I decided to switch to wordpress from joomla, as it seems more productive and not as clunky for a blog. Joomla has it’s merits, but for a blog I don’t think it’s the best way to go.

Well, The hubby filed for unemployment, I applied for a bit of medical assistance from the state, for me and the kids. He put in a few applications but nothing yet, this job market really sucks. We hear there is program where you can get a grant for school while on unemployment, the hubby may look into that. By trade he is a CNC Machinist but he would like to get into electrical engineering maybe. I wish I could get a job myself and help out, I hate feeling so, well helpless. I started working when I was 16 years old and worked very hard up until I became sick. I’m a high school drop out so I always worked in the food industry, Waitressing, or some such, but still it’s money in your pocket, and not being able to do it and help us out really sucks. The hubby keeps telling me that things we’ll be ok, and to be fair things do seem to work out for us, but it doesn’t make it any less scary or frustrating. It’s very stressful when you have children, to be in a situation like this.

Anyway Enough of that, I have decided that I like KDE but on ubuntu I only like it installed as a second option with gnome. Kubuntu seems to me to only be half done, and it seems more time has been spent on making it look nice, than making it usable. I installed Kubuntu and was very disappointed to find there isn’t even a gui method comparable to Gnome’s system->preferences-startup applications. One thing I really missed in Dolphin was scripts, I have grown very addicted to nautilus scripts, they are quite handy. But the KDE menu is quite nice imho.

Well my hubby finally fell victim to our bad economy and got laid off last Friday along with a bunch of others. It was damn sneaky of his work to nobody saw it coming. They were all getting overtime and everything. Seems they just wanted to get caught up so they could get rid of people. At this point we have unemployment, but I don’t know what were going to do. It’s been a hard weekend trying to cope with the news. Him being a CNC Machinist you would figure it wouldn’t be too hard to find work, but who knows with the way things are right now. I’ve been going back forth sometimes crying sometimes not. I guess I’ll apply for some assistance and see if I can at least get medical help. So that my health doesn’t suffer as well.

My Mother in law was visiting from out of town last week, so I haven’t really been online much but now the visit is over and things are back to normal around here…

So it’s 7:00 A.M and I’m sitting going over my news feeds and such. You know I really like this time of morning during the week. My Kids are still sleeping the hubby is off at work, and the quite is very nice. It’s nice to get an hour or so alone to myself. So here’s some of my random thoughts…

Google…
I personally am kinda of excited at the news of a Google Distro, I mean it can only mean good things for Linux with a powerhouse such as them behind Linux. It will be interesting to see what Kind of effect they have on the OS market that’s for sure.

Websites…
Well after much time and thought I have decided that the only website (this doesn’t include the UN) I will continue to run is My Personal blog. Most of them have been offline for a while now, and with my personal life growing so busy I really don’t have much time to continue to throw at such a hobby. Also this will help $$$ wise as I will no longer need to pay for such a big hosting plan.

Kubutnu…
Really isn’t that bad once you figure out how to customize it. Though I still prefer Evolution over Kmail. Evolution seems to have a cleaner interface to me. I have always used a few of the KDE apps anyway evenwhen using gnome such as Kmymoney and a few of the Kgames. The font’s in Kubuntu leave something to be desired in my humble opinion I had to fiddle with them to get them in what I consider a decent looking state.

Woman On Linux…
I’m so tired of seeing threads pop up on the Ubuntu Forums about whether woman exist in Ubuntu/Linux. Of course we exist but why advertise it I mean it’s bad enough we have to fend off “Pick Up Artists” in real life do we really want to have to do the same thing online? Besides the last time I checked the Ubuntu Forums were support forums and since when is gender relative to using a computer???

Windows…
Well when they announced the new pricing schemes for windows I wasn’t surpised. Even after trying windows 7 I see nothing to make me want to run out and spend $300 on an OS when I can get a perfectly good one for free.

Kids..
I guess kids go through phases as right now my teen has been driving us crazy with his procrastination and lack of wanting to do anything around the house. We had to ground him for coming home 3 hours late which is sooo unlike him, normally he’s pretty good about being home on time But I guess that’s why they call them Kids….lol.

Well these are my ramblings..

So I went to my appointment with my new Doctor, and it was great. It’s so nice just to be listened to and feel like I’m not being treated like a number or something. She gave me so new herbal supplements to take as well as drawing my blood to test my TSH levels. She also gave me some light exercises to help with my back pain. She believes the back pain is caused by a bulging disk in my back, funny thing is that’s what my mother has said several times. The Doctor was glad I had come off my other medicines because it meant not having to wait for them to come out of my system before starting the new treatment.

