Hiatus

I hate to admit it but I think the blog has come to a halt. It was always tough to find time for it with all the other activities of life, but now I've added going back to school to the list so there is even less time for non-essentials.

So I'll keep the blog visible for those who want to see some of the research, travels and book reviews, but realistically I don't think I'll be able to blog much anymore. I still review books for Civil War News and will post those reviews here as well, but that is also an area I'll be cutting back on.

Maybe when I'm done with my MBA in 18 months I'll be able to restart the blog, but I can make no promises there. I'd love to use my MBA in a history related field so maybe that will eventually become a good topic for the blog.

Goodbye for now, I hope to be around again, maybe at the end of the MBA program or maybe sooner. I'll still be around reading others' blogs and keeping up on what's new, just won't have the time to be an active contributor here.

Matthew Archer

Its taken me awhile to get the time to make this post but nearly two weeks ago my son was born. Matthew Archer joined this world at 2:01 PM on June 30th. He weighed 6 pounds and 7 ounces, and was 18.5 inches long. Things were not 100% normal or easy but when my wife was released three days later we were able to bring Matthew home at the same time so it worked out fine in the end. I took the last week off of work so I could have some bonding time, plus help my wife while she recovered. This week I'm back to work and already missing the little guy. I'm looking forward to this evening when I'll be back home with my two sons and wife.

I could share a ton of pictures but I'll only bother you with three. The first is Matthew when he was just 30 minutes old.

Finally after three days in the NICU our other son was able to hold his brother for the first time. He wasn't allowed in the NICU so the best he got was seeing him once for a minute through a window. He really wanted to see and hold his little brother so once we were cleared to leave the hospital we took a few minutes in the room so big brother could hold little brother. In the last 12 days I think he has worn his big brother shirt on 4-5 of them. He is a protective of his little brother and is going to be a great big brother.

And here is Matthew during his first evening home.

Sorry for the absence of late

This past month (or two) I have been buckling down on my manuscript. So while I focused on that this blog ended up getting little of my attention. Its amazing how long some of the little things added up time wise on the manuscript. But now its done. All I need to do is print and send.


So hopefully I'll be able to give the blog the time it deserves again. One thing I want to do right off the bat is do some short book reviews. You can see to the right that there is quite a few books that I've read for Civil War News. All of those reviews have been written, I'm just waiting for them to be published in the newspaper and then I'll post the whole review here. In the meantime though I wanted to give a short review of those books on here so that you would not have to wait months to find out if the book is worthwhile. Those short reviews will be the next thing I start putting on here.


And we're in the home stretch for the baby's arrival. They will definitely induce on July 1st if the baby has not arrived by then. At the beginning of June I thought for sure the baby would come before July 1st but now I'm thinking that he is going to be an ornery child and will arrive on July 1st. And long ago we decided on Matthew Archer. We liked Matthew and then my wife decided she would be open to a Civil War connected middle name. So one night I pulled Coddington's Gettysburg off the shelf and read her the order of battle. She liked Archer, for Confederate General James Archer. I wanted Braxton for Braxton Bragg, who I think was not nearly as bad as everyone makes him out. But Archer sounds good and as it turns out Archer is probably best remembered for being the first Confederate general in Lee's army to be captured and it happened on July 1st by the 2nd Wisconsin. So besides having a Civil War connection we will also have a connection to Wisconsin (where all my family is from) might also have a connection to July 1st.

Life

Sorry for the dearth of posts lately. I've been kept busy working on a manuscript that I hope to have finished soon. Plus I've been fine tuning a presentation I'm giving to the Rocky Mountain Civil War Round Table next week.

And of course there is the more important things like trying to get ready for the baby. The doctor intends to induce labor at the end of June so a July 1st birth is quite likely. The nursery is nearly ready. We've been waiting for the crib to arrive, apparently we selected the slowest company in the world, this Saturday it'll be 17 weeks since we ordered it. Then I can hang some pictures and shelves on the walls and get things finished. Last weekend was the baby shower so now most things we need are here. I think all we're really missing is a high chair and we can wait on that for a little while.

