If anyone still checks this site for updates, I should note that I am no longer using it.  :)  Obviously, most of you would have figured this out by now.  I am, however, maintaining a new blog called Intersections and doing much better at it, thanks to a book I read about using blogs for ministry.  It's mostly about things in my ministry, but there are some personal stories thrown in there as well.  This will be my (official) final post, despite it looking like I've made that post twice before now.

I know that Jaime has been having lots of fun on MySpace finding old friends and such. I've always known that MySpace was not really for me, but that lots of my youth were into it. I recently sat down and found 13 of them on MySpace through the emails I have on file for about 20-25 different youth. Of those, 4 were marked private and only viewable by friends. That's a good sign, I guess. I finally ended up doing the digging because I'm teaching a class for parents about raising their kids in a non-Christian world. MySpace and other online portals/blogsites/favorite hangouts are going to be reviewed and presented to the parents.

Overall, it's been interesting what I can find on MySpace. I've always known that youth are much more open and honest online than they are in person, but it's still a bit shocking to see some of the stuff they'll post for anyone in the world to see. Thankfully, none of them posted phone numbers or addresses other than the town they live in (that I could find anyway...). Interesting stuff... :)

I'm not a huge basketball fan, but the Cavaliers have really shocked me in the last week or so. They go down 2-0 to the Pistons and you might as well call it a series. Then they take the next 3 and suddenly look like they can win the series. Hopefully they'll be able to finish it off on Friday evening in Cleveland.

My elbow is slowly getting better. I have a funky new dynamic elbow splint that is supposed to help get my extension back. So far, it seems to be helping, but it's hard to tell for sure. It feels better, but the measurements at the therapist's office aren't improving much. They did warn me that the brace was a 2-3 month thing, not 2-3 weeks, so we'll see what happens with it.

Current Mood: excited

The Doc liked what he saw today when I went back. They think I'll be all healed up in a week or two, but scheduled the return visit for a month from now to give the PT people time to work on me. I ended up with a very nice guy as my PT running his own small PT office. He looked at my arm and took some measurements with his protractor-like device and found that I have range of motion from 20 degrees to 110 degrees. He worked on it some and it felt much better after his stretching and joint-moving.

He also gave me some good exercises to do involving hammers and surgical tubing. Great stuff. Now Jaime is off the hook for bending my arm around and making me get the motion back. I'll be able to do these new things on my own, so she doesn't have to worry about it. I'm sure she'll enjoy that news a lot.

Well, I'm off to one of my youth group kid's Basketball Finals. They go for the perfect season and the championship today.

I got the cast off my elbow today. Typing is a little easier, tho I still can't rotate my wrist very well. The doctor says that I need to work on the range of motion. Pretty painful stuff, today, but it should get easier as it goes along. I probably need to take a pain killer before doing the exercises, but I was too lazy to move upstairs to get it tonight.

It's a little odd right now because my arm feels worse now than when I had the cast on because now I find that I can inadvertantly move it the wrong way and cause some pain. Again, that should get better with time tho. The Doc says the break is down to a fracture and I only need to use a sling when I'm around others who might jostle my arm. Or as a reminder to me to not get too excited and use it to do some heavy lifting by mistake. :)

I went to the doc today and he looked at the CT Scan. I now have a cast on (and will have it for only 10 days). After that, it's 3-4 weeks of physical therapy and sling immobilization. About the best I could have hoped for!

At our Super Bowl party on the 5th of February, I had a nasty run-in with a cinder block wall while playing some pickup football. I hit the wall at full speed and fell to the ground with a hurt arm. I couldn't move it very well, but I managed to make it back downstairs for the game and get some ice on it. A call to my helpful sister provided some details about what might be wrong, but it's hard to do that over the phone... We were heading to our cruise the following morning and didn't have time to have the arm looked at, so we decided to just continue with the icing and see if it gets better on it's own...

It got progressively better over the cruise, but there was still plenty of pain if I moved it certain ways and hadn't got my full range of motion back in over a week. I caved in and decided to go to the doctor to see what's up. Enter Doctor #1: David Pawlowski.

