Author: Chris

A little accident recovery update. I am back to running 3-4 miles at a strectch and almost doing a full weight routine, although it will still be a few months before I build back my upper body strength to where it was. I was benching about 120 before the accident and I’ve had to scale back to 70.

There’s still a little pain in my collar bone (especially when I do upper body weights). But other than that the accident injuries don’t seem to be slowing me down too much.

I can still feel my collar bone moving around a bit, which worries me a little, but I’m going to give it another few weeks before I decide whether I need to go back to the doc or not.

Still trying to navigate the insurnace maze. I think I’m going to ask for compensation for lost time in dealing with the agents!

Damn, I’ve been busy lately, especially on the weekends. 3 weekends ago it was the opera and the Kenton county fair. 2 weekends ago it was Kings Island. Last weekend was the Boone county fair and the Indy race and the Kentucky Speedway. It seems this summer has just flown by.

When I was a kid, I can remember summer seeming to last as long as an entire year seems to now. What happened? I don’t think I’m any busier: I used to have guitar, art lessons, and all sorts of stuff outside of school. Now I have my kids and my work. Seems to balance out to me.

Maybe its a matter of attention. There seems to more I have to pay attention to these days than I used to. Have to remember 30 different things for work projects. Have to give some attention to paying the bills and keeping things kep up around the house. Have to give some attention to the wife and kids.

Then again, maybe I’m just getting old.

Well, hopefully some of you may have noticed, but this blog has been down for quite some time. I had a slight power supply failure in my home server and after exporing all the options (to replace the original would have been about $80!), I decided for a slightly frankenstein looking contraption with a powersupply that won’t fit in the case sitting outside. It doesn’t look great, but it works.

The really suprising thing is how much I actually missed my website and blog for the few weeks I was without it. Before it went out, I don’t think I would have guessed that I would want it to be back so fast.

Anyway, I’m happy to say that I’m back until the next major computer catastrophe…by the way, when was the last time I made a backup of my Zope database???

Went to the Microsoft Worldwide Partner conference over the weekend in Toronto. Was a fairly good event, although I didn’t get nearly as much out of it as I did last year. I think there were several factors that contributed to this:

1. this was the 2nd year I’ve gone, so there wasn’t as much new for me to learn about MSFT in general.
2. MSFT is in the middle of a technology wave, so there wasn’t as much exciting new news for them to talk about.
3. The venue was really difficult to get around. It was split between the Metro Toronto convention center (which itself is two buildings joined by a seemlingly mile long cat walk) and the Air Canada Center, which are seperated a a few large (and rubble filled) parking lots.

The things I did learn:

1. MSFT is clearly pushing their vertical strategy for partners. I think this is a good move on their part because probably the only way they can keep from competing with their partners is through their partners going vertical
2. Nobody has nearly the scale or scope of partner program as MSFT. This is great for me since I picked up alot of ideas that we can use in our partner program.
3. MSFT partners see alot of opportunity. There will be alot of value captured by MSFT partners in translating what MSFT is delivering to the market into solutions to specific customer requirements. This is partly due to the fact that MSFT’s portfolio is so large, and also due to the fact that customers are demanding more specific (rather than generic) software solutions.

Been back at work for a few weeks now. My collar bone is still broken and it’s really starting to become a serious inconvinience. Not much pain, but whenever I “forget” and lift more than about 5 pounds, it reminds me.

My stitches have healed up nicely, although of course there are two nice scars. I started going back to the gym about a week ago. The main thing holding me back is the pain in my foot and my broken collar bone. Fortunately I’m not suffering from being winded or anything like that. But after about 20 minutes, I’ve got to slow down or stop.

Doc says that it may take another month for my collar bone to stitch up! If it doesn’t do it on its own, I’ll have to use a “bone stimulator” for a few weeks, and then its to surgery! Great, more plates…

On my way out of town for my first business trip since the accident tomorrow. Off to Toronto to the MSFT WWPC and then to NYC for the analyst event. This is one time where I will be forced to travel light.

Well, this will be the first non-injury related post in almost a month. We left for vacation last Saturday and have enjoyed the last few days in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The drive here was great in the new truck…the kids really seemed to enjoy the DVD player.

The house is ultra-cool. Swimming pool, 5 bedrooms, ocean views and a hot tub. Only 750 feet to the beach and close to Duck for shopping and KDH, Nags Head and the rest for dinner. It’s kind of sucked that I can’t do as much with the kids (no throwing them in the pool or swimming too much in the ocean), but fortunately my Dad and Uncle are here to fill in a little. I think everyone’s having a good time and hopefully we’ll get to come back next year.

