balticblond's Xanga

A Bit About the Real Me

Mon, 11 May 2009 23:18:44 GMT

This week Kathy and I are hosting our FOCUS International Student Ministry Leadership Team Planning Retreat. FOCUS is a service program for international students predominantly at Portland State University. We serve about 600-800 students each year from 60+ nations utilizing mostly community volunteers. Over 90 people from 30 area churches make FOCUS happen.

We opened our meetings with Organizational Team Building based on several personality assessments, then presenting a summary of how we best operate within organizations. We used these three assessments (my strength areas listed for each):

1) Strength Finders 2.0: Connectedness, Strategic, Adaptability, Empathy
2) Myers-Briggs: INFP— Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Perceiving—“The Healer”
3) DISC Assessment: Steadiness (43%), Conscientious (26%), Influence (19%), Dominance (12%)

Here's a snap shot of the 'real me'---

I believe everything happens for a reason especially in the sense of God directing our lives. We are a product of his Divine Destiny, an agent on his mission of service. Our stories are different but they often are entwined as strands in the master Weaver’s ultimate tapestry.

In a group I’m paying attention to everyone else including those that seem to be on the fringe or perhaps feeling uninvited or unworthy of the company they’re keeping. I want everyone to feel a part, a stakeholder, and with a full place at the table. I can easily put myself in their shoes, especially if they would traditionally be underrepresented for some reason. I may not even agree with their perspective, but it is important to me that they have a voice. Myers-Briggs calls me a “diplomat” and interestingly this was one of my career interests throughout my life.

Of course then, I also am most happy when invited to a full seat at the table in any organization I'm part of.

I pay attention to and try to anticipate people’s needs and love to serve them, especially if they are among those I strongly care for or am committed to.

I may appear quiet, but I actually have strong opinions and will speak persuasively on their behalf. My quietness is actually misleading because I will become very enthusiastic in promoting anything I’m committed to.

Usually I can envision the best path through a problem or issue. I am not afraid to throw out something (an idea, program etc) I view as obsolete or affecting the well being of our staff or workers.

I tend to live in the moment rather than make a plan and work a plan. One plan tends to spin off new ideas not necessarily related. I can be distracted by these especially if they seem more interesting to me. Because of that I can pretty flexible and I’m usually not offended to put down my idea for now in favor of the teams interests. Part of the dark side on this, I am susceptible to being compulsive at times.

I hate to disappoint those I work for or with. I have a strong sense of morality, propriety and “doing the right thing”. While I usually do not impose my sense of right and wrong on others, am usually am very willing to give my assessment when invited to.

I draw the line on intervention where the unity or integrity of a group or organization is concerned. I will not hesitate to act in order to preserve that, even if someone is hurt in the process.

Because I am content to sit in the #2 position in organizations, some people assume I am not interested in or very capable of directing leadership. That is far from the truth, however I much prefer to be called into leadership rather than asserting myself into it. Some consider this a weakness, but I look at it as strength, though at times I may lose out on an opportunity or two because of it.

Review of Bill Carmichael's new book "The Missionary"

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 23:03:57 GMT

5.0 out of 5 stars
A new cast of characters in the tradition of Tom Clancy, March 26, 2009
By Baltic Books "Vic" (Portland, OR USA)

David Eller has served street children of Venezuela for years. In that time living among those with extreme need, he's become a bit careless publicly criticizing the presidential regime. That criticism has the attention of an important businessman with power to greatly fund Eller's important work, but also to bring change to the national leadership. The question is how badly does Eller want to help these children and to what lengths is he willing to go?

The Missionary is an exciting thriller-adventure story in the tradition of Tom Clancy or John Grisham. Carmichael writes a new novel chronicling the inner struggle of the men and women willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to accomplish their mission in spite of personal weaknesses and internal demons.

Reading The Missionary I was pleased to see the story unfold in a way I never expected. It is well written and seems to cry out for a sequel after taking special time and care to establish an exciting cadre of characters.

I strongly recommend The Missionary!

Purchase "The Missionary" at Amazon.com

I'm Afraid Xanga is Dying

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 23:45:42 GMT

83.79% of my online social life is over at Facebook.com now. Another 12% is at Twitter.com, leaving not more than 4.21% split between Xanga and Myspace (does anyone use Myspace anymore? If so, why?).

The truth is ever since Xanga changed their front page to that confusing thing with a little bit of everything all over the page, who the heck wants to mess with it?