Dr. Pawlowski looked at it and thought it could be tissue inflammation from the hit, but decided an X-Ray was needed because he was far from certain. He suggested that it might be a chipped bone in my elbow. Not good. Off to Windsong Radiology on the first floor!

While there, Nurse #1 enters to take my X-Rays... She asks me to lay my arm flat, only to hear that I can't do that. "No, just like this" she says. So I tell her again, "Nope, I can't do that." She then informs me that she's only a student and that she'll go get someone else to help me get it done. Nurse #2 finishes the job and sends me to the waiting room to hear from Doctor #2 about what might be wrong. Doctor Davaen opens the door and calls for Jason Christ. I'm the only guy in the waiting room, but he insists on looking around the room as if I weren't Jason. I get up with my coat in my left hand (the good arm) and my Bible in my right arm. He asks me again in the room with the X-Rays, "Are you Jason?" I respond with a yes and he says, "Oh, I didn't expect someone who could actually use their arm." Hrmm.... I told him that I could lift things with my arm and he says, "Yea, I wouldn't be doing that." It seems that maybe there should have been more pain after all. He confirms that there is a break in the lower of the two bones in the forearm right at the elbow. There is also some seperation. Back to Dr. Pawlowski for me!

Dr. Pawlowski looks at the X-Ray and sends me right off to the Orthopedic doctor, Dr. Mason. They call to get me an emergency appointment with Dr. Mason so I can have it looked at right away the next morning. Dr. Mason's assisant, Michelle--who may also be his wife since her coat says Michelle Mason but the paperwork still says Michelle Williams--looks at the X-Rays and notices the break. She asks what causes pain and I show her what I can do and then rotate my wrist trying to show her how little motion I have without pain. "Yea, don't do that" she says. Dr. Mason sees the X-Ray and notes that this is a "good break." I question him about whether that's a "good break" as in "Good, this is easy to fix" or "Wow, he did a good job busting up his elbow, this could take a while to fix." It was the latter. The break extends Approximately 40% of the way into the bone. Hrmm... Not good. He says it's borderline as to whether or not I need surgery. He sends me back to Windsong Radiology for a CT Scan.

I arrive 2 hours later back at Windsong and they say, "Weren't you just in here yesterday?" "Yes. Yes I was." "What do you need now?" "A CT Scan." So they have me fill out more paperwork and a nurse comes to take me in the back for the scan. Again, I'm asked to extend my arm straight, but this time the nurse is much more understanding about how that just isn't possible with my broken elbow. She tries doing the CT scan with my arm bent, but the results aren't clear so we have to try it with my arm as straight as possible. 2 minutes of painful laying on the table later and I have a CT Scan of my arm. Now, it's back to Dr. Mason tomorrow afternoon to decide if surgery is necessary or not.

More updates as I find them out...

Serenity, the Firefly movie, is being released this week.  Nick Croll first got me hooked on this short-lived sci-fi series, and now almost a year and half later, the movie is coming out!  Our local Thursday night crowd and friends are heading out to see the movie on Friday afternoon as everyone decided to take off work for the event.  Here's hoping for a great box office take so we can see some sequels or a return to TV for the show!

Tonight starts the final push for the post-season by the Cleveland Indians.  A record of 5-1 over the last 6 games guarantees us a playoff spot regardless of what other teams do.  6-0 would give us the best record in the American League.  Go Tribe!

So I was cleaning out some stuff on my laptop in an attempt to make it run faster and I saw my livejournal update software Semagic on the add/remove programs list so I throught I should write something here again.  I went ahead and got rid of my paid account for livejournal, because, as you can see, I don't update nearly often enough to justify it.. :)  Update your bookmarks to www.livejournal.com/users/jasonthedce to access my ramblings in the future.

My computer crashed again recently.  I thought it was all fixed but there were lingering problems, even after a format of the drive.  When I formatted the drive during installation, it took like 2 hours to format 30 GBs of space... Not good... This Western Digital drive is only about 2 years old so it's kinda frustrating.  I've gone ahead and purchased a 200 GB Seagate 7200 RPM drive.  I really wanted to get a 74 GB Western Digital 10,000 RPM Raptor drive for my OS, but considering what happened to this past WD drive, I decided now was not the time to upgrade to the Raptor.  I did finally get off of the IDE and onto a Serial ATA so that's good I guess.