Things should clear up next week after the round table presentation. And then hopefully by the end of the month the manuscript will be complete. So once I start to free up times for better posts the baby will come and the blog will be the furthest thing from my mind. I'll try to build up a supply of posts so that there won't be a precipitate drop off here in July.

Thanks for your understanding.

A great day

Yesterday was a great day, I'd say one of the best days of my life. I'm not sure if I've talked about it much here but my son is not my biological son. But yesterday the court revoked his biological father's rights and allowed me to adopt him. In 6-8 weeks the government will even issue a new birth certificate most likely to make all the necessary name changes easier to make. A six year old doesn't have his name on a lot but there are a variety of things that need to be changed. But its official now, we have court documents to that fact and made the change at school already.

So while there is a new Kurtz man (officially now, he's been using Kurtz for over a year) the most important part here was not the name change. Now if, heaven forbid, something were to happen to my wife I wouldn't also have to worry about losing my son. I'm the only father he's ever known and tearing apart the family would be devastating to both of us. Now we do not have that worry. We are forever joined. Plus now we do not have to deal with the harassment from afar. If we wanted to we would never have to listen to another word out of his mouth. Truthfully we will probably send a picture once a year with a little update but we are legally obligated to do nothing at all.

The best day of my life was the day I got married but yesterday is a very close second. Of course another big day will be coming up near the end of June when we welcome a second baby into the family. I truly have a blessed life.

And FYI, all comments for all posts on this blog are moderated (due to Chinese spammers) so if you feel that no biological father should ever lose his rights, not matter if he asks for it himself or makes no effort to even call his son, don't bother leaving a comment. I'm willing to post comments that question my Civil War research but in this case follow your mother's advice, "if you don't anything nice to say don't say anything at all."

4th Infantry Division

Yesterday I had to get plates for my new car. Instead of getting the plain old standard plates I got plates for the 4th Infantry Division, based at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs. I thought the plates were more interesting plus it supports our troops. Additionally there is a Civil War connection.

The 4th has four brigades and in each brigade is an infantry battalion, the fourth brigade has two battalions. These infantry battalions trace their history to the Civil War. There are two battalions of the 8 and 12th Infantry Regiments. Both units served with the Army of the Potomac. There is one battalion of the 22nd Infantry Regiment, which actually started its history as the 2nd Battalion of the 13th Regiment. The 13th Regiment's motto is "First at Vicksburg" although it appears that the 2nd battalion spent more of its time in Missouri than in the army under Sherman and Grant.

There are also three squadrons of the 10th Cavalry Regiment, the Buffalo Soldiers, in the division but that's a post war regiment.

Its gonna be a boy!

Monday we went in for an 18 week ultrasound and the little baby looks very good. They measured all sorts of things and he's running a few days small but that's not a big deal. But the most important thing to come out of it was that the baby is a boy. So now we can focus on picking the name. Plus I can paint the room the appropriate color and once we start buying clothes and things they don't need to be unisex anymore.

The early front runners for name are:
John Paul Braxton
Thomas John
Matthew Archer

But our tastes change daily so the final decision may not have any of those names in it. But it feels good to finally be serious about a name.

Update

Sorry for the hiatus of late, I've been busy getting bedrooms ready for the expanding family. Our office has been transformed into a bedroom for our son. I'm finally done with that and will move him into it this weekend. Then I will start on turning his old room into the nursery.

With some luck we might find out the gender of the baby next Monday. Then we can start figuring out the name. We've thrown a lot of ideas out there but until we actually know the gender it seems hard to really pick the name. My wife is open to Braxton as a middle name for a boy. I think if the baby comes on July 4th we need to do a patriotic name, like George Ulysses for the twin Union victories of 1863. My wife is not as convinced on that one. If its a girl we've grown fond of Olivia lately but there is still many months for us to change our mind.

When I've had free time lately I've been fine tuning a manuscript. The likelihood of it getting published looks very promising as it will be part of a series from a publisher, but nothing is ever guaranteed. So for the time being I've decided to shelve my plans for using createspace. I got a lot of good feedback from my post. On one end was the advice that my work is good enough for a real publisher, that I've got to just keep working at it and one day the chips will fall into place. On the other end was practical advice on how to go the self publishing route and turn out a product that would look very professional.

