Well today we turned our 3 cats into the animal shelter because they were just getting 2 expensive to have, wouldn’t really come around, kids refused to take care of the cat litter and a few other reasons. We’re still keeping our dog because she’s a great little dog that’s loves to be around us and is very protective. She loves being around my wife more then anything and really never leaves her side, I guess that’s because Karen’s home all the time so she’s more protective over her.

Now on to the car. It seems reverse is going out in the car and that’s NOT a good thing. As a matter of fact, it really pisses me off so I called the guy that I purchased it from this morning and he told me to get the fluid flushed out on it and if that doesn’t fix it then wait a couple weeks and he’ll backdate the warranty that he offered at the time of purchase for $420 and then they will take care of fixing that and my damn SRS light that won’t go off as well as go over the car with a fine tooth comb to make sure nothing else is wrong with it. I wanted to get the warranty but I was scrapping just to come up with the $ to get the car. So now I have to raise $420 for the warranty so if the fluid flush and change doesn’t work, which I doubt it will then I can take it to his shop and let them fix everything on it with me sitting right there making sure everything is done perfect.

My wife thinks that it’ll be a lot easier now that we won’t have 3 cats to buy food and litter for but she doesn’t realize that it was only about $30 month to take care of them, one of the main reason’s she wanted them gone is because they were tearing up our furniture and neither one of us believe in declawing them. After this weekend, I’ll have a better perspective as far as where we’re at $ wise and what med’s I can skip so I can get this car repaired.

On a good note, it looks like the weather is going to start getting better sooner then I expected but that means yard work again for spring cleanup, (IE: Cleaning all the dog crap from the yard, garbage that got buried under the snow storms, cleaning out the shed which is going to cost me about $75 for someone to come take away 90% of the stuff that’s in there. I’m slowly trying to get away from being a pack rat and that means cleaning all my computer stuff in the den also. But I’ll have my shed back which was my get away place in the summer to just sit back and relax. Over the last couple years it’s filled up with more and more stuff that Karen and the kids put in there. So once I get that area back then my son and I can get back to father son time again just sitting back and talking about different things.

Well now that I have the car cleaned up as far as the outside goes, all that’s left is for the weather to warm up to the 60’s - 70’s so I can get the buffer out and start cleaning the paint and then 2 different coats of wax. All glass is coated in RainX now as well as RainX wipers on the car. I still need to coat the inside windows with the RainX wipes though but that’s nothing that can’t wait a couple weeks as I believe I went over my budget by about $50 for things to clean it up for me for my daily driver.

I’m hoping this week or 2 we can get some rain to melt all this damn snow we’re getting here and what’s built up. 400lbs of salt still hasn’t cleared it up and it’s aggravating.  I’m still having a issue with the airbag light staying on in the car but I’m slowly getting used to it. It’s not a fuse as I haven’t found anything in the manual to see that a fuse controls that.

So this week will be the first full week driving it back and forth to work so I’ll get a better idea of what kind of gas mileage I’ll be getting which will help.

I’ll be posting more as I do more things to fix it up. My son wants me to get a body kit for it and a kick ass sound system but that’s not me, not at 39 at least. Maybe 20 years ago it was but this is turning into more of a family car more or less. I’m still not sure if this is something we’ll be using for our Christmas vacation next year to Floriday or not, as much as I’d like to because of the mileage, I’m not sure If I can trust it. I’ll know more this summer as I do more driving and get used to it.

Well we finally got a second car again and I’ve done something I said I’d never do and that’s buy something non American. We purchased a 2000 Honda Accord LX with 115k miles on it last night but it’s fully loaded, get’s GREAT gas mileage and Honda’s are known to last forever if taken care of properly. This one has been taken care of and the interior looks brand new more or less and after we get some warm weather, I’ll be outside with the buffer and cleaning the paint and then a couple coats of good wax.

It has a bigger tank then the 2006 G6 that we’ve had as our only car so it costs more to fill up but from what research I did and the person we purchased it from, the thing averages over 32MPG on the freeway which is where I spend the majority of the time driving. He said he was getting close to 28MPG in the city also. With gas prices rising each week it seems, I can see this thing saving me a small fortune in gas and we won’t be going as far over the lease miles on the G6 as we were heading. At the rate we were going, we were looking at being around 12k miles over so now that it can just sit in the driveway 95% of the week, it’s going to be nice.

I still have some small work to do on the Honda as far as an oil change, replacing a couple burned out fuses and replacing the battery in the remote but that’s minor work. The only thing that’s bugged me so far is the burned CD’s that I have won’t play in the factory CD player, I’ll be checking tonight when I get home if a store bought CD will play and if that works then I need to figure out a way to trick the CD player into playing my burned ones or find a format that it’ll play. I’m also thinking about putting my XM radio in it but taking it somewhere to have done.  So in the meantime, I’m going to enjoy not watching the gas needle move as I drive home each day from work and turn this into the family car.