Our mission trip was a lot of fun (but tiring).  You can read parts of our journal at the youth blog, found at http://valleyyouth.livejournal.com. 

Current Mood: hot

We finally broke down and got our own cats.  2 kittens actually.  They are named Sydney (after Sydney Bristow on Alias) and Freckles (the nick-name of the girl on Lost).  Jaime thought it would be cute to choose characters from 2 of my favorite shows.  Sydney is jet black (as in the black ops that Sydney participates in) and Freckles is stripey and adorable.  Both are a little shy right now as they adjust to the new surroundings.  I don't think they trust us yet as they run whenever we come near them.  I managed to get them to play a little bit with me today while I was getting ready for work, but everytime they got close to me and realized it, they backed away from me.  Hopefully this will pass, otherwise having cats will just be a financial drain as we feed them and never get to play with them.  We'll see.  :)

Also, I'm enjoying the nice weather outside, but with it comes the stuffy nose that I've grown to love in the spring/summer.  I probably should get some sort of drug to deal with that, but I'm too lazy (and cheap!) to go to a doctor for it.  I'll continue to suffer nobly to save a few bucks.

On April 24th.  Almost 12 inches of snow officially.. And more than that on the East side by the church.  What lovely weather!  The best part about it all, tho, is that it's that really wet, heavy stuff that breaks trees and downs power lines.  I tried to shovel a path to walk to the car and broke the snow shovel trying to life the snow and throw it.  Good times...

Then our church basement has about 2 inches of standing water in it, one of the offices has wet carpet starting at the outside wall and coming about 4 feet into the office, plus about 6 feet all along the wall.  And it smells...  Glad that's not my office.. :)  There's also a leak in the roof that causes water to drip into the doorway between the main offices and the fellowship hall.. Definitely time for a new building or renovation.. Or something..

Thankfully, I haven't found any such problems in the basement of our house yet.. That's a good thing, especially since all our stuff is in the basement..

That is all.

is about to start again.

That's the ad campaign for the start of baseball broadcasts on 1100 AM in Cleveland.. the first game is this Thursday against the Astros.  Game starts at 1:00 PM EST and can be heard online at www.wtam.com.  Look forward to it!

In other news, Jaime and I have been pretty good about going to the gym.  I think it's starting to help as I don't feel so negative towards the concept of working out now.  I also feel a little better being on a semi-regular workout routine.  Hopefully we'll be able to stick to it and get in shape.

Current Mood: excited

I turned the oscillating fan on in my office today.. If you close your eyes and use your imagination, it feels like you are enjoying a spring breeze.  :)

Position players are now in camp for the Indians.  Baseball season inches closer and closer.. That's a good thing.. :)

Jaime and I spent last night at the Olive Garden and then watching American Idol.  We're excited that Idol is back in full swing, even if they are being timeslot hogs and taking 3 nights a week.  I guess when you find something that's working you stick with it..

24 was absolutely amazing last night also... Not the best of the season, but one of the better ones.. This is by far and away the best season of 24 since the original and might be better than that one even.  Of course, I sat there telling the characters how stupid they were for venturing into situations that were obviously dangerous.  I mean, really, once you are safe at CTU headquarters, why in the world would you leave unless you are Jack Bauer?  It makes no sense... He's the only one guaranteed to live... You would think people would have learned this by now...

Training!  Today is the day that catchers and pitchers report to sunny Winter Haven, Florida for the start of Cleveland Indians Spring Training.  This is always a fun time of the year because we get to start hoping for big things from the Cleveland Indians.  There is one major difference this year however...

