Continued Success

I own 2 acres of land. I have an 11 year old son and a 3 month old son. I have the most beautiful, real, soulmate that anyone could possibly hope for. I have every amiibo released so far. I get to play all the awesome new games that come out on the best systems. I have plenty of awesome bike trails to ride to my hearts content. Now I just got a promotion at work. It doesn't feel like a promotion you see on TV or in a movie but I think it's pretty darn good. Certainly turned this year around from the way it started. Let's hold this together and keep moving forward to even better stuff.

Trail Fest 2015

Apparently I have evolved into a cyclist. My goals is to ride 500 miles this year.

Here are some links to some of the places I go. Hopefully I'll come back and clean this up a bit.



http://www.post-gazette.com/life/recreation/2015/04/04/Cyclists-look-north-to-progress-on-the-Erie-to-Pittsburgh-Trail/stories/201504040012

http://friendsoftheriverfront.org/trails/three-rivers-heritage-trail/three-rivers-heritage-trail-status/

5 STAR TRAIL
http://www.co.westmoreland.pa.us/index.aspx?nid=1007

WESTMORELAND HERITAGE TRAIL
http://www.co.westmoreland.pa.us/index.aspx?nid=1010

GREAT ALLEGHENY PASSAGE
http://www.co.westmoreland.pa.us/index.aspx?nid=1008
http://www.atatrail.org/

RTC
http://www.regionaltrailcorp.com/

My GMO stance

I see this big controversy regarding GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) and I wanted to state my case, how I see it at this point. I see some benefits but for right now I am against them because I see abuse. 

When I say I'm non-GMO I mean the kind that is sprayed and bred with poison so when they spray it with other poison to kill the weeds/bugs it doesn't also die. That shit cant' be good for you and from everything I read it's not. 

• New Generation of Genetically Engineered Crops Found to Drastically Increase Use of Toxic Pesticides

• Move Over, Round-up: USDA Approves 2nd Generation GMOs That Can Withstand Even Deadlier Herbicide

I'm not against the type where they change something genetically in the seed/plant/fruit to make it better in a non-poison-resisting way. I think people lump these differences together and it can be confusing when the subject comes up for discussion.

I understand the benefits of the second type and I believe the goals strived for by those are worthy and necessary but only if it is done in an open, transparent way that has been fully tested and approved by the FDA or USDA. This assumes the organization is not paid off by corporations by stocking it with lobbyists and former employees and fully understands the consequences to the people to which it serves. Unfortunately I don't see a lot of that. I see corporate profits put above health concerns. 

Here is some more reading you can do on the subject: What You Need To Know About GMOs

I also don't understand the resistance these companies have to labeling these products. As far as I know if any company ever has made an improvement to a product or created a new product they wish to sell, THEY TELL EVERYONE! They spent countless dollars getting the word out via advertising. They shove it down your throat and throw it in your face until you give in. What is happening here is the exact opposite and why wouldn't a normal person be suspicious. These companies are doing everything they can to keep people in the dark about it. They don't want you to know which products contain GMOs and which do not. They are suing cities and states that are trying to inform the public with labeling laws to try and stop them. Why in the world would someone do that? If these products are so great and everyone should want them then why hide this fact? I absolutely do not trust this and neither do most countries besides the US as it is banned in countries across the world but obviously money talks here and if you can pay off the right people you can circumvent the people's health concerns. 

To Label Or Not To Label

In short I do not agree that this generation of people should be guinea pigs for these corporations to test the effects of these crops on people. We can wait a few more years until you perfect it before you roll it out and avoid giving everyone cancer. How will you make money if you kill off everyone?

No Consensus

Have I Finally Made Positive Progress?

I feel like I'm happy. What's wrong with me? :O

Usually when I accomplish things I feel as though that was expected to be accomplished and I barely get any joy of them but lately it has been different. I don't know if it's the meditations or the babby or what but I feel happier recently, more appreciative and I think I like it.

