Tina was out for the evening so I let the Tort have ice cream. He decided that he wanted two scoops and was very determined to make sure I gave him exactly two. Since mom wasn't home I offered some toppings:
Me: "Would you like cool whip?"
TT: "Yes"
Me: "Would you like chocolate syrup?"
TT: "Oooh, yeah, I LIKE chocolate syrup."
Me: "Would you like ketchup?" (he LOVES ketchup)
TT: "No, Silly Daddy, Ketchup is for chicken nuggets and vegetables."
Check out my new page titled “Running” in the links section. (White writing on blue bar.) I have links to my progress and stats on that page.
I finally got back to running today. I think I kicked my butt on that 4.4 mile run last Wed. It felt great but I really felt it for a couple of days afterword. Tried running on Friday and I felt the soreness with every step.
I took Saturday and Sunday off to recoup. Today was a good run. I ran 3 miles at an average pace of 8:19. I ran negative splits which is progressively faster miles. My splits were: 8:18, 8:08, & 7:51. We shall see what tomorrow brings. I will be running another 3 miles.
My run:
I am “training” for the Taylor Homecoming 5k in Octobor. I remember seeing them set up for that while in College and couldn’t figure out who would be stupid enought to spend their Saturday morning running if someone wasn’t chasing them. Well, I guess I am. I have a 12 week training program that I am using from www.coolrunning.com. It is a beginner program and doesn’t start for another couple of weeks. Towards the end I am going to run another 5k at one of the local churches. I am going to try and grab the same group of guys that ran the last race with me plus one of my developers who is pretending to get into a running pattern.
The jury is still out on my goal for the 5k. I say 7:30/m which would be 23:30 for the race. My boss is trying to convince me that I should shoot for 7 minute miles. I am not against it. Just not sure what shape I need for that. The spare tire needs to be deflated some. That is a shape I would prefer to be with out.
Check back often. I am hoping to learn more about this running thing. My ultimate goal is to qualify with 6 minute splits for the Mini-Half-Marathon they put on in May for the Indy 500 festival. I have to run a 5k in 18:36 to get a good starting position in the Mini. I hear that makes all the difference in the world because you don’t have to run around walkers.
On Sunday my boss called me up and asked if I wanted to run the Freedom Run on July 4th. I have been running for the past month, 5 days a week, so I thought it wouldn't be too bad. I run 4 miles on Saturdays so I figure the 4 mile Freedom run wouldn't be two bad.
So, we registered on Monday. Only, It wasn't a 4 mile run this year. It was a 4.4 mile run. Now, neither one of us has run longer then 4 miles before but we figure that another .4 miles couldn't be too terribly bad, right? Besides, there were two others from the company running. They usually run 6+ miles at a time on their long runs so we figure, if they can do it, we can too.
Having only run for the last month I figure I am going to go out and run my own race. Aaron, who invited me to race, doesn't run as many miles per week as me so I figure he would be a good person to run with to help pace me. The other two, well, they have run a lot more then me so I wasn't going to run with them. I figure they would run a much faster pace and I would not be able to keep up. My goal? Complete 4.4 miles in under 40 minutes. That would be a 9 minute mile pace. That wouldn't be two bad.
At the start Aaron and I head out together. The other two started further up in the pack and take off. We are running at what I figure is a good pace. I was comfortable. We hit mile marker one and I look a the time, 7:59. Ut-oh, we are running a minute per mile faster then what was my goal. I was comfortable so I didn't bother to slow down. I was running at about 85% of my MHR, wasn't feeling winded and my legs weren't tired so I kept the pace.
At about the 1.5 mile mark I lost Aaron. I past a gaggle of girls and he got stuck behind them. He never caught back up and I wasn't going to wait for him. At about 2.0 miles, Alan, who has run a mini-marathon earlier this year, was in my sights. He was one of the ones that took off earlier in the race. He slowed to walk and I caught up with him. We ran together for about .5 miles until he let off the gas and I left him. At this point I had stopped tracking my time. I was just watching my pulse and running a consistent pace.
