Middle America's Worldview

I must admit, Monday wasn't that bad. Yes, I am knocking on wood. I continue to be on-call and I am on support tomorrow. Yippee.

We found out today our son feeling sick is actually a good sign. Yeah, that's what I said. I thought for sure he was having a UTI (urinary tract infection) Friday and Saturday due to having to go pee, having to go pee, ect. Yet, when he did go, it wasn't much. Sorry if too much info. Well, I took him to the doc in the box and it showed cleared. The doctor from Arizona is telling us that it's a good sign because he is trying to pass the metals and he feels bad because he is doing too much detoxification, or too fast. So we hold off on certain meds and up others. Yes, it's seems to be a juggling act, but hey, we are getting better.

I found a new means to make money online. No, not rich but hey any little bit will help. It is called Surf Junky and basically you scroll through their pages. It suppose to start off with 45 cents an hour. I purused around and already acquried a dollar. Like I said, won't make you rich but every little bit helps. You can also have them pay your paypal directly. So if you want to check it out, click here.

Sunday already? The weekend just flew by. I had to go to a wedding Saturday that pretty much shot that day. You can read that story in Busy Mommy’s blog.

Not much to speak of for this weekend. I was able to play the Pokemon card game with the kids. I have to say, it was pretty fun. My daughter really got into it and the game seem to flow easy enough. I can see us playing this one for quite some time.

I started on-call today as opposed to tomorrow. I will be flying into PA toward Corp. next Saturday. I have switched today for that Saturday, since I will be traveling all that day.

Over this busy, trying week, I had some reflection this morning. With everything going on with our son, compounded having to take my wife to ER for a found cyst on her ovary, it topped off today at work by losing access to my desktop. I rebooted the PC due to it being slow, in hopes to speed up the process only to find my normal password to my desktop is inaccessible. How stupid is that?

Regardless of me not having access to work email nor work IM, I continued to work with my projects today getting them accomplished. I still have access to my interfaces using my home pc, but not my Lotus Notes. I and the vendor were still able to successfully get a new interface up and running today.

This action of me not having contact with work by normal means, yet I continued to work on those things that needed to be made had me think of something.

Reflecting on everything going on in my life, I find most would think perhaps God is not listening or even there. Today I did not have a direct line of communication today with work, yet I continued to work for them. In respect to God, it sometimes seem we do not have a direct or constant communication with Him, yet we must realize God is still there and working for us.

Just a thought, today.

I was actually off yesterday, so today was a Monday. A Monday it was indeed. I spent nearly half the day on the phone with conference calls and the other half trying to resolve those issues the calls were for. sigh.

My poor wife is sick to her stomach and the docs suspect an ulcer. Considering all we have undergone I am not surprised. I had actually read in the past where ulcers were created from bacteria rather than stress, but who knows. What I do know is she has difficulty keeping anything down.

I ran our son to speech therapy again today after their school. Yesterday, she commented he was doing much better in his 3 consonant words then before we left for Arizona in addition to the time we missed with her. This tickled me to no end.

I also ran our daughter to basketball practice this evening and I have to tell you; I never get tired of watching those kids running around the half-court trying to get that ball in the basket. Rather than spreading out they always tend to group in together in a cluster. LOL

I haven't blogged in some time. Not for a lack of discussion, but a lack of dedicated time.

I have to say this is a 3 day weekend for me and my family. None of us have to go to school nor work tomorrow. I been on-call all week, but that ends tomorrow morning. I don't wish to say I will be glad it will be here, because it would take away more precious time from my family.

Tonight the kids will be having a sleep over in one of their rooms (not the living room). With this in play, I may play a PS2 game myself in the living room. I haven't played it since before our Arizona trip, with the exception of today, with the kids.

Did I mention I am running for School Board? I have a run-off April 5th. Wish me luck. The vote Feb. 7th occured while I was in Arizona. My wife and I couldn't even vote. We had expected to be back before then. Fortunately I ran second in the race out of 4 candidates. This will be the final time I attempt, but I also will give it my all.


