hola... it's my third day in new york. second day working here at HealthSource Hudson Health Plan. I had a great time Sunday doing a 'whirlwind-tour' of lower manhattan. I got to see the Statue of Libery, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Empire State Building, Central Park South, etc., etc., etc. We had a slow time getting started working yesterday. Today Flextech should be in, and I'm hoping we can really the the project rolling. There's a lot of really smart people here, doing some pretty neat stuff. Ok... will talk more later.

well sheeiznitt... this time tomorrow, i'll be heading to oakland airport to leave for NY. I got some luggage from mom last night, and we BS'ed for a long time. I also ganked my Casio keyboard back and started to teach myself some piano last night. E.R. was on, and Eighmee, Ryan, and Sean were all into that. I learned the piano chord progression to the Depeche Mode tune Enjoy the Silence. It was fun I think I'll enjoy learning the keys. Eighmee came in and just had fun playing all the different sounds and rythems (she had the same Casio keyboard when she was a kid but we sold it at one of her parents garage sales a few years back.)

Whooda! Okay I guess I can type a bit... It's Wednesday... Had PolySci last night. I got a B on my second midterm, and an A- on my first midterm essay. pretty freshness.... Eighmee's workin this mornin'... Alex and I went to Chilli's for lunch. Got Eighmee and Sean an Awesome Blossom (exploded onion ring strips) for while they're working... Afterward Alex and I went to Starbucks, then Tims house. The baby's lookin gewd... I've been putting together a build of DRE to take to NY next week. Alex has been locked up in meeting with HealthTrio. He's really getting screwed, with me out of work all last week (from dad), and Tim out for three weeks cuz of his kid, and Shelli out with problems too, Alex is really gettin' jacked. Got skoo tonight... Civilization. Aight peace out.

It's Monday and my first day back at work after... ya know. It's actually been pretty allright. Mom's been calling a couple times a day. She says she's doing good, but I know she's pretty tore up. She has a lot of paperwork to do and I've been pressing her to spend as much time as possible with grandma and grandpa. They're great support for her.

I was up till about 1 last night working on my polysci midterm on political campaigns. I got to work extraordinarily late this morning, waking up at about 8:45am. Thank God it's been a nice, quiet, peaceful day. It's been overcast, and partly cloudy all day (both), raining off an on. ...kind of the way my soul has been feeling. I've got the week long trip to Tarrytown, Ny looming on the horizon. I leave this coming Saturday. It's gonna hurt to go, but something inside tells me it'll be good to get away for a bit.

Tim's baby finally got to come home yesterday, Easter Sunday. Alex and I went and saw him today. He's so small, but has thick, black hair, and dark eyes like his parents. He had quite a grumpy face the whole time we were there.

Alright... I'm chillin at work way longer than I need to. :o) Blog to ya later...

Dad's obituary in the Stockton Record
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Gerald R. Emerson
Fireman

Gerald R. "Jerry" Emerson, 61, of Stockton died Tuesday, April 15, 2003, in a hospital. He was born June 5, 1941, in Alexandria, Va. He grew up in Modesto and came to Stockton after serving in the Coast Guard. Emerson was a firefighter for the city of Stockton for 10 years. He later was part owner of Chuck E. Cheese Pizza Parlor for 10 years and then worked for San Joaquin County Parks Department. He attended Quail Lakes Baptist Church.

Survivors: wife, Karen Emerson of Stockton; children, David Emerson of Stockton and Michael Wallace of Lodi; siblings, Ann McKee and Barbara Westfall of Modesto; and one granddaughter.

Services: memorial, 3 p.m. Friday. Quail Lakes Baptist Church, 1904 Quail Lakes Drive. Mortuary: Cherokee Memorial Funeral Home. Inurnment: private.

