::Chris.Hallgren

::Chris.Hallgren

::Chris.Hallgren personal blog


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  • So people think I'm skinny - 25-07-2008
    So since I've been out of the game for the month of June after my TIA. People are saying man you lost alot of weight. I still weight the same from when I was in the hospital. I don't know where people are getting the idea but it could be the fact I have been playing the drums alot more which has been some good exercise for me.

  • SVN - 06-06-2008
    This site is now using SVN for version control to help prevent me from deleting stupid files and having to recreate them.

  • Ok site is fixed somewhat - 26-05-2008
    Ok so the past 4 days have been a coding frenzy. I ended up deleting a couple files on my site. One was for the editprofile for users. Then I started working on a patch for eTicket. The patch was to move from an old method of storing settings to a newer method. There's some other details I won't go into. But pretty much I had to write the patch twice. While using PHPed I ended up uploading the eticket project to my main site and deleting the index page and the rss feed generator. So I learned about the value of backups. And because of that I setup my fileserver at home to accept FTP connections from the server so I can keep backups of all the sites on it. So just now I finished regenerating the index page and rss generator. So now I can sleep well tonight.

  • Another new feature - 17-05-2008
    Yep, I'm on a roll the past 2 days. I just added a Word Cloud to my site. It works perfect with my new tagging for entries.

  • Changes for people using RSS - 17-05-2008
    For those of you that read this blog via RSS. You will need to fix your rss reader to use the new URL which is http://www.challgren.com/rss.php. The old feed http://www.challgren.com/syn.php will dissappear with in the next week.

  • Finished category support - 17-05-2008
    So category support is finished. You can view entries by category. I also optimized some of the back end code and reduce some files sizes. I found out that I was duplicating a lot of code so I elimitated it and made functions for retrieving icons and tag for entries. The site is coming along. I plan on making the pages bio, contact, wishlist, programs, and hardware all database driven instead of being stored in files.

  • New feature added to my blog - 17-05-2008
    Just added a new feature to my blog. I add support for tagging entries with a category. The code you can't see because it is part of posting entries. But the code uses a bit of AJAX borrowed from Yahoo. It allows me to tag the entry and pull up previous tags I've used. It's really cool.

