We will rule the galaxy together

How do you retain great developers?

2011-12-20T07:03:00.004-05:00

There is a difference between an average developer and a great developer. The difference is easy to see. A great developer learns extra on the side by attending conferences, user groups, and has side projects to learn new technologies. Average developers clock out at five and don't touch the computer again until the next morning. Great developers are better than average developers because their knowledge can improve an organization's competitiveness in the marketplace and increase efficiencies for processes which reduce costs.

In my opinion here are the top three motivations of a great developer to make them stay:

1. Challenge with new technology = growth and marketability.
I met a cashier at a local grocery store. I was shocked to find out he was a former COBOL programmer. He told me he was making 25% of what he had made as a developer and that he couldn't find a job. Since then it is always in the back of my mind that I need to not only learn, but get experience in cutting edge technology or I might become a cashier at a grocery store. Everyone knows that five years from now, companies will be asking for five years experience in whatever technology just came out. If your organization or a consulting assignment is stuck with old technology and there is no plan to move to new technology, your good developers will leave. I have seen this over and over again where consultants are placed on an ancient technology assignment and they leave their consulting company. I have seen entire development departments leave because management made a decision that it was too costly to move to a newer technology. I have seen businesses go under because all of their technical knowledge went out the door.

2. Treated Fairly.
Everyone wants to be treated fairly. This can be broken down into three areas:
2a. A developer has the tools necessary to do his job. A PC that is no more than two years old and 8GB of memory, a comfortable chair, a comfortable temperature, two monitors so he can look at requirements on one, and code on the other, and Re-sharper.
2b. Performance reviews that are fair. It is not only about having a cost of living increase. Developers need to feel that they are making a difference. If your review process, is 100 metrics with "meets expectations" wording; it is flawed. The problem with a lot of metrics is that great developers will be reviewed as being average. The problem with "meets expectations" wording is the same. Managers can say things like, well I expected you to do great so you just meet expectations. Great developers will be treated unfairly as average developers.
2c. Benefits that are fair. Companies that take away benefits or salary that have been earned by developers through years of service or position in order to save money to look better to stock holders will see an arterial bleed of developers leaving. If there is comp time, it should be one to one; or more than one to one if it is a holiday.

3. Management that can be trusted.
I love John Maxwell's book on Leadership. Trust is like earning and spending pocket change. Good decisions earn trust for a manager, bad decisions spend trust for a manager. At some point the last bad decision is made, and the manager is out of pocket change. If the manager is not fired, the great developers simply leave the organization.

Are you a developer? What motivates you to stay at a company?

Ninja .NET Database Pro Version 2 Released

2011-11-28T10:17:00.001-05:00

Ninja .NET Database Pro Version 2 has been released by Kellerman Software. New features include caching, triggers, increased performance and more.

.NET Database

Batten down the hatches for a double dip recession

2011-08-23T13:05:00.003-04:00

Whatever you did with your business in 2009 to keep afloat; It is time to do it again. The double dip recession is coming soon, or we may already be in a double dip recession.

When Lehman Brothers went under in 2008, my side business took a nose dive off a cliff from a sales perspective. In 2009, sales were down 15%, despite releasing new products and product upgrades. Recently the stock market has been wary of the downgrade of the U.S. credit rating from Standard & Poors and also the threat of the devaluation of the Euro due to the debt crisis in Greece. The media is also responsible for sensationalizing the doom and gloom. All that being said, my business has taken a nose dive again:

* Sales are off 80%.
* Prospects are virtually silent. Hardly anyone is asking questions about our products. That means future sales will continue to be lower.
* Existing customers are virtually silent. That means customers are doing less projects with our products.

I love this quote from one of my friends; "The predictions of economists make meteorologists look smart."

I am not an economist, all I can see is what is happening in my business. I just hope that the information technology sector does not decrease as a whole.

Vote for CDH

2011-06-13T10:40:00.001-04:00

Vote for CDH Research.

A Hard Business Lesson Learned at Stir Trek

2011-05-07T07:57:00.005-04:00

Yesterday I attended the Stir Trek developer conference. My company, Kellerman Software was the Refreshments sponsor. It was a fairly inexpensive advertising test, $500 for; a slick in the attendee bag, the company name on the website, a label on the popcorn bags, and the logo in the conference program. The graphics for the slick cost me $114, the slick printing cost $180, the labels $59, the label printing cost $22, and the popcorn bags $36. My wife and I spent two hours putting labels on popcorn bags on a Saturday (our time was considered free). All for a grand total of $911. The goal of the advertising was to get the attendees to purchase a $1400 product for only $99 (Ninja Database Ultimate). The end goal to acquire a new customer that would purchase other items in the future.

I watched people as they opened their attendee bags. I noticed that they did not look at any of the other sponsor material. When they saw the Kellerman Software slick, they read it and then put the attendee bag in their backpack or threw the attendee bag on the floor. I was excited to see that at least they had actually read the advertisement. I was hopeful at this point for a couple new customers from this conference.

When they received their popcorn, there were a bunch of people all at the same time, trying to scan the QR Code that I had put on the bag. Again I was excited about the prospect of new customers. This is what I heard from the row of seats that I was in and the row in front and behind me (they had no idea I was the Kellerman Software CEO):
* What is this thing on the bags?
* A $1400 product for only $99? This must be a joke.
* It probably cost the sponsor $1400 to put the labels on these popcorn bags.
* I can just use my database that I built.
* Ha ha, maybe you can sell your database for $600

I went on to tell the person in back row that the price wasn't a joke. I asked them if they thought it was a good deal. I told them I was the developer of the database. I could tell they were embarrassed at what they said and they replied with "Oh, great."

The person that was sitting next to me had developed a small database to save with JSON. He was upset with me and with Kellerman Software for selling a database. The only features that it had was CRUD. He went on and on about the performance. Of course with hardly any features the performance was high. There were no indexes, no foreign key relationships, no constraints, and no transactions. I guess that is fine if you are not writing a business application.

Clearly even though it is only the day after the conference, with reactions like that, I will not be selling a single license of Ninja Database Ultimate for $99. So was the $911 a complete waste of money? No. Why? Because of the lesson that I learned.

I thought it was maybe just me, the advertising, or maybe it was just too good of a deal. It was none of that. After lunch I heard a bunch of developers talking in disgust about the lunch presentation. Telerik had paid $2500 for the lunch sponsorship and the ability to give a 15 minute presentation. Telerik is a well respected control vendor that is in the top 10 in sales on component source. Here is what the attendees were saying:
* The lunch presentation was a waste
* Thank God the proctor in our room lowered the audio to 20%
* Phil is a good speaker but JustMock is clearly a rip off of Rhino Mocks
* Yeah, I bet if you use reflector you will just find Rhino Mocks in there

Hmmmm. So the reaction to a vendor that has just paid for their lunch is not gratitude but disgust? It is shocking that they accused a respected vendor of fraud. What is wrong with this picture? What is wrong with the attendees?

Most conference developers are business ignorant. The attendees, all software developers, have no idea about conference costs; nor should they. One CodeMash attendee said it best, "Wow these are pretty good buffets for only $110" It costs thousands of dollars to put on a conference. Without the sponsors it would be impossible to put them on.

Some developers believe all software should be free. A lot of the developers at these conferences are at the top of their game. They are always learning something new, they love open source projects, and have their own open source projects. There is a prevalent anti-commercial software attitude at these conferences.

Some developers are dishonest. Since the developers believe the software should be free they daily violate copyright laws by downloading pirated movies and running pirated software. I overheard one developer say recently that he had to start deleting movies from his 2 Terabyte Hard drive because it was filling up. One developer smirked as he said he was still "Evaluating" TestDriven.NET...forever. It doesn't stop at developers, IT managers are dishonest too; I have seen a lot of license violations over the years; a company buying a single developer Infragistics Suite license and using it for 10 developers, a company buying a single user license of Active Reports and using it with three developers. I still remember being laughed at when I told the other developers on my team that I bought WinZip to be honest. They continued to use the 30 day trial for months.

So some of the conference attendees, are business ignorant, dishonest, free loaders. So should this be my target audience? No! No! No! It took me 6 years to figure this out! Wow I feel so stupid just now connecting the dots. My business should target other companies and not developers. I should have known this from all my other advertising tests:
* Did the $10,000 I spent in print advertising work? Not a single person bought.
* Did the $2500 web advertisement on Code Project work? Not a single person bought.
* Did the $2000 SharpToolbox web advertisement work? Not a single person bought.
* Did the $2500 email advertisement on Code Project work? Not a single person bought.
* Did the $911 I spent at StirTrek work? Not a single person bought.
* Did Scott Hanselman's tweets work? Not a single person bought.

I asked one of the developers there if he was going to buy and he said "That is a $100 I don't have." The funny thing is he paid $35 to attend the conference and took the entire day off work to attend. I bet he gets paid more than $8.13 per hour.

Developers don't buy, companies do. Developers recommend but if you try to sell to them they are flat out angry. So with all this information I am going to change my strategy. I was originally intending to sponsor the local CONDG meeting and do some free give aways. The next goal was to sponsor and do give aways at all the INETA groups in North America. I can now see the reaction to that would not be gratefulness but disgust. Developers simply do not like being sold to at all.

Obviously the other control vendors in my industry haven't figured this out yet either as they are still ignorantly throwing money away by sponsoring these conferences. If someone from Telerik, Infragistics, or Component One is reading this, it would be best to stop throwing advertising into these conferences as it does not work. If you can, track sales for the conference; guaranteed it will be zero.

So you may still have the question in your mind. Is Ninja Database Ultimate really worth the $1400? No, actually it is worth $17,000. Over a period of 9 months I wrote 600 unit tests and paid a group of developers $17,000. Yeah, $99 for a $17,000 database is not that great of a deal.

Thus ends my rant. Thank you for allowing me to vent.

Comments?

#stirtrek @stirtrek

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 80

2011-01-11T16:04:00.002-05:00

Ugh, I just realized that I had updated Facebook but not the blog. Samuel came home on Christmas Eve. He is doing well. He is about 75% physically and emotionally compared to before. He is improving every day.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 79

2010-12-23T13:55:00.002-05:00

They took out the NG tube from Samuel last night. He started taking clear liquids this morning. If he drinks enough they will take out the IV.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 78

2010-12-22T15:20:00.003-05:00

Praise God, Samuel had two bowel movements today. He is also completely off oxygen. They also turned off the suction from the NG tube. The surgery practitioner said the NG tube could come out as soon as tonight. The next step is to wait a while and then they will start giving him clear liquids by mouth. Leyla's uncle and aunt are flying in from Puerto Rico tonight to help and to celebrate Christmas. It is going to be difficult not having Samuel at home for Christmas. The giant bull dozer toy is going to stay under the tree until Samuel comes home. We are very pleased with his progress. Thank you for your prayers and kind words.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 77

2010-12-21T11:32:00.001-05:00

Samuel is doing as well as can be expected. They have reduced his oxygen from 1 liter to .2 liter which is great. Yesterday he was getting about half the pain medication of the day before. Today he is off the continuous feed of pain medication and it is just as needed. We are walking Samuel around 3 times a day to try to get his intestines moving again. He will be given pedialyte as soon as he passes gas or has a bowel movement. I know this sounds like a funny request but could you pray that he passes gas or has a BM. That is the next phase of his recovery. He really likes to be held. Leyla and I are taking turns. More later.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 76

2010-12-19T08:59:00.003-05:00

The surgeons rounded today and I was able to ask them several questions. I am also going to try to answer some of the questions each of you have posted on facebook.

