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Category: Happy Crap

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Busy days of Summer

I fondly recall the summers of childhood as being filled with lazy, carefree, unhurried days ... sleeping late, watching daytime TV in jammies, wandering about the neighborhood with friends, swimming in our pool, picking fresh peaches and making ice cream with them ... days in which my biggest complaint was "I'm bored" and wishing I was grown up so I could go and have great adventures. Now that I am grown up and having those grand adventures, I now wish for just a little boredom ... or just enough time to get everything done!

This summer is particularly busy ... it's one thing after another. At least I don't have college classes to worry about!

The second week of June found us at the beach in Amelia Island. Not the cozy, romantic trip for two we might have wished for ... we shared a beach house with two young adults, six teenagers, a baby and a toddler! Just keeping up with the mess in the kitchen was a full-time pursuit. But we had a marvelous time anyway ... the beach was great, the water was warm, the weather was completely perfect ... and the rest of the ginormous family was at another house a quarter mile down the road. At the end of the week, we ran away for an extra night all by ourselves - no kids, no teens, no messy kitchens - for a romantical birthday celebration for two. *grins*

Upon our return to the homestead, we started making the final preparations for the wedding of Rich's oldest son, Adam. It will be on July 6 at his mother's lakeside house. Everything is going well and to plan ... well, almost. Adam is currently deployed to Iraq and is coming home on leave. Originally, he was set to be stateside on July 1 or maybe earlier. We just got notice that he will leave Baghdad around June 30 for Kuwait and then it will be July 3 or 4 before he is actually in Knoxville! They will still need to get their marriage license, and with Friday, July 4 being a holiday, that is going to cut it very, very close! There are alternative plans if the marriage license can't be obtained on the 3rd though, but we could do without this little annoyance anyway.

UPDATE: We have found out that the Sevier County Court Clerk will be open on July 4 AND 5, and that the information we had that indicated one must get the marriage license in the same county in which the ceremony is held is not correct. We are good to go on that note! Yay!

After the wedding is over, our attention will turn to combining two households. We will have about three weeks before my lease is up to sort through my 15 year accumulation of crap, decide what will be kept, what will be thrown out or sold or given away, find room to put everything and get me settled in here. (Yes, I know ... things have changed rather rapidly lately, but it's all good). I also have to get my son settled somewhere ... he has a job, but won't clean his life up enough to be even marginally self-sufficient. I am really, really trying to leave it in the hands of The Lord ... I am sure there is some solution that I just cannot see, but will soon be revealed. Ms Thang is happily settled in with her boyfriend, working at her job and letting her life unfold. (No, I am not completely happy about the boyfriend ... being that he is so much older than she, but it is her life and if that makes her happy, then it's OK with me.) Then, it will be just a couple of weeks until fall semester begins for me. Somewhere in there, I hope that I will be starting a new job ... heck, at this point, just about ANY job will do!

And so, life marches on, the pages of this chapter begin to turn. I am still a little disoriented, my life has been turned upside down, back up again and then sideways. But I am getting steady on my feet again, my spirit has the Lord to lean on ... here on Earth, I have my best friend and soul-mate.

My friends ... "This part of my life ... this part right here? This is called 'happyness.' "

Monday, April 07, 2008

Blogfest Out West!

Ii is finally officially official ... Blogfest will happen again, next Saturday, April 12! Spread the word!

The place: Wild Wings Cafe - (Google Map)

The time: Be careful asking Rich that question, his answer may be more than you bargained for ... but the festivities will start around 6:00 that evening.

The people: Bloggers of all sorts, shapes, varieties, ages, colors and heights, from various locations around the greater East Tennessee area, and points beyond, along with their significant others, if they wish ... plus a kid or two, or three or four or fourteen (depending on whether Cathy and Doug bring any, part or all of their brood). Blog readers are welcome too!

The special guest: A local candidate running for the state House may grace us with his presence. (And no, it's not the asinine one that I took to the wood shed a couple months ago!)

Let us know if you can join us in comments here or there, post at your site to spread the word and we hope to see you there!

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Fairy Tales Sometimes Do Come True

Congratulations to AtomicTumor and his lovely bride!

Yesterday, they joined together as man and wife. Ever creative and daring, the theme of the wedding was the Roaring 20s, complete with a band that keeps with the style themselves, Christabel and the Jons. It looks like it was a grand celebration and a good time was had by all.

A little over a year ago, AT and his kids' lives were turned upside down by the sudden and unexpected illness and death of the beloved BJ, a heart-wrenching story that was shared with the blogging community at the AtomicTumor site. I have known AT for several years, having worked at the same place, not once, not twice, but three times (yes, it is a small world!) and I got to meet BJ a few times as well. To say that I am deleriously happy for him that he has been able to recover from that horrific tragedy is a vast understatement. I know BJ is smiling in Heaven too.

