Many of you have asked for me to say hello, which I am happy to do. However, if you’d like to send him some love, here are a couple links:

• Facebook
• Email

Of course, you can leave a comment on this post and I’ll be sure to send him your messages. He would be encouraged by your thoughts and prayers.

Often times, when “life” hits, we hear people say, “I had no idea _________.” It’s then that the idea of an accident, cancer, seizures, death and even birth, solidifies and we embrace empathy. Our perspective allows us to understand what someone is going through and we reach out knowing exactly what it means to live life in their shoes.

For those of us who are going through these life circumstances, we have a choice to make: how will we respond?

If you’re looking to place blame in answer to the question of “why,” welcome to being a victim.

If you’re looking to the face of hope, you’ll find that “life” has no power over you. It’s fleeting.

Today, my dad is in the hospital fighting a blood infection, recovering from surgery on his neck and fighting to kill the cancer that invades his body. Moreover, my sister is fighting to kill a cancerous brain tumor that earnestly desires to overtake her, while living with the “life” that results from such an intrusion. Furthermore, one year ago, my mom was recovering from a life saving surgery on her neck.

I refuse to give honor to the “life” my family is fighting through and with. It doesn’t deserve the attention. We choose to be thankful for each other and the time we have today.

Nobody is guaranteed tomorrow.

Want to practice your emphathy? Randy Miller of the band, The Myriad, needs your help. Go here (YouTube.com) to learn how you can empathize with this family in deseperate need of a miracle.

That…is not the way to start your day. Just when you think things are getting better, they took a turn for the worse…or so we thought.

For about an hour, our hopes were smashed only to learn that the isolation and new strain was a miscommunication between the nurse and doctor. While dad’s lung infection (pneumonia) had gotten slightly worse, the strain and isolation weren’t true. He was okay, and we were hopeful again.

The rest of the day saw dad becoming back to his old self. His sense of humor was back, his smiles were adorning his face again and he was ready to do the bills. THE BILLS? Yes, he wanted to do the bills.

His pain from the surgery and infection comes and goes but is made tolerable by the pain meds. He’s now on a number of strong antibiotics to fight the infection in his blood and will have to be on a heavy regiment of antibiotics, two times a day for the next six-to-eight weeks. Due to the neck surgery, he will be in a cervical collar for the next six weeks as well. Obviously, he’s not out of the weeds but he’s well on his way to recovery.

Thank you everybody for your love, prayers and support for our family during this time. I speak for us all when I say that we have felt your prayers. We couldn’t have made it without you. I will continue to post updates as new information becomes available.

Funny moment of the day: When dad was asked if his neck hurt, he said “I don’t know, prick my finger and I’ll let you know which one hurts more.”

A week ago, my mom called and said that dad was in a lot of unexplainable pain. The symptoms had gone beyond the typical headache, flu or common cold. This was downright uncomfortable, painful at every move and often times shrieking out because of something.This isn’t characteristic of my dad. I knew that something was wrong.

Tuesday (11/18/08), mom had had enough and they went to the ER to try and figure out what was going on. Through a series of tests, nothing showed up abnormal so they sent them home with some pain meds.

It didn’t work.

Thursday at 5am, mom and dad headed back to the hospital. Something was very wrong.

To make a long story short, my dad has had a PICC line in his body to help fight the prostate cancer he was diagnosed with back in April. That line introduced bacteria into his body that ended up in a full-on staph infection. Moreover, his neck had swollen to such a state that it was impossible to move his head without immense pain. Come to find out that the bacteria went to the weakest part of his body; a buldging disc in his neck that he’s apparently had for quite some time.

Saturday morning at 7am, dad went into surgery to remove the foreign abssesses and fluids that inflamed his neck and face. They also removed the disc that was causing the neck pain and bacteria attack, replaced it with a plastic spacer and titanium plates to hold it all together. We were told that if we didn’t do this surgery, dad could be paralyzed within 24-48 hours. Yikes.

Now that the neck had been taken care of, the next concern was if the bacteria had affected his heart. What we know today, is that so far, his heart seems to be doing just fine. We are thankful. Very thankful.

By Saturday night, dad pain was finally under control…after a week of pain so intense you couldn’t help but see it screaming in his eyes. Moreover, his temp had dropped from 102.7 at worst, to right around 100. While the fever is a good indicator of his body fighting, what we’ve been concerned with is whether or not the three different antibiotics would begin to fight off the bacteria that’s invaded his blood. The drop in temperature is the indicator that the drugs are indeed, working. Moreover, the blood cultures that were positive on Thursday are coming back negative. We are thankful. Very thankful.

This mornings report: his temp is 99 and while he’s super sleepy from the surgery yesterday and the pain meds, he seems to be on his way to recovery.

Staph infection isn’t something to mess around with. Had my parents not done something about this when they did, dad could have been paralyzed within days and at worst-case, dead.

Today, I am very grateful for God’s hand of protection over my dad. The road ahead is going to leave him in the hospital for about another week. Because of the severity of the infection, he will also undergo 4-8 weeks of strong antibiotic treatments. But, my dad is alive and well and one day closer to becoming the life of the party again.

Today, I celebrate my dads life. I’m glad that we get to keep living it together.

