Prayer Update

My co-worker is doing well now. Both sides of her heart stopped working but they got her into surgery on time to install Ventricle Assists. They basically do the job of her heart while it heals and they wait to see if/when she needs a transplant. Her husband is very relieved she is over this first hump. She is heavily sedated to giver her organs time to rest and heal. While no where near out of the woods, she has color in her face and a baby step towards recovery.......

Year In Review II or Happy Birthday To Me

I had written this earlier and then the PC ate it so here it is again..........

 

The time is here again to take a look back and see where I have been.  Today I start the downhill journey to 40 and see that my 34th year here was pretty good.  The family is healthy, wealthy and wise (well maybe just healthy) and our first full year in Indiana was alright.  The boy has been fantastic since his hospital stay and is doing very well in Football and Baseball.  His school work took a hit as him (and mom and dad) got a little lazy on checking up on things.  That has changed and things are back on track.  We also got involved with Boy Scouts.  As an Eagle Scout I am proud the boy is showing some interest and the Troop is very organized and huge on advancement.  First Class in a year is their motto and I am hoping the boy is up for it.

 

The wife as well has settled in to her new job and is enjoying this new bank over her first one.  Close with the District Manager, she is on the verge of promotion again.  She is still as smart as ever (except that marrying me incident) and will go as far as she wants.

 

I am doing alright, I have stuck with my exercise program started in November and feel great.  Work is going well, I enjoy working here.  The bosses are alright and my co-workers as well.  I have a few I can joke with and none I really dislike working with and that is always a good thing.  I still miss some of my New York co-workers but I touch base with the important ones now and then and the rest are just the rest.

 

While I was originally writing this this morning I received 2 phone calls, one from my mother who wished me Happy Birthday.  The other from my grandmother, who, for as long as I can remember, calls on our birthday (mine, my brothers, sister, wife and son) and sings Happy Birthday, loudly and non-stop until she is laughing so hard she cannot sing anymore.  Today after getting through How old are you now she told me the story of the day I was born.  She was working in New York City at the time and jumped on the subway to head home as soon as she heard I was born.  She did not know if I was a boy or girl but was excited and talking to everyone on the subway and missed her stop.  She then had to take the train back into the city to catch the last train out to Queens.  By the time she got home everyone at work knew about me and were calling her all day to congratulate her on her First Grandchild.  I still remember going to her work as a young boy and being called Her Precious by all her co-workers.

 

Till Next Year.

Prayers Needed

I arrived at work to find that a co-worker, a woman I have worked with every day since I started here was in the hospital. It started with Chest Pains over the weekend and a trip to the ER. She is currently in the ICU with a breathing tube and heart pump because the left side of her heart has stopped working. She is a healthy, young new mom with another child and loving husband. Her current options are heal enough so they can get into surgery and have a left ventricle assist put in. Or stable enough to be put on a heart transplant list. Apparently she has myocarditis brought on by a virus they think. End result is that she needs our prayers and I hope you can add her to yours.

Thank You

Saturday Again

Well it is the weekend, sleeping in and working our asses off. This time of year I sometimes long for Monday to get here!!!

We had a terrible storm last night, we did not have a 5pm or 6pm newscast as we followed the first spring storm and did a 2 hour weather report. Again I would take my Rochester blizzards over this tornado bullshit any day. Of course the damn storm passed right over my house with our weathercasters telling me to send my son and wife and dog to the safest place in the house until it blew over......

Today should be miserable and we have Scout and Baseball stuff to do outdoors all day! This is just a quick post to say howdy to my Rochester and Oswego State visitors and tell them do not be strangers......

Slow Week

So it is finally Thursday, Survivor night in our household. The grass needs mowing (again) the grill needs to be cleaned, my office is a mess and all I want to do is play Rome: Total War! PC games are so addicting!

