News & Updates in August 2004

Added an Alexia site info bar to the Site Info page. Added character profiles for Minami (from Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki); Tatsuha Uesugi, Mr. K, Sakano (from Gravitation); Roobear (from Adventures of the Little Koala); Pazu (from Laputa: Castle in the Sky).

Added anime profiles for Princess Nine, Black Magic M-66, and Endless Serenade. Added character profiles for Gaghiel, Israfel, Sandalphon, Matariel, Sahaquiel, Iruel, Leliel, Bardiel, Zeruel, Arael, Armisael (from Neon Genesis Evangelion); Icchan, Misaki, Hatoko Kobayashi (from Angelic Layer); Amiboshi, Tokaki (from Fushigi Yugi); Hunter (from Arc the Lad).

Treeses is on her way to recovering again. They finished removing the rest of the blood today and transferred her to the PCU. They expect she'll be able to go home tomorrow.

Added the anime profile of Gunparade March, Gungrave, and Dragon Drive. Fixed a bug in the forums for re-sending a user's activation key.

Well....Treeses is back in the hospital again. And this time she's been upgraded from the PCU to the ICU. Her arm was swollen and hurting on Saturday morning, so we headed back to the ER. They did an ultrasound and found a blood clot in her arm, so they admitted her. Later that evening the doc did a procedure which removed most of it. Turns out she's still anemic though, so he couldn't finish everything he needed to do. Hopefully she's be out in a day or two.

Added the anime profiles of Love Hina Again, Fullmetal Alchemist, and Ai Yori Aoshi: Enishi. Added the character profile of Michael Lee (from Witch Hunter Robin).

Treeses finally got to escape the sanitarium on Thursday afternoon. She still feels generally ill, but she can breath well, has no fever, and no nausea, so it looks as if things are getting better!

I haven't done much to the website this week, as I've been at the hospital almost the whole time. It's been a week since Treese's pneumonia struck back with a vengeance, and now it finally seems to be getting under control. Her fever kept fluctuating, peaking out at 103°, and today was the first day it seemed to be consistently low to non-existent.

She is breathing much easier now, and there is no longer a little man stabbing her in the back with every breath. She is still coughing up blood though, and she hasn't been able to keep anything in her stomach for the past couple days. The docs think one of the antibiotics is causing the nausea, so they're switching things around trying to figure out exactly which one. Hopefully she'll be able to come home by the end of the week.

Last week I noticed that a couple leaks had started where I installed the back-flow valve. There were about three different leaks all shooting out a constant mist from one of the spots that I had cemented together. I believe the leaks started because the pipe cement I used was old, so on Sunday I picked up a new can of that along with the other pieces I needed to redo it. I fixed it the next morning before heading to the hospital, and it seems to be working so far. I really hope it will stay that way.

For the website, I made a few minor changes to the forums. I made it so unregistered users couldn't post links, because I saw that some people were posting just to promote their website. I also added the ability to sort the topics by either the topic's creation date or the topic's most recent activity date. And I added a avatar gallery of Anime Guys.

Treese's pneumonia seemed to be getting better, but then yesterday morning at 5:00 AM she woke up gasping for air with sharp pains in her back occurring with every breath. So we went to the emergency room. We arrived around 5:30. They made us both wait in the waiting room for about an hour, then they gave her a bed. It wasn't until about 7:30-8:00 that we actually got a doctor to look at her. They took X-rays and the pneumonia actually showed up on them. The doctor gave her a shot, a breathing treatment, and put her on Levaquin pills.

This morning she seemed to be doing even worse, as in having a temperature and coughing up blood, so we went back to the ER. It was a lot more crowed that the last time, but since she had a high fever things moved very quickly. They got an IV in her, started her on antibiotics, took more X-rays, did another breathing treatment, and all that good stuff. It was about 7:00 in the evening by the time they were able to get a room ready for her. She was really looking forward to that, as the beds are a lot more comfortable than a gurney. Even though she spending the night there, they haven't officially admitted her. It's called something like a 23 hour watch. I stayed there with her until 10:00, and I'll be going back tomorrow morning. Hopefully she'll be well enough to come home.

Oh yeah, and on Monday, when I got to work, I found that my computer wouldn't turn on. It seems my motherboard died. Isn't that always just sooooo much fun!

Added anime profiles for Puni Puni Poemy and Stellvia of the Universe.

