ace’s blog

I signed up for Wibiya a while ago, when I read about it on a tech blog (of which I can’t remember at the moment). I quickly got an invite and it sat…for a very long time. Busy with life and in the “neglect the blog” phase I suppose.

I’m finally getting around to installing it on my blog but I can’t – I’m having issues at the final step. The problem I’m having is that the only link that I can click on the finalization step is the blogger image. This blog is a self-hosted wordpress install. I went to getsatisfaction.com and submitted a question about it. I twittered about it and mentioned @wibiya. I’m hoping that I hear something back soon.

I did a few google searches for this issue and didn’t find anything, so I think I’m missing a step somewhere.

…and before I can click “Publish”, I got a response from @wibiya on twitter letting me know that they are looking into it. That was fast…yet another reason that I’m loving twitter more and more.

Update: It’s fixed! That was awesomely fast! Thanks @wibiya, thanks twitter!!

Aaron had eye surgery on Thursday, July 10th. Meri and I were a total wreck that day. Aaron was brave, as he always is. I posted the key events of the day on plurk.com and on twitter (via ping.fm on my VZW BlackBerry). All of my updates, via plurk.com, several hours before the surgery, leaving the house, out of surgery and sleeping in the recovery room, finally getting to see him, bringing him home, and finally, later that night, Aaron’s running a mild fever. Also, on twitter, a person (mgrossfl – Marc Grossman) that I only knew via twitter, expressed his concern throughout the next few days (via summize.com).

We arrived at the the Arnold Palmer hospital around 8am and registered and finally went to the surgery center. We spoke to Aaron’s ophthalmologist, then met the anesthesiologist and finally all of the nurses that would be helping during the surgery. They were all extremely nice.

The surgery itself lasted about an hour and went well, by the book according to the surgeon. Aaron was in the recovery room, sleeping for about 90 minutes after the surgery, in which time Meri and I patiently waited in the waiting room until we could finally go back and see him. When we got to see him, he was eating an orange popsicle that the nurses gave him.

We now have to give him eye drops three times every day, for three to five days post surgery. His first drops didn’t go so smoothly and it took 45 minutes to apply them! We are doing much better with the drops now; we stop them tomorrow.

Aaron’s eyes are red on the outer left portion. Over the next 3 weeks, they will become more red, possibly enveloping the entire eye, then turn yellowish and finally back to a normal white.

Now that the surgery is over, I’m finding the most difficult thing to do is wait for 4 – 6 weeks to know of the surgery was successful. According to the paperwork we were given, 70% of those who had the surgery only required it to be performed once. 30% needed multiple surgeries. Of those 30%, 20% needed one to two more surgeries and the final 10% needed 3 or more surgeries.

Needless to say, Meri, Aaron and I are hopeful that Aaron will be in the 70% range.

Not to be lost in all of this is Eli! He’s our now 4month old chunky baby (17lbs as of this writing!) who had to be cared for during the procedure. Thankfully, Meri’s aunt Paline was able to come down and help us out! We were very fortunate that she was able to come down on such short notice (she flew in EARLY Thursday morning, around 1am.

I’m ready to stop talking about this now, it has been difficult for all of us. Ready for some cuteness in this post, here it is. Aren’t my boys just so handsome?!

Of course I mean my interest in my current job.  It seems I can’t stand to stay at a place for over a year (check my linkedin.com profile).  There are a few LANSA contracts in central Florida but with the economy behaving the way it is, I think I’m too nervous to take that step and work for myself. Meri can tell when I’m fed up with my jobs and last night, she told me that she would be OK renting the house and moving again. That’s the last thing I want to do. We’ve moved 4 times since I graduated from college and I’m sick of packing up all my junk and moving it around. I’d rather stay in central Florida as long as possible. I thought about maybe going to school to get a masters degree in something from UCF but I don’t think now is the time for that. Meri and I were talking and she’s very interested in going back to school to be a teacher. Right now, she’s looking at getting a master’s degree for herself. She’s looking to be finished in about two years.  That’s not a whole lot of time and we’ll be more than comfortable living on my income alone. We’ve been doing it for the past couple of months and we haven’t HAD to slow down our spending; we have cut back but not out of need, I just want to start putting a lot more away for retirement. I’ve also become very interested in getting back into web development. Basically, I’d like to do what I was doing at my last job, just with a stable company this time!

In other, less pleasant news, we’re flying up to Massachusetts to visit the in-laws and yes, we’re flying with both of our kids! In more pleasant news, we’re going to celebrate Aaron’s 4th birthday birthday while we are up there and and also let the rest of the family meet Eli for the first time. Aaron’s birthday is next Tuesday, May 6th.

I think that’s enough rambling for now. I have another blog that I’ve been posting short posts to, it’s at dfktv.com. Also, if you have any idea what Twitter is, follow me!  I can be found here.  Twitter is pretty damned addictive, especially if you use it in conjunction with twhirl!