Progress or Forced Payment

It has been an interesting week in the quad life, one of progress, rest, and forced searching. What more could you ask for in a seven-day time period?

I have still been struggling with the electronics on my chair. After 29 years of having two chairs that worked basically the same, I have not settled on the new system after nearly a year. Therefore, Tuesday was taken by a trip to Des Moines to see my chair technicians. They added grease to a sticking sensor, then slightly changed how my control buttons work. It is a little better, but still not exactly what I had in mind.

On Wednesday, my parents managed to leave for a three day trip. I have an aunt that just started helping on a few evenings and another occasional evening assistant I've had for a few years. The second person is scheduled for surgery in a few days and won't be available for several weeks. That meant any trips needed to be done soon. I enjoyed having the house to "myself" and seeing my parents get a break. Of course, like most outings, I looked forward to hearing about train sightings. They found a great overlook that showed a town, and a passing train. For me, Thursday evening was the most problematic.

Last week's post was how my sermon prep went from excitement to dread. However, I did finish my PowerPoint, cues, and notes early in the week. After supper Thursday, I opened my notes to review and see if I needed any changes before printing. When the Word document opened, I also had a message come up with a big "Okay" button. I was laying flat and couldn't read the message, but clicked okay as it was my only choice.

Something didn't look right, so I investigated further when I sat up. Apparently, my 2021 version of Microsoft Office now had an outdated license and would no longer work. All I could do was open existing documents and print them. I was thankful I had finished my notes, but couldn't make any adjustments. I made sure to print what I had, but now had a problem.

I use Microsoft Word and Excel almost daily for work items, tracking caregiver hours, and more. Many software companies have now stopped selling their product for one-time purchase that can be used for many years. Instead, they do prescription services for monthly or annual plans. It might be cheaper initially, but you end up paying several times more than you would just upgrading every few years. It's great for corporations to have a balanced software budget that doesn't have spikes every 3-4 years for upgrades. For individuals, it adds up quickly.

Friday was spent looking for options while my emails for site work kept coming. I finally found a version that still had just a one-time purchase (hopefully). I'm not sure how long it will be until this version is deemed outdated and force to pay for subscription services. Sometimes, technology progress isn't always for the better. This week, I hope to finish October with no unexpected findings.

Made to Deceive

Throughout history, people have tried to deceive each other in various forms. In the Bible, we read that measurements and weights were slightly adjusted to favor the person selling. They could give out less product, but still charge for the full amount.

As the centuries and technology have progressed, so have the ways thieves try to steal and deceive. Phone calls from legitimate sounding companies say you owe them money, but careful observance notices discrepancies. Is they are missed, the victim may be out hundreds or thousands of dollars. This week, I was not the victim of money theft, but misrepresentation of a different kind.

Every week, I get emails from Google reporting on my websites of any errors in their search capabilities. Most of the issues result themselves, so I often ignore the messages. However, one email was different than the rest and concerned my own work site. The message said that might merchant pages were set up incorrectly and needed to be resolved. This would normally sound helpful, but I don't sell anything on my site or have merchant pages. Clicking one of the links on what was supposedly my page brought me to a Chinese website that meant to be selling some products. Investigating further, my actual website was nothing but blank white pages. Even with proper security software, strong passwords, and updated plugins, I had been hacked.

I was also unable to login and access my site to make any edits. For the next hour and a half, I spoke with a customer service person from my site's web host to get the site restored. He did most of my site, but I was still unable to login. My time to sit had long ago expired, so I reluctantly had to quit and solve the issue later.

Tuesday through Friday were very busy days filled with meetings, biking, and my first trip to the fair. However, I managed to squeeze in another phone call and regain access to the site. Even with this accomplishment, major parts were still missing or not working. I also had to clear out 13 people who had added themselves as administrators. In an attempt to recover everything, I reverted to a backup from a few months ago. This resulted in my new login information being removed and I found out how to get myself logged in through a "unique" method.

Unfortunately, the backup ended up returning to blank pages and parts not wanting to function. With very limited upright time, it is difficult to make progress on something I have thankfully not had to deal with before. Monday will be another phone call and hoping everything returns to normal.

As Scripture, the heart is desperately wicked and prone to evil. My caregiver wondered why I wasn't mad on the phone and having heated exchanges. I explained such behavior does nothing and the person I'm talking to is trying to help. However, I do pray that whoever does these types of activities comes to Jesus for forgiveness and repents from such actions. I will see what surprises come up this week.

