Brain Dump

How's Your Afternoon Going?

Yup, sometimes your week doesn't start, progress or end the way that you anticipated.  The one on the left if your run of the mill IV line.  The one on the right is my newest piece of hardware.  A pick (sp?) line that they run up my arm into my chest.  That was fun.  Surgeon coming for me in a moment...more in a bit.

Tempting Part II

Serious...what. the. hell?  It's bad enough that I am in the hospital with an apparent aberrant infection that no doctor here has the ability to explain, "just treat."  Small incisions to follow.

The wife calls late last night freaking out because Chickpea is vomiting and listing in and out of consciousness.  Wifey has had quite an emotional beat down in the last 24 hours.  Turns out Chickpea is fine, but that's the first time she has ever thrown up.  Nothing like having a really great kid to leave you woefully unprepared when they do eventually get sick.

So to whatever health and wellness god that I managed to piss off, I'm sorry.  I didn't mean it.  Those other gods mean nothing to me.  Tell me what I have to say to get out of the medical equivalent of "please listen closely, as our menu options have changed."  Hell.  I'm in hospital hell.

Don't Tempt The Gods

For those of you who keep up on this blog, you know that I made the bold claim that July was the best ever...and then things turned a little south.  Got some good, some bad.  It never seems I get all good.  Well, in going in for my routine 6 week post-opp check up, the doctor said "oh my" and "we need to get you in the hospital right away."  I know more about the hospital wi-fi network than what is going on with me, but the doctor was very serious about my situation.  So I'll be here until Thurs...THURSDAY.  Oh well.  I'm trying to see the bright side of this.  I'm at a loss.  They're going to cut me again, and I get to wallow in boredom in the hospital.  Yipee.

Precarious Part II

I have to stop taunting to gods.  First I shot off at the mouth about how great my July was going, and things corrected themselves.  Then I gave a little missive about how precarious life is.  The next morning (the. next. morning.) my wife was spotting and we spent the day in the hospital.  I've been quiet on this one until I knew more about what was going on and I felt comfortable talking about it.  We almost lost the baby.  Things are fine, but she's been on bed rest since.

Not sure I am going to be able to do my race this weekend.  If it weren't for my wife's grandmother coming out to help, I don't know what we would have done for the last week.  It was sad enough to think "I have no family to call for help," but to have to say it out loud sucked.  We should get the all clear on Thurs, but who knows?  Scary stuff to be sure.  It's like I keep saying...life gets more difficult the older you get.

What a Weird Day

So today was my first day as a CEO.  My first day managing my new employees.  My first day thinking about reporting to a board of directors.  My first day realizing that I need to sort out the health care insurance issue quickly.  My first day saying "do you really want to lose our business?"  Lots of firsts today.  Many more interesting days to come.

Precarious

I was reminded this past week just how precarious happiness can be.  A neighbor of ours lost their baby at month 7.  Think about that for a minute.  I can't even begin to imagine what that family is feeling.  Also, the wife of a good friend of mine had a chemical termination of a new pregnancy.  They're handling it quite well.  In fact, he's being as pragmatic as I was when it happened to us.

All in all, despite all the family members I have lost in the last couple of years, I can honestly say that wifey and I have been exceedingly lucky with how healthy, happy and amazing Chickpea is.  I can only hope child 2.0 is just a content.

It Never Fails

So in my last post, I was talking about how much July 2006 was kicking ass.  Apparently I have angered those who control ass kickings, because the last three days have seen much ass dragging.  The doctor was nice enough to warn me that post surgery I wouldn't be able to jump right back on my bike, or go run 20K, but I thought, "yeah, yeah, sure, that's for normal people."  I don't want to know how normal people suffer through post surgery...this sucks.

So the scorecard is still very much in the positive column, but with nary a workout since I had my breathing issues fixed (which, in a classic bit of irony, was meant to up my athletic performance levels), I am wondering about how the rest of the month will go.  Of course, we can't forget we close out the month with a half Iron in Northern California.  As I told my trainer/coach, the experience and results should be hillarious.

