Although they haven't been together for a long time, we did get this picture of my Papa Walt and Grandma GB at my wedding. Love you guys! 

It's been two weeks

Wow, how time flies when your dealing with an amazing amount of adversity and emotional stress. Since my last post, my Grandfather Forrest was released from the hospital. He is having a rough time dealing with the recovery from his fall and head injury. Now it seems there is a mass in his lung that needs immediate attention. He'll be going to the Dr. again next week to get it examined more closely. On top of that, my other Grandfather Walt, who lives in East Texas was taken to Houston in very bad shape this past Friday and the prognosis was very bleak. He was on life support and the Dr.'s didn't think he'd survive without it. We were told he signed the DNR paper and they were going to "pull the plug". My cousin Ron, mother and Aunt Marsha all flew down to meet with my Uncle Rick (from Dallas) at his bedside. I took this very hard, I thought for sure that was it, he was gone. But amazingly once everyone showed up to see him he came around and when they took him off the tubes and other support he was able to stabalize. My wife was so supportive of me as I had a few rough moments contemplating his fate.

Papa Walt, as I call him, is a really neat man. He has overcome alcholism, but not smoking. He will no longer be able to support himself as a bass fishing guide on Toledo Bend in Texas, and won't be able to play golf with us either. As now he'll be on oxygen and very weak. He is a very smart man - an ace at math and crossword puzzles and very up to date on current sports. He loves watching football, baseball and basketball and is very knowledeable. The last time I spoke to him before tonight was when Peyton Manning broke the NFL passing TD record. I have been in the habit of calling him several times a month to chat sports, and I'll miss that when he's gone. Let's hope that's a long time from now.

And, on top of all that, my only Grandmother went to the eye Dr. to get a new pair of glasses and was told she is was close to going blind! GB, as the grandkids call her, is also a very neat person. We grew up watching her drive a Firebird, and she's always in the hippest clothes and has always made some of the best lunches and dinners in the family. This afternoon I met my cousin Jessica and my Sister at her emergency eye surgery where they used a laser to fix the problem in one eye, the other eye will be next week. She's also had heart problems and last summer spent a few days in the hospital while the Dr.'s put a stint in her heart. All three of my Grandparents really mean the world to all of us. Their Children, grand children and now great grand children are all very close to them.

As I push towards 30 years old and my parents are in their 50's that means my grandparents are in or near their 70's and that's when things written above starting hitting us more often than I every imagined. In my lifetime I've really only lost a few very close family members. My Great Grandmother Della, who helped raise me died when I was 12 and that was very tough. I still remember the news, My parents knew how sad I'd be so my Aunt Marsha stepped up and told me about it on the back porch swing of my house while I was sorting through a 1987 Topps baseball card set. After that I lost my Grandmother Hazel, to whom I wasn't very close because we didn't spend much time with her for some reason, my Great Grandparents Newt and LaRue lived well into their 80's or maybe 90's before they passed on, but again we only saw them a few times a year. We just aren't nearly as close to my Father's side of the family. His Sister Patty also passed very quickly from a brain tumor. And most shocking and tragic of all, 2 years ago I lost my Uncle Ron to an unexpected and tragic heart attack, he was only 48. Our family misses him very much. It was very hard to see my grandparents lose a child, in the case of Patty and Ron. No parent should every have to deal with that. I understand that more since I have Kenden, Alexa and Billy.

Sorry for all this sad speak. It's what's been on my mind this week and it's just pouring out of my fingertips.

On the other hand, we've had some very good news recently at my house. My wife, Wendy, was offered and accepted a new job at Lexis-Nexis as a Financial Analyst. We're excited for several reasons: 1) More pay 2) It's less than 1 mile from our house 3) Maybe she won't work so many hours 4) It's a very prestigous company which treats employee's very well, although they do lay off people in bunches at times 5) She'll be doing more and learning more.

We got our tax refund back and paid off a lot of debt. Nearly everything we owe besides school loans, the mortgage and our 2004 Chevy Venture. There are still a few debts floating around, but nothing like before. We still had enough left over to buy a Dyson Vacuum cleaner and save some back for a Vacation to Disney World in October. I got my annual review and for the third straight year I was rated as "exceeds" my job expectations, thus I got the maximum raise possible. It's only 5.5%, but that's three years in a row and that adds up pretty quick.

