Monday, April 28, 2008

G'Night all

Well this was a strange day. Interestingly enough, it ended with a wonderful phone conversation with my pops. He really is amazing, he continues to inspire me. I love you daddy-o.

The ultrasound was really, really strange. I'm not sure what to make of it or when I'll find out any info about the results but I'll be sure to let everyone know.

G'night.

So, it's been a few days...

Well, it's been an interesting few weeks. As you know, Aimee and I have been trying to have a baby for a REALLY long time. In fact, we've pretty much been trying continuously for our entire marriage (6 years this month). Well, we went to a fertility doctor to try and figure out whether or not something medical was preventing it from happening or if it was just incredibly bad luck.

Let me preface this by saying that Aimee and both have the utmost faith that God will give us a baby if He wants us to have one. We have known since we were dating, really, that we would foster/adopt many children through the course of our marriage. I have known since I was a young boy that there was a chance that I would have trouble in this area because I had a surgery that 'could' affect my abilities. When we began foster care they flagged this as a serious issue because we hadn't 'dealt' with the reality that we weren't going to have children. A bit of an overreaction in my book since neither one of us knew for certain that we couldn't. In fact, the reality of the situation is that if they told both of us that we were completely sterile we would still believe that God could give us a baby if He wanted us to have one. In fact, I have known people who were 'sterile' that have had multiple children. Regardless, we feel like it's time to find out if there is something we need to get fixed for it to happen.

So we started going through some serious testing to find out how 'normal' we are. If you don't believe that it's time for some universal health care in this country, try going to the doctor for a procedure that isn't covered by your insurance. I have a good job and make a shit-ton of money. We own two houses, have investment and retirement accounts, and have (almost) impeccable credit. The doctor wouldn't let us leave the office without paying, cash, $500 for the first round of testing. Makes you feel great knowing that you might have a serious medical condition but because your insurance company miscommunicated with the doctor's office you are treated like a criminal-to-be. It's pretty terrifying to watch your savings go from a respectable state of robust-ness to nothing over the period of 1 month as the doctor orders test after test after test after test.

So the end result is that Aimee is basically fine (I'll let her comment on what she found out on her own) and I have some serious issues. It was heart breaking and terrifying. If you're a doctor and you're reading this, take some advice from me. You should never follow a traumatic statement of a man's inability to produce sperm with, "We also need to check this out and find out if it's a cyst or cancer or a disease causing a hormone imbalance." I understand that cancer might not be the menace it once was from a doctor's point of view...but regular people like me still hear it and assume it means you're going to die. I know it's not rational, but you should be careful just the same. Maybe throw in a few sentences like, "There is probably nothing wrong with you" or "My aren't you a fine husband" between "bad sperm" and "cancer".

On that note, it's interesting being in a fertility clinic. The entire staff there was female (part of the reason Aimee chose it, I think) and you kind of get the feel that everyone is a bit hopeful, supportive, and caring. Other than the bad choice of words in her office, the main doctor at the place is a very sweet woman. The nurses are very nice. The billing lady not so much, but that's her job I suppose. They wanted me to go into a waiting room and wait for Aimee to get some follow up work done. I was alone and started to cry. I was trying REALLY hard to hide it but the doctor came in and saw me and gave me a hug. It was a little strange but it was comforting. I then had to go and give blood (Yay! My favorite thing in the world!) and sat there with tears rolling down my cheeks the whole time. I really hope that she thought I was scared of needles.

Then it was time to go talk to the billing lady about our 'options'. This basically amounted to them telling us how we could have a baby if we were rich. She told me the price, I said it might as well be a million dollars, she said that's too bad and handed me a brochure for a bank that loaned money to people so they could have a baby. They are also nice enough to charge 10% interest. I'm not going to imply that I think that's shady in the least but it seems like they should be a little more reserved about the 'buy a pregnancy' thing. Maybe wait a week or something and approach people when they're not falling off of an emotional cliff face.

Anyways, the point of this blog (can I tell you how nice it is to write something not for school and not care about my use of the passive voice or sounding like I know what I'm talking about?) was to let you all know that I have several appointments in the near future to determine whether or not there is something wrong with me. Tonight, I have the ultrasound to see if there are any lumps or masses or whatever doctor-types call them. Then I have to go give more blood later this week. Then I have to go to a urologist and let them do 'whatever' to me.