Anniversary Illness Week

It has been a week of celebration, illness, and busyness all wrapped into one. If someone says quadriplegics don't do much and just play games, they haven't seen this quad life.

Last week's congestion issues continued all week. The frequent coughing, congestion, and suctioning was getting annoying, so I went to see my GP. As I sat in his office with a nose that made noise every breathe, I reported what had been happening. The general practitioner agreed I had sinus infection, but said he normally waits two weeks to see if it clears on its own. For me though, he prescribed an antibiotic with instructions to wait one more day to fill it. Even though my caregiver and I could hear junk in my lungs, he thought they sounded great. I left wondering if the doctor needed a hearing check.

Tuesday night was spent like the previous four with much difficulty breathing and moving nearly every which way to clear my nose and lungs. Wednesday morning, I promptly called the pharmacy and gladly started the new medication. As I write this Saturday night, I have suctioned four times and am still struggling with lungs, but nose not as bad. I slept well Thursday and Friday night also, so at least have some improvement.

Also this week, my parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. In year's passed, they imagined taking a special trip to mark the occasion and spend several days away. Unfortunately, the trip was only able to be two nights and three days. Many other couples have gone to Alaska, Hawaii, or other destinations, but we didn't have enough hours, or people, to cover more time. I felt bad they couldn't do more, but I'm thankful for all the years God has given my parents and hope they'll be able to do more sometime.

The end of every month is also a busy time for web work. I do regular maintenance on my client's websites and provide reports of what I did as well as visitor statistics. Over the last few months, I have, or will be, losing a few clients. However, some new ones have started as well and have pretty much stayed even. With not feeling great and regular quad life needs, it was a challenge to get all sites updated by the end of the month as well as invoices sent out and new virtual paperwork made for May. I just finished Saturday afternoon, but still need to approve my caregiver's hours from April and prepare for May.

This week, I'm scheduled to speak at a school and then have three days of volunteering at an outreach event. I am praying my lungs improve without further assistance, but I am starting to consider how I could reschedule anything. With the school year nearing the end though, I don't see it happening.

Even in all the busyness, I'm thankful I am able to be active. God has allowed me to have loving parents and caregivers that accommodate my various projects. In a few more weeks though, I do look forward to a slight slow down, at least with outings.

Small Town Life

Yes, this is Thursday evening instead of my usual Sunday afternoon post. Something happened in the past few days that I wanted to write about, so I guess this is my early Christmas bonus blog. In short, I'm thankful I am able to live in small-town Iowa.

Two days ago, Tuesday morning, I was scheduled for my regular haircut. Since my barber is in downtown, I also take the opportunity to run errands while I'm out. I hadn't deposited my paycheck from November yet and planned to visit the bank after getting a trim.

Before leaving home, my caregiver and I prepared the required documents and I signed everything so we could just go in, deposit, and leave. When we got to town, my preferred handicapped parking wasn't available and we had to use alternative parallel parking nearby. It took some work in tight quarters to get me unloaded, but we managed after some bumping and careful driving on my part. Soon, I was sitting in front of a large mirror getting my hair shortened.

At this point, my caregiver noticed my deposit wasn't in her purse where she put it. We concluded it must have fallen out in the van when getting me unloaded. However, when we returned to the vehicle, it wasn't there. It was a windy morning, and our next thought was that it must have blown out of her purse. After some careful looking, my deposit slip was found stuck on a fence post about half a block

from where we parked. That was a good find, but my fully endorsed check was nowhere to be seen. My caregiver looked around a nearby gravel parking lot and alley, but didn't see the missing document. As we drove away, I continued to look as well, but without finding our goal.

Back at home, I called the bank to see what it would cost to have the check held so it couldn't be deposited. That expense was close to the full amount of the note, so I opted to wait and see what happened. The event near dad's workplace, and he also made a thorough search, but without success. I went to sleep Tuesday night still wondering my best course of action.

Wednesday morning, after finishing my Bible reading, I went to post the daily verse on Facebook and saw I had a message. It was from a friend of some of my friends, but nobody I knew. I hesitated to open the message, but decided to read it. The note said she had found my check on her driveway, nearly three blocks from where I parked, and wanted to arrange how to pick it up. Later that day, dad retrieved my wondering payment and everything was in its proper location by this afternoon.

