May 31, 2010

Memorial Day

Little K's Memorial Day outfit

Feed

Oh, hello, and welcome to cafe du 3am- our fisrt wee hour wee one
feeding.

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Bren's thoughts

I just asked Bren what he though of little sister and he said, "I
wonder what Oxo she's going to be?"

That's my boy!

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May 29, 2010

Never

I will never never never use one of these on my kid. Never.

Midday

98.1 degrees this afternoon in Kayleyville. 100% chance of a new outfit.

Just had a fairly succesfful breastfeeding with the silicone nipple
shield. And she's in her second outfit - pink with milticcolor flowers.

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Moved

She's on bed 42 today.

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Oops, yesterday

Down to 3 litre air flow and will drop to 2 litre at 3pm.
1 more day of antibiotics. She didn't have a crp test.
To go home, she has to have all feeds from bot or brst for 48 hours.
She's is her first outfit - rainbow heart dress

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Upd

6lb 9.2 oz today
Off the nasal canula
70cc feeds every 4 hours
Moved last night to the IMC (smaller, older version of the NICU)

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May 28, 2010

Tonite

I'm sleepy. I had too many cookies. Jen is about to try her 2nd or 3rd
breatfeeding. Me mom and boys ran around town today. It was fun.

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Shopping

Jen is at the hospital with Kayley and me and boys have taken mom
shopping in Huebner Oaks. Bought the boys Final Fantasy Chocobo's
Dungeon and now we're in Pier 1.

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Week

Kayley is now 1 week old!

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May 27, 2010

Tonite

97.9 degrees and a 75 gram diaper tonite, but her weight is 6 - 8.
Lost an ounce. She's moving to bed 55, where she was a couple days ago.

She was a little peanut, but she's lost so much weight, now she's just
a pea -she lost a whole nut!

They're debating whether she is done with her antibiotics or not...

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NICU cost

We were curious, so we did a little looking and found that the average cost per day of neonatal intensive care for these babies is United States: $2000 per day

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May 27 pic

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The Thursday update

49 gram diaper
55 ccs per feed
98.2 temp

Her leads are all goofed up today. The heart and breathing ones show
nothing...but she looks alive and well!

She's down to a 4 litre flow on her air, so that's good...we're giving
her about half a cc by mouth at nurse Lisa's suggestion. She wants her
to get a taste for milk. Smart.

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Name



My friend Amy: Darrell, be honest. Did you name your daughter after a Firefly character? :)
Me: Wow. I am truly truly impressed. You pegged it. Cheers to you!
Amy: A character well worth naming after! I hope our future spaceship mechanic is getting stronger each day!





My friend Stuart (in Aussie accent): Congrats. OMG she is a Borg you will be assimilated by her Cuteness.

"Kayley is an uncommon first name for women and an equally uncommon last name for both men and women." - from some random baby name website.
"Kaylee is a very common first name for women (#1800 out of 4276)" - same site.
Meaning: Possibly Gaelic, "slender"

May 26, 2010

Weight

2970 grams

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More info

New weight 6lb 9oz. She had a 48 gram diaper. Wow!

And she just drank 55ccs. Wow again!

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Nightly update

Our nurse tonite is Sandra. I had a 1 second panic when we came into NICU because the cowl on Kayley's bed was closed - and that ain't good. But they moved her from bed 55 to 51 and she is normal with the cowl up. Whew!

She's at ♥ 116, breathing 38, Oxygen 97 now.

We've been here an hour, but it seems our nurse is busy with many things and hasn't spent time with us. I guees jens reputation as the easy patient has gotten around...  

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CRP

Latest c reactive protein was 17.2 on the 24th. That's good.

That's an indicator of vascular inflamtion, but wouldn't catch lung
inflamation.

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Pic du jour

The pic for today. She's off CPAP and onto nasal canula at 5litre
pressure (almost same as cpap, but more weanable, the nurse says)

May 25, 2010

Evening update

She's 6lb 10oz tonight. Terry her nurse has her swaddled quite tightly...

No change that I can see, except it looks like her CPap machine is down to 21%. that's cool. Pressure is down to 4 now.

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Afternoon

Jen is holding he this afternoon and she sneezed thrice. She's had
hiccups and she had a little smile today. Sooooo cute.

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May 25 Update

She's okay today. Mornings usually bring some sort of bad news, but not today. Thankfully. She's stable.