Did the vomiting cause the hernia or did the hernia cause the vomiting?
The intestine went up through a hole in the diaphragm and twisted. When the food got to the twist, it couldn't pass and caused the vomiting. The intestine went up in there over a period of months. This isn't something that happened overnight.

Why did the surgery take so long?
There was a lot of scar tissue on the liver from the previous surgery. The liver was actually attached to the intestine and to the abdomen wall. They had to cut the scar tissue off the liver and the intestine. The intestine was also attached to the abdomen wall. Samuel had to have a blood transfusion during surgery because his liver bled when they removed the scar tissue.

How big is the patch in the diaphragm?
On Samuel's right side, he has hardly any material left in his diaphragm. He does have a small rim but it is now mostly a gortex patch there. See the picture I posted on facebook.

Why is Samuel on so much oxygen?
Samuel is on a full liter of oxygen because he is breathing fast due to the surgery. The NG tube down his throat is also bothering him. To give you some history Samuel was completely off oxygen in January. Before that he was getting .2 Liter just at night.

How long is Samuel going to be in the hospital?
He is going to be here for 7 to 10 days or until he passes gas or has a bowel movement.

How long is it going to take for the incision to heal?
6 weeks.

When is he going to be able to eat again?
A few days.

There are two goals for today:
1. To remove the Foley (a Foley is like a catheter for boys). They just did that this morning.
2. To have him walk. Samuel's intestines are in shock from the surgery and we need to wake them up to get them working again.

Thank you for your prayers.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 75

2010-12-18T15:18:00.002-05:00

Leyla and I are in total shock and in kind of a daze. Forgive me if this post is incoherent. Samuel had three days of vomiting a week and a half ago. We took him to the ER and they said that there is a really bad virus going around. After a shot for Nausea Samuel recovered and had about four days where he was feeling well. We had a wonderful birthday party for Samuel. This past Wednesday Samuel started vomiting again. On Friday morning he was bent over screaming in pain. Leyla took him to urgent care at 12:30pm. I arrived at 1:30pm. They determined that Samuel was dehydrated and sent us to the ER for a fluid IV. After several hours they took an X-Ray and determined that Samuel had re-herniated. A couple loops of intestine had gone up into the chest cavity. He had surgery at 8:30pm to put the intestine back into the abdomen and sew up the hole. They were finished about 12:15am. The surgery took several hours because of all the scar tissue from the previous re-herniation. (Samuel had his second re-herniation in April 2010.) This time they put a gortex patch in his diaphragm. Hopefully this will prevent future rips in the diaphragm. Samuel is in the hospital now. They have him on morphine for the pain and an anti-itch medicine for the side effect of the morphine. He is also on 1 liter of oxygen in a cannula. His lungs are fine but he just needed some extra oxygen after the surgery. He is running a temp and they are giving him Tylenol for that. Samuel isn't too happy since he also has an Nasal Gastric (NG) tube down his throat to take out the fluid that accumulated in his stomach during surgery. Samuel is out of the NICU and in a regular room at the hospital. He will be in here a week since they had to reopen the incision plus a little more.

We are living this verse today:

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to [his] purpose.

Thank God that the herniation was found before something worse happened.
Thank God that my work was let out early on Friday and I was able to be with Leyla.
Thank God that a surgeon was available to do the Surgery on the same day.
Thank God for Gary and Linda Fisher who stood by our side in the Operating waiting room.
Thank God that Leyla's mom is on vacation and is able to help with the girls.
Thank God that Leyla's uncle is coming for Christmas on Wednesday so we will have even more hands to help.
Thank God that there is no RSV going around and the kids can visit Samuel.

Thank you for your prayers.

Sharing Calendars in Windows Phone 7

2010-12-16T09:10:00.003-05:00

My wife and I have two windows phones with separate windows live ids. We want to share calendars. This is especially important for us with all the doctors appointments that my son has.
The 1.0 version of Windows Phone 7 does not allow you to use the calendar sharing in either hotmail or live mail. I have confirmed this with Microsoft. (See calendar syncing). It also does not allow you to do calendar sharing with separate gmail accounts. You also cannot share a single hotmail calendar when you have two separate live ids. Google to the rescue. You can use a single gmail account and link it to two phones.

Here is the process:
1. Create a gmail account.
2. On both phones, in the windows phone settings add the gmail account. Under content to sync, unselect everything except Calendar.
3. On both phones, go to the calendar, click on the elipsis at the bottom and click on calendars. Disable the windows live calendar and make sure the google calendar is on.

That is it.

Enjoy.

Dell X51V vs HTC HD7 Windows Phone 7 Part 1

2010-11-09T06:28:00.003-05:00

I have been waiting a long time to upgrade from my Dell X51V to a smart phone. If you are not familiar with the Dell X51V, it is a Windows Pocket PC with wireless but no phone capability.

Overall (WP7) Windows Phone 7 is a great phone OS. It is rock solid. I have had zero lock ups or crashes on my first day of using it about 5 hours. It succeeds Microsoft's goals of "Always delightful" and "Incredibly Mine".

The phone set up was easy. It brought in all my contacts from hotmail, gmail, and facebook.

I am very impressed with the live tiles and how WP7 handles email. It is easy to delete unwanted messages and get right back out. In fact deleting gmail in the phone is easier than web based gmail itself. You don't accidentally go into the message when trying to delete a lot of messages.

The browser is incredibly smooth and fast. It supports multiple tabs and it remembers the tabs when you go back in. My bank already supports WP7 so it is easy to check balances and make payments. The funny thing is, the Windows Phone 7 forums look horrible on wp7.

The ME tile on WP7 is cool. It allows you to see updates to Windows Live and Facebook. You can change your picture and change your status here. However, it is missing a lot of things. It is a phone and there should be a My Phone Number. It should also have my address if the phone is lost. It should also have an ICE (In Case of Emergency) phone number. It is also missing twitter integration.

The text messaging works great. It corrects words as you type. I like how it indents replies.

The camera is a 5MP camera. It has no image stabilization so it is nearly impossible to take a non-blurry picture. However the video is better than expected for a phone. It is way cool how the phone automatically syncs your pictures to skydrive. The pictures hub works well to organize your photos.

The voice recognition is incredible. It does not require any training, it recognized my voice right away.

Compared to my Dell Axim X51V, my Windows Phone does lack a lot of things that I use every day but it was just released yesterday.

All the notes in Outlook that I had cannot be synced to Windows Phone 7
Outlook tasks cannot be synced
Windows Phone 7 has One Note built in but it does not Sync To Sky Drive. I guess I will be using evernote.
There is no To Do List application that syncs to the desktop.
There is no blue tooth keyboard for the phone like the stow away keyboard for the Axim.
There is no eWallet type application that syncs to the desktop.

On my Axim I get about 2 hours of continuous usage. Battery life is about 3.5 hours of continuous usage on the HTC HD7 where I was browsing the marketplace, downloading applications, installing applications and removing applications.

It looks like WP7 marketplace is following in the footsteps for the iPhone marketplace. Over a thousand applications on launch day is impressive. However, 90% of the applications are crap. Most paid applications have no trial.

More to come...

Free Ninja Database Lite Released

2010-09-17T13:48:00.004-04:00

After much hard work and expense, the database that we have been working on is finally complete. Ninja Database Lite is an object database for Windows Phone 7, Silverlight, and .NET. I have decided to release the lite version for free until October 31st, 2010.

http://www.kellermansoftware.com/t-ninja-forums.aspx

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Greg

NUnit Test Runner for Windows Phone 7

2010-09-10T08:40:00.004-04:00

After finding a bug in Windows Phone 7 Isolated storage I decided to create an NUnit Test Runner for Windows Phone 7.

Isolated Storage Bug

I am creating a two different databases for Windows Phone 7. I have almost 400 unit tests but no way to run them in the emulator.

Here are some initial screen shots.

This is the list screen. You can click on an item to get the stack trace.

This is the detail screen with the stack trace.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Samuel Finzer's CDH Success Story

2010-08-04T08:47:00.000-04:00

Whirlwind Overview of Windows Phone 7 Series

2010-05-12T07:18:00.005-04:00

Microsoft will be coming out with a new phone to compete with the iPhone called the Windows Phone 7 series (WP7). It is slated for release for holidays 2010 (the word on the street is September 2010). A lot of people are calling it iPhone V2 since there are similarities: no application background processes are allowed, each application is sand boxed as to not interfere with other applications, and the rich graphical interface. The goals for the phone are to have a predictable, safe, high performing phone with long battery life.

Features

Microsoft's better competitor to the iPod, Zune is built in.
XBox live integration.
You can play XBox XNA games on Windows Phone 7.
Windows Mobile Marketplace built in. From what I have seen, the search and categorization is better than the iPhone marketplace. You will be able to buy applications, games, music and videos.
Office 2010 Mobile
People Hub
Pictures Hub
Music and Video Hub
Accelerometer
GPS
Camera

Metro User Interface Design
WP7 is better than iPhone when it comes to user interface design. The design language is called Metro which takes cues from transportation icons. The start menu has tiles on it which takes you to hubs. Everything is organized into related areas. For example the music hub will not only show you the artist biography when you click on a song, it will use the phone location to determine where the artist is playing next. Another cool thing about the Metro design are the panoramic views where the phone views a portion of the area of an application. It makes the phone experience seem larger than life. Metro makes the design language of the iPhone seem as antiquated as a Mac classic.

Target Market
The target market for Windows Phone 7 is what Microsoft calls the life maximizer; someone that has a busy professional life and a busy home life. The example couple that they use is a man that has his own architectural small business and a mom that works part time. The initial goal is more of a consumer focus than business focus, helping a busy end user rather than solving business problems.

Standard Hardware
One of the pains of developing for any phone is the wide variety of processors, memory, screen sizes and touch support. Microsoft has solved this problem by having base hardware requirements and only two screen sizes. Here are the current Windows Phone 7 Hardware requirements:

Screen
Capacitive touch with 4 or more contact points
WVGA (800×480) or HVGA (480×320) resolution

Sensors
A-GPS, Accelerometer, Compass, Light, Proximity

Camera
5 megapixels or more, flash required, camera button required

Multimedia
Common detailed specs, Codec Acceleration

Memory
256 MB RAM or more, 8 GB Flash or more

GPU
DirectX 9 acceleration

CPU
ARMv7 Cortex/Scorpion or better

What do you need to develop Windows Phone 7 Applications?
All the tools to develop WP7 applications are free. There are two ways to develop applications on the phone, with Silverlight 3 and XNA (for games). Expression Blend 4 is used to create the cool animations for the phone such as rotating, zooming, and panning. When you install the tools it will install Visual Studio 2010 express. If you already have Visual Studio 2010 installed, it will install the Windows Phone 7 tools as an add on. Creating pages in Silverlight 3 is much like creating pages for web applications. The design language used is not HTML but XAML. The code behind portion of Silverlight is currently limited to C#. Other .NET languages such as VB.NET will be added later.