An exciting job opportunity in the Civil War community came my way. I'm one of many applicants and the job really won't be open for a little while yet, but I am excited for the opportunity and maybe I'll be lucky enough to get it.

On a sad note I am getting rid of my truck because I need a car that can handle two car seats. I've had that truck 10 or 11 years now (its a 1990) and even took it back to Chickamauga once for a great two week trip camping out. I'm gonna miss the truck but I'm excited that I've already found its replacement, a 2000 Land Rover, and I look forward to getting some Tennessee mud on it in the future.

Big news

There are times when great news can be shared with just a few words, this is one of those times. My wife is pregnant!!

Its still pretty early, due date will be mid July, but my wife said its okay to spread the news. Its been tough keeping the news quiet as long as I have, which truthfully has not been very long.

I'm super excited. Right now I can't think of the words to describe how excited I am.

Expect a post every so often over the next several months to have some sort of update on her progress.

Diabetes Charity Walk

For the third consecutive year I will be participating in the "Step Out" Diabetes charity walk in Denver. Its a great walk to be part of. We walk through an interesting old part of Denver along the Platte River and Cherry Creek (in this area gold was discovered in 1858 spurring a rush in 1859 that forced the creation of Colorado as a territory); there are always interesting vendors and games to play, plus we raise money to find a cure for diabetes.

Diabetes is a unique disease in that each person who has it reacts differently to the various medications and lifestyle changes prescribed. Some medications work wonders for some people but not at all for others. Finding what works and what doesn’t takes time. There is no cure, just various methods of controlling diabetes. I worry that someday I might get this disease because of my family history. I worry about the health of my wife too as she struggles daily with diabetes.

The Center for Disease Control says that 23.6 million Americans suffered from diabetes in 2007. This was 7.8% of our population. They also estimate that roughly 57 million Americans had pre-diabetes conditions. That means about a quarter of this country (over 80 million people) currently deals with diabetes in some form, although for many of them they do not realize the condition they are in. In 2007 it was estimated that over 1 million people were diagnosed with diabetes each year so in the two years since the CDC released its latest numbers the total number infected is now even higher.

As I said before, my wife has diabetes. If you’ve never been around a diabetic than you have no idea how big a part of their life it is. Everything my wife does has to be considered in light of the diabetes. This is much more than just constantly monitoring her blood sugar levels, and what she eats or when to take insulin. Some things are simple and require no thought. But other things require a bit more vigilance from her. And by now she's been dealing with Type 1 Diabetes long enough that she knows what she can and cannot eat, and what she must do to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Doing the charity walk will be a small step from me in fighting this disease. But obviously I cannot do much alone. I’m asking for your support. You can help by donating directly to the American Diabetes Association, participating in a walk in your hometown, or contact a legislator about a variety of diabetes related bills. I don’t mean this to sound like begging for dollars. If you donate to the American Diabetes Association at all I will be happy, if your donation is for my walk that’d be great but not necessary. If this just makes you have your own blood sugar tested to see if you are at risk, or might already have diabetes, that’d be great too. Mostly I’m hoping to raise a little awareness with this post and if in the process some money gets donated to the American Diabetes Association for research for a cure that would be wonderful.

Diabetes is currently the 7th leading cause of death as listed on death certificates. The CDC though thinks that this is under reported as 35-40% of diabetics didn't have their diabetes listed at all on the death certificate and only 10-15% of diabetics listed diabetes as the primary cause of death. Most likely the other 85-90% of diabetics deaths were attributed to some of the things diabetes does to your body; like heart disease and kidney disease. Diabetes also causes high blood pressure, blindness (the leading cause of new blindness cases for the over 20 crowd) and nervous system disease (primarily a loss of sensation in the feet).

All of this scares me. It seems to me that if I can maintain a healthy lifestyle (or in my case do some improvements to get back to healthy and then walk the straight path again) and prevent type 2 diabetes that likely the other health problems will take care of themselves too. The life style that would prevent type 2 diabetes would also be healthy enough to prevent heart and kidney disease, assuming no other factors like family history.