I will have to say Church tonight was very good. A message on burden and leadership was addressed. It touched my heart regarding my family and those I love. Just had to share that.

It is hard to believe this week is already nearly half over. I began on-call again this Monday for this week. I will be on it for 7 days and then off 6 then on again for another 7 days. Gotta make that extra buck an hour.

My brother-in-law brought a laptop to me yesterday to have me look at it. I don't know where he is getting all these, and I don't ask. This one looks like it only has DOS on it with no windows installed at all. The CD is not recognized but interesting enough, you can slide in/out the CD and Floppy as an adapter. Oh well. I will see if I can install XP on it.

My son is sick this morning. He acted fine the first day in school. Yesterday during 4-H he bounced around, but by yesterday evening he became sick. My wife has to take him to a couple of Doctor's appointments today anyway. Just makes it hard.

Took my daughter to Basketball practice last night. I can see she enjoyed being back in the game after our 2 week out of state excursion. The couch showed her how to properly pass the ball and shoot the ball. He kept looking back at the stand to me as if 'Don't you know this stuff?' I thought to myself, 'nope, that's why I bring her to you.' Oh well. She enjoys it and I think she will get there.

Since Yu-Gi-Oh is pretty dark and has as many cards to read and learn as Clinton's excuses, we will look into the Pokemon card game. The kids love Pokemon and I plan to see if it's a bit lighter than Yu-Gi-Oh. I been trying to play the online Duel Monsters that Mark introduced me to, but I basically get my butt kick on the ones I played. Oh well, it's a nice break and I am glad Mark introduced it to me.

I will be traveling to Corp the second week of March. I plan to leave Saturday the 5th and return home Friday the 11th. They are already setting up conferences, ect. while I am down there.

The last 2 nights I haven't slept worth a flip. On-call hasn't been bad, knock on wood. But I seem to have a hard time getting to sleep and finding rest.

We finally made it home Friday evening around 4 p.m. central. We made two stops near home. One was a goldmine find for organic, non-toxic store in a hole in wall place. We spent way less in this store than the stores in Amarillo (gathering organic foods, ect.) but acquired nearly double items. The other stop was to grab cat liter, I knew we would need it. Yeah, exciting stuff, eh?

Saturday I ended up running to Fort Smith for errands and such. Today, however, I refuse to go anywhere. The whole family was a-sleep by 8:30 p.m. Friday night and didn't get up till at least 8 a.m. the next morning. Total exhaustion. We spent Saturday cleaning the house, unpacking, and getting some stuff together, (the wife moreso than I). Today, we finished up some cleaning, had some friends over for lunch and I am already ready for a nap.

Nixon has an interesting article regarding ramifications of bloggers in regards to posting about their jobs. When I have time, I would like to do a experiment to see how much info, I could actually acquire off of someone, via the net. Anyone have any suggestions of a good person to try it on, let me know.

Well, we survived Mesa, Arizona. Survived the Doctor's, 4 wall apartment for a week, ect. We are now at the Grand Canyon. We decided to drive here this afternoon, then off to Amarillo, Texas tomorrow. The Grand Canyon was only 45 minutes off our path and it would be a shame not to see it. So we are in a hotel nearly one mile away from it. It was cold and windy. It amazed me to see desert and 5 foot cactus in Mesa, snow covered peaks across the mountains to Flagstaff and snow on the ground here at parts of Grand Canyon. It was definitely a diverse in terrain from point to point.

Tomorrow will be the killer drive. It will be 11 hours from here to Amarillo. I am dreading it, but once we get there, only 6 hours more to home. I look forward to get home.

My thoughts on one of the 7 wonders of the world? The Canyon was indeed beautiful. Looked more like a canvas than a view. It's pretty obvious the only thing surviving out here buisiness wise is off the tourist that come. 2 restruants, 2 gas stations (2.49 per gallon), and maybe 3 gift shops? Yeah, I expected more.

The weekend was a nice break of the 4 walls. We hit the Phoenix Zoo today. I wasn't impressed. 40 bucks to get in, 12 bucks to ride the train. A lot of empty cages and there wasn't a good pathway to walk through. It seemed to be all over the field.

