Life is a State of Mind

William Beckett was born on Friday, February 22nd, 2008 at 11:14 AM. I have been dying to write that for weeks. Here’s some quick facts on Will Solomon.

• He weighed 6 lbs, 3 oz. at birth.
• He measured 19 inches long at birth.
• He was born 19 years to the day after my first son Alex Charles.
• He was born on the same day as his grandmother on his mother’s side.
• He was born on the same day as Jennifer Lopez’s twins (not sure if this is a good thing).
• The weather was beautiful and the sun was shining the day he was born.
• The moon was full on 2/22/2008.

I got out of the shower that morning and Trish said I was not going to work that day because today was the day. I said okay and went into a panic trying to get everything and everyone into the car and on the road to the hospital. We arrived at the hospital at close to 9am. they weren’t sure they were going to admint us, but after her contractions started coming at 1-2 minutes apart they decided it was a good idea. They moved us into a room and Trish immediately started having serious back labor. She asked for an epidural, but the nurses did not have time to get one done for her. Shortly after 11am after only 2 hours of real labor, that’s right….2 HOURS, Will poked his head out and said hello.

They moved him from the room after a few minutes because he was not getting enough oxygen, which is not uncommon at our high alititude, and because they were concerned about the stress placed on him from such a quick labor. Trish, also, had her problems. The problems with such a quick birth are that the body is not really ready for what’s happening. Because of that, things just kind of tore and she experienced a lot of bleeding. It kind of scared me, but she came through it just fine. We spent 3 days in the hospital and they let us go home Sunday afternoon. William, or “Wubba” as I like to call him, was doing much better about getting enough oxygen.

Jaundice was a problem, and we spent the next 7 days getting his heel poked each morning and hoping his bilirubin level would go down. On the 30th we checked back into the hospital because his “bili” level had gone up drastically. This is not good becaue it can led to brain damage and developmental issues later in life. We had a little bilirubin light with us at home, but when we got to the hospital they put him in one of the bili-beds. His bilirubin level went down over night. They gave us a littlemini-bed that we used at home for the next few days and finally the doctor said we could take him off it and move on. He look like he was sleeping in a tanning bed. It was so cute. I have pictures that may get posted some day.

Now Willilam Beckett, or “The WB”, is doing fine. He’s as beautiful a baby as you could ever want. He’s so alert and happy and smiling and vocal. He makes the funniest little sounds when he sneezes. I am so proud of Trish and the little guy she brought into the world. I didn’t want more kids i my life Trish and I were not planning on this one, but now that he is here, I love him so much and I can’t wait for the rest of his life. I rush home every day just to spend some time with him.

So look forward to reading much more about young William Beckett in the future.

Ok, so I gotta catch up somehow so I’m going to start here. It’s been a bit of a stressful year so far. My mother got sick earlier this year and we discovered she has cancer. This is not something I expected….hell, who does. She was checked into the hospital with abdominal pains, but then they found a perforated colon which was the cause of the pain. Immediate surgery was required and then a lengthy hospital stay to make sure infection doesn’t set in. After that she spent a little time in a skilled nursing facility to continue recovery and a little rehab.

She is home now and doing much better. A little chemo-therapy is going to be in order, but we’re told it will be fairly low doses so she shouldn’t experience too many complications from it. Recently she was ahving kidney problems so the doctor told her to eat potato chips, drink anything and everything, and watch a basketball game because she is extremely dehydrated and she needs the salt.

It looks like she’s going to be okay and live for several years to come, but it doesn’t change the fact that it scares me. I love my mother and I don’t want her to deal with any discomfort.

Well, there ya go, I blew last year’s New Years resolution by not posting in December. If you recall, and I know you probably don’t, last year I resolved to post at least once a month in 2007. I did not post in December which means I failed. :(

Well here’s hoping everyone had a wonderful holiday season filled with cheer and happiness. Mine was good. Thanksgiving was filled with lots of food and football. In early December I was informed at work that I had some 56 hours of vacation time I needed to get rid of before 2008. So I shceduled the last 2 weeks of 2007 off. On the 11th of December my boss took our team snowmobiling. We rented some snowmobiles at White Mountain Tours up north of Copper Mountain and had a great time zipping around in the hills. We had a guide and could only go on the trails he said were safe, but it was still very, VERY cool. We probably reached an altitude of between 11,000 to 12,000 feet because we were riding above tree line sometimes. There was a family from Texas riding with out group and they slowed us down a bit, but it was still sooooo much fun.

