Excerpt from a IM with a friend:
DRon321: you know what they say about the shit hitting the fan, lately it feels like they’re lowering the fan into the toilet
paloma64279: lol
DRon321: or the port-a-john
We just got word that her father had fallen off a ladder at work and was flown to shock trauma at University Hospital…… he was working on the Eastern Shore. She said- Good news does not travel by helicopter. So we’re worried about Jess’ father. Say a prayer for her if you can.
In the mess of everything lately, I’ve sort of ignored the repeated warnings from my domain registrar that dean-o.org was going to expire. Well it did. I renewed it this morning, but it’s still not going on, so if you need to email me for whatever reason please send it to dean@amymckenzie.org until I get dean-o.org running again, shouldn’t be long.
Baltimore-Bloggers BBQ
As posted to the Baltimore-Bloggers Mailing List:
I have approved it with the wife, and pending no tragedies in the next week or so, we are on for a cookout at my house next staturday. I think we can arrange to pick people up who are trasportationless. I’m gonna say it’s a byobb - bring your own beef (or whatever meat you’d like other than hotdogs and hamburgers) and beer. We’ll provide soda. If you have a favorite CD, sport, fire-toy 
, that you’d like to share, please bring them. Also we’re pretty short on the yard furniture department as well, if you’ve got a chair or something, feel free to bring it too. Kids and SO’s are welcome.
______
Who - Baltimore Bloggers, friends and family
When - next Saturday beginning at 6 until whenever.
Where - Dean and Amy’s house
More specifically - email me for that info
What - Summertime Fun
RSVP- email me
Any Bloggers or webpeople in the area that read my page, feel free to come by.
The other day after writing about the Paper Moon Diner, Amy hopped out of bed to read what I wrote, thinking I wrote about what an awesome time I had with my wonderful wife. I hadn’t, but I had meant to. We really had a wonderful time. I can’t remember the last time I had so much fun with my wife. She definately surprised me. We ran into a guy I had gone to school with, and she talked to him like she had known him for a year. This guy is going to LA to be an actor, well try anyway. We didn’t swap numbers or email addresses or anything, just talked about what was going on with our lives and said see ya. On our way home it started raining, awesome lightning filled the sky.
We woke up to a wonderful storm yesterday morning. Loud thunder, and rain. I love morning storms. We saw my mom and dad and niece off and I rested with Caleb while Amy cleaned the house. We ended up going shopping and then out to Amy’s grandparents house for a cook out. Amy’s brother Jesse was stopping there before coming to our house and several of their aunts and uncles ended up coming out also. It was fun time, setting out back in the shade talking to family and friends. We ended up back at our house and ate steamed crabs. Amy and I have had steamed crabs 3 nights in a row. They’re so yummy. We finished up the evening sitting around talking over the Princess Bride.
I was chatting with an old co-worker today about crabs and came up with some links about eating/picking crabs as well as crabbing, so I thought I’d share them:
Robins Web - How to eat crabs
Pictures of a family enjoying the delicacy
How to Pick Crabs
Crabbing - A how-to
Wrapping up a wonderful weekend, Amy and I had a night out, or rather a few hours, alone. Just us. It was an enjoyable time, we didn’t leave the house until Caleb was asleep, just to be sure he wouldn’t give my mom any trouble, and we headed downtown. We drove through Fells Point, but didn’t find anywhere to go, I wanted to go to a bar/club that had a casual atmosphere where we could get a drink, possibly dinner, listen to some jazz or blues… sorta quiet. I don’t know what I was thinking. We didn’t drive by anyplace like that, none that looked like that from the outside anyway! We ended up having dinner at the Paper Moon Diner. It’s an eclectic place uptown, sort of a bad neighborhood, but once we parked and found our way inside, we forgot about where we were. Amy decided she’s afraid of mannequins, especially naked halves. We had a grilled salmon club sandwich which was delicious. For desert I had bread pudding, it was really good, but by the time I got it, I was so stuffed that I couldn’t finish even half of it. Amy had a slice of cheesecake, so I couldn’t split the bread pudding with her. Overall it’s been a very nice weekend, after Jesse got out of the hospital yesterday, we settled on the house. Our monthly payment is about $200 more than we were expecting, but I think we’ll be alright. We had steamed crabs last night and this evening, talking about having them again tomorrow night, but we’ll see. One of the best things about today is that I’m off tomorrow! well goodnight.
I spose it’s time for me to put some thoughts down. I think Amy got frustrated with me yesterday when all I did was link to her story about the mess that is happening. I’ll begin by recounting the story from my perspective, I’ll pick up with Wednesday morning- including information about my interview.
