I submitted this to 24 Hour Fitness regarding 3v3 basketball tournament.


I'd like to thank you first of all for hosting a 3v3 basketball tournament today. It was a good opportunity to get out and play some basketball.

However, I'm outraged by the fact that an exceptionally hard foul has left my teammate, Dustin, with a broken jaw and shattered tooth. The player who inflicted the foul was out of control and far too aggressive. Everyone will attest to this. He ran full speed from the 3-point line and leaped into Dustin as he drove for a layup, sending him crashing to the floor. Afterward, he showed no signs of concern, did not apologize or even check to see if Dustin was even OK. He didn't even help while we searched for Dustin's tooth. He walked around like a bad-ass saying "that's basketball". Well, this was a recreational tournament and there is no call for this level of aggressive play. Even had this been professional play, there is no call for this lack of sportsmanship.

I'm extremely disappointed that the organizer of the tournament would not furnish me with this guys name. Dustin is going to have surgery next week and will have hundreds of dollars in medical bills. It is my intention to take legal action in resolving this, and I made this perfectly clear to the organizer.

The organizer of the tournament has neither the responsibility of protecting this overly aggressive punk, nor does he have the legal backing to withhold that information from me which I forthrightly and openly requested. I'd hate for him to become unnecessarily embroiled in the proceedings.

Please see to these concerns and email me at the soonest possible time.

- Darren Hicks

Learning how to sue some one.

Just played in a 3v3 basketball tournament at 24-hour fitness @ 5700 South and 900 East here in Salt Lake City. It was myself and the brothers Fox: Corbin, Ryan and Dustin. Dustin organized it and we were all excited to be playing some ball - we're not too serious about it.

So, in the first game we play I'm back behind the 3-point line and Dustin drives baseline for a layup on the opposite side of the lane from me. The guy guarding me sprints to him and goes airborne for the block. Well, he hits the ball as hard as he can out of bounds, a massive swat, but in the process gives Dustin and forearm and crushes him to the ground with his body. Dustin is lying on the ground, holding his face and writhing in pain.

We all rush over to check the damage, everyone except the guy who fouled him, that is. Dustin gets up after 20 seconds and is saying that a tooth is missing. There is no blood, so I'm surprised to hear this. We all start looking for the tooth and eventually find a little piece of a tooth, but no other pieces. Dustin's jaw is starting to swell up already.

Now, while all the above is going on, the guy who excessively fouled Dustin is walking around like a bad-ass, like he's done nothing inappropriate. Not even helping look for the tooth. We are upset and start talking to him along the lines of "what's your problem?" He says something to the effect of "that's basketball" and he shows no remorse. Doesn't ever apologize to Dustin. Doesn't shake Dustin's hand. Doesn't show the slightest hint of concern.

Well, this is no good at all. This is a recreational 3v3 tournament, not competitive. We're not playing for money and it's a pretty low-key event.

Dustin drives himself to the emergency room while we keep playing after a lot of jawing back and forth about how uncalled for this guys foul was and how he's pretty much a complete prick for not even apologizing or anything.

After the game, I talk to the organizer of the event and tell him that I'm considering suing this guy - the NBA would have certainly suspended him had he taken a whack like this at one of their players. I ask for this guys full name so I can follow up on it later. But the organizer refuses to give it to me. He tells me that we've signed waivers to play in the tournament. I haven't signed anything, but that's not the point. I tell him I'm not going after 24 Hour Fitness, just after this guy. He still refuses to tell me.

So, after the tournament Dustin texts me to let me know that, yes, his jaw is broken and that he'll be having surgery early next week. So, I stop at my local 24 Hour Fitness and talk to someone there about the event. I talk as if the event is hypothetical and they tell me that I wouldn't be able to sue 24 Hour Fitness, but that there is no problem suing this guy. Says the guy isn't protected by any waiver.

Why wouldn't the organizer give me his name? I'm now going to call that 24 Hour Fitness and get to the bottom of this.

Dustin, I hope you recover fast and that they prescribe you some good pain meds. Hopefully we'll get this prick served with some of your doctors bills!

Nathan having better luck with Seizures the last week.

After having a couple of weeks with 5 or 6 seizures a day, this past week has been awesome with only 1 or 2 seizures a day, and the last 3 days have been completely seizure free. We've lowered Nathan's Keppra to 4.5 ml (from 5 ml) and he has been taking lots of fish oil and eating a largely gluten-free diet.

It's pretty evident ( in my mind, at least ) that the Keppra doesn't work in controlling his seizures. We had slowly increased the dosage all the way up to 5 ml from 4 ml and then 4.5 ml. So, now it's back down to 4.5.

Fingers crossed.

