Post Op

Tomorrow morning I have my first meeting with the doctor that did my back surgery. Actually, it isn't with him, but his PA. I will have another meeting, with the Dr himself, sometime after that. I am a little nervous, I have had a few random aches and pains and each one brings with it the fear that something similar will happen again in the future. I am going to ask him about Physical Therapy, and what types of exercises might reduce the likelihood of recurrence. I asked right before surgery what my capabilities would be after the surgery and he seemed to think they would be almost identical to pre-op, but I have my doubt's. As long as I can still camp and ride my mountain bike, I will be happy. And, most importantly, play with Matthew :-D

I think I am giving up on Linux. Not that I will never use it again, it is invaluable for my job as a network tool (the network tool being linux, not me :-P) but it is just not a full replacement for Windows as in serveral ways. First, I could NEVER get flash to work, and while I disdain about 80% of Flash on the web, some of it is actually useful. Secondly, I just hate having to go back and add drivers everytime I add some new capability. I tried adding my MP3 external hard drive, but it is NTFS formatted, so I had to find the NTFS package for Fedora Core 5, and then it still didn't work. Oh well, I have more important things to do than support the grass movements of OSS and Linux; Like....

Sell our house :-) We are going to put our townhome on the market in the middle of June, so Nancy has been getting it ready to show. I have, sadly, been of little use in helping her, aside from entertaining Mattthew while she takes down personal pictures, clears counters, etc. But it is exciting to think of a new house, maybe one with a bathroom in the master bedroom! (Ours is currently a split master, our's has a full size shower in it, Matthew's has the tub/shower combo.)

We are also planning a trip to Disneyland in July, for Matthew's 3rd Birthday. This will be his second trip, and hopefully, the first one prepared him a little for this one. We think this one will be a LOT of fun, since he won't be so overwhelmed with everything.

Since my surgery I have been working on being more expressive, and less clammed up, so I can admit I am very excited about this second trip to DL. The one thing that would make it great is if Matthew learned to smile and laugh while on a ride, so we know if he likes it or not - right now, he is VERY serious while on each ride, looking around and noting EVERTYHING, which we found out after we got back from DL last time and a few weeks later, Nancy asked him if he remembered the Winnie The Pooh ride, and Matthew proceeded to describe the ride in such detail Nancy called me at work stammering.

Like many of us do after any sort of life event, I have decided that I need to change some things, one of which is keep in better touch with those who mean so much to me. Another is that I do not need to work quite so much on side jobs; the money is nice, but that is Matthew and Nancy time that is being lost, and as I recently though, no one is giving time away, so I need to make the best use of it that I possibly can.