So yesterday morning I had to go back to Home Depot. Remember last week when I installed that anti-siphon valve? And remember that water rushed out of the top when I turned it on? And remember I fixed that by turning the knob until the water stopped? Well, that turned off the water so the grass hadn't been getting it's shower. Apparently the valve I bought had some pieces stolen out of it, which is why it wasn't working correctly. So I went back to Home Depot and explained everything, and they opened up one of the valves and gave me the pieces that were inside. And that was it. I took them home, put them in, and it worked great. What a wonderful company!

Added an anime profile for Punishment. Added character profiles for Tokajin, Tsukumo of the Toads, Souten, Shoga the Flea, Satoru, Ryukotsusei, Princess Tsuyu, Nazuna, Hiyoshimaru, Kagome's Mom (from InuYasha).

I made a new page for the Anime Stores and Companies. I got to thinking that there was no reason to have them listed in the side bar of a frame, especially since clicking the links would open them in a new window anyway. So now they're all listed in a standard page. And since they're all external links, I decided to rename the file to links.html. Perhaps in the future I'll add links to other anime websites there as well.

Added the character profiles of Haruto, Yurika Doujima (from Witch Hunter Robin).

Added the anime profile for Angel/Dust Neo. Finished creating all the template pages for the Forum so it would look like the rest of the site. Added a Site Map.

Wow, what a busy week! Treeses' mom came up for a visit on Tuesday of last week. We picked her up at the Greyhound terminal that morning, and she spent the day with Treeses while I was at work. We all headed out to Lai Lai's for some take-out, then found our way back to the couch where we ate and took in a DVD. She spent the next day with Treeses as well, and then left for home on Thursday morning.

On Thursday evening, we had a "Weird Al" Yankovic concert to attend. This time we were in up in the balcony, since it was easy to access with Treeses walker and we wouldn't have to worry about anyone accidentally hitting her leg. The place isn't all that big, but after the concert, we both agreed that closer would have been better. The concert was a blast. No opening act this time. It was very similar to the last one we attended.

The next day, Friday, my parents came up to attend a wedding. It was for one of my cousins who lives in Redding. Treeses and I met her once, and she seemed nice. We didn't keep in touch though. Unfortunately, we're not all that skilled at being sociable. Anyway, the wedding was on Saturday, so we went shopping while my parents were attending that. Treeses wanted to get this one cushy-swivel-rocking chair that was on sale. It wasn't all that big, but we still had to take it out of the box to fit it in the car, and even then it barely fit.

There was a long break between the wedding ceremony and reception, so my parents came back to the house. And my uncle James and his wife came along, too. They hadn't been able to make it to our wedding, so this was the first time they've been to our house. Apparently Jimmy, their son, played one of the games I worked on, because they said he got all excited when he saw my name in the credits. They didn't know which game it was, though. Everyone chatted for awhile before they left for the reception. Treeses was glad to have the company.

They left the next morning, and later that evening Treeses was feeling very sick. On Tuesday morning we went to a walk-in clinic, where she was diagnosed with walking pneumonia. While we were there, they gave her some kind of treatment where she had to breath in this medication-mist concoction through a tube-thingy. It did help her to be able to take some deeper breaths, and we also got her on antibiotics. Now she is feeling better...not good yet, but still better.

Then later Tuesday night, when I was taking out the trash cans, my pants leg caught on the back-flow thingy and caused it to spring a leak. So the next morning I had to head on over to Home Depot to get a new one. So I got it and came back, turned off the water to the house, and prepared to install it when I found that my old one had one inch connections, where the new one had 3/4 inch connections. So I had to go back and get additional pieces. It was 12:30 in the afternoon by the time I finally got the thing all glued together. Then I asked Treeses to look up online for how long it takes that pipe cement to dry...oh, only 12 HOURS!

It wasn't too much of a deal for me, since I would be at work most of the day, but Treeses would be suffering. When 12:30 AM rolled around, I went out and turned the water back on, and immediately hear a rush of water pouring out onto dirt and cement. I look up, and sure enough, I see water shooting out. I just thought how in the world could I screw up something this simple? But then I saw that I just needed to turn that knob on the top to keep the water inside. Phew! I dried off the pipes and didn't see any leaks. Then this morning I went out to check it again, and there was a little water leaking out from the same place as when I first turned it on. I tightened the knob some more and that stopped it. Hopefully it will stay that way.