How do you sell your Windows Phone 7 Applications?
In order to sell your Windows Phone 7 applications you must first register on the marketplace. The fee is $99 per year. To submit an application to the market place (free or commercial) is $99/each. This fee helps pay for the certification of your application. Your application is verified that it does not try to break out of the sandbox, that it performs well, and it the content complies complies with any applicable laws for the countries you select to distribute your application.

Limitations of Windows Phone 7

Each application is sandboxed and has it's own separate isolated storage. This storage is limited to 2GB. No other application can get to this storage.
No ActiveSync. If you want to synchronize data you must first upload it from your application to a web server and then download from the web server on to your corresponding desktop application. There is no standard mechanism, you must create custom code to do this.
No background processes. This is part of the Windows Phone goal of having long battery life. No more stupid twitter apps that make your battery last an hour.
No socket namespace. That means no FTP in the initial release.
No subscription/continuity model in the Windows Phone Marketplace.
No SQL Server compact edition for the initial release. There are several open source and commercial vendors alternatives.

Videos on how to do Windows Phone 7 Development
Mix 2010 Videos
Windows Phone 7 in 7
Behind the emulator
Silverlight for Windows Phone 7
Windows Phone 7 Training Kit

Free Developer tools for Windows Phone 7
Windows Phone 7 Developer Tools
Expression Blend 4
Expression Blend 4 Windows Phone
Expression Blend 4 SDK

Here is a great Windows Phone 7 FAQ
Windows Phone 7 FAQ

Windows Phone 7 End User
http://www.windowsphone7series.com/

Twitter
http://twitter.com/wp7dev

Blog
http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/wpdev/default.aspx

Developer Portal
http://developer.windowsphone.com/

Windows Phone 7 Forum
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowsphone7series

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 74

2010-05-12T07:14:00.004-04:00

Praise God. Samuel came home from the hospital on Saturday. He is in really good spirits, giving smiles everywhere he goes in the house. He missed his toys and has been playing with them with renewed excitement. He is crawling around. You can tell Samuel is taking it easy since he is crawling quite a bit slower. He is eating well but not drinking as much as he did before. Thank you for your prayers.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 73

2010-05-05T12:33:00.003-04:00

Thank God. All good news. Leyla called and said that Samuel is a different boy today. Samuel had a #2 so big that hospital housekeeping had to be called (he had not gone since last Thursday). The right lung has fully inflated and the doctors are planning to take out the second chest tube. Samuel is feeling a lot better, sitting up in bed and standing up in bed. Samuel is drinking a lot of fluids. He hasn't eaten like himself yet, but I am sure that will change after today. Most likely Samuel will be going home soon.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 72

2010-05-03T12:25:00.004-04:00

Praise God, Samuel has been moved out of PICU into a regular room. He is off oxygen now. He still has some drainage from his chest tubes. Samuel is still in pain. You can tell when the morphine wears off. Samuel is eating a little, but only for Leyla. Thankfully my parents have come to help to take care of the girls while Leyla is with Samuel. Samuel will be out of the hospital in days.

You can pray specifically for:
1. Samuel's pain
2. That Samuel would heal quickly.
3. Leyla's emotional well being. It is difficult seeing your child going through such difficulty.
4. That the BPD Doctor would give Samuel a green light to go on vacation. The kids have been looking forward to this vacation for 2 years and have been counting the days. Leyla is petrified to take Samuel out of the area of Children's Hospital should something happen again. Leyla wants me to take the kids without her on vacation. I am petrified to leave Leyla alone with Samuel. Does anyone know if there is a good children's hospital at Myrtle Beach?

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 71

2010-05-01T14:34:00.004-04:00

Thank you for your prayers, your calls, and your kind words on facebook and twitter. We can definitely see the mercy of God in the current trial that Samuel is in. If Samuel would not have had his right lung collapse we would have not have known about the silver dollar size hole in his diaphragm.

Samuel's surgery went well yesterday. The doctor took four hours to sew up the hole in the diaphragm and take pictures of the right lung. Thankfully, they were able to go in laproscopically so there are only three small incisions in his chest and one in his belly button. They had to put in a second chest tube so that all the fluid would drain and so the right lung could inflate.

At first I thought that Samuel would be in the hospital for months again but because they were able to fix him without making large incisions he will be home sooner rather than later. He is able to take clear liquids today and later on in the evening they will try to give him soft foods. He is not intubated, he just has a nasal cannula with a .l Liters of oxygen.

Once his chest tubes are finished draining fluid, Samuel will be moved from PICU to a regular room. Please keep praying.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 70

2010-04-30T10:56:00.001-04:00

My 16 month old beautiful baby boy, Samuel had his right lung collapse yesterday. He is currently in the NICU. He just had a CT-Scan which revealed that the hole in his diagram has reopened and his intestine is moving up into the lung cavity. Please pray for our family as we go through what will probably be another long stay for Samuel at Children’s Hospital. As you can imagine, Leyla and I are pretty broken up about it. Samuel was doing so well and now this is quite a set back. It is so severe that Samuel will be having a surgery today to put the intestine back down and sew up the hole.

Please pray.

Also pray for my four year old, Jasmine. She has intestinal flu. I am taking care of her while Leyla is right by Samuel’s side.

God is faithful. He is going to bring us through this trial too.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 69

2010-04-30T05:53:00.002-04:00

Here we go again. From my wife:

I took Samuel to Children's ER yesterday afternoon because he was breathing so heavy and very labored.

The Drs thought that he had a severe asthma attack. They also speculated that he had a virus (i.e. RSV). However, after reviewing the results of the CT scan, the Drs found out that Samuel has a pneumothorax in his right lung ... again! They discontinued the breathing treatments and meds to treat asthma. Right now I am typing this message while the surgeons are in the process of inserting a chest tube to release the pressure in the area. Last time, Samuel had a 5 day stay. I am expecting about the same amount of days this time around.

Pray for Samuel for a speedy recovery. My poor baby has gone through so much ... yet, spontaneous pneumothorax can occur any time, especially in the same area of previous ones. I am hoping and praying that this is the last one.

I request no visitors until Samuel is transferred out of PICU to a regular room.

Keep us in your prayers.

Love,

Leyla

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 68

2010-03-27T10:57:00.004-04:00

It has been a while since the last update. Samuel is doing well. He is eating table food, drinking from a straw, crawling, pulling himself up on the coffee table. Samuel is completely off oxygen now. The doctor said that it is a miracle and this boy shouldn't be well. Samuel will have his G-Tube removed in a few weeks.

Samuel has caught up to 50th percentile in fine motor skills. He will begin speech therapy soon. He is quite a bit behind since he was sedated for so long and also because we speak both English and Spanish in our home.

Thank you for your prayers.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 67

2009-11-06T10:44:00.002-05:00

Thank you for your prayers. Mentally I was prepared that Samuel would not be eating normally until spring time 2010. God has exceeded all my expectations. Samuel is having zero spit up (he used to vomit 4 out of 5 feeds). Samuel is eating baby food, crackers, Cheerios, and stars. He is still on Oxygen at night and the G-Tube is giving him formula feeds. He is eating a little better every day with the solid foods. However, he is having a lot of difficulty drinking by mouth. Please pray that Samuel would do well with that.

Latest pictures of Samuel without his ng tube is at:
http://finzerfamily.shutterfly.com/

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 66

2009-10-06T14:06:00.001-04:00

Samuel's surgery went very well. The surgeon was able to remove the whole goretex patch and place the G-tube without complications. The G-tube needs to drain any fluid accumulation until tomorrow. After that, they will start feeding him. I am so blessed to have such a great church family. Pastor Gabbard came and prayed for Samuel right before he was taken for surgery, then Gene Belew came to pray for us and with us. I know all of you have been praying ... this morning we got a phone call at 6 AM to let us know that the surgeon had a cancellation and Samuel's surgery was moved up to 8:30 AM! God knows what is best for Samuel and His hand has been orchestrating all the details to make this surgery possible. What an awesome God we serve! Keep praying!

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 65

2009-10-05T14:29:00.001-04:00

Praise God that my 10 month old baby boy; Samuel Finzer, will have his surgery tomorrow. God is so good. The surgeon is extremely busy and the next slot available was the end of November. The receptionist said that the GI exam and the surgery becoming available in this short of notice never happens. God can do anything.

In the past month and a half, Samuel has dropped weight. He has acid reflux and is gagging on the feeding tube which goes down his throat. Samuel is in pain when he eats. He has been spitting up 4 out of 5 of his feeds. It has been draining on my wife and I. It is a lot to give Samuel multiple baths and change the bed multiple times a day. The surgery will remove all or part of the gortex patch in his abdomen so that a G-Tube can be put in. The G-Tube will go directly into the stomach thereby eliminating the problem with the gagging and reducing the acid reflux.

This is a new beginning for Samuel. Please pray for his surgery.

The surgery is tomorrow; October 6th at 9:10am at Children's Hospital. Samuel will be in the hospital from 3 to 5 days of recovery.

Free Kanban Board Application

2009-07-09T17:49:00.001-04:00

Free, easy to use Kanban Board Application.

http://www.kellermansoftware.com/download/Kanban-Application.zip

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 64

2009-07-07T13:32:00.002-04:00

Praise God Samuel came home from the hospital yesterday. Samuel is still breathing harder than normal. Leyla and I are elated that he is home. Samuel seems happy to be home in his own bed. Samuel has an appointment next week to check on his chest pressure dressing.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 63

2009-07-06T10:40:00.002-04:00

A quick update. They took out Samuel's chest tube yesterday. They also had a second set of X-Rays which revealed an abnormal pocket of air. The surgeon and the doctors will be meeting today to talk about the X-Rays. Samuel may be coming home as early as today.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 62

2009-07-02T08:19:00.000-04:00

Thank you for your prayers. Yesterday afternoon Samuel turned blue and was taken by ambulance to Children's hospital. After a series of x-rays, an ultrasound, and a cat scan they determined that his right lung completely collapsed. The same surgeon that performed the operation for the Diaphragmatic Hernia put in a chest tube and inflated the lung. Samuel is sedated and resting comfortably.

By the providence of God, Leyla's mom is on vacation now and uncle Jorge and aunt Celen are there as well so there are plenty of people to take care of the kids. I also have a half day of work today before the fourth of July holiday. It was an ordeal but God brought us through it. Thank God for Pastor Randall and his wife Felicia; they stayed with us the whole time.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 61

2009-06-23T20:58:00.002-04:00

Here are a bunch of recent pictures. Enjoy.

Why was there no May Day on Air France?

2009-06-04T09:07:00.003-04:00

My dad was in the Air Force. There was no may day on Air France Flight 447 because of the rapid depressurization of the air plane. He said that at the normal cruising altitude of 32,000 ft, if the plane is depressurized you have about 2 to 3 seconds of consciousness before passing out. The air in your lungs, intestines, and sinuses are sucked out. If you have any air pockets in the fillings in your teeth, the fillings will pop out.

He said at that altitude the temperature is -58 below zero. It would take 5 minutes to free fall from 32,000 feet to 14,000 feet where you would not need an oxygen mask.

