The End Of A Rope

I have a friend at work who's wife has been very sick for the last year now and in the hospital for most of that time.  For a long time she was in a lot of pain.  They have "cured" the pain but at the expense of losing the ability to use the leg where the pain was coming from.  I'm not sure what the problem was or still is but I don't think the doctors know either.  Now she can't take care of herself at all, she can't walk, and she has no short term memory, she can't even tell you what she had for lunch earlier that day.  Thankfully she is no longer in pain and for the most part I think she is comfortable and content.  However the insurance has run out!  She can't stay in the hospital anymore but she requires 24x7 care.  She is only in her late 40's so Social Security can't help.  She was supposed to leave the hospital last Friday but there wasn't anywhere else for her to go so they still have her for now.  He has to "walk away" from one of the houses they own here in town and hand it over to the bank with the hopes that this will allow them to qualify for help.  This foreclosure will destroy his credit but he can't sell it b/c the money might disqualify her from Government help.  She has no living family and they have only lived in town for about 2 years.

Please be praying for Chris and his wife.  If anyone knows of any kind of service that can help with this please let me know.  He is at the end of his rope with no safety net.

IM Gaffe

Jenny said I had to post this within two days or she was going to. (Are there any other couples out there that argue over who is going to get to post something on their blog?)

So my co-worker/cubicle neighbor/friend at work told me this morning that someone had offered him a job interview down in Houston. He loves his job but kind of feels like he needs to get out of this town. So, later that morning, I heard him talking on the phone and actually setting up the hotel and car rental for this job interview - yes, while at his current job. I teased him over IM (Instant Messenger for the less computer savvy) about how tacky and inappropriate it was. That afternoon, he came over to my cubicle with his eyes wide open whispering about how he was trying to ask me over IM if he should tell our boss, or if I thought she would just fire him... I think you see where this story is going now... Haha. Of course he had accidentally typed it into her IM window!! Now he didn't know what to do. Quickly, we figured out that he should say, like he was finishing the sentence, "...about how I bawled out a customer and about that big wart on her face." Thus making it look like it was a joke done on purpose. Unfortunately, it took too long for him to come over and talk to me, so in the meantime she said, "I am assuming that wasn't meant for me." Oh man, even now that makes me laugh. I think he did what he could to cover it up, but I am pretty sure she saw right through it.

Another quick story about this same character. In a noble effort to save money on eating out, he decided to turn his cubicle into a kitchen. He now has a fairly large-sized mini-fridge in his cube, along with a toaster with one of those little egg cookers on it, some kind of newfangled meat pocket toasting device that looks like a cross between a toaster and a crock-pot, an actual crock-pot and some kind of thing that looks like an oven-toaster but is actually a microwave I guess. Today for lunch, he had Hamburger Helper cooked in his crock-pot. And yes, each of these devices is against company policy.

R.I.P. DRM!!

This is very good news for music!

Sony Drives Another Nail in the DRM Coffin - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

Post Christmas Videos

He really wants to get the camera. I'm sure to put it in his mouth!

Extreme Close-up, Ethan Style

Help Wanted!

Do you need a job? Considering a career in computer technology? Then do I have the job for you!

Systems Analyst (aka Web Designer)

Plus you get to work with me! What more could you ask for.

Seriously though if you know webpage design then this is a great job. It is with a good solid company with great benefits. What you really need to know is Dreamweaver and html. Knowledge of ASP and javascript are important and experience with Photoshop, Illustrator, and Flash would be a good plus.

Frost Bite

And yet so far the roads are just wet and not icey.






This one is out of focus but I thought it just looked kind of cool.

Samuel

I saw the sun set over the ocean last night.

Last night I saw the sun set over the ocean from about 20,000 ft.  I was unexpectedly on my way to Torrance CA (LA area).  It all started... (begin blurry picture taking you into a flash back sequence).  Friday morning my manager asked to meet me in one of the conference rooms.  I knew something was up because normally we schedule meetings in advance and they usually involve our whole team or at least more than just me.  As I walked to the conference room I had to remind myself that there wasn't any reason to fire me I am just being paranoid.

