So another week goes by

Well, another week and I'm still adjusting. It's very strange to say that I'm a heart patient now. I never expected anything like this in my life. Strange how life is huh?

So, now that I'm radically changing my life, let's start with some new ideas for the blog. I think I will be adding a weekly "heart healthy" recipe along with good health tips and snacks :) I'm all about the snackies ;)

I think I might also throw in places I eat out at and good menu choices (or at least what I think tastes good) from those as well.

Look for more updates to come! :)

I thought I had an answer...

First off, ignore all the posts before this one. Like I said, I thought I had an answer, but as the quote from "The Ghost and the Darkness", "Everyone has a plan until they've been hit." Well my friend, you've just been hit. The getting up is up to you."

Well, I thought I had a plan then I got hit. My plan was simple, be the only person in the world to abuse his body in every possible way and still live to be 100. Well, I fell short of that goal. As of 6 weeks tomorrow I had my 2nd heart attack. That's right, my 2nd. I didn't even know about my first, and here I go having a second one. S'funny how life works huh? So my original plan is now changed, as I now am working on just keeping myself alive.

While I was in the emergency room having my "procedure", here's what I found out:

1. I have 1 artery 100% blocked.

2. I had another artery 75% blocked.

3. My 3rd artery was fine.

4. I had a previous heart attack (with minimal damage luckily) in previous years.

5. If I would have ignored this one, the next one would have been fatal.

6. Last but not least, if I didn't change my ways I'd be dead in 6 months.

My procedure was very simple. They ran a lead from my femeral artery to my heart and injected dye to see what was going on. Once in there they did 2, yes "2" angioplasty procedures in one of the arteries. Then proceded to install 2 stents in the artery. In simple terms, I had a tuneup on my heart.

I also had some blood work done and it was not pretty. My tri-glicerides were over 400 (which is bad btw), my cholesterol was so bad it was off the charts, and my fats were way high as well. Nice huh? The hits just keep on coming (sigh).

So now I'm on a low sodium, low fat, low cholesterol diet, which means low flavor, actually that's a lie. I'm eating better now than I ever have. I also quit smoking (cold turkey, being in ICU will do that), and so far have lost 20 lbs. So in all fairness I can't complain. Other than the $200 a month in medications I'm on. Check this out, I'm on blood pressure, beta-blocker, cholesterol, fish-oil, a daily vitamin, blood thinner and I think that its for now ... sheesh.

Any way, this blog will change a bit as I will not only try to keep it up better, but I will use it to keep up on my daily status, how I feel, my weight and any good recipe's I find :)

Time fun when you're having flies

Wow, it's hard to believe that I have not posted since the 1st. Where does the time go? Well it's pretty simple on my part. Guild Wars, it's evil.. eeeviiilll.

As I posted last time, GW:EOTN (Eye of the North) was released in the last weekend of August. Well, it added a ton of new content for high level characters (lvl 20). My son and I have been hard core playing for the last couple of weeks. And, it doesn't help that the weekend after they released it, they had a triple experience weekend. 0.o So what do we do? We start up 3 new characters of different classes to get them up to lvl 20 so we can get them to Eye of the North. Well, one assassin at 15, A paragon at 10, a new Dervish at 10, 2 Rangers (one at 19, the other at 15) and my time is pretty much full.

Between Guild Wars, reading and my new friend eBay, I really have spread myself out thin lol. If you see me, say "hey" :)

It's HERE! Guild Wars - Eye of the North

It's here! It's HERE!!!! Ok, I'm calm, maybe. :)

My son and I have been waiting for this to come out for over a month, and now it's finally here. You'll have to check some of my earlier posts to get more info on Guild Wars. This is an "expansion", not a full release. So you have to own one of the 3 campaigns to be able to use it, but it will be worth it I'm sure.

As soon as we get our hot little hands on it you will not be seeing my butt for a while hehe. From what my son and I have been able to see from the trailers, screen shots and posting pictures, this will be a fun, fun, fun expansion. I'm sure as I speak the servers are groaning from the traffic that coming from this. I know I've noticed a spike in it from just playing one of the campaigns. Now, if I could only get it running in Linux. 0.0

Raw is WAR - A mash up

Monday Night Raw once again rocked! Last night was Triple H's return after 8 to 9 months off for an injury and all I can say is YES!!! Welcome Back Triple H, welcome back!