Compare .NET Objects

2009-06-01T12:43:00.000-04:00

I created an open source project on CodePlex to do a deep compare of .NET Objects.

See:

http://comparenetobjects.codeplex.com/

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 60

2009-05-15T17:01:00.002-04:00

There has been a few changes since the last update. The doctor changed Samuel's acid reflux medicine from Zantac to Prevacid. Zantac combats the acid after it is produced. Prevacid prevents acid from being produced in the first place. The doctor said it would be a couple weeks before we noticed a difference.

Leyla took Samuel to the physical therapist this week and an occupational therapist for feeding. Samuel didn't like the physical therapy at all and screamed for an hour. He did better with the feeding therapy. Leyla picked up a couple feeding tips. Samuel is slowly taking more volume per bottle. He sometimes takes up to 50ml. This is an improvement from two weeks ago where he was taking between 10ml and 25ml. The goal is for Samuel to take 110ml.

I went to the BPD appointment with Leyla last week. We were finally able to get a referal for a gastrointranologist. They are so busy the appointment is not until the end of July. The GI doctor will be able to better handle Samuel's acid reflux and prescribe solutions.

Keep praying.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 59

2009-05-01T16:27:00.003-04:00

Praise God for all that he has been doing. Samuel was prescribed a new formula called Nutren Jr and it has really made a difference in Samuel's acid reflux. Instead of Samuel screaming through the night; Samuel is now sleeping through the night.

Leyla was prescribed medicine for her depression. She is doing much better. Since Samuel is sleeping better, Leyla is sleeping better.

Leyla and I tried to give Samuel the bottle all week. Within the past three days he has started taking the bottle again. He needs to take about 100ml. He takes about 25ml. Sometimes he takes 50ml but then spits up half of it.

Samuel is a much happier baby now. He was always giving grunts of pain. Things are looking up.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 58

2009-04-20T10:29:00.001-04:00

Thanks to Rachael Ratliff, Jen Pond, and Jen McCracken for taking Leyla out this past Friday. Leyla really needed to get out of the house. Dublin Baptist Church and Broadway United Methodist; wow, thanks for all the cards. Encouragers class thanks for the flowers and the money for the PediaSure.

Samuel is having a lot of problems with his acid reflux. After talking with Jen Pond on Friday, we believe that Samuel either needs a higher dosage or a different acid reflux medicine. Both Jen Pond's girls had really bad acid reflux. Samuel has been given Zantac since being on the feeding tube two months ago. The acid reflux is so bad, Samuel isn't taking the bottle at all. Everything is going in the feeding tube. Leyla is meeting with the doctor on Thursday to talk about the acid reflux and all the stress she is going through. At least now we know why he has so much trouble taking the bottle.

Pray for Samuel's acid reflux and his BPD (bronchopulmonary dysplasia).

On a positive note, my sister had a healthy baby girl last night. They have two boys and were praying for a girl. God is so good.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 57

2009-04-16T09:19:00.003-04:00

Leyla took Samuel to the BPD clinic yesterday. Samuel grew but he did not gain any weight. Samuel was supposed to take 600-740ml per day but he was taking around 300ml per day. The feed tube is back in. He is to remain on Pedia Sure until the next appt on May 6th. He will be re-evaluated then. We bought a couple swaddle wraps so that he doesn't try to pull out the feeding tube during his feeding. Please pray that Samuel would do better with his feeding. There will be another appointment soon with a feeding consultant.

They spent more time with Leyla to try and see if she has post partum depression. She wasn't diagnosed with it but Leyla tends to keep things to herself. She acts like she is happy to people outside the immediate family. She is really having a rough time since Samuel has been cranky, not eating, and having a month of giving him 24 hour care with about 4 hours sleep per night. This would affect anyone. We are going to seek professional help for Leyla. Please pray for Leyla that God would give her the peace that passes all understanding.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 56

2009-04-09T13:00:00.002-04:00

It has been a busy roller coaster of a couple weeks. Samuel took out his feeding tube and is now totally on the bottle. That is a huge step forward. Leyla met with the Surgeon that performed Samuel's surgery and the surgeon said we will wait until Samuel is one year old until the gortex patch is removed in Samuel's belly. Leyla met with the nutritionist, she said that because Samuel is not gaining any weight he should take PediaSure vanilla flavor. Now that Samuel is drinking that vanilla flavored PediaSure, he smell likes vanilla. The room smells like vanilla too. Leyla also met with two physical therapists. They gave Leyla additional exercises to do with Samuel. Pray for Leyla's patience. Samuel has been very fussy the past few days with his feedings. Pray that Samuel would eat well during the day. He tends to catch up at the midnight feeding.

Thanks for the cards and letters. It means so much.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 55

2009-03-26T09:31:00.001-04:00

A quick update. Your prayers are working, Samuel was able to drink an entire bottle last night for the first time. Keep praying.

God is good.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 54

2009-03-19T17:33:00.002-04:00

The nurse from disability services came today. Samuel continues to favor turning his head to the right and can't lift his head up when he is on his tummy. Samuel was sedated with his head turned to the right the first month after he was born. The doctor at the BPD clinic said that Samuel needs more physical therapy. Samuel is getting physical therapy once a month. Leyla is going to try to get physical therapy for Samuel at least once a week. She is going to call and see what can be done through the three insurances that we now have.

It has been a busy week with the right recliner on the couch breaking, the refrigerator breaking, and going to the Men of Valor conference. The refrigerator is fixed now and the recliner is in the process of being fixed.

Praise God we now have an oxygen tank refilling system. Leyla is able to use the oxygen tanks to go out more without fear of running out of oxygen.

Samuel has a really wonderful dimple. I hope to post some more pictures soon.

Thanks everyone for the prayers, meals, and continued help.

Deleting .svn Folders for Subversion Using C#

2009-03-09T09:46:00.012-04:00

This past weekend I needed the ability to programmatically delete the .svn folders used by subversion in my project. I created some code in C# to change the subversion files to be writable and delete them.

Here is how to use it:
DeleteSubFolders(@"c:\svn\MyProject\Trunk",".svn",true);

Here is the code:

public static void DeleteSubFolders(string folderPath, string wildcardPattern, bool top)
{
    String[] list;

    //If we are at the top level, get all directory names that match the pattern
if (top)
        list = Directory.GetDirectories(folderPath, wildcardPattern, SearchOption.AllDirectories);
else//Get directories and files for matching sub directories
        list = Directory.GetFileSystemEntries(folderPath, wildcardPattern);

    foreach (string item in list)
    {
        //Sub directories
if (Directory.Exists(item))
        {
//Match all sub directories
            DeleteSubFolders(item, "*", false);
        }
        else // Files in directory
        {
            //Get the attribute for the file
FileAttributes fileAtts = File.GetAttributes(item);
 
//If it is read only make it writable
            if ((fileAtts & FileAttributes.ReadOnly) != 0)
            {
                File.SetAttributes(item, fileAtts & ~FileAttributes.ReadOnly);
            }
 
File.Delete(item);
        }
    }
 
//Delete the matching folder that we are in
    if (top == false)
    {
        Directory.Delete(folderPath);
    }
}

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 53

2009-03-09T07:43:00.003-04:00

I haven't had an update in a while and I know you are wondering what is going on. We have been busy taking care of Samuel. Samuel continues to be on the .4 Liters of oxygen per minute as before. He is taking around 20ml in the bottle and 80ml in the feeding tube. Samuel had a normal checkup with our family doctor. He is normal, height, weight, and motor skills despite all that has gone on. That is certainly good news. The doctors at Children's hospital would like for Samuel to take the entire 100ml by bottle. That would be a specific thing you can pray for. Below are some pictures. Enjoy. Click the pictures to make them bigger.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 52

2009-02-26T10:26:00.005-05:00

Samuel is home! The first night went well. The only thing that we had a little trouble with was cleaning the feed bag. The valve on the bag was a little hard to find to flush it with water.

I made a daily schedule for Leyla to use to organize the dispensing of meds and cleaning of equipment. I need to make a weekly equipment cleaning schedule as well.

Here it is just for fun: Daily Samuel Schedule

Crystal really missed her brother. She was up until 11pm last night. Today she is staying home from school. She got up at 7am today and went straight to Samuel's room. She is sitting in the rocking chair by Samuel's bed and constantly watching Samuel to make sure he is alright.

It is such a blessing to be able to wake up in the morning and go into Samuel's room and see him there instead of driving to the hospital at night.

Please pray for Jasmine (my three year old) as she has a low grade fever and a cough.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 51

2009-02-25T08:06:00.002-05:00

All,

Great news. God is so good. The doctor that performed the Gastronomic Intestinal Exam overreacted. Samuel will not need a surgery for his malrotated intestine in the near future. After Samuel gets home we will need to watch that Samuel does not have severe vomiting or constipation. If he does then we will need to take him to the emergency room.

One of the things that they found out when they did the GI Exam is that Samuel's stomach settled directly under the gortex patch that they put in when he had the surgery to correct the D-Hernia. This means that there will be no G-Tube going directly into his stomach. He will continue to use the feeding tube which is going down his nose.

Over the past few days Leyla and I have been scheduling and attending appointments so that Samuel can come home. The doctor called this morning and she said that Samuel could come home today!!!!!! It is going to be another crazy day for us. Thanks for your prayers and cards.

To Do Today:

Get training on Oxygen System
Get training on Apnea Monitor
Buy new car seat because ours was expired
Meet with nutritionist
Meet with pharmacy
Bring Samuel home :)

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 50

2009-02-20T14:49:00.002-05:00

Bad news on Samuel. They just did the gastro intestinal exam today. They found that Samuel has a malrotated intestine. This will have to be corrected with another surgery before Samuel comes home. It is not causing any immediate problems but it would cause problems with solid foods in the future. This problem is common with babies born with a D-Hernia.

Our boy has been through a lot and it pains me to see him go through another surgery. I love him dearly. We just found out about this. At this point we have many questions. When did this happen? Is this causing the problem with the bottle feeding? As soon as I know more, I will let you know.

Thanks so much for praying.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 49

2009-02-20T11:34:00.002-05:00

Samuel sometimes drinks a lot from the bottle and sometimes drinks a little. On Tuesday, Samuel took only a small amount when being held by Leyla. On Wednesday when neither of us could go, he drank a lot. Yesterday when I held him he took a little. I am thinking that Leyla and I are too exciting and Samuel would rather talk and coo to us than drink. Because of all this up and down with the bottle, the doctor is going to give Samuel some extra time. Samuel will still be coming home in March, just not the first week of March.

Samuel is still breathing kind of fast; 50-70 bpm. He is doing better little by little though.

This week they are going to do a gastro intestinal workup to see where his stomach is. This is in preparation for the G-Tube if he needs it.

Samuel sure is a cutie.

Praise God that the business is doing okay this month despite the recession. Thank God that the federal and state tax refunds are in quickly so that we can pay some bills. Thank God for all of you that are bringing meals, bringing Crystal from the bus stop, taking care of the girls. Thank God for all of the prayers for Samuel.

How to Kill a Trojan Virus on Bootup

2009-02-18T10:09:00.002-05:00

My mother in law bless her heart has always had problems with viruses and spy ware infecting her PCs. This is despite her having anti-virus programs installed.

