World of Wonder

HAPPY BIRTHDAY - United States of America

2010-07-04T09:28:00.002-04:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY - United States of America - Live Long and Prosper!

CrossLoop Helper David Fondale

2010-05-19T19:19:00.000-04:00

CrossLoop Helper David Fondale

This is my Crossloop Support Link. I use Crossloop to help customers. It saves me gas and time and saves the customer money!

Crossloop Support Link

2010-04-29T22:28:00.000-04:00

This is my Crossloop Support Link. I use Crossloop to help customers. It saves me gas and time and saves the customer money!

Chronic Idiopathic Myelofibrosis

2010-04-23T20:33:00.000-04:00

My wife was recently diagnosed with Chronic Idiopathic Myelofibrosis. This disease apparently evolved from her Essential Thrombocythemia that she has had for a number of years. This group of hematological malignancies in which her bone marrow cells that produce her bodies blood cells, develop and function abnormally. The disease is progressive and can strike anyone at any age, and there is no known cure. The ET was diagnosed after her spleen started enlarging. Her doctor noticed this and sent her to a specialist who correctly figured out what was going on. Right now she is becoming anemic, is very tired and has terrible bone pain and increasing amount of fibrosis (scarring) in her blood marrow.
My point for writing about all this is that I just can't seem to get a handle on what is going on! With cancer and most sickness there is a cause. Something triggered the disease to start up. Then, the cure is, to stop the trigger and treat the disease from that point on with chemotherapy or radiation, or even surgery or medications. The only treatment for MF seems to be hydroxyurea (a pill form of chemotherapy), bone marrow transplant or some clinical trials that test non-FDA approved drugs that are JAK2 inhibitors. The trials offer some hope of a cure, but are far away from us, and hard to get into.
If you are out there in the internet cloud and you have or know someone who has this disease, I would love to hear from you. We need some help and support and some encouragement. Most of what we have read is not very encouraging!

Help! I'm a Geek and I Can't Shut Up!

2010-04-19T22:06:00.000-04:00

First of all, I in no way want to put down Geeks in any way! I am a Geek. There I said it, Like admitting you are an alcoholic, this may be my first step to some sort of a cure. My Father called me "Knobs" when I was small because no button or knob in the car was safe in my presence. I had to touch them all. (This was before seat belts and I was free to roam about and "experience" the car to its fullest.) In grade school, several of my friends and myself were doing a project. We had surmised that a radio could be turned into an amplifier with the proper items. A trip to the electronics store to obtain a microphone was the first step. We got an old tube radio out I had and proceeded to start touching wires to bottom of the tubes. It had to be easy, find the connections to the radios amplifier, attach the mic, and whala, an amplifier. What we neglected to remember was that this was a 110 volt device! Several shocks and fuses later my Dad put a stop to this madness, and took away the radio. After this, all radios had to be equipped with an auxiliary speaker. Speakers were reclaimed from out TV's and radios and to to better use as auxiliary speakers on my record players. Not stereo yet!
Later on when computers came out, they too had to be modified , and made bigger and better. We "Spok Locked" everyone, we "Live long and prospered" with the fingers spread into a V hand signal and the first digital car dashboard we ever saw was nicknamed "The Enterprise" and we "warped" every where we went, in it. I've seen every Star Trek movie and every Star Wars movie and SciFi is my favorite TV channel. I would rather read, than play sports and play music, rather than dance to it.
All this leads up to my newest Geekdom. Web Search Engine Optimization SEO. It is fascinating, and has taken my life away from me. SEO is all I can think about! Everywhere I go, I am telling people how they can be on the first page of Google searches. Like they really care or even understand what I'm talking about! Three weeks ago I would not have even thought I would Twitter or Blog. I have had a Facebook page for several years but who would have thought these things were useful and could drive you up the search engine world. Web advertising and backlinks and my own web domain now fill my geeky brain twenty four hours a day. I used to get up and do yoga and meditate now I get up drink coffee and surf my Facebook page. What is wrong with this picture?

It is obvious that I need to get control back in my life and put these tasks in some sort of order. I see the way that my work life and my play life are becoming as one. Synchronicity is showing itself more and more.

Humbled By Hospitality In WV Mine Country

2010-04-14T18:14:00.000-04:00

I have
been thinking a lot about the recent tragic accident here in my county,
Raleigh. It has touched everyone, every where I go. Signs are on every
business "Pray for our Miners and their families". Collections are
started, bands are doing benefits, churches are cooking benefit dinners
and people are being very generous. Sometimes when you live in this
kind of atmosphere, you can get too used to it and it doesn't touch you
like it should. The blog piece I've linked http://worldofwonder-dave.blogspot.com/2010/04/humbled-by-hospitality-in-wv-mine_14.html how it affects those not used
to us West Virginians! Be proud and never forget your heritage, your
Mountaineer Pride. We have something in this State that people are
searching everywhere for!

Saturday, April 10, 2010 at 4:45pm

It would be embarrassing if it were not so humbling.

Hours after the West Virginia mine explosion Monday, scores of journalists from all over the country started arriving — in a very rural area with no communications or places to sleep closer than an hour's drive away.

When the governor began giving press briefings at Marsh Fork Elementary School (this week happens to be spring break, so the children are out), journalists began getting comfortable at the site a few miles from the mine entrance, and we never left. By Tuesday, a couple dozen satellite trucks filled the parking lot, and classrooms with tiny chairs and paintings on the walls were turned into newsrooms and bedrooms.

And all of a sudden there was food — a lot of food. Pepperoni Pizza. Pulled pork and beans. Fried chicken, potatoes and green beans. Cookies. Crackers. Doughnuts of all stripes.

Prengaman

Usually I lose a few pounds while covering stories like this. The deadlines are too tight, the access to food often limited. This time, I'll be going home a little rounder, and with a touched heart.

The food was cooked by residents and donated by businesses in this community. Some of it came by way of a local Red Cross, a Wal-Mart and a United Way, but even more was the home cooking of kind West Virginians who just wanted to take care of us.

Imagine, here we are, an aggressive and hard-charging bunch of journalists in the middle of this devastated community, and it's THEY who are taking care of US!

The kindness hasn't been lost on any of us. By Thursday, two plastic jars — "school collection" and "community collection" — were put out, and by Friday both had a few hundred dollars. I feel like we owe this school and these people so much more.

When I asked interim principal Shelly Prince how folks could be so giving at a time like this, she said that many felt it was soothing to help others. This situation made them feel helpless, and helping others was doing something. She also said it gave people a chance to show the world what West Virginians are "really like."

"Often on TV, we are not portrayed in such a good manner. We often are portrayed as ignorant and backward," she said. "But we are just ordinary people who live ordinary lives."

I have to disagree. These people are extraordinary.

Peter Prengaman, multimedia editor at the AP's South Desk in Atlanta, is in West Virginia to help cover the coal mine disaster.

2010-04-04T09:43:00.000-04:00

Happy Easter! Easter means different things to lots of people. Egg hunting and candy to children. Christ been risen, and many different religious meanings to adults. I like to think that it is a time of rebirth for me, more so than even New Years. A time to look at our lives, see the good and the bad, and then make the changes necessary to make it all good. Be it work or our relationships, there are many things we can do to "be better". Doing things for others is a big one for me. So happy "rebirth" to all!

World of Wonder

2010-03-28T18:48:00.000-04:00

We practiced yesterday in Lewisburg at the Stuart Davis Chapel as "The Mighty Good Road Show". Then we had a business meeting to discuss the future of the three groups that form the Road Show. How this should proceed?