Family Victimized by Floods Learns About Kindness of Strangers – Local News – Milwaukee, WI – News – msnbc.com

Family Victimized by Floods Learns About Kindness of Strangers – Local News – Milwaukee, WI – News – msnbc.com.

Twitter friends rule! I’ll be in attendance.

On the other side of the storm

Hurray for me! The re-opening went well, and the major issues (save for one) have been ironed out. We are now at the point where, in construction parlance, we’re working on the punch list. Those necessary but annoying minute items (like printers – who needs printers? – Physicians SO demanding) that are simple to remedy but take time to complete in toto.

Ahh, so as the calm takes over, I have a bit more time to write and tweet. I wanted to blog about how much things have changed since I was a child.

I was talking to my soon-to-be 7 year old son, who asked me about an LP (Peter, Paul and Mary in Concert) that we’ve had since about 1965. I had written a little note in it next to “Puff the Magic Dragon” – “I like this.” I must have been 7 or 8 when I wrote it. This was right after I was with my family shopping for school shoes and we got Zachary’s first non-velcro sneakers. Which again got me to thinking of my youth. So here is a list of what I remember and sometimes miss from the 1960’s and 70’s.

1. I remember having 6 digits for a phone number (70-56-70 – amazed I can still remember it)
2. It was a party line and a rotary phone
3. I remember those annoying drills we had to do in penmanship
4. I remember our first air conditioner
5. I remember reel-to-reel tapes – loved how you had to thread them through the tape head
6. I remember 8-tracks (remember how a song was cut in two and it would fade out then back in?)
7. I still write in cursive – do kids do that anymore?
8. Remember intermissions in movies?
9. I think for its day, 2001, A Space Odyssey had incredible special effects
10. What about S&H Green Stamps, whatever happened to them?
11. For that matter, why don’t we get a toaster when we open up a bank account?
12. And, along those lines, why can’t the kids get a passbook like we all used to?
13. I remember our cars had no seat belts…
14. ..and we had three on the tree (if you don’t get it, you’re not old enough).
15. I remember people cleaning our windshields as they pumped our gas.
16. I remember watching, along with 1 billion others, Neil Armstrong step foot on the moon.

There’s more but I wanted to put in writing the things that came to mind so that I can reminisce about the past as I look excitedly forward to the future.

What’s Up?

Have you ever been in the eye of a hurricane? It’s kind of amazing. I went through it when I was younger and you get this respite from the storm. The sky turns blue and clear, complete with soft puffy clouds, giving you the false sense it’s over only to discover that you’re about to re-enter the maelstrom.

Well, I’m in the eye right now. I got the immediate issue taken care of and I can breathe a bit. I can see the coming clouds though as next week is shaping up to be a category 5 hurricane.

We had to restore all services at a temporary location that only has 6 exam rooms (as opposed to the 30 we had previously) and we are preparing a new location that they will move to in 10 days. We need to wire, get a T1 circuit in, get new PC’s in (65), image said PC’s to our standard desktop, test connectivity, get printers installed, get servers re-configured, and make sure there’s space for all of it (the new clinic is smaller than the old one). We will be doing this again in 6-9 months as they are moving yet again to their true permanent digs.

On the personal side, my MIL is in the hospital with a dangerous liver condition. Suzanne is there now so I had the two kids by myself over the weekend. Popcorn and ice cream for dinner! Thankfully, my folks and nephews were supposed to come for a visit on Thursday (today) so they moved the arrival date to Monday and all four have been a tremendous help.

So that’s where I am in a nutshell. Sorry you asked?

Best. Unplugged. Song. EVER.

Best. Unplugged. Song. EVER.

It’s actually amazing they were able to capture one of those transcendent moments you experience at some concerts where it goes beyond being just a show and into the synergistic frenzy of band and crowd. I wouldn’t have been the least surprised if Eddie Vedder had spontaneously combusted at the end.

Update

Since the Milwaukee flood, I have been struggling with the closure and re-opening of a clinic that was heavily damaged by the water. St. Joseph Family Care Center, which is one of the clinics I’m responsible for was under 18″ of water on the first floor and the basement (which housed all the electrical was under 9 FEET of water. Needless to say, servers and water do not mix. We have found an alternate, temporary location for them but I’ve been working like mad trying to get them up and running. I still have a lot to do but we’ve gotten to the point where I am in the eye of the hurricane (pun intended) as we’ve done all we can to get them up and running but I don’t have the new equipment in house to install in the still-under-construction new space. Once that’s done, I can breathe a little easier and return to the blog, as I find this really enjoyable and in some instances, cathartic.

Be patient readers – I have a review of the iPhone 4 vs. the Droid X in the works (I have both of them right now) and I will try to be impartial. Thanks!