Birthday Post

I'd like to give a quick status update to anyone who still checks the blog. Today is my birthday, and it finds me in much better shape than a year ago (which I celebrated with a chemo-bag full of orange goo attached to me). Results of the PET scan a few weeks ago came back negative (again), which means that so far, I'm not showing any signs of relapse. Healthwise, I'm pretty well, with only a few lingering issues.

I'm back at work in the office full time - I have been since late June. Everyone there has been so incredibly supportive, it's been great getting back to normalcy.

Today I took off work early for some scans and after I got home, I had a ten mile run. It was a great feeling doing that distance again, though my time averaged a little more than a nine minute mile (a bit worse than my 6.50 or so back in Apr 08. I keep telling myself that the distance and ease of run will come. We'll see.

Jane and he kids have been great - it's great to see them every day and we're rapidly accumulating all kinds of extra curricular activities - violin, piano, chess, and all sorts of other stuff. The deer ate much of the garden this summer, so we don't have as much as we'd like to be able to show for all of Jane's work.

My hops yielded a pretty good harvest this year, more than I could pick. The mushroom logs didn't do as well as I expected, possibly owing to a lack of watering on my part. I have another batch I plan to inoculate this weekend - Shiitake, Maitake, Oyster, and Hedgehog. Fingers crossed for this batch!

I brewed another batch of beer a few weeks ago - an amber ale. It's coming along nicely, I think it will age pretty well. I'm hoping to do a pumpkin stout this weekend. It's not as strange as it sounds, trust me.

Thanks again to all friends and family. I'm sorry I haven't kept up as well as I might have, I've just been excited to get back to leading a normal life. I hope you all are well, and will post again.

Take care!