getting soft August 27, 2008
Posted by engjake in Nothing.Tags: excercise, getting in shape, health
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office jobs are lame, but I like it. It’s just a double edged sword. I mean i wouldn’t want to be digging trenches or whatever in the heat of the summer of the cold of the winter. I’m a wimp I guess but the nice, warm [or cool] office is a pretty good way to work. The problem is that i sit at my chair too much and my body is going soft. In addition to that I have spent a lot of time this year at the hospital with my daughter and there is not much you can do there. You just sit and wait for test results or until she gets well enough to go home. As a result I think I am in worse shape now than I have ever been. Not because I have gained a ton of weight, but because my muscles do not get enough excercise. I really need to do something about it. I have been biking several times this year and my neighbors are kicking my butt on easy rides that i shouldn’t have a problem with at all. I just don’t have the legs these days and its really starting to bug me. I think i’m going to buy one of those reclined stationary bikes so i can pedal beneath my desk while I work. Or maybe I’ll build a stairclimber desk where the stairclimber provides the power for my computer so I can’t stop climbing if I want to earn a living.
Or, maybe I should just set some time away each day to get some physical activity so I can prolong my life on earth.
Everyday vs. Every Day August 24, 2008
Posted by engjake in business.Tags: commonplace, door hardware, mediocre
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Grammer is not my forte and I’m the first to admit it. I’ll just as readily admit that I make mistakes because we all do – some just admit it more than others. I make a lot so I have to admit it because it’s pretty obvious most of the time. So when I was deciding on the right tag line for my door hardware business I really thought about it to make sure I used the right words. The slogan we came up with is “opening new doors everyday” I debated for some time between using the word everyday, or every day. Both are correct, but have slightly different meanings. I of course meant opening new doors on a daily basis so I should have used every day – two words. Instead i used the one word version because it just seemed more simple. However, one word means ordinary or common place. While we do sell some door knobs that are ordinary or commonplace, that wasn’t quite the meaning I was looking for. I didn’t realize this mistake until a customer emailed and told us about it. It’s pretty embarrassing yes; and now I will have to replace the lettering on our business vehicle and anything that has the logo on it. And I have a lot of pens that we had made with the grammatical error. Oh well, I could have made worse mistakes. The only thing I am wondering is why my two neighbors that are teachers never said anything to me as I drove past in the slogan embelished vehicle – maybe they just thought I was striving to be ordinary. I am fairly mediocre.
This is a lesson to all of you business owners out there. Do more research before deciding on a slogan or preparing any other kind of marketing materials.
Wyoming August 23, 2008
Posted by engjake in Uncategorized.add a comment
So I’m up in the north west of WY for the night. I love coming up here. Not just because my parents live here, but because the scenery is incredible, traffic is minimal and its so peaceful and quiet. I just put my kids to bed and as I stood there looking at their cute little faces on their pillows I could hear the faint sound of irrigation sprinklers. The window was open a crack with a cool breeze of clean air and the smell of wet alfalfa fields outside drifted in. What a peaceful way to fall asleep.
I’ve considered moving to Wyoming. I’m weird perhaps but the small town slower paced life sounds appealing to me. The clean air and beautiful scenery is a bonus. Here people know you by name. You stop by the grocery or hardware store and the owners and employees know you. Everyone waves whether they know you or not because they just assume they know you - if they don’t they know your parents. We live in a great neighborhood now though, and it would be hard to leave the good neighbors and friends next door.
Another Bonus: no state income tax and license plates with a bronco on them.
lousy blogger August 23, 2008
Posted by engjake in cancer/leukemia.Tags: Bone Marrow Transplant, Graft Versus Host Disease, GVHD
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i really should be a better blogger than i am. I’m on my laptop more than is healthy and these days i’ve spent more time than i would like at the hospital with my daughter which means i should have had more than enough time to blog. She’s battling a little GVHD in the gut which is less than desirable and it looks like she’ll be admitted for a while. Ironically, i finally got a break from the hospital [my wife took a shift] so I left town to WY for an overnighter and its here that I decide to blog.
So Chloe or Chlo-pie as we call her, has had a bit of GVHD rash on her skin for quite a while, but recently she has had some serious diarehha problems so we have been back and for to the hospital for several weeks trying to figure out what the issue is. It’s been a bit frustrating because she was going to get colonoscopy a few weeks ago to figure out what was going on, but the docs kept postponing to run different tests. After all of those tests came back negative they finally resorted to the colonoscopy and found the GVHD problem. The treatment is some steroids and no food for a while to clear the gut, then easing back into foods over several weeks. She’s not happy about it.
For those unfamiliar with GVHD, its an acronym for Graft Versus Host Disease. This occurs when the graft [donor] cells that the bone marrow transplant receives and the recipients own [host] cells attack each other. Hence the term graft versus host. The tricky thing is a little bit of GVHD is not neccissarily a bad thing because it would help eliminate any remaining cancer cells in the host body, but if the GVHD gets out of control it can be life threatening.
Like I mentioned, Chloe has always had a little bit but we’ve been able to keep it under control with meds. This new development of GVHD in her gut is not great news to us. Hopefully we can get it under control and she can get home again soon. She is such a trooper and rarely complains.