My TIA’s that is. A TIA is Transient Ischemic Attack or Mini-stroke and I’ve been suffering from them for over a year now. They seemed to go away for awhile but over the last month have really come back strong again and each one does more damage to the brain. Last night while we were at our church orientation, I had another one but there was one difference, another lady in the class suffers from them also and saw the attack start. My wife started getting really upset because of the attack again but she was relieved to find out that this lady also suffers from them also and like me, had a hard time finding a Dr to tell her what was wrong.

We ended up leaving our orientation class early last night and Karen drove us home because I obviously wasn’t able to because of the shaking that comes along with it and the blurry vision that comes along with these attacks. I still am having one hell of a time speaking today and still have the shakes but my vision has cleared up some. At least it was good enough for me to take back roads into work all the way in this morning where I didn’t need to worry about traffic or worse yet, kids waiting for a school bus.

So today I need to get through work again and do it without talking which isn’t much of a problem considering where I work at and then try to get home again. We have another winter storm watch for tonight again which really sucks since I can barely get in our driveway as it is now with all the ice/snow buildup at the end of it now without scraping the bottom of the car.

Life goes on and I will continue to do so. I don’t give up easy and this is a fight that I refuse to lose. I may not have control over my brain and these attacks but I sure as hell can do my best to continue to work and provide for my family. I can’t take the time off work to get my back fixed right so I know they won’t give me the time off to get this issue fixed. It’s just not the way the company is.

Well today is my 39th Birthday and yesterday my wife and I celebrated our 12 year anniversary. I told my wife and kids that next year they get to buy all those over the hill birthday cards/hats/banners/etc that we see at the stores. My body still feels like it’s twice it’s age easily but that’s due to all the health issues. My back is, well back to being messed up again. I’m eating pain pills like they are m&m’s. A few friends of mine have a  running bet as to when my body’s going to break down for the count. It’s not a cruel bet/joke/etc as it’s something that we started about 15 years ago when we really heavy into sports and playing with some severe injury’s. Think cast on leg and playing softball, bowling, basketball, etc.

So I guess I’ll be back to blogging more often again. Not sure what or when yet though.

Well thanks to the 8300 Curve, this weekend hasn’t been that bad. The procedure on my back didn’t work out like we all hoped as it didn’t fix everything and it looks like Fusion surgery is the last choice. I was able to keep my mind busy reading the ebooks and listening to about a gig of MP3’s that I had loaded on my Curve as well as take some weird pictures of myself when I was a mess just to laugh at later on.

So now I’m full of the steroids they injected me with and found a new level of pain that I never knew existed. I am able to walk a little better now so I guess that’s a plus. So now I’m just going to sit back, try to get through everything and figure out how to keep this back crap off my mind. This is where Xanax comes in handy. I’ve been taking it for awhile now to help with the day to day stress that I have between work, home, and most importantly my health.

Last night I tried to switch back to my 8800 Blackberry and actually did for about 2hr’s. I was happy with the GPS again as to me that’s a very important thing. But it just didn’t feel right in my hand so I went back to my Curve. I put up the 8800 for sale on one of the BB forums this morning and it should sell since it’s not even a month old and it’s most importantly UNLOCKED. That means that anyone that uses GSM can just toss in their SIM card in it and it’ll work right away without any issues of it being locked to just one carrier. Once that sells then I can pick up the 8310 Curve from AT&T that they just released. That one has the shape/feel of the 8300 Curve as well as BUILT IN GPS!! Then I will have what I consider to be the perfect device for me.

So it’s Sunday now and we have church in about an hour so I guess it’s time for me to get ready after another cup of coffee. Without my morning coffee, it’s best to stay away from me for awhile as you never know if I’m awake fully enough to give you a complete sentence, much less remember anything I might have agreed to earlier.

Well October 1st is right around the corner and it’ll mark the 1st time in 25 years that I’ve missed not only opening day but the entire hunting season. Due to my health issues, I won’t be in the woods enjoying the sounds of nature with either of my kids. The one that will be the most affected is my daughter as she always loved to go hunting with me. Not just to see her old man shoot a deer but to point out the different sounds and birds, snakes, insects, etc. I think that was the best time I ever had when I went hunting is when my kids came with me. My son was never really into it. Sure he loved to go but after a 1/2hr of sitting in the blind, he was asking to go home if we didn’t see any deer right away.

I guess I spoiled him early on when I would take him and the spot we always went to had deer that watched us goto the blind and then come up within range as it to say, “take me, I’ve had it with this world”. But after a couple years of seeing their buddies go down, I think they smartened up because last year was horrible for hunting. My daughter never minded and had the patience to sit there and watch with me and I treated her the same way as my son and slowly informed her about the outdoors and what it ment to us and how it was natural for us to kill deer. She never liked the kill but never stopped me either from killing a deer.