I'm terrified. I know I shouldn't be, most likely it's just the surgery I had when I was young. I do know 3 people my age or YOUNGER that have had testicular cancer, which seems statistically unlikely. I don't know what the numbers are but it seems like they should be a lot lower than that. Also, my best friend just got hit by a tennis ball in the 'tennis balls' (if you know what I mean) and seems to be having some serious problems in that area. I don't think that has anything to do with this, but I sort of wanted to know if he was reading or not.

The plus side is that I have been incredibly distracted the past three or four weeks from my school work and I am way behind. Frankly, I'm having a hard time caring whether or not I pass or if I even continue. I'm sure everyone feels that way now and again and I'll admit I'm dealing with just a little bit of depression right now. I already had to request and incomplete from one class because I just can't handle the load and I'm going to just shoot for not failing the other two. I'll write more in the future on school, ministry, and the future of the Wickershams because I realize that this is really long already.


See ya.

Saturday, April 26, 2008

the way it is...

Kind of Blue
a Stranger
an unwelcome Friend
unexpected
anticipation becoming clean up duty
abrupt ends
almost
the Last one Up
that taste in your mouth
wondering
sound asleep
heavy eyes
intriguing
Coltrane and Davis

Friday, April 25, 2008

Valley Metro

So, I like to ride the bus. Interesting people, saves on gas, don't feel as bad about having a big truck, it's nice to get a mile of walking in every day. I also enjoy not driving in Phoenix. Aimee can definitely tell when I've ridden the bus and when I've driven, because when I get home from work I have a completely different attitude. Plus, it's incredibly convenient in this city. For those of you that haven't lived outside of PHX, there aren't buses roaming around every city like they do here. Matt can attest to that. They have(had) several convenient ways to pay as well. You could buy a monthly pass that basically let you ride as much as you want whenever you want for one low monthly fee (I think it was somewhere between 30 and 45 bucks). For me, the best thing they had going were the 'tickets'. These were books of tickets that were basically one way passes. They didn't expire (hah, yeah right) and you didn't run the risk of using them to buy a coke at work when you were really tired. I think they dropped the price from 1.25 per ride to 1.20 but that wasn't really the impetus for using them. So I haven't really been riding since I had the kids, since I take them to school in the morning but I've been looking forward to riding again this summer.

Well, when my truck was broken I grabbed a few tickets and headed down to my bus stop. Lo and behold, over the winter they revamped their fee-structure and INVALIDATED MY TICKETS! Now that really pisses me off. There is no reason why they couldn't continue to accept them for some REASONABLE amount of time and I can't imagine that they would EVER make it so you couldn't trade them out for the new tickets. Some more info (mainly for Matt, who is probably the only one who cares): One way fare is still 1.25, however they no longer issue transfers so your 1.25 gives you EXACTLY one ride. You get off the bus, you pay again. For 2.50 you can buy an 'all day pass' which lets you ride all day long (duh). So really, this is better for me because I used to pay 2.50 for 2 one way trips each day and if I wanted to ride to the mall or something for lunch I had to pay again. They sell books of one day pass 'tickets' @ 12.50 for 5 (which is basically the same as the 10 ticket books they used to sell. They now also sell 3, 7, and 31 day passes which I guess are good deals if that's what you need. All in all, I think it's a good thing because, frankly, the bus has been too cheap. If you look at a bus ride in any major metropolis I think you'll find that 2.50 for a whole day is still a steal.

So here is my gripe. Dec 2007: new rate plan goes into effect, Valley Metro stops selling tickets. Jan 2008 - March 2008: they 'blast' the (old) media telling people the fares are changing and (supposedly) tell you that you should cash in your old tickets because they are no longer going to work. April 2008: Any tickets you have from the 'old' (3 months ago) system are now garbage. Keep in mind that Phoenix is a city full of people who leave for months at a time. Admittedly, most of these people are here during the winter, but seriously, 3 months? And I never received a letter in the mail even though I purchase tickets all the time? No email, even though they have my email for purchase confirmations? What harm is there in allowing the old tickets to be traded in for, what, a year? Who cares? Even if you just allow them to be traded 2 for 1 for the new all day tickets. These things can represent a serious investment for some people. I bought them 4 books at a time...that was 48 dollars! All of the sudden they're garbage because I didn't ride the bus over the winter? I called in to complain and seek some sort of restitution but, alas, I was told to pound sand. Repeatedly, and by managers 2 levels up. I rode the bus home tuesday in a VERY bad mood (mainly because I had to borrow bus money) :(

Well, let me end this by saying I'm very pleased with Valley Metro (didn't expect that, didja?) I wrote them a letter stating very clearly my position and why I was unhappy with them. I told them that I was an advocate in my professional environment for riding the bus and I felt let down. I told them exactly what I wanted, which was a cashless trade; ticket for ticket. Well this morning, I received a phone call from Andrea, who told me that they would certainly trade me new tickets for old, and they were sorry for any inconvenience. At this point, I don't even care whether or not I get the new tickets (ok, I do) I'm just happy that they aren't completely unreasonable.

