Saturday Morning Ramblings

Well I sit again in a quiet household, Phin and I are up and everyone else is sleeping. I'm collecting my thoughts for the day and writing my first blog in a while as all of them this past week were written last weekend.

I can't say it wasn't an eventful week, I did have a few OMG moments. The first was seeing the technology that is now being done with drones and creating 3D Models. Professionally the last time I was this awestruck was when I saw Google Earth for the very first time.

Thursday I had a my all time professional high before the days festivities started, I saw Jack Dangermond getting out of a cab so I walked over and introduced myself and had a moment that will forever be embedded into my head to speak with the man who my profession. In the GIS world. this is God so to speak and I had the opportunity to meet him. I was ecstatic.

From that high I had to call Michelle and then I hit the low for the week. I could tell something was wrong, and came to find out that her partner in Crime at work as they call themselves had just lost her 42 year old husband to a long, very hard fought and very valiant battle with cancer. Lydia is 37 years old, the same age Michelle was when she became a widow, so this was a very hard thing for Michelle. Our plans for today is to be with Lydia and her family as they lay Joe to his final resting place.

Yesterday Michelle had to be at the hospital at 5:00 for a surgery. I left washing DC around midnight on a couple of hours of sleep to drive about 4 hours through the snow in the middle of the night to avoid the heavy DC traffic around the beltway and all roads leading into and out of DC to surprise her and be with her when she had her surgery. She has lost so much weight that there is no layer of fat around her diaphragm and a bone was catching and snagging that she had to have it filed down. I made it back to take her to the hospital at 5:00 AM and be with her, I kind of surprised her that I was here as she did not expect me till after the surgery. She is resting and doing fine, but she is still in a great deal of pain. She's a trooper and will recover quickly.

I can't say that the past 48 hours haven't been very eventful for me because my life was eventful on steroids for that period of time. By last night I was just exhausted and crashed and fell asleep the moment my head hit the pillow. I slept straight through until about the time I normally get up.

I'm up and rested and ready for the challenges of a new day.

Have yourselves a great day and enjoy yourselves.

Photo Flashback Thursday

Once a week I like to take a little bit of time out, time to look at some of the pictures that I have either taken, scanned or stolen off of the internet through the years. 30,000+ lost moments in time ti choose from, so sometimes this is a pretty hard task, sometimes it cones right to you, but it it a time to reflect and always a whole lot of fun for me.

This weeks picture goes back to the early 80's I'm guessing around the 1984 time frame. This is a picture of my niece Val and my Dad behind her. It's obviously sometime around Christmas, based on all of the decorations in the background. Jean had her nativity scene set up on top of that old television that used to sit in the living room.

I did notice that there are only three stockings hung over the fireplace and I don't have one, so I think I can safely say that I was probably living on Brockway Avenue about the time that this picture had been taken.

This picture is a scan from all the images Jean gave me this fall to archive. Lost magic was retrieved and shared here with everyone else.

Have a great day, Michelle has here surgery this morning so keep her in your thoughts.

Hump Day

Well we have a couple of days in so far, and if you look up over that noon time hump, just on the other side of a photo flashback, you can see the dawn of another fun filled weekend off in the distance.

Hopefully Michelle will be able to come home today, she really is making very good progress after her surgery. She is really a trooper and should hopefully start returning to her normal pre-op life by next week. I do know that I am extremely proud of her and the monstrous strides that she has made in a very short period of time. Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers for helping her get through this.

The Mountaineers will play their last home game of the season tomorrow night against Kansas State, a team who has spent much of the season ranked in the top 10. If you ask me what one team we have had the most trouble with in the Bog XII, this is the team. Bill Snider is not only a very good coach, he is one of the best and a tough one to beat. We will once again have our hands full when we take the field tomorrow night. It won't be the first time this season, that's for sure.

Obviously there will be no plans for us this weekend, I want Michelle to rest and recuperate as best as she can.

Have a Great Day

Hi ho hi ho

Michelle's Surgery

Today my beautiful wife will be having a life altering surgery. She will be having a gastric bypass surgery early this morning and we will be at the hospital at 5:00 AM to report in.

This has been a long journey for the both of us and she is choosing to finish the journey where I have chosen a different path. With so much success just changing my eating habits, I've opted out of the surgery and she is seeing this all the way through.

I'll try keep all appropriate people updated as to her condition and how her surgery is going.

Please keep my lovely wife in your thoughts and prayers today as she has this procedure done.

I can't say how much I love her and how much that am proud of her, she is my rock and my inspiration.  She has a great support group behind her as her Sister and Brother in Law have had a lot of success with this procedure. Her Mother and Sister Danni will here here as well as me and her Sister Chris.

Keep us in your prayers today.

Here I sit in a not so quiet household, my wife is already up and the em this morning and so are both of the cats. She's watching something on the USA Network and I'm here surfing the net and collecting my thoughts for the day.

We have done a good bit of shopping this weekend so far. Michelle bought us a new Microwave on Friday.