The weather hasn’t been that great, but we’ve still managed to get to the beach everyday, if only for a little bit. It would be hard to top last year’s weather, so I can’t complain too much. We’ve got to figure out a way to stay here for two weeks next time. Off to the beach!

Got my stitches out yesterday. After having had both staples and stitiches to close up wounds, I have to say that neither are very pleasant. Maybe it was the location, but the stitches in my foot were almost as painful to remove as they were to put it…of course I have to remember that when they were put in, I had the benefit of morphine AND a local anesthetic.

Walking is a bit easier now, although my achilles is still bothering me at night. I really wish it would resolve itself before I go on vacation this weekend.

On the car front, we ended up going with the Tahoe. Sport red with a gray leather interrior. Very posh. The only downside is that unless EDS stock goes up a whole lot, I’m going to end up having to drive the Windstar minivan once January comes and I have to turn in my Saab :-(.

Well its taken almost two weeks, but I’m finally starting to do some of the things I used to do. Still can’t pick up the kids (or wrestle 🙁 ), but I am able to go out and get sround reasonably well. The thing thats giving me the most trouble now is something I didn’t even realize was injured at the time: my achilles tendon in my left leg. Its really making it hard to go up and down steps and worse, it throbs when I’m trying to sleep. I think it must have been masked during the first week by a combination of the pain killers, the cast I was in and the pains of my other injuries. Now that two of the three of those things are gone (cast and pain killers, unfortunately…) it’s popped up front and center.

Hopefully its nothing too permanent, because it would really be a bummer if I had to change my training regimen (i.e. stop running or something). I don’t think its torn, so hopefully it will rehab along with the rest of me.

On a lighter note, it looks like we’re getting close to buying a new car for my wife. It’s been almost 2 1/2 years since I got my car and she’s had hers for over 5…it must be a record for me! I’ll let everyone know what we decide, but right now we’re looking at either a Tahoe or a Suburban. We drove the Silverado Crew Cab and she eliminated that straight out of the dealers lot…should’ve had her drive that first before the Tahoe!

Tried to get in some work yesterday. Spent all day sitting upright and as a result my left leg was painfully swollen at the end of the day. It really was quite grotesque if I do say so myself. It’s better this morning, but I learned my lesson (for a day or two anyway): I’ve to to slow down while I heal up. Unfortuantely I’m sure I’ll fell better in a few days and go out and do soemthing beyond my limits again…oh well, I guess I haven’t learned my lesson.

Went to my second doctor’s visit today (so little happened at the first, that I didn’t even bother to blog about it). Some good news: no infections in my sutures and my bones seem to be setting properly. Still no definitive word on recovery time, but it looks like it’ll be 3-4 weeks before I can restart my gym routine with any regularity. Looks like I can go on vacation in a few weeks, but the deep sea fishing trip I had planned is definately out – I might actually catch something and couldn’t reel it in!

They also changed me from a shoulder sling to a figure-8 brace for my collar bone, which is good and bad. It’s good because it gives me much greater freedom of movement for my right arm, but its bad because it does cause a little more pain at the point of the break after sitting up for a while. In addition, they stepped me back from a full leg cast to an orthopedic boot for my foot. I can’t get around any easier, but at least I can stretch out my calf and keep it from cramping up.

Sleeping still isn’t that easy. The last two nights I’ve tried to sleep in bed, only to wake up between midnight and 1 AM and move to the la-z-boy because my collar bone is so uncomfortable. Only problem in the chair is it makes my leg swell up a bit, so the cast became really uncomfortable after a few hours if I rested it on my calf. I’ve had to become a master of sleeping in one position!

My wife and I went to our Anniversary dinner on Saturday night. It was just like when we were dating in high school – my dad had to drive us! We had reservations at Boca on the west side and my wife hates to drive over there, plus she thought she might have a bit to drink, so happily my dad volunteered. Dinner was good, but obviously my injuries slowed things down a bit. It was difficult to sit comfortably with my foot not elevated for so long. Nonetheless we had an excellent time because we were both happy I was there at all. Overall I’d say that Boca was just a bit behind Daveed’s in terms of the overall experience. The appetizer was on par, the entree was a bit below, the dessert was excellent, the service was not bad (but nothing comes close to Daveed’s) and the price was good. Close but not close enough.

On Sunday we went to church and it was great to see how many people were concerned about my injuries. The same has been true of the YMCA where my wife has been going this week (and until very recently where I went as well). It’s also amazing how many people saw the accident or the immediate aftermath that we know, at least casually. There have been several occaisions where my wife has run into someone who was describing this horrible motorcycle accident they saw and that they were sure the guy was dead, only to have my wife tell them it was me and that I’m at home (and not dead). It truly is a small world.