It is unfortunate that the worst is expected, and excitement is found when the correct response happens. I'm thankful everything turned out well and lessons were learned for the future. Part of living in small, rural towns, is that many people know each other and how to get in touch if needed. Doing some Facebook investigation, I saw that the finder is a graduate of the same high school as me and works at the local hospital. Therefore, it's very possible we have met before, but in different circumstances. Most of all, I'm thankful for God's provision and demonstrating again we do not need to be anxious for anything.

Upgrading Skills

Like many students, I attended college immediately after high school. Thankfully, I was able to earn my Associate's in Information Technology in 2003. A few years later, I returned to school to try to get my Bachelor of Science, but had to stop about halfway through the program due to health needs. I briefly tried online college, but quickly learned it wasn't worth the effort.

Therefore, it has been around 15 years since I have done anything in the formal education. I have done several online courses in creation science and read about upgrades for web technology, but not much. A few months ago, I received a message from my cell phone provider that I could get 60 days of free courses through a program called Upskillset. I looked through the course offerings and didn't find any that sounded interesting except one, graphic design. It's no secret that I am more of a web programmer than designer, so I thought I would give it a try.

Word Art

Since March 30, I have been trying to take 2-3 classes per week in graphic design. The program covered three programs from Adobe: Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. I knew the very basics of Photoshop, nothing of Illustrator, and haven't touched InDesign (or its predecessor) in over 20 years. For the most part, I would say it has been a fun exercise in learning the programs and thinking a little differently than I normally do.

The course has you watch a video for 45-60 minutes that shows different techniques and make different projects. You can either follow along, or make your own project after the lesson. I mainly worked along with the video and did a fair amount of pausing and restarting. After completing 16 lessons, I created word art, flyers, a magazine cover, a magazine, mood boards, and a few other items. Unfortunately, some of the lessons required A LOT of clicking to produce an item (such as artwork) I never foresee needing. I mainly just watched those for information and tried to learn new techniques.

A test/assignment was available after every two classes. I was studying more to learn programs than tests, but didn't do as bad on them as I expected. Now that my free time is complete, I don't plan to pay a hefty fee to continue through the remaining 16 lessons. However, it has been a fun challenge and time to learn.

On this Memorial Day weekend, I'm thankful for those that have given me, and others, the freedom to do things such as take classes and work independently. I'm also thankful that God continues to use me and allow me to learn and see this world He has given in new perspectives.

Finally Updating

I have heard an old saying that, "the cobbler's children go barefoot." It is implied that the person who made footwear in a town was so busy working for other people, that his own family was ignored. My theory is that the cobbler knew shoes were bad for children's feet and he therefore didn't have his kids wear them. However, that's generally not the point of the saying.

For over two decades, I have worked on websites for a variety of clients. Some major changes are coming this summer in site tracking, so I warned a few of my clients with older designs that we will need to update their sites. While I want my client's sites to be the best they can be, guess which site I neglect. If you guessed my own, you're correct. My personal site, joelvm.com, is fairly current with modern programming. However, my work site is very outdated and needs major work before summer as well.

Last week, I started to work on updating my site and see what I could use from the existing design in the new. In this process, I realized I had pricing listed from 2013 and affiliations with companies I haven't worked with in years. Therefore, I took off some of the irrelevant material and just made it more generic for a temporary fix.

With constructing my new site, I'm also teaching myself different plugins, or software, that allows for more customization. I have used it once before for a client that requested it, but it's still a learning curve. That has slowed down my progress as well as the ever-present up/down cycle that limits my time I can work. I'm hoping to finish my project before a client is ready to start their redesign, but I am not confident that will happen.

Daily health also has been an added challenge. My trach area continues be sore if I lay wrong and my lungs still have a lot more congestion. However, while biking on Friday, my legs pedaled on their own for nearly 10.5 minutes. My record so far is around 11 minutes, so it was a nice surprise to see.

Such is the quad life sometimes. I have many things going on at once and I have to prioritize time to each item. I'll see what the last full week of January brings, but I hope it's more progress and not added projects.

Labor or Resignation

The unofficial end to summer has arrived again. Labor Day is a full three months after Memorial Day, but it seems to be the time of year that passes most quickly. Busy activities during warm months attribute to the speed, but I only wish the cold months of winter went as swiftly.

As the country takes an extra day of rest from work, it reminds me of 2 Thessalonians 3:10-12. The apostle Paul was writing to the church and heard that some people were not working and had become busybodies. Verse 10 says in part, "If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat." This is something I always try to remember myself.