She had a Trojan on her PC. This Trojan is so smart that it actually prevents new anti-virus programs from being installed. The only way to kill it is to boot from a CD on before it has a chance to load. The problem with most emergency disks available is that they are old and cannot kill the latest and greatest viruses or deal with NTFS partitions.

After a lot of research here are the tools that I tried on her PC to kill the virus:

Avira Rescue CD - This is a free bootable CD that can kill viruses. They update it hourly.
Kapersky Anti-Virus CD - Another bootable CD that can kill viruses. They update it around once per week.
Ultimate Boot CD for Windows - This one is a bootable XP CD (you need your XP install disk to create it). It has numerous anti-virus and anti-spyware programs that can update with the latest virus signatures. You must use Windows XP to create the CD. It doesn't run under Vista. However it can run under a Virtual PC with Windows XP.

To burn the CDs you will need an ISO burner such as ImgBurn

FYI, here are some dead ends that I ran into:

McAfee has no such thing as a recent Emergency Disk that can deal with NTFS volumes.
Norton has no such thing as a recent Emergency Disk that can deal with NTFS volumes.
The original Ultimate Boot CD is a DOS bootable CD that has ancient McAfee Anti Virus on it. Worthless.
Trinity Rescue Kit is a Linux bootable CD that contains no Anti-Virus Software.

The outcome:

Avira Rescue CD could not kill the virus, it simply renamed it.
I was never able to create the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows. Neither a virtual machine or a regular Windows XP desktop worked. It always gave an obscure error.
Kapersky Anti-Virus is the clear winner. It was able to delete the virus. The PC is running full speed again and my mother in law is happy.

Some questions that I still need to answer:

It would be nice to figure out how to get the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows to boot with a USB drive. It would be great I could simply boot up and get the latest anti-virus definitions instead of burning a new CD every time.
It would be nice to figure out how to get the AVGFree Version 8 as a plug in to the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows. Version 7.5 is included currently.

Here are some links I found to make a USB drive bootable:
http://www.nu2.nu/mkbt/
http://www.bootdisk.com/pendrive.htm
http://www.prime-expert.com/flashboot/index.php

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 48

2009-02-17T08:31:00.003-05:00

Big news. Samuel is going to come home in two or three weeks. They will be evaluating him in two weeks to see if he will be coming home with a G-Tube (a feeding line right to his stomach). This week they are trying something different. They are feeding him every 4 hours instead of 3 so that he is hungrier for the bottle. He was only taking 5-10ml because he wasn't hungry enough. Yesterday he took 40 from the bottle.

I have mixed feelings about Samuel coming home. I am going to be very happy that I will get to see my boy every day. However when he comes home it will essentially be a NICU at home with Leyla as the nurse. Samuel will be on oxygen until end of summer and most likely have a G-Tube. There will also be monitoring equipment. What this all means is that instead of going to the hospital; Leyla will be at the house caring for Samuel 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Samuel will be in his room with all that equipment; oxygen tanks, monitors, and a feeding machine. Please pray for Leyla, she has been under a lot of stress with the mastitis, the crazy pumping schedule, traveling to the hospital. She is going to be teaching an online course (possibly two sections) starting in March.

I just don't even know what to think. It is different, longer term than I was expecting. No vacation to the beach this summer like I was hoping. No visiting relatives for birthday parties. However, I know God has a plan for all of this. It is only a season and it will pass.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 47

2009-02-08T09:54:00.006-05:00

Samuel is doing well. He is now taking two feedings a day from Leyla. He is now visibly showing off for mom when she is there.

He was able to reach the mobile and is now hitting the animals. These are some of my favorite pictures. When Samuel thinks something is cool he makes an ooooo face.

My parents are coming down until Thursday to give the neighbors and the church a break. It takes a lot of help to put Crystal on the bus, get Crystal from the bus and take care of the girls while Leyla is at the hospital feeding Samuel. I can say enough how grateful we are to all of you. More updates later. Thanks for praying.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 46

2009-02-06T09:12:00.003-05:00

Today has been an up week on the Samuel roller coaster. They moved Samuel into the chronic NICU and gave Leyla a long term parking pass. Samuel will be there a while. The room is much nicer than the main NICU pod which had like 20 babies all in one room. Samuel could hardly sleep with all the monitor alarms and babies crying. I think Samuel will do much better in his own room.

He had trouble feeding from the bottle this week. A big praise though is that yesterday Leyla was able to breast feed him. Samuel did really well with that. After feeding from Leyla, Samuel is noticeably more relaxed and is not breathing as fast. Leyla is really happy. I am really happy. Her mom is really happy.

They lowered his oxygen to from .5 to .4 Liters/Hour. They also increased his feeding from 70ml to 75ml (this is a little over two ounces).

When I saw Samuel last night he was doing really well. He was content. I will post some pictures tomorrow for all of you.

Thanks to all of you that are helping take care of the girls while Leyla is feeding Samuel.

I have a request for whoever is reading this blog; we need help for about 2 hours tonight for someone to take care of the kids. We have a parent teacher conference at 6:40pm. I know it is short notice. Leyla's mom can't help since she has another commitment.

Thanks for your prayers.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 45

2009-02-02T10:24:00.003-05:00

Sorry for the lack of updates. It has been kind of a crazy week. They tried reducing the oxygen from .3 Liters per hour to .2 and Samuel could not handle it. He was sweating and could not take a bottle. They had to bump up his oxygen back to .5 liters per hour. He was at three bottles per day and now he is at no bottles per day. All the feeding is being done from the feeding tube. This week they are planning to feed him with one bottle a day. The nutritionist will feed him instead of Leyla.

Leyla and I have been over to visit Samuel a couple times. He is a real cutie. He really liked it when I sang "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" to him. I think that is his favorite.

Both girls were sick with a fever for a couple days. Crystal still has a cold. We had to cancel a trip to COSI with my sister and her boys because the girls were sick. Leyla has mastitis again. Leyla is still bleeding since the birth. Our hamster died over the weekend. This was Crystal's pet. She took it really well. She wants to get a goldfish now.

As you can imagine, with the set back for Samuel and all the sickness we are emotionally drained now.

A big praise in all this is that I was requested by name for a new assignment. I will be there until the end of the year. It is in Dublin so it is a much shorter drive than Polaris since we live in Hilliard. I don't have to worry about getting laid off since I am making my company money by being out on assignment the entire year.

Thanks to all the neighbors that helped during the snow storm. Thanks for all the wonderful meals and cards.

Please pray.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 44

2009-01-26T08:39:00.004-05:00

Last week they ramped up Samuel's bottle feeding to two times a day. This week they are planning on doing three bottles a day. They are reducing the quantity and increasing the calories by adding formula to Leyla's milk.

Everyone continues to ask when will Samuel be home. We don't know yet, it is up to Samuel. He continues to breathe about 50 to 80 breaths per minute. The doctors would like him to breathe under 60 breaths per minute.

Thank you for your prayers.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 43

2009-01-21T20:34:00.002-05:00

Leyla was able to see Samuel today at the hospital and give him a bottle. Samuel is doing much better now with a bottle. At first he had a hard time figure out how to breathe and eat. I am planning to see him tomorrow night and give him a bottle. He is able to take 30ml (1 ounce) through the bottle. There have been no other changes. He is doing well.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 42

2009-01-19T15:45:00.002-05:00

Good news! Samuel was just given a small amount of milk (20ml) through a bottle today. Samuel responded well to it.

He has been breathing too fast, more than 70 breaths per minute. The doctors would like to see him below 60. He is still at the same level of oxygen (40%).

Leyla was able to see Samuel today. I am planning to go see him tonight.

Things to pray for:
* That Leyla would be able to produce enough milk for Samuel. Right now it is a race between Samuel and Leyla. Leyla's grandma gave Leyla some powdered sesame seeds for her to drink with milk.
* That Samuel's would calm down and his breaths per minute would be low enough for him to take more milk in the bottle.

Thanks!

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 41

2009-01-15T13:01:00.003-05:00

Samuel is now drinking more milk than what Leyla is producing. They increased Samuel's milk to 74ml (which is around 2.5 ounces) every 3 hours. Leyla is producing 2 ounces every 3 hours. Leyla is going to drop off some more milk today that is frozen at her moms house.

They haven't been able to decrease the oxygen. The is still at about 40%.

I am planning to visit Samuel tonight and wear a mask since I have a cold yet. Leyla is doing better with her Mastitis.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 40

2009-01-14T08:51:00.002-05:00

There have been no changes the past couple of days with Samuel. He is still on the same level of oxygen and the same amount of milk. The doctors are not planning any other changes.

A few praises, my Dad was able to fix the garbage disposal. Leyla's fever broke and she is doing much better. The girls are recovered from their fevers. However it looks like as of this morning Jasmine (my 3 year old) has a urinary tract infection.

Pray that Samuel will get stronger so they could reduce his oxygen. Right now he is kind of stuck. Pray for Leyla as she still has Mastitus and is in pain. Pray for Jasmine, she is in a lot of pain and was screaming in the early morning.

I went to the Social Security Administration yesterday to apply for Social Security Income for Samuel. It is not much; $30/month but we have to be approved for that before I can apply for Medicaid for Samuel. The idea is that the Medicaid will be used as a secondary insurance when Samuel has his second surgery to remove the gortex patch in his abdomen.

Thanks for praying. Thanks for all the visits to Samuel while we are sick, it means a lot. I am working with my cold but I am staying away from Samuel.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 39

2009-01-11T20:32:00.006-05:00

Samuel is doing well. They took out his pic line yesterday (this was the line that they were giving him the medicines and the intravenous feeding). He is doing fine with Leyla's milk. They put in some more calories and protein to strengthen him.

He is about 40% oxygen. Remember this oxygen is through the nose. He is doing all the breathing on his own. He does well when he is content. When he is hungry or has a dirty diaper his oxygen levels decrease.

This has been a rough couple days for the rest of the Finzer family. The girls have had a fever for the past two days. Last night Leyla and I were up for the whole night because Leyla was so sick with a fever (103 degrees). We slept with a bucket between us because she was naseous. This morning I took Leyla to urgent care. She was diagnosed with sinusitis. They put her on a strong antibiotic. I am starting to get sick since I had no sleep last night. Leyla and I stayed in bed all day today to try to recover.

My mom and dad just arrived and they will be helping with the girls and helping Leyla get better. Please pray for Leyla she is taking it really hard that both her girls are sick and she is sick and none of us can go see Samuel in the hospital. If you can send Leyla a funny get well soon card I am sure it would lift her spirits.

Leyla Finzer
1411 Kellerman Court
Columbus, OH 43228

Thanks to all of you that have given toward the medical bills. I have a peace knowing that there is money in the bank as the bills are rolling in. I just sent out $800 yesterday towards the birth. When it rains it pours. Our garbage disposal just bit the dust about an hour ago. I thank God that we are able to replace that too.

Hope you enjoy the pictures of Samuel and Leyla a couple days ago. She didn't have a fever then but she still had to wear a mask, a gown, and gloves to be with Samuel.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 38

2009-01-09T09:21:00.002-05:00

Big news. Samuel was super mad at the ventilator tube this morning and he pulled it out himself while the nurse was out of the room. He is breathing fast and is a little bit scared because he pulled it out. He is being given oxygen through the nose. They also put the feeding tube down his nose. He didn't like that at all. They are going to feed him when he calms down. Pray for Samuel's peace. Pray that Samuel will not pull the tubes out of his nose now.