The rest of my family is doing well, my niece Alyssa has lost her first two teeth. My Aunt Marsha is now a Relator with a major firm to kick off her new career. My Mom is getting close to earing her BIS degree. My Dad's business is growing almost too fast. His fishing could use some work though, in his recent FLW tour event in Orlando he didn't catch a fish - which severly hampers his year long points battle to make the Championship event. As a co-angler on tour he's at the mercy of the guy driving the boat so catching nothing doesn't mean he didn't know what he was doing, more than likely the other guys didn't. We'll get a better guage later this year when he drive the boat in the Everstart Northern series. My Sister is keeping extremly busy managing a thriving physician's office and My cousin Jessica is planning what appears to be a well organized and fun wedding for September 24. Everyone else seems to be doing well also, so despite our trials and emotional roller-coaster's of the last three weeks, I think we'll be okay. MJ.

This is a picture I took while planning a network upgrade to the Careflight hangar in June 2001. 

It's been a week

Last Thursday was my last post. Although I want to write every day, I have some good excuses for my absence. The morning after my last post I got a call from my Mother at 6:45 a.m. that my 77 year old Grandfather, Forrest, had been injured and was flown via the Careflight Helicopter to MVH (where I work). My Dad was already en route to the hospital and I was asked by Mom to pick her up and get her to the ER. We arrived just before 8 a.m. at the hospital and was met there by Dad, Uncle Junior and my cousin Brian. Junior and Brian had just returned from seeing Grandpa and said he was doing ok. When you hear that someone you love has been flown into the ER - you know immediately something serious was going on - but we didn't know anything else. Dad filled Mom and I in on some partial details of the accident.

Dad and Grandpa had been to the Riverboat Casino in Indiana for a business gathering for one of my Dad's Kitchen remodeling vendors. The event ended at 9:30 p.m. but they stayed and gambled and it was 2:30 a.m. when they arrived back in Dayton. Grandpa, of course, refused to stay the night and sleep at my parents home, so he got in his 1989 Ford Bronco and started the 1.5 hour drive up to his trailer on Grand Lake St. Mary's. As the story goes, he was low on fuel and stopped at the nearest exit to his place that had a gas station, it was in Sidney, Ohio off of I-75. He went in and pre-paid $20 in gas because he said the credit card reader wasn't working. After refueling, he said he hung up the hose and remembered he needed a gallon of milk. He turned around to start heading back into the store and didn't realize his feet were tangled in the hose. He said he remembers consciously turning his head to his left to avoid falling flat on his face. He hit the ground hard with the right side of his head near his eye socket. This left him with a 3 inch gash that most have bled tremendously. It gets a little fogging as to what happened next. He says he got in the Bronco and started to drive off, entering the main road and then realizing he was too injured and near unconsciousness so he turned around and went back in the stations lot. He then motioned to the lone attendant on duty, a young man, who came out to assist him.

An ambulance took him to a hospital in Sidney, they appear to have performed a CT scan which they thought showed blood forming on his brain. They called for the emergency flight to MVH where it's advanced trauma team would examine him more closely.

Mom and I went back and visited him, room 36 in the ER. I was expecting a small exam room - I was wrong, it was the main trauma bay in the ER. A huge room with flat screen monitors, imaging readers, and arms with every known gadget protruding from the ceiling. I have worked in these many times at GSH, and seen many patients in the rooms, but it's not the same when it's your Grandfather on the table. It was quite surreal. He was awake and recognized us immediately. I first noticed his blood stained hair, now red instead of silver - and the cart with the recently used scissors and tweezers for sewing up his wound. He told us the version of the story above as we examined his injuries. His hands were dirty and scraped and his face was black, blue and swollen. He mentioned the helicopter ride and how it made him vomit while in flight.