6lb 11oz, heart 136, breathing 73, O2 sat 96. She's still on cpap with 22% oxygen and 5 pressure. Regular room air is 21%, so that is heartening.

Nurses today are Sue and Chloe.

We got a call from our NICU case manager, Pam Benjamin and she told Jen loads of useful info. Like, we can get a cheaper parking pass and I can stop losing my damn ticket. :) plus we got an info packet with lost if useful stuff too.

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May 24, 2010

News

Kayley has gained 2oz. We're very pleased.

Jen also just finished a pumping and got 42oz. Pretty impressive.

K has Jessica to watch over her tonite; we like her.

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Evening

So, we got discharged and arrived at home at 4pm. Then we went to
souper salad and met Christopher and co and ate. Now I'm in the lobby
of the hospital waiting with the boys while jen and mom visit Kayley.
Then mom will come out and I'll go in...

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Home

We are home and jen is (guess what) pumping! Thanks dad for the
cinnamon rolls.

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Rain

It's flippin raining cats and dogs!

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Lunch

I finall get my Villa pizza for lunch!!!!!! Yum!!!

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Finance

I'm atthe financial vampires office...Jen got a notice about discharge
so I just paid my $200.

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Changes

Many changes today. She moved from bed 45 to 55, and the baby at 55
moved into the isolation room that she was in. Thyre closing the NICU
at 1130 (in 20 min) to do a heart surgery on another baby, so we have
to go.

So Stacy the respiratory therpist is working on here cpap nose mask
now. She took the surf ok, and hopefully it will help her. There is a
risk that the cpap will reopen the pneumothorax holes, but since her
lungs were closing up it is a risk we have to take.

Jen yelled at her mother on the phone today. Jens granparents have
been pressuring jens mom to go visit them and jen is mad because Di is
here to help us. It'll all work out, I'm sure.

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New pic

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Boo hoo

Well, after such a great evening last night, Kayley has regressed
overnight. She is getting another dose of surfactant right now and
will go back on the cpap machine after that. I'm really torn up
because I passed my threshold of thinking she was really doing well.
That was stupid and I usually don't let myself go that way. But she
looked so good last night and was so interactive....

Damn damn damn, why does everything have to happen at once?!?! Dr
Gallagher just came in while jen was in the shower and I cried out the
whole story to her. I'm so embarrassed. :S

Therese NICU nurse just called and said that the surf is done and
she's back on the nasal cpap. And that we could come down to see
Kayley at any time.

God, I'm ready for some breakfast

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Yawn

I just saw Kayley's first yawn (that I saw at least). It was precious...

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May 23, 2010

Noms

K just had her first full breast feeding and Jen is two ccs ahead! WTG
boobies!!

Jessica just turned down the lights and told Kayley "Rest and digest."

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Andy comment

When Andy first came up to the hospital he hopped up on Jen's bed,
hugged her, and said "Oh my sweet mommy!!!" He really misses mom.

K just got weighed. 2980 grams tonite, or 6lb 9oz.

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Xray machine

Flippin awesome mobile self-powered xray machine and slave Ryan. He
pushes buttons a follows the machine around. Truly a fabtastic machine
and a very nice guy to operate it. (poor photography by me)

Another pic

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Kayley, awake

Kayley is quite alert and looking around tonite. She's so pretty.

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Xray

Kayley is about to get another chest xray...probably her 5th.
Neonatolagist things she might have more air outside her lungs. The
xray will show that and if it looks bad they'll put a needle or tube
in her chest wall near her armpit to draw off the air. Sounds scary,
but the neo didn't sound like it was such a big deal.

Our nurse tonite for K is Jessica, and Jen's is Susan, who she really
likes.

K is sooooo alert tonite. I got videos of her with her eyes open and
pictures, which I'll post.

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CRP

Kayley's C reactive protein level went from 19 yesterday to 30 today.
This is what made them think she has an infection - normal levels are
3.5 or less.

She had a 20 cc feed just a few minutes ago and it went down great...

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Weight

Her weight now is 6lb 12oz, so she's lost 5oz since Friday. They can
lose up to 10% of birthweight and still be normal (11.3oz would be 10%)

Her Feeds will go to 20 cc today.

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Photo du jour

Air leak

It seems that K has an air leak in her right lung. There might also be
a small tear in the left, but the xray want extremely clear. Melissa
said.

They are about to draw blood for the blood gas test.