The Supplements I’m on are as follows:

• Dr. Heron’s Thyronix Formula
  

  Posted On June 26, 2009 1:35 AM  by: Angel Categories:  Uncategorized Tags: doctor, Miscellaneous ·	No Comments

One the hardest things about graves disease is the emotional aspect of it. It’s hard not only on me but on my family as well who have to be asked to deal with mood swings, a quick temper, and tears. Since coming off my meds I’ve been suffering with bouts of anxiety & rage (also known as graves rage). I try very very hard not direct this at my family members but it can be difficult as sometimes the smallest things seem to set me off. Bless them for trying so hard. It can sometimes be very hard to calm down but I do find that frankincense tends to help. But I’m also open to suggestions if anyone has any ideas On how to help with my anxiety and mood swings.

Not feeling satisfied with my current line of treatment from my doctor, I have spent countless hours of reading and research about My Graves disease. I have been very unsatisfied with my current line of treatment, and my endocrinologists insistence that the only way to fix my thyroid dysfunction was to have radioactive iodine treatment. This particular line of treatment would basically kill my thyroid, leaving me on medication for the rest of my life and instead of being hyperthyroid I would then be hypothyroid, with no chance of remission. As it stands right now most modern medical doctors insist on only treating one symptom of Graves disease(read thyroid), instead of treating the disease itself.

After all the research and reading I’ve come to the conclusion that something in my own lifestyle has caused this graves disease. I wasn’t taught the healthiest of eating & lifestyle habits growing up and I’m sure that it’s a combination of a few bad habits I’ve acquired over the years (smoking, terrible mountain dew addiction, high salt diet..to name a few).

So I decided to look into alternative treatments to my disease. I found a nearby Naturopathic doctor, who is covered under my current insurance, and treats thyroid disease & dysfunction. I called them up and made an appointment for the 5th of June, also I decided to take myself off my current dosage of Methimazole(Thyroid Medication), while continuing to take my Metoprolol(Heart Medication). In the meantime I have cut salt out at the table. I still cook with it, but I don’t add anything extra. Also I’ve begun eating better and have switched from drinking loads of Mountain Dew to drinking more juices and more water.

Well It’s been four days since I’ve taken any Methimazole and so far I feel fine . Please note That I made this decision after doing much reading and research on graves disease., and this approach is a personal decision I have made for me though it may not be right for everyone, as everyone’s body reacts differently to different situations. I’ll keep updated on how I’m feeling and post back regularly.

So one Painful MRI, and several Doctors visits later, I Now I know exactly what I already assumed the issue with my back to be. Money in the pockets of the doctors all so they can tell me what I already Knew(insert frustrated sigh here).

Well for those who don’t know I suffer with grave’s disease, it’s an auto immune disorder, which I’ve been fighting for a couple of years now, This particular disorder runs in my family my mother has it, and my grandmother had it as well. I have had it for a little over a year and didn’t know it because we had no insurance, so I My condition rapidly deteriorated due to lack of treatment. As of right now I can’t walk very well due to pain in my back, caused by a combination of severe muscle deterioration and The weight which I too rapidly gained once they began treating my condition. The Orthopedic doctor told me today I have what’s called Lumbar strain, and swelling in and around my lower spine. So Thursday I’m to go in and get epidural steroid shots then I’m to start Physical therapy.

I don’t intend on being overweight forever, and before this disease I wasn’t. I’m far too young at 33 to feel like this and damn it I want to be able to run and walk again. So I’ve set up some goals for myself

1. Quit Smoking (This is the hardest to be sure because to be honest I don’t want to quit I really enjoy smoking but I know I need to quit so I’m going to)
2. Start & Continue with Physical Therapy
3. A complete re-hash of my diet, learning to eat better is just a good idea all the way around

Not many goals at the moment but that’s ok you have to start small in my opinion.

First the bank is retarded….

On the 21’st I logged on to my bank account only to discover that we mis-calculated about an automatic payment, and were overdrawn. So My husband, went down to the bank and deposited $100.00, he verified with the teller that this amount covered both the charge and the overdraft fee. The teller told him it did and in fact the deposit put the account $44.00 To the positive.