Survival

This is spot on.

clipped from lee.org

Seizure update - Nathan had been on Keppra for about two weeks and it wasn't controlling his seizures ( he was still having them ) so were instructed to start him on Phenobarbital. Now, this somehow landed us in the hospital to give him a big loading dose and get him switched to this from Keppra. Well, the switch from Keppra didn't happen and we left the hospital 3 days later with him now on two drugs :(

So, 11 days pass and all of a sudden, whammo, he's got an allergic reaction to the Phenobarbital and it's back to the hospital. This is a bad-ass reaction with a special name ( Dress ) for it and everything. He goes cold turkey on the Phenobarb and they monitor him for worsening seizures and for problems from Dress (liver failure, kidney failure, death - eek! ).

After 3 days in the hospital he's having hardly any seizures now and we have a new theory that Jenny found while researching online. Xylene from the California forest fires we were stuck in is a neurotoxin. Nathan breathed a bunch of it during that trip and the day he had his first seizure was the day we were stuck at the base of a forest fire ( 200-500 feet away from it ) for 4 hours.

So, now he's being given a steroid to help get rid of the last of the Dress and will be home soon on only one drug ( Keppra ). The doctors are thinking there could be a whole lot to the Xylene theory and that if his seizures stay as minor as they are that we can probably take him off the Keppra, too!

Woohoo! Finger's crossed. Nathan, you are a trooper, btw!

Apparently the Kings of Pluto have left on their journey to Earth and are updating their site with material en route. I see that they have posted some sneak preview lyrics to the title track of their (Earthly) debut album Civilization For Dummies. Stoked!

My son, Nathan, is 22 months old now and has just last night and then again today had some short-lived seizure type of episodes. He sorta goes "absent" for 10-15 seconds and then comes out of it a little bit spacey, or sometimes comes out of it a little bit hyper.

We're out of town ( visiting Arcada, California ) and had a trip to the ER today - they found nothing much and honestly didn't give us much insight at all into what might be going on, or what we should be doing.

Here's a brief synopsis of what I've found on the internet back at the motel tonight:

Possible causes
--------------------------------------------
Fever
Virus
Celiac disease ( wheat/grain allergy )


Ruled out possible causes
--------------------------------------------
Sleep Myoconus -- NOPE - NOT THIS


Suggestions
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Write down/keep track of what he eats and when the episodes come
Don't leave him alone at all in the bath


Types of Seizures ( http://www.emedicinehealth.com/seizures_in_children/article_em.htm#Seizures%20in%20Children%20Overview )
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Febrile Seizures - caused by fever and/or virus
http://www.babycenter.com/0_febrile-seizures_1439542.bc
http://www.babycenter.com/204_febrile-seizures-linked-to-flu-other-viruses_5167385.bc

Absence Seizures ( petit mal ) - short episodes during which the child stares or eye blinks,
with no apparent awareness of their surroundings. These episodes usually do not last longer
then a few seconds and start and stop abruptly; however, the child does not remember the event
at all. These are sometimes discovered after the child's teacher reports daydreaming, if the
child loses his or her place while reading or misses instructions for assignments.

Reason 3: Ruby is better than Java

Mixins.

I've become very accustomed to using lots and lots of Composition in the Javaworld. Spending an Object's inheritance isn't anything to trifle over, afterall.

Ruby mixins allow for a sort of pseudo-multiple-inheritance, where you can add implementations to classes without having to subclass. You can even add the mixin functionality into existing (core) classes like Array.

Score 1 for Ruby!

Reason 2: Ruby is better than Java

Profiling.

With Java you have to use a 3rd party framework to get any useful profiling information. There are some good ones out there, but regardless, this is again a big production. Without a profiling tool, this information is next to impossible to gather.

With Ruby, you just run your program with command line "-r profile" and you get a comprehensive dump of where all the time is being spent.

Score 1 for Ruby.

Reason 1: Ruby is better than Java

The ThreadLocal concept is part of the Thread object in Ruby. Just use Thread.current["myVariable"] to access the variable.

In Java, this is a big production. Creating a ContextHolder which extends ThreadLocal and then creating a getter and setter for the value you want to keep ThreadLocal.

Score 1 for Ruby...

Ashley, my niece from Tennessee, has been visiting with us this past week and we've been having a blast. Moira is just completely ga-ga for Ashley. We went up to Brighton for some fun skiing the other day and I managed to catch a bit of it on video. Feast your eyes...

If I ever get a huge, robotic spider-dog, I hope that it's something like this huge, robotic spider-dog!

Natalie's 3rd Birthday - Natalie got two cakes this time around - lucky girl!

The cake she got with the fam:



The cake she got at her party:

Moira's really liking her Karate class. She's so excited to go to her next class now that she's an Orange belt. Here's some of her moves and also evidence that the messages they teach in class are sticking with her:

Here are some of her Orange belt moves:


Moira is learning some good stuff at class - we never practice this 'mantra' at home :)

Here's a really touching video of a balloon artist at a nursing home. Nothing gimmicky just authentic goodness and happiness. Very refreshing ;)

 
 
 
 
Moira went to her first Karate competition and came home with a trophy. Everybody who went got to pick a trophy - her's was about 3x bigger than I'd imagine the biggest one would have been ;)

 
 
So, sometimes all the kids end up in a great big box - it's just a fact of life.

Ron Paul.

Ron Paul.