 18 weeks. My wife really hates him. He tells us this is baby chemo and he has a hundred other patients all ready to drop dead at any moment. Every other treatment is venchristine and another treatment every 3 or 4 weeks also. He never gets sick. His hair doesn't fall out.

Wow I've been typing for 10 minutes now.

He gets chest xrays, ultrasounds and ct scans. He gets looked at from both a urological and oncological view point very often. How about support. Every Friday someone from my older daughter's school gives us a free meal. Either we pick up. They drop it off. Or they invite us over for dinner. Sometimes they cancel its ok. One cancelled and rescheduled a fantastic Shabbat dinner at their house in late fall of 2003. I even went to services the next morning. It was incredible, UM was playing Ohio State. Traffic was terrible and I had all three kids. Simchat Torah was his first public exposure. This was a month later. Another family who invited us over on a Saturday night. Every Thursday night someone from the pres-school where both girls went makes a meal. Sometimes the food isn't good. We don't tell them, its the thought that counts. We usually got no pig, no cheese. He was being isolated because his immune system is compromised from the chemo. After being isolated he is susceptible to germs since his immune system is not as experienced to the germs. Kinda complicated. He got real sick after family day at Simchat Torah. He ran around like a crazy two year old and looked perfectly normal.

Well I gotta run to my other job now.

Cancer story continued

Another action packed weekend and its only Saturday night. Back to Z's story. I like getting to the hospital the night before a major surgery to remove a cancerous growth/tumor. How did she know it was called Wilms Tumor anyway. What did Wilm do? So here's the scene we leave the other two kids behind, I call work and say my son has Cancer and I won't be in for awhile. I know my parent are going to be called later hopefully, I'll get a chance. Maybe it was on a Saturday night and I didn't call work until Monday and my oldest missed no school, I just don't remember. I remember it was Saturday when some Jewish people biked to see us at the hospital. One man said and you going to have the kidney removed too? I was shocked, last to know of course.

Back to Dr Mody. We go into a conference room him and a Chinese guy. Mody says there is no simple with cancer. Agreed. I figured this was simple since it was so remote to find it this way. He then says it smells like cancer, but I need the pathology report and by the way you could have come in in the morning, since you got a chest x-ray already. My wife is on top of things. She was pissed and I was glad. She was right of course, wasted time you know. Z is ripping the place up barely walking, barely talking.

After the wife finishes the laundry I gotta run.

Well wishers come by etc. We get a book of psalms. We meet the rabbi. Early we stopped by Shavout services and waited in the minivan to meet well wishers. Maybe one of did since this time line is losing it sensical thread. So we wait in the or waiting room for a couple of hours. Me popping valium, step mother - in - law hanging with me and also another lady friend. She has a son in my daughter's class. Her husband watches our other two kids that day. They have a daughter the same age as our other daughter. They went to preschool together.

Dr Park calls into the little room. Other surgeons are so rude they talk out in the open. I try to get some sleep. The wife never lets me. Dr Park says we make a super large incision and look at both kidneys. Making sure the tumor is intact on one side only. It is and he says he has to get back to work now. If he had found it spread or was on both kidneys they would abort the mission and .... Either way we need the biopsy to test the type of cancer.

Earlier we met our next door hospital neighbor. These are double rooms. My wife promply gets our roomate evicted. Little did she know it was a dying AIDS patient with a cartload of meds who is getting sent home. Next door meet Evan he is Mr Stage 5 Wilms tumor. They still keep a webpage on him. He was not eating for a month and finally they figured out what was wrong. Even Evan had a good chance. Same story hopefully they can cut open and not abort the mission. So much for 1 in 10,000 chance of Wilms's tumor, two in the two rooms admitted on the same day. These people are like Kentucky/Tennessee (white) evangical christian whatever. Their church their family was out food was coming out of their ears. Evan was in serious trouble. No food allowed lots of morphine. Z was getting far better treatment, they had no roomie either.
6 or 7 hours later Z gets his surger completed and goes to recovery. His surgery removed a softball size tumor and the kidney too. The kidney is the size of fist. Amazing the tumor grew so fast in just 5 months. Wilms is a fast growing tumor.