Grandparents will come by sometime today and see her since dad is
going back home tomorrow morning.

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Maybe worse

Well, this Sunday doesn't bring us great news. K is back on 100%
oxygen. The one good thing is that her head harness is off. She was
moaning and she had pulled out her tummy tube, and now she just spit
up quite a bit. Melinda nurse says the doctor is going to show us the
chest xray soon and talk about why she's back on oxygen...

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I'm running out of subject lines

Had super yummy carne guisada tacos fir bfast. Am now delivering Jens
best pump so far to Kitty K- 4.5 ccs!

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Nurse Ginny

Nurse Ginny returns with questions and pain medicine. I'm surprised
that they're giving her only the meds that she wants. That's cool. She
either doesn't listen well or is hard of hearing, but she's generally
good.

Also, a cool cool thing that hadn't happened before was that every
nurse carries a portable phone with an extension. We just call
directly to their "hip". Great technology!

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Good morning

Jen is so sweet; she let me sleep thru the nite despite thefavt that
she could have woken me to help her. Silly gir spilled a whole cup of
water on the floor and cleaned it up herself. She also passed the 3cc
mark pumping, which is great. 3 & 2/10 total.

I sort of figured out sleeping on this goofo bed. I stuffed a pillow
down in the hole where the head pad should be (I didn't put it down
since it made the bed a bad angle) and then put my real pillow on top
of that.

Dr Satterfield from Jens OB practice just showed up and said "Hows
tour pain?" to which i could have though of all minds of amusing
responses. Hehe. She said I should call the office and talk to Dr
Gallaghers nurse about my FMLA certification. Jen has some pain and
finally some bleeding.

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What we've learned

Jen just said "this gives new meaning to what preemie patents go thru
if we're having a hard time with our term baby". I have to agree. This
is tough going back and forth & up and down. I've started to recognize
some other dads in the hallway and say hi. I just waggle my fingers at
the nurse as I walk toward the NICU doors now and she opens them. Hehe.

Oh man, I somehow list my debit card tonite and security brought it to
me. Thank god for them.

One funny thing was today I got in the elevator with a spanish
speaking man and woman and he punched three then asked me "Tres?" and
I said " dos por favor". I guess my accent was good bc he smiled and
said "you speak Spanish good!" I smiled and said "just a little" and
he said "poquito". I was pleased to get the compliment. We are going
to sleep now.

Oh I can't remember if I said that we don't have to have gloves and
gowns in Ks room anymore. Yay!!!

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May 22, 2010

Nom

I had lo mein, gen Joe, and sesame ck for dinner. Did I say that
already? Nom nom nom.

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NICU staff

Kayley's nurse right now is Molly. She reminds me of Jen from college.
She has this cute snaggletooth thing going on and she wears a
ponytail. She's from Lubbock and she's very patient and informative. I
like these nurses that volunteer info and tell you lots of things.
She's been chatting with jen for like 15 minutes already and I think
that's therapeutic for jen. The other good thing is that she's funny
and it is really good for jen.

We also have Michelle who is friendly and talkative. She had one son
csection she said. They're all nice.

Funny how I keep forgetting I can sideways thumb type...hehe.

Another nurse was Jenny. I think she was nice, she was the first one
we had with her in NICU.

When she was first born, we had Mona and Mildred as our transition
nurses. They were great and I think that Mona was a supervisor of some
sort.

Okay jen is ready to go and Molly is laughing at me for being on my
phone, so, tata...


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Pic

Kayley and her new best friend Vanilla paci. She's doing well with her
blood gasses and we're just waiting and watching for improvements.

Eyes

She just got fed and her eyes are open. We ate talking to her for a
while. She's all nice and calm.

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Touch

We can finally touch her without gloves. She's negative for MRSA. yay!!!

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Free

I am briefly free. Resting at home. Ahhhhhhhh.

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Wear

What I wear when I see Kayley in NICU

Update

It looks like K has some sort of infection so she'll have to stay for
a week or so. Jen took that pretty hard, but after an hour or so she
calmed down.

I finally got out of here for a while and went to HEB for drinks and
snacks and tissues and Sudafed. It did me a world of good being out
for a while. Nfortunately the parking attendant charged me 7 bucks to
get out after 1day 3h 17min. Next time, I'm "losing" my ticket- only a
$5 fee.

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Another pic

The scene in NICU..

NICU pic

Jen and Kayley in the NICU. K is ok, but will probably be here a week
on antibiotics.

