With Andrea and Riley out shopping and Noah occupied by the iPad, I decided to hit the treadmill this afternoon. Now, I hate running with all my heart. Loathe it. But I can also accept that it's pretty much the easiest way to burn some calories, particularly when - well, we have a treadmill.
So I connected my laptop to the downstairs TV, fired up the NHL Vault website (to watch Tuesday night's Islanders/Leafs game), plugged my earphones into my iPod, and started the tortorous process of running.
At about the 45 minute mark Noah came downstairs, and wanted to ask me a question. Now, as I stated earlier, I loathe running. But when I really, really, really hate it the most is when I'm about 15 minutes away from being done. So I told Noah to stop bugging me and go entertain himself until I was done. He sulked away.
When I was done my run, I went to put my laptop back and noticed a picture from Noah sitting where the laptop normally is.
Yep. I'm a jerk. I made Noah feel bad for "baging" me. Admittedly, I'm a little concerned that when I run I apparently only have three strands of hair, one eye, and an inability to bend my knees......
I don't think this will go down in history as one of their best.....
A few weeks after I started in the market research industry with the Angus Reid Group in Vancouver - back in 1997 - I got a phone call from the guy who ran our company's Calgary office.
I need you to do something for me really quickly. Can you help me out?
I helped him out.
An hour later he called me back.
Wow. This is great. I don't know why Liz (my boss) says so many bad things about you. I'm impressed!
I spent the next hour completely freaked out. I thought I was doing OK and had no idea that my boss felt differently. I was trying to work up the courage to go talk to her to see what her problem with me was. Then my phone rang.
I just realized that you have no idea who I am or what my sense of humour is like, so I'm calling to let you know that I was only kidding about the 'bad things' comment. I've never heard a bad thing about you. But I thought it was funny. I hope you weren't freaked out.
Starting January 1st, 2012, I will be partnering with the same guy who gave me my first true coronary, and a third partner, to run our own start-up market research company. Gulp.
When I first joined Vision Critical back in September 2006, many of my colleagues at Ipsos thought I was insane. I was told that the research practice at Vision Critical was going to fail, and VC's efforts to build a research practice was just the CEO's efforts to try and get back at Ipsos for a relationship that had gone sour, and that I'd be begging Ipsos for my job back in six months. But here we are five years later, and our research practice in Calgary has built up a solid (and very profitable) book of business, and we've grown our topline revenue each and every year - something that a certain company down the street can't say that they've done. It's been a lot of fun proving people wrong. This time around things could not be more different. Everyone at VC has been very understanding of my desire to take on this new challenge, and rather than walk me out the door with my belongings in a banker's box they are letting me stay on until the end of the year so that I can wrap up my projects and make a smooth transition. Furthermore, everyone has been very supportive and had nothing but good things to say about my decision, my new business partners, and our company. Given my previous experience of leaving a company, this has been a nice lesson in how to handle things professionally. So a big thanks to Vision Critical.
Anyway, if I seem to be acting a little stranger than usual over the next few weeks - or months - it's not the fact that the Leafs are actually doing well for a change, or the fact that four times a week I'm yelling at 17 seven year olds to skate harder. It's because I've just started doing something I never thought I'd have the courage to do: be an entrepreneur.
Andrea's update on Riley:
We met with Dr. Wade (Riley's Nephrologist at Alberta Children's Hospital) on Thursday to discuss next steps given that Riley has relapsed 3 times since her initial nephrotic episode in February. He feels that she has become steroid dependant as she has had quite a high cumulative exposure to the Prednisone since being on it (at varying doses) for the past 8 months. As such, it was his recommendation that we need to try a second line immunosuppressive agent.
We discussed a few options, including cyclophosphamide and cyclosporin, both of which are chemotherapy drugs given in liquid format at a lower dose. He feels cyclophosphamide is the best choice right now. She is still on her last few weeks of Prednisone (fully tapered off December 17th). Given that cyclophosphamide needs to be started while she is in remission and on a low-dose of Prednisone, which Riley currently is, and that she is also infection-free right now, the timing seemed right. It takes a couple of weeks for the cyclophosphamide to take effect, so that will bring us to mid-December when she will come off the latest course of Prednisone. In all likelihood, if we didn't try a second line drug, she would have relapsed again around Christmas (she usually relapses within 10-14 days of coming off) so if we don't do it now, we would have to wait until she tapers off the next course of Prednisone (which would have been around February/March and who knows if she will be infection/illness free then).