It's slow and cumbersome. Xanga was much better when it stuck to what it does best-- blogging. Too bad Xanga didn't manage to get themselves bought out by Google-- instead Google bought an even worse social networking storefront in Orkut.

So I think Xanga has to die.

From time to time I'll come back, but not because its fun and easy to use.

Perhaps Xanga should remarket itself to the Baby Boomer generation.

Christmas Week -- Heart Update

Sat, 27 Dec 2008 04:11:18 GMT

Hi everyone!

Today wrapped up a historic Christmas for Portland, Oregon. The SNOWIEST Christmas ever, biggest snow fall total for a storm period in more than 40 years, and so on it goes.

Snow in Portland changes EVERYTHING.

Portland literally slides to a stop with as little as 1-2 inches of snow, especially if it doesn't melt away in a few hours as it typically will, IF it snows. It sure did the past week.

Virtually everyone stayed home except on December 23rd and 24th when we had our last chance to get to a store before a new storm threatened. I'm certain there will be many Portland retailers that now close due to the combination of snow and economic conditions.

The past week at our house-- Our first big surprise-- Alec comes home!

Alec and Shannon Christmas morning

We prepared ourselves to suffer Christmas without our son Alec. He's living in Hollywood and felt his work needs would keep him south.

Thursday morning, Shannon walks in my room with her "What are you doing?" question. This is the question asked in the way actually meaning, "Dad, I need you to stop everything and take me somewhere". She sensed that. "So, I have an early Christmas present for you. Alec just arrived at the airport."

Yay! We all bundled up, drove to PDX to see our little 25 year guy!

Overnighter Extended!

Originally our daughter, son-in law and grandsons were going to join us for Christmas Eve only. Instead, Heather and the boys came up for an early overnight after Alec arrived Thursday. Snow started falling a few hours later... and on into the next morning.

Suddenly, they were snowed for the duration. When their power and water were down back at home a day, Jared soon joined us! We ended up with a dream Christmas. All our family at home at once!

Sloppy kisses

The Flu hits 1748

We THOUGHT our grandsons had fully recovered from an early bout last week. Wrong!

I was first to fall after that initial grandfatherly-grandson exchange of Lewis' and Evander’s goopy kisses. Six hours later I wretched my way into intestinal oblivion, still filled with the joy of having my little guys near by-- it was worth the price.

Kathy joined me 12 hours later, then Alec, and finally Shannon. She was the one that stuck it out like Smith Wigglesworth on a mission and continued to "refuse" nausea forcing herself to do all the Christmassy things she had planned.

Myself? I succumbed to 3 days of bed! --Brave man of God!

Lewis and his Mighty Machines

We all made it more or less out of the woods by Christmas Eve to enjoy a quiet meal together with some activities and games. It was great except we had to cancel invitations for some of the guys in our community group to join the family while our yellow flag of flu quarantine flew. Better safe than sorry though-- trust me, this was a bad one.

Christmas Day we again stayed in sharing the moments together including traditional Dutch Babies breakfast, assorted Norwegian mostly raw salmon and herring tasties, a few cookies and lots of games and Christmas music.

The babies have all gone home now. It's a bit quieter and we miss them all!

My Heart Update

When our snow hit followed by the 3 day flu, my walks pretty much went on hold. We have snow everywhere outside. Unfortunately, I am not well equipped for trekking through that stuff much these days. Instead I've gone out for measured periods of light snow shoveling workouts instead. I figured if it was broken up into checks across hours and days, it would be a safe activity.

I'm still here and haven't had to resort to taking a nitro tablets or anything, so success.

I'm actually feeling better and better.

Hopefully the snow will be washed away in a day or two so walks can resume.

Jouney of the Heart--Latest Installment

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 23:05:12 GMT

Hi Gang!

Thanks for continued prayer on our behalf.

This week I met with my cardiology department for the first time following my heart attack.

Generally, that went well-- I gave up some more blood, was connected to the electrocardiogram again and given a thorough once over by a cardiac NP (my cardiologist Beth is on vacation).

They re-regulated my medications to move me closer to a max BP of 120/80.

Hospitals are generally really good these days at giving you the "worst case scenario" when they list the possibilities of outcomes. They are way over on the "glass half-empty" scale.

In my situation the worst case is preparing for the contingency of heart bypass surgery if my blood pressures don't come much lower. They going to give me 2-3 months to work it all out.

