So, where have I been? Just doin the same ol same ol. Work has been a bit busy. It has been necessary to work at the call centers this week and last, and that burns me out pretty quick. I like my nice office! Today I get a repreive from the call center smells, sounds, and situations and get to work from my office so this is a nice change of pace.

I’m still plugging away at my studies every chance I get. Trying to breathe new life into my home schedule so I can get many of my side projects goin proper again. One site I’m working on right now was so near completion, and in the same spirit of the apprentice painter always putting that “last stroke” on the painting, I’ve had to tear it completely down and redesign it! Ahhh learning… :-D

Rhys’ big thing lately is fear. He’s scared of everything.  Like EVERYTHING: bugs, shadows, birds, shadows of bugs, being alone, his basketball hoop, the dolphin mobile in his room. You name it, and this kid will jump 20 feet in the blink of an eye! I guess it’s a phase. We are working with him, of course, but it’s slow goin.

He has found his new favorite game. His first real computer game that he fully understands! As a gamer dad, I’m so proud. We’ve been playing Peggle. It’s a PopCap game. If you like puzzle games, I’d recommend checking it out. It’s a good one.

Both Heidi and I have readjusted our outlook on things. Kinda stepped back to look at what is truly important in our lives, where we want to be, etc… So, we’ve redoubled our efforts to get back on track, as we both feel like we may have lost our way a bit. Things are goin good in that area, and we feel like we’ve got some good direction for once in a long time.

Hello there my faithful readers! It’s been forever and a day, and I wanted to just drop a line to say we’re still alive and kicking… The running theme these days seems to be sickness. Rhys has a cough right now, but he just got over (or is getting over) a real nasty stomach bug. It turned him into a human lawn sprinkler if you catch my drift. Poor kid just can’t seem to catch a break! On top of that, Heidi was diagnosed with Bronchitis! YAY! So much for riding this out until we get back on insurance. Chalk that up to another one of my brilliant foresights… I have remained sickness free, which is important when you have a new job.

I’m still working on websites on the side, and have been working with a local politician. A friend of mine and I are thinking of marketing to the local political scene to see if we can drum up some beer money. The market is ripe, and we have the skills. Might as well try capitalizing on it. At the worst it’s a learning experience — such is life.

Not too long ago, Rhys when #2 on the big boy potty for the very first time! So, he got himself a brand new red bicycle! He’s so excited about it. Even in his weakened condition, he insists on riding his bike outside a little bit each day. He gets about two good pedals in and then has to rest to catch his breath and drink some Gatorade! LOL  He’s a trooper! Of course, we don’t let him take it too far! What’s more, with me concentrating on studies, mom seems to be the one taking him out most of the time. I swear I will do more here soon, but studies take priority right now.

Speaking of studies, I’m studying up on .NET programming. Both the Win32 side and the Web App side. It’s so good to be back in Visual Studio, even for my Open Source projects. I have to hand it to Microsoft with Visual Studio, it’s just some bad ass shit. I gave my old copy of Studio to the neighbor kid who has shown an interest in programming — my good deed for the month. Hopefully he doesn’t squander the opportunity to take the free time in his life right now, and get a leg up on the working world.

That’s about it. Nothing too interesting, and I’m sure I am forgetting quite a bit of shit, but I’ll write more in here, I promise. Even if it is fluff, like this. :)

Pretty uneventful weekend in our neck of the woods. The most exciting thing about this weekend was my allergic reaction to my cat… He was being so nice, and acting like he missed me or something. So, I pet him. Just a little. Not even a minute long. Next thing I know my eye starts feeling funny. Before I know it my eye is swelled up so big I can’t open it. I looked like Rocky Balboa after a fight with Mr T. Just for the record, Clartin doesn’t help… I know, why I thought it would I have no idea. Dimetap no worky either. Benadryl finally did the trick. OMG.

Other than that, the other news is Heidi and Rhys are back to school tomorrow. Of course I am back to work tomorrow as well. Hopefully I can make it through the week quickly and quietly. Well, here we go! Let’s see what Monday has to throw at us!

Ok, Monday is coming to a close. It was all a hazy ass blur to me. I was pretty much exhausted through the whole thing, and now I am getting ready to call it quits and recharge for tomorrow. Tuesday usually packs more of a punch that Monday, and I have to get ready for it.

Rhys went to the doctor today, and the decision is “Hurry up and wait more!” Doc says he doesn’t want to put tubes in Rhys’ ears given his medical history and the infection does seem to be getting better. He still has fluid behind his ears and if that doesn’t start to get better, we will go ahead with the tubes. But, for now we are continuing on the antibiotics and hoping for the best.