Also I've said a bit about type 1 and type 2 diabetes but have not really defined it. The easiest way I know how to describe it is that in Type 2 diabetes you can "control" it with diet and exercise. You may have to take insulin but diet and exercise will also help lower your blood sugar level. In fact some people with Type 2 can diet and exercise enough that they can stop taking insulin. Type 1 diabetics do not have this luxury. Diet and exercise do still help them but they will always have to take insulin. Their pancreas just does not produce enough of it. With diet and exercise they may have to take a little less insulin but they will have to do daily injections, or have an insulin pump for the rest of their lives.

Beyond my wife, type 2, I've had other diabetics in my family. Most of them have had type 2, which happens to many Americans as we age. I'm sure the Wisconsin lifestyle of everything fried, with plenty of cheese and butter has not helped prevent my family members from getting diabetes as they aged. I'm guilty of that one too, I love cheese and I loved things fried, I love fried cheese too. My dad's mom had diabetes. I'm not sure how old I was but when I was young she had to have part of her leg amputated and my only memories of her are laying in a hospital bed at home. When we went there on vacation I spent a lot of time in her room, watching tv and talking. I know from pictures that there were vacations where she had two full legs and played with me. The first time I saw those pictures I was kinda shocked because I had no memory of that at all. Eventually she died of a heart attack but since heart disease is one of the things that diabetes causes her heart attack was probably diabetes related.

For more information visit the American Diabetes Association online. To donate to the walk I’ll be participating in go to my page.

Four Mile House

As promised weeks ago, for Fourth of July I took the aide-de-camp to Four Mile House for their annual celebration. I knew he'd enjoy it as there are always a lot of activities for the kids, plus he would get to see Civil War soldiers and Abe Lincoln.

Four Mile House is located four miles from downtown Denver and was named Four Mile House back when there was no downtown Denver, it was just Denver (or Denver City on some old maps). I've heard that this house is where the remains of the Hungate family were deposited by the Indians after their brutal killing east of town. It seems odd for the Indians to bring the bodies in when they could have just left them on the prairie and not run the risk of another fight near town so I doubt that story. The Hungate Massacre (the family was not just killed but chopped up) is what brings the citizens of Denver to a fever pitch against the Indians in 1864 and precipitates the Sand Creek Massacre. Before I get some angry comments, I'm not saying it justifies it I'm simply pointing out what was happening that year that prompted Denver's citizens to raise a regiment to fight Indians and culminated in a sad incident at Sand Creek.

In any respect the grounds of Four Mile House are now tranquil and are filled with reenactors of all sorts. There were mountain men and Sioux Indians, blacksmiths and suffragettes, and Civil War soldiers and Abe Lincoln.
I didn't get a picture of Lincoln as my son was a little nervous and didn't want his picture taken with Old Abe. Later he was in the mood but Abe was not in his tent, must have been having lunch. Abe has a wonderful sense of humor. While we were talking with him a soldier asked him to move as we were sorta downrange of the artillery that was going to fire off soon. Lincoln told the crowd that they should move, but that he was less worried about cannons; it was the small guns, like a derringer, that he was more scared of. The joke passed right over the head of the crowd but I enjoyed a little chuckle.

There were also carriage rides, wood crafts, kids games and an old time kitchen display. We got to churn some butter and squeeze some lemonade. The apple peeler/corer/slicer was already out of apples but we got to see what the final result was. My son enjoyed it all. He thought the cannon and rifles were too loud but he loved watching the blacksmith, he got to make a wooden race car and he enjoyed the carriage ride too.

At this point he was hot and tired, plus he just didn't want a picture taken, but he humored me somewhat.

Hiatus

My mom is sick. I don't want to share specifics but sick enough that she'll spend the next week in the hospital. So my thoughts are not with the Civil War right now. I'll blog again when things are looking up and my mind can focus once again. Not sure when that'll be but I'll post here next Monday if its gonna be two weeks away from the blog.

