Please Pray

Read Julian's full story here.

We were on schedule to be discharged tomorrow until Julian came down with a fever of 101.6 this evening.  They will take blood cultures from both sides of his hemodialysis catheter (the venous and arterial sides) and begin a slurry of antibiotics tonight, including vancomyacin which is used to treat MRSA, a highly drug-resistant form of Staph Aureaus.
His blood pressure was unusually low last night, and coupled with the rising temperature today there is a concern.  Please pray that any infection of the blood or of the catheter will be taken care of by the antibiotics and that Julian will come out fine from this whole ordeal.
I asked the Dr. on the floor tonight whether or not it was potentially life threatening by saying "It doesn't always go well for the patient in cases of blood infections, does it?"  And she shook her head and said "not always". 
Dave just walked in the door from  his cab ride from the airport as I'm typing this emergency prayer request, and I am going to sleep at the Ronald McDonald House tonight while Dave sleeps here (or doesn't sleep) at the hospital. 
I take Cheryl to the airport tomorrow to go to Denver for a couple weeks. 
Thank you for joining us in prayer on this, we are worried of course.

Orange Conference posts

I will post on the Orange Conference and share my notes. I promise.
We are in a very busy stretch of getting ready for summer action. Also, the weather has been nicer and I've been on my bike more.

keep checking. i will share.

Orange Conference 2008 p2

Day 2 of the Orange conference has been great. Francis Chan, Kristian Stanfill, Donald Miller, Nancy Ortberg, Jennifer Tamborello, Donald Miller, Kid Stuf to the max.

Over the next week or two, I'll be blogging and sharing my notes and thoughts from each session attended. I take take great notes, too.

I'm a tired man. I hope I can sleep well tonight.

BTW - My room at the Sun Suites in Duluth, GA smells and is very noisy. It's a "leave your socks on" kinda place. I don't like the place but for $50 a night we are saving a bundle on lodging that i will get to spend later on taking volunteers to another conference experience.

Orange Conference 2008

I'm in Atlanta attending the Orange Conference. If you came here through twitter 'cause I'm following you now, it would be great to connect, meet and network.

I used the twitter tracking feature to find quite a few people that are attending Orange. If you send 'track orange' to twitter, you'll get every twitter message sent to you that has the word 'orange' in it. (you wouldn't believe how many people twitter about orange juice, orange julius, orange liquor and some orange computer thing)

BTW - I'm a children's ministry director at a reasonably large church in Arvada, Colorado, a suburb of Denver. Our team is working hard to transition the ministry into an orange ministry using 252 and My First Look. For four years prior to my two years in this position I was the CMP at a fast growing church - from 1800 people to 4000 in 28 months. I've done some conference speaking, including the 2006 Purpose Driven Children's Ministry Conference. I really appreciate and value having a strong network of other leaders - that's my purpose for connecting.

Enjoy Orange!

Rider's Log 4.18.08 - On the Road Again! Milliken

This was my first ride on the road bike since last fall. I easily forget how much faster a skinny tire road bike is than a fat tire mountain bike. It was a blast to be out there again.

65 miles. 3:47 ride time. 17mph average.

Rode with Roger (62) and Bruce (55?) through farmlands east of 1-25 from Erie exit north past Ft. St. Vrain into Milliken. We ate a light lunch at a total small town dinner in Milliken and then rode back along the same route (Rd23). I felt great for the first three hours. The fourth hour was tough because it was by far the most effort I've put into the bike since last fall. My legs were screaming "STOP!" but I didn't. I let the two "old" guys drag my butt back. They are very strong riders and drafting is amazing. I imagine my time would have been 45-60 minutes longer if I would have been out solo.

Check out this bald eagle webcam along the route. http://birdcam.xcelenergy.com/eagle.html There are eaglets in the nest right now and you can see them on cam on on the daily snapshots if the cam isn't working. We saw these birds out in the air when we rode past. Phenomenal.

Rider's Log 4.13 and 4.15

Both days about 17 miles up and down the Big Dry Creek Trail and three lung busting shots straight up the City Park Hill. (last summer i was doing 10).

April goal: 200 miles. So far: 34.

Wednesday Afternoon Snack Choices

I wonder if I can eat the snow peas and not the cherry pie goodness.....

any bets?

P.S. The cherry pie is WAY better than gold fish crackers. (you know who I am talking to)