Here's an e-mail I sent my boss Jerry today in reply to a positive message he sent me earlier today..
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Thanks. There's been nothing in the world that remotely compares to it. On one hand, I wish everyone would have the opportunity to hold their parents' hand and see them go. On the other hand, I wish no one would ever have to feel as utterly horrible as I did yesterday. I couldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

I've been with my brother and mom from about 9am to about 7pm spending time, having lunch, and all the formal arrangements have been made. My brother, Mike and I are putting together photo collages, and a cd to play at the memorial.

I know the crew has been wondering when the memorial and wake and what not are going to be. Alex called and said he wanted to bring something by. Tim called too, and it felt great hearing his boy's doing better. Anyway, the memorial is at Quail Lakes Baptist Church, this Friday at 3pm. The wake will follow immediately after at my moms house at 2603 Bunker Hill Dr. Stockton, Ca. 95209. (From I-5, west on Hammer, left at Don, left on Bunker Hill)

Thanks to our whole crew for being so supportive.
-Dave

My father, Gerald Robert Emerson, son of Stephen Kegle Emerson, and Helen Margarete Horn, died yesterday, Tuesday April 15th 2003, at 6:35pm. He would have been 62 this year. God bless you dad.

I'd like to talk for pages about my life with him, and the moments leading up to his passing yesterday, however I'm to meet Mike this morning at moms to find some photos for dad, etc. for the paper. Mom has a hair appointment this morning, something she said she needed to do 'for herself'. It's been a rough nearly three weeks for her. The three of us have an appointment at Cherokee Mortuary at 2:00 today to finalize the details of his cremation.

Rest well dad.

man, i'm laggin on the bloggin'. dad's still in the hospital, still in stable condition, but still having difficulties recovering. he's still unresponsive when you try and talk to him, except for a fleeting glance. this past weekend i picked up mom and went to see dad. afterward we stopped by the apartment so she could check out the new couch / dining room chairs / etc we bought.

when i was leaving the hospital with mom, i saw tim's friend jorge coming into the hospital when i was leaving, and it never occured to me that tim and estella were having their kid on the thrid floor while my dad was on the 4th floor in r.i.c.u. they had their kid, noah, on saturday at 8:39pm.

this week is spring break, so no school at delta, however i have a total of three papers to write for class next week. i finished one on the movie Amadeus. We had Ryan, Kitt and Sean over last night for Tacos, and we watched the new movie Empire.

It's wednesday... I had midterm 2 in political science class last night. I hadn't studied real well, I'm just hoping a get at least a C on it. I have Civilization class tonite. No class next week for spring break. Sweeeet. Saw dad yesterday with Mike and Jennifer. His ammonia levels are down, which is a good thing, but we're still just waiting it out. Mike and Jen are having a big easter / wedding reception schindig at their place I believe this coming weekend. Eighmee and I will probably have to dance between that and whatever event her sister is putting on for easter. Eighmee, Ryan and I watched FaceOff last night. It's an older flick, but was surpirsingly pretty good, though some of the action was a bit far fetched. Eighmee's got the day off today. I went home for lunch today at noon, and by the time I left around one, she was still sleeping. I got my transportation information for my trip to HealthSource/Hudson Healthplan in Terrytown, Ny today. I'm flying out of Oakland International at 3:10pm Saturday April 26th, and arriving at JFK international in New York, NY at 11:30 that night. I'll be coming back the following saturday. Okay back to work.