Next week marks the 6 month anniversary of my workouts. I have gone every Monday, Wednesday and Friday (except the week I was on vacation) to the YMCA for 6 months. That has to be some record for me!! Slowly but surely I will work myself back into shape (other than round)......

Shows you must be watching if you watch TV: Deadwood (HBO), The Shield (FX), Lost (ABC), Scrubs (NBC), Arrested Development (Fox) and starting May 1st The Family Guy (Fox). Each and everyone Emmy worthy with some of the best writing, directing and acting on television today. Notice no 24 as if you have not been watching from the start, give it up and get the DVDs.

The Tribe Has Spoken.....

Not to make light but in this day and age I would not be surprised to
see this headline somewhere in America.....

We have a new Pope, I was fortunate enough to turn on the TV right
when the white smoke started to appear and awaited the bells while the
commentators commented on the color of the smoke for 20 minutes......

I am glad we have a more old world Pope as we are not ready, nor would
we find another John Paul II so quickly. I see this Pope trying to
re-establish our moral compass and try to get folks back into the fold
by staying true to our faith and fostering goodwill, good morals, and
a beacon of light that people can look towards. While I am no prude I
welcome this possible change that would straighten our crooked little
trail of youth today. Music, movies, books are all fine and good as
you have the choice to view them but respect, morals, upbringing needs
some work.

Pray for our new Pope and hope for a better tomorrow.

Picking A Pope

They have started the Conclave of Cardinals and as I speak the black
smoke is rising from the Chapel. I am old enough to remember when
Pope John Paul II was elected and the excitement and hope that it
brought to Roman Catholics around the world. It is my hope that the
Cardinals do the right thing and not the politically correct thing. I
can accept a Pope from any walk of life, I just hope that they vote
and elect a man that will lead the Church and be active not just a
figurehead while the real work is done behind the "Look How
Progressive We Are" Pope. While not an issue for me I dislike the
conversations happening in the news organizations...America is a small
part of a larger community in the Church and the rest of the world is
not as focused on race issues as we are.

For the record I have never heard of a African-Britain or
Mexican-German before.....

No Witty Title

I Am getting so absent minded lately that it is not funny, I had a great post idea yesterday and forgot it. Then had a fleeting memory as I walked up the stairs now and lost it when I sat down. Did my blog read to see if anyone else could trigger a memory then back here and nothing.

If you are not watching The Shield you are missing quality television! FX, about 100 times a week, get on board now!!!!! If you have premium channels then add Deadwood to your weekly list of MUST SEE TV.

I finished Juiced by Jose Canseco and I must say I am a little impressed. While he was a little over the top and everything he wrote must be called into question there is some truth hidden in his ego fed fantasy. Some have called this the Ball Four of this generation, I have read Ball Four and it is a good read, a real insiders look at baseball in the 60's. Juiced is no Ball Four, it could have been but Jose likes to attack the more popular players, defend every action he ever took and stroke his uh ego so everyone knows he's a man. The sad things is that even though I do not agree with him he does make an interesting argument for steroids and the possibility exists that juiced players today maybe the pioneers we look to tomorrow. While I do have my doubts if you skim away the crap Jose does have an interesting point to make. That all being said, I enjoyed the over the top read, thought most of it a bunch of lies and still feel that steroids have no place in modern baseball.

I (Heart) New York

So we visited our home state last week and this post has been bouncing around in my head since then. It was very strange going out there and seeing things with fresh eyes after being gone for over a year and a half. I can now understand why my parents had been so vocal about getting us out here to Indy for the past several years. The easiest way to put it is that going back was like living with your Grandmother for 10 years then leaving and staying with your cousin and returning after 18 months to grandma's house and seeing how old she really is. You still love grandma but you see things that you were blind to, or refused to notice at the time. That is New York, I am and always will be a New Yorker, but driving past my old house and around our old town showed us how OLD the state is. Nothing had changed, hell even the fence I had repaired when we sold the house was falling down again. Now I appreciate the historic aspect of being an original colony and enjoy walking through a neighborhood that has stood since the 1800's and towns founded in the 1600's and the comfort of walking into the same pizzeria you did with your father and your father did with his father. But you also see the other side, the empty houses, the crappy streets, the closed businesses, the exodus of the population in search of jobs. It is a mixed feeling of joy at being home and the sadness to see what has happened or better yet what it was all along.