I was about 5 minutes late for my interview. It was right across the road from where the old SBS office was in Columbia. I felt so dumb, had I known it was in the same place I’d never have been late. So I get there and the interview’s going, he asks me some crazy question about why a manhole cover is round. I told him what I’d either read somewhere, or someone told me, that it’s mostly so that it won’t fall through the hole. Which is a correct answer, but he told me other things like so that it can be rolled, cause it’s so heavy, or so that you can make a spool by putting a pipe between two of them. I don’t know what that had to do with anything. Anyway, it was definately a company that I’d enjoy working for, but for what they were offering I’d be suffering. it was almost half what I’m currently making. ugh! So I’ve resolved myself to ask what they company is offering in terms of salary before interviewing.
So I left the interview and went to the insurance company where I got the paperwork for the homeowners insurance, and then came home. Before I arranged the interview I had requested to have the afternoon off so that Amy could go downtown for a meeting regarding home daycare. So she got ready for her meeting after we ate lunch. As we were heading out the door the phone rang. She said, “If that’s my mom, don’t answer it”. I looked at the caller id and it said Henry Hensler. Which is odd, cause when the call from home it usually says Henslers Tree Service or something. I thought why would Henry be calling us. When I picked it up Mary was on the other end telling me that Jesse, Amy’s brother, had been in a serious car accident and was in the Emergency Room at the hospital. Ohmigosh. what do we do? Mary asked me if I knew where Jesse’s wife, Amy, was. All I knew was that she was in training somewhere downtown, we didn’t have contact information for her. I told her I’d do my best to track her down. We got out the phone book and looked for a number for the building where she might be, neither of us really knew the name of the bldg, so we were just guessing. Eventually I called 411 and asked the number for the office where she works over on the Eastern shore ( about 2.5 hrs away). I called and while I was talking to the secretary, she mentioned that Amy was on the phone with her boss. I told the lady to ask her to call me, before I had hung up the phone I had a beep, it was Amy. I found out where she was and we went to pick her up. I got lost on the way to the hospital. I mean I knew how to get there, just didn’t realize the road I was on and the road I wanted to be on didn’t connect where I thought they did. I wasn’t really lost, just not where I wanted to be. When we arrived at the hospital I let the Amy’s out while I parked the car. Caleb and I arrived, both the Amy’s had gone back to see Jesse while I found out from his Mom, Dad, Step-dad and Grandfather what had happened. Mostly we had information only from Jesse, who was too incoherent to really get many thoughts out, but he said that he was stopped at a light, or a stop sign, and someone made a turn across his lane in front of him, and he hit her, or she hit him, it’s hard to make any sense of it. The moved Jesse to the Neurosciences Critical Care Unit and we found the waiting room. It slowly filled up with those of us concerned. I’d guess 15-20 people sitting around waiting for their turn to visit with Jesse. We didn’t get home until around 11. Jesse’s condition mostly improving but it’s hard to tell. The injuries are some swelling/bleeding in his brain and several skull fractures. He’s having quite a few problems speaking, you can almost see his brain making connections again, it’s really facinating, but pretty scarey at the same time.
Disclaimer: Any of this read by Amy’s family, none of it is meant to be harmful, or spiteful, but to convey a story as we’re living it, please approach us and ask us about things if you are confused by something I’ve written or said, that’s one of the biggest things that we have learned in the past few months, it’s amazing what discussing an issue versus hiding it can do to a person.
One of the hardest things about this whole situation has to do with family problems. I’m not sure how much Amy wants to share, but I’ll share and she can tell me to edit it later. Amy’s mom and dad got divorced when she was a child, her dad has pretty much been non-existant as far as a father is concerned. She has done so much to love him and care for him, but the feelings are not reciprocated. He shows up everyonce in a while, usually to buy us dinner or help us with a car problem, but then is gone for months at a time. Amy’s mother and father have spent more time in the same room during the last two days than in the last 10 years I imagine. Anyway, the tension in the room you could cut with a knife. Ralph showed up shortly after the accident and has made it his personal mission to handle all of the insurance stuff, go out and find the car and get stuff from it. No one has asked him to do this, and most are pretty pissed that he is doing it. It’s very difficult for any of us to approach him to begin with, but to ask him to stop doing these things it’s particularly difficult. Amy’s mothers parents would not come to the hospital on Wed because they knew that Ralph and his family would be there, they wouldn’t even be in the same room with them, despite the situation.
Amy and Jesse both very recently came to terms with some of their family issues that have caused them to be pretty depressed and anxious. Both of their doctors have them taking Paxil. Both of them have made some pretty serious discoveries of themselves and their family in the past few months. Their personalities have completely changed and those closest to them see how wonderful it is. At the same time, those closest to them, Amy (Jesse’s wife) and Amy (my wife) and I are sitting back at the insanity that is taking over the family in this time of crisis. We see the petty things that they try to focus on instead of discussing the serious issues at hand. They spent hours discussing the various factors that could have lead to the accident, and who would be at fault and who’s sueing whom, and the only information we have regarding the accident is information from Jesse, and what he said shortly after the accident has somewhat conflicted with what he says now, and who really knows what to believe. I mean I realize that it’s important to get an idea of what happened, but to dwell on that is a huge distraction.
