I have been battling my cold all day long, so it made the day a little difficult to get through. I had two meetings today and they went well. Other than that, I didn’t feel so productive on my own. I did manage to help a few co-workers with their projects. The gave a dose Tylenol Cold and Cough to William and Keisha. The twins picked over their food… they really weren’t all that hungry because of their colds.

I am very thankful that William’s hemoglobin count was 10.2 yesterday. This means that he doesn’t have to have his blood transfusion this week. Next Wednesday we will go back in for another type and cross. Depending on what the count is next week, he may have the scheduled transfusion on Thursday. Dr. T. says that we don’t William to have the chronic transfusions for more than a year. This August will make it one year. After that point William will have a splenectomy. Why have a splenectomy? Because William had a sickle cell crisis last August, this makes him have a high chance of having another crisis that could be fatal. This is why JT, Dr. T. and I decided to treat William with chronic transfusions; an effort to keep the percentage of sickle cells under 40% and hopefully in turn reducing the chances of another crisis. The downfall of chronic transfusions is that it can cause high iron levels and liver problems. Since William began his chronic transfusions, his doctor and nurses have monitored his iron levels as well as the regular tests.

I am very scared of the day that William will need to have the splenectomy but in the meantime I can only take one day at time. He continues to take penicillin twice a day, folic acid vitamin every other day and Flinstones gummi bear vitamins daily.

Have you checked out 2000 Bloggers (caution: many images on the page to load)? This is a very interesting project by Tino Buntic.

Last month I posted a video of Michael Jackson performing Billie Jean live. Here is the original… the classic:

Download this song.

Jermaine Dupri- Welcome to Atlanta (Remix)

Of course I love the part where they are in St. Louis.

At work today, we were talking about when Senator Barack Obama was on the beginning of Monday Night Football, December 11, 2006. I never saw the original airing of this, so I was anxious to find the video. Of course my beloved YouTube had it.

Obama 2008. *grins*

The other night at Walmart, JT bought a bottle of hazelnut syrup and a 2-liter bottle of Sprite. I asked him what was he up to an what he had in mind of making. He said he was going to make some homemade Italian sodas. I thought to myself… yeah okay. JT made a soda that night. I tasted it and it was alright, but I am not a fan of hazelnut. Tonight I told JT that I wished we had some vanilla syrup. I prefer vanilla anything over hazelnut. He said, “well I can take care of that.” JT whipped out the vanilla extract, vanilla creamer in the fridge, sprite and milk. Voila. There was my Italian soda and it tasted damn good.

Work was busy today and as I stated earlier last week, I had an important meeting today. It went well… and I will say it went very well if the outcome of the meeting is the decision that I want to hear. I will be loading up on Nyquil tonight because I think I am catching a cold from the twins.

To say good bye to Vongo. I am officially fed up with their small selection of movies. I keep wanting more and Vongo just cannot keep up with my needs. I have now had the service for a few months with a sticker price of $9.99 per month. Perhaps instead of paying for Vongo, I will cancel this service and go over to GameTap. Any game service that has Contra is okay in my book. I need a new controller to play the games on my laptop. We shall see.

I also need to cancel my webhost plan with GoDaddy because I know have an account with Host Department.

Other than my decision to part ways with Vongo and GoDaddy webhosting, I am extremely exhausted. I will call the two companies tomorrow to disconnect the service.. I need to get up very early in the morning to work on a project. Good night.

I am very surprised that JT and I were able to see two movies in three days. On Friday we saw Stomp the Yard and this evening we saw Dreamgirls. I enjoyed both movies, but I have to admit that I enjoyed Dreamgirls more. Jennifer Hudson really did an outstanding job in the drama musical. Musicals are generally not my thing but every moment of Dreamgirls had me alert and connected with the development of each charcter.

Of course the highlight of the movie for me was Hudson singing, “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going.” JT and I had no choice other than to applaud Hudson after she put it down. Several other people throughout the theatre were clapping as well. I truly hope that Hudson wins an Oscar this year.

Jennifer Holiday- And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going

And I am telling you I’m not going
You’re the best man I’ll ever know
There’s no way I can ever go
No no no, no way
No no no, no way I’m living without you
I’m not living without you
I don’t want to be free
I’m staying, I’m staying
And you, and you, you’re gonna love me
You’re gonna love me

And I am telling you I’m not going
Even though the rough times are showing
There’s just no way, there’s no way
We’re part of the same place
We’re part of the same time
We both share the same blood
We both have the same mind
And time and time, we have so much to share
No no no, no no no
I’m not waking up tomorrow morning
And finding that there’s nobody there
Darling, there’s no way,
No no no, no way I’m living without you
I’m not living without you
You see, there’s just no way
There’s no way

Tear down the mountains,
Yell, scream and shout
And you can say what you want
I’m not walking out
Stop all the rivers,
Push, strike, and kill
I’m not gonna leave you

There are only a few minutes left of my 29th birthday. I had a lovely day with my family. The day started off with JT making breakfast for us… pineapple pancakes, turkey sausage and eggs. Yummy. We had a long nap in the afternoon and in the evening we went to Red Lobster for dinner.

As I suspected, there was a long wait… an estimated time of an hour and one half. We grabbed the pager from the hostess and waited in the van. The temperature seemed to be dropping by the hour so we definitely had the heat pumping while we waited. JT and I helped the time pass by singing children songs to William and Keisha, counting to 10 in every language we knew and singing the alphabet. Before I knew it, the pager was vibrating in just under 45 minutes.