This year I’ll make sure that every hunting show that’s on TV will be Tivo’d and I’ll figure out a way to continue teaching them about the outdoors and how to survive. Luckily we live out in the sticks so I can still show them the hawks and we can watch them as they swoop down for a Rabbit and then watch them take the Rabbit high up just to drop it on the ground again to kill it and then swoop down to grab their meal again. Just because I can’t hunt anymore doesn’t mean that they need to stop learning about the outdoors. I’ll use every ounce of energy that I have to get my broken down body out in the woods to just sit with them, it doesn’t mean that we need to hunt because god only knows I can’t pull a bow back anymore and sitting down on hard ground isn’t good for my back. We can lean up against a tree or sit in a stand that I’ll continue to keep up in the tree’s so they can get a better view. My ass may not be able to get in the tree but they can and man do they love the view.

Maybe this year we’ll play some games and I’ll see how much they’ve learned over the years by identifying different sounds and I’ll see how good they are at spotting deer tracks or my favorite, seeing the little patch of deer while they are standing in thick cover and then telling me which way they are moving.

Either way I’ll figure out a way for my kids to not miss out because of me. That’s not fair to not only them but also to the wildlife.

Well it looks like the time as come for me to quit putting off back surgery. I was informed today that unless I have it, I could be looking at being in a wheelchair for the rest of my life. I guess I’ve torn my back up so much that it’s come down to that. It hasn’t helped that I’ve put off going to Dr’s that I knew were going to tell me this and continued to suffer through the pain. But over the last couple months my back has gotten so bad that I’m in tears more often then not due to the pain and Vicoden is like tic-tacks to me.

So on the 25th of this month, I’ll be heading down to see the neuro surgeon to see what they want to do and how long I’ll be down for. I’m going to saw that after it’s done, as long as I have a wheelchair, I’ll work. I’m not sure how I’ll make that happen since I don’t have a Van for a motorized wheelchair but I’m sure I’ll figure something out. I need to work to pay the bills.

So on that note, I’ll post more when I find out when the surgery is and how long I’ll be down for.

Well last Friday we thought we were going on a trip, a trip via a tornado. I honestly didn’t know if I was hearing the theme song from the Gilligan’s Island or was in the Wizard of Oz. We had a WICKED ass storm pass through Michigan last Friday and it spawned 3 tornado’s out of it. On the way home, I knew there was some serious weather in the air as you could just smell it and feel it but it wasn’t until I got inside the house and channel 7 was live with the weather and were it was hitting at.

I can honestly say that was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen in my life when they showed the tower cam from Southfield and you could see a wall of RAIN and then there was no city or cell towers. It looked like a damn F5 Tornado actually was going though the city but they said it was rain. A buddy of mine is a storm chaser and he was calling me with updates from an area up a little North of us that was getting hit with a tornado. As soon as I saw what was going on outside, I got our “bug out” bag ready and was trying to calm our son down as he always freaks out during these bad storms. I told everyone that “once the sirens go off, we’re out of here so be ready to go!!!”

After the storm passed, a friend of mine called me up to see if we were ok because all he heard is that a trailer park was hit by a Tornado and he wanted to make sure we were ok because he didn’t hear which one it was. Lucky for us, it wasn’t ours but I know one of these years it just may be. So far we’ve been lucky enough where the bad weather just hits either just a little south or a little north of us. But each year it keep creeping further south towards us. The scary part is, I’m never sure where we can go if one does hit us, we have a meijers within 5 minutes if I pedal to the metal it but who’s to say that I wouldn’t be driving right into the storm. That’s really the only place we have that’s good enough for us.

Oh well, it sure was an exciting start to a dull weekend, all we basically did was sit around and watched TV until last night when we decided to go walking along a nice wildlife trail. I wanted to see how our new pet would be once it got the scent of a coon or rabbit, of course I didn’t take into effect how long I would be able to be on my feet. On the way back to the car, I was shaking bad and had a real hard time of it getting back, I had missed the window that I take my meds in and my body was telling me that it wasn’t happy with me. Once we got home and I got my meds back in me, I was fine after about 1/2hr on the couch. Well maybe not fine because of the tremors but as close to fine as I can get by my standards now.

I guess that’s it for now, maybe I’ll post something more in the week when I have more time.

I don’t even know where to start on this one because everything was so fun and just flew on bye. We attended my high school’s 20 year reunion this weekend and it all started friday night after work and ended sunday morning after the reunion was over with. We all met at an “informal” place in Clarkston Michigan for a night out and to just meet everyone again, now that night was a blast. Then Saturday night out in Novi is where we had the reunion at. For the ladies it was a blast because they were dancing for hours non-stop. My wife’s feet were so sore that I iced them down after we got home and she went to sleep.

We also met up with 2 couples that we all hope to remain good friends with from here on out, Karen danced with the girls all night long and us guys just sat around talking more or less. I was uploading pictures that people were taking to the website that I had setup for the class for a few hours that night as people were bringing over their camera’s for me to copy them on down. We’ll have a DVD coming in the mail soon with pictures from the professional photographers that were hired so I’ll be spending a full day uploading all them at some point.

So all said and done, this weekend was probably one of the best I’ve had in a long time, seeing old friends and making new one’s is always a good thing. I just feel like I need a couple days off work to recover from it all but I’m a workaholic so that won’t be happening anytime soon.