One thing that Amy said to me Wednesday night on the way home was that there is stuff on the table now that her family has never had to deal with before, and she knows that this should change the way they interact. And I’m pretty sure it will.
Right now we’re just hanging in there, we’ve spent almost all of our time at the hospital, waiting for some news of a change, some hint that things are on their way up, and until then, we’ll be waiting.
Tomorrow, we settle on the purchase of our house. My parents are coming in tonight in order to be here for the settlement, since we’re purchasing it from them. They’re bringing my neice, Laura. I can’t wait to see her, or my parents.
As we prepared to walk out the door to leave, we got THE call. I told Dean not to answer if it was my mom, but then changed my mind and said to tell her we were leaving. He answered, I noted the change in tone and the quiet responses and he hung up. I was worried, and rightly so…
Well it’s pretty much official. July 15th will be our last day here at the Senate, unless of course Signal Corp decides to hire me. I’m not sure that I want to wait around to find out. So in the meantime I’m going to be sending out resumes and doing the whole interview thing. Hopefully getting a better paying job, closer to home. $123/month is a big expense for transportation, the other thing is driving to work. I’d really like to drive but we don’t have reliable transportation, at this time the train works out really great for us, not to mention the down time where I can read or listen to music or watch people.
I sent out a few resumes on Sunday and yesterday. Last night when we got home from the movies I had a message requesting an interview. Already! Wow! Perhaps God knows what he’s doing afterall.
Last night I took the train out to Martins Airport where Amy picked me up and we went to her Moms for dinner. Amy’s brother, Jesse and his wife Amy, and son Tyler are in town for the next few days. We had dinner at their moms house and then we went to the movies with another couple. Thanks to Amy and Jesse- they paid! We saw Spiderman. I was impressed. It was a super-hero movie and as long as I kept that in my mind then I enjoyed it. When I started thinking how silly, or what was that there for I got mad at myself. There were very few things I had problems with, just some continuity issues- which I’ll just leave out. I’m a sucker for those things, in theater and movies, I have an analytical mind that I have a trouble turning off.
In other media news, I’ve been incredibly disappointed with the season finales that we’ve watched- Crossing Jordan - sucked, CSI - wasn’t too bad. I just hope that Smallvilles season finale, which aires tonight, lives up to the rest of the season.
I have an interview tomorrow. I’m not about to sit back for 8 weeks and just let things take their course, without influencing the direction my path will take. So I got the message about scheduling an interview, and then I got the interview scheduled, requested off for the rest of the day. After the interview I’ll be going to sign the papers for homeowners insurance. And then the rest of the afternoon watching Caleb while Amy goes to an orientation for starting a home day care. We’re settling on the house on Saturday at 1pm.
My parents will be coming into town sometime Friday night and spending the holiday weekend with us. We’re both really excited about it. Amy and I and Jess and her boyfriend may go to Synergy Friday night.
I’m sure this entry is all fragmented…. I started it this morning and just now at 4:07 finished it. Oh well, such is life.
So it’s 2:23, so I’ve had a beer or two. I’m sitting at the computer listening to an ex-girlfriend discuss her dating issues with my wife and our roomate. It’s almost surreal. It’s an incredibly odd feeling. We’ve had a great evening considering we didn’t start playing cards until after 10. Jess showed up shortly after Stacey got home from this wedding she attended with some ex-boyfriend. We broke out the beer and the cards. Played pinochle until we got tired and the conversation just sort of took over. We’ve talked a lot about past relationships this evening….. between friends and lovers. It’s not such a big deal…. just odd. I’m in the ‘puter room seperating myself, mostly cause I’m not interested in the conversation and I don’t want to go to bed. What shall I do…. play on the computer, listen to some MP3’s.
Rumor has it that the company I’m contracted to has lost the contract. Possible outcomes for my current position, as my boss explained them:
I’m most weary about the last option. I’ve been with Siemens/Entex since 97. It’s the first “real” job I’ve had. Before that I was a temp, working various clerical/administrative jobs from the time I graduated until I got the job at Entex. I had no real experience when I was hired there, and I don’t have any experience to get me out of this field. I’ll probably end up first level help desk. I hope not, I’ve been level 3 helpdesk for over 2 years. I can’t imagine being a front line- information taker, robot type person. Ugh!
Anyway, the rumor so far is just that. They had a big meeting last week saying that they knew the rumors were going around, and that they didn’t have any information to dispell them or confirm them. The way my boss talked to me it seemed pretty sure. That’s the way things happen in this business. It still sucks, doesn’t make it any easier. I can just pray that I find where God wants me to be.