Were not shomer shabbas but out of deference to the Jews I don't blog on Shabbat and don't emails Jews either. I call my parents, brother and Aunt. My Dad's uncle won't talk on the phone though.

Z made a web page too. His story and web authors were nothing compared with the glasses wearing two year old (same age as Z) next door neighbor. This woman was amazing. She wrote volumes. My wife gave up quickly. She may come back and tell Z's story. My blog is a secret she knows not about. Z didn't like this surgery. He had a really hard recovery. Finally we removed the morphine and he fely better. Chicken and the egg problem. Wife can't stand Dr Mody. As a matter of fact he had a baby number two. We (she) got him some gifts. She returned them since he (ass) couldn't meet her someday. After around 8 days we got outta there. It took a record for 6 days to get the pathology report. Wilms. Evan 3 kinds of cancer, 1 in a million plus Wilms' stage 5 and a tumor the size of a cantelope. The parents were guilty but ten times calmer then our family. How could they not know. It pushes the organs all away.

Mody was so mean. This is baby chemo he said. Z got a tube stuck into his heart around his neck and out his chest. It remained for 5 months. Chemo for 18 weeks. Baby chemo. You could get in the car with the engine running in the parking lot. Not so we were in and out in 2-3 hours.

Gotta run.

Cancer story continued

My son had his third surgery when he was 1. He bounced back fine. His oldest sister went into first grade knowing her brother Z was very special. This was the Fall of 2002. Then in December of 2002 Z consulted with his urologist Dr Park. Dr Park ordered an ultra sound. Everything looked great. The surgery seemed perfect now. He was finally free to give up his lifetime regiment of bactrin. He was surgecally cured of a dilated megaureter. This is the pipe connecting the bladder to the kidney.

We waited until June for his next ultrasound. I could tell right away my wife was in tears. She was very upset. There was a mass on his ultrasound. Little did I know this would lead to many consequences. It turned out we met with his urologist. He said it looked like a mass and this was not his area. We would need to see an oncologist. My wife said Dr Park this is how its going to be I've seen these kids they are awful and then they die. He told her not to lose hope.

Of course there are two miracles/mitzvot to remember here. First way back when we went to Cleveland, it says in the Torah commentaries, put your hands in a good doctor and don't troulbe your heart any more. Nope we went to Cleveland to second guess his work. Is this the punishment? No this is the second point. If it were not for the routine ultrasound for his earlier birth defect this problem would never have been caught in this way. When I say in this way it means the absolutely maximum survival rate. It was called Stage 1 Wilms tumor.

Even so this was a difficult time. Especially for our oldest. She thought he was going to die. Like most people it is hard to separate his first illness with his second. Related only by chance and area of the body. A one in a million birth defect at a level of 7 out of ten severity uncovering a 1 out of ten thousand child hood cancer at a stage 1 out of 5. And once again no symptons. No reason to suspect. Both times he has escaped death so amazingly and unknowingly. Dr Park was his hero again. He perfored a kidney removal. Not his most joyest surgery for both patient and surgeon. He is used to fixing urological parts, not chucking them. This all started to happen on a Thursday. On Saturday some people in the Jewish community were getting ready for Shavout. This was in June of 2003.

Friday night we went back to the hospital to prepare to spend the night for his surgery in the morning. This is when we met Dr Rajen Moody, really his name is Dr Mody an Indian. The nurse just spelled his name wrong. You are randomly given whoever is on call. I was glad we got there the night before the surgery. I was also on my second day off. Half day on Thursday for the Dr Park visit and all day Friday. Thursday night I got the results of his CT scan which Dr Park had ordered as part of his handoff from Urology to Oncology. I was teaching a class that night for Spring/Summer semester. I was teaching Object Oriented Features of C++. I don't think I called my parents until Monday. My wife's step mother flew out that Monday. My family is always the last to know anything. We get the low class treatment from my wife and her family. There is so much more to the story. I hate getting up early for surgery. I had been stealing my cats valium to deal with my wife's meaness to me and my parents and her general distemperment. I brought several with me to the upcoming surgery. Now I remember my wife's stepmom was there for the surgery. Remember this was 2 years ago and it is late at night now.