We had calamari with veggies and jumbo coconut shrimp for appetizers. I took Keisha to the restroom, came back and there was only one shrimp left. I was thinking to myself, what the hell? JT looked at me and said, “Your son at it all.” Note: whenever the children do something that we don’t like… we say, “your son/daughter did it.” I made sure to grab the last jumbo shrimp. Suprisingly Keisha and William liked the fried calamari and veggies. I am truly amazed at how fast my children are experiencing some things compared to myself as a child. I didn’t even think of eating squid until I met JT at age 23. But wait a minute… even then I was tricked into eating it. He told me it was fried onions… and only after I confirmed that I liked it is when he told me it was squid. And here my twins are… at age 2 eating squid, shrimp and they even liked the crab legs.

Rob and Adam introduced me to Twitter weeks ago and of course I had to join in on the fun. What you see below allows you to see my Twitter updates here or you can click on my Twitter link. Twitter… hehee that makes me giggle. And then when I said Twa Twa in the title… I almost typed twat. I am so dirty. The coolest thing about Twitter is that I can easily post updates from my mobile phone.

JT and I purchased the Samsung SGH-A707 earlier this month. I really love my phone so far. No dropped calls, excellent camera (2.0 megapixels), 3G and I still have the unlimited MediaNet service with Cingular but now with highspeed internet. Beautiful.

A few coworkers presented a birthday card to me today. I thought it was a kind gesture and I was even more impressed that they were able to sign it without me finding out about it. Very cute. Tomorrow I will be 29. eek.

I finally found the latest Transformers trailer posted on YouTube a month ago.

And here is the teaser trailer:

This year may be promising for great movies.

Another excellent trailer for the movie, 300:

and more recently:

And because I love YouTube so much, let me throw in the Jason Sundance and Sean Michel auditions on American Idol from Tuesday night. Their voices are great.

President Bush 2007 State of the Union Address:

9:13 P.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. And tonight, I have a high privilege and distinct honor of my own — as the first President to begin the State of the Union message with these words: Madam Speaker. (Applause.)

In his day, the late Congressman Thomas D’Alesandro, Jr. from Baltimore, Maryland, saw Presidents Roosevelt and Truman at this rostrum. But nothing could compare with the sight of his only daughter, Nancy, presiding tonight as Speaker of the House of Representatives. (Applause.) Congratulations, Madam Speaker. (Applause.)

Two members of the House and Senate are not with us tonight, and we pray for the recovery and speedy return of Senator Tim Johnson and Congressman Charlie Norwood. (Applause.)

Madam Speaker, Vice President Cheney, members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow citizens:

The rite of custom brings us together at a defining hour — when decisions are hard and courage is needed. We enter the year 2007 with large endeavors underway, and others that are ours to begin. In all of this, much is asked of us. We must have the will to face difficult challenges and determined enemies — and the wisdom to face them together.

Some in this chamber are new to the House and the Senate — and I congratulate the Democrat majority. (Applause.) Congress has changed, but not our responsibilities. Each of us is guided by our own convictions — and to these we must stay faithful. Yet we’re all held to the same standards, and called to serve the same good purposes: To extend this nation’s prosperity; to spend the people’s money wisely; to solve problems, not leave them to future generations; to guard America against all evil; and to keep faith with those we have sent forth to defend us. (Applause.)

Happy Birthday to my favorite woman in the world: My mom. Mama I hope you had a wonderful birthday. I’m sorry I could not give you a birthday hug and kiss today but I will see you soon… this weekend. I love you Mama. *hums Song for Mama*

I upgraded to WordPress 2.1 last night and I immediately got the following error:

WordPress database error: [You have an error in your SQL syntax. Check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '' at line 1]
SELECT cat_id, cat_name FROM

I have been googling the term SELECT cat_id, cat_name FROM and also researching the forums at http://wordpress.org/support/ to no avail. I found my threads that discussed the situation but none of the suggestions such as this one have worked for me yet. I will continue to research.

I was asked to cover an important meeting on Tuesday. This will probably be my most important one thus far. I worked on it most of today and will work on it all day tomorrow as well as Monday. I hope to make a bar graph to display timeframes, maybe a spreadsheet or two and several exhibits to strengthen my arguments.

JT handled some important business today and I am thankful for that. We had Lee’s chicken for dinner. You must wonder when I cook… I wonder too. And speaking of Lee’s chicken… I can’t believe that this major franchise does not have a website *gasp* Ten years ago a company could get away with such nonsense… but not now. This evening we watched Tuesday’s episode of American Idol (recorded on Media Center) and the twins watched Dora the Explorer and Backyardigans. Now the family is sleeping peacefully and I am… I really should be in bed.

Some of my co-workers ordered out Chinese food for lunch today. I had the number two lunch special: sweet and sour chicken with white rice and two crab rangoon. Pineapple Vess for the drink. I really wanted a nap after that meal, but I had to head over to three hours of training. Oh but wait, as usual… I slept through most of the training.

Last week, Keisha counted to ten by herself for the first time. This was at 6:45 a.m. while we were getting ready for school and work. I was so excited that I yelled for JT to come in the room, then I called my mom, aunt and JT called his mom. This evening I was teaching Keisha how to count to ten in Arabic. She listened very well and did a great job with repeating the numbers after me. William did excellent with counting with me as well (in English).

Tomorrow is Mama’s birthday. I talked to her this evening and she told me that she got her hair done and tomorrow she is going out to eat with a friend.

I have been tweaking this new theme here and there throughout the day. I added a page which has a java chat to #nexy on Wyldryde IRC. The link is here: http://www.missnexus.com/?page_id=449. More tweaking to come.