You go, Dude. You deserve this happiness!

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Like an Angel Descending from the Heavens

A series of retrospectives called Our Stories has been airing on local news station WBIR. These have been very fascinating to watch ... triggering old memories and telling tales of things I did not know. The most recent one though, holds special interest for me:

(Dr. Robert) Lash was a licensed pilot and realized the advantages of aeromedical transport early on. In the 1970s, he'd often borrow aircraft to assist in emergency operations.

However, he dreamed of permanent air ambulances. In 1984, his dream came true with the delivery of the first helicopter ambulance to UT Medical Center.

It was outfitted through a design by Lash himself, who christened it Lifestar, an abbreviation for Life, Shock, And Trauma Aeromedical Rescue.

Be sure to watch the video that accompanies the story too.

In the years I spent in EMS, I came to herald the arrival of Lifestar as nothing less than a godsend. Calling her out was reserved for the very most dire trauma cases, ones that needed high level trauma care within minutes, and ground transport would take too long. In emergency medicine, there is this thing called the Golden Hour. When the human body is fubar'd, every second counts. For the greatest chances of recovery, the patient must be on the surgeon's table within one hour, and the clock starts at the moment of injury. After the hour expires, the patient declines rapidly. When you're a paramedic working in a remote county and the nearest ER is a 45 minute ride, even with lights and sirens, and the trauma center is a further 15 minutes beyond, the response of an aeromedical helicopter can make the literal difference between life and death.

On the scene of a major trauma, the actions of the Paramedic, EMT and any peripheral helpers - First Responders, Firefighters, LEOs - become a improvised dance at the direction of the paramedic choreographer. Everyone knows their roles, they simply wait to be told what to do. The medic is the decision maker, and the rest defer to him or her without question. In a major trauma, if the location is at all remote, or traffic conditions marginal to poor, the first decision to be made is whether to go by ground or by air. Most often, from scene reports via dispatch, if it sounds bad enough, the en route medic can have Lifestar go on standby. This gets the crew ready to go, up to the point of starting the helicopter engines. There are so many variables that can go into the decision, I cannot list them all here, but the decision is made within seconds.

Once launched, Lifestar will be on scene in its response area generally within 10 - 15 minutes or less. During that time, the ground EMS personnel work to achieve initial stabilization of the patient - ensuring a patent airway, initiating oxygen therapy and an IV, and divesting the patient of all their clothes. Firefighters and LEOs are charged with setting up the LZ - Landing Zone and ensuring its safety. Firefighters also standby with water hoses at the ready ... just in case. Sometimes the patient has to be transported by ground to the LZ, sometimes the helicopter can land right at the scene or very close by.

While working on the patient, the approaching thump-thump-thump of the rotors powered by Bell 430 dual Rolls Royce (Allison) turboshaft engines grows louder and louder, until you can feel the vibration in your bones. It seems to touch something almost primal. As it lands, the engine and rotor noise drown out all other sound, the medic must communicate with her team via eye and hand signals. Care must be taken to secure all objects from the rotor wash, not only can these become flying missiles and injure people, things can also get sucked into the rotor blades and render the helicopter useless.

The patient is packaged onto a Lifestar stretcher and carried to the waiting craft. Most often, it is a hot load, where the engines are running, and extreme care must be taken to stay away from the rotors. On occasion, if an extra pair of hands is needed, the Lifestar crew will tag the medic to ride along and assist. I never got that lucky. In the aftermath of the transport, the EMS crew most often goes to the trauma center anyway, to give their report, to pick up equipment that flew with the patient, to restock.

I did get to ride on Lifestar once. It was while I was in paramedic school. We each had a 8 hour shift to "ride along" with the helicopter crew. As my crappy luck would have it, there was only one call out during the whole shift, but that ride remains the ride of my life, one that I will never forget.

Wow. I didn't really mean to go on and on like that about this. But that's the way we EMS types are, we'll tell stories one after another after another. But Lifestar has a pretty cool web site, with photos and some of their own stories (which I know they like to tell ... I've heard some pretty amazing ones from those folks!), and more information about the Lifestar program. It's worth a look. There's also a link where you can donate a monetary gift to further the research and advances of aeromedical emergency and transport services. But I also happen to know that the guys and gals over there really like cookies too, if that's more your style. They do some amazing work, they deserve all the gratitude we can give them.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

It’s Baby Havin’ Day!

It's a boy! And a girl! And a really weird coincidence!

