Hacked off!!!

Oh man! It's been a great day and then a sort of frightening one.

I'll do the bad news and get it over with... Our cable modem may have been hacked. I had never heard of this before but my son is IT type smart and the computer said it was connected and the modem said it was connected but we kept getting an error screen when it tried to open the internet. Here's what might have happened.... whenever we would log on someone was getting little bits and pieces of info then got enough to use our modem and block us. I sort of did the puppy-tilting-head-in-wonderment-look... huh?! He looked and ran this test and that test. Said take the box back to Comcast and get another with a different serial number because someone is using your IP for what they want to do...maybe. Ok so are you saying someone out there is going nuts and it's pointing back to my home office desk. Yep, Dad, and I'd watch for SWAT guys to bust through the windows welding uzi's any moment now. Not funny! So I'm running off the air card tonight. I thought firewalls and Mcafee (sp?) was supposed to stop all that.

Ok now for big news! I went to see Dr. D today and he wants to hook me with a cochlear implant! I was giddy! I will be able to hear out of my deaf ear for the first time in 6 years! We talked at length then he sat and looked at me without saying a word. Then he just smiled and noddled his head as a "Yep, let's do this". Here's another cool part. Cochlear implants have been around now for about 15 years and they just had a big breakthrough with a company called Advanced Bionics(http://www.advancedbionics.com/) and their product called Harmony. He said that it is supposed to be great for listening to music. He also gave me a word of caution. Said that when it gets turned on which is about a month after the surgery then I will hate it. Said the sound is nothing like what you hear because the brain will process it in a different matter (gray matter..get it? Cheesey, I know!). Anyway he said it will sound like a bunch of weird electronic buzzes and tones. Said after about 3 months I will start getting used to it then at around 6 months then something will suddenly click and it'll all come together. Said after that happens, I will hate my hearing aid and will want to get a cochlear in the other ear but he won't do it until my good ear goes down which he predicted will happen around 5 years. That's why he wants to go ahead with the deaf ear implant so when the other ear does go down it won't freak me out to get the implant in the left(good) ear. The ball is just started rolling so I hope to have it all done by Thanksgiving. The really nice thing is that while I heal for the surgery I will still have all my regular hearing. No loss of time at the office but a couple of days for the outpt surgery. Now how cool is that?!

It's been a really good day and I've changed some of my thought processes on how I view things. Part of it came from my long walks on the beach. I really had a lot of time to think about a lot of stuff last week. The vacation really couldn't have come at a better time mentally. I was exhausted. I was beating myself up over the "DNF" (Did Not Finish) mark beside my name on the River 2 River ride. Seriously it floored me. I really did finally come to the conclusion that it's OK. I've followed countless folks who have trained for epic events and something goes wrong along the way. I mean look at the Tour de France. A bizillion crashes last week. All the time those guys put into training just to be taken down in the first week. Yep, it stings but you live and life goes on. Get over it.

The other thought process came from a video we saw in our small group setting last night. For those of you that don't know, "Small group" or "community group" is just a breakout group of church friends who met at each others homes and enjoy each others company while doing church sort of stuff. We really enjoy it and it makes for a great way to make some really good close friends. You know those folks who you would call at 3am if something happened and they could call us at 3 as well. It's a security blanket of sorts. Anyway, that video was about thought process and looking at things just a little different. No drastic changes but just a little and see how it goes. Remember those WWJD bracelets? It's sort of like that but without the rubber bracelet.

Well once again...enough of this blah blah blah