Randy Gradishar

Last night I had a truly special moment. Not Civil War related but a special moment for me. I got to meet Randy Gradishar, linebacker for the famed Denver Broncos defense "Orange Crush." Randy now works for the Phil Long car dealerships in their community outreach organization. They provide grants to non profit organizations that benefit children. My parents purchased a new Saturn a few months ago and the dealership invited them for a dinner with Randy. My mother was sick so I got to go instead.

Randy was one of my favorite players. My grandparents sent me a huge plush gorilla when I was around 4 years old. I named it Gradishar. I still fondly remember the Orange Crush defense of the late 70s and early 80s.

I must say that Randy is one of the nicest people you will ever meet. Over the years I've meet quite a few Broncos and some have been nice guys and some were not friendly at all. Randy definitely is in the former category. Around town he is more of a celebrity than in other cities but he acts like he's your best friend, like he's not a celebrity of any sort.

I don't want to get into all the stats but Randy Gradishar should be in the Hall of Fame. If he had played in Pittsburg or Oakland or New York he probably would have been inducted years ago. But the Hall of Fame voters ignore Denver players.

Anyway, it was a great time and I just wanted to share my good fortune of meeting a childhood hero. Sometimes when we meet our childhood heroes we find out that they are not nice people but this definitely was not the case.

I had him autograph a helmet for me too. I'm trying to convince my wife to give it a place of honor on the mantel but don't think that'll happen. Oh well, I'm glad just to have it.

I'm back

As I stated in my last post I was on vacation last week. My grandmother’s 80th birthday was March 13th so we went back there to surprise her. My parents had flown out earlier in the week to give her a party but no one knew we were coming too. We drove through the night and got to Oshkosh, Wisconsin in time for the party and gave everyone a surprise they won’t soon forget. That weekend we also saw many of my cousins on my father’s side. They had met my wife and son last year at my grandfather’s funeral but this was a much better reunion.

Saturday we went to the National Railroad Museum in Green Bay. My son loves trains so he was in hog heaven. He got to climb on many old trains. There were not any trains from the Civil War but there were some interesting things to see anyway. Later that day we stopped at one of Oshkosh’s Civil War monuments, this one is for Camp Bragg that gave soldiers of the 21st and 32nd Wisconsin Infantry their first brush with the realities of being a soldier.

Later in the week we started to head home but had decided we would not drive straight through. Somehow I convinced my family to detour through Springfield, Illinois so I could soak up some Lincoln history. Time was of the essence so I decided to just see the new Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum (I would only do the museum part). It’s a great place. You follow the life of Lincoln from boy to death. Springfield is amazing. It was a last minute addition to our trip so I hadn’t planned for it at all. I had no list of things to see. After the museum I ran through a few sites downtown like his law office and the Old State Capitol where he gave his House Divided speech. It was obvious that there is a ton to do in Springfield but I didn’t have the time so I grabbed brochures and hope to get back when I can devote 2 or 3 days as that’s what I think it will really require to do a good tour of Springfield.

Then we headed down the road towards home. We passed around St. Louis, which is an accomplishment as the last time I went through St. Louis I had to get a different car to complete the journey. The next morning I convinced everyone to stop at Lecompton, Kansas. There we saw Constitution Hall and the Territorial Capital Museum. These were both neat to see. I’m glad I went to Lecompton but I doubt I’d go back unless I heard about some new exhibits or something similar.

Some shots from the road:

Grandpa driving Big Boy (world's largest steam engine)

A big boy driving something not as big as the Big Boy

Stuck in the top of the caboose

"Trains and cannons in the same day?! Wow!"

Lincoln showing the way to his museum

Constitutional Hall

No posts this week

I'm in Wisconsin this week for vacation so there will be no posts. When I return I'll have a few posts of Wisconsin monuments and the like but nothing while I'm away.

I had wanted to post this last week but the reason I'm in Wisconsin is that we came out to surprise my grandmother for her 80th birthday. My mother and father had come out earlier in the week to surprise her too. But my mother did not know that my family was coming as well. So we got to do a double surprise. But if I had posted here last week I was going to be gone my mother would have known our plans.