East Tennessee bloggers heard the news early this morning that Doug and Cathy McCaughan have a new niece!

About an hour ago, Rich called from Birmingham to announce the arrival of his second grandson, Joaquin! He said mom and baby are doing fine, daddy should recover eventually. Baby weighed 7lbs, 9 0z and came bounding into the world at about 1:25pm. Rich should be posting with better pictures and more detail later.

UPDATE: Post is up - go see pictures!

Now here's the weird coincidence part ... first, check out this post from Cathy, and then this one by Rich. Note the dates on the posts.

Freaky, man!

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Winter Blahs

Yeah I know. I don't post very often, do I? Maybe I should look into getting a life or something.

Actually, I do have a life, and quite a busy one. It's just that much of it is very private and I don't wish to share it with just anyone. Close friends and family know what is going on, and that is good enough.

The holidays are over and I survived. It was mostly good, with just enough chaos and craziness to make it interesting. My family, being quite small with just two of my kids and my parents and me, makes for a quiet and mostly calm celebration. My son, aka J-Dude, with his ongoing anger issues, seems to manage to inject his angst into nearly everything, but we have become used to it by now and it pretty much just rolls over us and we continue on in the wake of his wrath. I had been afraid that Christmas would be quite lean indeed, but I was able to pull something together at the last minute anyway. It wasn't my first choice solution, and it will really cause some pain down the road, but it was a solution nonetheless. I was able to get Ms Thang a Playstation 2, to replace the one her father and step-mother stole from her, plus a Guitar Hero III. J-Dude got his fondest wish for Christmas, now he just needs to apologize to me for being an ass on Christmas Day and he can actually have it. My parents got me a bunch of knitting stuff ... now I need 36 hour days so I can actually get some of that done. I got both of them some books they were wanting, sweaters and other keep-warm goodies. We had a yummy breakfast casserole and Panera holiday bread. It was nice and peaceful. But that soon changed for me ...

I then joined Rich and his ginormous family for a Christmas Italian feast. Ms Thang came with me for a while before she went off to a friend's house to spend the night. Quite a contrast from a party of 5 to a party of what seemed like 50! We cooked and cooked and cooked, then ate and ate and ate, for what seemed like days. Then around midnight we collapsed in exhaustion and slept the sleep of the dead. The big family holiday is quite exciting and fun, but tiring! My high school sweet heart was the youngest of 6, and my Ex the youngest of 5, so the large family celebration is something I am familiar with, and jerk Ex's notwithstanding, I always enjoyed it. Of course, just being with a special someone for the holidays is a treat all in itself, as this has not been a part of my holiday experience for many years.

In the aftermath of the holidays, we are awaiting the impending arrival of Rich's next grandbaby. We will be heading down to Birmingham as soon as we get word. We've been waiting now for a couple weeks, with mama-to-be ripe and ready to pop any minute. Yesterday, the doc told her she is 3cm dilated and baby is fully engaged. So what does Rich do? He plans a Blogfest for Friday night! I hope folks will understand if we have to make our apologies ...

A new semester in school has started. Though not official, I have pretty much decided to change my major from Computer Science to ... something else. Don't know what yet though. I am open to suggestions. I am considering Criminal Justice, but would prefer to go into the forensics concentration. APSU only has Homeland Security in their online degree program. So, I am going to look at UT and perhaps ETSU to see what they offer, either in classroom or online. (I know ITT Tech has a program, but they are hellaciously expensive on tuition ... I could get 4 Bachelor degrees from state universities for what it costs to get just 1 from them!) It certainly is frustrating to still not know what I want to be when I grow up!

Ms Thang has just informed me that she has found herself another job at a nearby restaurant. I hope she can get lots of hours because she has a hella big car repair bill to pay! She also wants to save up so that she can start training to be a wrestler starting this summer. This is, of course, not the ideal life-path that I would prefer for her to follow ... she is amazingly gifted academically, and could accomplish anything she wanted in college. I hope that she will get a degree in something eventually. I would hate to see her be where I am now in 25 years.

J-Dude is still battling the rage demons within. He still cannot accept that it is his choices that have defined what his life is now ... no job, no car, no money, 20 years old and living with mom. He thinks he may have a job with a construction outfit, and that would be a major plus because the pay is good and can get him out and on his own two feet. I have given both kids notice that when the lease for this place is up this summer, I am out of here and I don't plan on making permanent provisions for children to follow me. I will be launching them out of the nest and it is up to them to get themselves ready to fly ... or not.

