Chirp, chirp!

It's been quite some time since I last posted here.

It doesn't mean that my life hasn't been super busy and overwhelming though!

Since my last visit here I've changed careers and I'm now in the sales field. I'm now an account manager for a company called Boundary Systems located in Middleburg Hts. Ohio. They are a software partner with PTC. PTC is a global leader in PLM and CAD software with their Windchill and Pro/ENGINEER products leading the way.

It's been a great experience for me. I used the software for 14 years and now I'm using that knowledge to work with other companies to show them the value in investing in these products. I've liked the change of pace, and the new challenges it has brought. Is CAD completely out of my life? Who knows. Right now I'm just focused on doing the best that I can in this job. No matter what.

I'm still very active with i[2]y (www.i2y.com)!

We have grown leaps and bounds in the past year. I became an official board member last summer and took on the role of Board Secretary. I'm also full time President for the Young Adult Leadership Council where I oversee chapter development and work with our i[2]y staff in developing our CRM system.

We just had our big OMG cancer Summit for Young Adults in NYC back in May and it went off quite well! You can catch the video at http://www.omg2010.org. The video was broadcast live across the internet. With an onsite audience of 300+ and viewers of 700+ it was a success! It gets bigger and better every year.

The family is doing well. I'm missing my parents who have moved to Alabama at the beginning of the year. I lived away for a few years, but it's not the same when they move. Hopefully we'll be getting down to visit them soon.

Alex is growing up so damn fast. I'm finding it very difficult realizing that he's going to be joining school this fall. Just crazy! 5 years have flown by with him! He's the light of my life and keeps me going strong!

Tiffany and I are a month away from our 14th anniversary. 14 YEARS! I just don't know where I'd be without that woman. As crazy as our lives are at times, we are a common ground for each other. I love her for that and I'm looking forward to many more years with her.

So I do plan to get back here and share my rants and thoughts.

Feel free to shoot me an email or a comment here if there's anything you'd like to hear from me.

Peace, love and hair grease!

Verifying my Empire: EAVB_ASXYYVKAAN

MMORE Gala – Gala for multiple myeloma research

Saturday night, March 7th, 2009 Tiffany and I were guests at the 2nd Annual MMORE Gala in Columbus, Ohio.

With over 450 people in attendance, the MMORE organization’s goal was to beat the money raised the previous year of $65,000.

This was the first time Tiffany and I had attended such an event and the emotions that ran through us was overwhelming at times.

Anya Kohn-Minton, who is Ohio’s new regional chair for ‘I’m Too Young For This!’, put together a fabulous table of 10 of the most amazing people.

Hearing the story of 20,000 diagnosed every year with multiple myleoma, and how aggressive The James at Ohio State has become with this disease really gives hope to those of us who have gone through cancer that someday, like AIDS, we’ll see our numbers decrease from dying of cancer.

I just want to thank Nancy Kaufman and Stephanie Freeman for making us aware of MMORE and thank you for showing us how grassroots organizations can become leaders in the community!

Stupid Cancer! You will be beaten!

For more information, go to http://www.mmore.org

and to learn more about ‘I’m Too Young For This!’ go to www.stupidcancer.com

Every book has a beginning.

However, this book isn't all action filled, or a blockbuster #1 seller. And quite honestly, this isn't a book. It's going to be all  over the place. Whatever the heck I want.

My life's actually pretty simple.

I didn't have a very exciting childhood. I guess at times, as I'm reflecting, maybe I did embellish my life a bit or stories I've told. Cause dammit, my life is pretty unexciting. Sure I've had my share of very cool things, but I'm talking day to day operations here.

You ever see that cartoon on Saturdays where there was the sheep dog and the wolf, and they would punch a clock and go to work, and rinse, wash, repeat this over and over again? That's, for the most part, how I've interacted with society.

I always have kept structure to my life. You know the basics, get up, shower, go to work, come home, eat dinner, watch a little TV and go to bed. Get up and do it all over again. That's another reason for this. I'd like to think that there HAS been more to my life.

Fuck it, call it a pat on my back! Ha, I guess I am shallow to some extent. Or is vain? Sigh!

I had a very complicated childhood and life. And yet, sometimes I have to look at it and go 'Was it all that complicated?' Ya had it pretty easy!' I've needed to reflect and I don't want to wait much longer. I need something to get me motivated. Will this be it? Who knows.

There is really only 1 person in my life that get's me, and of course that is my Tiffany. She's figured me out from day 1. People, I'm not that complicated. I've always been a simple person. Yearned for attention in my life and sometimes I embarrassed myself trying too hard to get it.