At the 4 mile mark I passed Tony. He was the other one in our company that ran. He slowed to a walk to grab water. I just kept pushing. I wasn't sure of my time at all but knew that I only had .4 to go. I wasn't going to wait up for anyone.
With the end in sight I pushed my pace a bit for the last 200 meters or so I thought. It just felt like it. I crossed the line at the 35:04 mark. After wondering around, resting and eating some pancakes We checked the results. I finished first of our 4 at 35:04 which is a 7:59 pace. I was very consistent the whole race. Aaron brought up the rear at 36:04 so he was a minute back. Not bad for him as he claims to be a football player and not a runner. The other two landed in between somewhere.
All in All, it was a very good time. I think 3 out of the 4 of us enjoyed the race and the results. Unfortunately Alan didn't run a strategic race, ran too hard at first, so he did not get the results he had hoped for. I think that frustrated him. Oh, and me crossing the line in front of him didn't help either.
I have attached my Nike+ IPOD results here. You will see that it shows me running 4.56 miles in 38.47 miles at a 8:30 pace. Unfortunately I forgot to unlock the IPOD before I tried to stop it so it calculated me standing around, getting water and resting for serveral minutes after I actually finished. Just ignore the drastic drop off at the end of the graph.
As you can see, I ran a very consistent race. I am very pleased with my first race. Next up, 5k (3.1mi) in September. I think a 7:30 pace will be my goal.
Today we decided to venture over to Lowes from some Jimmy Johnson saturation. Okay, so it had nothing to do with JJ. We just needed some home improvement supplies. Flowers for Tina, a spool of weed-eater string for James and a smoke detector for ALL. ( I realized last week that the smoke detector in our house was attached to the security system that is unplugged. OOOPPPS. Only took two years to realize that one.)
The boys were hungry and tired so they got to sit in the cart. We checked out and loaded up the car with our supplies. I began to walk the cart back to its intended location with both boys in the cart. Just a little joke I like to play. As I was walking away from the car, pushing the cart, full of boys, The Tort blurts out "Don't leave us again, Daddy."
For the record, I have never left my sons in the cart. Don't call child protective services. I have taken them home with me after EVERY trip to the store. I promise.
Of course Tina was a little concerned with the "again" part of that statement.
The only explanation I have is that he remembers the one day I pushed the cart into the cart return and pretended to walk away. Must have traumatized him I guess. I didn't even walk away. I just turned around. And The Otter wasn't with us that time.
I guess I should be more concerned about the 'us' then the 'again.'
So, today I woke up and found that there was no water in my shower. It is a very good thing that I tend turn the water on before I lather up. So I walked out to the kitchen and tried the sink . . . Nothing!!
TO THE GARAGE JAMES (or MILES, either way it sounds butler or driverish)!!!!!
It sounded like the pump was still running, sort of. I opened the drain valve on the pressure tank and a little bit of water kinda made its way out on to the garage floor. And in an effort to emulate Shari and give human qualities to inanimate objects, it was a sad pitiful little dribble that crawled, with great effort, out of the drain pipe and sat there, perplexed, on the floor, staring up at me with an expression of "whats next?" Oh wait, maybe that was my reflection in the little puddle.
To give a little background, about a month ago we had water flowing into our garage. We discovered it was from two pipes that were stubbed out, but not capped, in the garage. I am guessing old well pipes. The original well pipes. There was also a puddle outside the garage in the grass. Reuben was kind enough to help me cap the pipes in the garage. We figured since we had 7 inches above the average rain fall it was just overflow from the higher then average water table. Howerver, once the pipes were capped the puddle in the front yard just got bigger. I considered digging it up but wasn't sure I could dig faster then the hole would fill up with water.
Well, today I noticed that the puddle dried up in the yard. Yeah!!!!! Sort-a. After consulting my friendly neighborhood plumber he told me that there was a leak in the pipes or well and that the leak caused the pump to run itself to death. He told me that he could replace it for $1k but would be back replacing that one. I always thought that consumables were far more profitable then items that last a long time; however, he told me it would be much better to fix the leak and invest in a submersible pump. Which, of course, would be a bit more expensive. GO CAPITALISTS. Since he has to dig up the well head to find the leak, he would have to bring it up to code. At that point I might as well upgrade to the submersible.