The kids were tired today, but should only be here 2.5 more days. We plan to leave Wednesday midday. I am taking a 1/2 day Wednesday and taking off both Thursday and Friday. We plan to go to the Grand Canyon on the way back home. It's only 45 minutes out of the way. We are so close, it would be a shame to miss the opportunity to say 'we been there'.

Yesterday we went to a 'swap mart'. I found the kids Yu-Gi-Oh starter decks for 3 bucks a deck. 2.50 if you buy two. I let them pick out a deck a piece and then went back to get me one. When we went to another mall I realized how cheap they really were. 12.95 per deck! Unreal. I was soooo tempted to go back and grab all of them to sell on E-bay.

We also did laundry here again. Should be the last time before leaving. The kids and I actually played in the outside pool today. Nearly 80 degrees here. We are just really ready to go home.

We are watching the SuperBowl here in the hotel room. So far they are tied, 7-7, half-time.

Yesterday evening, we had our first time to enjoy the trip. While my wife took a nap, the kids and I went to the Southwest Museum. I must say I was impressed. On one side was 3 stories, the other contained 2. They refer to the museum as the Dinosaur museum and rightly so. There were many Dinosaur skeletons. There was also a display of acutal dinosaur eggs. Evidently this was not a standard display for the museum rather a temporary one. It was a treat to walk around and view the ancient indian artificacts, dinosaurs, and the kids were able to pan for gold (pyrite). They found more water on themselves then gold, but they loved it. I took many pictures and absolutely loved it.

When we returned, we ended up taking the kids to Golf Land. They commercialize having more than 200 games in the arcade, but when you see 2 or 4 of the same game, it dwindles in difference. I have yet to find a holographic game in these big city arcades. Again, the kids loved it. Of course I had to play some games as well. (smiling). It was a bit pricey but a hotspot in the evenings and night. As it grew later, more and more people arrived. This place also had a laser tag arena, bumber boats, mini-golf, and a go cart racetrack.

Since my daughter seems to be getting more interested in Yu-Gi-Oh, I figured I better analyze it.

As a former Magic Card player (more than 10 years ago), I can see similarities. The Yu-Gi-Oh, has some distinct differences that, I believe, helps drive its continued success. There is an actual storyline where the kids or adults follow. This is propelled mainly in the cartoon but also in comic and books. Since I have not read any printed material on this game, I can only base my analysis on the cartoon aspect of the subject.

The creator of the Yu-Gi-Oh phenomenon was created by Kazuki Takahashi.
Some history of Kazuki Takahashi can be found here.

The cartoon is 30 minutes in length. However, if you take in consideration the following it’s more of 20 minutes. The first 3-4 minutes comprise of a recapture of what happened in the prior cartoon, commercials, ect. Also I noticed a lot of verbage or talking in the cartoon. So I suspect the story line is only roughly 6 minutes per episode. The main theme is comprised of the duel. There is at least one major duel per episode (from what I have seen). This does too things; brings action to the game and introduce new cards to the audience. This is a great marketing tool for Bandai.

The card game itself is a strategic game, similar to chess. The two opposing foes battle it out by the cards in their deck (which they themselves create by buying the different cards) and how they play it. However, unlike chess, this is more of a visual battle with many many possible sentries. Note also rather than the king on the board in chess, you play the king and your life points pulls you into the game more so. There is a feeling of the player being more part of the game. One of the chief things I see where Bandai did right compared to the Magic cards is the strength of the cards. I noticed that Magic cards continued to go upwards in strength. After awhile the buyer gets tired of the race for newer and stronger cards. There is only so much you can reach. Bandai, however, limits the strength, but expands the cards horizontally. They create more cards for the buyer, but in such a way to allow more strategy in play, rather than power and strength. Note this is also a statement from Yu-Gi-Oh, in the cartoon as well. “There is more in the cards than strength and power.”

I have not played the game myself. This is only a brief synopsis of a dad trying to understand what drives my kids in this subject.

Conclusion: Yu-Gi-Oh’s drive is two fold. It has a storyline that pulls you into the subject and there is an element of power when you strategically beat an opponent in this game.