I didn't grow up with much money, at all. My dad drove truck long distance when I was first born and did for the rest of the 70's when we moved to Ohio where he went to work for RoadWay. Him and my mom had lived in a very small town in Western Michigan called Plainwell. From the small towns of Michigan we headed to Toledo, Ohio. Perrysburg to be exact. At this point it was my parents, Greg, Kristen, all making the move. Jenny I believe was born soon after we moved to Ohio.

I have pretty good memories of my early childhood. I shock myself at times with the things I can still remember.

Perrysburg was where I started my school years, Eagle Point elementary school. It was a blast. I was never a smart kid. I could apply myself when required, but for the most part I skated on thin ice for 13 educational years. So much so that I thought I'd just rush thru high school if I joined a vocation.

And for the most part I did. I hated high school. It was tortuous for me. I never went to very big schools for my first 9 years. Then high school came. I think I spent every waking moment of that summer leading up to it being deathly ill. I was terrified. I didn't know any kids going to my local high school. My childhood best friend, Dylan, was going to a Catholic high school and I was going public. Fear people, I was full of it.

All kids by that point in their life pretty much have a good grasp on the kind of person they are. I set it in my mind that I wasn't much of anything. I just thought I could put my head down and make it as quick and as possible, with as little attention being drawn to myself and as painless as I could make it.

I’ve reconnected with a lot of people I went to high school over the past few weeks, and it’s been fun catching up with everyone and seeing where we all went with our lives.

Most of us never got to where we wanted to, and some of us are still trying every day. Kids, marriage, work, it' all puts a screeching halt to it if we let it control us.

I’ve come to a point now where I’m faced with unemployment. Shit, in 14 years of work I have never had to worry about that. I’ve controlled my own destiny, I’ve made the decisions. Now I find myself reeling. Do I make a career change? What’s next for me? Tiffany’s been very supportive and helped me realize to not just settle for the next best thing. Rather, take the time to find whats right for us.

That my friends is the ‘aha moment’ for me. Stop and re-boot! Start over, it’s time to make the right decisions. I have a chance to fix all of that. My financial disaster of a life, my ‘skate thru life’ approach, my son, daughter and grandson. Everything I’m around now will be affected. Those choices have to be right for all of us.

Time to put this blog back to use. It’s refreshing for me to talk here. I don’t care if it’s just for me. It feels good!

Welcome back blog!

Help us vote for Zach! A story of courage......

Hello loyal readers!

This is another post for my friend Leah!

If you could, read the following and then go vote for Zach! Hope he wins this!! Good luck Zach!

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Hey Everyone!!! It's me Leah and I really need your help...

This is personal...it's a chance to help my friend, Zach DeRidder of Lyons NY win a dream. Zach has liver cancer at only 23 years old...and has lost sooo much to the disease including his memory, his health and his livelihood---BUT not his spirit.

His video is A FINALIST in the LANCE ARMSTRONG video contest!!! Zach has outlived all doctor's predictions and this is his shot at something very special, perhaps even meeting his hero.

Zach is up against 9 other finalists, but one of the entry finalists who is way ahead of him right now (even though I feel this guy's story is not nearly as compelling). This is because this man happens to be a high powered exec with a network of contacts. But I believe in the underdog---and I believe that strangers who care can help the underdog win...but you have to keep passing this on. It's simple to vote and I promise you will love watching Zach's amazing video.

Though you may not know Zach trust me... winning this would mean more to Zach than anyone else in this contest.

Please help my cancer triathlete friend win a bike signed by Lance Armstrong! Watch his story and see why...then YOU can vote as much as once a day (every day until September 21st)Mhallstr4 is the registration name of the entry for Zach.

1. Email this message to everyone you know.
2. Vote for Zach's video (mhallstr4) on this website once a day through Sunday, Sept 21: http://www.livestrong.com/contest/youtube-share-your-story/

Cancer vs. Ashlee Simpson

I have to vent here, so bear with me.

First, I want everyone to take a look in the mirror.

You see that person? That's you! And I'm talking to you in this instance.

How many times have you gotten those silly chain emails at work and you send it off to your whole address book, knowing that half of them will hate that you forwarded it to them and the other half will antagonize their address books the same way you have done.

I am really sad at the way society has become lately. We're so focused on celebrities and their lives, and don't get me started on reality TV...Really that's reality??

The point is that we spend so much of our time focusing on frivolous things and we forget, at times, to stop and read something that may change someone's life.

But I digress!

I bring this up because a friend of mine that I consider a great inspiration (and I mean that!) wrote a piece that has had my brain going the past several days.

I emailed her and asked her permission to repost this to my blog. I'm also going to post a link to this on my Facebook. But in case you can't go to the link for it here:  http://www.new.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=41458840589 I'll go ahead and post it in it's entirety.