Second Opinion in Cleveland

My son Z's tale. He had a major surgery at 7 months. Then he had a drainage tube put in at the same time. This was removed later. After two ultra sounds 3 months apart it appeared his condition was returning on one side. A discussion was had. Dr Park recommended a long needle in his kidney to help it drain. Literally pee coming out of his back. This was too much for my wife she wanted a second opinion. We rushed to Cleveland and came back in agreement with Dr Park. It required a very short surgery by an anethesian. Then we cared for a bag of urine for 3 months. Then another ultra sound. Then another surgery. This was very close to his 1st birthday. It was hugely traumatic for my wife. My son was able to take nasal amnesia drug. He didn't bother his back tube much since he hardly knew it was there. He had been on anti-biotic since birth bactrin. Unfortunately he got an infection. Dr Park said the infection was like being in NY. He also said the meat of the kidney with his thick Korean accent. He said it breathed a sigh of relief. The surgery to fix the kidney went well. 3 weeks later on a bench between surgeries Dr Park removed the tube by hand. Glad to be rid of that thing.

Reminiscing

First of all I am deeply impressed I spelled this word right on the first try. My oldest daughter brought home a letter from the president. Now calm down, I don't like him anymore than the rest of us. I told her this story and it bears repeating in this forum. When I was 13 instead of 9 like her it was around 1981. Another vaguely unpopular Republican was approaching the start of a soon to be 8 year residency. This post is limited to ten minutes so here is the moral of the story before the story. Sometimes its better to speak your mind and other times it is better to think your mind. Our class wrote letters to the president. You have to picture this my father said Reagen is a turkey. Why abba? Because Carter was a loser and Reagan won anyway. Something like that. I heard my teachers complaining how awful this guy was and look who was in his cabinet and blah blah blah. So I was stunned we were writing a letter congratulating him on his election and welcome to the white house blah blah blah. I wanted to be original. Can't recall what I wrote. It was the greeting that got my letter yanked from the group. They told me sorry Pittsfield we just can't send this an represent our class. So much for free speech I thought. Go ahead and send a letter on your own. I declined until 1991, and that is another story and it was to the VP of a different president of a different party. I wrote naturally, dear 40th turkey.

You know the rest. Both pittsfield in 1991 and pittsfield's daughter in 2005 received form letters as I told her she would. She got picture of the president with his wife. Oops ran two minutes over.

