Getting Sick

Well the office I work at is fighting a huge BUG. Yep we have like 25% of the office out sick right now. My wife has been sick and fighting the BUG for almost 3 weeks also. WELL I bet you can almost guess what is happening next. YEP, I am fighting a cough, achy head, sore shoulders, congestion. BUT I AM FIGHTING IT.

I do not have time to get sick. I have to many clients needing me right now with work. I have as you have seen a truck that is broke and needing fixed. And the most important part is I have a dance to go to this Sunday. I will write about the dance afterwards.

Here is what I am doing to fight the BUG. I am washing my hands after I leave every persons desk at work. I am taking lots of vitamins. I am continuing to exercise with doing both 7 miles at lunch today and I got in 45 minutes of Basketball tonight. I think the sweat of exercising helps as I have never really gotten sick since I started running regularly. I am hoping this rule continues.

On a side note 1 HUGE gain lately is my again being on Ridiculous Chicks Blog Role. WOOOHOO. I read hers all the time and thus feel glad to be on her list. Also Thanks Ridiculous for the running support. I keep rooting for you to get running again.

This last weekend was long and tough. To start on Saturday I ran another 13.1 miles. This time I ran 2.5 miles over to a mountain, then ran 1.5 miles up the side of the mountain, back down the trail, then back the 1.5 miles up the mountain, and back down the mountain, and finished running flat ground back to my car. So I did the 13.1 miles with 6 of it on a hiking trail and 3 of it up the side of a mountain.

Then I went to my parent’s house where I spent 6 hours crawling around my truck starting to remove then engine. I went back again on Sunday and spent another 6 hours lying under the truck still removing the engine. After all this the engine is now sitting on an engine stand in front of my truck.

After removing the oil pan can now see what broke in the engine. As you can see in the picture it was the Crank Shaft broke. I had been looking for an engine to put back in. I could buy an engine with 100k miles on it from a junk yard for around $1400. I could buy a rebuilt engine online for around $1700. I could buy a remanufactured engine for around $2300. I could buy a brand new GM engine for $2500.

With that I am going to buy a new engine and hopefully spend another weekend putting it back in my truck. I want my truck back as I don’t really care for driving the car I am right now. I mean it is a good car and all but I am a truck kind of guy.

Motivation

A couple I know and run with that are husband and wife snuck away and didn’t tell anyone and went and ran the Dallas Marathon. The husband recently sent out a 26 page document of the details of the marathon trip they took. It was very interesting to read. It made me remember my marathon last May and how much it hurt and I swore to never do that again. The crying, the cramps, and the time it took to do it along with the training.

Then today I was running with a couple of friends. Both are marathoners. It seems all I run with are marathoners. They stired again a small fire in me to think that maybe I should do another one. I know I could beat that dang 5 hour time I did the last time. Last time I went in injured and actually people were surprised to see me at the start line that morning. So injured I still finished. I worked through the phsyical and the emotional pain. Hmmm small fire but still a fire. One friend is constantly saying you train and you are a runner to me, if I wasn’t I would not be doing 30+ miles a week.

Then tonight I went to a special showing of a documentary movie. It is called The Spirit of the Marathon. It features Deena Castor and a Kenyan as the elite runners along with a mix of other normal people all running for different personal reasons. It was all leading upto and watching them all finish the 2005 Chicago Marathon. I watched the movie with a smattering of 20+ running friends. After the movie they are all asking so are you motivated to do another one? Did you see the sign in the movie saying “You are all Crazy!” They all smile and I think they see something in me I am not fully letting myself see but maybe a bit now.

What the movie did let me see is some of the things I missed by worring about my 5 hours time. The parts of I FINISHED a MARATHON! I completed it through PAIN and INJURY. I have done something most people say they can’t do. I have the abilty to do it again and do it better. That dang little spark is growing again and nagging at me some. One thing is says is ALMOST ANYONE can do a marathon and say they have done a marathon. BUT to be a marathonER you might have to do 2. DAMN I need to go to bed before I sell myself on doing another.