Pray for Leyla she has a cold and will have to wear a mask to go see Samuel today.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 37

2009-01-08T18:44:00.001-05:00

Picture of Samuel from last nights visit with Mami Priscilla and Grandma Leonor.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 36

2009-01-08T09:18:00.002-05:00

Praise God. As of this morning Samuel is totally off the intravenous feeding and being fed totally by Leyla's milk. They are going to up his milk to 60ml (2 ounces) today. He is still hovering around the same oxygen level.

Samuel really hates the ventilator tube. This morning he gagged himself and threw up. The doctors are thinking about taking out the ventilator tube tomorrow. We will know more after the doctors rounds this morning.

Baby steps. Someone asks me every day. So have the doctor's said when Samuel can come home? I told one person that it is up to Samuel. He replied; he's a Finzer so who knows. :)

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 35

2009-01-06T21:02:00.003-05:00

Last night I was able to hold Samuel. Daddy runs a little hot so after about an hour of me holding him Samuel became mad and tried to kick off the blanket.

Today they ramped up the milk to 40ml which is a little over an ounce. Leyla had a visit with Samuel and was able to hold him for the first time.

The current plan is to get him to two ounces of milk by Friday. The doctor doesn't expect any feeding problems. The current plan is to get him off the lipids and electrolytes and totally on milk. The ventalator tube can come off later when he is ready; sometime next week. The doctor wants to get the pic line out soon since it can be an area where infection can enter the body. The pic line is where all the medicines, fluids, and intravenous food is going in.

Samuel is progressing well. God is good.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 34

2009-01-05T09:00:00.001-05:00

Great news; they started giving Samuel Leyla's milk. They started him out with 5ml yesterday morning then ramped up to 20ml during the night. Today they are planning to give him 30ml. 30ml is about an ounce.

They haven't taken him off the ventilator yet. He is still around 32% oxygen. They tried lowering it but he couldn't tolerate it.

More updates later.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 33

2009-01-03T16:16:00.003-05:00

We came to the hospital and because of the set back this morning they put his oxygen up to 38%. They decided not to take him off the ventilator. He may come off the ventilator tonight or tomorrow. They gave him another dose of ativan while we were at the hospital to calm him down. They put a feeding tube down his throat and he is receiving pedia lite.

Please pray that Samuel would be strong enough to come off the ventilator. Crystal has been praying specifically that they would get the tape off Samuel's face.

Thanks for praying.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 32

2009-01-03T11:08:00.002-05:00

As of 4pm yesterday they turned off the Nitric Oxide. They also reduced the fentanyl (the pain med) to .5 mcg. He stayed at 28% oxygen for the day.

I called the nurse this morning. They are expecting to take Samuel completely off the ventilator this afternoon. They had to do a lot of suctioning this morning and Samuel had a small set back but then he was fine shortly. They had to give him a dose of ativan to calm him down. I am planning to visit Samuel this afternoon. I want to be there when the take the ventilator off. This is a big step. Please pray that Samuel would be able to breath well on his own.

Big thanks to all that gave money to help with the medical bills; family foundations class, cornerstone class, spousology class, and neighbors. I was a little anxious how we were going to pay the medical bills. Thanks to all of you; I really have a peace that God is going to take care of every detail of this trial.

Thanks to our neighbor Diedra for the breast milk freezing organizer. This is perfect timing since Leyla is almost producing more that what the hospital vials can hold.

Thanks to the Driesbach's for the wonderful treat bag. We feel spoiled.

Yesterday I took the girls to COSI because they worked so hard on Thursday taking down the Christmas decorations inside and filling up the van with junk from the crawl space. My 5 year old must have gone up and down the stairs a hundred times. Jasmine (my three year old) filled the back of the mini van with junk. Jasmine and I were sick last night from something we ate at COSI. Who knows what it was, I ordered a little bit of everything. Praise God that we are both better after a good nights sleep.

Holding on to this verse today:

Philipians 4:6
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 31

2009-01-02T08:56:00.003-05:00

Samuel was content and looking around yesterday. They weaned his oxygen to 28% and his oxygen saturation continued to be in the high 90's (anything above 84 is good). They decreased his Nitric oxide from 2.5 to 1. They changed his sedative from every 8 hours to every 12 hours. They are continuing to give the lasix to help drain the fluid he tends to retain.

As of this morning at 9am Samuel is at 26% oxygen (21% is what you are breathing now). They are planning on turning off the Nitric Oxide and weaning the fentanyl slightly today.

Samuel is doing very well. It won't be long now until they try the feeding tube instead of feeding him intravenously. Your prayers have really helped. If you would please pray that Samuel would be able to be tolerate feeding with the feeding tube we would really appreciate it. Leyla read a blog last night about another baby with a Diaphragmatic Hernia and she needed another surgery because she had so much spit up and could not tolerate the mother's milk. She is concerned, please pray for her peace. Please pray for Samuel's continued strength.

God is mighty. God knows exactly what is going on. He sees everything:

Jeremiah 32:19 Great in counsel, and mighty in work: for thine eyes are open upon all the ways of the sons of men: to give every one according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 30

2008-12-31T20:43:00.002-05:00

I am in the NICU waiting room after just seeing Samuel. He is looking good. They gave him another round of lasix today so that he isn't retaining too much fluid. They also switched off the suction for his stomach tube because the fluids coming out were finally clear. This is really good news since that means they will attempt feeding him in a few days.

I talked to the nurse practitioner and she said the next weening would be the nitrous oxide.

Thanks for praying. Happy New Year everyone!

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 29

2008-12-31T12:10:00.003-05:00

Yesterday Samuel remain basically unchanged with his oxygen between 33% and 36%. Leyla was able to see Samuel with his eyes open yesterday. His puffyness has really gone down. While Leyla was there, Samuel's blood gas went down slightly. The alarm went off and Samuel decided to breath some big breaths. This is good since we want him to eventually be off the support.

Today the oxygen is at 35%. The doctors decided to lower his Nitrous Oxide from 5 ppm to 2.5 ppm. The Nitrous Oxide is what helps with the pulmonary hypertension. The fentanyl which is the pain medication was lowered from two to one mcg/hr/kg.

Yesterday I made some long phone calls to apply for the patches of light program. Today I am planning to go to the Social Security Administration building to apply for Medicaid for Samuel. While the medicaid won't help now, it might help as a backup health insurance to pay for the second surgery in 6 to 12 months. I will be there several hours waiting. I hear the lines are long.

I am planning to see Samuel tonight after the SSA. I thank God for the time I can spend with Samuel. I thank God for the tremendous care that they are giving him at Nationwide Children's Hospital.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 28

2008-12-29T13:13:00.003-05:00

Samuel's blood gas last night was good so they were able to take out the arterial line. They had to increase the oxygen slightly to 36%. They are not planning to make any other changes today.

I talked to another doctor today. All of them are reluctant to give any time frame of how long Samuel could be in the hospital. The only thing I have heard is a range from 2 months up to a year. It all depends on Samuel.

The doctor said the next hurdle would be to change the feeding though the feeding tube. Currently Samuel is being fed intravenously with lipids and will not gain any weight or grow while he is on that. Nothing is better than the mother's milk. They will start feeding him when the fluid is gone from his stomach. There is a tube which suctions his stomach every few seconds. Please pray specifically that the fluid would be reduced in his stomach so he could start to be fed with Leyla's milk. Pray also that he would be able to keep the milk down.

Samuel is tired today. He didn't open his eyes for daddy. He did make expressions with his forehead when I sang to him.

Praise God that Leyla's milk production is going well. Pray for her continued strength.

More updates later.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 27

2008-12-28T21:52:00.002-05:00

Samuel had a steady day today. They lowered the pressure of the ventilator and also lowered the oxygen to 30%. They are also planning to take out the arterial line if his blood gas is good at midnight tonight.

Leyla, Priscilla, Leonor, Crystal and Jasmine visited Samuel today in the hospital.

Thanks to Pastor Wood that gave us a wonderful book on Samuel.

I am planning to visit Samuel tomorrow during doctors rounds. I am going to try to see what the doctors plans are for the recovery phase. I am taking the camera in hopes that I can take a picture of him with his eyes open.

God is so good. I am glad Samuel is doing well.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 26

2008-12-28T08:00:00.002-05:00

Samuel had a steady day yesterday. He was at 40% oxygen the whole day. They lowered the pressure of the ventilator so he could start doing more of the work. They also lowered the fentanyl to 2 mcg/hr/kg. They also reduced the sedative to every 6 hours instead of every 4 hours. He fairly awake when I went to visit him. He had his eyes open. They took out his cathader to prevent infection. They are planning to weigh the diapers to measure the fluid output.

As of this morning at 8am they lowered his oxygen to 33%. My mother in law and the kids will visit today. Leyla is pretty tired and I have meetings at church this afternoon.

Thanks for praying.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 25

2008-12-27T08:43:00.003-05:00

Sorry for no update yesterday. It was a busy day of after Christmas shopping. I wanted to take advantage of the deals. My winter coat was falling apart.

Samuel had a steady day yesterday. They lowered his oxygen to 36% and he stayed there all day. They had to give him a blood transfusion because his H&H was low. He was retaining some fluid so they did give him another dose of lasix.

My parents visited yesterday before heading back to their home. I am planning to visit today during doctor's rounds. Pastor Gabbard is planning to come to pray today as well.

Samuel says Merry Christmas!

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 24

2008-12-25T16:58:00.003-05:00

Merry Christmas.

Samuel had a couple set backs today. They had to bump up his oxygen from 40% to 66%. He was retaining a lot of fluid this morning. He was looking really puffy and pale. They gave him another dose of lasix to drain the fluid. Fourty five minutes later he was able to pee a bunch. This not only improved his looks but also his stats. They were able to reduce the oxygen to 45% this afternoon.

Samuel has a lot of hair. He may need a haircut before he comes home or he will look like a hipee. :)

I talked to the nurse practioner and one of the doctors. They both assured me that the setbacks are normal 48 hours after the surgery.

Thank you for your prayers.

James 5:16b
The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 23

2008-12-24T13:23:00.003-05:00

God really answers prayers.

Even more good news on Samuel. Last night they were able to put him on the same amount of oxygen that he was getting before; 34%. This is great news since usually babies with this condition have to be put on a lot of extra oxygen, the oscillating ventilator or in the worst case ECMO. Samuel didn't need any of that.

Early in the morning Samuel needed some extra oxygen; 40%. This is okay. Most babies with this condition have a larger digression. When the surgeons made their rounds this morning at 6am they were surprised to see that Samuel's right lung is already almost as big as his left lung. If you remember last night we were told that it would take months to expand. That was an answer to one of my specific prayers the night of his birth; when they said that Samuel would not survive the night. I had prayed for two good lungs.

Samuel is being given a lot of pain medication and a medication to paralyze him. They want the ventilator to do all the work and for him to heal from the surgery. They want him immobile.

Thank you all for all the cards, and voice mails, and packages, and gifts. It is all overwhelming.