The NP also contradicted what I thought I heard my surgeon say about "Plavix", one of the current popular heart meds that I'm on. Originally I thought they said they had hopes the drug regemin would actually start opening up my secondary arteries. The NP says "no" on that-- I'll have to do more research.

My walks have been a bit more difficult in the cold weather we're having. That's normal I guess-- your body and heart work harder to maintain body temps adding stress to the circulatory system.

I've also been noticing myself trying to slip into my old eating habits in terms of food quantities. I need to nip that in the bud now. Now I'm attempting to stock the mini fridge in our bedroom (kinda like a studio suite) with carrots and other good things to nibble on. It's really critical for me to continue losing weight.

Tonight we're hoping for a bit of grandchild therapy-- If Heather can make it up through the snow, Lewis and Evander will spend the night (with their Mom of course) at 1748. That will be really fun!

The other great thing was an early Christmas present from Shannon who surprised us yesterday by flying Alec up from California. We'd settled into the idea (sadly) of not seeing him this holiday. He gives a lot of therapeutic hugs!

::EDIT-- Money talk ahead--skip down if that isn't your thing::

Some of you have been following our cash situation-- quick report there is God has been good and amazed us with our friends and supporters generosity (our salary comes out of a private donor base). We're still down a bit on the immediate need, but hopeful we'll come back to ground zero at least in a week or so. Then I quickly need to get out there to re-establish our monthly donor budget-- I'll be scheduling my weekends with our churches in Oregon and hopefully some in Washington. If you want to be included in our donor team email list, just let me know.

::END EDIT::

So-- hopefully we'll get out at least an electronic version of a Christmas card in the next 2 days-- possibly a printed one-- If you really want one of those printed ones, be sure to let us know and get your postal address to me.

Until then-- Merry Christmas!

Vic and Kathy

PS-- Please say prayers for our dear friends Janell and Dale Moseley-- Janell, one of our Chi Alpha alums from 1992 in Portland had a 2nd stroke this week. This is an awesome couple dedicated to serving struggling people around the world-- Janell has an incredible story of spiritual journey. Here is a note she wrote-- don't be fooled by her light hearted demeanor-- this is a critical moment for her.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=752190149&ref=profile#/note.php?note_id=35489249057

LIFE CHANGES

Sat, 13 Dec 2008 18:29:42 GMT

Hi everyone!

We're officially four weeks away from a Saturday morning that changed my life.

I was thinking about various life changes we all go through-- the ones that transform everything we do overnight.

Getting married is one of those-- one day you're alone and pretty much able to make all your own choices and the next day the one become two... and the two become one. Simply put that partly means we spiritually become a kind of conjoined twin. If we're wise our decisions have to be made for the best of both individuals always keeping the other in mind.

Having your first child changes things forever too. There's still a lot of freedom up to then. You both can hop in a car at the spur of the moment to go for ice cream, and decide a few blocks away the best ice cream is 200 miles west at the beach. You just go-- who cares if you've "packed" or not. The morning after that first baby joins the family, every choice you both make from that point on is a little more complicated. At the same time you are elated to experience life through a little one's eyes.

For Kathy and I, having our first grandchild changed our lives too.

Where we might have chosen to make a major change of career or physical move, now it's really important to be close enough to be part our grandchildrens' lives. There's also an increasing sense that you really want to BE AROUND to see and meet ALL your grandchildren-- It's just that much fun being a grandparent! (something I never understood up to the very day I became one--now I am a grandparent cult-member). I remember my Mom always thought she'd never live to see her grandchildren... but she did.

Obviously major health crises alter our lives overnight too.

Four weeks ago my life transformed while experiencing a heart attack.

So what's changed?

First, a realization that I want to be there to meet all my grandchildren. Never knowing my own grandparents, I always felt a little short-changed. I think every kid needs grandparents. I want my grandchildren to have <i>great memories</i> of me.

Next is facing up to my own personal stupidity contributing to a heart attack. There really isn't anyone to blame but myself for not taking better care of myself.

That's all changed now--I want to be around for a long while yet. Therefore I will suck it up and do what I need to do-- change my diet, get my exercise, lose weight and make any decision I need to that changes my condition for the better.

I have fewer "spare" life changes ahead of me now, and some I'd rather not speed into prematurely.