Death of the Pink Cup

My notes indicate my cup broke yesterday. It did. The cup was in the family a long time. This mug holds roughly a quart or more and thats alot of mayin. I drink alot of water. It was in our household longer than we've been married. I still remember going into the basement one day to get a can of soup or some glad bags. There it was the absolutely biggest mug. A fat man couldn't drink that much ice tea I thought. At the time I was working in a company where this fat man named Dan used to walk around drinking iced tea. Management hated him. They told me they were working very hard to fire him and they called him Dante. Dante would fill his iced tea in the morning and run around fixing computers. He wasn't a hardware person. Instead he was a network person. Not sure what he did. He helped me with my Mac sometimes. We were using quickmail. Now this was all around 12 years ago. Using constructive memory and reading the sticker I placed this cup from WalMart. It was in all the papers, ok just the Ann Arbor News. About this new WalMart. I remember going there and seeing all the dead fish, goldfish etc pet supply. Well the A2 news was poorly managed WalMart will get better. We bought a ton of junk. She must have went back the next week. For more than 10 years I watched this cup. It never shrank and always was the Dante big ass iced tea cup from Hell. And it was pink. It had a huge label on the side. Something like hey kids this is the big ass Danted iced tea cup from Hell. Jews don't believe in Hell, that's another story. The cup I think was an Aladdin before Disney made a movie about it. I remember that too. We went to Disney for the third time, without kids. We saw hey kids the making of a new Disney movie called oh oh oh Aladin. Maybe we should get kids of our soon. Finally I broke down and decided one of these years I'm gonna use that cup. Move over chocholate syrup, tomatoe paste, and salad dressing. There will be more room for you elbow room that is. The pink cup is being called upstairs to sit at Pittsfield_jew's desk. I used to drink water you may ask, how. I would fill a one gallon jug of used water and refill it. Pour it into a glass and not have to get up from my desk. Remember that big power failure. It affected us here in Michigan too. Some say it started in Ohio, Canada, other blame NJ. Why lay blame, it was our big fat former Senator who was on TV. he got called up to the big leagues too. Senator turned energy secratary or something like that. Now we got a woman to replace him. Yeah for women, Debbie Stabenow. And Carl Levin a good Jew, been in the job for like 24 years, long before I got here to this state. My wife insisted on buying lots and lots of bottled water. Bottled water is what's known as a misnomer. Can you tell I'm a teacher too? It really is in a big jug like milk. Which by the way is Kosher all the time in the US. I read this on the internet last night. Yep US inspectors check and sure enough the milk came from a cow and not another animal, like maybe a cat or a pig. Ha ha. Once we were on a retreat and a woman wouldn't take my milk because it wasn't supervised. So now I know she was wrong. Of course it was in the NY area so maybe the milk inspectors were brided. I love the NY area I have some prejudiced opinions of it. The people are rude, in a hurry, very quick, very smart, sometimes dirty and scummy and you can buy anything, do anything, walk any where. Always be careful there. Lock your stuff, don't talk to strangers. Someone will try to sucker you always. Now this is all good advice anywhere its just more so there. I have many theories about the area, I never lived just visited. So she got this one gallon jug at a price gouged price of course from some Arab party store. Get this here in Michigan a store that sells beer, soda, etc is called a party store. Also its called pop not soda. In the East coast we called these stores (convience stores). In NY I think their called beer stores. My cousin said you can get a lucy in a beer store, if you are too poor for a whole pack of ciggarettes. You probably can in our party stores too only your more likely to get away with it in NY. She imitated the Arab with her best Arab voice, I keep store open for my customers here take water, its not marked up. You know I heard on the radio you can't keep bottled water more than six months. Have you figured out my wife is a pack rat? I am one too. I took the water to work 6 months later. I refilled it for a year. I threw the bottle out. I took the pink cup to work. Yesterday the lid cracked. Dribble, dribble. And it was dying a slow death. Each trip to the dishwasher made the fit not right. Then freezing in the car. I told my son Z over the weekend about expanding and contracting from heat and cold. So the lid suffered. I would lean my whole body into it to get it to close. I figured if I binded them together on Monday morning. I took the cup home every weekend. It would refit after being refilled more easily. I couldn't do it Monday. I asked her to do it. I bet she broke it. Today she gave me an Eddie Bauer designer water cup and said don't loose it. I won't its got a big mouth like me. ANd that is where I'll leave the story.

You're in luck my life story

Here is the memo from Dolph, who is Dave's boss who is the other Dave's boss who is my boss.


Tomorrow afternoon from 1:30 - 3:00pm, I would like us to have an Ice Cream Social. I am buying!

This will be to celebrate our 'Change Member-id Project' and as an introductory get together for all the new contracting staff that have recently joined our team. The Amisys Advance project is just getting started and will require that we are all working together as effectively as possible. My goal is for us to come together and begin the process of working together as a team.

As such I am going to propose the following activity as a 'get to know you' activity.

The ice cream will be served in the kitchen area near the computer room.

I see various maps of the U.S. and Michigan posted on cubes. We will take these maps or equivalent maps and add to them some other maps of any other places which represent where each of us grew up. Each of us should take a half sheet of 8.5 x 11 paper, fold that half into another half, just like a card. Write your first name on the outside and on the inside put something about you and that specific place. Either bring your favorite picture of the place, print something from the internet, or just write something about you and that place.

