Good news bad news

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I'd like to give my condolence to Ty Helbach (a fellow blogger) and balderdash (a blog reader and a good friend of mine) for the loss of their friend Kathy. She worked at AT&T with balderdash and his wife. I was informed that balderdash was looking for more information on a freak accident and Ty's name came up in google and he recognized the name from this blog. Small world. Seems Kathy (Kathleen "Pete" Meshak) was visiting a friend in Madison fell down some stairs and died.

I'm very sorry guys!
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But the GOOD news is Caydence is doing GREAT. You can get the full story from Jennys blog but here are the cliff notes (am I showing my age with Cliff notes?).

OMG - I just saw this photo on Jennys blog (did I mention that already)- for ME it's very moving - I stole it :-)

I don't know why this is such a powerful photo. So lonely.


The surgeon was able to use tissue from Caydence's own heart to repair her . . . heart. We are told that in a few years a skilled surgeon (unlike non-skilled surgeons??) will not be able to detect there was a heart operation (except for the scar I suppose).

There are only 26 doctors in the world that can perform this operation and one is in Madison and one in Milwaukee. She is doing awesome and is called a dancer by the nurses because they keep trying to sedate her to keep her calm she keeps wanting to dance. Breathing tube comes out this morning and if all continues to go well she will be coming home on Monday.

MONDAY?? Open heart operation and it's a week?? I stay home from work with a broken finger for a week!! All vital signs are at the top of the charts and she is the buzz of the ICU. Mom and dad are doing fine and getting some sleep now.
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I was doing a little photo manipulation practice (yes, I actually practice) and started to feel guilty that I had not worked on Todd's Colonial Carriage Works photos so here is one from his place. This is actually the backroom sort of where the "works not yet in progress" are stored. Now remember that I'm using a CRT that is very dark so I have to make the photo very very dark and am hoping it'll turned out OK on a REAL computer. (same with yesterdays slush photo, way way too bright on a real computer and I'm fixing it (for some unexplained reason)).

What got me started on the Columbus Carriage Classic shots is that I'm working on (and have yet to create what's in my minds eye) a new look/feel style photo but here is a totally different style.

That kid's body language is screaming "I Hate this I hate this"!

I'm actually working on a darker, more mid evil look which I'm not sure "darker, more mid evil" really applies to that shot.

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WE GOT OUR LAMP!!!

I was doing some research on Mitsubishi Lamps and found some interesting information.

They are GUARANTEED to last UP TO 2000 hours. What? To me that means they are GUARANTEED NOT to last longer then 2000 hours. 2000 hours is like 40 hours a week. Also the site said we should budget ourselves for buying a new lamp every year! AWESOME!

I'm looking for cheaper places and I can save a nickel at a few places online sites, in 3580 years that nickle will pay for a new lamp! Maybe I'll buy two and have emergency lamps.

WAIT A MINUTE - I see one of my google ad's is no advertising MY lamp for $114 - I must click on it and go there.!!

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For anyone that watches Amazing Race AND Big Brother. Last years winners Jordon and her boyfriend (whatever his name is) will be on the Amazing Race in the Spring.

Also Russell will be on the next All-Star Survivor which is TRULY an All-Star edition with Rupert and all sorts of names I can not remember.

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198 years ago today the greatest American earthquake happened near New Madrid Missouri. Measuring 8.6 magnitude on the Richter scale Mississippi momentarily reversed its direction, giving rise to Reelfoot Lake in northwest Tennessee. There were no human casualties because . . . . there were no humans in the area. And don''t ask me how they know all of this! Where is earthquake dude when you want him.

65 years ago The Battle of the Bulge started although it was called Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein by the Germans. And don't get me started on the Malmedy massacre because the U.S. forces did the same exact thing. It's just that we won the war so we don't report the bad things the Allies did.
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and last - a darker version of Slush.

This is my last day of work before Christmas. I'll still be blogging though!

Rod