--

I'd like to say THANKS to all my cheerleaders and encouragers out there-- It means a lot to know people care and want to see the best for you. Thank you.

--

HEART UPDATE

So I'm walking twice a day. Mornings are good-- right now I walk between 10 and 18 blocks. Somewhere in there I can start to feel the beginnings of symptoms--when that happens I stop walking. Today I did 12 blocks.

My afternoons and evenings are not as good. It takes a lot less for me to start feeling symptoms-- That all starts out with a bit of "jaw" soreness, then slight sense of chest tightening, followed by a little ache in my left arm. I catch myself starting to 'yawn' drawing more oxygen in my lungs. At that point its definitely time to head home. A lot of times I need to stop for a few minutes.

In the evening it take even less for it to start all over again-- a trip or two up and down the stairs, doing some little project will send me to my room to rest and possibly to take a nitro pill (they open my arteries up quickly to allow more oxygen flowing to my heart). So far an episode like that lasts a few minutes. If that repeated itself 3 times over 15-20 minutes without much improvement I'd have to go to the hospital.

Thursday I met with my family doctor, a Nigerian Pentecostal man. We've become friends over the past 17 years or so. Mostly we reviewed all my medication regimen. He said my priority now is to keep blood pressure down-- what ever it takes. I had dropped a sensitive medication too quickly 2 weeks ago, sending my pressures way up. Now he has me on a 6 week program to gradually wean myself this particular med.

There's something about ending your checkup with a good Pentecostal Nigerian doctor's prayer! Nigerian Pentecostals don't know how to pray quietly either! I'm sure every nurse and patient in the treatment area listened in.

Next week I go to a sleep study Wednesday evening, spending the night at a Days Inn wired up to machines. That's to determine if sleep apnea is a contributing factor to my health. Thursday I have a long appointment at the Cardiac department. Not sure what all they're going to do there.

So that's what's going on at the moment.

Feeling Pretty Good

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 22:20:28 GMT

It's almost been 3 weeks since my heart attack.

There haven't been any really big episodes since that time. Well, I have taken a "nitro" tablet 3 times just to be safe. I also noticed that I'm losing a lot of stamina by late afternoons. You can tell because my afternoon walks have collapsed from 5-8 blocks to 1-4 max. I think it has something to do with the switchover of a couple of medications. It's something to talk over with my doctor next week.

So basically I am on half-days right now before I climb into my jammies to rest.

Mornings are improving through--today I did a brisk 12 blocks. So that has to be a good thing and I have to think the afternoons should start to improve too very soon.

Nelz and Josh helped us pick out, cut and set up our Christmas tree this week. Yesterday Kathy put up decorations and we managed to tack up some lights on our back porch.

Getting back in balance...

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 02:52:13 GMT

...That's actually a little harder than I imagined.

My new answer to the "How are you?" question--

"Good! Except when I'm not."

I can be feeling fine and then a few minutes later, perhaps I sense my heart straining after an activity that should be really easy.

After a great week of walking and so on, the past few days have been a bit more of a struggle. Mostly I think its because I'm being "weaned" off one long-term blood pressure med for the new set I'm on.

As soon as I dropped the old one the other day, things took a small turn for the worse blood pressure wise-- This morning after waking my pressure was 170/107 (the bottom there is significantly high). So I broke down and took another of my old meds to get it down to a lower rate which actually made it a bit too low. Low BP means I'm susceptible to dizziness and have to be careful to not get up too quickly.

I've managed to keep my walking up in the mornings at 6-8 blocks, but my afternoon stroll has become more miserable and much more difficult. Tonight I could only manage 1 block-- actually only half a block when my chest started tightening up. I had to turn and slowly, slowly work my way back to the house.

Had to remind myself that the medication treatment approach to my heart issue is a longer term intervention than going in there to do a stent or bypass which often gives immediate relief. I'll need to do some research to see what the time frame is expected to be for my heart's arteries to open up allowing more blood flow to the muscle.

Monday my regular doctor is back from vacation so I'll call bright and early to see what he wants to do about it all.

A bit of good news-- my weight after one week at home dropped 6 pounds back to territory I haven't been at for more than 2 years. I'm almost ready to break my old jeans out of storage.

Thanks for praying.

This week I need to take some serious steps to generate cash flow. I was about to start fund-raising when this all started. We saw a $2000+ drop in our income November. Appreciate your prayer about that too.