You see, when you live in Cleveland or root for Cleveland teams, you are always looking forward to the next team to start because the current one is playing so poorly.  For example, towards the end of the Indians' season, we start looking forward to the Browns starting up because the Indians are out of the playoff hunt.  Then around game 6 of the Browns' season, we start looking forward to the Cavaliers starting because we've realized the Browns are doomed (yes, by the 6th game...).  Then, it's usually about this time of the year that we start getting excited about the Indians because we realize the Cavs are out of the hunt.. Except this year the Cavs are actually playing really well thanks to LeBron James. 

So I'm still excited about the Indians starting up, but it's buffered a little by the fact that the Cavs should be making the playoffs.  Of course, the Indians are still my team of choice, so I wish the Cavs well, but bring on Baseball.  :)  So go Tribe!

Current Mood: excited

Has anyone else noticed that I don't post much?

It's snowing here.  Again.  At least it doesn't look like this will be a blizzard or anything serious.  I think it's just a few flurries.. That's not so bad...

I will attempt to update more frequently again.. But not promises.. :)

Well, the +45 minutes to my commute that I predicted yesterday was actually +1:30... In addition to a really long drive (2:15 total), I slid off the road on an on-ramp to the freeway.  Thankfully, a Good Samaratin was passing by and pushed me out of the snowbank and back onto the road.. Yay!

...

In other news, I made it back to work this morning without going off the road.  I won the prize in the office for worst commute home last night (ok, there wasn't a prize, but all agree my drive stunk).  I need to seriously consider the possibility of spending the night here if this happens again.. The airport, on the west side of the city and well away from the snow belt, got 10+ inches of snow overnight.  By 4:00 PM yesterday, as I was leaving work, Chardon (not too far from here) had gotten 2 feet of snow.  I wouldn't be surprised if they ended up around 3-3.5 feet of snow.. Chagrin Falls has probably gotten around 16 inches or so in the last 24 hours..

Well, back to work.. Indoors...

So I haven't been writing in my blog much (at all) lately.  Now that's not the case!  :)

Snow has been falling steadily here in Chagrin Falls for the last 5 hours.  We are now approaching nearly 3 inches, almost half of the minimum expected today (6-12 inches).. It has also led to my first event cancellation due to snow (A regularly scheduled youth band practice).  This will undoubtedly add 45 minutes to my drive home this evening as well... *sigh*

But, other than the obvious downer that is the beginning of 3 long, cold months full of snow, things are going well for us here.  We started our Home Group (also known as small groups, but with a slightly different connotation) this past Friday.  It was very cool!  We ended up with 10 people total for potluck dinner and games.  It started at 7:00 PM and ended up running until about 11:15 PM.  Everyone seemed to have a good time.  It's a good foundation for the Bible study portion that will begin in January.

We've been missing Texas lately.. Now that we are home with family, we're missing celebrating holidays with our friends from Texas.  We look forward to being able to come and visit the Texas crowd sometime soon.

Well, the snow is picking up, so I'm going to hurry up and finish some work, then bundle up and take my snow-mobile home... 

So I registered to vote several weeks ago at the Independence Public Library... Jaime received her voter registration card in the mail about a week and a half ago, past the registration deadline.  I did not receive one.  I gave it a little more time and nothing came.  I just got off the phone with the elections board and discovered I'm not registered.  They can't explain why Jaime's registration got there and mine didn't.  They said it couldn't have been lost in the mail because they pick up all these registrations from the libraries themselves.  When I asked what they are going to do to get me registered since the fault is obviously on their side, she said "Sorry, it's past the deadline.  There's nothing we can do."  So basically, because they lost my registration and don't give out receipts that say you filled out a form, I can't vote.  And there is apparently nothing I can do about it.  Way to go, Cuyahoga County Board of Elections... 

Jaime and I just got back from lunch after church at Einstein's with some old friends of mine from Youth Group.  They came to our church a few weeks ago and were surprised to find me working here as the DCE.  We ended up spending about 2 hours at the bagel place and walking around the village catching up on each other's lives.  Not only are they still cool people, but they are our age!  :)  We're starting up a young adult small group with them and Vicar Jared and his wife.  It should be a lot of fun!

And now, it's time to get my Crossroads material finalized and head to the youth house.  And later it's the Astros in Game 4 of the NLCS!   Go 'stros!