Well the next day I log on the account only be horrified to find that we had two more Overdraft charges. So My Husband (whose very very good at not taking crap from people) gets on the phone to the branch and tries to figure out what happened. The lady he’s speaking with tells him that there we’re two charges which went through One for Xbox Live $7.99 (the overdraft fee was $32.00) and another from Taco Bell For $6.93 (The Fee was $37.00), He said yes but how did I get charged overdraft fee’s for these items when I had money in the account to cover it? This girl didn’t know so she asked him to hold while she got the manager. A Few minutes later she comes back on and takes our number and says the manager is in a meeting she’ll call you back. So he gives her the phone number and we wait 45 minutes still no phone call, so My husband calls back. Finally he gets the Manager on the phone.

The Manager Says the charges where on the account the day he made the deposit, and teller could see this and would have told him this, and then she

informs him there are two more charges coming through that we’ll be charged fees for as well. He said Well the teller never informed me of that I have her name right here and she only told me that I the $100.00 I deposited covered the charges, and that I was $44.00 to the positive. She said “So we should pay for your mistake?” He said “Your Damn Right, when your teller is telling me one thing but the truth is something else”. She said “Sir there is no need to cuss if you continue to talk to me like this Then this conversation is over”. He said “I didn’t cuss at you besides Lady you have heard cussing yet”. She said well I can reverse one of the charges but not both. This went on a few more minutes with her using every excuse in the book and trying to blame him for their mistake. Then she said “We give courtesy calls to let you know your account is going over” he said “really because We never got one, the only reason we found out was because my wife logged on to the website”. Well then she basically called him a liar. This was the last straw, he hung up on her.

I got a 1-800 Number from the website and we proceeded to call them. My husband explained the situation to the lady on the other end who in turn put her supervisor on the phone because she didn’t have the authority to make reversals. The supervisor, refunded both overdraft fees and informed my husband that after doing so it only put our account at $10.00. So he said “So If I go put $90.00 in the account right now that will cover the pending charges as well and we’ll be good no more fees?” twice he asked her this and twice she said yes. So my husband went and made the deposit and that covered us finally our account was in good standing again.

The bank we use is Key Bank, and that was the worst customer service I had ever had. I mean it’s not like we were disputing the original charge we new we screwed up and we’re trying to fix it but that manager made us feel like we we’re criminals. This was our first overdraft charge since opening that account, we had been in good standing since the beginning prior to this incident, wouldn’t you want to keep a customer like that? Apparently this lady didn’t care.

Well that was just the beginning of my bad day….

Guild Wars which Mark & I play all the time, is celebrating it’s 4 year anniversary, as part of the celebration, they are giving a free storage pane to all players. Well the way you have to get the storage is to log on to the NCsoft website and enter a coupon code for it. Well I can’t remember my password but the website is soo overloaded with traffic I can’t use the forgot password feature because it keeps telling me the security image has expired by the time the page loads. So I’ve written them asking for help getting my account info hopefully I’ll here back before the promotion ends on the 31st.

Next up Being dissed on your own website…

A Website I run has been experiencing some issues and needs severely upgraded. From the old version of joomla to the new version. The problem is I can’t upgrade it without risking some form of data loss. To that end I have been completely honest with the websites members, actually I’ve always been honest with them. Well because of these issues I opened a ning community for them to use while I figure things out. It was supposed to be a gradual transition, from one website to the other. While I worked up an alternative to our website in the background. Today I discovered that some of the members had decided to start up and new forum, than began copying and pasting threads from one place to the other leaving links in my websites forum to the new forum.

I don’t mind them wanting to create their own forums It doesn’t bother me in the least what bothers me is that the way it was went about left me feeling like it was sort of an “Screw You and Your Stuff Move” If they didn’t like the alternative ning setup they could have let me know I would have worked with them on making things better. I’m not a communist dictator at my websites I like a community effort. But this all had the feeling of well being completely shirked. I don’t know maybe I’m being whiny, but I guess I just thought I had a better relationship with these people then I do.

In the end it left me feeling glad to to have The UN I love the feeling this community has going for it. It feels more like a community than any other project I’ve worked on. So thanks guys for helping make The UN feel so great.

For some reason I had a hell of a time getting comfortable and falling asleep last night. It sucked. I ended up getting up for a bit a posting On the Ubuntu forums for a while, just sort of sifting through some of the endless posts on there. I’m supposed to be going to the doctors today, but wouldn’t you know it they called and apparently the doctor is in an unscheduled surgery and has had to reschedule all his appointments for today, so now I won’t be seeing him until the 4th of may. Anyway I’m still trying to wake up (Yawn)…hope everyone else is having a great day!