Las Vegas

I just got back from a wonderful weekend in Vegas. My wife took me there for my birthday. Going there and going to the NASCAR race on Sunday were my presents. Beyond that it was nice for the two of us to go somewhere alone for the weekend and relax. It was my first trip to Vegas and my first race.

We flew in Friday night and our first stop was In and Out Burger. I’ve never been there before as that chain has not made its way to Colorado. It was a good burger. Then we drove the strip a bit just taking in the sights. Then we went to the Fremont Street Experience, saw both shows, played a little blackjack and hit Jack in the Box for a late snack (we have Jack in the Box in Colorado but very few). If its not clear by now I travel on my stomach and my wife is a willing participant, when we visit family in Wisconsin and Illinois we both have lists of places or foods we hope to have time to get to while we’re there.

Saturday we headed out to Hoover Dam. Its neat. I doubt I’d do it again unless its been 10 years or so but I definitely enjoyed it. We did the extended tour which took you into the dam itself. I think that was worth the extra money. The tour guide does say dam a bit too much. Yes, we all get the joke, you get to say dam all day long, its like you’re swearing but you’re not. But after a half hour of “I’m your dam guide,” “down this dam tunnel,” “there sure are a lot of dam stairs,” “everyone on the dam elevator,” “you can walk along the dam road,” it gets tiresome.

I couldn’t find any Civil War related markers or monuments but the lake formed by Hoover Dam is named Lake Meade, oh wait its actually Lake Mead. Named for Elwood Mead who headed the Bureau of Reclamation when Hoover Dam was built (then known as Boulder Dam).

That night we had dinner at the Top of World in the Stratosphere; its on the 104th floor, or something around there, 104 not being much different from 106. That was fantastic which is odd to say because I hate heights. The restaurant rotates around so you get a great view of the entire Vegas area. Then my wife played a poker tournament and missed the money spot by one player, but finishing 6th in a field of 55plus isn’t something to feel bad about although she was disappointed to miss the payday by one player.

Sunday we spent nearly the entire day at the race. If you’re a NASCAR fan you have to go see one race in person in your lifetime. The whole thing is quite the experience from people watching to the actual race. The speed and sound do not translate to the tv at all. We sat in row 2, which is actually cheaper seats. I don’t think I’d want higher seats. Each time a car passed a little bit of tire rubber landed on us. These were tiny pieces, like grains of sand. You didn’t realize it had hit you until you rubbed your pants and felt them or rubbed your arm and smeared it on your skin. The cars provide a steady wind so that when the stands were covered by the shade it got pretty cold. Our ear plugs were pretty good so we didn’t get a headache at all, nor any lingering hearing loss. We also took a bus from the hotel to the track so we didn’t have to fight traffic. The buses took a route through Nellis Air Force base that was closed off to other traffic so a half hour after we left the stands we were back in the hotel, I doubt anyone on the highway did it in that time, probably not under an hour. So there’s a special tip for you, if you go to the race in Vegas pay extra for a bus ride, it’ll save you time and aggravation. Earlier in the day I had wanted to place a bet on Kyle Busch but I’m not a big gambler and my wife thought a $5 bet seemed silly. So I didn’t do it, so of course Kyle Busch won. I already was a Kyle Busch fan but this cinched it for me. I’m not sure if I’ll ever get to another race but I’d love to go again. Maybe if my son is still into racecars when he’s a bit older I’ll take him. I’m not sure if we’d do Vegas or go to a more historic track like Martinsville.

Our final day we took easy. We slept in, when to a lunch buffet and played some craps. Unfortunately I think that’s a game I could get hooked on. Poker and black jack don’t do much for me. The people playing roulette looked bored and unhappy. But craps was fun.

I'm back

I hope you all had a happy holidays. I'm finally back to the blogging world. I had originally intended to start a series on Stones River in late December to coincide with the anniversary of the battle, but that got pushed to the back burner during the busy last few weeks of the year. But I'm back now and will commence that series tomorrow, probably the next dozen or so posts to cover the battle. If you like Stones River then this will be a good January on this blog for you.