Snow is in the forecast ... possible dusting to 2 inches here. I guess I better panic soon and run out and buy 10 loaves of bread and 20 gallons of milk, and pile up 20 ricks of wood for the fireplace, and rent a snowblower to make a path to the driveway. Maybe even get a kerosene heater or two. Or I might just go shoe shopping. I'm just crazy like that!

Saturday, June 09, 2007

Finally, the Weekend!

It could not have gotten here any sooner ...


And a busy weekend it will be. I will be heading out shortly for a yoga class, then to get mine and my daughter's cell phone switched, then I have a crapload of statistics assignment to get done, and somewhere in there I also need to restore a bit of order to the house ... at least to the point where one can walk through without tripping over something. Then Blogfest tonight, which may well end up being a rather late night, as there may be a second trip over to see Barry play at the Eagles club here in the Ridge. Whew!

Now what was I saying about "Yay! It's the Weekend?!"

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Spring Sunday Haiku

Joining in the craze
Sunday haiku, not a meme
All the cool kids do

======================

A perfect Sunday
The sun shines, and a breeze blows
It's time for myself

Stroll through a bookstore
I find that special something
A present for me

Sit outside to dine
Sip sweet tea in the warm sun
Peaceful and content

There is much sweetness
Changes and new beginnings
It makes me happy

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Spring Breakin’

Someone come do my taxes so I can go out and play!! *whine*


This being the last day of spring break ... I am trying to resist getting a jump on the first assignments due next week. I only have a short essay for World Lit, and a C++ program to write by Thursday. Tough week, eh?

But I chose to do a yoga class today ... an advanced class! And I did well! (belly dance class tomorrow!) Then goof off for a while ... and start my income tax filing. Yuck. But I will get a fairly sizable refund this year, most of which will go to paying off the credit cards I ran up when I was out of work last year, and then again when my daughter moved in with me. Her father kept all her stuff, won't let her have it and I had to replace everything. So, getting those paid off and closed out will be a financial relief. I need a better paying job though ... I'm losing ground fast, and I still have Financial Disaster looming in the future. But ... I will not dwell on that now.

Vista! I found out that I can get the Business Premium version for free through my school, but the licensing would end when I left or graduated. Or, I can get Home Premium Upgrade for either $60 or $80 ... again, due to my status as a college student. Sweet. But, to upgrade my computer to be able to run it? Oy ... I need a better graphics card - that is a pain in the ass to find, everything is now PCI-Express, and all I have is AGP. And I need a better CD/DVD drive, and might as well get a burner. I guess I should go shopping ... and bleg for suggestions.

Anyway ... my son and his girlfriend want to be fed. So, we're off to Fuddruckers. Hmm, and with Best Buy right next door ...

Happy Saturday!

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Webby Goodness

Some days it seems as if the Wonderful Wide Web is full of extra goodness and goodies ... I have been muchly enjoying Gmail, Google Reader and RadioParadise. (Mental note - need to write up a post re: the RIAA royalty BS that is threatening to take away such lovely things as RadioParadise)

My newest most favoritest web site on all the intartubes is now LifeHacker.com. Why did I not know about this long ago? It is just chock full of informative tidbits, goodies, downloads and all-around geeky fun ... check the how-tos for this week alone:

• How to read your Hotmail from Gmail
• Make your brain learn faster
• Sound more intelligent
• Haggle your way to a great deal
• Create a stop-motion movie
• Copy TV shows to your iPod
• Clean your keyboard
• Sync your Greasemonkey scripts across computers
• Fix a non-booting iPod

Oh yeah ... a barrel full of monkeys for the geekiest of geeks. I have been playing with Texter ... much sweetness there. And I loves me some new Greasemonkey scripts too.

And then, I don't mean to brag, but .. oh yes I do! I have iScrybe! Squeee! Check it out!



Is that not awesome? It's just as sweet to play with as it looks in the video! Worth the wait? Well ... I signed up for this beta back in October. Many others have waited that long, or even longer. But yeah ... it was worth the wait. I have been transferring my school schedule into it and it's living up to its promise. I will be trying out the rest of the functions it has so far too.

I just found out that I was given another grant for school ... it's called the Smart Grant ... a new federal financial aid program for 3rd and 4th year students majoring in science, math, technology or engineering with a GPA of at least 3.0 from their first two years. Yes, I am a poor, impoverished, brainy geek ... and this grant effectively cuts the loans I will need from here on out to just about zip. Sweet.

And that's my Happy Crap for this week ... it's Spring Break. I am chillin' ... or trying to anyway. I'll be getting ramped back up this weekend ... the rest of my midterms are coming up. But for now, I am focusing on Good Things™ and trying to ignore all the scary, bad things as much as possible. I do what I can.