The meds got him feeling pretty bad, so he’s still out of school for this week. Planning on returning to school (and mom back to work) next week. Is it possible things could get back to normal next week?! NO WAY!! LOL

Ok… It started early last week… Rhys started having bad asthma attacks at school when playing. When you see a 4 year old stop in his tracks and brace himself on a bench, you tend to think something’s wrong. So, then he would vomit. You know because that’s what happens when you have a bad asthma attack. Only he was vomiting foamy shit… Of course we thought, yay, pneumonia.

Heidi takes him to the doctor to get checked out and they tell us he has a sinus infection. Lungs sound fine though so that’s good, but the drainage is making him miserable. He still hasn’t mastered the art of blowing his nose. On top of all this, I’m sick at the same time. Same symptoms. My head feels like someone pumped it full of jello, and my hearing is like my head has been sealed in a tin can. No biggie. I’m still going to work at this point.

So, Friday rolls around. We find out that Heidi’s step-mom coded in the hospital and is probably going to die. The family of course is in a dither. Half because they feed on drama, and half because, well, someone is dying… I’m thinking at this point, let’s just make it to the fucking weekend.

YAY! It’s the weekend! We’ll get to recharge a bit. Rhys man is on his antibiotics, I don’t have to deal with work or anything like that, and Heidi will have a fraction more help with me around… It’s too bad I cramp her style considerably more than a fraction in return, but that’s the way it goes… I love you, honey!! :)

Everything is going well, and we are all getting ready for bed. The plan is we will all hunker down in our huge bed, Rhys and I can share the heating blanket, and we can just vege out and watch something on the idiot box. Time to drift off to sleep.

Rhys then starts writing around and moaning. We feel bad of course, because well, he’s sick. There’s no consoling him at this point, so we start worrying. He’s poking at his ears and telling us it hurts. He has a headache, and of course he’s also giving us the classic answer of “I don’t know” when probed to find out what’s ailing him.

After trying to get him feeling better with no success, we decide to take him to the ER.. Since, you know, it’s 2300 and no Urgent Care centers are open. Soon as we get in the car to go, he stops writhing… So of course we start questioning the severity of his condition. I don’t know about your ER, but the ERs here are filled with freakiest members of society. Especially, at this hour… After we drive a long time and he is still not moaning and writhing, we decide it would be better to wait it out and hit up the Urcgent Care in the morning.

Once we get home, he starts writhing around again and of course there is no consoling him. So, it’s now 0200 and we decide fuck it, we need to get him seen right away. Load up in the car and head out. Once again, he stops writhing once he’s seated and we’re driving. This time we decide to ignore it and get him seen.

We get to the ER. It’s 0200 on a Saturday night… Or Sunday Morning… Whatever. We walk into the ER. I see the lobby, and there’s maybe like 6 people in there. Of course I thought “ok, this isn’t so bad.”. We sign in and decide to sit down to wait. It was then that I noticed, the ER was made of three rooms. The Lobby and two other rooms off of that. All of them are waiting rooms. Hey! Look! All the other rooms are filled with sick people. The orchestra of sickness in this place is about to drive me mad.

There’s the girl there with her boyfriend. She appears to be fine. As we sit down, she is getting up and verbally assaults her man . Something about her blood pressure being fine, and “CAN WE JUST GO HOME NOW!?”

Off in the other corner is some chick with her man. Her man is laying prone on the couch. Covered with one of those oh so comfortable hospital blankets, and a spit basin on the floor next to him. Crumpled up next to that is what appears to be blood soaked tissue paper.

It was then we decided to go home and wait it out.

Now it’s Sunday and Heidi took Rhys to Urgent Care. Turns out he has a sinus infection, and an ear infection. So, they give him some new antibiotics because obviously the other one isn’t working. Of course, he has trouble keeping the antibiotics down. He also has another medication for the pain in his ear. Eardrops. He handles that med just fine. Unfortunately, this med is just for the pain, and not at all for healing. The healing medication has ended up all over the carpet mixed with half digested rice and butter every time he’s taken in.

We talk to his doctor and we find out Rhys also has a stomach bug too… So, that coupled with the utter nastiness of the medication will keep him from getting better quickly.

So, here we are. Monday. Heidi and I are running on probably 7 hours of sleep for the entire weekend. We’ve both called in to work, her for the entire week, and me for just today. Though I will be calling in tomorrow too. Rhys’ ears are driving him insane, and he can’t take the meds that will make him better. My ears are driving me crazy, I’m too dizzy to think (this post has taken about 4 hours to make), and I need sleep. Heidi thankfully is not yet sick, and is still hanging in there.

… Oh, and as if the world isn’t weird enough… It’s snowing at Rhys’ school!?