Author: JB

This year i decided that i am going to ride in the MS Bike ride. I have supported the MS society for many years since my mom has suffered with it for 20+ years now. My parents have lived on the west coast for the last 6 or so years and are huge supporters out there. During one of the MS bike rides out there last year, she was interviewed by the 24hour Fitness cycling team. Her interview is about 2/3 rds of the way through the video. Pretty cool to see her on youtube.

[Shameless Plug] As some of you know, I am participating in Bike MS: Beyond the Beltway on May 17, 2008 as a member of the Deloitte Cycling team in my mom’s honor. I am on a big fundaising drive to raise money to support reasearch to find a cure for MS. I would love it if you could take a moment a sponsor me on my ride.

Yeah – there is now a whole new interpretation on that statement

So i have spent the last couple of days listening to congressional hearings. I am beside myself about them. Apparently the Congress has nothing more pressing on their agenda, so they need to waste our tax dollars to investigate steroids in baseball. They spent about 4 1/2 hours on Wednesday talking to Roger Clemens about his suspected steroids use. Really? This is something that Congress needs to investigate? No laws need to be drafted, budgets reviewed, foreign policies to review? I know maybe we should have them investigate the NFL commissioner about the New England Patriots. No? Yeah – I think I will be sending more mail to my congressman to air my concerns over this. (I am sure they are tired of hearing from me).

Wow – our government is just scoring all kinds of brownie points this week.

Bush has signed his stimulus plan. This plan offers $300 – $600 for individuals with income between $3,000 – $75,000. Couple with income under $150,000 will receive a refund of $1,200. Families with kids will receive an additional $300 / child (as of the end of the 2007 tax year).

The IRS will send out rebates — by mail or by direct deposit into your bank account — through the late spring and the summer. The rebates come in addition to any regular tax refund.

To pay for the rebates — which are estimated to cost about $117 billion over the next two years — the government will have to borrow more money, enlarging the budget deficit.

While I am happy to receive an additional amount of money, I am not sure that borrowing more money is the right approach. It seems an awful lot like we are taking from Peter to pay Paul. In the end the markers that these foreign banks have on U.S. assets will put us in a bad position. I think the shot of adrenaline that they are expecting this to provide will be short lived. The reports i have read state that they expect that only 20 – 40 percent of the rebates will be spent.

What do you think of the rebates?

We have discussed wine many times on this board. I have recently (within the last year) started to watch a video podcast called Wine Library TV run by Gary Vanerchuk. He has been making some big splashes in the wine world, and his video podcast has helped me immensly with getting a better understanding of the wine world and opening me up to trying some wine types that i probably would not have tried previously.

Thought i would share…

I just got home from a pretty eye opening event at Walter Reed Medical Hospital. The company I work for does a lot of community work. One of the many resource groups we have is centered on the Armed Forces. The purpose of the group is to see how we can better leverage our resources and earn business in that industry sectors, as well as, “charity” work towards the causes. The company has teamed with the “Helping our Heroes Foundation”. This foundation was created to provide support to wounded warriors returning back from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This foundation has received 25 full 2-year scholarships to Colorado Technical University. The Scholarship would provide tuition, fees, & materials. We have been asked to step in and provide assistance getting the troops to complete an application and then help act as a mentor / sounding board for them.

It was a great night to sit and talk with these soldiers.

okay so a while back i asked for some advice on naming our pups. That post took on a life of its own.

Tonight i received an interesting message:

Read message From: [removed to protect the innocent] To: JB Subject: AKC name for my yellow lab – Jake… Date: Fri, 01/25/2008 – 13:07

need a good AKC name for Jake.

Thanks!

… so how would i go about doing that.

What a night…

So it is Monday.

The last week seemed to become one big blur. Wednesday last week my wife took our 5 year old into the doctors office because she had a cold that had been hanging on for about a week and the little boy across the street had just been diagnosed with Strep. So we thought it a good idea to have Katelynn checked out since they go to the same school and the school has a reputation for illnesses like this to get around.

Michelle and Katelynn went to the Dr.’s office on Wednesday morning and during the triage they heard a “crackling” sound in her lungs that they didn’t like. They hooked her up to a “pulse ox” machine to check her blood oxygen levels and when they were reading 84% they decided that she needed to go to the hospital for a more thorough evaluation (x-rays).

After the tests (and a few hours) at the pediatric emergency room, Katelynn was diagnosed with Pneumonia. The couple days that followed were pretty traumatic for her since she has always been a pretty healthy kid. She was given an IV and admitted to the pediatric unit. We were there for a total of 3 days. It was a tough stay for the whole family.

The rooms in the pediatric unit were nice. They had a bed for both the patient and the family member who was staying the night. The rooms were set up for one family, so we didn’t have to share (which I thought was a big bonus). I had the toughest time with the feeling of helplessness.

I have an issue with being a control freak. I have gotten a lot better, but the hospital stay really put me to the test. I hate feeling helpless and especially when it comes to the kids. It didn’t really hit me till day 2 when it was just Katelynn and I in the room watching the Disney channel and she reached over and grabbed my hand and told me that it would be okay. Hmph – I hate feeling helpless.

We were able to bring her home Saturday late-afternoon. A nice Birthday gift for her since Saturday was her 6th birthday.

She is not completely out of the woods yet. She has to take it easy and recuperate. She has her share of medicines that she has to take for the next week or so, but in the end I am happy that we are on the trail to recovery.

This symptom was talked about during our staff meeting this morning.

ADOSS = Attention Deficit Oooh something shiny!

This was one of the technology concepts that was presented to us during a conference i just returned from. The video can be found on you tube, so I thought i would share the I-Rack with you.