In August, I officially worked 3.5 hours at my actual job of web development. For the same 31 days I also preached four Sundays in a row and also volunteered at the Iowa State Fair three mornings. It felt very good to be active and contributing to society, but I still regular feel like I'm lazy and don't do as much as I should.

Most people my age are working 40, or more, hours a week and then have family responsibilities at home. I look at my dad as an example who works over full-time most weeks and then has a lot to do at home to help mom and I. For me, I lay flat large portions of the day and try to spend time wisely by learning something, work of some fashion, or at least just maintaining the body I've been given. However, I'm quick to turn to a game instead of doing something more productive.

I again heard a recent study of people in their 20's that called this generation the "resignation generation." It found that many in this age group were planning to resign from their current job within a year, didn't like their career, or were content to stay home and live on government subsidies. This is evident looking at current job openings.

Two years ago, I posted about jobs being available due to not enough workers available. Now, workers do exist, but due to measures taken during the pandemic, they can make more staying at home than getting a job. A country in this situation can't survive for very long and have any resources available.

Yes, situations do exist where people absolutely are unable to work due to disability or other circumstances. I'm thankful programs are in place for this, I use a few of them. However, I still believe everyone should do as much as they are able, and just not being able to breath or use your limbs isn't an excuse.

Hopefully, I can try to be an example through the quad life. I try to keep that in mind as part of my activities and writing this blog. I pray that more young people will also head these verses and learn to earn the bread they eat.

Crossroads

Most days, my home phone gets junk phone calls. The caller ID will come up as spam, name unavailable, or various other oddities. While biking Tuesday morning, a call came with an odd name on the ID. I expected a robot voice or someone that could barely speak English and had some scheme to get my personal information. To my surprise, it was an actual local person that wanted to speak to me.

It was someone from one of the golf courses in town offering an advertising spot for the year. He said it would be in front of business owners for a full year, many who don't know how to do websites, and potential customers. The rate I was offered wasn't as bad as I expected, but still nearly four months' worth of regular expenses. I thought briefly about taking the offer, but declined it.

This isn't the first year I have let the same advertising opportunity pass. Marketing my web development work sounds good, but it hasn't ever helped before. For the last several months, I have only had between 2.5-4 hours of paying work per month. More work would be great, but it's a catch-22.

My funding for nurses and medical care is partly through government assistance. I can only have very little income and my caregivers can't show helping me with anything job related. Therefore, I would like to earn more of my own income instead of just getting government assistance, but I can't without jeopardizing what I do receive.

Friday was my second school visit out of four this month, two more are later this week. It feels like I'm at a crossroads of staying with web development and trying to keep up with the industry, or going more into speaking and writing. I'm much more inclined to try the latter and see if I can stay busy with it. If this summer stays open to meetings, it may give the opportunity to test the waters.

Whatever comes, I can always strive to keep busy in the quad life and do what God allows. I have been asked some interesting questions at schools so far this month. Next week, I will see if I can decide which was the most unique.

File Finds

Once upon a time, I dreamed of having a large office. Part of it would have large file drawers filled with important information for clients that I would regularly need to retrieve (yes, I'm odd). When mom was getting rid of a two drawer file several years ago, I quickly snatched it. My parents wondered why I needed it, but I thought it would be handy.

In the years since, my two-drawer file has held my tax information (not that I make enough to pay taxes), prescription information (which is mostly the same each month), nurse's paperwork, and much more. The majority of the paperwork has gone into their various folders, with appropriate labels, never to be touched again. That is, until this month.

With multiple nights without a nurse, mom thought we needed a project to help stay awake on our late nights. She has been in a cleaning kick lately, so my file drawer sounded like a good project. Each drawer is maybe three feet deep and almost completely stuffed with valuable (or not) information. Mom's mantra has been that you eat an elephant one bite at a time, so we took on the project in small chunks.

Living the quad life, I can't physically go through my own mail and paperwork. Therefore, I direct my caregivers to what I want done and it works well. Thankfully, I've had many assistants that have stayed for several years and I trust them completely. Therefore, some routine items, like reports from social security 2-3 times a month, just get filed without my needing to direct. Somewhere along the way, this has resulted in some interesting finds during our late night project.

Around 2005, I was looking at returning to college for my next degree. We found several college information pamphlets, including one letter that had never been opened, but was nicely filed away for over a decade. In my stored camp information, one find included my name filling an entire sheet of paper, with nothing else on it. I'm not sure why a black and white name tag from an unknown year needed to be archived, but it has now been refiled under recycle. Other treasures, such as paperwork for researching my diaphragm pacemaker, bring back memories of time and experiences I have been given.