Tomorrow, while eating ice cream our job will be to post that card to the location on the maps where we grew up.

I will put up maps on the wall across from the copy/fax room near the programmer's cubes. My guess is that I need to go out and get a map of Russia, India, and China. Is there any other place that I am missing and that we need a map for? Please help me out and let me know. Maybe some of you new folks can even volunteer to bring your own map.

The exercise is voluntary, in case anyone is worried about a nefarious government agency knowing where you came from.

And if anyone can't eat ice cream, please let me know an alternative snack that I can get as a replacement.

Thanks for participating. I am looking forward to meeting all the new people!

Dolph










Here is my life story...

Born in Pawtuckett, Rhode Island 1968 (Providence hospital)
Moved to Palas Verdes, California 1970 (Southern California it beautiful)
Moved to Paxton, Massachusetts 1972
Where the seasons are distinct and the school year ends 10 days earlier than it
does in Virginia for some strange reason.
Moved to Reston, Virginia 1974
A planned community. Named after Robert E Simon. Rest in Reston my father used to say. The town motto is live and work in Reston. For 8 years I worked for my father in his company in Reston. My mom did his taxes and the three of us all drove three cars three miles or less to work. This was 1982 to 1990 when I finally moved out of the house.

My brother was born there 1975 in Arlington Hospital.
I went to a solar elementary school. Teraset a school in a hill. Arabs paid for
the construction to learn the technology of air conditioning in the desert.

1986 went to Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania
1990 moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan. Met my wife in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania at
a Jewish Shabbat dinner. A joint program between University of Pittsburg and
Carnegie Mellon University. She was from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the capital
and known as the central Pennsylvania area. Pittsburg is known as the Western Pennsylvania area. I also called it the gateway to the west.

In 1992 we got married and my wife graduated from UM with a Master of Social Work. Also known as an MSW. She got a BASW from University of Pittsburg. We moved from a two bedroom 800 square foot apartment in the Woods of Aerhart Ann Arbor to a $69,000 800 square foot condominium on Bolgus Circle in Ann Arbor with a 250 square foot basement with a shared entrance to the condominium above us and their 250 square foot basement. In 1993 after acquiring a dog and two cats we moved to our current location in Pittsfield Township.

This condominium is how we got our first cat. The neighbors left a stray cat they were rescuing in our common hallway. We cared for it over the weekend.

Luckily our house now has 2000 square feet and a half a basement 450 squarefeet. We also have three kids aged 9, 6 and 3. And we have two dogs and three cats all 12 years old.

Schleping

Going to keep schleping these notes. Gonna tell the rest of the story of Z and worry about my week later. Its not a full detailed story it is a gonzon megillah.

After the third ulta sound mr happy, the new gyn with the funny tasmanian devil ties etc had the wife convinced there was a serious problem. Now these doctors I tell you are never wrong and never change their story.UM is the best too. The longer they look at ultrasounds the worse it is. Also when more specialist are called in to check what the radiolists wants to see its bad.

At twenty weeks all I knew it was a problem not with his kidney it was in the kidney area. We met a Jewish specialist at 30+ weeks. He said there is nothing you can do wait until he is born. He said he doesn't trust the hospital he keeps his chart with him wherever he goes. My memory is kinda fuzzy. I can't recall when it went from kidney area to something else. She keeps me in the dark. He was born, the specialist showed up and ultra sounded him too. Now it kills me when did I know? He had what is called dilated mega uretor. In layman terms the organ connecting the bladder to the kidney was clogged. Thus he was at constant risk for infection urinary tract infection. Stale urine gets infected in 30 minutes. How many years ago would this have gone undetected. He was completely normal. This couldve happened to me or my brother.

The specialist in pediatric urology met with us as a family. Z was 4 months olds. In Sept of 2001 he had a bris here in our house. Later the next month the moule was on TV for drinking and driving. He is back in business.

