I'm not doing a great job with the whole blogging thing.
I realize that you check in every morning first thing to see if I have posted one of my witty, thought provoking diatribes. Day after day you are disappointed in my lack of posting. You sit there wondering if perhaps I've given up on this whole thing, or possibly I've been abducted by aliens without internet access.
Truth is, like I said before... I've been busy. You think that exercise bike pedals itself?
Anyway, here's the latest....
Since we last spoke, our country has elected a new president. I'll keep my fingers crossed that he can come up with some way to get the economy, and the country in general I guess, turned around.
Zach is free of the MRSA bug. His surgery is scheduled for sometime in January. We could have done it in December, but we didn't want to go through the holidays with Zach just out of surgery. There's no telling how many holiday seasons that he will have, so it doesn't seem right to keep him from enjoying one if we can help it.
Zach has had more frequent episodes of what I guess you could call out of control shaking. It doesn't seem to be a seizure because he doesn't lose consciousness and will look at you - he just can't seem to stop shaking. There are times this seems to be triggered by him being frustrated about something - not being able to get up and walk, or not being able to communicate his needs to us. I wish we had some idea of how to help him when he has one of these episodes, but really all we can do is guess what he may want or need.
It's times like that where you are really hit with how much Hunter Syndrome damages the body. It becomes clear that the time we have for researchers to find a way for Elaprase to treat the central nervous system is getting shorter way faster than we would like.
Maybe one of the reasons I don't post often is because it forces me to contemplate the future - and I sure don't need THAT stress.
In other news, Josh turned 10 the day before Halloween. We had a party for him at TAG Gymnastics in Weston. It's pretty damn fun for both the kids and the adults. Your group pretty much has the run of the gym and all of the equipment for an hour. It's actually quite funny to see the adults cutting the kids in line so they can get a shot at the trampoline first. Janine and Liz (The director from Zach's school) took Zach for a turn on some of the equipment. Some of it he actually seemed to enjoy. Although he was beginning to look a little seasick after his turn on the trampoline.
As a side note to all of the parents that were there, I have numerous photos of you bouncing around on the equipment. If you don't buy a t-shirt or something from the store over there on the right, I'm going to publish them and subject you to a lifetime of public ridicule.
Oh, and for the mom who was wearing the skirt while bouncing on the trampoline... I've had offers from several websites for those photos.
Last Saturday marked the end of yet another baseball season for Josh. His team did well, finishing in second place for both the season standings and the playoffs. That's two more good sized trophies for the mantle. Of course he doesn't have a mantle to put them on because this is South Florida, and a fireplace is as common as a pet caribou. What he has is a dresser to put them on. Actually about half a dresser because he has a habit of piling his clothes on TOP of the dresser rather than IN the dresser. Either I need to get him to actually put the clothes away, or I need to buy him a bigger dresser.
Maybe I can get him to put the trophies in the dresser... I hadn't considered that until just now.
Brandon's birthday is rapidly approaching. We are going to have his party at TAG as well.
All moms who attend in a skirt are not required to bring a gift.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Monday, November 3, 2008
Back in the saddle
Greetings loyal readers! I realize it’s been a while since I last posted.
I’d love to say that’s because I hit the lottery and was off enjoying a nice vacation in Europe.
Of course that would be a lie.
Truth is, I’ve just been a bit busy lately. Not good, I’m having fun busy – more like, business is down so we’ve had to downsize at the office, now I’m doing the work of three people busy. Considering the fact that I actually still have a job with the way the economy is, I guess I should just be thankful.
I spent an hour and a half in line to “early vote” the other day. While it’s a pain in the butt to stand there, I actually see the lines as a good thing. No matter who they vote for, at least people are getting out and voting. There is way too much apathy in the voting ranks these days.
Now personally, I think it is the voting method our leaders have chosen for us that slows down this whole process.
I loved those touch screen models we used for a few elections. They were nice and quick. Want to vote for someone? Just touch the square next to their name. When you have made all your selections, push the button that says “VOTE”. Nice and simple.
Now there were a few problems. First, there was no “paper trail” of the votes. In theory, the computer records could be lost or manipulated in some way, and there would be no paper records to fall back on. My simple solution was to install a printer on each machine that would print out a receipt of your votes, which could then be dropped into a box and kept in case a paper trail was needed.
This didn’t seem too difficult to me. However, our esteemed leaders decided that this was an expensive – impractical solution.
Well, that and the fact that apparently a large portion of the population was too stupid to use the computerized voting machines.
So now we are stuck with voting by bubble. Remember all those standardized tests from your school days? Well now you get to relive that horror while you vote for President. They don’t even have all of the answer bubbles lined up so that you can try to make a neat pattern when you fill in your selections.
This would be ideal for me because I don't know who to vote for in half of the races on the ballot anyway. I'll admit that I have no idea who should sit on the local water commission. I also don't really care if the city amends its charter to allow the commissioners to adjourn a meeting without a roll call vote. These decisions would be so much easier if I was trying to complete a snake or a Christmas tree pattern. (For those of you who didn't get that joke, ask your kids - they'll understand)
I thought it somewhat suspicious that I was given a black pen to fill in my bubbles at the polling place. Everybody knows you need a #2 pencil to fill in the bubbles. I tried to protest this fact to the lady who directed me to my booth. She apparently didn’t have much of a sense of humor though. Neither did the supervisor she called over because I was causing a “commotion”. Well, once the supervisor confirmed that I could in fact exercise my voting rights with an ink pen these days – and that I should hurry up and do so because there were about 5000 people behind me in line – I began to bubble my selections.
