I hate cancer

 

Tonight I googled a specific family member to prove a point what an open book the internet is---I was already formulating my "Stop writing things online you don't want your boss to read!" tirade.

Then I got derailed. The exact string of terms I put into Google yielded this link as the first result.

http://www.youngsfuneralhome.com/sitemaker/sites/Youngs1/obit.cgi?user=599_CRotton154

I see this picture most Sunday's when I open my Papaw's Bible to the verse Stephen wants to tell me about. This was the picture on the program at his funeral. I always open it and see all of his grandsons' names written there as pallbearers and I swear it never makes me sad. It's just a cool moment and then I listen to Stephen while watching the same 10 year old boy sitting in front of me and honestly doing his best to sit still. I'll smile and think when I was that boy and Mom would quietly pull my hair a little to get my attention then drop her "If you don't sit still...." stare. Then I chuckle at the contrast of Papaw never taking his eyes off the preacher and gently putting his hand on my knee and instantly he'd turn me into a statue.

Tonight the picture had a different effect. Maybe it was tonight's committee meeting for the Race for the Cure (April 30-Go Breast Brigade!) and sitting with so many there as survivors and so many there for those that didn't . Maybe it was being on the radio this morning listening to Stephna tell Jennifer Irwin about her Mom's struggle with breast cancer and the fear she has for her daughters. Maybe it was being with Alison a few times today and the memory of sitting at a table holding her Mom's hand while she cried listening to her daughter in tears telling 300 strangers in Fort Smith about her Daddy coming home from his oncologist time and again and proclaiming, "Good news! I got a 30 day guarantee!" Maybe it's reading twitter updates from Pat Fries and his courage keeping everyone up to date as he and Sara soldier on at MD Anderson.

All I know is I'm up at almost 2AM and I have no idea why but I cannot get this picture out of my head. My Papaw died of cancer but it didn't really rob me of him. He had a long, full life. Tonight though I just look at his picture and think how much I hate cancer. A couple of year's ago, Jenna's best friend Valerie watched me on a panel on TV and asked me why I was so serious on there since it's such a huge contrast to the real me. All I could tell her was I found absolutely nothing to smile about when I was asked the things cancer took from my wife. The things it has taken from all of us.

I hate cancer. I truly do.

 

 

http://thesullivanadventure.com/blog/2008/8/7/cloise-rotton-1924-2008.html

In my defense

Ladies and gentleman of the jury. My wife has accused me of having an irrational love for the game of golf. Today I'd like to introduce a photo into evidence in my defense over the 9+ years of our relationship. My pursuit of golf comes from poor genetic coding not from a desire to spend time away from her. So I introduce this photo of my father yesterday.

I rest my case.

Happy 60th Magga (Mom)!!!!

Happy birthday Mom! I love you...but I still have to post the video of the aftermath of your birthday song.  If you ask I'll take it down :)

 

OT Reunion Vol. 1


Brad has tried to organize a few reunions from OT school over the past 14 years.  This year he was finally successful.  The LSU-Arkansas game was a natural fit with so many of us from Louisiana.  Only some of the guys were able to be tracked down and make it.  It was small but hopefully next year in Baton Rouge we'll have more.  Unless they are scared of another Arkansas win that is :) It's crazy how much things haven't changed; Brad's hyper, Scott's laid back, and Gino's about the most passionate person I've met.  We've all had our own personal struggles with cancer since college which kind of galvanized us after 2 or 12 adult beverages.

 I'll update if I get better pictures from the guys. These are the ones from my phone. 

 

Happy Birthday Jana!

We tried to call but...well you'll understand one day how hard your family is to get on the phone ;)

News footage from Alabama game...finally

Here's the quick news footage from tailgating at the Alabama/Arkansas game.  It's funny how it was Cuz's tailgate but he left before his party was filmed.  There's a second bit during the story with Frizzle (Kara) and Cleve front and center with Campbell in the background.

The above video is copyrighted. © 2010, Arkansas Hearst Television Inc. on behalf of KHBS-TV

It is provided here for personal use as no part of thesullivanadventure.com is used for commercial purposes or generates any revenue for its owners.

2010 JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes



Saturday morning Noah and I pushed Campbell in this year's walk in support of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. This was Jenna's second year as a volunteer and our second year to walk. It's a really nice day with a nice laid back vibe. It's always moving to see the different teams rallied around a child and this year was no exception.

We walked for Jenna's friend Cristin as well as our old neighbor Jill and Cuz's friends the Bonsell's. Noah kept wanting to walk faster because we were 'in a race.' I failed in repeated attempts explaining some races have a different type of finish line. I'm sure one year he'll get it.

Photo galleries are live

I'm going back and putting up some photo galleries from recent events.  I plan to add past events as well.  Right now just click "Photo Galleries" in the menu bar.  I say right now because I'm not really sold on that title.  When I come up with something better look for a change.

The first gallery I put up was our trip to Vegas the week before school started.  Look for more soon.

New logo for your iPhone or iPad

You all know I'm a geek at heart.  I try to live my life as a medical professional but my mind always warps around technology in some capacity.

Well last night I started to wonder how Google makes those pretty little icons pop up when you bookmark one of their pages to your homescreen on the iPhone or iPad.  All other sites make an icon that is a picture of the site you are looking at.

Well an hour of my life, a hefty dose of photoshop, and a sprinkling of code injection gets you...

Now if you bookmark this site, this is the icon that will be saved to your homescreen.  

My apologies to Indiana Jones. Short Stuff was not hurt during the making of this icon.

Updated videos

I spent some time last night updated the embedded videos.  I noticed at lunch the uploads were finished.  You'll notice the videos all have a picture to click (poster frame) before the videos load.  This will keep the site from taking forever to load since it downloaded the videos everytime you went to the front page.  Just another example of my tireless efforts to make your life better ;)

Welcome to the Sullivan Adventure

Welcome to the all new, all improved, all us website.

I have had a terrible past 6 months with the blog and Wordpress.  The site was hacked 4 times with redirects to malware vendors.  I have researched the problems and in the end I just can't put my faith in Wordpress anymore.  Like many things open source, I love the idea but I have neither to time nor tolerance to deal with it's problems.

The current itineration of the Sullivan blog (this is number 3 but who's counting) is now hosted at Squarespace.  Squarespace is not free nor open source, but it also gives me the time and hands offedness (not sure that's a word) to actually be with my family.  

One of the coolest things is visual editor in this baby.  It's truly unique and enjoyable.  As time goes on, don't be surprised by new banners and such.  The import of the old blog went pretty much without a hitch.  

The one frustrating problem I'm having is figuring out how to get my embedded videos to show up.  I shall persevere though.

One last note is the url will change.  I have thesullivanadventure.com registered and this site will eventually be there but for now it is thesullivanadventure.squarespace.com .  When the CNAME registration is complete I'll let you know.  

I'm going to have the previous 2 sites updated to point to here so if you click an old bookmark of macadactyl.com/lilbit or thesullivan.com and you find yourself redirected to here, rest easy and just make yourself at home.