The ped urologigt was very young and Korean. He tried to play it like he very experienced. He had seen this before in Boston. His patient was under the age old wait and see. The condition was undected until the child was 4. Then I waited for the shoe to drop. What happened. Oh we had to fix it. ER situation. Oh wow. So you waited 4 months for Z and you say lets fix this now. You see it took us 4 months to get in to see him. Of course they claim it wasn't so bad so we could wait. Now he says lets fix it not asap, no almost asap. Lets shoot for next two months. Dr Park was again inexperienced. It turns out surgeory couldn't schedule until he was 7 months old. Thats ok he is over 6 months and that is what we planned all along. Yeah right I said. You see you don't want to spill more than a teaspoon of blood in an infant he told me. I said ok whatever. They could have done this surgery invitro, at birth at 2 months, 4 months or even 5 or 6 months. Why wait.

Then I noticed he looked funny. Z had I suspected a hernia. I said Dr Park please check this out. 4 or 5 hours later he was repaired and had a double hernia repaired too. I had to find this out not any doctor. My wife was a basket case. My ganster was starting school and a proud big sister. He had two more surgeries over the next 5 months and we got a second opinion in Cleveland. Dr Parks is the best and my wife had him fully trained by this point. My opinion is the science in all this the protocol, the sheet that says if this do this if that do surgery, oh its not so bad lets wait and see, the sheet was getting rewritten. And Dr Parks was rewritting it with two whole cases to go on. Don't get me wrong he is a master pediatric urological surgeon. If your penis has a whole not lined up, he can fix it. Siamese twins being separated in a 24+ operation, he is there with a team of 12 to do the urological part. The way he says the meat of the kidney so fast in a korean accent with such authority. I thank Hashem my wife dragged me to every appointment so together we could go over what we heard. She can't hear the bad news alone. No one is expected to do that I guess. Sorry I gotta go to bed.

More muttering

I could stay here awhile who knows if the wife is going to say "What are you doing over ther typing so much". She is watching pre tv before watching er. Besides I want to finish my movie 29th street. Those from NY would think its funny. Those in Chasidic groups would think Holy Matrimony the movie was interesting too. It was about Amish people. I feel more tangents coming than geometry class. Today my brother called. She is now asking about mother's day. And I have not even gotten a card. I sent my mother an e card. How lame. Luckily my computer remembered my password and this task was accomplished last night. The semester is over and the next one is at its heels Monday May 9. Grades were due yesterday. I teach Data Structures with C++ for the 7th semester in a row. I lost count. With the help of my nightly Dark Horse Amber Ale this story is getting longer in more winded. I am saving my final baseball beer for nicer weather and hot sweaty workouts. Today was not deserving of such a miller lite in cans. After soccer pratice (for the oldest child) it was so cold so a winter beer is ok. All kids are asleep now. I took a nap earlier today from 10 to 11. The wife doesn't know it she probably suspects it. Since I accomplished one hour less stuff's worth of accomplishments.

On Tuesday at work I had a meeting at 9AM. It was on my notes. The meeting was a design document review with Carol, Ken, Vicki and Troy. Troy is detestable to me. He is the Business Analyst for the Alternate ID project. He also encouraged me to bike to work. I had to go see him yesterday and let him know about my first ride on Friday since he was not there.

Also in my notes on Tuesday the explain plan for member_span was still really high. Slow equal a high explain plan cost. Monday night was the last night of class and I couldn't find my water bottle. I must have left it at school. The wife called Tuesday at work and was done with her errands. I said have a great day and she said she is so exhausted how can it be great. ER is starting and the buzz is too great. So back to my movie. I finished a page of notes though almost. Tired of schleping these heavy pieces of paper around.

