Ok. Time to catch up. In the past 3 months my father in law passed away, a friend of our eldest daughter had 2 lung collapses in separate incidents, my wife and youngest daughter were in a car accident (no injuries), our middle daughter moved away to college, our eldest daughter was in an accident (with injuries), our middle daughter moved back from college to attend closer to home (we're good with that) and we're having to deal with an insurance company regarding one of the accidents. Neither of the accidents were our fault, the other people were cited. All this and both of us working and trying to run a business as well.
No pressure here. None.
I can see the light though. We are all healthy and whole. I am thankful for that.
On the educational side, I learned a few things in terms of spontaneous pneumothorax (collapsed lung not due to an injury). It has been statistically borne out that tall, thin body types who are first born are susceptible to having "blebs" or small blisters on the top of their lung fields, which tend to pop spontaneously. In addition, once there is one spont. pneumo., there is now a 25% greater chance of having a second one. If there is a second one, there is now a 50% chance of having a third. On the prevention side, there is procedure whereby they go in and "clip" the "blebs" and suture the area, apparently preventing a future spont. pneumo.. Interesting stuff.
On Labor Day weekend, I went to an annual camp called Water and Steel. It is a multi discipline martial arts camp on Raft Island on Puget Sound. It is hosted by Kelly Worden. Gorgeous area. I trained with some old friends and made some new ones. I met a producer/director and 3 stunt men from L.A.. What a great group of people. No chest beating, just great training at a very high level, some of the highest in the country. I have already e-mailed with the L.A. guys who have sent me pics of some of their work, and gave me a list of some of the movies that they were in, or produced and directed. I also met a great tattoo artist from Alberta, Canada named Bear Lamont. The bottom pic is of (from L. to R.) Myself, Bear, Dave (a friend who went with me). The middle pic is a group shot on the dock, where we trained a few times. The top pic is a shot from the same dock. You can just see Mt. Rainier on the horizon. I also had a BLAST, in general, but also with a group of Canadians who we shard a cabin with, and many who we trained with. The laughs were side splitting. I look forward to next year.