So, on Friday, we are going to be committing to $2800 in well repairs. I hope that the first shower I take is the best shower I have ever had. It certainly will be the most expensive. :-)
The GOOD news???? A more efficient pump and I will now know where the well head is. Now I will be able to shock the system and hopefully save the investment in a water filter. Ohhh, and The Tort and The Otter will get to watch a lot of digger in the front yard. It will be outside the front window so we will have two permanent nose prints, one slightly lower then the other, on that window.
Along with the deck, the new pump will be installed just in time for visitors.
This year is the year of the deck. Last year we did the patio doors. They led to no-where so now we have to put in a where for them to lead. Actually, last year, after putting in the doors I put in concrete blocks as steps and then found some left over bricks and made a 2 x 3 foot patio. Not much to look at and wasn't very conducive to putting a grill, patio table and deck chairs on.
So, this year we (and by we I mean 'I') are going to fix that. I spent lots of time trying to decide what we wanted. Even got a quote from a contractor. We decided on a 12 x 4 deck with a 16 x 14 add on. As you will see in the picture we have an A/C condenser by the door so it cut into our deck.
First quote came in at $2600 dollars. Basically it was $10 a square foot. It seemed like anything we wanted to do was going to be $10 a sqr foot. So I went to Menards to check out what they have. They use a neat little program that allows you to design your deck and then print out pricing materials. I couldn't figure out what ALL those materials were going to be used for. This brought the price down to $1300. Alright, $5 a square foot. Cut the price in half and now I get to spend some sweat equity. I don't mind. I can construct. I learnt from my dad. He made me do all kinds of things around the farm.
(hold on, got to go see what The Otter is up to)
Okay, I am back, He found a big bag of goldfish. Luckily they didn't get dumped.
So, then I went to Lowes to begin buying materials. (See that, design it at Menards and buy from Lowes.) At Lowes something called Deck blocks caught my eye. (dragged it 15 feet) I started looking at them. They seemed to be easier to install. The ad said "Easier to install and cheaper". Those are my two mottos. I went to their website, http://www.deckplans.com/, and found the plan I wanted. It gave me a pricing guide to send to the store and get a quote. Came back at $750. Wahoo, even cheaperer.
So, Sunday they delivered the materials. Only 4 items on the list, 4×6s, 4X4s, Deck Piers, and lots and lots of screws. Makes Menards material list look crazy.
Sunday was day one of installation. I spent 4 hours working on getting the first 8 deck piers and 4 4×6s in. Since I have the 4×4 cut out around the A/C condenser I had to take their installation "guide" and modify it a little. I also had to level and square. I don't like leveling and squaring. I am impatient. I want it to do it automagically. I have provided the view from the yard to the house and from the house to the yard for the End of Day 1.
Monday I had to go back to work. The days have been beautiful but I figured that I would work on it when I got home from work. WRONG!!!!!! There were other things to do. Don't remember what but there just wasn't any time to work on the deck even if we have light until midnight during EST.
Tuesday was going to be beautiful and it was scheduled to rain a lot this week. So, I called in sick. Just kidding. We have PTO (Paid Time Off) so I called in, OFF and worked on the deck. I put in a full 8 hours of work. I don't think I have worked that hard in a while. The end result is that all 30 piers are in and all 12 2×6s are screwed to them. In case you are keeping track the 4×4 posts are being used. They are used to level the deck in the piers. Since my deck is only 18 inches off the ground I only needed 1 1/2 to 3 1/2 inches of 4×4. This means that of the 6 4×4 posts I had delivered I am only going to use 1 of them. That means I get to take 5 back and get a $35 refund.
The next step is place gravel in the appropriate spots to reduce foliage and make it easier to mow around. After the stones are in place I will put on the deck boards. After that is the steps and the railings. I haven't purchased those yet. We will do that in August.