Cyclophosphamide does come with some potentially serious side effects. The main side effect involves her bladder (hemorrhagic bleeding so lots of fluids needed to flush through her system so the drug doesn't 'sit' in her bladder for an extended time). As with any chemo drugs, there is also some potential for hair loss/thinning, but they hope that the lower dose extended over the longer time will help keep these minimal. Most children with NS (nephrotic syndrome) tend to remain relapse-free for upwards of a year after coming off a course with cyclophosphamide (in rare cases it never returns), sparing them from the Prednisone for a longer period of time. With Cyclosporine (the other option presented) kids have to remain on it long-term because as soon as they come off it they relapse. We wanted to give her and her body a chance to be drug free for an extended period of time.
They also want to do a renal biospy and are checking into availability before Christmas (if it can't happen before Christmas, it will happen in the New Year). Dr. Wade feels that the biopsy will likely show minimal change disease and still feels that if she has minimal change disease then she will outgrow this.
On Friday Riley had a whack of blood work and urine culture/urinalysis done so that we have a baseline for measuring her levels going forward. She will need to go weekly for additional blood work in order for them to closely monitor everything. She was a real trooper today with the needle, as she has been through this whole process.
For whatever reason Noah was desperate to give goalie a shot this season. I tried to talk him out of it as much as possible (since goalies are clearly insane), but he wouldn't listen to me. This week was his turn to give it a go, and after his first practice I was concerned that he was going to allow about 25 goals in his upcoming game. But at some point he got more comfortable with the equipment, listened to some coaching (none provided by his father) and started to show some promise.
The end result was the Tornadoes' first win of the season (8-3), and some amazing goaltending from Noah. Of the three goals he allowed, only one was Toskala-esque. He made a lot of great saves and did a fantastic job of covering up rebounds. The other coaches were claiming that he's a 'natural' and that I can now look forward to $100K in goaltending schools and goaltending equipment over the next 15 years. As such, operation "No More Goalie for Noah" begins today.
I'm a few days late with this one, but due to popular demand (supposedly), here are some pics of Noah and Riley in their Halloween costumes on Monday night.
Earlier tonight was the first game of the season for Noah's Novice team. Now, it was only an Exhibition Game, which shouldn't be confused with Seeding Games, Tournament Games, or Regular Season Games, but it was a game nevertheless.
Quite frankly, I'm stunned - STUNNED - at just how much I got into it. And I don't mean "yelling at the 14 year old refs" into it, but into it in terms of really wanting to see the team do well, instinctively throwing my arms into the air when we scored, and feeling genuinely bummed out when the other team scored with winning goal with just a couple of minutes left (we lost 3-2).
Coaching has been an interesting experience so far, to say the least. But despite whatever frustrations I've felt, being behind the bench tonight really made it all worthwhile. Well, mostly.
The other shocking thing: this was the first time that Noah took part in a game where the score was kept, and let's just say that he didn't react very well to losing. This really caught me off guard as he's never, ever shown any competitive instincts before. When we've played hockey on his Nintendo Wii, he's never really shown any emotion when he's lost to me. Granted, he's done plenty of trash talking when he's beaten me.....but he's largely been indifferent in games where he's lost. But tonight he was very upset with losing to the other team, and was even blaming himself for not scoring any goals. I'm actually a little concerned about what might happen when he takes his turn playing goalie and he gets scored on.....
