DLBATES.COM

As the title suggests someone very close to me passed away last week. My grandmother Doris Jones died on Feb. the 23rd. Her health had been declining for several years and she really started to decline in health about 3 months ago. She died from complications from COPD a very harsh disease that bassically renders your lungs useless.

My G’MA as we lovingling called her was someone I greatly admired and loved. She helped to raise me and was there for me during every event of my life. She will be missed greatly.

Her funeral was held over the past three days and was fitting. Her friends and family where beside of her and she was laid to rest beside of her husband Charlie Jones (POP’s) I had created a video tribute to her and will try to post it here over the next couple of days.

I would like to thank all of you who sent cards, flowers, visited, and even tweeted to me to help me through this time.

Goodbye G’MA and may God be with you.
David Bates

Ducky has been pronounce dead at 6:00PM his departure from this world was a lot of fun for me. The wife shuttered when she saw the videos, it was great. If you don’t know the story that led me to kill Ducky you need to read this post first. Ducky died from gas and fire that was lit with a toilet paper fuse. I recorded the whole thing for your viewing pleasure and you can watch the videos below… BTW there is an explosion that made my wife shake when she knew I was the one holding the camera


Ducky’s Setup:

Ducky Demise Part 1 “Lighting the Fuse”

Ducky Get’s Blown Up!

So the title of my post may be a little misleading. I love Christmas and all of the memories you make during it. This Christmas however has been off to a rough start. Monday I decided to work from home for two reasons one was the snow and the second was I was feeling pretty sickly. I was happily typing away on code to attribute to my latest project when I got a call from my frantic wife where she informed me that my mother had slipped on ice on her steps, that I had just scrapped, and she believed broke her leg. I quickly informed my Boss I was not going to be able to be reached for awhile and headed to her aid. It took about 2 hours to get an ambulance to the house because of the snow and the holidays but when they got there she had been in pain for some time and had what looked like a bone pushing on her skin but not broke through. They with my help then loaded her onto a backboard and then the stretcher. The driver asked how much my mom weighed (as my family is hefty) and then called in for backup. I guess she scared him Soon the entire Bethany fire department was there to help. My Mom was in so much pain she didn’t catch any jokes I tried to crack to cheer her up. We got to the hospital and here is what the break looks like:

After that you may have guessed that my days have been filled trying to get her here and there but that is not it. Monday night after we got back from the Hospital my wife and son got a stomach virus… very bad so now I had three to take care of and I made until Tuesday morning when I myself got it. Now when I get sick I react a little differently than most people I know I simply goto sleep and continue to sleep until I get better. I don’t know why I do this and my wife hates it but it all works out. So after being in a dead-like sleep and missing Tuesday altogether I was able to get mom back to the doctor starting at 7:30 on Wednesday.

Now I must say that the previous paragraphs make it seem like I did all the work. I don’t want that to be the case as my wife and my sister has helped equally if not more than I. I also don’t want it to sound like I haven’t had a good Christmas I have. Spending time with my family is always good no matter what the circumstance and my mom is pretty funny when she is drugged

Now as for today I went to Lowes to do a little last minute Christmas shopping. I got my mom a safety rail for her bathroom so she can get around on her peg leg and got my father-in-law a little something too. I got to eat a nice smoked pork shoulder with the family and now I have to go downstairs and play Santa for my little boy. He is fast asleep with vision of trains and cars in his head.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!
David Bates

The title of my post comes from a twitter saying I started because of all of the news and buzz going around the storm that we received yesterday. Every newscaster was making it seem as though this storm would be the end of the world. So I lovingly dubbed it Snowpocolipse09.

All in all we got about 5-6″ of snow with some ice mixed in. I have a lot of work to do scraping the driveway while my son and wife take an afternoon nap…

Enjoy the pictures below, I hope to take some more this afternoon.

Hi,

I know it has been awhile since my last post and there has been a lot of time between my post. Truth is Since early this year I had lost interest in posting as what I had to post was not at all pleasant and was very hard for me just to talk about it to my own family much less blog about it. My wife wrote a beautiful post about what happened but to re-iterate we lost a baby that my wife had carried past the second trimester and worst of all she barely made it through the ordeal alive. She developed something called DIC which is very rare but basically caused her blood to not be able to clot. Luckily her doctor had seen one case of it before and immediately knew what to do. If it was not for his quick action I would have lost both of them. So you can see why I did not wish to write about this, heck I don’t even know why I am now other than to to let you know that I have not disappeared. In fact I am more into web developing, blogging, and social media more than ever. I accepted the role as the Web Developer for RFMD.com in June and have been overseeing the website since then. I am also trying to convince RFMD as a company to utilize social media.

When all of the trouble happened at the first of the year it was easier for me to use twitter than it was to blog. I added my twitter feed to this site so that you could look along. I know it is not the same as post but it helped me stay in touch and let people know how I was doing without actually blogging about it. I choose twitter as it was the best option for what I needed. You can locate my twitter feed and follow me from the list on the left.

We also found out at the first of October that we are pregnant AGAIN! we have both been scared to death given the outcome of the last one and happy all at the same time. But fortunately this time around has been completely different from the last but we are getting close to the same time in the pregnancy so we will be on edge for at least the next two weeks. We love the fact that we have another little one on the way. Daniel and our lives will be totally different. We will move from a family of three to four.

Earlier this year I bought a house for us. We have rented in the past so this is our first home. I say I bought it as it happened along the same time as the loss and Jess was very reluctant to commit to anything at the time. I had been looking for a new home as our family was about to grow and the place we was renting was way to small for another little one. The market in housing at the time was also a proponent as we found an awesome house and saved a ton of money on it. Jess loves the house and has told me many times since that I was right to go ahead and purchase it.

That being said the house was in need of repairs since we moved in we have completely redone the downstairs bathroom going all the way to the floor joist and jacking up the house. We have also replaced the water heater, every faucet in the house, and the downstairs heating system. All I can say is thank GOD that Obama saw fit to give us some tax money to help when we replaced the heating unit downstairs we made sure to get an energy efficient one so that we can qualify for the tax credit next year as well.

I love our house and how it is becoming our home. I always find it amazing how my wife can turn a boring room into something that looks like a piece of art. She is truly a master of design and of decorating. I cannot believe she allowed me to propose to her so long ago.

Current:
Daniel has a pretty bad cold and has been real clingy to his mommy recently I love the little guy. He has started to talk plainly and we can communicate very well together. This is a huge achievement. He also knows his shapes and colors and can even draw circles now. He makes me the happiest dad every time I come home. I can also see that he is going to be a good hearted boy as he is so sweet to everybody. He says please and thank you that which I must attribute to his mom’s teaching. She is doing a great job with him.

Well that is all my pregnant wife would like a bit of the cheeseball she has made and it is 10:00PM so after that I will probably go to bed exhausted from rough-housing my playtoy (Daniel)

Happy Holidays, let me know how your year has been below:
David Bates