Christmas was good. It was just Trish and I as her kids found other places to be this year and my kids wanted to be close to home. Their mother is getting a divorce and I think they wanted to be close to her and supportive. Understandable, for sure. I got a new telescope for Christmas. It is a Bushnell 127mm MCT (Maksutov Cassegrain Telescope). Unfortunately, it has been too cold most nights to get much use out of it. We are in the middle of a very cold winter so far. Temperatures have stuck around mid 20’s during the day. but, I have got some use out of it and it’s very cool. I got a good view of the Orion Nebulae, Mars, and beautiful views of the moon. It is a computer guided scope, but I’m still learning how to use the computer. Without GPS it requires knowing the stars a bit and I have to confess, I am no professional astronomer. Still, once the weather gets better, there should be some great pics coming from the new scope. I’ll post them when I get some. It sure beats the hell out of the 3″ reflector and 6omm refractor scopes I have.

New Years was spent at home. That’s what happens when your wife is pregnant. I probably could have gone out and done something without her, but it woudn’t be right to leave my best girl at home on New Years Eve. I dont mind. I am 40 years old and the last thing I need to do is go out partying and find an excuse to start smoking again. Maybe next year we’ll get out and celebrate another year gone.

 Anyway, same resolution this year. I’ll try to post at least once a month. I haven’t really made any other resolutions, but I hope that everyone has a happy and successful 2008 and we’re all here to talk about it next year. Best wishes to everyone.

This site has had several incarnations over the past 10 years (yes, it has been approximately 10 years since pongfu.com first appeared in the WWW thanks to my friend and former table tennis partner Tim at Globalynk), and during that time there have been several hosts for this site. The current host has been excellent as far as up time and reliability and their prices are very low. In fact, they are one of the lowest in the business for what you get, but you don’t really get that much.

For years I have been telling my own web customers to go with Powweb for great service, bandwidth, disk space, etc., but I have been ignoring my own advice and being cheap. Well, it is catching up with me. My current host has already charged me once for more storage space, and now they are trying to jack my rates again over a bandwidth issue. Now I look at my stats and I’m telling ya, I don’t see the same issues they see with bandwidth. However, they insist it’s out of control and they want me to pay more money every month or they will turn my site off. Well here is my response.

I SAY NO! I WILL NOT PAY! I WILL NOT PLAY YOUR GAMES!

I see now that I can expect this once a year from them, and that is not acceptable. They start you out cheap, but they’ll getcha in the end if you’re not watching closely. Therefore, this site may disappear from the internet for a few months towards the end of November, 2007. But when my contract with the current host expires early in 2008, I will heed my own advice and move to Powweb. I apologize to you few loyal readers that I know visit here. If I disappear off the Internet for a few months I assure you I will be back very soon.

Early on the morning of October 2nd, 2007 I was awakened once again by the sound of our dogs, Pokie and Shadow, barking as if something were bothering them. I looked at the clock and I remember it was right around 3:00 AM. As usual, I walked to the window to look out over the back yard and see what was going on. A couple of seconds later I heard Pokie screech four times as if he had been kicked or hit really hard and was hurt. I immediately knew something was wrong. I woke Trish and said I needed her to come with me to help me find Pokie because he was in trouble.

The sounds of his screeching had sounded like it had come from in the drainage canal in back of our house. I have been working to rebuild a portion of the back fence that was blown down earlier this year, but I only had temporary fencing up and Pokie had no trouble getting under it and exploring when nobody was watching. I wandered down into the canal and along the banks but could not see or hear any sign of Pokie. I had a flashlight and a stick as a weapon for my own self-defense if I needed it. I feared he had been attacked by the raccoons that had been frequenting our area lately. I was afraid they had double teamed him and had gotten the better of him. But there was no sign of Pokie at all. The only place I didn’t look was in a thicket of willow-like bushes, which is where I was afraid he was at. I’ll admit that I was afraid to go in there at 3:00 AM in the morning. Who knows what’s in there. My mind pictured all kinds of crazy animals in there.

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