THE MEDITATIONS
I read a bunch of meditation books towards the end of last year and got some guided audio meditations on my phone I have been listening to. I've been learning to clear my mind and be in the moment more. In my life so far my brain just runs future scenarios. Whether they be I wish this interaction would have came out differently this way or planning for a future interaction I know will be happening that what it does always. Maybe doing that distracts me from being able to do other things I don't know. I have been clearing to clear my mind and then focus on what it does, label it and put it behind me. What I try to picture I try to describe as Super Mario Galaxy when I talk to someone about it. I picture the nothingness of space and myself flying through it and extraordinary speeds as when Mario gets propelled from planetoid to planetoid in the game. I picture a huge star that more than fills my field of vision but I am still far away from it but that is where I'm going; enlightenment. When I get distracted and my brain goes off on tangents as soon as I realize that I picture that line of thinking as an asteroid or something I temporarily landed on but the realization breaks it up and it crumbles behind me as I once again continue forward towards the light. I think that is working for me. Some days I can calm myself and clear my head rather easily, some days it just doesn't happen for me but I think continuing to try is worth it. I can push my brain to do more for me.

THE BABBY
Maybe it's the babby. He is super cute after all. Ale and I came up with the idea of Pax long before she ever moved here. When she finally got pregnant and he turned out to be a boy and then was born healthy things all seem to go according to some plan. I haven't had a newborn baby in so long I almost forgot what it was like but it's wonderful. I feel I love Ale even more for successfully producing such a wonder. Her family visited for almost a month to come see him and help her take care of him and they just left this past weekend and dang do I miss them. It was wonderful to have them here. I really enjoyed their visit and was sad to see them go. I feel sad when I think they will miss the babby being so far away. I feel like more of a family than we were before somehow. If I can just get my mom, Aunt Dee and Elaine to cooperate and help us with daycare we could even entertain the possibility of another little bundle of joy. That has to happen real soon though.

Quick substory to the babby I wanted to add.
We did have a bit of trouble with him at first. The feeding part did not go as planned. Unfortunately Ale's body was not cooperating with the plans to breast feed him and was only producing a few ounces of milk per day when Pax required much more. This is upsetting to Ale and that made me upset but I understand and it's not her fault. There's nothing you can do. The doctor's keep saying 'Oh it'll probably all work for the next baby'. Well that's great and all but what the hell is this one supposed to eat. He's the one screaming right now that he's hungry. >.< It took us the whole first weekend to figure that out (which was miserable) and that somehow set some red flags off when we took him for his first doctor's appointment. They expected him to lose a little bit of weight but not as much. We told them what we found out but they scheduled another appointment in a week to make sure we were on track. Then when we went to that appointment weight was good but now his temperature was low for some reason and the lady was alarmed about that. I may have taken this the wrong way but it seemed to me it was a threat that she would insist the babby go to the hospital if it doesn't rise in the next 20 min. I definitely did not like how she imparted that information to us. I had to jam the babby down my shirt, skin to skin, to warm him up enough so we could leave but at least that worked. A few other things that may have caused me some slight worry:

• There is the red mark on his nose and one between his eyes that hasn't gone away yet. 
• He had some skin issues at first too, flaky and such but that seems okay once I started using that lavender smelling babby lotion on him. 
• I feel weren't weren't washing him enough and he got some bad babby acne before I started taking care of that.
• Also after a bath one day and a few other times I've noticed his had a weird pattern of small red circles all over his skin. People have since explained that away to me but I still didn't like it.

Besides all that though he's perfect. :D


Anyway the point of all this is I'm happy. I feel happy. I am noticing that I am and feel happy which makes me even more happy. I don't think that used to be the case. Whatever is going on I like it and want it to continue. I love my wife and family!

East Suburban Pediatrics

I don't know if I like my baby's doctor, East Suburban Pediatrics.

We had to take Pax there for his appointments. Since we haven't done much research and the guy who delivered him was affiliated with this place it seemed easiest to go with them but I'm not sure I like their attitude.

The first appointment was a few days after he was born and I guess we alarmed them first because we didn't feed him as much as he needed over the weekend because we weren't sure how her milk was working. When they weighed him he weighed even less than when he was born. There was some concern there so they made us come back for another appointment in like three days or something to check his weight again to ensure that we figured it out even though we told them we did. Apparently that wasn't good enough.

We come back for appointment #2 and his weight was fine but now they give us this his temperature is too low stuff. Hey you are the ones who just took off all his clothes and let him lay out in this office naked for 30 minutes. What did you expect? This time they got all alarmed about that and wanted to make sure he went back up to an acceptable range so we had to sit there after we put his clothes back on and wait or they wouldn't let us leave. We sat there and waited 20 minutes then they took his temperature again. It did go up but not sufficiently up enough for them which was irritating. They gave us another 20 minutes but if it isn't up enough this time they are going to insist we go to the hospital. I don't like people telling me what I have to do especially you Doctor Dingess (yes that's her real name). I ended up jamming the baby down my shirt against my skin for 20 minutes which made me start to sweat but then luckily the last time at which temperature apparently it was good enough for them that really irked me and scared me a little bit.