We went to the WV Arts & Crafts Christmas Spectacular yesterday and was really surprised. The line to get in was huge and we arrived a half an hour after it opened up. Michelle wanted a hand made sign to hang on the front door and the picture that you see is what she purchased. We did get some nice leads on a few other products including some awesome candles and a custom leather maker.

After that it was off to JC Penney's. I'm continuing to redo my wardrobe after all of my weight loss, I even bought a pair of 36" waist jeans yesterday that fit rather comfortably. I have pants that have a 48" waist if you want a point of reference. Michelle also bought a few things including a robe and a few pairs of pants for after surgery work. We both bought a couple pairs of fleece sleeping pants that were on sale for $10.00. These things are ultra comfortable to say the least.

After we got home Jean called me and said she had grabbed a few picture albums out of the closet and knowing that I have been scanning wanted to know if I wanted them to scan. Needless to say I think I was there before she got the question out and have them in hand. To me these pictures are absolute gold and include a number of pictures that I had taken years ago when I had a camera when I was a kid. There are a lot of great pictures, some I can't even recall seeing before that I think people are going to be surprised with and love.

Today is our normal schedule of grocery shopping and finishing up laundry. Maybe some batch cooking for me this week. Michelle's Mom will be coming down to Morgantown today and staying with us this evening. Michelle has to be at the hospital at 5:00 AM and she will be right there with us as will her Sister(s).

Have a great day and have I ever mentioned that I Hate Snow?

Saturday Morning Rambling

Here I sit once again in a quiet household, I wasn't the first one to recover from a losing battle with the sandman last night, but Michelle has went back to bed for a few more hours as I collect my thoughts and wake up.

Today with the Mountaineers off, Michelle and I are probably going to go to the WV Arts & Crafts Christmas Spectacular at Mylan Park. It's something she mentioned that she would like to do today, so we can do that. No major traffic issues around town, so navigating should be pretty easy.

Michelle's surgery is on Monday and she is down over 10 pounds since Monday due to her liquid diet preparing for surgery. I'm so proud of her, I on the other hand have pretty much hit a plateau for the past month or so. It could be that I am grazing on too many carbohydrates since the days have gotten shorter and colder. The sad thing is we are starting to enter the holiday season and I'll start to crave sweets until after the first of the year. This is my worst time period traditionally for weight loss, but I'm still working on it.

It's a brisk and cool 22° outside here in Morgantown as a write this. I'm not sure if I have ever mentioned this before on my blog, but I Hate Snow.  I just thought I would share that little tidbit with you since I don't think I've ever share it before here.

Have a great day and stay warm.

It's Game Day

It;s gameday here in Morgantown, it's the start of the 2013 WVU Football season as the West Virginia Mountaineers will be taking on William an Mary at Noon.

The game will be broadcast on FoxSports1, the old speed channel that was converted over to compete with ESPN and their dominance of the market. Which for the Morgantown area Comcast subscribers is Channel 30 on your Television.

As of right now, we still do not know who will be WVU's starting QB, the man taking over for Geno Smith. There are co leaders with Paul Millard and Florida State transfer and Morgantown native Clint Trickett. I've heard rumors of a dual QB system and a third one with Ford Childress waiting in the wings.

The gates are now open and the kickoff is at noon. Not sure of our plans we were talking about going down to Nick and Terri's, but Michelle is suffering from Plantar Fasciitis, which is going to require her to have surgery the day after we get back from vacation. She went to the Doctor yesterday as it was starting to get real bad, to get a shot of cortisone for a little relief, but she was in a whole lot of pain last night. So she will have surgery on one foot the day after we get back from our cruise. This may cause us to stay home to watch the game.

My wonderful niece Amy had a couple tickets to the game, and has given them to Hayley and Jared so that they can go.

Have a great day and LET'S GO MOUNTAINEERS!!!!!!!

Surgery

Well I am scheduled for my cataract surgery today. AS of the time of me writing this blog, I still do not know what time my surgery is scheduled for because the schedule still has yet to come out yet.  Hopefully Ruby Memorial can give me a fair amount of notice so that we can plan accordingly. It was scheduled for this day weeks ago, I think they are a little inefficient in getting their schedules out.

I'm not a hospital administrator, so I have no idea what all pertains to the surgery, but you would think that they would have most of the details worked out before this.

Like I stated,  this is my second cataract surgery, my first one a few years ago was so bad it was like taking a piece of wax paper and putting it over your eye, that is how bad my vision was affected by it in my right eye three years ago. With my left eye today, I have about 20/40 vision in it (as opposed to the worse than 20/400 I had in the other eye) and this should increase my vision back closer to normal so to speak.

The procedure is to remove the cataract and replace it with an intra-ocular lens, and this will be my second. I anticipate a few days of headaches as my eye adjusts to the lens like it did the other eye, but this is probably the easiest surgery you could ever have to be honest with you and my Doctor is great.

Have a great day.