The good news is that so far in this whole process I have only scraped one knuckle and The Otter fell out the patio door scraping his head on stones only once. Of course this was because Tina had the door open and was yelling at gently correcting The Tort to stay out of the water. The Otter just slipped out right next to her and dove 18 inches head first into the stones. I give him a 10 for style.
Alex did really well last night. Slept most of the night. He only woke up once for a long drink on his sippy cup. He slept until 7am this morning and has been happy/fussy calling for "mumma" this morning. I have alternated toys, holding him, gram-crackers and a sippy cup this morning trying to make him happy.
The pediatric orthopedic Dr showed up this morning to look in on him. Will, once again, tried to get as far away from him as possible. I don't think he likes that guy. He said that we can remove the ace bandage sometime today.
We are waiting on Dr. Belcher (Infectious Disease) to arrange for the antibiotics. Dr. Didelo said that it was up to Belcher as to when we can head out.
Of course, if we ARE released today we have to deal with the snow storm we have here. They are claiming that it has the potential to rival the blizzard of '78. The county we live in is the southern most "snow" county. Below us it is a wintry mix of freezing rain and snow.
Dr. Zipes (hospital Dr.) and Dr. Belcher (the Infectious Disease Dr. who looks like Jimmy Johnson) finally got together with Dr. Didilo (surgeon) to decipher his notes. They decided that there really WAS a bone infection and that Alex will need to be on three weeks of antibiotics.
The plan is to install a PIC IV in his arm tomorrow. This will allow us (by us I mean, Tina) to administer the antibiotics from home. Dr. Belcher's office is about 20 blocks down the road (by road I mean, highway). This will allow us to pickup the antibiotics from his office and get info from them and not have to rely on a home health care service and we won't have to drive down to the hospital (about 15 minutes away). (its so nice to no longer live in the "sticks", or a town that is situated in the "sticks.") (This is Tina adding in a large AMEN to that! I was thinking of that when we kept going back/forth, how much easier this is to be 15 min. from the big hospital, not 45).
The goal and hope is that they will put the PIC in tomorrow morning. They will need to put him under again since it is more then a little prick. Apparently they put a catheter in the vein in his arm up into a vein in his shoulder. This is a more "robust" IV so it should last 3 weeks without needing to be replaced. (Or so they hope.) He will need to recover from the sedation and then we can go home. That should be Monday evening or Tuesday morning. I (and by I, I mean WE) vote for Monday evening. We have a Valentines dinner Tuesday night that we just can't miss.
Thank you for ALL your prayers and support. God is a GREAT and we appreciate having the family he has given to us. This experience has proved to Tina that we finally found a church we can call home. Thank you Faith and Intersection.
Tina let me stay the night with Alex last night. She needed to get a good nights sleep so she slept at home. I camped out on the "sofa"? bed.
The night went well. He had a couple more rounds of antibiotics and fluids in his IV. Since he has had problems with his IV's his IV would enclude(sp?). This morning they had to flush out the IV so that they could get this mornings round of antibiotics in.
His main doctor came in and was pleased with how well he is doing. The Dr. said that he wants to get the Infectious Disease guy, the surgeon and himself all together so that they can come up with a game plan. Later the surgeon came in to check on Alex. Alex recognized him and tried climbing up me to get away from him. Alex was not happy to see him at all. He gave me the same low down he gave Tina stating that they found fluid in the ankle but it wasn't 'yucky pussy.' When he looked at the bone he saw a layer was off the bone indicating an infection. He said he put a stint in it to allow it to drain. He will remove that tomorrow. He says it just slides out.
We now have conflicting opinions. The disease guy says that it isn't a bone infection yet the surgeon thinks it was or is. The disease guys says that we would just need oral antibodies; however the surgeon says he will still need IV for a few more days. Not three weeks like we thought at first but longer the disease guy thinks. I say that they all need to get on a conference call together and get on the same page.
They just finished his latest round of antibiotic and are flushing the IV. Once that is done the nurse will "DC" him and we can then go hang out in the play room. Get him out of this cabin feverish room.