AND Gator wins with the Flames. He wins a hug from Bunny someday.

AND AND Ney with all this running talk means I am running, and it is cold and I am wearing tights all the time. I have pics in the black but not the blue. Ohh and a gal runner the other day mentioned she liked the view in the tights from the rear. :)

Beards

I think some people are not sure how I cut my beard. The shape is supposed to be flames. I thought I would share another picture and a story as well. This story tells you how much men pay attention to details. As you can see in the picture below I also had it died in an effort to make the flames look even wilder.

So my beard is cut in the shape of flames and is died as seen around 6pm Sunday night. At 7pm I went to play basketball at my normal pickup games. I enter the gym and there is 11 guys there to play. We begin playing and play for 1.5 hours straight. During this time I am sweating and the dye is coming out of my beard. By the end of the night my white shirt is now colored purple from the dye.

Not 1 guy there said 1 thing. I have a cut up beard, It is died, The dye is running down into my shirt and nothing. Not a what are you sick? Are you bleeding? What is that purple dye? Nothing.

Relieveing stress with tears and fun.

I thought I would share something I did today with all of you. There were two major things that happened to me. First I got to my daughters softball practice and the place we were to hold it messed up our time. So we canceled practice on the way home talked to my wife and we decided to catch a movie. So we all went to the movies and of course we can’t decide on a movie. So the girls went to 27 Dresses and us guys went to The Bucket List.

I highly recommend this movie. At the end I was watery eyed and swore to make my own Bucket List. I read a book a while ago and had made a list of things I need to do in my life time. I am going to pull that list out again and do some modifying of it. My wife helped me complete one item on my list a couple years ago when she bought me a sky diving trip. Now it is time for me to pull the list and maybe look at another item. Life is too short and I am going to start making more of it. I might even begin being a bit pushier and going after things I want in some cases. Hmm watch out.

At work we are doing this open house, silent auction for a charity event on Thursday. It should be a great event. Well if you remember Cubed shaved his beard and there was this small thing a bunch of us guys were doing. We were growing our beards and then shaving in a design. I had mine shaved today and thought I would share it. Can you tell me what it is suppose to be?

Another Day of Problems

A friend was circling my desk this afternoon when I came walking back. She pulled asked if I had a moment to which I said of course. I immediately picked up on she was upset and needing to off load some troubles. As I saw the tears coming I pulled her into the conference room where she cried for a bit. I gave her a hug and listened to the problem. Of course wouldn’t you know that as soon as that happened people were looking for me? Each of them saw I was helping a friend though and I have to say I work with a bunch of truly awesome people. They backed out when they saw I was helping a friend. I have a couple resources I told her I would check into that could help with her problem. So I still have to contact them tonight for her.

I got a call on my truck this afternoon from the mechanic. He did get it to start and it is a couple of rod bearings gone out. In other words I need a new engine. He quoted me around $5000 to repair it. I also know the transmission is going out and I been babying it for a couple years. That would be another $2500. So here is the question do I spend $7500 on a truck that has a trade in value of $7500?

I am going to have to figure out another way to fix it. Which means doing what I always seem to have to do? Same thing I did with my son’s car haul it home put it in my garage and begin figuring out how to fix it myself. I have worked and changed engines in the past on cars and built my dune buggy so I can do this too. Just not the way I like spending my time. I have found a rebuilt short block online already for $1500. Talked with my mom some and she will let my dad know I might be hauling my truck to his garage since he has engine lifts and room to do the work. Seems I always have to do stuff myself to save money but on the other hand that is why I know how to do so many things. I dig in and learn.

I also found out tonight that my like Gator I have a loss in my family today. I have a Great Uncle that passed away today. I Uncle Max died today at the age of 83 to Cancer. We have been expecting him to go with a bad heart but the cancer got him instead.

SO another day of Stress over what will tomorrow bring?

Stress

The wind is still blowing today and is colder then crap. A friend emailed me and asked if I could run at lunch to which I said yes knowing the wind would suck. I headed out from work as is normal for home to get ready to run. Even with the wind I know I needed a run. There has been some added stress lately in my life with my sister being sick, a couple of friends needing some help, and then at work this morning I made a small mistake and deleted some major files. We were able to recover them though but the stress was still there.

