Winter Wonderland

The snow came in on Friday night and left the world outside new and white as far as the eye can see.I have spoken to ever member of my immediate family in the past 24 hours and all are well. Mom worry about the power going out , BJ is in a class in a hotel until late today and SJ is watching the rain in SC . KJ needs to get on a plane , but that is not going to happen to day . The snow will be gone by mid week and we will be back to warm day and cold nights you gotta love NC.
We did not leave the house yesterday , i cooked two big meals and we watch a move and caught up with my book.
Vickie is not feeling well hope she has not gotten the crud i have. She has sleep a lot and not eating much the last few days.Maybe i can get her out of the house this afternoon.
Meetings came out OK last week, but a slog none the less. I hope we can make a decision next week on the direction we will take on the management of the enterprise.

I think i will feed the birds and play with my camera, digital is great shoot and if you don't like it delete.

Meeting Week

It is the fourth week of the month , which mean most of my free time is spent at the hospital in meetings. Group dynamic are interesting to watch and be part of. We have very big challenges in front of us starting in August when the debt service on the new building starts , but we still have some folk who either don't understand or will not understand the issue. I plan to make rise the issue tonight again. We need and must find the right person to lead our hospital and do so PDQ.

Vickie and i meet mom for lunch on Tuesday and had a very nice time. While in the restaurant , i saw two people who graduate high school with me . It is a very small world when it come to people.
Vickie is well into the Dimebon trial, she has move from the starter dose to the regular dose . I have not noticed any change in her at all , does that mean she has not been on the drug long enough to notice change or is taking the placebo ? Back to Duke tomorrow. We have let the prescription Dr Scott gave us for physical therapy expire , must get that renew and get Vickie back in therapy for her leg pain.
Looks like another great day weather wise, no golf maybe a long walk.

Date night

Vickie and I were off to the big city yesterday afternoon, she shopped for awhile and came away with a few nice things. We spend an hour at BN and i picked up two books, The Road which i start last night is going to be good , i like McCarthy . The book store was very busy .The shopping center was packed and the restaurant was packed. There may be a tough economic but you cannot tell it from our travel yesterday. We had a very nice Italian dinner and i did something i have never done in my life , i sent a bottle of wine back because it didn't taste right, the next one was not great either .The food was good.

Vickie's is having a hard time walking, we are told it is not the HD , we got to find an answer soon.The HD or the MEDs she takes will not allow her to have but about one glass of wine because she becomes very uncoordinated .At dinner last night she told me she wanted her life back , but we had a good time . Home early

Time for another cup of coffee and a walk before the rain comes back.

Great Morning

Great morning the rain has passed and it is good to be up and feeling better. Up early made a little breakfast , played with my friend the cat , touched a few friend on e-mail who i know were not moving at that time.
Busy this week and next is not looking much better . Someone ask me yesterday how much i was paid for the various stuff i am into and of course the answer is not much , but if i did not keep busy i don't think life would be as good. The other thing i don't say when folk ask me something like that is 1. I need the time out of the house and 2. it will not be long before i will not have the freedom to be engaged in outside activities.

Vickie ask me this week if i remember the HCHD chapter meeting last fall , when we went to different breakout session and she was in a group with Other folks who have Huntington's. She said there was a woman in the group with advanced HD, who's speech was not understandable. She said Sammy i hope i don't ever get that bad. I told her not to worry about that , keep the good attitude and we would continue to look for opportunity to engage in new trials and protocols. She is a real trooper and has great courage.

We are still trying to rise money to get the NC-CCHD up and going , I think there may be a need for our board to bring more focus to the process.

Life is good!

Feeling Better

I think my cold is leaving or i hope so. I am told a cold last two week under a doctors care and two weeks without , so i should be almost well .

I got a video this morning of HG taking her first steps. She was so happy . She knew what an accomplishment those first step were , she was just jabbering.
Vickie and i spent all of yesterday afternoon with a workman in the house doing some updates and our brave cat of course under the bed the entire time.

I have written my congressman for the third time asking him to cosponsor HR678 . He is willing vote for everything else in sight,but will not sign on as a cosponsor and he will not share his reasons for not doing so. I saw in the news folk are lining up to run against him this year.

VJ is in the third day of the Dimebon med's, nothing to report Good or bad, early yet .I hope to visit with her mom and sister this week to complete the family information for the COHORT study.

Great day outside i am not up to golf , but a long walk is in order
Life is good !

