Tobin Family Website

Yesterday I had an appointment with a Neurologist that had been scheduled about a month ago to inquire about an increase in headaches I have been having recently.  This is the first time I have seen a specialist for my headaches, but I thought it was warranted as I have had more frequent migraines of late and some headaches (sub-migraine) that have lasted for extended periods of time. 

Karen has been treated for migraines for several years, but I have avoided the hardcore meds and tried to suffer through them.  To be fair, Karen has been affected much worse by migraines in terms of frequency and severity….to the point that she almost always gets sick to her stomach when she gets them.  I, on the other hand, usually just feel like crap for 8-12 hours, but don’t usually get sick to my stomach.  Karen has had a hard time getting a medicine that works, but recently the doctor’s have put her on blood pressure medicine to treat her migraines and she has done much better at avoiding them. 

After a lengthy workup yesterday, the doctor proclaimed that I suffer from classic, light-sensitive migraine headaches.  I think I told her that was my problem when I walked in, but it took her quite some time testing my reflexes, poking me with pins, having me stand on one-leg with my eyes closed, and much more tom-foolery, before she arrived at the same expert opinion.  The interesting thing that happens with me is that I usually get about 10-15 minutes of visual aura before I get the migraine (vision impairment to include spots/flashes/peripheral vision only, etc).  It is usually my warning sign that something bad is about to happen.  Of course, if this happens when I am driving…the “something bad” could happen sooner!  Fortunately, that has rarely happened. 

When all was said and done, I walked out with a bunch of tiny pills (Zomig) that I am supposed to take when I feel a migraine coming on.  The doctor assured me that the fatal coronary side effects were terribly infrequent which made me feel wonderfully reassured.  As much as I hate taking medicine, I will have to be hurting to take these. 

In other news, I may be getting another job in the coming months, but it is still up in the air.  there is a rumor that they are considering making me the deputy division chief (deputy to my current boss’s boss).  It is being considered as he currently has 2 deputies, but one has been made the program manager of a very high profile, aggressive new program (and he can’t do both jobs), and the other is looking at reassignment overseas.  Furthermore, my current deputy was just promoted to the same rank as me, and he needs to do something different with more responsibility.  So, they may move me up, and move him up to backfill my job.  I am not sure what I think about this, as it will be a lot different than being a Program Manager.  It would be a broader perspective, but not as much direct program responsibility.  I would have to become conversant on about 10 different programs, and would likely have to deal with a lot of organizational issues.  It would also likely curtail my travel, which is not necessarily a bad thing.  We will see how it plays out….but it would probably not materialize for a few months. 

I took advantage of the long weekend to finally finish updating the new theme for this site, giving it a brand new look and feel.  I was looking for something simple, yet professional looking.  I am not sure I have achieved that, but I have tried.  There are probably still a few quirks that I will have to track down and fix, but it was good enough to go live.  I tried to keep the best elements of the website and ditch some of the others (or at least put them in mothballs for now).  The site focuses on a few main areas of content: 

1. Blog Articles (my rambling articles, like this one)
2. Genealogy Pages (I get a lot of traffic on the Tobin Genealogy Site)
3. Photo Album (I need to update this more frequently)
4. Tobin Fine Arts (a section devoted to my brother’s artwork)

Of course, I also have some links to other sites I frequent, and a link to my hockey blog, NHLPens.com. 

Hopefully you will find the new look and feel of the site an improvement over the old site.  I would love to hear any comments or suggestions you may have. 

In other news, I spent all of last week in Rancho Bernardo, CA, on business.  The name may sound familiar to some as it was in the news a couple weeks ago as one of the hardest hit areas in the California wildfires.  In fact, a great number of homes were destroyed less than a mile from the hotel that I routinely stay at.  Fortunately, most of the folks that I work with out there managed to escape any significant damage, although thre families at the company I work with did lose their homes.  One person I work with indicated that over 60 kids in their children’s school were rendered homeless by the fires, and 20+ teachers in the same school met the same fate.  It was a pretty incredible sight to see.  In some cases, whole neighborhoods were gone.  In others, the entire neighborhood was intact, with the exception of 2 or 3 random houses in the middle of the neighborhood that were burned to the ground.  It seemed highly improbable that surrounding homes would be untouched, but I am told that the unlucky homes were hit with burning embers that were driven as much as 1-2 miles through the air in the 60-mile per hour winds.  As in any disaster, it will likely take a long while for the area to fully recover.

Here at home, it was a pretty quiet weekend recuperating from the trip.  On Sunday (Veteran’s Day) we celebrated my 41st birthday with a trip to the Macaroni Grill and then a little shopping.  When we got home, Ben and I played several games on the XBox 360 (to include the baseball game “The Bigs” and “NHL 08″.  We had a good time, and Ben is really good and understands the games very well.  He beat me up pretty bad in hockey.  We usually play a pretty tight game, but this time he killed me. 

Delaney attended a neighborhood birthday party on Saturday.  She was also supposed to have a sleepover at a friend’s house on Friday night, but the girl came down with strep and the party was cancelled.  It was probably just as well as it was nice to see her after being gone all week. 

Karen is getting over a nasty headcold that nearly took her voice away mid-week.  When I would call her on the phone from San Diego, I could barely recognize her.  I thought that maybe she had strep too, but it seems to have cleared up.  I did have to go get her some decongestant on Saturday to help her poor head.  The interesting thing is that now, because of all the meth drug problems, you have to give up your first born child to get a thing of Sudafed!  I had to get it dispensed by the pharmacist and they took my drivers license number and had to enter it into the system before they would sell me the stuff.  Pretty crazy! 

I have one more trip to San Diego before Christmas, and it looks like it will be just enough to put me over the edge to get Platinum status on Delta this year, their highest Skymiles level.  The requirement to get Platinum is 75,000 qualifying miles in a year.  Based on 1 more trip to San Diego, I should have 75,077 miles this year.  Talk about a squeaker!  I thought I was going to fall just short, but I must have miscalculated.  The reason this is a big deal, is that Platinum members get the highest priority for free first class upgrades.  This makes a huge difference in comfort level when travelling across the country every month.  Travelling in coach can be very cramped and uncomfortable on those 4-hour legs twice a month.

I plan to post a little more frequently than I have lately on this site (at least weekly).  I just came off from a very busy period in which all of my blogging time was spent updating the NHLPens.com blog that I run.  It takes a fair amount of time to keep it up, since I post game previews and recaps for each of the 82 regular season games, plus update the team stats and standings.  It is kind of fun, but can take some time.  I need to find a better way to keep the stats and standing current without having to manually update them myself!   

Tags: Family, Website Update, Work