After nine nights, only a portion of one drawer is complete. Moving forward, I think I need to be more observant with my filing system. However, it has been an interesting trip of discovery and remembering the path God has taken me on. Snow and slush is predicted for tomorrow, so I'm guessing I'll have more organizing time. I never know what will be found next, and may not want to either.

Reverse Positions

In June 2003, I was working at a temp job in West Des Moines. I had just finished college three months earlier and had started looking for full-time employment with needed insurance benefits.

Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) had helped me through school and upon graduation, had me hire a job developer to assist in my job hunt. On June 6, I took the morning off from work to meet with VR and the developer to update on progress. Over the Memorial Day weekend a week earlier, my job assistant talked with a few friends that were business owners. They told him a company would never hire someone like me because of possible increase in medical insurance costs.

Based on this, VR decided to stop assisting me and stop my funding to live independently. I was told I shouldn't expect to ever find work and should go live in a nursing home. My VR counselor gave me a list of phone numbers to care facilities and that's all they would do.

This was a major turning point in my life, one of which I haven't forgotten. I remember the events, and location, very well. I haven't set a wheel in that building since that day in 2003, until this past week.

One of my web clients works to help people with disabilities be independent and productive. It is primarily operated by VR counselors and they wanted to meet with me on Thursday to discuss changes to their site. The meeting was in the same building that I was in nearly 13 years ago.

This time, I was seen as the professional offering advice and helping to improve the lives of others. Nobody in the room Thursday knew my history, until I told them at the end of our meeting. These counselors were surprised at the news, but glad to use my services.

God has brought me on an interesting journey in the quad life. At the time, I didn't know what my future would hold. Now, looking back, I can see His hand in directing the path I needed to take. It has been very trying at times, but I've learned to trust Him with each day and week ahead.

Adjusting Talk

September started with a slow holiday weekend, but it has felt like I don't have enough time for anything since. August web work was very slow, taking only half of a 45 minute sit time to send out billing. The time crunch has come from speaking.

Two weeks ago, I started this school year by talking with a class of nursing students. It was only an hour long presentation, but commute time added over three hours. I think that is about the longest distance I'll go for regular talks.

This week was spent contacting grade schools and looking at fall schedules. Most already got back to me with a date and time to come. However, one school could be a challenge. Most classes take a minimum of 30 minutes to cover my items and allow kids to ask questions. One school I visit has three separate 2nd grade classrooms.

Due to school schedules, I can only be with each group for 20 minutes at the most. I'm working with the teachers to try different timing, but also working in my head how cut a third of my time off. I like to give students time to quiz me, but it may get cut short.

Yesterday I also received a call from a church to preach in October. I have been there before and gladly accept the opportunity. When I preach, I use multiple Scripture passages to cover a subject. This congregation prefers the opposite of just using a single reference and getting deep into it.

I like the switch of doing less computer work and more speaking. I'm thankful God is using me this way and enjoy it. Now trying to adjust my style and work according to the requirements of the audience is a slightly new challenge.

There have been times in life I've become settled in a routine and God sees fit to change it to something new. He has given me all I need for every time, so these will stretch my experience further. At least it looks like this fall could be interesting before I hibernate for winter.

Friendly Voices

In early 2003, I took my final college test and officially earned my degree. For the following six months, I gave out a multitude of résumés, had dozens of interviews, and held a few temp jobs. Unfortunately, I did not find anything permanent and the state agency helping me find work, vocational rehabilitation, said not to expect to get hired and gave me numbers to nursing homes.

This did not sound like God's plan for my life, so I moved back in with my parents. During school, I started working on a few web sites for my church and a few others and thought to try web development as a career. It started out pretty well and in 2006 I started working with another church's web site, I'll call them The Rock.

I have never met anyone from this church, but still felt part of it. Every week, I listen to Scripture

readers and sermons to put online. Posting pictures, monthly potlucks, class schedules, I knew everything that was going on at church. It has been years since I needed to look who was preaching, I could tell by voice who was giving the message as I knew all the regular speakers.

Unfortunately, a new pastor came to The Rock in 2017 and he decided to not only take care of the congregation, but also the web site. January marked my last time updating sermons, seeing the weekly bulletin, and knowing everything that was going on each week.

Yes, they were a client that paid for my services, but I felt like more than just an independent webmaster. Maybe I get too involved with some clients, but I think it's part of trying to help make their online appearance the best it can be. I know I'm not a great business man, I have a hard time charging for an hour of time when I only worked less than ten minutes. It's what pays the bills, but still doesn't feel right.