You can purchase Yu-Gi-Oh from Amazon.com here.

This is the third day for sons treatments and test. We had really good news and seeing some positive results. My poor wife has been n the Doc office nearly all day every day we been here. My poor daughter has been stuck with me most of the day in the hotel as well. Me? I been doing as I normally do, stuck on the PC working away. Unfortunately we will be here till next week. I have alreay spoken to the hotel and extended our stay. Luckily they knocked off 10 bucks a night on the extended days.

I plan to actually stop on time tomorrow night. Hopefully our family can have some quality time and enjoy some time together.

We drove into Mesa, Arizona from Flagstaff this morning. We stayed till my 11 a.m. est confernce call was over. Fortunately we made it here in Mesa safely. Our son's first apppointment was Tuesday at 3:45 Mountain time. Kelli and he was in there for 3.5 hours. My daughter and I stayed at the hotel, not knowing how long it would be. We caught up on the laundry, while she did homework, I read Wired magazine.

When my wife and son returned it was nearly 7 p.m. (felt like 8 to us) and everyone was hungry, not eating dinner yet. We drove around trying to find some kindof mall around here to no avail. Finally resolving to pulling into a 7-11 asking where is a local mall or restruant around here was told 4 miles up. So it's nearly 5 miles to a mall. At least we now know. Sitting across the table in an actual restraunt (lived on the road the past 2 days, it was a nice change), I couldn't help to see my wifes enthusiasm. It appears our son has mercury poisoning. The Doctor told her, he was a bit intimidated to know we are traveling 1600 miles to have him see her son. But after seeing our son, he said he's not worried. Our son can be fixed. Bold words from someone seeing him in less than 3 hours. I won't go into detail just yet, primarily because I simply don't have it. I will meet the Doctor myself tomorrow (now today). I was impressed he actually gave my wife his cell number and changed his next few days pt's around to see our son twice a day while we are here.

He also called us while we were out to ask if we had the chance to discuss and asked how our son was doing after the first treatments. This also impressed me. I spoke with him on the cell myself. He asked if I had any questions, ect. I will get a CD from him tomorrow with 'more information than I wanted' on some of my inquiries. Kelli already made him aware I work with computers, so he knows I am a bit analytical. I guess if he can speak my terminology, I can feel better about all this. Granted I would do anything for my family. It is just easier to understand why we will be doing it.

We have no idea how long we may be here. I reserved the hotel till Saturday morning, but we may be here next week as well. Sigh. Glad I brought the kids DVD's, wished I had brought some of mine.

We left shortly after Sunday School and drove to Amarillo, Tx. We made it there around 7:30 p.m. and crashed around 9 p.m. Didn't sleep worth a flip all night. We were up around 5 a.m., got up at 5:20 a.m. and drove all day to FlagStaff, Arizona. Talk about a long drive. It was beautiful country through New Mexico, but man was it long. We drive into Mesa, Arizona tomorrow.

Friday was so busy, I almost needed a catheter with a bag attachment. I think I was on the phone nearly 6 hours of the 8. This combined with IM's, email's and working at three things at once, made one fast hard day at work.

As stated before, Kelli made the calls that morning. Interesting enough out of two sources, both pointed to the same place; Mesa, Arizona.

We acquired more information during the day. Seems there is a week of testing. However, the Doctor speaking with Kelli seems to have an idea on the issue already. Of course he doesn't say this, but it is becoming apparent with the specific questions and discussion being made.

I couldn't sleep last night. I watched Troy (good movie) and turned the tv off around 1 a.m. I then woke up at 3:30 a.m. tossing and turning. The church wants me to speak Sunday prior of us going to the clinic. We plan to leave after church tomorrow. I finally got out of bed around 4 a.m. and looked up directions, locations via mapquest and google. The plan is driving to Amarillo, TX (6 hrs) and spend a night with one of Kelli's aunts. From there we will drive to Flagstaff, AZ (9 hrs) and stay Monday night. Then it will be a little over 2 hour drive into Mesa, AZ.