It was at this point I realized that despite my years of experience in filling in bubbles, that this was a pretty tedious process. Whereas touching a box on a screen took a fraction of a second, this whole fill in the bubble thing takes time. Put that together with the fact that a ball point pen actually sucks for this purpose, and you can begin to understand why the line is so damn long.
After about 20 minutes I fed my ballot (4 pages front and back) into the "scanner", got my little "I voted" sticker and went on my merry way. I don't know what the deal is with the stickers, but don't try to get out of there without getting one. I recognized the guy handing them out as the greeter from the local Wal-Mart, so at least the elections department took the time to make sure they had an experienced sticker dispenser for that position on election day.
Well, I thinkI’ve rambled on enough for the moment…
As far as my “training” is going, I’m doing 10 miles at a time now on the bike in around 37 minutes. I’m not out of breath when I climb stairs anymore, so I guess I’m making progress. The scale at Publix is still holding out on me. I’m going to go with the whole I’m-building-muscle-and-muscle-weighs-more-than-fat-so-I-haven’t-lost-weight-even-though-I’m-in-better-shape theory. (man I hope that’s true)
I have some other things I'd like to get into, but I know you have other things to do, (such as buy logo merchandise from my site over there on the right) so I'll end for now.
Just as a reminder to myself – Next time don’t forget Halloween and why adults shouldn’t jump on trampolines.
I’d love to say that’s because I hit the lottery and was off enjoying a nice vacation in Europe.
Of course that would be a lie.
Truth is, I’ve just been a bit busy lately. Not good, I’m having fun busy – more like, business is down so we’ve had to downsize at the office, now I’m doing the work of three people busy. Considering the fact that I actually still have a job with the way the economy is, I guess I should just be thankful.
I spent an hour and a half in line to “early vote” the other day. While it’s a pain in the butt to stand there, I actually see the lines as a good thing. No matter who they vote for, at least people are getting out and voting. There is way too much apathy in the voting ranks these days.
Now personally, I think it is the voting method our leaders have chosen for us that slows down this whole process.
I loved those touch screen models we used for a few elections. They were nice and quick. Want to vote for someone? Just touch the square next to their name. When you have made all your selections, push the button that says “VOTE”. Nice and simple.
Now there were a few problems. First, there was no “paper trail” of the votes. In theory, the computer records could be lost or manipulated in some way, and there would be no paper records to fall back on. My simple solution was to install a printer on each machine that would print out a receipt of your votes, which could then be dropped into a box and kept in case a paper trail was needed.
This didn’t seem too difficult to me. However, our esteemed leaders decided that this was an expensive – impractical solution.
Well, that and the fact that apparently a large portion of the population was too stupid to use the computerized voting machines.
So now we are stuck with voting by bubble. Remember all those standardized tests from your school days? Well now you get to relive that horror while you vote for President. They don’t even have all of the answer bubbles lined up so that you can try to make a neat pattern when you fill in your selections.
This would be ideal for me because I don't know who to vote for in half of the races on the ballot anyway. I'll admit that I have no idea who should sit on the local water commission. I also don't really care if the city amends its charter to allow the commissioners to adjourn a meeting without a roll call vote. These decisions would be so much easier if I was trying to complete a snake or a Christmas tree pattern. (For those of you who didn't get that joke, ask your kids - they'll understand)
I thought it somewhat suspicious that I was given a black pen to fill in my bubbles at the polling place. Everybody knows you need a #2 pencil to fill in the bubbles. I tried to protest this fact to the lady who directed me to my booth. She apparently didn’t have much of a sense of humor though. Neither did the supervisor she called over because I was causing a “commotion”. Well, once the supervisor confirmed that I could in fact exercise my voting rights with an ink pen these days – and that I should hurry up and do so because there were about 5000 people behind me in line – I began to bubble my selections.
It was at this point I realized that despite my years of experience in filling in bubbles, that this was a pretty tedious process. Whereas touching a box on a screen took a fraction of a second, this whole fill in the bubble thing takes time. Put that together with the fact that a ball point pen actually sucks for this purpose, and you can begin to understand why the line is so damn long.
After about 20 minutes I fed my ballot (4 pages front and back) into the "scanner", got my little "I voted" sticker and went on my merry way. I don't know what the deal is with the stickers, but don't try to get out of there without getting one. I recognized the guy handing them out as the greeter from the local Wal-Mart, so at least the elections department took the time to make sure they had an experienced sticker dispenser for that position on election day.
Well, I thinkI’ve rambled on enough for the moment…
As far as my “training” is going, I’m doing 10 miles at a time now on the bike in around 37 minutes. I’m not out of breath when I climb stairs anymore, so I guess I’m making progress. The scale at Publix is still holding out on me. I’m going to go with the whole I’m-building-muscle-and-muscle-weighs-more-than-fat-so-I-haven’t-lost-weight-even-though-I’m-in-better-shape theory. (man I hope that’s true)
I have some other things I'd like to get into, but I know you have other things to do, (such as buy logo merchandise from my site over there on the right) so I'll end for now.
Just as a reminder to myself – Next time don’t forget Halloween and why adults shouldn’t jump on trampolines.
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