Sydnee looses her first tooth!

Syndee has finally lost her first tooth.



She was very excited to see the present that the tooth fairy left her!

GO BEARS!!

Elias is prepared for the Bears vs. Giants game today. GO BEARS!!

Again… why Norton Anti-Virus is the root of all evil

So, I’ve been saying this for years: Symantec’s Norton Anti-Virus (and other products in their suite) are the root of all evil. I just witnessed more validation of that tonight. Here it is, midnight… I’ve been working on my buddies’ computer for the last 3 hours.

Windows Vista machine, has been working great for months, then a couple of weeks ago all Internet access was lost. Both on his wireless network and the the wired. He gives me a call and I run through a bunch of stuff with him over the phone, then go to his house to get this taken care of. I spent 2 hours screwing with all of the settings possible, then decide to take it home and work some more on it.

3 hours later, I find that by uninstalling Norton Anti-Virus, all Internet access is restored. After taking a closer look at this I find that there is a service installed on Windows Vista that is preventing the OS from receiving DHCP IP addresses. This service is called Norton SymTDI Service. It appears that there is an issue with this service and any wireless routers. I discovered this because I have a b, g and n access points available to be turned on in my office. I tried them all.

So, if you have Norton Anti-Virus installed on your Vista computer, be prepared for some Internet connectivity issues. Personally, I would uninstall that application with extreme prejudice and replace it with a real AV scanner like AVG (which is free for home users by the way ).

Just a fan replacement… no problem - LOL

Right… no big deal. Just need to replace a failing fan in my laptop. I figured I would pop the case off on the bottom, pull the plug and replace the fan. Sure… 3 hours later after removing nearly every piece from the chassis including the motherboard, I was able to get to the mounting hardware for this particular fan.

I even had to remove the monitor. Now, I’m no hardware engineer, but I would certainly like meet the genius that came up with this design. Surely, the cost of roto-zipping a compartment out of the bottom of the case and the 4 extra screws wouldn’t have sent HP to the poor house. Here is what the project looked like about half way through:

Saige and Elias

Saige in a rare, gentle, moment with Elias. She is usually “petting” him like she pets our 90 lb. yellow lab.

Finally… Some house pics

I finally finished putting the vinyl on our front porch this weekend. Here is the end result:

Waiting for the Bears game

Our kids are waiting for the Bears game… turned out to be a pretty nice day.

Stress Test today

I made it through the stress today without any chest pains or discomfort. That is a good sign. I won’t get any results until tomorrow or Wednesday. Hopefully tomorrow. They injected me with radioactive dye for the chest exrays, which means I can’t hold Elias until tomorrow. Didn’t seem like a huge deal until I got home and couldn’t hold him.

Anyway, while I was waiting for the dye to work its way to my heart, I sat next to another guy in the waiting room. He is in his late 40’s and has had 7 heart attacks and 11 stents. After his 3rd heart attack, his doctor told him he only had 3 months to live unless he changed his lifestyle. He has done so dramatically, but that apparently couldn’t erase the 40+ years of poor health. He seems to be doing good, but has to endure quarterly stress tests. That is yet another eye-opening and motivating example of why my lifestyle has and will continue to change.

For those of you that are looking for “heart-healthy” meals for home, here is a fantastic list of sites:

Mayo Clinic (one of the best)
Delicious Decisions (recipes from the American Heart Association)
NHLBI (National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute)

As for the education and exercise portion of rehab, determining your target heart rate for exercising the heart muscle is no longer just a matter of adding 30 beats per minute to your average. The formula for determining your maximum heart rate is 208 - (70% of your age). So, I’m 30, 70% of that number is 21. Subtract that from 208. 187 is my maximum heart rate. 65-85% of that number would be the target range. To make it easier, there is an online calculator here. The key to exercising the heart is working for 30-60 minutes while you are within your target heart rate range, allowing 5-10 minutes for warm-up and cool-down.

I’ve been walking on our treadmill for 45 minutes at 3.5 mph with a 3% grade. That brings my heart rate into the desired range for the right duration. Obviously, looking at these numbers, you can tell I’m out of shape :). As time goes on, those numbers will have to increase. As soon as I get the full go ahead from my Dr., I plan to start weight training as well.

Unfortunately for me, most people remember this stuff from their 8th grade health class. Apparently I slept through that series, because I didn’t know any of it. I had a good idea, but didn’t know any of the specifics.

Pimpin’ ain’t easy

My Dad drove the car for Senior Citizens of the year in the Corn Festival parade. As you can see by all the “bling” he is wearing and of course the sign on the side of the car, he is a member of the local Kiwanis club.

Elias digs bath time

Ben’s Health Update

Well… I’ve been on the mend now for roughly 5 weeks and am doing really well. I started cardiac rehab on the 28th of August and am doing just fine. I’ve stared working out in my basement on the treadmill every day and am on a pretty strict diet, which basically consists of:

• Little or no salt (sodium)
• As few calories as possible
• No cholesterol.