Thank you Chris and Megan for the beautiful ornament.
Wow Encouragers class, thanks for the help with the medical expenses.
Stacy Brown thank you for the death by chocolate desert.

Keep praying. Leyla is teary eyed every now and then because of the empty crib. Pray that Samuel will be at home with us soon.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 22

2008-12-23T18:11:00.002-05:00

Wow God is awesome.

Great news! Samuel's surgery was a complete success. In fact the surgeon came into the room with a smile on her face and told us that it went better than expected. The surgery was only an hour and a half long.

Samuel had enough diaphragm on the right side to be able to sew it up without a patch. He has an enlarged liver (swollen). All the intestine and liver was moved back down where it should go. Right now Samuel looks like he is pregnant because of the swollen liver and intestine being moved down. The surgeon put a gortex patch in the abdomen because there was not enough skin to stretch. The skin in the abdomen will grow and the belly will get soft and reduce. In six to twelve months this patch will have to be removed with another surgery.

When the surgeon sewed up the diaphram she used gortex staples. There is a chance that it might tear open again but it has never happened to her. That gives a big confidence going forward.

The surgeon said that he does have a right lung that will grow. It will take months for it to expand.

Rachael Ratliff is incredible. She dropped off a big Italian dinner. It was wonderful. Thanks!

Now we begin the recovery phase. Please pray for a quick recovery; that Samuel would heal quickly. Pray that Samuel would continue to gain strength every minute. I will keep you updated.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 21

2008-12-23T15:40:00.001-05:00

Samuel is in surgery now. The surgeon said that most likely the hole in Samuel's diaphragm will require a gortex patch because so much intestine is up in the chest. It will be around 2 hours for the surgery if there are no complications. I have a real peace about the surgery. I prayed that God would hold Samuel's hand through the surgery and I know he will.

Thank you for your prayers.

Samuel might have open wounds after the surgery and be prone to infection. We kindly request for no visitors for three days.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 20

2008-12-23T13:45:00.001-05:00

This has been a crazy day. They told us that the surgery would be at 1pm but now it has been postponed again because of an emergency case. Now it is tentatively scheduled for 3pm today.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 19

2008-12-23T08:35:00.002-05:00

We arrived at the hospital this morning and apparently Samuel's surgery is not scheduled as we were told yesterday but is on the add on list. They said that he would have surgery today but we don't know when. It was odd because respiratory dept came into Samuel's room and was getting the equipment ready to be moved into the OR. The nurse didn't know it was an add on surgery either.

Newman's oh my gosh we are totally blown away by the care package you dropped off yesterday. Wow thanks.

I will let you know something as soon as I hear something.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 18

2008-12-22T21:14:00.001-05:00

They postponed the surgery until tomorrow morning at 8am (Tuesday). There were a lot of emergency surgeries today.

I will blog something as soon as I know how the surgery has gone.

Thank you all for praying.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 17

2008-12-22T16:01:00.003-05:00

The information that I have now is that the surgery for Samuel will be today, some time after 7pm. The surgery is about 2 hours long if there are no complications.

They increased Samuel's Fentanyl dose back to 1MCG/KG/HR because he really dislikes the ventilator tube. The nurses said that it is common that full term babies know that the ventilator tube is not supposed to be there and they are angry about it.

I was able to hold Samuel today. He opened his eyes for me and looked straight at me while I was talking to him. He then fell asleep in my arms.

Pastor Darrel Gabbard came all the way from Dublin to bless my lunch and also pray for Samuel. Dave Ratliff also came to pray at exactly the same time. What a blessing the body of Christ is.

I will blog later about Samuel's condition. It might be a long night. There are a lot of babies here because of the March blizzard this past year had a lot of conceptions. There are a lot of emergency surgeries.

Thanks for praying.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 16

2008-12-21T21:08:00.003-05:00

Samuel's condition is about the same as yesterday. He is still at 36% oxygen and his stats are improving to around 96-98 oxygenation. He had an EKG done of his heart. He still has some pulmonary hypertension which is a common thing that goes along with the diaphragmatic hernia.

I will be going to the hospital tomorrow to be there when the doctors and the cardiologists review the EKG. It solely up to the surgeon when the surgery will be performed. If the EKG results are not where the surgeons think it should be; the surgery may be postponed.

Because they lowered the sedative/pain reliever (they are using Fentanyl) Samuel was so mad when they were suctioning the lines that he kicked off the blood pressure monitor that was on his foot. They had to bring in another nurse to hold him down. My boy is a fighter. :)

QSI, thanks for the lunches and the toys.
Margie thanks for the toys and money for the girls.
Mindy thanks for the wonderful gift basket.
Rita Jones thanks for the gift card.

We will have a big celebration when Samuel comes home. We don't know when that will be, but God does. We serve an awesome God.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 15

2008-12-20T19:55:00.003-05:00

Samuel is doing fine is still at 36% oxygen which is really good. They reduced the sedative from 10MCG/KG to 5MCG/KG. He is more active now. He is actually mad at all of the wires and the ventilator now. He is a strong boy. He was actually trying to pull out the ventilator during the night of the birth.

There will be a heart ultrasound tomorrow and then the scheduling for the surgery will occur.

Leyla is going to take care of Crystal tomorrow. Crystal has a slight cold. I am planning to go to church. More updates later.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 14

2008-12-19T23:26:00.003-05:00

Thank God Samuel responded better than expected to the conventional ventilator today. He didn't have a set back like he did for the test two days ago. He was doing well with 41% oxygen since 11:15AM. I just called the nurse at 11:30pm and she said that Samuel was turned down to 36% oxygen and his stats are still good. All in all this was the best day so far. He has never been able to be lowered to 36% before.

Praise God, nothing broke today with the cars or the house. :)

We still don't know when the surgery will be; just sometime before Christmas next week. We will have a 24 hour notice from the doctor when the surgery is scheduled.

Thanks for praying.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 13

2008-12-19T12:36:00.005-05:00

Wow. A lot of changes today. This is like a live soap opera.

The surgery will not be today. It will be some time next week before Christmas. They took Samuel off the oscillating ventilator at 11:15AM and put him on the regular ventilator. This is not a test like it was two days ago. The doctor thinks he is doing well enough for the conventional ventilator. They had to up his dose of sedative last night because he was agitated. They are planning to reduce it back to where it was today.

They had to give Samuel lasix to help him drain some fluid. They also gave him some blood because they are taking blood every 4 hours for lab work.

Another huge thing that happened when they switched him to the conventional ventalator is he opened his eyes again. I took the opportunity to sing Old McDonald had a Farm to him. They had his head turned to the left side since he was born because it is required for the ocillating ventalator was on the left side. They turned it to the right side. I can't imagine having my head turned to one side for 7 days straight. All good news.

I am so thankful to God that Samuel is doing well. I am so thankful for all of you that are reading this blog and are encouraged by Samuel's progress. I am so thankful for all of your prayers. I am so thankful for all of the kind comments, notes, cards, and calls from all of you. I am so thankful for all of the unexpected gifts that have been arriving at our door.

Thank you for holding our hands and hearts through this roller coaster.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 12

2008-12-18T19:19:00.004-05:00

Another normal crazy day.

Samuel had to be bumped up from 45% oxygen to 50% oxygen today after his test run on the conventional ventilator yesterday. We went to visit him in the hospital. It was something else to see him smiling in his sleep like newborns do. Jasmine was able to see Samuel for the first time. She was afraid of all the equipment in the room. We had to bring her. She had a melt down after her slipper came off. Jasmine is her normal self again after seeing her brother.

We talked to the doctor and he said that he wants to have Samuel to have his surgery before Christmas; perhaps even tomorrow. Please start praying for the surgery. Basically Samuel is hovering between 40% and 50% oxygen now and the doctor wants to repair the hernia and get on to the recovery stage. My parents are going to stay for a while longer.

God is so good. Leyla was hoping that the surgery would be sooner rather than later. I am dreaming that this summer we can drive to the beach. I can picture Crystal and Jasmine running and laughing with Samuel in the stroller smiling.

The damage to the minivan from the car accident we had yesterday was more than expected. The rim was bent, the sidewall of the tire was damaged, and it was knocked out of alignment. Basically we had to get a new rim, two new tires, and have the car aligned. Total cost; $489 before taxes. Ouch. I see the protection of God in this situation too. It could have been worse. Someone else ran into the fire hydrant on the same street and completely knocked it over. Two mailboxes were also run over in the same spot we had our accident.

However there is good news with the other car. The nail hole that was in the tire could not be repaired and there was Road Hazard Insurance on the tire. Sam's Club put on a new tire and balanced it for $13

Thank you for your prayers.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 11

2008-12-17T19:44:00.004-05:00

Samuel was put on a regular ventilator today for a test run. He was able to go on it for three hours but he was working too hard and had to be put back on the oscillating ventilator. However they did lower his Nitrous Oxide levels from 10ppm to 5ppm.

Thanks you all for the nice cards, notes, and emails. It means a lot.

My mom fell last night on the ice. She was planning to see Samuel. She is fine. It was the first step onto the driveway. My three year old, Jasmine was more upset. Jasmine was trying to catch Grandma.

It is going to be an icy day again tomorrow. Dad and I are going to work on fixing the cars tomorrow. We are going to Tuffy to drop off the van to have the rim replaced and going to Sam's Club to fix the Impala which has a nail in the tire. I am planning to see Samuel in the afternoon and hand in the financial assistance paperwork that Leyla and I filled out today.

Thank you for your prayers. God is awesome. The only question now is whether God will heal Samuel quickly with a miracle so that he would get the glory; or Samuel will go through a long process to teach Leyla and I patience. In any case, we need to trust that God knows what is best. If you remember Job, he never knew why he was going through the trial; and he had done nothing wrong. It has been an emotional roller coaster, but God has a plan.

Psalm 29:11-13
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.
Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you.
And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.

I can see the providence of God again today. The survival rate for infants with diaphragmatic hernias was 20%, 17 years ago. Then the oscillating ventilator was invented and the survival rate shot up to 50%. Six years ago they determined that Nitrous Oxide could be used to open up the lungs. Now the survival rate is 80%. If Samuel would have been born six years ago he would have had less chance of survival.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 10

2008-12-17T12:22:00.003-05:00

There have been no changes made to any of Samuel's levels since last night. We had a slight car accident last night when we came home from the hospital. There was black ice on La Forge Drive in our subdivision. We slid around a corner and bent the rim of the left front tire. Dad says we will probably need a new rim. My mom and dad said they will stay here until the cars are both operational. We are planning to stay here today since there is so much ice. The city truck that was laying down sand this morning on our culdesac was sliding around and almost had an accident.

We took several pictures last night when my daughter Crystal visited her brother Samuel:

Crystal & Greg with Samuel

Leyla Crystal and Greg with Samuel

Our handsome Samuel

Priscilla (Leyla's mom) and Crystal praying for Samuel

Leyla with Samuel

Priscilla praying for Samuel

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 9

2008-12-16T21:11:00.002-05:00

Samuel remains stable and there has been no changes to his Oxygen or Nitrous Oxide levels. Crystal was able to visit Samuel for the first time tonight. She said that he is so cute. She asked big girl questions about all the equipment and what all of it did.