Grace and Peace,
Vic

Week 1 at home

Sun, 23 Nov 2008 04:50:45 GMT

Hi everyone--

Thanks so much for continuing to pray for us this week. I’ve been back home since Tuesday gradually improving.

A little earlier I wrote a longer update to our close friends Ron and Ginny in Seattle. There was a lot more detail in the email about our life these days. So I thought I’d edit it slightly and send it on to the rest of you

Before I do that, I just want to let you know we are starting to see the economic crisis in our country affect our financial partners. Tuesday I came home from the hospital to discover our income had dropped substantially in 30 days. Hopefully this will be a short-term issue, but I has put us in a very challenging spot as we approach the holidays. I had committed to our leadership to start a new fund-raising cycle this week, but obviously it is on hold for at least a while. Keep that in your prayers--obviously EVERYONE needs help right now—we are trusting God to bring us through the short-term to meet all our substantial cash flow obligations.

Here’s the detailed update from that email—

So this week I’m been finding a new normal. Basically I generally feel okay unless I overdo things. Like last night I grabbed a small box of tools from my office cabinet searching for something. Just picking it up, moving it to my desk and back put enough strain on the upper body that I could feel the whole ‘breathlessness’ thing starting. I’m walking twice a day before breakfast and dinner. Going around the block—street 1 and 2 are good. After that I start feeling a little aching at my hip near the angiogram entry site, and at 3 streets I’m working my heart—I have slightest sensation of losing breath. In the door I know that was my limit. I’m also working on flushing out the angiogram dye from my system—my kidneys have been sore for a couple of days, but my urologist agrees that’s what’s happening there. I’m being really good about calling the advice RN now about everything I should =)

I spent Saturday afternoon after a morning walk, brunch and a little social interaction mostly sleeping in my chair while “watching” some program on TV. Now I just came back from my afternoon walk and am catching up—email, Facebook, Xanga etc.

We have this awesome group of young adults that hover around us. We call them “The Guys”—Nelz, Ben and Josh primarily and others. The guys (there are girls too) have adopted us as parent surrogates in their lives. They’re a mix of Bible college grads, Chi Alpha grads etc that live in our neighborhood. Last summer we handed over what had been our home group to Nelz and Ben. They’re good with just keeping it a cozy, active home community group unless God eventually expands it to become more. The Community aspect of it has been wonderful. So anyway—all that to say The Guys are pretty good about wanting to do projects around the house—Nelz raked our leaves this week. So my other activity is thinking through a To Do list suitable for them during my recovery. Gutters, Christmas lights, Christmas tree—you get the idea.

Kathy has a more intense ministry schedule here this Fall. One of our co-directors in the FOCUS international student ministry is on fund-raising sabbatical this year. Kathy’s picked up her portfolio of managing our 100 Associates (community volunteers), doing interviews, orientations and training (we do a quarterly international student ministry training here), and directing the Nativity play at our annual Christmas banquet. That’s in addition to keeping office hours a day a week at PSU, meeting for a few one-on-ones and small group investigative Bible studies with American & international women, and directing her Gospel Choir. She’s also doing worship for the home group, managing our housemates (7 women from all over). And I’m sure I’m missing a few things.

We had promised the powers that be that we’ll do our own fund-raising sabbatical this Fall—I was starting to gear up for that when all this happened.

It will be interesting to see how the new economic reality will impact that adventure! We just experienced our first 60% income drop in a thirty day period this month. Hopefully that was a one-time thing, but I’m sure a lot of people are pretty nervous these days. At least I had moved all my 401k (such as it is) from stocks into a church building loan fund about a year ago so we haven’t had to watch that plunge. So far the Portland housing market has been more stable than elsewhere too. Portland tends to lag the rest of the country during these times.

Our kids are great. Shannon’s making a brand for herself in photography. She has incredible creative skills in that area (see www.redcouchphoto.com) . Since June she’s been flying everywhere for weddings and large numbers of photoshoots—she’s been to Carlsbad, NM 3-4 times and has probably shot a hundred families. All that started with a hair salon owner showing photos from her daughter’s wedding on a screen at her salon! When she has down times in her schedule, she’s starting to do photography for non-profits. Shannon just returned from a trip to remote northern India. She hopes to be leading a team of 4-6 photographer/videographers to north Africa this Spring for a 6 week project.