I'm Back

Where did I go?  That's a great question.  I've been around.  Lots of things going on, too many to enumerate, and frankly I don't want to bore you.  I'm back, and that's all that matters.

Readers of this blog know that last July was one of the worst for me on record.  With the passing of my father, I was without parents as I headed into the great unknown of parenthood.  Chickpea has made life great, for sure, but 2006 has been a great year overall.  July 2006, however, will likely go down as one of my greatest ever.  Why, you ask?  Well, let me share:

One of the best ways to end a fight or disagreement is (ladies take notes) to say "well, I might be hormonal because I'm pregnant" and hand the husband the HPT.  That one stopped me dead in my tracks.  As everyone who knows us knows, it took us a LONG time to get pregnant the first time around.  The notion that I went five hole after just two short months of trying, if you even want to call it trying, is pretty cool.  Needless to say, the stress of procreation did not exist this time around, and that certainly made for a much more pleasurable experience for all parties involved.

My very first fourth of July with my child.  It was so awesome.  Getting to do all this "family" stuff with my own child is great.  Starting new family traditions is awesome.  Watching my wife be a mother is absolutely incredible.

This one isn't for the feint of heart.  I had some nasal surgery to fix some problems that I have been having with my nose.  For my entire life, I have not had full breathing capacity in my nose.  Something on the order of 10-20% air volume.  Pretty bad actually.  I also had a badly deviated septum, and a host of other issues.  I finally pulled the trigger and had a procedure to fix it.  To say that the recovery was unpleasant would be doing a disservice to the word unpleasant.  Worst recovery process ever.  EVER.  The sheer amount of crap that came out of my face post surgery was astonishing.  However, nothing, and I mean NOTHING, could compare to the sheer audacity of the size of the splints that were in my nose.  That's right...in my nose.  My doctor (Dr. Eugene Alford - awesome ENT and rhinoplasty if you live in the Houston area) said he had never had anyone ask to keep what he removed from their nose, and certainly no one ever said they were going to blog it.  Clearly he had never had me as a patient.  I simply cannot believe that those splints were in there.  I include the quarter in the picture for reference only.  Despite the many attempts by my grandfather to make me believe it, there were no quarters in my nose.  That other thing on the left is the splint that was on the outside of my nose.

Finally, I am now CEO of a software company.  It took a couple of months to get it all done and finalized, but I raised about $1.2 million of angel funding for a company which will focus on protecting children online.  We're not talking much about what we're up to right now, but as soon as we have our prelaunch web site ready (shortly) I will link.  I haven't been this excited about work since my first internship at Microsoft.  I have an incredible team of developers, and this idea that I came up with is just awesome.  Never mind that it will also be a social good...that's just gravy.

As I was saying, July 2006 has kicked ass.  Did I mention I'm doing a half Ironman at the end of the month?  Kick ass!!

Trippin'

18 months.  18 months is how long I waited to get one of these and be able to use it.  I can't even begin to explain how excited I am.  Been crazy busy these past couple of weeks, what with fund raising for the new software company and a couple of triathlons.  Crazy busy.  It's OK...when you have a co-pilot this cute, it's all good.

Baby Photo Montage

A little baby photo montage.  More because I am supremely busy with too many goings ons right now, but also because I'm a bit lazy this weekend.  The photos cover a time span from first Easter to this weekend.  And while it appears that she is crawling, she's not.  Chickpea can get up on to all fours, but that's about it.  Mobility eludes her.

Chickpea also found herself in a ghetto pool this weekend.  The parents were slightly embarrassed at the big blue thing on their driveway, but were no worse for the wear.  Chickpea, however,  had the time of her life.  Something tells me this kid is going to want to spend lots of time in or near the water.  Perhaps a budding triathlete.