It's been a few years since I read Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, but I do remember that there was a chapter dedicated to the fact that a disproportionate share of NHL players are born in the first half of the year. The basic premise (if I remember correctly) is that kids born in the first half of the year have an advantage over kids born in the second half of the year when it comes to hockey, as the kids born in the first half of the year are (generally) going to be a little bigger, and the development of their motor skills is going to be a little further along compared to kids born in the second half of the year (i.e. a kid who turns 7 on January 30th is generally going to be a little bigger and a little more advanced than a kid who turns 7 on December 30th). As such, the slightly older kids are the kids who are more likely to get picked for better teams as they progress through minor hockey, meaning they will get better coaching, and they will face better competition, which will help with the development of their hockey skills.
Earlier today I was going through the jerseys for Noah's Novice team and when he saw me doing this he told me that he wanted to wear #21 this season. Since 2009, all Novice teams in Calgary wear Hitmen jerseys due to an arrangement that was worked out with the Hitmen (the Hitmen are a Western Hockey League team based in Calgary). Out of curiousity I wanted to see who wore #21 for the real Hitmen ( nobody does), and I immediately thought of Gladwell when I noticed the birthdates of Hitmen players: out of 25 players on the roster, 21 of them (or 84%) were born in the first half of their birth year (including the spectacularly awesome Chase Clayton.....OK, I have no idea if he's awesome, but I like his birthdate). I'd even argue that we can dismiss one of the players who was born in the second half of the year from the analysis because: (a) he's a goalie, and (b) goalies are weird. Yes, I will tag this post with Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
It's been awhile since I've provided an update on the status of Riley's progress with Childhood Nephrotic Syndrome. Three months ago she completed her first round of medication, which we hoped would be the first and last round. Unfortunately she did relapse, which meant she was put back on the medication - but at higher doses.
This latest round of medication was completed on Saturday, so now we sit back and wait and once again hope that the medication has conquered it. If it didn't, then she moves into more aggressive treatment.
Meanwhile, Noah hit a milestone of his own, finally losing one of his central incisors. Now he looks like the hockey player he thinks he's one day going to be.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.....I am fully aware that the BlackBerry PlayBook hasn't exactly set the tablet market on fire. There are a number of reasons for this, some fair, some not so much. But I continue to be impressed by mine and I countinue to find new uses for it (and no, PlayBook bashers, not "paperweight"). But last night I might have come across the best discovery of all.
As a hockey junkie who lives approximately 2,707 kms away from his favourite NHL team, I've long subscribed to NHL Center Ice (so that I could watch the few Leaf games that aren't shown on national television). The problem is that this means I'm in our basement watching hockey games by myself way too often (according to Andrea at least), which makes me even less popular at my house than I already am.
So last night I was playing around with our iPad and started reading about the NHL GameCenter app, which lets you watch live games on your iPad (in theory). I thought that this could be an ideal solution - I could hang out with the rest of the family, and still keep one eye on whatever game I was interested that night via the GameCenter app on the iPad. But after paying $200+ for NHL Center Ice, I wasn't keen to pay another $160 just to watch out of market games on the iPad. But someone at the NHL got smart and decided that they should also offer GameCenter at $20 per month. $20 a month x 8 months vs a one time $160 fee? Sold!
So I purchased the subscription, and tried to fire up a live game on the iPad. No dice. The message I received was: "There are no live games available at this time", despite the fact that there were four games going on. Naturally this frustrated me, especially since I've been lead to believe that the iPad does everything but cure STDs, yet it couldn't show a live NHL game with the app that says you can watch live NHL games?!?
But then I remembered the option of watching games through a web browser. So I grabbed my PlayBook, fired up the web browser, and voila! Live hockey action. And not only that, but also the option to do picture-in-picture (to watch two games at once) or the option to split the screen into four squares and watch four games at once. This. Is. Awesome.
Then I realized something: with NHL GameCenter and my PlayBook I actually didn't need to subscribe to NHL Center Ice. By subscribing to NHL GameCenter and connecting the PlayBook to my TV via an HDMI cable, I'd essentially have the exact same thing as Center Ice. Actually, GameCenter is better than Center Ice because with GameCenter I can watch four games at once (!), or I can watch games from last night, last week, or even last season. I can even choose if I want to watch the home team broadcast, or the away team broadcast. So yeah, I'm an idiot.....but I suppose the good news is that, at least this time, I'm a happy idiot.
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