Overcomplicating

I got an email from the school district:

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date:		Thu, Mar 12, 2015 at 1:07 PM
subject:		Volunteer Policy Changes for PTSD

Dear Parents:

There have been many changes to state policies as outlined in Act 153 that require the school districts to revise their policies on clearances for staff and volunteers. Penn-Trafford School District will now require all employees and volunteers of a school district to get their clearances every three years. The district will ensure that the staff requirements will be met. We have also updated our Volunteer Policy #916.1 to reflect the new requirements for all volunteers.

While we encourage parent participation in our schools, please be aware that to volunteer for the Penn-Trafford School District you must have current Act 34 (PA Criminal History) and Act 151 (Child Abuse). Current clearances are ones that you obtained within one year of the date that you would be volunteering in the school. Once you receive your clearances, they will remain in effect for three years per Act 153. At the end of the three years, you must obtain new clearances if you want to continue your role as a volunteer. If you have not lived in the State of Pennsylvania for ten consecutive years or more, you must also obtain Act 114 (Federal Criminal Background Check). If you have lived in Pennsylvania for ten or more consecutive years, you must sign Affidavit 153.1 (sample attached) stating that you have not been convicted of one or more of the crimes reportable under Title 18 of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes or equivalent crime in another state, territory, commonwealth, or foreign nation. If you have received your clearances in the past two years, they will not expire until the third year from the date the clearances were issued. In other words, if you received your clearances this school year you should be good for two more school years.

Act 34 and Act 151 clearances take as long as six to eight weeks to process, so you are encouraged to apply for the clearances as soon as you decide to become a volunteer. Each form will be available online. We have links to this information on our school website.  We also have the online copies of the forms on the website. The schools do not send the forms to the state. It is the responsibility of the volunteer to complete the forms and pay the fees. The forms are $10.00 each and require a money order to complete. If you do the criminal record check online, you will pay online so no money order would be needed using that method.  As soon as you receive your clearances from the state, please take them to the school office so the secretary can make a copy for their file. If you have a record, please make an appointment with your child’s principal to discuss it. Minor incidents that do not hinder the welfare of a child do not prevent one from becoming a volunteer.

Act 114 clearances require the volunteer to get fingerprinted. These clearances cost approximately $28.50. The forms and procedures for Act 114 will be available at your school’s office and linked to our website.

If you volunteer for any overnight trip as a chaperone, you must have current clearances. This means you must submit the forms for Act 34, Act 114, and Act 151 that are less than one year old. 

Also, all volunteer coaches are required to have current Act 34, 151, and 114 clearances instead the waiver mentioned in paragraph #2 even though they may have lived in Pennsylvania for ten consecutive years or more.

Definition of Volunteer: A volunteer is a person who services the district without compensation on a planned and approved basis.

Examples of Volunteering: The following activities are samples of volunteering in our schools that occur on a regular or a one-time basis which require clearances: Wisdom Program, Accelerated Reader and Support Programs, Student Store, Basket Raffle, Box Top for Education Sponsor, Cameras for Classroom Sponsor, Historian/ Scrapbook, Recess Helper, Lunch Room Helper, Shop for Education, Weekly Readers, Bulletin Board Helper, Fitness Fridays, Campbell’s Labels, Friends of Sunrise Library, Library Helpers, Public Relations, Book Fair Helper, Santa Shop Helper or Wrapper, Field Trip Chaperone, Fun Day Helper, After School Clubs and Special Events Sponsor or Assistant, Home Room Party Chaperone, Homeroom Parent, Accelerated Reader Store, Track and Field Day Helper, Picture Day Helper, After School PTO Events and any other role or duty designated by the principal.

If you have additional questions, please contact me or your child’s principal.  In addition, your child’s school will be sending out information shortly regarding dates when we are bringing fingerprint services to your child’s building.

Dr. Matthew Harris

Superintendent

Frequently Asked Questions:

Question:  If a parent comes into the class to do a presentation, do they need to have clearances? Answer:  The parent will not need clearances because they are not working with a child.  They are serving as the guest of the teacher and will not take a supervisory role or be alone with a child.

