Holly always hated the picture on the old site. I liked it and the idea of creating a new header was just not that appealing to me. Last week, on probably the best day of our lives, the Wordpress & k2 totally lunched on me. Technically, it was all K2, but I was pissed at the internet in general and couldn't make things work properly. Today, JJ backed up Wordpress for me and I nuked the whole thing. My prior WP theme was K2, and despite it blowing up on me for no known reason, I'm still a little partial to it and wanted to keep it. What I didn't want to do was spend a bunch of time designing something. CSS really isn't my forte and the thought of spending hours on a lazy, rainy Sunday was less than appealing. So I kept it clean, kept it simple and got it launched. If you've been to the site the past couple of days, you've probably noticed that it was pretty messed up. Sorry. Should be good now. New look for a new chapter on life.

This summer, our friend Brian Dowd is riding in the 2008 Livestrong Challenge. It is an amazing cause, and in my home town. Brian is raising money for the Lance Armstrong Foundation. If you can, please see his site, what he is working on and support his cause.

Sorry for the ugly look. I got an email from Bridget today saying that she couldn't access the site. Apparently my K2 install got corrupted. Candidly, I love Wordpress, but I'm about done with futzing with it and the slow performance that I get from hosting on my own server. It is sort of a pain in the ass. This is probably the proverbial straw.

380 days ago, Holly was diagnosed with Stage III colo-rectal cancer. I am ecstatic to report today that the PT Scan that she had last week showed no traces of cancer in her system. We are still in a bit of a haze of happiness, so I don't really know what to write beyond that. Thank you very much for all of the inspiration, help, support, guidance, caring and everything that everyone from this community have given us throughout this ordeal. I'll write more after my head clears a bit. In short, this is just the beginning of another chapter that is our life with cancer. We still have blood tests, PT Scans, colonoscopies and the worry that it could come back. But like so many other people who have fought through this, we have survived. It was a really, really rough year, but Holly is a fighter and a survivor. I've never been so proud of anyone in my life.

I've been waiting too long to write that. The results of this mornings colonoscopy were positive negative. No cancer in the colon. The hard part is that we want to be excited, but not too much as the results of the PT scan come down tomorrow. This is a good start, though.

I'm not a morning person. If I had my druthers, I'd sleep until 1 or 2 in the afternoon and stay up all night. So when the alarm went off at 5:30 to get ready to go the surgery center, I had one of those 'Whoa is me' moments. I snapped out of it pretty quickly, but it still sucks. Most people my age aren't waking up to take their wives to the surgery center for the First Annual Colonoscopy. At the same time, it provided me with a bit of perspective that I always need when I start feeling that way. It could be a whole lot worse. As I walked back from grabbing coffee this morning, there was an amazing sunrise over San Jose. There was too much urban blight (freeways, light posts, traffic) to grab a decent photo with the camera phone, but the cloud cover was under the mountain tops and the sun came through the splits in the mountains and provided a really pretty backdrop to an odd morning. It is weird to be blogging while Holly is in surgery. Everyone is sure that things are clear. That this is routine. Just making sure. But that is what they said last time we were here and we all know how that ended. So we wait. I should get results on the scope in about 30 minutes. We get the results of the PT scan tomorrow afternoon. Like our friend Beth at YouTumor said, it isn't the tests that we fear, it is the results. So the waiting game is on. I hope that the surgeon is more of a morning person than I am. 5 Things I'm Happy About: Best surgeon in the area working on my wife Good insurance covers an expensive operation for $60 Good job provides good insurance Kids are with grandpa having an awesome time It is February and it has been in the 70's and sunny the past week and a half P.S. I just realized that my writing is pretty terrible until after lunch.

The first tests started today. Holly had her PET Scan. Next week is another colonoscopy and then the results of both next Wednesday. So now we wait. One thing that I found really interesting was that they told her not to get too close to people for about 24 hours. I guess, due to the radioactive isotopes that are used to find tumors, she is pretty hot right now, in a much more literal sense. While I've been hoping for super powers, all she ended up with is a stomachache. Maybe tomorrow morning she will be able to heat coffee by looking at it.

The countdown begins.... We don't have the actual tickets yet, but I'm thinking front row with a possibility of a backstage hang-out. We'll find out the night of the concert. My sister, partner-in-crime, and fellow fannilow and I have it all planned out... -Hit Anthropology for the perfect outfit -Yummy dinner -Concert - Involves singing all the words, dancing to every song, possible tears of joy -Drinks with Barry and the band :) -Comfy night in a nice hotel -Wake up, warm bath, and a fun adventure in Santa Cruz. I can't thank Scott enough for making the arrangements. He's simply wonderful. Oh, and as far as the cancer goes. It still lurks and makes itself known with the upcoming tests and times of feeling crappy, BUT for now I'm just excited about a fun night of forgetting. We'll have the test results on the 20th.