A very up and down weekend. I passed my ski patrol test, so now I am officially a senior patroller, which is very cool. I think this means I get triple pay next year! (triple of nothing is still nothing of course...). I also played in a badger poker tournament and finished 9th, which is my third top 10 finish of this series. It's looking likely that I will be qualified for the final tournament, which has a first place prize of a free trip to Vegas.

The downside of the weekend is that my parents called to say that grandma is now fully unresponsive, so it likely won't be too long until she passes. It could be as soon as today or tomorrow. We're all doing pretty well, all things considered. We've had a lot of support from friends, family, and the hospice care workers. We've all made our peace with things, and have made sure that she is comfortable, which is about the best that can be done. If she passes soon, the funeral will likely be Friday. Most all arrangements have been set up, we just need to let everyone know when, so that makes life a lot easier for my parents.

Enough procrastinating. Back to work.

This last Saturday I took the on hill test for my Senior certification for ski patrol. Despite really high temperatures and having a cold, I pulled some really good scores and passed it. So, one week from this coming Saturday I will be taking the Outdoor Emergency Care test for Senior, and if I pass that, then I am finally done!

Saturday turned into a kind of weird day. Julie and I hit the road for Milwaukee at about 9:30 in the morning, and just outside of Madison on I-94 while doing about 65, the antilock brakes decided to turn on all by themselves. The car started acting like a bucking bronco, that was really not fun. I got it safely pulled over, and turned it off. A few minutes later we tried to turn it back on, and all we got was a click. Oops, dead alternator. So now we got to get a tow and take a cab ride home to get the other car, and we made it to Milwaukee sometime in the early afternoon. We now have found out that if you get to a low voltage state, the ABS computer can get confused and just start doing it's own thing. Yeah, sucky. At least it was only $200 to get it fixed.

The time in Milwaukee was worth any problems for though. After last weekend, I was pretty convinced that I'd never be able to look my grandma in the eyes again or hear her voice. Well, I didn't get both, since she's still on the ventilator, but she was somewhat awake when we got there. She was on heavy sedation, so she was going in and out a lot, but when she looked up and saw me she started crying. I can't remember the last time that I cried from being so happy, but even thinking about it right now almost gets me going again. She was able to squeeze my hand, and communicate somewhat with us with facial movement and head nods. She still has a long way to go, but this is much more improvement that I had been daring to let myself hope for. The whole team of people that she has at Colombia St. Mary's is really great, and I can't wait to get back to visit her again soon.

Today I'm back at work after spending Sunday and Monday visiting Grandma in the hospital. All plans for the immediate future are going to have to be considered tentative for us, so if we don't get back to phone calls or emails or anything over the next few days/weeks, you'll have to forgive us.