Feed

K is getting her rotation feed. 10cc of jen.

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Breakfast time

So Jen was able to get a real breakfast today, or so she thought.
When she opened it, it was 1 slice French toast and two pieces of
bacon so thin that they only had one side. Really! When she turned it
over it was imvisible!

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Chaplain

Time 230p yesterday
I just met the NICU chaplain, James, and he said a prayer over her for
her good health. It was nice.

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May 21, 2010

Long day

It's been a long day. Baby is improving, it seems. Mom is doing fine.

I had fried fish, macaroni n cheese, salad, clam chowder and fruit
yogurt for dinnr. Jen had the same stuff as lunch, but Somehow later
talked her nurse into bringing fruit loops and apple jacks for her,
which she scarfed down. Haha.

My parents, two boys, jens mom and aunt Cathy all came to see us
tonite at the hospital. The three grandparents each got to go see
Kayley one at a time with me and I took pics of each.

I was so tired, I showered here in theroom but neglected to see if
there was a towel first. There wasn't. I used a sheet. Hehe.

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Walk

Jen about to walk down to see baby...

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Chillin

Jen and I are just chillin in her room she pumping for the second time
and should be able get up and walk in a few minutes.

I had a lovely slice of mushroom pizza and a blondie for lunch. Jen
had broth and gave me her jello and didn't eat her Popsicle cup. She
fed me the tea too. I'm really coming out a winner on this deal.

As soon as Jen can walk around we are going down to see the baby, who
is in the NICU on the first floor.

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Feet

All that remains of my medical garb...

Pic

Here's a pic. She needs surfactant to help get her lungs up to speed,
and we 're checking her into the NICU. no worries though.

Assisting

I forgot to say that the asst dr was Topher.

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Baby Stats

She's 7lb 1oz, 19 in long, 36 cm head circ, lotsa hair

We are in the NICU because she needed a little Oxygen. I just spoke
with Dr Gulde and he is turning her over to the neonatologist for
continued care bc he's gonna be outta town.

I really enjoy talking with Mona our transition nurse and Mildred from
NICU.

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Time!

The nurses came outta that other girls emergency csection saying "Wow
man that was intense" I think they're ok tho. It's quiet again. Wonder
why Dr Gallagher is so late?

She just got here so, it's time to go into our surgery, which I expect
will be a breeze (please). Post again after we have a baby.

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Yawn

I can hear Jen laughing in there so the epidural guy must be taking it
easy on her. Haha. I'm in the little "daddy waiting area." Im sleepy.
Maybe I can take a nap here.

Wow! Busy in here all of a sudden. A laboring mom with a prolapsed
cord is going in for an emergency csection. Poor dear she's crying.
Oh. :( Hope she'll be ok.

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Anesthesia

Dr no pain just went in.

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Waiting

And waiting....surgery soon!

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Ready for surgery

Hehe

Jens getting...ummm...shaved. *turns away*

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Funny

Jen said "I have the cleanest belly in Texas with all this sterilizer.
Somebody could eat off me." My answer: "Someone will be in about an
hour n a half!"

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Heartbeat

I'm in with Jen before surgery. I hear the baby heartbeat on the
monitor and it is 146.

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Tile

There's really nice tilework in the bathrooms here. The hospital is
sooooo much nicer than it was 3 years ago.

Babies

I was looking at the babies and the birth registrar happens to stroll
by and gave me the birth certificate form. 1 thing down. She said slip
it under her office door tonite.

Text from my good friend Les: I DO wish you both luck. Will be on road
to port aransas later. Let me know. We're both excited!

To which I answered: Try Port A Pizzeria.

Hehe

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Me waiting patiently

At the hospital

We are at the hospital, jen is wristbanded and checked in. They took
her back to L and D recovery to prep her for surgery. I got shooshed
away and told to come back in exactly 30 minutes. So I'm sitting at
the newborn nursery. 4 girls, 1 boy in the newborn nursery. It's a
good day to have a girl, I guess.

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Yay

It works, now we can go have a baby. :)

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Picture

You can post pictures too!!!

Hello Server

You mean you can blog by email? Yes you can!!!

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May 18, 2010

Cheap Nuggets

McDonald's had the 50 piece nuggets right now for $10.80. Such a bargain considering that the 10 piece is $4.19. Cha-ching!