I had a good Christmas and New Year's. On Christmas Eve we had dinner with my parents, then met all my wife's family for a get together at a brother's house. On Christmas day we had our parents, and my grandmother, over for presents and a big dinner. There was food for twice as many people as came, in fact I still have a few leftovers. But I love ham so that's not a problem at all.

New Year's Eve we spent with a few of my wife's siblings at a bar. It was a good time, a bit tired by the end of the night but we had a good time. I bet I ate more than I drank, which seems odd. Now that the holidays are over I can try to lose that weight and get back in shape, we'll see, maybe it'll work, maybe it won't.

Among my many Christmas presents were two I wanted to share with you tonight. One is that I got a new laptop, much more modern than my last laptop, or desktop for that matter. It even has a webcam so I could take a picture of me typing this blog, as I'm doing it on my laptop this very moment. The second present is that my wife got me this print:It is "The General's Farewell" by David Wright and depicts Forrest and Cleburne talking outside the Harrison House. Hood and Cheatham are on the porch. Hood has just chewed out these generals again for the Spring Hil affair. In a few hours the battle of Franklin will take place and Cleburne will lose his life leading his men from the front. I own three other Civil War prints, the 6th Mississippi at Shiloh, Cleburne at Chickamauga and Cleburne at Tunnel Hill (unframed). By accident I started a series of Cleburne prints and now it continues by design. The new print already has a place of honor above the fireplace.

Diabetes Walk Recap

The diabetes walk was a success. I raised $195, which was more than last year. I think our team total is over $800 (a few envelopes have not come in yet). We had 7 walkers (plus one in a stroller) this year which was 2 more than last year, but we had 4 walkers drop out the day before the event so we nearly had double our 2007 turnout. All the pictures are on my dad's camera so I don't have any yet to share but will do so later this week. Thank you to everyone who donated to the American Diabetes Association, whether it was sponsoring me or donating to the walk in your area.

Diabetes Charity Walk

Last year I participated in the "Step Out" Diabetes charity walk with my then-girlfriend. I had a great time and raised some money to help fund a cure for diabetes. This year I'll be walking again and this time she's my wife.


When I did the walk last year I had some idea of what being diabetic was like. I had been dating my girlfriend for about 6 months so I had been around it a bit. This past January we bought a house and I can honestly tell you I had no idea what its like for her.


I knew she had to constantly monitor her blood sugar levels, and eat or take insulin accordingly. But it goes well beyond that. Everything she does has to be considered in light of the diabetes. Some things are simple and require no thought. But other things require a bit more vigilance from her. And by now she's been dealing with Type 1 Diabetes long enough that she knows what she can and cannot eat, and what she must do to maintain a healthy lifestyle.


Diabetes is a unique disease in that each person who has it reacts differently to the various medications and lifestyle changes prescribed. Some medications work wonders for some people but not at all for others. Finding what works and what doesn’t takes time. There is no cure, just various methods of controlling diabetes. I worry that someday I might get this disease because of my family history. I worry about the health of my wife too as she struggles daily with diabetes.

Doing the charity walk will be a small step from me in fighting this disease. But obviously I cannot do much alone. I’m asking for your support. You can help by donating directly to the American Diabetes Association, participating in a walk in your hometown, or contact a legislator about a variety of diabetes related bills. I don’t mean this to sound like begging for dollars. If you donate to the American Diabetes Association at all I will be happy, if your donation is for my walk that’d be great but not necessary. If this just makes you have your own blood sugar tested to see if you are at risk, or might already have diabetes, that’d be great too. Mostly I’m hoping to raise a little awareness with this post and if in the process some money gets donated to the American Diabetes Association for research for a cure that would be wonderful.

