So I made my co-pay and visited a podiatrist.  He's a good one by all accounts.  He came on the recommendation of Dennis and his colleagues.  Unfortunately, he mainly works in Philadelphia with only one morning a week in Voorhees.  So I started work early so as not to have to use as much sick time and made my way up to Voorhees.  I sat in the waiting room looking at other people who were way more broken than I am, listening to my favorite podcasts, and trying to ignore the TV (which was showing The View ...ick). 

Finally, I got called in.  The doctor listened to me describe the pain, looked at my feet, and ordered some x-rays.  Fortunately, they had a machine right in the building, so I didn't have to go anywhere.  It turns out that have arch problems.  My medial longitudinal arch is too high, and my lateral longitudinal arch is too low.  The podiatrist told me how this problem consists of 35% of the foot trouble he sees.  He laughed to himself as he told me how he calls people with this condition his "money feet," apparently, traditional over-the-counter inserts only work well for people who's arches are both too high or both too low.  People with "high-low" need custom orthotics which aren't cheap.  I happen to be a high-low.  We also discovered through the x-ray that I broke my ankle at some point in my life and that it didn't quite heal properly so that there is a piece of bone that if floating in my left ankle.  The doctor is worried that something might happen that would cause the chip to do something that could cause even more trouble, so he said I should refrain from high-impact exercises.  Unfortunately, I like a lot of things that are high impact including running, basketball, and soccer. 

So I'm either in for paying for expensive orthotics and getting better shoes for running and basketball or giving up those sports altogether.  Or I could just ignore his advice and go at my own peril.  Any way you look at it, it sucks.  Oh well, bad news comes to everyone at some point or another.  At least I can still walk, right?

I have that obscure sense of guilt or something in seeing that I haven't given an update in a while, so I'm trying to ease my conscience... or something.  We bought the house shown in the previous blog and moved in about a week before Christmas.  Oh yeah, in October, prior to all the house craziness, we plunked down some money for some sweet new cell phones.  We got the Sony Ericsson w580i.  It's got a good camera (2.0MP), a music player, FM Radio, and gets very good reception (even in bad areas).  They're pretty cool, and we've been very happy with them.  Since settling on the house and moving in, we've celebrated Christmas, New Year's, and a number of birthdays.  I went to the Sr. High Winter Retreat in January and got to ski for the first time in a couple years.  Our old-guys league basketball team won the championship.  There was also a rad Congregational Meeting at church that lasted about three hours.

We've done a good bit of work to the house since we've moved in.  We've painted most of the rooms, added curtains, installed small appliances, and done alot of other miscellaneous decorating.  Anyway, I wanted to put a table of pictures in like I did last time, but it would make this post even longer than it already is.  Go ahead, scroll down and see.  I'll wait......  There, you see.  It'd be way too long.  So in lieu of another table, I'm just gonna put a link to the set of pictures that I put on Flickr.

The end of January and into February were some of the happiest and saddest times I've encountered in my life.  In January, we found out that we were pregnant.  We were overjoyed.  Our parents were overjoyed.  There was alot of joy.  Unfortunately, we had a miscarriage in the middle of February.  That was tough.  It's one of those situations where we know God is in control, and that this was included in His plan for us; but it couldn't take away the feelings of sadness and loss.  We are thankful for our family and friends who helped us during that time.

Another "fun" thing that we got to go through in February was replacing our plumbing.  Our house was built in 1949 and had an ancient and convoluted plumbing system.  I'll spare you the boring, dirty details and just say that we had to completely replace all our interior and exterior waste water plumbing.  Our front yard is also all sorts of a mess since the guys who did the plumbing work did a less than satisfactory job of back filling.  It'll be something to work on when the weather gets warmer.

However, February wasn't a total wreck.  I took my first business trip out to Salt Lake City, UT near the end of the month.  It was my first time flying, which seems almost heretical since I work for the FAA, but I did enjoy the whole process.  I had an aisle seat to accommodate my long legs so I didn't get to see too much of the geography as we flew, but I did enjoy the turbulence we encountered as well as the tiny airplane bathroom (Seinfeld stand-up was running through my head).  I found Salt Lake City to be a beautiful city.  It sits in a valley with mountains rising up on both eastern and western sides.  I had the good fortune of having almost a full day to explore, so I took my rental car and drove around the city and surrounding geography for several hours.  I was able to take some pictures which you can view here on my Flickr site.

Totally unrelated to anything else in this post: if you have any interest in a story about how a small town deals with a post-apocalyptic scenario (i.e., someone 'nukes the USA), I implore you to watch the excellent show Jericho.  All of the episodes are available online for free.  It's a great show, and I heartily recommend it....I mean it, seriously... please watch it.... OK, commercial over.

March has been blessedly slow, by comparison - a nice respite from the past few hectic months.  It's allowed me to catch up on some video games.  I finished up Super Mario Galaxy and Super Metroid (VC) on the Wii.  I also finished New Super Mario Bros and Elite Beat Agents on the DS.  There are a few games that I've got my eyes on including Super Smash Bros: Brawl, Mario Kart, Professor Layton and the Curious Village, and Zelda: Phantom Hourglass; but I'll probably end up waiting until my birthday or until they come down in price.  If those last sentences meant nothing to you, then please ignore my nerd-dom and move on.

Looking ahead, there are many things I am excited about that are decidedly boring for me to expound on, so I'll break out the bullet list.

- March Madness (i.e., NCAA basketball championship)
- Major League Baseball
- Working on my yard
- Business trip to Washington D.C.
- The return of new episodes for my favorite shows (e.g., The Office, House, Bones, CSI)
- New Indiana Jones movie

I realize I haven't posted in more than half a year.  Life has continued to move on, and there is way more stuff that has happened than I care to write about.

So here's the point of this post.  One of the things that I started to do a while ago was to help out with the senior high youth group.  It's been fun, and it's led to an interesting side project.  I've started a blog that is about all things Senior High.  It took a while to get setup, and it's still a work in progress, but it's up and ready for viewing.

http://fatheadinc.wordpress.com

There is a page about the site itself, about the leaders, and the default page with all the normal posts.

Sorry to all you Xanga-ites, but I liked the features on Wordpress better.  Fortunately anyone, anywhere can make comments on the blog without having an account on Wordpress.  All you have to do is put a name and list your email, which will not be listed publicly.  First time commenters will have to be approved by me, but after that, it's all good.

If you have any comments or questions about the site, you can leave me comments here or on the site itself.