Work, Birthdays, and a PC upgrade for the Lord

Greetings and Salutations Faithful Stapleton Blog Readers

I hope that this entry finds everyone doing very well.  July and the first part of August have been very busy here at Stapleton HQ.  The first part of July I took one of my banks through a major conversion.  All in all it went pretty well but took about 2 weeks out of the month.  The third week of July I was working with a customer in the Cleveland area.  The fourth week of the month I was home but had to make day trips all week to catch up on my customer call’s.  Then for the fifth week of July I was back in the Cleveland area and logged my 53rd night in a hotel room this year.

August started out with a bang because I did another major conversion for one of my banks.  This conversion had its fair share of challenges, I am still trying to get things working to my liking.  The hardest part about the conversion was the 13 hours days, it was about a 4+ hour a day commute to the bank then a full workday.  Then you add the work that needed to be done when I got home and not much sleep has been had lately.  I even worked about 8 hours on my birthday Sunday there just really was no choice.  During the conversion there was no place to stay in a hotel that was not 40 minutes from the house so I just came home.

Also during this time frame Jess and I had our 9th wedding anniversary, Jess’s surprise birthday party, and both of our birthdays.  No wonder I am tired.  I have been working a lot lately and I am getting run down, but at least for one special project there is either an end in sight or a herd of elephants coming to run me down.  So if you think all that Jake has been doing this summer is working and keeping up with things at home you would be right.  I am ripe for a vacation that is nowhere in sight.  Jess still can’t do much more than a few hours in a car and money is tight so there are no vacation plans in the works right now.  We may try to get away for a long weekend soon but I don’t know when.

Jess has had a busy month finishing up Summer School.  She had another 4.0 semester to add to her collection, so I could not be more pleased!  Her dream job still has not been filled and they are going to call people back in for a second set of interviews.  We made the decision in July that since nothing concrete has come through on the job front that she will just student teach this fall.  That way maybe she can look for work starting in January, there is no point to start a job just to quit in January to student teach.  We have come this far towards her MA we are not going to stop 12 hours short.

Jess continues to receive therapy twice a week but is still pretty fragile.  Her headaches continue to be more intense than they were before the wreck and her back is still very much in control of her life.  AVIS is not being too accommodating about the wreck and neither is the negligent driver that hit her.  So we have basically depleted our life savings and my wife is unable to lead a normal life do to her injuries.  That is just the practical side of the matter.

Jess fights her pain everyday to get better and it is taking a toll on her.  We are at the limit of non-narcotic pain medicine and that is where we have decided to stay.  Monday the 18th will be 31 weeks since the wreck and we are working hard not to accept this injury as her new “normal”.  We have by no means given up hope on a full recovery but are nowhere near where this journey will take us.  As for the financial side of the wreck I will let you know what happens when the litigation is completed in a couple of years.  So I would ask two thing of you.  One do not EVER rent an AVIS rental vehicle.  Two and most important please continue to keep Jess in your prayers and she continues to fight everyday to recover fully from the wreck.  She has been marvelous through this but it only takes 21 days to make a habit.  When you have been in constant pain for 31 weeks it is all you can do to keep moving forward with your chin up.

In other news

What do you do when you wife is off work and money is tight?  You buy two new computers of course!  I know you probably think that I am crazy but it really needed to be done and Best Buy had 2 years same as cash.  Jess got her first laptop and is really enjoying it, plus I got her to move to Gmail, Windows Vista, and she picked up a blackberry.  Her old PC was 5 years old and it was to the point that she could not even do her web classes on it.  She has done really well and only cried 3 times over all the new technology and is beginning to embrace everything.  With her blackberry we can now share our calendars very easily and it is not costing us anymore on the month for service because I dropped her minute plan way back.

Jess’s laptop was not enough to reach the interest free financing limit so I picked up a new desktop for myself.  It was well past time for me to cycle out my old desktop it was 4 years old this July.  So I have reconfigured it to be the new server in the garage.  (Doesn’t everyone have one?) Anyway Best Buy had an incredible deal!  For myself I picked up a quad core Gateway tower with no monitors (I have two 19″ monitors at home), so I was able to put all the money towards raw unbridled speed.  This thing literally has flames shooting out of it.  For example there was one part of the process to that I did to convert the churches sermon video to the web; it used to take 2 hours and 45 minutes on my old PC.  Now the same process now takes 21 minutes!  (Still trying to claim this one as a PC upgrade for the Lord)

I am also pleased to announce that as of August 8th the entire family (Eagan’s, Stapleton’s, Cremeans, and Ferguson) are now all on AT&T wireless.  Free minutes to talk to everyone, this is a martial first!  As a result a special committee has been formed.  Any said family member wanting to leave AT&T must receive permission from the Family Telecommunication Committee.  (Insert the Godfather theme here.)

Well that along with my other interim posts should bring everyone up to date.

Take care that’s the news and I am outta here!