The Center for Disease Control says that 23.6 million Americans suffered from diabetes in 2007. This was 7.8% of our population. They also estimate that roughly 57 million Americans had pre-diabetes conditions. That means about a quarter of this country currently deals with diabetes in some form, although for many of them they do not realize the condition they are in. You may have heard during this past year that Denver Broncos quarterback Jay Cutler has been diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes (the same type as my wife). [Trust me, if you watch a Broncos game at any point this year you'll hear about Cutler's diabetes. I'm all for educating the public about diabetes, especially the differences between type 1 and 2, but for those of us living in Denver we've heard quite a bit about Cutler and diabetes.] He played all last year with it, not understanding why he was losing weight and was so tired all the time. Finally during the off season a blood test was performed as part of end of year team physical. Now he wears an insulin pump to control his blood sugar levels.

Diabetes is currently the 7th leading cause of death as listed on death certificates. The CDC though thinks that this is under reported as 35-40% of diabetics didn't have their diabetes listed at all on the death certificate and only 10-15% of diabetics listed diabetes as the primary cause of death. Most likely the other 85-90% of diabetics deaths were attributed to some of the things diabetes does to your body; like heart disease and kidney disease. Diabetes also causes high blood pressure, blindness (the leading cause of new blindness cases for the over 20 crowd) and nervous system disease (primarily a loss of sensation in the feet).

All of this scares me. It seems to me that if I can maintain a healthy lifestyle (or in my case do some improvements to get back to healthy and then walk the straight path again) and prevent type 2 diabetes that likely the other health problems will take care of themselves too. The life style that would prevent type 2 diabetes would also be healthy enough to prevent heart and kidney disease, assuming no other factors like family history.

Also I've said a bit about type 1 and type 2 diabetes but have not really defined it. The easiest way I know how to describe it is that in Type 2 diabetes you can "control" it with diet and exercise. You may have to take insulin but diet and exercise will also help lower your blood sugar level. In fact some people with Type 2 can diet and exercise enough that they can stop taking insulin. Type 1 diabetics do not have this luxury. Diet and exercise do still help them but they will always have to take insulin. Their pancreas just does not produce enough of it. With diet and exercise they may have to take a little less insulin but they will have to do daily injections, or have an insulin pump for the rest of their lives.

Beyond my wife, type 2, I've had other diabetics in my family. Most of them have had type 2, which happens to many Americans as we age. I'm sure the Wisconsin lifestyle of everything fried, with plenty of cheese and butter has not helped prevent my family members from getting diabetes as they aged. I'm guilty of that one too, I love cheese and I loved things fried, I love fried cheese too. My dad's mom had diabetes. I'm not sure how old I was but when I was young she had to have part of her leg amputated and my only memories of her are laying in a hospital bed at home. When we went there on vacation I spent a lot of time in her room, watching tv and talking. I know from pictures that there were vacations where she had two full legs and played with me. The first time I saw those pictures I was kinda shocked because I had no memory of that at all. Eventually she died of a heart attack but since heart disease is one of the things that diabetes causes her heart attack was probably diabetes related.

For more information visit the American Diabetes Association online. To donate to the walk I’ll be participating in go to my page.

My Wedding

I thought I'd share a few pics of the happy day with all of you. Consider it a brief blip in the radar of Civil War posts. I have to thank Angie for these wonderful pictures, she is an incredible photographer and a good friend.

Just us goofing around.






From left to right: Cheyenne, Tessa, Annie, Erin, Jess, me, Mike, Matt, Stephen and Kyle. Cheyenne and Tessa are the daughters of Jess's youngest brother (who is older than Jess). Annie is Jess' younger sisiter. Erin is her best friend. Mike and Matt are real good buddies who've been with me on many Civil War excursions. Stephen is Mike's oldest son (and a real good guy who I think might start joining us on our trips in the future). Kyle is the son of Jess' oldest brother.


Some candid moments before the ceremony. We took pictures in a park before hand so that we could get plenty of pictures and not be rushed in the small time frame between the ceremony and the reception.




The beautiful bride about to be given away.


It was brutally hot at the alter that day. That window behind us really poured the afternoon son on us. The AC could have been set lower but it still would have been hot.




Our first dance. I limped around the floor as best I could. I'm not a good dancer. Actually calling me a dancer of any sort is an insult to dancers. But I struggled out there more than a few times and ended up dancing with most of the women in my life.


Us listening to Mike give his toast.