The inebriated Post

Hi there,

The wife is downstairs emptying her half of the dishwasher. I just spent 30 mintues conducting some business on the PC. Of course I hate it because I use computers all day long. I'm in the middle of watching 29th street a movie. I saw it awhile ago and can't remember it all so I'm watching it again. Also other movies recently, Paula Poundstone poptarts comedy. Started watching it years ago and finally finished it. Next she is gonna have a snack so maybe I got 5 more minutes. Probably airpopped popcorn. Tomorrow is my first softball practice. Hopefully its nice. When I was a kid like a couple a years ago I hated talk of the weather. Wife just said hit the showers. Other movies Holy Matrimony. Funny and only watched 30 minutes because I saw it before and remember it. Also Airport 77 saw it and after 20 minutes remembered it. Still working on chapter 6 of HP for three days now. Uh oh should hit the showers shes barking out orders.

Random musings

From my to do list on Tuesday
relax and let go 1
relax and let go 2
relax and let go 3
Wow copy and paste did something weird when I just pasted those lines in and changed the 1 to a 2. Oh on with the list.

Put page in my Franklin Planner so my to do list doesn't have to be on page a day Dads calendar.
Relax is from the 1000 page book stress management, which I read on our honeymoon in the St John US Virgin Islands 1992. Those three pages were of the most important in the whole book, the relax and let go exercise. Tom just showed up. I saw him in the parking lot a few minutes ago. He had to go to the dentist for his 4 year old. Management is yelling at him now. He showed up while I was relaxing, got back in his truck and went to lunch. Decided he must have gotten he too early. Wow running out of time, ten minutes aloted for typing and five used up already. I keep going on tangents. The trip was a present from my parents who own a time share for a month a year. Too bad my wife thinks so lowly of them. We went with them two other times. She of course had a rotten time. It was not much better the third time even though it was our honeymoon. Its best to let the wife pick where you vacation. I just want and they want to see me. Is that too difficult to understand?

Yesterday I was feeling very sleepy as it says in my notes. Other chores,
walk dogs
shower
shave
situps.

I shower and shave the night before to save time in the morning. I do two sits of thirty situps. The kind my dad taught me. They are where you put your feet on a couch and only tuck your stomach up. Hard to explain without seeing it.

Time is up. This lives up to the title random musings. Wanted to read what it says on my other two pages and have to brush floss and send emails for work.

Story about my son

Well he is really our son. He needs a name lets call him Z. Z is our third child. I really only wanted two children because of the expense but now that he's here he is much cuter than his two sisters.

When my wife was twenty weeks pregnant -- oops long story alert. According to my book, women like telling long stories and men don't worry. These are just generalities and if a person wants to say reading is their hobby than they better learn to comprehend what they read and then dispense the information. I do this alot. The book is in my profile. I think its time to get back to my long story. I forgot what I was going to say, starting with I think its... Now I remember. I think its important to do what I said about reading comprehension.

She had an ultra sound. The GYN for the first two retired and she was breaking in a new guy. He said, (I'm always the last to find all this out. I have to hear it when the women chit chat latter) Oops long story has to wait.

Action packed weekend

Its late so I'm gonna type and go to bed. After I just enjoyed my Post Pesach Malt Beverage. My hands are dry, I should put cream on them. Its cold here. For dinner Flank Steak or London Broil as my mother calls it. Funny thing happened on the way to the grill. It was cold so we moved it into the garage. Then it was still not lighting. It was out of gas. She (wife) was so mad so we borrowed gas from the neighbor. I managed to finish all the wine over the weekend myself, noone else drinks it. I used some for Matzah Brei. My wife got sick and spent Shabbat at a friend's house so I stayed up until 2AM and had two of the three kids here. Watched the movie Possum and started Airport 77. I decided I had seen Airport 77 and was not going to finish watching it. Chabad doesn't have the weekly Parsha portal updated so I read Haft Torah chapter 12 of Melachim II. Wow getting up there now. Even studied Hebrew for 6 whole minutes. In Kings a king hid in the Holy of Holyies for 6 years and did not die so they made him king. I am studying Binyamin Paal verbs surely not spelled correctly. Well look at the time. I also mowed the lawn it was cold.