I had a pretty quiet, uneventful weekend. Eighmee was off Saturday, we sat around and did a lot of nothing. I beat the game Iron Storm on PC. Ryan's been all into Primal on the PS2. He even went and bought component cable for the PS2 so it'd look better on the plasma. Sean came over Saturday night. We went to Walmart for cat food, etc. stopped at Taco Bell on the way home, and then watched Raiders of the Lost Ark. Yesterday, Sunday, Eighmee and Ryan worked at the mall. I took Eighmee over there at 10:15, and got us all some coffee from StarBucks. I went home shortly thereafter. I was supposed to be studying for my second midterm in PolySci, but I had a hard time getting focused. I talked to my mom several time throughout the weekend. She's starting to get a little worked up over my dad. Though his kidney's have improved, and his feet are looking better (they were dark and swollen after surgery), his liver is having a hard time working properly now. He's had a slightly yellow tint to his skin from jondas (sp). Mom's been getting some mixed feelings from the hospital staff. His doctor, Dr. Morsey, says he just needs more time to recover, and these surgeries heal slowly, especially in his case where the kidneys and liver were cut off from blood supply for about a half hour. However, a respritory therapist got her a bit worked up yesterday saying that he'd seen many in his condition have cascading organ failure, and that a liver transplant may be his only hope. She freaked, and had the doctor paged, who told her it's in his best interest to try and recover. The therapist had told her that they typically don't like to do transplants in people of his age, and those who've had as many invasive surgeries as he's had. I just hope he pulls through regardless. I'd be lying if I said it's not affecting me. I'm typically a very easy going person, but I'll tell ya, between my dad in the hospital, my mom being all upset, my brother having a wedding reception within a couple weeks, my planning a trip to New York while dad's in the hospital, the trip making me miss mom's birthday, the Top Hat Classic bike ride, and the Asperagus Festival, and fuckin' midterms coming up next week I'm just about pushed to my fuckin' wit's end. Add to that, coming into work today, and having a HealthTrio implementation meeting at 9am, where Jerry went off on all of us saying we're not doing our jobs. I almost wanted to jump over the table and strangle his fuckin' ass. ...and I really like the guy! heh Anyways... work to be done... I'll probably try to get over to Delta after work today and force myself to study for the midterm. Eighmee works this evening so it shouldn't be a big deal. War rages on in Iraq. Apparently we've made it into Baghdad, and to the capital building there, though there's still some pretty intense fighting. I guess my life could be worse: I could be there. hehe Arright... Peace out.

Pretty lamer day yesterday. Took a three hour lunch. Jerry, Tim, Alex, Shelli, and I went to Stockton Joe's for lunch. Alejandro's treat. He always takes us there when he gets his tax refund check. I had a pretty good angel hair pasta dish with pesto sauce and shrimp. Later we hit Starbucks after we dropped the boss off. Mike and I hooked up and we went and saw dad. They'd moved him from surgical intensive care, to respritory intensive care on the 4th floor. He looks and sounds better to me, and I'm sure he'll be happy that he's got a window now. It's even got a pretty neat view of the helicopter landing pad. Doctors haven't given too many specifics about how they expect him to recover. Time will tell. After seeing dad, I went over to Mike's again. We got Alex up on a better computer. She had a super slow celeron, and now she has a PII-350. It's in dire need of some more ram, having only 64megs. We upgraded it from Win95 to Win98, pulled out the modem, and scanner card, and put in the wireless nic card.

Mike and I went and saw dad yesterday around noon. He was asleep, and seemed pretty out of it, though they say his "numbers" are improving. Class was pretty normal last night. Nuthin' big. I have a midterm next week in polysci so I imagine I'll be spending the bulk of the weekend studying and working on the study guide for the unit. Last night after Eighmee and Ryan got home from the store, Ryan brought over Jackass the movie. It was just helllla funny. Das about it. Back to working on DRE, reinsurance reports, and Health Trio. :o)

Jerry called me this morning at about 7:45 all frantic saying he needed me at the office and that our database server was down, and Mike had a presentation at 8am, and he needed me here in like ten minutes. Well, like always, I was just climbing out of bed at that time. I agreed, and hung-up, but something didn't sit right. About 30 seconds later he called back. I knew I'd been had. All he said was, "Hey David? April Fools" Bastard! hehe

I heard from my mom yesterday. She said my dad was improving. Good stuff to hear. I got Political Science class tonight. I haven't really studied at all this past week. I'm starting to not wait till the semester's over with. :o) arright, peace out...