I wonder if the chest has become a stress indicator since it has been hurting all week with all this adding up. It does seem to get better after a run so I left work and headed for home to run. I was half way home when there was a Rattle, then a loud Pop and something that sounded like pieces flying around and the engine in my truck died. I quickly coasted to the side of the road.

I tried to restart it a few times and all I got was a thud from the starter. I thought of calling my wife to come get me but she is home sick with a 100 degree fever, more stress this week with her sick. I locked my truck and started to walk for home when I got the bright idea to call my mom. Parents are the only people you can always trust to be there. My dad was only a mile from me and he is always in his truck. He came right over and we put a chain on the trucks and he pulled me all the way across town to a mechanic shop.

So my truck is now there with what I am certain to be a major problem. I rode back with my dad to my sisters. Bright spot here when I entered her house she voice was happy and normal. She was sitting at the kitchen table. She hopped up made me a turkey sandwich, chips and an orange and tossed me her key to her Lexus 400h. She said “with the surgery I can’t drive for 6 weeks and I like my van so you take this till you get your truck back. It helped to see her feeling so good and looking better out of the hospital.

Windy

I did a run tonight of 8 miles. IT SUCKED. We have a storm coming in tonight and the wind out of the North was so cold. I and one gal ran for 2 miles into it and was freezing. We picked up a second gal at 2 miles and turned and ran with the wind for 6 miles. Then called my son and had him come pick us up and bring us back home. Took a hot shower and warmed back up. I hate winter.

This storm coming in fits too. I washed the cars last night. Time to get them dirty.

Take note here again since this seems to ba journal and timeline of things in life. My chest pain came back again last night. Went away today but returned after my run. I think I have a cracked rib or my son mentioned a separated rib??

Ohh and I wore the black tights tonight.

Sister is Home

WOOHOO just got a text from my sister. She is home! Now hopefully she can manage and stay home.

Ney Blue or Black?

Car Story

For Christmas my son received a gift for his car. It was a Ready Remote Auto Start and Power Door Locks kit. Since it is cold out and he has to park outside this is a pretty cool gift to get. He can start his car and let it warm up from the house. Of course being a 16 year old he wants to go out and install it at 7pm one night. Let’s get this installed he keeps bothering me as he wants to use it the next day. I won’t do it but I agree to watch the DVD on how it is installed and start working through the process. I watch the DVD and there is a bunch of wires to connect, a hood kill switch, and that is about it. There is an online code to get the wiring diagrams and phone support 24x7.

My son leaves for a couple days to visit his dad and we forget the kit for a week. Another week goes by once he gets home and I agree to last Sunday start working on it.

Sunday: We pull it in the garage and I tell him to remove the lower parts of the dash. He does this and then I start looking under the dash for the wiring harness to start figuring out the kit. After a bit I am thinking NO WAY. I had got this name of a guy, Dudley, in a small town 2 minutes from here that is starting a new shop up and trying to build his clientele and works at a reasonable price. I thought give him a call. He quotes me 2 hours of work at $60 per hour. Ok $120 lets have him do the work which he says he can do it on Monday. My son and I deliver the car to him Sunday so he has it for Monday.

Monday: It is in the afternoon when I hear from Dudley that the tech he had working on the car got sick and needed to go to the Doctor. I said fine we can live another day.

Tuesday: It is again afternoon and he says they started working on it at 10am. Dudley asks me about an alarm system. I don’t know of one and he says he will keep working on the car. He calls back shortly again and says yes it has a factory one on it through the Radio. If the car is tried to be started without a key in the ignition the alarm will kill the fuel to the engine. It will not start and he will have to buy this bypass switch to install. He does some looking and Car Toys sells it for $100. In the mean time I and my son find it online for $35. Dudley checks and can get it from an Auto Store for $23. It is not the one that is called for but is suppose to work. If it won’t work we can take it back and order the right one for $35 and wait 3 days for it. We try the $23 one. We will not see the car till tomorrow. OK.