We already have hotel reservations made in Flagstaff and Mesa. We really do not know anything beyond the initial testing. We will be staying in Mesa till Saturday morning at least. I have already made arrangments to be off Monday, but work out of the hotel Tuesday-Friday. If I have high-speed internet access, I can work. It is one of the privileges of being a remote employee. My boss-ladies were understanding. I busted my butt getting everything I could in order, including newbies projects done on Friday. I then spent 30 minutes to just update my supervisor. This was done in case anything came up Monday in my absence as well as just an FYI. Those in the Corporate knows what I mean.

I had to get an oil change this morning. Kelli has a good friend with kids the same class as our daugter come in town for the week. The only spare time we had this weekend was 10 a.m. today and lunch. We still have packing, ect. todo.

Gotta start getting my work stuff ready for the week.

I had some exciting, yet nervous making news yesterday. It all came down shortly after my quote unquote end of day. As I had stated before my wife was fed up with Childrens Hospital. They were not providing any answers and it became a political move on their side. Rather than looking at our son to find answers it became, less cover our own peoples asses. So she began calling around yesterday morning. I have to say it all fell into place yesterday evening.

On two different sources both led to Phoenix, Arizona. She acquired contact with a branch off the Mayo Clinic. They spoke with my wife and went as far as faxing some local hotels in the area. They also booked him Tuesday through Friday next week to perform tests. The interesting thing is the statements and questions the Doctor posed to my wife on the phone. He identified what Childrens did and had posed for our son. The last statement elated her. "I can help your son." You have to realize this is the first time a Doctor had made such a direct statement to us. It's always been "I think" or "Let me try".

As with anything in my life here lately, nothing is timely. Now we are running to figure out how we can leave Monday and be there by Tuesday's appointment. Fortunately I can work out of any box, as long as it has an internet connection. That puts most hotels on the map. So here we are, trying to catch-up on both of our works (which is laughable at best) and making directions to get there. We will probably stop midway in Amarillo, Texas due to it looking like an 18 hour drive to Mesa, Arizona.

The implication is great. The possibility of our son being rid of his staring out and speech delay is wonderful. We cannot afford not to try this. We have attempted everything else and we have broken milestones with him. I, like my wife hope and pray this is the end of this ride. However, I fear to put all my hopes up, yet again.

My wife and I still plan to have a night out, while the kids are at Nana and Papa's but our minds will not be at ease, I fear.

Just another day in the neighborhood for me and mine. I am glad it's Wednesday due to being closer to Friday night. My wife and I planned on going out to get some quality quite time. However, seems we have our friends that will be crashing our party. Yes, it will be good to go out with other 'young adults'. Is mid to early 30's still considered young anymore? To me the crowd all seems to be younger than I remember.

I managed to create templates for my projects via the Microsoft Project last night while watching my daughter at the Basketball practice. Work coninues to be an overload, but it sounds like everyone's is.

Had some continued bad news on our son's health yesterday. My wife at her wit's end on it. I just don't know what to do. We struggle with the Doctors, because due to their delibitating knowlede on what to do, their basically crossing of "lets try this" list. Yes, we have resolved some physical issues, but the overall problem remains. Its like fighting a non-entity with physical weapons. It's just not working. We have a good spiritual support group, but after 5 years, its time to get some answers for resolution.

Yesterday was a good Monday to start with, Yes, I was on support after a weekend of on-call. However, no bombs or surprises were dropped. That was a relief. My bosslady liked my Microsoft Project template, she suggested an object link on my question on a one view of my interface. I will try that later.


I went to the Chiro yesterday evening, to get adjusted and get some information on the website they want. As normal I asked the specifics, most they hadn't thought of. It's easier to ask, 'do you know of a website you like the format?'. This allows me to see what they like and use as a template. They gave me a website they like. Last night I checked the site and pulled down the source to see how they arranged it, javascript they use ect. Most sites have a few comments to identify who created the page, where some scripts come from ect. Well, low and behold this one also did. So I thought I would check the guys site out by copying and pasting it in the address bar. 'No site found'. Hmm interesting. So I removed the "index.shtml" from it and hit enter again. Low and behold a site produced, but not one that I expected. Rather than a 'Hey I am so and so, these are the sites I created, contact info if you want a site built,ect.' I see a simple one color page with a bunch of links crammed in the middle. What links in this pink background with pink links you may ask? Porn sites. Hardcore porn sites not intended for the naked eye. I couldnt believe it. Here is a supposedly dedicated Doctor, that must be pretty good, with a porn site embedded in his website. I will have to ask Chiro who created this site for their friend.

