Sunday Times

OK, so the business trip turned out to be a little busier than expected and I didn't have an opportunity to formulate a post.

As you know from my previous few posts, life has been a bit hectic of late. On Bobbie's treatment side, we have now begun the "shots at home" portion of her treatment. The bad news is that she has to get 2 shots/day three days/week of Interferon. The good news is that the dosage is 1/2 that of what she was getting at the hospital, she's getting it 3x/week rather than 5x/week and there is a day or two break between each pair of shots. The side effects are similar but much reduced in that she still runs a small fever a couple of hours after the shot, experiences lesser nausea and, though frequently fatigued, is not knocked out for 18 hours/day. The better news that keeps the silver lining for us is that this is all preventative treatment in an effort to keep the cancer from coming back. Technically, the full run of the at home treatment is 11 months, but only about 30% of the people are apparently able to make it through the whole treatment, so we'll have to see how Bobbie does. They say it tends to wear on your mental state with the constant fatigue and general feeling of "blah", so most people have to stop before the full treatment is complete. However, apparently that first month at the hospital is the really important part and we are through that.

At work I have been very busy preparing for a global implementation of HP OpenView. It's a very customizable and sizeable deal, so it has occupied much of my time and will likely continue to do so for the near future. I've just requested formal training for HP Systems Insight Manager and it has been approved, so I'm pretty excited about that. To date, I have just been trying to wing it without significant success. I am also involved in trying to implement a pair of proxy servers running Microsoft ISA and Websense behind a pair of F5 network load balancing devices which has also met with mixed success thus far. On the business trip that I mentioned, some of my team had the opportunity to meet with many of our peers from a sister company. It was nice to finally put some faces to some names.

On the entertainment front, we hosted the 3rd annual That Boardgaming Thing last weekend with much success. We had over 80 attendees which is a healthy increase from last year's attendance and everyone seemed to have a fantastic time, including myself of course. Beyond that, I play World of Warcraft whenever I get a chance, I have been playing a free web-based game, Mythos, and play boardgames every Thursday night up at the store. Not much new to report there.

Killian continues to learn something new everyday, which is expected at his age. Lots of new words starting to enter his vocabulary so we're soon going to have to start watching what we say in his company. It is truly amazing to watch a kid develop, I must admit. A combination of rewarding and frustrating. "Mine" is very key to him now and that's a bit of a challenge. We are looking to soon enroll him in a pre-school for 2 days/week 3 hours/day. There are a few affordable ones nearby. It's just a matter of research and application now. I really miss him when I can't see him for a day or two now. OK, I'll admit that has always been the case, but it seems to be more significant as he grows.

Contrary to my previous claim that I refuse to watch more than one season of Prison Break, I have seen the first 3 episodes of season two and it continues to be a good show. I am worried, however, that it is soon to become cheesy. We'll just have to wait and see. I am reading (listening to) the final (7th) book in The Dark Tower series by Stephen King and it has come to a point in the last two books that I didn't expect. An excellent series of books thus far. I'm praying for a decent ending. My next actual read in queue is Eats, Shoots and Leaves, which I received from my sister for my birthday. I've been wanting to read that one ever since I heard about it a year or so ago. Speaking of which, my sister is pregnant again so I have another niece or nephew (and Killian has another cousin) on the way. I haven't heard which it will be yet. I think she's still to early to tell.

Alright, I'm off to enjoy my Sunday as best I can. Until next time...