In January, I had a total of 5.5 hours of paying work for the entire month. The Rock was 1.75 of it and an infrequent client was another hour. Moving forward, I'm now down to one regularly active site and a few very minimal sites. That doesn't cover much time in a month.

As of today, I'm not sure what God has in store for me. I have been asked for years about writing a book and have started to make an attempt of it. I also contacted several schools about speaking, but haven't heard back from any of them.

The quad life is like any other with ups and downs. I'm very thankful for all the years of work I have been given and will wait to see what comes next.

Transition

At the end of every month, I do an activity that I somewhat dread, billing. Looking through how much work was done for each client and sending out invoices as appropriate is a task I quickly get tired of doing. I did originally start college in an accounting field, but I'm thankful every month that I did not continue.

I find it somewhat odd that the monthly fun, as I'll say, is still referred to as doing paperwork. However, paper is rarely involved in any of it. Everything is tracked electronically and emailed to each client. I wonder if some day we will transition away from the term paperwork to something more specific such as invoicing, or another term as yet to be invented.

With the beginning of October, it signals the end of my time with one of my long-term, and busier, clients. I worked with them through another company (I was the middle quad) and they are now moving to another web developer. We may still work together some, but still not sure what that will become. When you only average about six to eight hours of work a month, any decrease is noticed.

For a long time now, I keep having a feeling that a major transition is coming. With my very limited time upright, decreasing web development work likely isn't a bad thing, at least temporarily. However, the question keeps running through my head of changing to what? I had one new college class ask me to come, but it was on a day that didn't work. Since that initial contact, I haven't heard back from them.

Speaking more would be great during the warm months, but I couldn't do too much and increase my time sitting. Do to weather concerns, I don't schedule anything from Thanksgiving through about St. Patrick's Day. It's only about three months, but that's still a long time period not to be productive.

If a transition comes some day, I know God has it all in His hands according to His time. I'm not one that just live the quad life and sit or lay around all day and not do anything. As always, I will wait and see what the weeks and months ahead will bring. Fall is starting to become more evident in Iowa, so time of hibernation will soon be upon me. For now, another week and more scheduled activities are ahead!

Office Life

In my weekly commute to go biking, random thoughts run through my head. Recently, my caregiver and I took our normal of taking I-235 into town and turned off on the main road through downtown. This time, the Des Moines skyline caught my attention more than usual and a thought came to me, "how boring."

As I looked at the towers thrusting up from the ground, I thought of all the people working in them. For the most part, they would be in their office cubicles for eight or more hours a day with only a short break during lunch.

I realize my degree is in Information Technology with an emphasis on web development. The typical type of place I should be working is most likely in one of those cubicles. A couple months after I graduated from college, I had a temp job helping employees of an airline sign up for insurance. During this three-month period, I had a desk in one of those boxes.

All I could see were three gray walls around me, my computer screen, and a phone. I had a few papers pinned to a wall for reference, but that was it for decoration. I didn't think much of it at the time, but looking back I wondered how I did it.

My home "office" at least allows me to see outside just by simply turning my head. If it's nice outside, I can have my lunch on the deck and enjoy God's creation further. Going back to nothing but three walls for a view I think would be rather torturous.

However, I'm very thankful that there are a lot of people that do well in such a work environment. Without these positions we wouldn't things like insurance, banks, or telemarketers. In whatever position I'm in, I'm thankful we have the freedom in the United States to work and do whatever we like.

This Memorial Day weekend, remember those whose work was outside in war zones that helped keep us free. God has granted much prosperity to this country and it should never be forgotten.

Fully Switched

For the last few months, my computer has been randomly restarting. Whenever I woke it up in the morning or turned it on, it required baby steps to get going. It was maybe taking after me in not liking to get up in the morning, but that's not a good trait for office equipment.

The machine worked well for me in every other way, but the fear of having more serious problems kept increasing. Therefore, I finally gave in and replaced my 5.5 year old iMac with a new one.

For about the last week, I've been transferring files from the old machine to the new one. Apple computers have a handy feature that you can wirelessly move information between systems. However, they need to be in proximity with each other on the same network. This resulted in my room looking like some sort of electronics store with computers sitting on desks and boxes of software on tables.