Wow, Saturday went awfull fast. There is a Angel Ministries near us that has a great deal on meats, ect. Basically around 27 bucks you can purchase the deal. It's not a bad deal. You pay them month by month. No setup or requirements necessary. This is the second month we have tried them out. I have already purchased one for next month. Anyway, this morning, I went to grab the meat, vacuumed out the cars. When I ran back, my wife went to an errand at 10:30 a.m. I cleaned the carpets and around the house. When she returned, she took our daughter to have her Upwards basketball pictures taken. While they did that, my son and I had our haircuts done. Yes, she commented on how my hair was more greyer than the last cut. Sigh. Then we met the women at the Basketball game. Whew, busy morning. But there-after we just relaxed. My favorite part of the weekend, resting with the kids and wife.

I tried my hand in Microsoft Project today. I normally put all my projects in Excel because I am comfortable with it and it's easy for me. But the bosslady mentioned to use Microsoft Project to provide our vendors and peers outside of the interface group. So I played with it this afternoon. The application wasn't hard to grasp, but I don't like the ability in not able to see that whole worksheet at one glance. Any Project users out there know how to get the ability to view a worksheet within Project, please post it. Thanks in advance.

I haven't been able to revalue all my FTP address's back in my PC yet. I am thinking of creating some sort of access database of them. This would allow me to have a quick view off line on my connections. But I don't like the idea of having duplicate information, one in the FTP app (that got wasted) and one in Excel or some other app.

Nothing planned for tomorrow but Church. The kids are already laying down and my wife and I are in the office catching up on work (real party animals).

For such a busy week, it has been a long one. I continued to work diligently regardless of email. Yesterday, I actually was able to move forward on my projects. I set 2 more interfaces, conference calls, ect. I noticed I can still function but on a linear level. Normally I can muli-task well, with firing out emails, IM's answering in turn, while on the phone and working on tickets ect. Without my email and sametime, I can only work on one thing at a time. Makes me realize how much I do on hand and my addiction to online communication.

I have to share this. I received a Voicemail yesterday evening as I picked up the kids from school. "Matt, I just heard you lost your laptop. I sent emails the past two days and haven't heard from you......(pause) If you cant move those files for (facility name)can you call me tomorrow? "

Yeah, call you tomorrow.

Later as I was speaking to my supervisor asking her how support was today (I am on-call) while she turned it over to me, I mentioned this. She stated; "oh yeah I heard about that. I would think if it's important and if she doesn't hear from you by email she would had followed-up with a phone call."

Yes, my fellow bloggers. In a world of instataneous electronic email with quick satisfaction, if your fellow correspondent does not reply within 24 hours by email...call their A$$. Oh well. You can only do what you can do.

I had 2 interesting comments made to me yesterday as well. One from the Sr. Analyst and the other from the Supervisor on separate phone calls. Both are behind on their projects as well. It's not just lonely me.

I wanted to watch The Apprentice last night. They have coined it book smarts against street smarts. I figured the street smarts would win. I am interested how they will film this particular Apprentice. I know they will play most of it up, but realistically in a world of corporation the degrees, diplomas, continueing education counts for something. It's called justification for rate of pay. But personally if I had the choice of someone with OJT compared to someone from a classroom, I picked the OJT.

I went through Radiology to get my R.T. way back then. I recall one girl transferring to our hospital program from college. She has the knowledge on paper, but she couldn't take a simple chest x-ray while everyone of us was knocking out extremities. My point is, the paper knowledge is good, but it doesnt get much accomplished compared to someone out there busting their butt on the floor accomplishing the job.