Good times.

This gets me every time I see it...

This dude is 4 years old in this video...

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Ummmm

So I was looking for a carpet remnant on craigslist for our storage room (that we're hoping to convert into an office) when I ran across this:

http://phoenix.craigslist.org/spo/650040968.html

About which I could only think to myself, "Wow, that seems like a lot for a stripper pole."

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Crazy day

Well, today was an interesting day.  Lots happened, it's hard to believe it was only one day's worth of stuff.  First off, my truck was still not working this morning so I just rode the bus.  I found out that they no longer take the tickets I have so I almost didn't get to ride.  Luckily, I had a buck twenty-five and could ride it to work.  I called and bitched out the customer service people and they didn't care. I probably have $30 worth of those darn tickets (thanks Matt).  I wrote the customer service email address and explained why I think it's ridiculous that they won't trade them out at all for the new tickets.  We'll see how that pans out.  

When I got to work I had to give a demo of the project I've been working on to my new manager and the director of our group.  It was kind of a big deal and I was a little nervous but it went well (no crashes and no obvious bugs during the demo).  Aimee got really sick so I had to come home instead of going to church for a meeting (sorry Gena).  I had a bright idea about my truck and went out and just fixed it.  Straight up fixed.  Amen.  I can't believe I didn't see the problem earlier but I'm just glad it's fixed.  I had to go drop off Aimee's homework and pick up some lumber because the guy is coming tomorrow to fill in the window in the living room.  Fun Times!

Meanwhile, I was a little bored at work at the end of the day since I'm in the middle of few different tasks and didn't want to start something new.  So I just randomly decided to search for this guy I used to know on the internet.  A little background; when I was in junior high I had a pretty tight group of friends.  Well, this one guy had to move to Ohio all of the sudden with his family and it was like BAM he was gone.  I was never able to really keep in touch with him and my friends and I always wondered what happened with him.  When I was in college and discovered the web I thought for sure this guy would be on there.  So I searched and searched but couldn't find him.  Every year I got a bug in me and searched for him but never turned anything up.  Well for some reason today my google juice was flowing and I found a posting on a linux user group by a guy with the right name and I just emailed him.  BINGO!  It was crazy, I emailed all of my old group of friends his info and we played catch up.

Now I just have to figure out how I'm gonna get all the rest of the stuff done that I was planning on doing tonight!  

Monday, April 21, 2008

Well...poop

So this has been an all around depressing day. I have been unable to get my truck fixed. For some reason the alternator is just not charging the battery, even though the fine technicians at Pep Boys put it on the machine and verified it. I am pretty sure I am just going to tell them to suck it tomorrow and buy a new one. So, I was messing around with batteries and wiring and what not and I came across a stuck bolt. This bold happened to be a corroded terminal stud that was in my spare battery. So I grabbed my vise grips after having been unsuccessful at getting it off with any wrench (and rounding it off in the process) and start to really put some torque on it. Yay it came loose! Unfortunately, when it came loose my vise grips spun around and made contact with the other terminal of the battery. Fire ensued, the grips got so hot that my hand it burnt up pretty good, and I felt the ole familiar grip of direct current coursing through my arm. Luckily, it was only one arm or it probably would have stopped my heart. The funny thing about DC, and I say that for this reason alone T. Edison can screw off, is that once it gets you it doesn't let go. The reason that AC makes you feel twitchy (like when you get physical therapy and they put those neat little pads on your leg and crank up the juice) is the constant reversal of current causes your muscles to fire in rapid succession thereby giving you an opportunity to 'let go'. The beautiful thing about DC is that when it grabs you, such as when you are foolish enough to bar a vise grip across a 12 volt battery's terminals, it doesn't let go.

So there I stood, gazing down at a burning rubber insulator willing myself to let go yet somehow unable to. I managed to come out of my state of shock long enough to punch my right arm with my left arm and knock it loose from the wrench. This was about the time that Aimee came out to see me in agony. I then punched off the vice grips, hopefully preventing the destruction of the battery and the burning down of my house. Interestingly enough, at that same time the guy coming to give us an estimate for an air conditioning (HAH - A/C, how appropriate) vent in our laundry room rolled up. He probably thought I was crazy, as I walked over to shake his hand and introduce myself. My heart was beating about 12093803948203984 beats per second and I'm sure I had a little bit of the crazy eye going. It was a good estimate and he could have done it today but we had to leave the house.