What caused it I wondered, certainly time but more importantly politics. Taxes, regulations, personal adjendas all lend to the demise of small town America and looking at the current state of the Thruway stops, small city America. I love New York but hate what has happened to it, I am glad I have moved my family west and have settled in a growing community but I know that the future of my town can easily reflect that of upstate New York if it is not properly planned for. What to do? I do not know but I am hoping that the people of New York can learn how to reverse the current trend and become the Empire State again and that us youngens can learn from them and preserve for our children a state better than the one we live in today.

The Original Class of the Baseball Hall of Fame. No weights, no cork, no steriods; just skill, knowledge and maybe a little booze.  

Oh......My.....Gawd.......

Alright I see site traffic has jumped and I am nowhere to be found. Truth is I was on vacation, tried to post via e-mail and it got bounced back. So much has happened and I am too tired for works.......I drove 947 miles yesterday non-stop but for gas and bathroom breaks. So here it goes:

The Pope: The Pope passed while we were away and although I thought I would save it for a separate post I it is an important event in my life and deserves top billing. I remember when he was made Pope in 1979, my family went to see him in Central Park on his first visit (I still have a Pope John Paul II pennant banner and a comic book). Though I may not seem very religious I have a deep sense of faith and consider myself a practicing Catholic and the Pope the head of my faith. He was the only Pope I knew and did great things to further the Catholic faith to all regions of the world. I was truly saddened by his passing and feel the next Pope has some pretty big shoes to fill. I truly know he is sitting up there looking down on us and still caring and worrying about his flock.

Shiavo: She also passed while away and I feel only this. Sadness that she was used as a puppet by so many different "issues groups". I am glad her suffering is ended and hope that the families can move on and that if any foul play is discovered that it be dealt with severely and that if this was all accidental that the people involved have peace and are left alone after having such a private issue dragged into the national spotlight.

Vacation: I missed commenting on all that because I was on vacation. We left last week and drove to New York to do some visiting, exploring and baseball drafting. My big event was my annual fantasy baseball draft. We had it, I did OK, and it was a great time to see friends I have missed since moving to Indiana. Some did not make it but we had a great time none the less. I expect a great fantasy season and can not wait till next year's draft.

While out there we visited the wife's family. We have a 3 week old nephew we saw for the first time and visited family we haven't seen in over a year, at least. It was a great visit. We ate and talked and shopped and played games, took pictures, read, ate and ate. Did I mention the wife's family owns a restaurant? Did I mention that New York has the BEST FOOD ANYWHERE? Did I mention we had like 15 different places we wanted to eat at but could only hit a few? I need to workout.

Yesterday was the be all end all. We left at 9am from Lake George, NY and wanted to hit that baseball mecca, Cooperstown. While a bit off the beaten path it was well worth the trip. The boy and I had a great time and even the wife enjoyed the displays. We only spent 2 hours and that was enough to not feel rushed (the movie theater was closed for repairs so we missed the best part of the museum). While smaller than you think I has some great displays and we took plenty of pictures. The boy killed his batteries before we were done with the 3rd floor (working down). It was great and a must for ANY Baseball fan to visit once in a lifetime. I know the boy and I will be back again!

After Cooperstown we jumped in the car and drove all the way home arriving at 3am this morning. A VERY LONG drive but worth it to see the Baseball Hall of Fame. Now I am off to unpack the car and get ready for work.

PS: Our 100 hour DVR for the TV is down to 45 minutes, looks like a lot of TV for us to watch!