“This Holiday season, go without your luxuries so that others can have their necessities.”

As the downturn of the economy affects each of us in our own unique ways, one thing that stands true for most of us is that there are luxuries that we still afford because we can. However, this does not apply to everybody.

Soles4Souls just launched a campaign to collect 50,000 shoes in 50 days. For only $5, you can buy two pairs of shoes that will be given to people in Mexico who can’t afford to buy their own. Moreover, if you give during their new campaign, you could be chosen to be one of the people who gets to deliver the shoes. Great stuff.

If you’ve ever been in a third-world country, you fully understand the need for people to have shoes. If you haven’t, just imagine millions (no exaggeration) of people walking on dirt filled with trash, sewer, broken glass, metal and only God knows what else. This need is huge and the Soles4Souls goal is as well.

Please take a moment and consider what luxury you could go without today, for the benefit of those who can’t afford to buy their own shoes.

Donate today!

Stop complaining and cast your vote!

• About Me - A page about me containing work history, where I’ve come from, what my background is and what my perfect Saturday looks like. I added a picture too!
• Books I’m Reading - I have a HUGE pile of books waiting to be read…just ask my wife. I started a page that will have a list of the books I’m currently reading.
• Blogroll - I’ve added a quite a few links to my blogroll. If you’re interested in exchanging links, hit me up.
• Social Network Links - I’ve added links to LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, my Google Reader shared content and my company, Motiveight.

Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile

Once I get done, I’ll post a review of it here.

The Holiday season is coming upon us quickly. As you plan your calendar and budget for this years Christmas presents, I implore you to “gift” an organization that helps to eradicate poverty in less fortunate areas, countries and neighborhoods. While our economics are declining, I pray that our generosity would not.

One of the best parts about having a “smart phone” like a Palm Treo Centro is that they offer the ability to take your contacts and calendar on the go. Like most gadgets, the power of these tools are in the functions that aren’t obvious when you take them out of the box. So if you have one of those sexy new Treo’s and your still trying to figure out how to magically get your calendar updated without having to plug in a cord, then this post is for you.

Here is what you need to get started on wirelessly and automatically syncing your Treo device with iCal—the default calendar application on a Mac:

• Palm Treo device—tonight, I setup my wife’s red Centro
• iCal - your desktop calendar
• USB Sync Cable
• Missing Sync or Palm Desktop & Hotsync Manager
• Google Calendar account
  
• BusySync ($25) - Software that syncs your iCal with Google
• GooSync ($Free) - the software that will sync your Palm with Google

Obviously, syncing your Treo with iCal requires an investment of time and money in order to make this work. This alone will help you determine how important keeping your phone and computer in sync is.

The below steps will assume that you have already downloaded and installed each software.

iCal Setup

1. Export your default iCal Calendar to your desktop; name it “google.ics” for later reference
   

Google Calendar Setup

1. In Google Calendar, add a new calendar
   
2. Importing the “google.ics” calendar from your desktop
3. Import the contents into your default Google Calendar; for example, I’ll call it “Kyle”
   

BusySync Setup

1. Open BusySync in your System Preferences
   
2. Click on “Google” (ignoring General, Publish and Subscribe)
3. Click on “Settings” and add your Google user name and password. Leave the remaining settings as default.
4. Select the Google Calendar (on the right pane) that you want to subscribe to; this will cause the calendar “Kyle” to display in iCal. This is now your default iCal calendar.
5. Delete your previous iCal calendar; remember you already made a backup
6. Select the iCal calendars (on the left pane) that you want to publish to Google Calendars; this is not necessary to sync your phone unless you want to sync more than one calendar, ie: personal and business
7. Press the “Sync Now” button on the bottom right

You are now publishing your iCals to Google automatically. Any changes made on iCal or Google Calendars will automatically sync to reflect in both locations.

GooSync Setup

Here’s a quick visual overview how GooSync works:

1. Open www.goosync.com and go to your “Home” tab
2. Click to “Add Device”
3. Download the Palm OS Client Software and install; directions are provided on download page
4. Click on “Connections” and Authenticate your Google settings with your username and password
5. Click “Home” and under “Google Calendar” select “Customise”
6. Now displaying your Google calendars, make sure that the “Kyle” calendar has read/write capabilities as indicated by the icon and that the check boxes for “Sync” and are selected
7. For advance users, check out the tags/categories function. This is how you sync multiple calendars
8. If you’re interested in syncing more than the default past/future appointments, you can change the default settings under “Sync Window.”

You are now ready to setup your Palm Treo for bi-directional syncing.

Palm Treo Setup

1. Locate the GooSync application under your Treo’s “All” screen
2. To alter the settings of this profile tap the Menu icon on your PDA and then select “Options Settings…” from the menu that appears (see screen shot below)
   .
3. The “User” and “Password” settings must be set to the same log-in details that you use for your GooSync.com account (these may not be the same as your Google Calendar account).
4. Click on “Calendar sync options” and setup the software to sync on a regular interval. This will ensure that changes made on your Treo and computer are syncing regularly.

Any calendar changes made on your Treo will now be published on Google Calendar and thus iCal, vice versa.

If you’ve followed the above steps, you should now be syncing beautifully between your Treo > Google > iCal. Have fun!