Question:  If a parent or grandparent wants to attend a school play or Breakfast With Your Child Day, do they need to have their clearances?
Answer: The attendee will not need clearances because they were invited by the school to either watch their child perform or socialize with their child as they eat. The attendee in this case is not volunteering and there will be staff members in charge of supervision.

Question:  If a parent is scheduled to be on recess duty once a month, do they need clearances? 
Answer:  They need their clearances because they are performing a service where they have direct access to children.

Question:  If a parent volunteers for only the Fun Day event at the end of the year, do the need clearances? Answer:  They will still need their clearances because they are working with or supervising children.

Question:  If a parent receives their clearances but can no longer volunteer to finish out the year because of family emergencies, do they need new clearances during the following year?Answer:  The parent will not need new clearances until the end of the three year time period expires. The clearances are good for three years from the time that the parent receives them.

Question:  If a parent has a retail theft conviction, will they be able to volunteer? Answer:  The parent will still be able to volunteer as only records for items under PA Title 18 Consolidated Statutes or equivalent crime in another state, territory, commonwealth, or foreign nation prevent you from volunteering for an organization.

Question:  Why do we have to obtain clearances to volunteer in our schools? Answer: It is a requirement of the state mandated PA Act 153.

Question:  When do the clearances expire? Answer:  The clearances expire three years from the date that is listed on their clearances.

Question:  If I received my clearances on August 15, 2014 to start the school year, do I need to get them again? Answer:  The clearances expire three years from the date that is listed on the clearance so you will not need them until August 15, 2017.

Question:  If one of my clearances has expired, will I be able to volunteer? Answer:  You will not be able to volunteer as the district’s policy requires all 3 clearances, or 2 clearances and a waiver for the fingerprints if you are a ten year consecutive resident of the state of PA.

---

I normally don't care about this stuff. It doesn't affect me. I work like a normal person so my time is occupied with none left to volunteer but why are they overcomplicating it so much? I wanted to respond to this email but I felt if anyone even read it they'd probably feel I was causing problems or something so I decided to post it here instead. I actually did get my clearances when Isaac started kindergarten but thanks to this I know they are long expired. Good thing the PTO put up the money for me to get them rather than me spend my own. I don't need a piece of paper saying that I'm not a nutso. 

---

So you can get the clearances, work with the kids for 3 straight years with no issues but then some mystical deadline arrives causing you to become invalid, sounds awesome! This is troublesome enough to dissuade me from volunteering and I'm sure many others as well. What you are going to have left to serve are a bunch of bored, 'supermom' housewives with agendas! Not an environment I would choose to subject my children to. Hopefully you are working with the State to come up with something better. Sounds like another screw the 99% of normal people over because there are 1% nutso people out there that we have to overprotect our children from. 

Just my 2 cents. 
-Marc A Cartwright

Pax Oliver Cartwright

Pax was born.

Ale did say she was having some sort of back pain that was followed up by informing me that's a sign of labor. That was in the evening of Tuesday March 3rd. I also recall her telling me as we were going upstairs probably around 8-9 that night that she felt something going on down there in the general belly area. All I know from that point was that at 12:45am I was awakened by Ale who seemed to have some concern. She said she started having contractions around 10 and they were 5 minutes apart and now they are 3 minutes apart. I advised that we should call the doctor as we were told and see what they say so Ale did and they said we should go ahead and go to the hospital. I took a quick shower and I told the boy what was going on and to make sure to text me when he goes to catch the bus. He has been very responsibly handling this for a while now. I also grabbed a small bag of stuff to do. I didn't think to take clothes. Ale had 2 bags full. She had snacks and all kinds of goodies, At least she reminded me to make sure the car seat base was installed so we were good to go there.

I guess we got to Forbes around 2:30am. It was raining like crazy and there were huge puddles and streams of water on the road. I told her this was going to make a good story! For some reason I pulled around the front as usual thinking that one door int he front was the regular emergency entrance. Apparently that was not the case. It was a visitors and it was locked. We walked the entire way around the building in the dark to the back. This is where the emergency was. We went to the desk and told the lady what was going on and she took our info and had a guy there with a wheelchair for her pretty quick. We went to one room where a nurse was taking her vitals and some young Asian female resident doctor lady came in and measured her after about 20 minutes and decided Yep! you guys are staying and having a babby!