Last Dr Appointment

Today was Jen's last OB appt before the baby. All was well. After, I went and did a waterparks focus group at Galloway Research. I always enjoy going there.

May 17, 2010

Rain

It is RAINING! and how. Wind is blowing and we sat outside for about 10 minutes enjoying the cool and rain and lightning. 3 days before little sister's birth now.

May 16, 2010

All About Today

Today, I trimmed the bush...the Sago Palm out front of my house, that is. I spent about 3.5 hours working on mowing, weed eating, and trimming the bush. It looks really nice and clean for our company that's coming this week.

Today I re-did my blogger template too and changed the name of my blog. It was "I'm just a guy at a house" which was fun and neat, but now I've changed it to "My Family: 1 + 1 + 3".

So there.

May 15, 2010

The Baby

Speaking of the baby...I haven't written anything about her yet. I've recently semi-abandoned Facebook and Twitter to back here and need to put something down. I started blogging as a sort of diary for myself and I have dropped off that in the past year or so. I want to resume it now. I have exported all my facebook statuses and am thinking about posting some of them on here in the right order if I get around to it.

Anyway, I'm so excited about our little girl's arrival. It was scheduled for 12:30 on Monday May 24th and then the c-section got moved back to Friday May 21st. I was all planning on having the weekend to psych up to it too. Oh well. So, I'm stressing out so badly about my work, and trying to get things done... I'm gradually working toward the "I don't give a damn if it gets done" state though. When I get stressed for too long, I get apathetic and I'm almost there. I feel like there's no way to success, so why even try. One good thing is that my bosses are going to get some sort of consultant to help finish the project this upcoming week. I don't know if it will help - I'm off Tuesday afternoon for our last OB appt. Hopefully something will work out. The stupid Network Load Balancing just isn't working or more likely neither me nor Julian knows how to correctly configure it. Hehe.

I just hope that things work out. I want to get us moved to the new version of Exchange, but I'm pretty overwhelmed at this point. Hopefully the arrival of little chicky will put all that behind me.

I'm planning to read some manga, watch some Castle, Dr Who, Charmed, play some games and clean the garage while I'm off.

Tick Tock...

Long Day

This sure was a long day. Almost 4 hours at the Baby thing, then back home, then several hours at work. I'm trying like crazy to finish my work before the baby gets here...

Baby Expo

Today we're going to the Baby Expo at the AlamoDome. Yay! Checking into a new venue...

FourSquare

I love foursquare. I use it all the time. I have many Mayorships, but my friend Aleia has snagged my prized one. Grrr!!!!

May 14, 2010

Dr Who

We're about to start watching Dr Who (2005 Series). Let's see...

Well, that was weird. But funny, sort of. And the girl is cute.

May 9, 2010

Grace SweetPeace

I have this swing. We bought it CHEAP broken and I'm trying to figure out how to fix it. :) After working on it for about an hour and a half, I'm to the point of giving up. I've removed various pieces and paerts, but I just can't figure out how to get to the motor.








Baby girl is only 2 weeks away now.

May 2, 2010

Network Load Balancing

I'm really struggling with trying to get two VMs (under VMWare vSphere 4.0) to work in a Windows Network Load Balancing NLB cluster.

I found this article which indicates that the NLB clustering won't work if both Network adapters have the same GUID -which of course they do since they are both clones of our base image VM.

If the second host is still listed in the cluster, but unreachable, I'd remove it before doing the fix.

Check that by using regedit to drill down to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SOFTWARE > Microsoft > WindowsNT > CurrentVersion > NetworkCards > (number)..

I only had one number under NetworkCards, number 7. I clicked on that and looked on the right-hand side. The Description lists the name of the Interface that you see in Network Connections (which you should rename if you have more than one adapter) and the ServiceName which lists the corresponding GUID.

This article tells you how to resolve this by making the GUID change. There are two solutions; I chose the second and here are the steps for that second solution:

* On either VM enter “Device Manager”
* Expand “Network Adapters” and right mouse click on the Network adapter that you are trying to add to the NLB configuration.
* Select ‘Uninstall’. NIC has now been uninstalled.
* Next you want to re-add the network card which in turn will create a new GUID for it. Do this by right mouse clicking your servers name at the top of the ‘Device Manager’ list and select ‘Scan for hardware changes’. This will now re-detect the NIC and give it a new GUID.
* Now exit out of “Device Manager”
* Re-configure the NIC

And there you have it. I spent days trying to figure this out.