Sorry Google Adsense, please accept my apologies, and my support for your candidacy in ’08.

I have absolutely no idea. It seems like yesterday I was trying to decide whether or not to drive to Wyoming and purchase fireworks, or just go watch them at the local show.
As I think I told you all IN JUNE Anna and I were putting an offer on a house. Geeeez… I’m so sorry for not updating since then.

Anyway, we closed, everything worked out, and we are officially homeowners! This house needed a bit of work (don’t they all?).
Anna had the rest of the week after our closing to begin prepping and painting. I got in that week and tore out all the old carpet. The next couple weeks have been a total blur, but something like the following happened:
We had lots of friends and family stop in to help us, which was priceless. We repainted just about everything inside – the bedrooms, our office, our living room, and our family room. We also painted all of our banisters and spindles white, leaving just the wooden railing on top.
The monday after closing (the week following) Anna started her new job, and had to go to work during the day (though to her credit she was still there every night working).
That week I began my list of projects that I wanted to complete prior to moving in. I probably bit off more than I could chew, but now that we’re on the other side of it all I’m glad we did what we did then, and won’t be sorry we didn’t for the next 10 years.
We decided to recarpet the upstairs and downstairs areas, leaving the main level to be covered in laminate (this pic is not of our house, but is the same material/finish we went with). Laminate is something many of us are familiar with, under the name Pergo. We really wanted to go with bamboo, but we ultimately decided against it due to the wear we are expecting with some kiddies and a large dog running around on our floor, and our lack of desire to maintain a large wood floor (periodic sanding and refinishing).
So, I ordered carpet from a wholesale place in Georgia, and was sure I got a great deal. What I was NOT sure of, was if we ordered enough. Not yet having an installer lined up, we had to do the measurements ourselves, and we weren’t sure how well we did.
Monday morning our shipment arrived from GA, containing our carpet, and our laminate flooring, and several rolls of padding, and several rolls of foam underlayment for the flooring. My Dad and I drove down in his behemoth with our piano trailer attached to pick it all up. Phew… what a workout right before going to dialysis!
Wednesday the carpet installers came (yeah, we finally found some), and did an awesome job installing our carpet upstairs and down.
Well, no more excuses, it was time to get busy on the floor. I had begun on Tuesday, but due to some bad luck I decided to tear out what we had done, and start over. Thursday I really hit it, and thanks to tons of help from Jay, and Barth (both close family friends), we were ready to move in on Sunday. That being said, I didn’t get the last pieces in until just yesterday – one week after moving in. I hear from my Brother that this will be the story of my life as I continue to find projects to tackle around the house.

I will try to get some pics up in the next few days, but rest assured we are in, and are absolutely loving it. We love our green kitchen, our new washer/dryer, smooth top stove (oh yeah!), huge deck, and every other blessing that has come with this house.
Thanks so much to those of you involved in helping us:

Mom
Dad
Momma
Papa
Kim
Dan
Andrew
Andrei
Jacque
Al
Jay
Regina
Barth
Julie
Jeremy

and anyone else who helped us out. This is the worst because I feel like I’m forgetting someone really obvious, but I am afterall sitting at dialysis. So I apologize if I did in fact forget someone, and if I didn’t, then I apologize for this brief dialysis moment, brought to you by the letter F.

Again, I will try to get some pics up, so check back soon (or just subscribe to the rss feed you n00b!)

Thanks again to all for their help – we both (Anna and I) feel very blessed righ tnow.

About three weeks ago a Motorola Sidekick was left in an NYC cab.
I’m sure this happens all the time. I’m sure that sometimes, someone with character makes an effort to return the phone. Most times however, I’m sure that the person who finds it considers it their lucky day, and just keeps it.
Unfortunately for the “Corona Crew”, the phone they stole belonged to someone with a bit of tech savvy. Within hours drama ensued with thousands of hits generated between the story being dug, and being anointed by Slashdot.

So some of us have been following the drama – and finally it comes to a conclusion. The phone has been returned, and the correct people have been punished.
Awesome

Why do people feel that they have the right to other people’s property? This entitlement attitude always baffles me. The idea that if someone left something somewhere, it somehow no longer belongs to them, and it is fair game.
With this logic, shouldn’t burglary be legal as long as the residents aren’t at home and currently handling the property?

What really baffles me with all of this though, is why people have sidekicks in the first place?

Bill Peckham
I’ve mentioned this man’s name before – and will again in the future I’m certain. This is a true ADP. Bill’s ambitious goal is to visit 50 different countries – wait for it -
…
while on dialysis.

Wow

Nor is this ambitious goal overly ardent; Bill has already visited 5 different continents, and has kept track of many of his adventures via pictures and writing in his blog.

Bill blogs at Global Dialysis, and has recently been featured in an educational dialysis video.
a great video for any patients interested in home modalities

Bill has done an amazing job of keeping his head up, and remaining active in the “kidney community”. He is an amazing support to people through his contributions to the dialysis_support list, and is inspiring and educating people daily through his willingness to share his knowledge and experience selflessly.

Kudos to you Bill – you are truly a role model for many of us.

Keep smilin!

I can’t test this in every possible computer configuration (obviously) so I rely on you, my loyal readers to let me know if anything’s amiss.

Thanks!

Please bare with me the next few days as I try to get things up and running correctly.

While you’re waiting, why not head over to our forums and start up a conversation there? We would love to have some new contributors!

You’re welcome…

I’ve had to change a few things though, so PLEASE let me know if anything’s not working correctly, like the RSS/ATOM feeds or anything like that.

Thanks

Of course I would know things like this much much sooner if people actually commented and let me know.

Anyway, it seem to have something to do with how I have things installed right now – I am working on it, and should have it working (in some capacity) momentarily.

This stinks ….

So I’m trying to find something that is full of features, can be run server-side, and is in all other ways awesome.

Jake Braly mentioned drupal, and I’m pretty much hooked on it. It would allow me to house forums, the blog, the web site, and everything else I might want to do, in one easy to configure option.

One appealing thing about something like WordPress is that it seems simpler in its scope, and therefore might be within my ability to use properly.

Both drupal and WordPress are open source, and we all know how cool that is.

Any recommendations from any of you, my loyal readers? Nobody’s really using the forums, so one option is to due away with them until new ones can be created in drupal. First and foremost though is for me to find a new way to blog.
Any suggestions would be great – remember, I’m behind an evil websense-equivalent firewall, and would prefer to access something on my own server rather than theirs.

Nephronurse was kind enough to mention me in her blog a few days back, and I’d like to return the favor. I’d like more than anything to post a comment on her blog and thank her for the “shout” (as we say in the industry) – but since DaVita seems to see the need to block my access to blogger.com I can’t. Sorry … I have been able to finally proxy around most of their protections though, and can finally receive email.

The other blog is one I’ve been reading for several months – it’s a nice guy in Texas named Nathan. Unfortunately Nathan’s kidneys failed due to Polycystic Kidney Disease (aka: PKD). I’ve “spoken” with Nathan a few times via email, and he’s a nice enough guy. Shame he’s having to deal with all of this. He blogged this week that he’s finally listed for transplant. Good for him. Let’s hope the wait is short.
Nathan, if you’re reading this, I know you have questions about self cannulation – and you’re welcome to email privately or comment here, or better yet, start a thread in the forum. I’m happy to help in any way I can with encouragement or information.

Best to both of you, and thanks again for mentioning me in your respective blogs.