Then we went to the doctor.

Then I had to hurry home and, thinking I had fixed my truck I drove over to pick up some furniture this family at the church was giving us for the kids bedroom. Very cute stuff, very nice furniture. On the way, I kept my eye on the voltmeter and sure enough, about 5 minutes from church it started dropping down really low. The alternator wasn't charging. Some really funny things happen when the voltage starts dropping. For one, when it hit about 9 volts, the speedometer would start pulsing up and down as I slowed...it was strange. It was fine as I was driving but as I braked it would bounce up and down. Kind of funny actually. Then at about 8 volts, the engine started lugging a little bit and the door locks started locking and unlocking on their own. I can only imagine that the computer was freaking out. Heh heh, kind of funny.

So I made it to church and pulled into the parking lot. I called Aimes and had her bring me the spare battery and my tools and the charger and eventually after she got there I got it switched out and tried to readjust the wiring and what not hoping that something was just loose. It looks like it might have worked as the truck stayed charged while I was driving home with the load of furniture. I hope so, I am tired of working on it. I was really wishing that Rooster was around, not really so he could fix it but just so I could shoot the sh*t with him while I fumbled around with things. I'll talk more about it later, but I really miss Rooster lately. We had a really good time together while we were in Florida the first time. I think we might have bonded again after a few years of not being too close. Anyways, I'm home now and put the kids in bed. Aimee has had a rough few weeks and the last few days have been hard so I told her to go out and have some fun tonight. I think she is hanging out with Emily and maybe Brittany.

Hopefully my day tomorrow will be better, but I don't know...Tuesdays suck and I have a lot of work to do tonight for school. Pray for me!

Oh, about the doctor. I found out that I'm effed up and we probably won't be able to have a baby because of me. You think of a way that someone's sperm can be deficient and I gotcha covered!  

On a lighter note, right after the doctor told me that, she told me I need to get a bunch of blood work done and see a urologist to make sure I don't have cancer or some other condition which could kill me.  At least I wasn't ONLY worried about not being able to ever have kids! Yay!

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Amazing new TV show on PBS

One of the fantastic things about Tivo is the way it learns about you. I know this might seem creepy to some people but I am into software and this is a bit like software I have worked on in the past. I will say that Tivo knows their stuff, it is very good software. Anyways, my Tivo pointed me in the direction of a new reality series/documentary that PBS has done called Carrier. I downloaded (free!) a 25 minute preview from Amazon Unbox onto the Tivo and realized at the end my jaw was just hanging. The footage was beautiful, the people that they have built the show around are just regular joes, and the concept is just amazing. There are 10 episodes and each one focuses on a different theme. The one that got me was the one on faith, they apparently focused an episode on faith in God, faith in the USA, faith in their mission, faith in each other. It was amazing. I'm not going to lie here, I have always regretted not joining the military out of high school (I was about two heartbeats away from joining the Marine Corps) and this was really pulling at my heart strings.

Anyways, it looks like they have/will have all of the episodes online and you should be able to pick it up for free over the air. I would suggest watching it!

Linky

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Dangit man, that was a crazy night!

Well, it doesn't happen much, but I had a wild night last night. I have never wanted to blog about an event more than I want to blog about last night. How many times can I say blog? Blog blog bloggity blog blog. Maybe I'll create a new blot, write a detailed account of all the events that transpired, and never tell anyone the url, just so I can write about it :)

Have fun searching :)

Friday, April 18, 2008

Good Morning!

Wow, well we had quite a surprise when we woke up this morning. I was laying in bed, happily thinking about the fact that I had the morning off of work. Then I heard Aimee say those fateful words, "MARIAH! What have you done to yourself." This can never be a good thing...but I tried to convince myself I was dreaming. I closed my eyes really tight and just kept thinking, "don't wake up don't wake up don't wake up." Unfortunately, it was all too true.

Mercedes loves markers. Mariah loves markers. Unfortunately, Mercedes knows that if Mariah gets her markers they all go in the garbage. This dates back to the 'sharpie on the couch incident'. Well, turns out Merc lost track of one of her markers. The black one. I opened my eyes to see Aimee holding up our baby, covered head to toe with black ink. It was kind of impressive actually. That a two year old could have the patience for that kind of coverage, I mean seriously! So Aimee placed her ever so gently in the tub and started scrubbing her off. I wish we had taken a picture...she had black lips, black hands, black legs (HER ENTIRE LEGS FROM HIP TO TOE), and I think even her elbows were black...which might actually be impossible. So daddy got to go through Mercedes room and round up ALL of her markers...and throw them in the garbage.