Leah, this was a great write!

Enjoy:

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Why you sign SeventyK... and leave Ashlee alone

 

I happened to catch a television segment just this morning that caught me off guard. It was a side-note on, of all people Ashlee Simpson....

The television announcer mentioned an online petition that began on the Internet to help remove Ashlee Simpson from the face of the pop music scene altogether. This peaked my curiosity and I found that such a petition not only existed, but has 418,000 signatures...a few hairs shy of half a million people.
SO TELL ME THIS...why are so many people eager to sign a meaningless petition to wipe out the scourge of saccharine punk pop??
If you're going to put your electronic John Hancock to something, slap it on something that truly has meaning.
I write this not in Ashlee's defense...let her fade out on her own. I don't care.
I write this because there is a petition YOU SHOULD BE SIGNING NOW.

Several months ago an amazing petition went up on the Internet called SEVENTY K. This document was constructed to speak up for the estimated 70,000 adolescents and young adults diagnosed with cancer in this country every year.

Just FYI...if you are diagnosed with cancer between the ages of 15-39 you fall into a statistical crevice.

• You don't benefit from the millions of dollars of research
• You may not receive the supports that other demographics receive
• and you fall into an age group whose survival rate has stagnated for thirty years!
  We are talking about a generation of cancer survivors that has been ignored until very recently. Why is your name not on there...showing solidarity?
  Sure, for the apathetic, cancer may not be your problem...but it's all of our problems if quality care and adequate supports are missing for an under-served group of Americans.
  If you're going to sign your name to something that has any semblance of meaning...this one should be your first stop.

Sign SeventyK
Tell your friends to sign SeventyK...
Sign SEVENTY K

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I wanted everyone to read this because I myself fall in to the category of people that need to look in the mirror at times.

The only reason that I signed that SeventyK is because it directly affected me and those around me.

But I have to honestly say that in most instances, if I had that email sent to me, I'd have probably put it to the recycle bin.

When you are affected by it your jump at every chance you can to make sure that others don't go thru the same thing you may have gone through. What we all have to realize is that this isn't our grandparents disease any more. It's ours now, we have to beat the odds and improve our quality of life. The only way to do that is to help sponsor ideas such as SeventyK.

I was even more inspired this evening to write this when I checked my email after work. It was an email from American Express announcing the Top 25 for their Members Project. Now, don't get me wrong, all 25 are very worthy of their bid to be in the Top 25, but as I look at that list, I see nothing at all in regards to cancer research or cancer advocacy.

So I guess, in the end, I just want to spread the word any way we can.

Send friends the link to my page, or to Leah's page directly (listed above). But let's stop spending our time focusing on celebrities and things that have no purpose at times, and take 2 minutes (or 5 for slow typer's) to sign SeventK! Heck, send them directly to SeventyK and skip my rant! Either way, share our passion with others! This is about quality of life! That, my friends, is very important, just ask our friends and family.

Stand Up 2 Cancer, tonight 8PM EST!

Tonight will be the telethon for raising money for cancer research, put on by Hollywood. The goal is to raise approximately $100 million dollars in an attempt to provide funding to cancer foundations.

We have a vested interest in this for 'I'm Too Young For This!' as we would like to get in on the funding for our organization.

I encourage all of you, friends and family, to tune in tonight, and if you can, make a small donation to this cause. You all know how much this means to me, and I think we are really going to make a difference with i[2]y!

Also, watch for the 'Stupid Cancer' t-shirst through out the crowd! Matthew Zachary (our founder) will be there with 3 guests and I am sure he'll be floating shirts around to whomever will wear one! I wonder if he'll get someone on stage to wear one? Hmmmmm!

Scan's in....

Well, my scan results came in today around 2pm, local time.....Results are great! No tumor's, no lesions! Couldn't have asked for a better end to a rather stressful few weeks.

I still am having some sort of an issue, which no one can put a finger on right now. My right leg is swollen along with my right foot. I have neuropathy really bad in both of my feet, so I just thought that was a contributing factor. When my oncologist just blew it off to 'Hmm, your legs kinda swollen! Keep an eye on it!' Ya think?

I did just that and followed up with my general physician. I was sent for an ultrasound to take a look for blood clots. Nothing doing there and I was sent home to rest for the day. 5 hour nap later and I'm feeling pretty good.

Dad's got me on green drinks and vitamins. Hey, whatever it takes, ya know?

I think as the time goes I'll get more used to these scans and knowing nothings going on, but it'll take some time. You just get used to bad news, so often, that it's hard to change your mind set. But in the mean time, I can focus on other bodily oddities! Thanks for all of the well wishes and support friends and family! Much love, Scary