Birthday Interview Questions

Friday I’m going to start a tradition in the Ring household. I’ve had this idea for some time but I keep forgetting to do it. The idea is to hold an interview with someone on their birthday. On Friday, the interview will be with Thomas on the occasion of his 13th birthday. Hopefully, I’ll remember to continue this and I’ll use the same questions year after year. Here are the questions I have so far. Please add your suggestions in the comments.
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I read the news today, oh boy

Monday, January 26, 2009

0600:
iPhone alarm wakes me with “Sonar”. I get out of bed, put on yesterday’s clothes and check Thomas’ room. His alarm clock is rumbling but he is not in his room. I wander around the house looking for him until I find him in bed with his Grandma. I wake him. I take my iPhone into the Big TV Room where I check mail, Twitter and Facebook.

Continue reading “I read the news today, oh boy”

You with your angel face

On this historical day our little family is going through a little bit of personal history. As I write this, Tina is in the operating room undergoing a hysterectomy. As many of you know, a couple of weeks ago Tina had what I described then as a “severe gynecological episode” which resulted in great loss of blood and a trip to the emergency room. After spending a night in the hospital and consulting with a new set of doctors, we concluded that her old doctor would no longer be treating her. For over a year she’s been having problems with irregular and lengthy menstrual cycles and her doctor insisted on treating her with hormones in the form of birth control pills. That treatment was ineffective and the ongoing condition resulted in frequent migraines, anemia, worsening a of her restless leg syndrome and a myriad of lesser symptoms. This all culminated in the middle of December when Tina’s period started and hasn’t stopped since. And so she is in the operating room now.

They are going to attempt to perform the procedure vaginally in order to reduce recovery time. However, if there are complications (details of which were explained to us but I cannot remember), they will make an incision for a laparotomy. They are equally prepared for either.

Tina’s mom arrived last night and will be helping out over the next week or so as Tina recovers. Since I’m working from home, I’ll also be able to help more than if I weren’t. We are lucky.

Update (13:00 PST): Tina is out of recovery and resting in her room. Pain medication is making her drowsy but she’ll probably be up for calls and visitors this evening. She’s in room 2406 at Adventist.

Update (14:00 PST): The doctor reported that the surgery went well. She called it an “assisted laparotomy”, I think. As I understand it, they made two small incisions to assist in the removal via vagina. Also, that last sentence is all kinds of wrong.

Vital Statistics

Bike odometer: 2523
Van odometer: 154364
Weight lost (in pounds): 0
Aches & pains: sciatica
Current reading: My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk, Cross-platform GUI Programming with wxWidgets
Recent listening: Christmas music, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits
Recent viewing: Bounce, It’s a Wonderful Life, Spurs at Suns, King Corn, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Kingpin, Outback Bowl, The Shining, The Covenant, United 93, The Weird Al Show
Recent playing: Chain Factor, Galcon, Rock Band
Recently accomplished: Purchased new TV, Christmas shopping, snow removal, recycling
Imperative To Do: Get rid of office junk, freecycle, activate new Tivo, clean garage, get rid of MacRenewal Macs, trim bushes, pull blackberries