I got everything switched over and started using the new machine a few days ago. I've concluded I must be getting old though, I currently prefer my old system to the new. The improved keyboard is designed so that it lies almost completely flat on the table. This makes it more of a challenge to use when I'm flat and moving it around with my stick is very difficult. It may help in building some more jaw muscles, but that's not really a goal at this point in the quad life.

The new operating system is also taking some adjusting. I'm still figuring out updated versions of the calendar, iTunes, and more. Thanks to the help of my best friend John though, I did make more progress. Hopefully in time everything will become more familiar and work as seamlessly as the old system. I do think I will be investigating a way to adjust the keyboard though.

Whether it's older technology or new, I'm thankful that I can have the opportunity to use it. Moving a bunch of documents over is time consuming, but I don't have the additional challenge of setting up voice software and moving associated files for its function.

This week will be one of learning, both for me on the computer and for what insurance will cover. Hopefully both endeavors will go well.

Playing Catch-Up

I have always heard people say they need a vacation after a vacation. I can especially understand that when the occasion is spent keeping busy at volunteer work. For me, I wouldn't have time for another trip. It feels like I have been busy and trying to get caught up since returning over a week ago.

With web work being slow this year, I didn't have a lot waiting for me when I returned. There were over 500 messages in my inbox, but several were from Facebook and did not acquire my attention. They were all cleaned out within two days and backed up work completed on late Monday. The main culprit has been medical needs.

At camp I was able to tilt a lot of the time and not give pressure directly on my skin sores. Two of the areas had very little if any change, but the third did worsen a little. Therefore, instead of sitting in bed for two hours and then laying flat for two, I'm doing 90 minutes up and three hours down. This has already helped, but it makes it difficult to accomplish much.

Since returning, I have also had regular appointments, trips to Des Moines, getting a new vent (maybe a later post), and had more work come due to a new month. I had originally planned on doing this post a few days ago, but finally was able to take time for it.

Monday my family and I celebrated Independence Day with some friends at their house. It was good to get out again and enjoy fresh air while watching fireworks. The display was good, but I kept getting distracted by the surrounding stars. I'm not in my chair and outside very often when the stars are out, so it was fun seeing God's creation displayed while celebrating our independence to serve Him.

This afternoon had a break from the busyness of summer, but I don't expect it to last. A busy quad life is a good challenge to have, but so is taking time to stop and gauze up for a few minutes.

Three Headed Monster

In junior high I remember diagramming sentences. My teacher took us through what he called the three headed monster of the process. I didn't like facing the monster then and lately it seems like the creature has returned.

The last few months have very busy for work and it seems like I can never get ahead. Today for instance, most of my sitting time was spent getting billing out for last month's work. That is now finished, but as I type this at 7:30 in the evening, I have yet to touch my regular Monday morning assignments. When I sit up in another hour, I will finally be able to get it started. However, the ongoing projects that need work likely won't get touched, again, today. This is the first head of the monster.

Second is the head of funding frustration. Last week I talked about the wisdom of government funded insurance. In talking with my county DHS worker, she advised it would be better if I didn't work, at least not for pay. Yes, work can be frustrating (see head 1), but I would much rather be too busy than not doing anything. I do know other people with disabilities that only do some volunteer work, but I know some would much rather be working for a living. I'm thankful for what I can do and I cannot see myself sitting and laying around all day playing games.

My final head is just regular life with a major disability. Mom is once again spending her evening doing paperwork so my day caregivers can get funded. Earlier this evening my parents were discussing who had to do what and who could come with me during my council meeting at church tomorrow night. The last ten days or so have also needed a lot of suctioning to keep my lungs clear requiring more work from my parents at times we don't have help.

Rolling back though and looking at everything as one beast to tackle can seem like too much to handle. However, a slight glance elsewhere reveals the problems aren't bad. Bringing each and every item to God in prayer starts to tame the dragon.

None of my clients are getting too frustrated with my lack of speed in processing requests. I know I'm doing the tasks God has given me and have been for years. Political schemes change, but the king of kings is Lord of all. I've also been given a family that is very caring and willing to do what's needed to make our situation work.

It took the entire school year to tackle the diagramming monster, and this one will take time as well. In the last two months, two campers and one counselor from CHAMP Camp have been released from earthly cares. I can be thankful for the quad life I've been given and continue to run the race before me, being sure to jump the hurdles. Another week can bring a new set of circumstances and they will be tackled as they come.

Work Woes

It seems like the last few weeks have been going from one deadline to the next. I finished rebuilding a site a few weeks ago, but it keeps coming up with minor errors that need work. Since some of them can have a negative impact on their income, I try to get them solved as quickly as possible.