 

In the meeting I was informed that a gentleman in Torrance had just handed in his resignation with one weeks notice.  He was in charge of a certain portion of our company website and they wanted me to take on his job.  I guess they were planning on moving this position to our department sometime down the road, but his quiting had forced their hand.  They were going to try to fly him out to train me but by lunch I was told that more people than just the guy I was replacing were needed in that task.  So the rest of the afternoon was spent negotiating how long I needed to be here for.  The "higher-ups" wanted me to come on Sunday and stay through Thursday, but in the end we compromised with me coming home Wednesday afternoon (by compromise I mean my manager and I decided to just buy a ticket for Wednesday afternoon and they would just have to deal with it).

 

The website I will be handling is here: http://prosystemfxsupport.tax.cchgroup.com/ It is the support section for all of our software and includes over 13,000 pages.  It is a great opportunity because every department in the company will send me the updates they need for their portion of the site, so it will get my name out there more.  It is also a great opportunity for elevating the stature of my department...

 

So I just found out that the meeting I was waiting around for got canceled.  Time to get something to eat.  With the time change being this last weekend on top of the 2 hour time difference I feel like everything is 3 hours behind.  So right now it is 5:35 but my stomach is telling me it is 8:35 and I should have eaten hours ago.

Purchase wedding pictures

Here is a link to a web album that you can order pictures of the wedding from.

http://nattyman.shutterfly.com/

More Katrina/Joe Wedding Pix

I have never seen Katrina as embarrassed as she was at this moment

Lovely Anna

Waiting for the Bride

Thanks for looking at the camera Chelsea

A few more pictures here...

Congratulations Katrina & Joe!!

more pictures to come...

In Rainbows

I took this with my cellphone leaving work tonight. It was the biggest brightest fullest rainbow I have ever seen. I could clearly see both ends of it and everything in between.


Speaking of Rainbows, you may have noticed I added a little music player over on the right hand side with 3 songs in it. These are from the latest 3 albums that I have bought.

• Alexi Murdoch's Orange Sky from "Time Without Consequence", I think everyone will like. It is kind of folksy laid back music. The entire CD is very simple and peaceful both musically and lyrically.
  
• Radiohead's Bodysnatcher, is my favorite song from their latest album "In Rainbows" (fitting for the picture above), their experimental project allowing you to download the entire album for whatever price you want to pay. The CD itself is nothing ground breaking on their part, but if you like their last few albums you should like this one too.
• Emery is a band whose first 2 albums I bought because Aaron Sprinkle produced them. Then when I listened to the full songs they had screaming in parts of them. I was pretty disappointed at first but I really liked the rest of the music so I thought I would try pushing through. After listening to the songs several times I not only liked them in spite of the screaming but partially because of it. This is the only band with screaming that I have ever liked. Their newest album "I'm Only a man" has very little screaming in it but I would also say it is not quite as good as the last 2 either. This particular song, "The Movie Song" doesn't not have any screaming so listen at ease :-)

My favorite of these three is the one that I only discovered because iTunes recommended it to me and it also has the greatest mass appeal to those of you who read my blog (I think), Alexi Murdoch's "Time Without Consequence".

I don't normally ask questions. Probably for fear of nobody answering them and then looking stupid, but I will take a chance today and ask what are some of the recent albums you bought and did you like them?

Second Chances

Does anyone else have someone from their past that they feel like they could have been a better friend to?  Monday I saw someone here at my office that I have known since 6th grade.  He was with a big group that was going through orientation so I didn't approach him and I don't think he saw me.  I figured I would see him around and catch him at a better time but I haven't seen him since.  We were pretty good friends in 6th grade and that carried over some into Jr. High but started to taper off and I barely even saw him in High School.  Later on he had some trouble with the law.  His mother started going to my Church and I think she really wanted me to pick up my friendship with him again... but it never happened. 

The last time I saw him before Monday was probably at least 5 years ago when he attended that same church for a few months.

I have been looking for him for the last 3 days with no luck, but just a few minutes ago I walked past the empty training room and noticed that the computers had paper name placards on them.  I found the one with his name and left him a short message to call my phone number, not telling him who it was though.

He is one of the people in my life that I always regretted I wasn't more intentional with.  I can't name any one specific incident where I was a jerk to him or anything, just an overall negligence.

Perhaps this week I have a second chance.

Samuels Super Smile