I am consuming on average 1200 mg of sodium and 1500-1700 calories daily. My doctors recommended I stay under 4000 mg of sodium and 2500 calories daily, which I am finding very easy to do with salt substitutes and no junk food. I’ve also completely wiped out caffeine from my diet which was a big step for me. Prior to my heart attack, I was drinking (4) 20 oz Diet Mt Dews before lunch and (4) 20 oz coffees after lunch. No wonder I didn’t sleep very well :). Needless to say, I suffered through a couple of days worth of headaches and am just fine now with water, flavored water, juice and one Diet Rite (0 caffeine/0 carbs/0 calories/0 sodium/very little taste) daily. So far the diet and exercise is doing the trick as I’ve lost about 25 lbs. It is also a huge help that Kami is involved in both the diet and exercise. We trade off working out and are both making heart-healthy meals. That definitely eases the pain of both diet and the exercise.

I have a stress test tomorrow morning (9/10) which will determine my progress and my return to work. I’m anticipating some restrictions with work, but at least I’ll be back. I’ve been getting a little stir crazy.

Thanks everyone for all of the cards, meals, thoughts and and prayers. I am a very lucky individual and feel blessed that my situation wasn’t worse. It has been a very eye-opening event in my life which has pointed me in the direction of a much healthier lifestyle.

Corn Festival 2007 (a.k.a. World’s Fair)

The Corn Festival was this last weekend and of course the wackos were coming out of the woodwork, but the kids still had fun.

Maria and Elias

Maria (Elias’ first cousin once removed) came to see him:

Best picture of Elias to date!

Elias is really starting to smile and Kami has been very diligent in trying to capture those smiles. She took this picture this morning. He is definately a morning person!

Chunk (a.k.a. Elias)

Here are some of the latest pics of Elias. 3 weeks ago, he weighed in at 11 lbs. We can only imagine where he is at today

Health Scare

For those of you that didn’t know (word travels fast), we had a health scare this last week in our family. I’ve been working “4X10″ work weeks at State Farm, which means I work 4, 10 hour days and get an extra day off. I was given Mondays as my “virtual day.”

So, with the extra day off, Dad and I started working on the yard. We started about 8:00 in the morning and worked on tilling the dirt in the yard in preparation for seed. We quit shortly after lunch due to the heat (90+ degrees with high humidity). After Dad left, I worked for a little longer cleaning up tools, putting things away, etc… then went inside to shower and nap.

I slept for about 2 hours and woke up with terrible chest pains on the right side of my chest and my right arm. I’d been having pains like this for about 2 weeks and had seen my family doctor about it the previous week. He told me that since I had a workup done on my heart only 3 years ago and was given the thumbs up that heart conditions could not progress in such a short time. So, I was treated for stomach problems (ulcers and such).

The next day, August 14th, is Sydnee’s birthday so we were heading to Bloomington for a pre-birthday party at Kami’s parents house. I was in a lot of pain on the way down and told Kami that if it wasn’t gone by the time we got to her parents that I was going to the ER. At this point I was totally convinced that the pain was still resulting from the stomach problems and had Kami convinced as well. We got to Ruth and Larry’s house and the pain had not subsided, so off to the ER I went. Considering the “fact” that my pain was just from stomach problems, I convinced Kami to stay with the kids, especially because of Sydnee’s b-day. She did so reluctantly.

So, I drove to the ER, signed in and sat in the waiting room for about an hour, then laid in a bed for about an hour. During the second hour, blood was drawn and I was given some sort of shake that is designed to numb the mouth and throat for extreme acid reflux. Unfortunately, this did not fix the problem.

After about 2 hours of waiting in the ER, 5 people rushed into my curtain area with equipment and drugs and started jabbing me with IVs. The on-call cardiologist came in shortly after and told me I was having a heart attack. I was very shocked. I’m only 30! How could I be having a heart attack?? Well… after some reflection time, it makes sense. I’ve made some pretty poor choices in my life in regards to my health. Some of that was in the process of being rectified and the rest is being changed now and going forward.

The end result was that I had an artery that was 98% blocked and required an angioplasty and 2 stents to repair the blockage. I was admitted to the hospital Monday evening and was having the stents inserted Tuesday morning. I was released from the hospital Thursday mid-day and with the exception of some leg pain and wearing out easily, I feel great! I’m off work for at least 4 weeks and will only be going back part time after that so I can finish cardiac rehab. I start that process on the 28th of August and it will last 8 weeks.

We feel very fortunate and blessed that the results were what they were. Although this is a very serious event in my life, things could have been much worse given a longer delay in the ER or decision not to go at all.