At the beginning of the month, I started reworking a long-time client to a slightly new design, but using a content management system (CMS) instead of basic HTML and a web editor as I've been using. I'm much further behind than I should be at this point and everything I do doesn't make progress. With every wasted hour of little to no progress, I feel more and more like I'm in over my head.

The primary language I'm using is CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and it is a primary language in web programming that I have used for years and I know quite well. For some reason though, I'm not finding the right spots in the CMS to edit and I just keep chasing code again and again. I'm working with CMS software more and more, but large projects like these last two really challenge me.

If I didn't have deadlines, it wouldn't be as frustrating. However, then my laziness wins through and I don't work nearly as much as I should. Just thinking briefly, I have three projects I would like to get to, but just haven't. In fact, I should be using my valuable sitting time to be working instead of blogging! With less than 15 minutes before my night nurse comes, and due to frustration, I've lost my work attitude for the night.

For other items, I'm also starting to listen to pastor's sermons as part of being on my church's search committee. Our pastor's last day is June 28, so it's quickly approaching and we're nowhere near ready to call a replacement. As if I wasn't already busy, I also signed up to be a peer mentor with the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Resource Center. I took a couple hours of online training late last week (mainly while flat) and have a live training for several hours next week Wednesday.

It's best to be active and busy, right? I'm hoping this schedule calms down before fall and the school talks start up as well as more church activities. I wonder what all I would get myself into if I had control of more than just my head? For now, it's time for sleep and then back to the busy quad life.

Continuing Education

Every field of work that I'm aware of has some sort of continuing education. Nurses continue to learn about new medications and techniques, accountants keep up on new tax laws, and mechanics keep up with new engine components. Web development isn't any different than these other careers.

Technology continues to change, and so does the way you program for it. One thing that I'm doing now is making sites so that business owners can do their own updates. This was something I barely heard of when I started working on sites, but now it's common practice. In order to do this, I, and a lot of web developers, use a program called Wordpress.

Wordpress was originally designed as a blogging platform, but is now behind more than 74.6 million web sites according to one source. In another month or two, I will likely be having a site redesign project that will be using this platform. That's not unusual, but the site designer and I will be using an addition, or plugin, that allows for streamlined control over the site's design. This plugin is what is new to me.

Therefore, I have been learning how to use it with two other sites I have been working on this month. So far, I'm liking the opportunities it provides in terms of site layout. However, it's taking time to figure out what goes where to make everything work. I learned yesterday that it also doesn't use a certain programming language I'm familiar with for design aspects. Yesterday was spent looking through the changes and finding a program (such as Microsoft Word for text) that can read the code and let me work with it.

Learning new things can be a fun challenge and I'm thankful I have the opportunity to learn before I need to be working quickly. I can see this being something I'll use quite a bit, at least until another replacement comes. That is what has been going on in the quad life.

Tough Days

There are times that you go from the top to the bottom, and the past few days have been tough, and good as well. Last week, my parents went on vacation for a few days, so I had the house to myself, with my assistants. I didn't do much out of the ordinary, but we all got a break for a short while.

Unfortunately, I learned Friday that I lost another client. I had this particular site for nine years, and considered the head manager a friend. I see her almost weekly at church and enjoyed working with her. However, a few months ago she decided the site needed a redesign and since I was struggling with insurance issues, she went with a competitor. So the last two months, when I've been wanting work and having next to none, I could have been building a new site. Instead, she decided to choose a time when I was struggling to take more work away.

My parents returned home Saturday, and dad was saying he wished he could leave in another week again and go on a hiking trip. However, I have things for church a couple nights, since we're short on hours and he didn't plan, he can't go due to me needing help. Dad has said before he feels like he's in jail because he can't do what he wants, and I feel like I'm the warden.

With everything that has gone on this year, I'm still not certain if I should be trying to stay home. My parents would be free to come and go as they wished and I wouldn't need to worry about making sure everyone gets enough hours in. Being able to work would be nice, but I still have a few clients that I could get a couple hours of work per month.

In October, my calendar is full of sticky notes of activities I have scheduled. Four grade schools I'm speaking at as well as a couple classes of nursing students. For the first time in a few years, I'm also planning to go see a movie in a theater, A Matter of Faith.

Days of joy and happiness are not guaranteed as a Christian, more the opposite actually. I can be thankful when good times come, and learn to trust in God's plan, no matter what, when bad days come.