Our oldest daughter and son-inlaw have lived in Salem this year, actually on the church office campus in a small 2 bedroom house. He is now their Media and Communication Director. Heather brings 2 grandsons, the “Little Guys”, up every Thursday for a rest and play day—the babies hang out with Kathy and I, while Heather also does craft and other fun stuff here with her Mom. I pretty much dedicate most the days I can to them as does Kathy. The grandparenting thing is AWESOME! It’s much like a cult though—you just can’t fully understand until you’ve drunk the kool-aid and your kids have had kids.

Alec has lived in Hollywood for a year sharing a house with 4-6 other guys, mostly Bible college friends and is looking at moving back to Portland by next Fall.

If all goes well, Kathy and I will be up in the Seattle area for a Chi Alpha regional staff gathering December 7-9 at Lake Retreat.

We love you all!

Vic & Kathy

Heart Attack Update-- Day 1 at Home

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 19:13:20 GMT

Thanks to all my friends and family that prayed for us this past week-- I spent my first night home and now am completing day 1 out of the hospital.

In case you missed the news-- here is a blog I wrote earlier in the hospital for Facebook... My update follws that.

~~~~~~~~

VIC is recovering from a heart attack and angiogram at Kaiser Sunnyside Hospital. Coming home tomorrow!
Monday Nov 17th

Saturday morning as I was getting up, I started feeling ‘out of breath’.

That had been happening a bit the past month after carrying a heavy load of groceries or even sometimes walking a short distance and going upstairs. It always passed quickly so I always chalked it up to being out of shape.

That morning it seemed to gradually get worse and persist for 30 minutes or so. Finally I called Kathy who phoned the hospital. “Come into the ER right now!” was the doctor’s immediate conclusion.

Within minutes at Kaiser Sunnyside hospital I was plugged in, nitro-patched, medicated and punctured with various blood tests.

In spite of the fact I started to feel better immediately, the blood tests didn’t lie, eventually telling me I was having a heart attack. Later on the nurses said, “On a scale of 1 to 10 this was a 4 or 5”.

This (Monday) morning I had an angiogram, the procedure where cardiologists inserted, at my groin, a catheter in the main artery going into my heart. Once done, x-ray die was inserted allowing a variety of clear photos and video to be shot of my heart. That whole process took all of about 20 minutes and physically was a piece of cake—nearly painless and not something to be scared of.

Three cardiologists agreed that there didn’t appear to be any severe damage or clogging in my heart muscle or the primary arteries serving it. The damage was evident however on several secondary blood vessels. They concluded that rather than inserting a stent, doing angioplasty (using a balloon to clear the arteries), or any sort of bypass, that a medication approach would accomplish the same ends opening the smaller arteries.

So now I sit in bed recovering from an adventure I’d rather to have skipped.

The doctors say I should be released for home some time Tuesday.

So what have I learned from this part of my life story?

First, “chest pain” is a phrase that covers a lot of physical sensations—it can be a squeezing sensation, a sense of pressure, feeling out of breath or actual pain.

Next, I learned that this can occur a lot of different places and still indicate a heart attack—chest, shoulder, upper arm, leg, abdomen etc. Any sensation that is new to you and not immediately connected to something else (like a sports injury etc) absolutely should be checked out immediately.

I want to say “Thank You” to all my friends and others who didn’t even know us that have been praying for us the past few days. It was so encouraging to read all your comments before going in to the surgery room this morning.

~~~~~~~~~~

My First Day Home-- Wednesday-- Goal: Figure out what 'normal' is

Weight gain/loss: 0 Net gain/loss: 0

After a pretty good night's sleep, I started out sorting through a lot of new medications designed to open the clogged portions of my heart's arteries-- there's a handful. Once that was done, I had my first heart healthy breakfast-- canned salmon, a slice of toast, half a banana, a small cup of non-fat milk and a cup of decaf coffee,

MY SCARE came after I ventured out to the garage grabbing our leaf blower-vacuum for Nelz who volunteered to come over and rake leaves before our rains arrive. In that process I carried the stuff in and made 2 trips up and down our stairs. That was enough to reproduce the beginning of a 'shortness of breath' episode again.

So now upstairs in my room again... for the first time, I popped a 'nitro glycerin' tablet under my tongue. A few minutes later I was feeling much better. Guess I did a little too much for Day 1.

Now I'm back in my room taking it easy until Kathy comes back from her time on campus at Portland State. If all is well, we'll do a shart walk later this afternoon.