Friday marks the release of the next expansion to Guild Wars, Eyes Of The North. W00t! Look to one of my earlier posts for more details on Guild Wars. 3 Days to go!!!

Are you tired of virii? Tired of rebooting your PC? Tired of losing data, crashing applications and security holes big enough to drive a truck through? Then my friend, let me introduce you to the wonders of a old but new OS. Linux! My favorite distro is Ubuntu. If your at least a little tech savvy, you can run linux. Want to setup a new PC for mom and dad and not have to worry about spyware, trojans, and other crap? Ubuntu can make your life easy. :) It's fast, easy and best of all, FREE! Yes, FREE! How can it be good if it's free? Well, 80+% of the internet runs on Linux servers, so somebody somewhere did something right.

Ubuntu has the best forum support, ease of use, setup and configuration I've ever found in a linux desktop. Need an office application? You are one "apt-get install openoffice" command away! Don't like the command line you say? No problem! System->Administration->Synaptic Package Manager. Search, Open Office, double click.. done. Yes, it's that easy. It slices! It dices! It reads your mind!! Oh, wait.. ok it doesn't do that ... YET :)

If you want more information, follow the links, or drop me a line. :)

Guild Wars, why you should be playing it too.

Guild Wars is a MMORPG, or Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. In the same vain as World of Warcraft. Guild Wars is a little different than your other MMO's. There is a level cap of 20, grinding is set to a minimum and the online community rocks.

One of the best sites to get information would be Guild Wars Guru. I've been playing for almost 8 months now, and I can say I'm a addict. There are 3 campaigns that you can get, but you do not need all 3 to play. Actually, you can get any 1 campaign and get the others later if you wish.

The first campaign is called "Prophecies". It has a middle ages look and feel to it, and has a very good starting tutorial to help new players get started. The second campaign is called "Factions". It has an asian look and feel to it. The 3rd is called "NightFall". This one is by far the best! It's more of an African/Egyptian look and feel.

In all the campaigns you have 5 standard classes you can be. A Ranger, Warrior, Necromancer, Monk or Mesmer. Factions and Nightfall introduce 2 new classes. In Factions it's the Assassin, and Ritualist. In Nightfall it's the Dervish and Paragon. Each class has it's strength and weaknesses. It really depends on your playing style. The cool thing though, is that you are required to pick a secondary profession. So you could be a Ranger/Necromancer, or a Warrior/Monk etc, etc. Each class gets over 100 skills that you can mix and match to make your character play to your style.

Guild Wars' premise is skill over power. The more skillful you play your character, the better you are. It's not about who has the most skills, or who has the best armor.

Anyway, I hope this raises some interest in Guild Wars. Oh, before I forget. A new expansion is being released on the 31st. Eyes of The North. Look for it in your favorite geek store. :)

It's Friday! w00t!

Ok, it's Friday. What to do, what to do? Just to fill you in on what my schedule is like, Monday from 8pm to 10pm is Monday Night Raw (Yes, I'm a wrestling fan!). Tuesday, nothing. Wednesday we (my wife and I) bowl on a mixed league. Thursday, 9pm - 10pm is Burn Notice (The BEST show ever! Friday, eh depends, sometimes Friday Night Smackdown, sometimes nothing. Then the weekend! W00t!!!!

For those that don't know, I work at a St. Louis based company called Scottrade, an online Brokerage firm in the IT department. I'm a programmer/analyst, specializing in Web Development and Windows applications. I've been a developer for 16+ years now. I started out as a consultant for multiple firms in the area, and after more than enough years of going from company to company I decided it was time to settle down for some stability. The money might not be as good, but I was tired of 3,6 or 12 month contracts and then having to go to the next location. Sometimes it was close, others I'd be driving and hour or more. Bleah!

Anywho, that's enough for this post. :)