  • Update on my life - 12-05-2008
    So I figured I would update on the past week. So Monday, I was experiencing some visual disturbances in my left field of vision. I was sitting watching TV eating Chicken Tenders. I called the IL Eye Bank and spoke with my friend over there. Her husband told me to go to an ophthalmologist because I was only seeing a tiny spot in my field of vision. It progressively got worse. I was on the phone with an ophthalmologist and he told me to go to the ER. So I called over to the immediate care center and they told me to go to the ER. So I ended up doing what the typical health care provider does and drove myself to the ER. When I got there I was almost immediately seen. I explained my story for the 19th million time to the Dr, RN, Tech, Lab, almost everyone. It was like a reunion in the ER. I saw my old coworker Sue who told me to apply at Gift of Hope. My nurse was a buddy of mine. The Doc was an excellent doc that I know pretty well. I went to the ER around 1500 around 2300 Dr Mates told me they are going to admit me for a possible TIA. So I decided now was a good time to call my mom and dad to let them know what was going on. I wasn't going to call them but I figured it was time. My dad almost insisted on coming to see me that night I told him no he doesn't have to I plan on going to bed if I can. My mom didn't answer her phone and I'm a person who almost refuses to leave a voicemail. So I ended up going upstairs to a room I got settled into bed, the guy next to me left his TV on and the lights on. I just didn't have the heart to tell him to turn the shit off. So that whole night I barely slept. Around 4am lab came in to draw a coagulation test. Then around 6am ultrasound came to do a ultrasound on my carotids. I tried to sleep but at this time everyone was starting to come visit me. My mom called and asked if I wanted her to come, I told her no she doesn't need to worry to stay home. My dad and my step mom came which was nice. Then Leann came during her lunch break which was cool, while Leann was visiting my paramedic teacher Laura stopped by. They left and then I called Steve (my roommate) and asked him to bring my Nintendo DS and my phone chargers. And then Deids came and stopped by during her lunch break. She told me she was going to have her mom (who works at the hospital as a nurse (which she is kind of a bit loopy)) and Ken (a security guard that I know and is dating Deids mom). Then my Dr stopped by he said they were going to do a couple tests and wants me to see an ophthalmologist he also said my neurologist was going to stop by. So I tried to sleep while watching what ever crap was on TV. All day Tuesday the neurologist didn't stop by. My nurse ended up coming in and telling me that on the admit orders Dr Mates handwriting couldn't be read and they put me to see a GI doctor instead of a neurologist. She ended up fixing the mistake and said they hope he stops by that night. Then later on I guess Deids, Leann, and Gavin stopped by but I sleeping. I ended up waking up to them closing the curtain. I look over and there is this huge ass balloon tied to my bed. The funny thing was I thought it was work because they were blackberring me what room I was in and everything. I ended up going to grab some water and looked over and saw the card. (Thanks Guys!!!) Around 10 the neurologist came over and apologized for the mix-up. I told him it was no issue and explained the whole story to him for probably the 23rd billionth time. He ordered a transesophageal echocardiogram or TEE and an EEG. He offered me the option of doing them as an inpatient or outpatient. I told him I would love to go home instead of taking up a hospital bed. He said ok and was going to write discharge papers. About an hour later my nurse came in and said my regular doctor ordered a couple more tests and I couldn't go home that night. The eye doctor ended up calling me and said he would like to see me in his office around 12:30 on Wednesday. At this time I was getting extremely stir crazy. So I asked the nurse if I could walk around. At first she said no, but she would call the doctor. About 5 minutes later it was ok for me to get up and walk around only on that floor. So I did like 30 laps around the place bored out of my mind. Then around 11pm lab came again to draw some more test the Dr ordered. The lab tech was a tech I did my IV rotation with so she was shocked to see me on the other side of the bed. So I ended up sleeping for about 2 hours or so. Around 10am the doc came in and saw me said everything looked good he would like to see me in about 2 weeks and that I was to take Toprol and a daily Aspirin. I ended up leaving the hospital around 12:10 just 20 minutes to spare before the eye doctors appointment. So went to the eye doctor and he said my eyes look fine and the Lasik surgery scar is barely visible. So I ended up getting home and being so happy to be home because I can actually do stuff. I was told to take it easy and not over extort myself. I ended up just sitting on the computer catching up with friends and making about 30 million phone calls. I ended up going to bed really early because I was just so exhausted. Woke up on Thursday around 10am and just finished cleaning up all the stuff I was going to take care of on Monday. I started to finish up some phone calls and scheduled my TEE test and EEG test. Originally I was told the TEE test would be done on Friday. Around 5pm they called me and said the Doc was unavailable and they would like to do it on Wednesday of next week. My EEG test is scheduled for Thursday because they couldn't fit me in at all. Then later that day I called in for the normal staff meeting we have on Wednesday that got rescheduled. And then at 6pm I ended up calling in for the All staff meeting which we discussed a lot of changes. I ended up getting disconnected half way through the call so I paged my boss and he said to forget it and we will catch up on Monday. So Friday I ended up just sitting around even more bored out of my mind. I started to read up on eating healthier and quitting smoking. Saturday I ended up going out and buying a couple cooking books and making a shopping list. After I was done planning the whole next week I had almost 1 page of stuff to buy. So I went to Meijer and started shopping it almost took me 2 hours to find all the crap I needed. A lot of fresh food and veggies. So I got home and cooked barbecue chicken. Around 9pm I heard a shit load of cops and the fire department coming. So I grabbed my pager and ended up hearing there was a dumpster fire in my complex. So I went over talked to the crew. Deids ended up calling me asking if I wanted to come keep her company at work since she was working at the Bar. We ended up chilling out there and playing a game of bowling which I sucked at. We then left and went over to Gavin's house. We chilled out there for a while. I ended up passing out around 2am. Woke up around 11am and just sat around there until 1. Ended up at home and I started to cook some Cincinnati Turkey Chili which was pretty damm good. I ended up passing out and then woke up to finish this blog. So now that I'm on this eating healthy kick I figured I would post some photos of my kitchen now.      

    So as you can see fresh food and healthier frozen food and Veggies which I never had in my apartment except when Jeremiah lived here. So I'm off to bed figured I would give an update on what's going on.