Mercedes only response was, "Well, I didn't want them anymore. They were going dry." I'll say, the black one sure wasn't dry.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

And...that's what she said

Well, turns out dead batter = dead alternator in this case. I've been suspecting it for years, actually, but it always checks out ok. Guess this time it checked out. HAH!

Well, what a night

Ok. So, it started out nicely. Aimee made a nice dinner for us, Mercedes was being a good girl, and Mariah greeted me at the front door with, "I pee-pee my chonies." Welcome to suburbia. It went down hill from there though. Mariah was a bisnatch during dinner and wouldn't eat her vegetables. She was pretty much doing the 'wrong thing' all during dinner time and then she was invading Merc's bathtime. Argh. It's annoying to me how little kids can just go from screaming their lungs out and shaking in a fit of righteous anger to being cute and making fart noises in the shower. By and by, Mariah is 2.5 years old and can take a shower pretty much by herself. That's some bad-ass parenting if you ask me. Yes, I said shower. Anyways, then we get a call to come get some sweet bedroom furniture for the kids and I go jump in the truck to pick it up. Click click clickity click. Dead battery. What the f. My truck is a constant source of frustration for me, I am so conflicted about whether to keep it or sell it and by something newer. Argh. So I'm charging the battery and waiting and I figured I'd just vent a little on here. Feels good, actually. In other news, I have been on the ball lately about some projects around the house we have been putting off. I have someone coming tomorrow to write me an estimate about closing in our huge window in the living room, got a guy coming to check out the laundry/telecom room on Monday and give me an estimate about running a/c in there. And finally, I got a price to blow insulation into the parts of the house that are sorely lacking. It's crazy, I've been putting these things off even though I know they need doing and I have been dreading doing them myself...and it turns out they're all like $250 - $350 bucks each. I am just going to do it and get it over with and we can get on with the business of enjoying our house.

Off to check the status of the truck battery, LATER!

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Well, as you all know Aimee and I have a house in Florida. It's the house my grandparents built in 1960 and I bought it in 2001. We got very lucky as we bought it just BEFORE the big housing boom so we paid next to nothing for it and its value shot up very quickly. When we moved to Arizona we decided to keep it and rent it out mainly because we weren't sure if we'd stay in AZ but also because its a piece of family history. We also didn't think we'd ever be able to buy again on Merritt Island the way the real estate market was going. Anyways, it has been an adventure being a landlord, thank God for my dad who manages it for us, and we have gone through a lot of ups and downs. Well, we have had good tenants for the past two year (finally!) but have never really been able to build up a surplus again like we had the first few years we rented it. I got insanely worried today when I got a voicemail from State Farm telling me they needed to talk to me ASAP about my house in Merritt Island. Yikes! I was really nervous when I called and, thankfully, it wasn't an emergency. Unfortunately, it appears that State Farm is pulling out of Florida altogether and thereby leaving me with no homeowners insurance. I guess it won't happen until November and they told me they are going to help get us a new policy but I'm a little nervous. I have heard nothing but horror stories from friends and families trying to get insurance and, frankly, I always felt secure knowing that State Farm had our back. When the hurricanes rolled through in 2004 they took great care of us and put a new roof on the place for us with absolutely minimal hassle (I MIGHT have even wound up with a few bucks in my pocket after it was all said and done).

Apparently there was a big to do between the Governor and State Farm and he was threatening them in order to keep them from pulling out (that's what she said) but it must not have worked. I guess his threat to banish State Farm auto insurance from the State wasn't enough. There is a bit more info here
but I'm not sure how much most of you care anyway. Wish us luck in the future!

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

First Post!

Well, consider me suckered into the world that is blogger.  I can't for the life of me understand why people want to read what I have to say about anything but I'm game.  I'll start out by just saying that I don't know what I want to blog about...so I guess this could be very random for a while.  I love photography, so I'll subject you to my picture taking nonsense. I love my family, so I'll subject to endless prattling about how wonderful and amazing they are.  I love my friends, so I'll probably write on and on about the fantastic things they are doing.  I am in seminary, so I am likely to talk about things that are going on with school andy my studies as well as my faith.  Lastly, I am a huge nerd, so I guess I'll write a lot about nerdy stuff.  Maybe I'll link that to a separate space so my not-so-nerdy friends can be spared.  Here's looking at you, kid...

 
Design by Wordpress Theme | Bloggerized by Free Blogger Templates | free samples without surveys