Wednesday: Talk to Dudley in the am. He called in sick to his night job so he could stay and work on this car. They, him and his tech, worked on it till 4am. Still would not work right. They had already spent a couple hours with tech support for this Ready Remote kit.

Thursday: Dudley found that there were 2 more relays that needed to be bought to be put in the car to allow it to start correctly. He also figured out that the alarm on the car had to be reset and that cost him $800 to by this computer to plug into the car to reset the car’s computer and reset the alarm. In this case he is a new shop and this is now a tool he has for working on cars. His tech is working on car finalizing the soldering and they think they will be able to get us the car around 9pm. Now if you see my previous posts I am at the hospital with my sister when all this is happening. At 9:30pm my wife calls me and asks where Dudley and the car is? I call Dudley and leave a message. He returns my call around 10pm and says he is ready to bring it over. I say too late, I am at the hospital and my wife and kids are all in bed. See you in the morning.

Friday: Dudley calls and I ask him to bring the car to me here at work. He does and shows me all the features and demos the job. It works awesome and I think my son will love this feature. I might even thing about it for my cars. Lesson learned though I made the right decision to not install this item. I wondered if Dudley learned a lesson of not doing these anymore. I asked him and he said he would gladly do another. He fills confident now to do the work on them and I think learned a lot.

SO the take aways of this experience I would like to share.
1) Do NOT try this install on your own.
2) Hire a professional to do the work that will stand by getting it done.
3) Plan more down time for the car then you thought.

Morning Update

Well the pain killer my sister took last night made her really sick. I spent the night walking the halls with her, rubbing her head and trying to help her get through the sickness. Her husband showed up at 2 am and started talking to the doctors and researching the drugs online and I kept walking my sister. I left at 3:30am for home got around 2.5 hours of sleep before coming into work. I am draggggginnnnnnnnnnnngggggggggg............. oooopssss sorry fell asleep on keyboard.

Second Update

Okay so still sitting here at 11:30 they decided they needed to change her IV. They got her all prepped and I am over on the other side holding her hand as they poke her. She is crying and cringing in pain. The IV doesn’t work and the nurse says hmmm I think I missed the vein. He calls in another gal to do it. She preps and looks and doesn’t find the right spot and they look to get some light skin pain killer before attempting poking her again. So she is not able to sleep as we wait for all this to happen. It is amazing we use hospitals to get better and yet they keep you up all night poking you.

They just came back and said they can’t give the pain stuff as that can only be done by ER people. They are very busy tonight with emergency stuff which makes me also wonder. They are about to poke her again and try another vein. This Nurse was able to get a good IV.

I will update again tomorrow with what I know as my battery is about dead on laptop. Not bad as it has lasted almost 3.5 hours now. Also if you all remind me I have a wonderful car story to share if you want.

Sister in Pain

Ok thought I would write a bit while I sit here in the hospital with my sister. She was again in a lot of pain today. It is mostly the infection that is hurting. She is also very worn out and is sleeping a lot. Every so often she will be sleeping and then wake crying ouch in pain. Then she wakes I take a walk with her and then she sleeps again. Her husband had an overnight business trip to New York last night. My other sister stayed here with her. Tonight I am here till around 2 am till her husband gets back in from his flight home. She is again sleeping as I type and enter stuff on my pc for the next 4 hours. Trying to be a good brother.

A friend took a couple pictures of me today after running. How is that for a tease.

Amazing Videos.

I seem to be a bit post happy lately. Thought I would share a couple videos I recently recieved from friends. This first one I would so like ot put my Jet Ski out there. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0Pw7vKtqpo

Because of this video and what these people do allows the rest of us to make wishes like I made above. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y90UPLLo6nY

Sis update

I picked up my nephew and then took him, my daughter and went and saw my sister tonight at the hospital. She had a head ache but the drugs were working and she was feeling better. They think it was the mix of antibiotics and pain medicine causing her the pain. The Pneumonia didn’t help. They are saying if all goes well she will get released on Friday. We have to get her well.