They then took us to another room on the fourth floor. It was a big nice room. Here they do everything in the same room. You deliver here. The bed was super high tech and there were lights and all the tools necessary right there. Ale put on one of those hospital gowns and started getting machines and tubes hooked up to her. For about 2 hours a few nurses came and went and looked at the output of the machines. We weren't entirely sure what was going on or how this was going to play out. They asked her if she wanted the epidural shot and she was like if I need it, I need it. In the next hour or so Ale got a little uncomfortable. She was starting to feel some pain. She was laying on her one side moaning and didn't even want me to rub her. I remember walking over to her and she told me her water broke. I could definitely see something that collaborated that had happened. Shortly after that they kicked me out of the room for 10 min while they administered that shot. They said to keep it sterile but I was the only one that had to leave so I'm not sure what that accomplished besides keeping me from seeing what happened.

When I came back in things were happening. There were definitely more people hanging around. Something was going to happen. Ale wanted to start pushing but the nurse was trying to get her to hold back. Apparently she dilated super quickly but not quite enough yet. In a few minutes that didn't matter anymore. The real doctors were there and they pulled sections of the bed off and transformed it into the birthing cradle machine. At one point so many people were yelling at her trying to tell her how to breathe. I know it was confusing for me let alone her. I wanted to yell hey how about one person but she followed along just fine and it wasn't a big deal. I think it only took a good 4-5 pushes to get where we needed to be. The doctor showed me that you could see the tip of the head in there. They pulled out this suction cup vacuum machine and when enough came out that they could grab onto they sucked his head right on out of there. That was wild! Now she had this baby head sticking out. It was purple! Yikes! I'm pretty sure he snipped things a little wider to help get the baby out. Not cool. They grabbed an arm and pulled him out. Welcome to the world Pax! They started toweling him off and this time I got to cut the real cord. They took him to a little side table to make sure all was good as they were sewing everything back together. Lots of blood. Poor baby but she took it all like a champ. The whole 9 months she never really slowed down too much. She went from contractions to birth in what seemed like a few short hours. I am super proud of her and what a great job she did.

Pax was born at 07:19am on 2015/03/04



7 pounds 13 ounces
3.544 kilograms

20 1/2 inches
52 centimeters



We lived in that room for 2 days. It was crazy. I played a lot of Majora's Mask on 3DS. The couch thing they had for me to sleep on was not super comfy. They did have lots of blankets and pillows so that was good, I took a bath in the fancy whirlpool tub which was so sweet. That gave me good experience as far as criteria for the type of bathtub we want in Dream House. Ale got her meals served to her but I had to eat scraps. I did get a steak dinner the one night but that was it, The one night I did go to cafeteria it was closed. I didn't mind. Mom, Isaac and Aunt Dee visited the one day. It was a bad snowy day. Thankfully my mom was able to help us and watch Isaac for the 2 days we were  in there. Lisa still after 16 or so weeks hasn't fixed the van so he couldn't go there. One day I walked over to the doctors office where Ale went for the bay to deliver them papers and get a new appointment. I got to walk across the sky walk thing which was fun.



They gave the babby hearing tests and blood tests, They did the circumcision. (Now we have to glob huge amounts of A&D ointment on his parts every time we change him) We had nice nurse ladys come in and take care of stuff for us, We learned not to shake the babby via informative DVD. I gave in and let the middle name be Oliver over Mycroft and had to fill out the birth certificate and social security number forms accordingly.  We stole all the free stuff they told us we could have and maybe a little extra.

It is so nice to have a cute little babby again. He is so precious and so adorable. We love him so much. I posted about it on facebook and I think that first picture is probably the most popular picture I ever had as far as number of likes and comments. It is nice that everyone is so happy for us. It makes me feel good. I am happy now. I don't need to wait. Ale is the best and Isaac is the best and Pax is now also the best. 

I forgot how this went it's been so long but the first few days are the keep babby alive phase. It's up to us now to know to feed the babby and not squish the babby and do enough to keep him alive until his
first appointment on Monday. We had a little bit of trouble with that so far. It appears as though the milk didn't just magically start coming out right away so we had to give the babby some formula here and there but Ale is good at making the babby latch on every time anyway so he learns, Luckily today Sunday it has been noted that for sure the works is functioning and we see there is milk happening. Hopefully that continues to work out and the babby is not starved for nourishment,

Just a couple of other things we noted:

• super snotty one day, he squeaked when he breathed out his nose and it was so cute sounding
• flaky skin
• feet look way better
• wasn't scared of the vacuum sound
• flails his arms knocks pacifier out, already maybe doesn't like be swaddled
• neck is strong, can already hold his head up sort of

We will see what they say at the doctor's appointment on Monday.