I have also worked at the various Careflight hangars where we keep and maintain the craft, as well as met with many mechanics, pilots and nurses. I have always respected their jobs and am proud of them. This has cemented that notion. I even brought my digital camera along to some of my support calls to take pictures of the jet-powered copters. They are much bigger than one would suspect if you only ever witness them while their flying. At ground level they are quite massive. They fly over my house a few times a day for shift changes between the MVH pad and the Warren Co. Airport hangar just south of my house. They can be heard several miles before and after they speed over the house. I've always thought they were cool, now that I know he's OK, I'm jealous Grandpa hitched a ride with them.

The Trauma doc told Mom and I he would be sent to a room for overnight observation. He was transferred to the Neurology Care unit and remains there now. I have much more to write and explain about this week. But I'm going to post this for now and collect my thoughts. MJ.

Network Geek Blog

I slept on Kenden's floor last night, as the kids and Wendy were in our bed and I didn't have the heart or energy to move them. He woke up fussing several times and eventually joined me on the floor. We all had a hard time waking up, and I was a little late to the team meeting. My biggest fault at work is my punctuality, but I justify it because I work so many late hours and on the weekends. But it's still not a good habit and doesn't reflect well, I need to work on that. The network at the hospital has grown by leaps and bounds since I started there in 2001. Back then I support 40 devices at Good Samaritan Hospital only, and there was 3 of us. Now I support 500 devices across multiple facilities and there are only 5 of us that do the day to day-to-day work. Jim is the architect and stays busy doing high level design projects, James does all the project management and administration work. Dave, Rik, and I do all the support work, with James' help in his oncall weeks only. Ed is oncall 24x7x365 on cabling work and manages our cable vendor. Now in 2005 we have a new wireless infrastructure going in on all campuses. It's only going to get harder and harder to maintain our level of service. I have offered up a solution to make this smoother as I am really trying not to complain, but offer solutions. One day I hope to be in a position to make the decisions that will allow us to support all this equipment in the best way possible. We have a good management team and they'll make the right decisions when something like a major outage gets their attention. I'm learning that sometimes with budgets you have to make do until justification for staff or financial increases is certain. I feel that day will come soon.

I have a major install to accomplish tomorrow, I'll let you know how that goes. MJ.

Me at Daytona.  

Rudd comes to a stop in front of my location. 

Rudd on his roof heading towards my location.  

Sounds from the past

I woke up this morning to the sound of what I thought were race car engines speeding around Daytona International Motor Speedway. Back in 1999-2000 I spent a lot of time in Daytona Beach Florida where the girl I was dating went to school. I had just graduated from Ohio University and traveled down there for work a few times, training and for vacation. I have been a NASCAR and INDY Car fan for many years (see the picture below of the Twin 125 race I sat in the front row at the start / finish line and watch my favorite drive flip his car several times through the tri-oval and land on it's roof right in front of me - this is my own digital camera's pic from Feb. 2000). I have followed both sports since I was 12 years old or so. The apartment I stayed at in Daytona was only a few blocks from the track, behind the Target department store on Speedway Blvd. During Speedweeks in February and around the 4th of July were my favorite times to travel down from Ohio. There were always cars being ran during those dates from dawn to near midnight each day. The sound Dale Earnhardt, Jeff Gordon and the rest speeding around the track sounded like a constant jet engine coming towards you and then reverberating away form you. This morning, that is exactly what it was - jet planes revving up and down their engines, most probably during de-icing at the airport just a mile or two from my house. I looked over in bed and saw Kenden and knew this wasn't Daytona - and yet that wasn't a bad revelation. I'm no longer that easy going, jump in the car and drive 17 hours to Daytona type of guy. I'd like to still think I'm easy going, but now my comings and goings are planned and on a tighter budget. I'd like to continue to balance them out. For instance, this past May my cousin Brett and I camped out overnight at the Indianapolis 500 and had a blast grilling out and playing cards at the campsite and then walking up and down the drunkards laden streets the night before the race. We plan to make that a yearly pilgrimage.

I had to leave work at lunch and stay home with Alexa today, she got sick at school and Wendy is already planning to take Wednesday off. I got a lot accomplished from home and spent a little time with her watching parts of Legally Blonde and the Princess Diaries 1 and 2. She seems good to go back to school Tuesday. I need to get to bed as my weekly Network Team meeting is each Tuesday morning, bright and early. MJ.