For those interested, I will be posting my new Heart Healthy diet as well as my exercise routine as soon as I’m able. Obviously, I’ve had to completely change my eating habits, which definitely die hard :). I haven’t started the exercise due to doctor’s orders, but have been working on putting it together. I should be able to after my first few days of cardiac rehab. More later…

First smile captured on camera!!

After dancing the jig, making some really weird noises and in general, acting like an idiot in an attempt to get Elias to smile… Mommy looks at him and says “Hi…” in a cheerful voice. If that would have been mentioned in the manual, I could have saved some real embarrassment…

Sunday Afternoon Nap

And of course, Grandpa is one of the best instructors…


Genetically, Elias has no chance of having the ability to avoid Sunday afternoon naps (with the exception of football season).

Baby: T- 8 days

We are down to the last final week before our new addition joins the family. We are scheduled to go to the hospital on Tuesday morning at 5:30 AM with the C-Section scheduled for 7:00 AM. I am in the process of checking with the hospital to see if they have open wireless. I’m hoping so. I plan to upload pictures right away if possible.

More to come… stay tuned.

Dirt, dirt and more dirt

After the house project had seemingly come to a close, I realized that while most of the work was done, I still had no yard.

When we bought the land for our new house we didn’t realize the ground was so low. Not a big deal, says the excavator, we just don’t dig the hole as deep and you raise the elevation of the house by 4 ½ ft. All in all it wasn’t a big deal until it came time to fill in the area surrounding the house. I’ve had 42 tandem loads of dirt weighing in at approximately 14 tons each hauled in for a grand total of 588 tons. The excavating company has done most of the heavy lifting in the rough grade process, but I told myself to save money I would do the finish grade. This includes filling in around the concrete, flowerbeds, leveling problem areas in the yard, etc… I started that process this weekend. With a borrowed tractor the job seemed to start very easy. Drive up to a pile of dirt, use the loader, dump the dirt and spread it. Not difficult. After about 7 hours of work, I decided I had done as much as I could with the tractor and the rest would have to be done by hand. On any normal day, this would be a big job, but it happened to be 95 and humid today. So after scooping for about an hour and a half, I decided the best route would be to just clean off the driveway and sidewalk. So, I’m making progress, but slow progress. I will post pictures this week.

Kids

The kids are definitely enjoying themselves with Elias.

Good Mornin’

Elias as he just woke up…



We ended up switching from breast feeding to bottle feeding as he had lost an additional 2 oz after leaving the hospital. Since the switch he has been eating much more and has been sleeping like a champ.

What you say fool?

This is Saige’s typical response when we give any excuse to her wanting to hold Elias that doesn’t equal “Sure, you can hold him…” She has not quite grasped the concept of a newborn needing to eat, sleep and poop. All of which can be done while being held, but sometimes Saige needs to sleep too

Apparently, subtle hints are being given by my new son that he is no longer interested in having his retinas burned by camera flashes.

Proud Sisters

Sydnee and Saige are both very proud and can’t get enough of their new brother (yet…)

We're Home!

We made it home yesterday afternoon with Elias. All has been well. He is eating like a horse (big surprise…) and sleeping well. Last night, he slept for 5 hours straight, which we enjoyed.

The girls came home today along with Maize, our yellow lab. The girls are excited to be home with baby brother and Maize is still re-adjusting to being home from the kennel.

I will be uploading new pics tonight of the girls and Elias.

Elias Benjamin is here!!

Elias Benjamin joined us today at 7:33 AM weighing in at 9 lbs. and 4 oz. Apparently he picked up his eating habits from his father. Unfortunately, due to the rules of genetics, he received his father’s proportions as well measuring 20″ long. So, while following the footsteps of his Dad he, entered the world short and overweight.

Mom and baby are doing just fine. The procedure went very well and recovery is proceeding as expected. We will be leaving the hospital on Friday.

Sydnee and Saige are very excited about their new baby brother. Saige started out having a little trouble pronoucning his name, coming up with “Wise-Ass” instead of Elias. After a couple of practice runs with no one else within ear shot, it is now being pronounced EEEWyas. While not perfect, it is much better than the first attempt.

His photo album can be found by clicking here.

[for my geek friends]

Fortunately, because this is son v1 (build 3000) he is secure by default as seen here.

Baby Update

The baby will arrive tomorrow morning at 7:30 AM +/-. You can expect pictures on the web no later than noon. I’ve been able to figure out how to use my Windows Mobile 5 device to utilize the EVDO service that has recently been turned on in Bloomington. With the other hospital in town, this wouldn’t be a problem as they provide high-speed wireless. But, for some reason, this was not taken into consideration when choosing hospitals… somthing about better care for my wife and baby… I really wasn’t paying attention….

Just kidding. The hospital we are going to is supposed to have the best care in town, which is obviously the most important. Anyway, more tomorrow.