Okay guess I have to clear some things up. We don’t wear tights for Basketball. I wear running tights for running in the cold. I have a black and blue pair. I was running today and with a couple friends and they were talking about my blue tights. They like them better then the black ones. Not sure why?

For basketball some guys wear long shorts some wear shorter shorts. Not a retro league just a bunch of old FAT guys, like me, out trying to get a little running in for exercise.

You have me wondering about these pictures?

Last night’s game most of the guys were sucking wind and would run a couple minutes and want out. My son and I played the most minutes because we could run the whole time. It pays to be in shape that way.

Sister this AM

Well as of 11pm last night the Cat Scan came back positive. All the pieces of the surgery was holding and looking good. That means my sister is healing and at the moment does not have to go back to the distant hospital and can stay here in our local one. They said her Pneumonia was back a bit more and so will have to be in this hosipital for a couple days again.

Again I will update when I hear more again.

Sister Back in Hospital

My mom called tonight. Asked for me to go pick up my nephew from my sister’s house, I sent my son over to get him and when they got back to the house, my son said my sister was crying in pain.

They took my sister back to the hospital. After getting the pain under control with Morphine they are now working to figure out the pain. I just talked to my mom and they are doing a cat scan on her now. If she is leaking in any of the surgery she will have to head back to another hospital an hour away to get back to the surgeon that can help her.

I also had my first basketball league game. Most of the guys are so rusty we got killed. I didn’t get any pictures for you Ney or Bunny.  I will work on the in tights one though. Mainly because I know Cubed would freak if I posted them and he looked. He is still crying about the white jeans.

Guess that makes a bad night for a bunch of us. I will update you on my sister when I know more.

Sister Update

My sister is coming home from the hosiptal today. Fact is as I am writing this she should be checking out.

I just finished my morning weekend run. Started the year with a 1/2 marathon of 13.1 mile run. I am a bit tired now but will recoup in a couple hours.

I ran it in my new running tights. This makes me wonder is it okay for me to be in running tights but no short shorts? Hey ney want some pictures of me as I play basketball in the league this Monday night. I wear the classic Basketball attire you mentioned. :)

Sister Update

Sister is getting better. Her blood count was too low yesterday so they gave her 2 units of blood. With everything now the hope is for her to come home tomorrow. There is only 1 doctor in this state that will even do this surgery and at this point he is not ready for her to head home. Right now she has been in there 9 days. Thanks for all your support.

I am keeping the white 501’s. I am old enough to have already seen fads return and I am ready for this one. I am trying to find my really SHORT Corduroy OP shorts for this summer. Or maybe I should just buy them from here http://www.logo-it.net/corduroyshorts.htm

Happy NEW YEAR!!

First of all I would like to say Happy New Year to everyone. May 2008 it be a wonderful year and everyone has a safe and healthy year.

I am writing this as I am again trekking a little over an hour drive to see my sister. She has been in the hospital now since the 26th after having 6 hours of pelvic floor surgery. I was down seeing her Friday, then all day Sunday, Monday afternoon and now New Years day heading to see her again. She is fighting infections and pneumonia now and is very sick and in a lot of pain. I hate this drive but I have to go see and try to support my sister. She is on my mind of course a lot right now as I am worried for her. Please add her to your prayers as she tries to get well for 2008. I am of course supported by my wife as she is driving me down right now and allowing me the time to write this and work on my laptop.

We went to some friends last night to see in the New Year. Had dinner and then some games. I ended up playing some poker and in the end split the pot for the winnings. Over all I had a fun time there and enjoyed hanging with some new friends. The funny part is you had to come dressed up as a famous couple. We have Julie and Captain Stubbing, Pregnant Raggedy Ann and Andy, Mork and Mindy, and we went as Yin and Yang. I had to submit this picture as Cubed has actually seen me wear these jeans before. They are White 501’s from many years ago that I still have.

Enjoy the laugh and everyone again have a Safe and Happy New Year.