Sunday morning coming down

I have lousy head cold and i can not seem to get any relief.
The past week was a busy one for my wife , she Had a birth day and start the clinical trial for Dimebon . Her birthday was Thursday and we had dinner at the outback.

We went to Duke on Friday arriving around 9:30am and departed at 2:00pm . During that period she had three EGG's gave blood twice , urine once was seen by Dr Scott twice and the psycholigst and the RN was in and out the entire time completing paper work. This is a very structured process. Vickie did just great . We stop at bullocks BBQ for lunch. Bullocks was a popular restaurant in Durham in the late 60's when i worked for commercial credit in Durham I recall lunch in 1968 was $1.25 . Vickie and I spent $20 buck including tip , I would note in 1968 my monthly salary was about $400 per month.I guess all things are relative.

Last night we had dinner with VJ's family to celebrate her birthday again and everyone was there , it really made VJ feel good. It was the third time this week we have had seafood.
I think i will go to the movies this afternoon. I have not played golf in almost one month.I hope to get back to it next week weather permitting.

Radio day

I did a radio show to talk about the hospital, it last 45 minutes including some spots from the weekend grand opening . I enjoyed the show, Carl Lamb lead the discussion and did a good job of making me look good. Carl gave me a CD when I left and i listen to it once i got home. I did OK , but a little much pause and stumbling when i was organizing my thought , before I answer some questions .I don't have a new career in radio, but it was fun.
I spoke to Stephen yesterday by phone and this morning by e-mail , he put a great pic of HG on face book. she was dresses in a college of Charleston(CC) cheerleader uniform and posing with the CC cheering squad.
I got us early and spent several hours working on hospital affair this morning , lot of folk with ID which is good not sure everyone see the big picture. The future for our hospital will require bold ID and bold actions.I think it may be a young person game . I talk to the county commissioner about skill sets and diversity and they are only interested in the politic , maybe time to move on when my term expires next year.

New hospital opening

We had the VIP event for the new Smithfield hospital last night and it was great.There were 400 people signed up , not sure how many were in attendance . The place was packed. The staff did a great job arranging the whole thing. I wore a tux , last time i had on a tux was at Stephens wedding. I had a part on the program and i think it went well. Vickie wore black and look wonderful . She did great but we just can't work the room like we use to.
I am having a security system installed , and one of the features is a panic bracelet for Vickie. She becomes very insecure some times and i hope the bracelet will help with that when am out of the house.
I spoke to my uncle Paul by phone this morning , he seem to be well. He is still the same guy he has always been, don't ask him a question unless you realy want to know what he thinks, guess i am a little like that wonder if i got it from him or my mom?
Spoke to Stephen yesterday and he new more about what is going on in the local area than i do. he reads the local papers every day on line. Still working on getting moved here. Spoke to Bryan and he tells me the current cold snap has created a lot work for him because of the frozen water pipes. He is making progress toward his state license exam.
It is a pretty day outside as long as you are inside looking out , but it is very cold and windy once you are out side .
Life is good!

It's Over

I think the holidays are officially over. It was a nice holiday season , but time to get back to day to day living. The weather is very cold which curtail most outdoor activity. I am catching up on reading and football. The pond behind the house is frozen over, first time in several years that has happen.

I gave my self a camera for Xmas , Sony H20. I will try to take more Pic this year.

Deacon Jones died this past weekend . He was in FL. He was a self made man in the car business. Good man who Will be missed in this community.

The hospital want a new pic and i don't want to dress for the it , hope Tim can cut and past the picture he took last year.
Life is good.

New Year , New Decade

Today will start the new decade and I hope the next ten years will be as good as the past ten. Vickie and I have been blessed these last few years even when you consider the HD. I look at all the misery in the world and with the inter net we see it all, and i know we are blessed. My MOM and my brother are feuding a little and MOM don't know why and I don't see it as my place to tell her. Family dynamic's are almost as complicated as politics.
Vickie and I attended the new years party at the CCJC last night with a pre party stop at the Dee's. The party was good , we left about 10:30. Vickie was very tired and she had a few drinks which hits her hard. Small crowd but ever one seem to enjoy the party. The food was great an A , the band gets a C . Almost half of the crowd was from around the lake.
Got my walk in this morning and after lunch we drove out to Ralph's for what I thought was an informal peas and green new years day affair , but this was a full feed . We did not eat , but it sure look good and there was a lot of it.

Happy New Year: Life is God !