Leyla had a lot of success today with expressing milk. She used hot compresses and the pump from the hospital. It pumps both sides at the same time.

Phil Brown, Norm Fischer, and Pastor Gabbard thank you so much for your visits and prayers.

Kevin Brown thank you for taking care of the trash.

Stacy Brown thank you for letting Crystal and Jasmine come and play with Rachael tomorrow. Crystal really needs her friend now too.

Thanks to all that are reading this for your prayers. Samuel was steady eddy today with his oxygen levels. No set backs.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 8

2008-12-16T13:29:00.001-05:00

This is update 8. Scroll down for previous updates.

Samuel is continuing to do well. One of the things that they are giving him in addition to the oxygen is nitrous oxide to open up the lungs. He is now on 44% oxygen and they have changed the nitrous oxide from 20ppm to 10ppm. They are slowly weaning him off the respiratory equipment so he can have surgery to correct the diaphragmatic hernia. Samuel is actually doing well enough now that the doctor did a test hand respiration.
He is continuing to progress positively. Continue to pray that Samuel will get stronger.

This is not going to be a sprint but a marathon. I was talking to the nurse this morning she says that this process could take months. It looks like it is a minimum of two months for the best case scenario and up to a year for the worst case scenario. God has a plan for all of this. I am just so happy that I am able to visit my boy. I know that some day we will be playing legos and cars together like all dads do.
Pray for Leyla. She had a rough night last night due to the engorgement. She is emotionally and physically exhausted. She is going to rest in bed today.

Pray for Crystal, my 5 year old daughter. She cried for ten minutes last night because she lost a sticker. She doesn’t know how to express that something is not right.

I talked to the social worker and received the paperwork to fill out for the financial assistance.
More updates later.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 7

2008-12-15T21:21:00.002-05:00

This is update 7. Scroll down for previous updates.

I just got off the phone with Rachael Ratliff. Family Foundations, Cornerstone, my neighbors and others; I am overwhelmed by your kindness to buy a dishwasher for us.

To think that it has just been 4 days since Samuel was born. God must have something incredible planned for Samuel's life. I can't imagine the impact that this trial will have to further the kingdom of God.

I have no words.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 6

2008-12-15T20:48:00.003-05:00

This is update 6. Scroll down for previous updates.

More good news about Samuel. They were able to wean Samuel down to 45% oxygen tonight. The doctor said that he was tickled pink with Samuel's progress. I was finally able to have Samuel hold my finger. He has a strong grip. I previous days he was in more pain so he really didn't want to have anyone touch him and took his hand away. It is obvious that all the prayers are having a big impact in Samuel's life. He is progressing very well.

QSI team, thanks for all the wonderful lunches for this week.

Beth McElheny, thanks for picking up the FenuGreek.

Dave Ratliff, thanks for doing the research on the dishwasher.

The most incredible mother in law in the world decided to get us a dishwasher for Christmas.

The plan for tomorrow is visit Samuel in the morning so I can see the doctors at the beginning of their rounds. I will also be filling out paperwork on financial assistance with the medical bills.

Pray for Leyla she has become engorged with colostrum. She is still really sore as well.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 5

2008-12-15T12:34:00.002-05:00

This is update 5. Scroll down for previous updates.

Samuel is doing well. He had a minor set back early morning with his Oxygen being increased from 57% to 60%. As of 12pm he has been reduced to 57% again which is good news. They have also reduced the pain medication to see how he tolerates that.

When it rains it pours. We found out last night that one of the tires in the Impala is leaking air. The water meter broke. The dishwasher also broke and is leaking water. My dad is taking care of the car. The water meter has been scheduled to be replaced. Rachael Ratliff has volunteered to do some research on the best price for a dishwasher. My mom is taking care of the kids. I am taking care of Leyla and being with Samuel.

Two pieces of good news:

My boss said, I am most likely be able to be off all of December to take care of my wife and be with Samuel.
HR at work said that the out of pocket will be a maximum of $3500 for Samuel for the entire stay at Children's Hospital. The birth will be separate. In the past it has been around $2500 after insurance. That means it looks like it will be around $6000 out of pocket instead of the $10,500 I thought it would be.

We met with the doctor this morning and he said Samuel is doing well. Samuel's kidneys have been getting rid of the fluid as they should. He also has been doing well with bowel movements. The doctor said Samuel is about half way out of the woods.

We met with the social worker to see what financial assistance is available. We will be filling out paperwork tomorrow.

Leyla is meeting with the lactation consultant here at Children's Hospital right now. Because of the stress she is having a lot of trouble expressing the milk. Leyla will most likely need to go back to the doctor as here swelling has not gone down as it should. She is still being put into a wheel chair to be able to see Samuel.

Beth McElheny has been put in charge of visits to the house (which are limited to two per day). She is in charge of handing out the rules and the code to visit Samuel in the hospital. She had people sign up to provide meals for all of January.

Bruce Lindman is in charge of putting together lunches for Leyla and I to take to the hospital. Doctor rounds are from 10am-12pm which means that we need to be there during lunch time every day in order to talk to the doctor.

Current needs:
Could someone pick up some fenu greek from GNC and bring it to the house? Jenn McCracken had good success with fenu greek letting down the milk. Leyla needs all the help she can get. Please respond to this post if you are able to get it.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 4

2008-12-14T17:25:00.002-05:00

This is update 4. Scroll down for previous updates.

Samuel responded well to the second sedative given to him which made him not fight the ventilator so much. He was weaned down during the night from 76% oxygen to 59% oxygen.

Today they took out the chest tube on his left lung. They also increased his nutrition to make him stockier for the upcoming surgery. We don't know when the surgery will be, except that it won't be in the next four to five days. He will need to be gradually be weaned off the ventilator.

Specific Prayer Needs:
0. Pray that Samuel would continue to get stronger.
1. Leyla has been very stressed out and cannot express any milk. We will be visiting a lactation consultant tomorrow. Pray for her peace.
2. My boss at work is going to see what the options are for taking additional time off. Pray that I will be able to get the time off that I need to take care of my wife and son.
3. Tomorrow we will be calling our health insurance to see what the out of pocket maximum is. We will also be meeting with the social worker at Children's Hospital to see what other financial assistance there is.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 3

2008-12-13T21:51:00.002-05:00

This is update 3. Scroll down for previous updates.

Please pray for Leyla. She is both physically and mentally exhausted. Labor was 12 hours and she is in quite a bit of pain because they had a difficult time getting out the placenta. Today was a particularly difficult day for Leyla to see the empty bassinet beside the bed.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 2

2008-12-13T19:48:00.003-05:00

This is update 2. Scroll down for previous updates.

Samuel did much better this afternoon. He was put on an additional sedative which allowed him to relax and better accept the oxygen from the oscillating ventilator. He was weaned from 100% oxygen back down to 76% oxygen. This is great news.

Also, I was able to see his eyes today. They are brown and similar to Leyla's. Thank you for praying.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 1

2008-12-13T15:33:00.003-05:00

All,

It has been a rough couple of days.

Samuel Kenneth Finzer was born on Thursday December 11th at around 6:45PM. He was 7 lbs 9 ounces and 20 ¼ inches long at Riverside Methodist Hospital.

Right after birth Samuel was not breathing and he turned blue. A small army of nurses filled the delivery room. They were able to give him 100% oxygen to preserve his life. He was immediately taken to NICU and had a chest X-Ray. The first chest X-Ray was completely white. Indicating he had no lungs or his lungs were collapsed. They drained his left lung of fluid and put him on a ventilator.

The second X-Ray revealed that Samuel was born with a Diaphragmatic hernia on the right side. We were told on Thursday evening by the doctor at Riverside that he would not make it through the night. The NICU team at Riverside was able to stabilize him. He was then transported to Children's Hospital that same night.

Explanation of a Diaphragmatic hernia:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/MEDLINEPLUS/ency/article/001135.htm
http://www.cdhsupport.org/cdh/overview.php

During early Friday morning he became worse and had to be switched from a regular ventilator to an oscillating ventilator. All day Friday he responded well to the oscillating ventilator. He was slowly being weaned off the 100% oxygen. He went from 100% oxygen to 78% oxygen on Friday night.

Early Saturday morning his Oxygen level deteriorated and he had to be put back at 100% oxygen. Saturday afternoon he started doing better again. He is extremely sensitive to light and sound.

We so much appreciate each and every one of you that are praying. We can feel your prayers. We went from thinking about having to pick out a funeral home and a casket to having Samuel being fairly stable. Good is so good. Thank God for protecting my mom and dad. They came up to help a day early, before the freezing rain. Last night their brakes went out on the car. That also could have happened on the drive up.

As I have been saying to everyone that I come in contact with; God has a plan. My wife and I did not pick the conception. With my two girls I thought that I only made girls. God chose the baby to be a boy. God gave my wife the name for Samuel. God has a plan for the recovery of Samuel. We give him all the glory.

I will have more information later today.

Unable to attach to application 'WebDev.WebServer.EXE'

2008-12-02T09:42:00.004-05:00

Unable to attach to application 'WebDev.WebServer.EXE' is one of the worst errors that I've encountered recently.

There are three work arounds for this error:

1. Reboot your machine.
2. Add paths to Norton Anti-Virus.
3. If you have a copy of two web projects in the same solution change the port and the file name.

Our solution contained a copy of two web projects. Both web projects were configured to use a specific port. We have a test harness that posts XML to a web page that required a specific port. Somewhere along the line, Visual Studio was confused; when one project was run, it actually tried to debug the old project.

Hopefully this information helps someone.

Does Miller's experiment prove evolution?

2008-10-17T12:04:00.003-04:00

After reading this link about Miller's experiment, I decided to respond to it:
Miller's Experiment

In Miller's experiment the earth's atmosphere was assumed to be without oxygen. The problem is with no oxygen, there is no shield from harmful UV rays. This would have killed the "soup". Has anyone come up with a solution to this problem?

In the experiment both L and D stereotype amino acids were formed. Life only uses L stereotype amino acids. Does anyone know why that is?

What process combined the amino acids into DNA strands in the proper sequence? Does anyone know?

What process created the cell micro-machines that perform the translation of sections of DNA into messenger RNA? Does anyone know?

What process created the cellular protein regulation process? Does anyone know?

Some microbiologists spend their entire lives trying to understand the complex processes and information of cells. In the past, scientists believed that the cell was as simple as gelatin. The current understanding of the inner workings of a single cell is that it is equivalent to the complexity of the factories of General Motors and all of its part manufacturers. We still don't understand the main control process of the cell (when the cell is told to start making a protein and to stop making a protein). This is equivalent to the the inventory department at GM deciding to create more Chevy Cobalt Cars because those are in demand and stopping Chevy Suburban SUV production. What is staggering is the amount of information contained in the RNA to make a single protein. Similarly the design plans for a single General Motors car and the processes to create one are overwhelmingly complex.

To think that all the factories and processes of General Motors could be created accidentally is utter nonsense. In the Miller experiment essentially what they have created in General Motors terms is raw steel. Steel by itself doesn't create the design blueprint for the car (equivalent to an RNA section for a specific protein). Steel by itself doesn't create processes to build assembly line robots that build cars (equivalent to cell micro machines). Steel by itself doesn't create the transformers that convert the AC into DC to power the robots (cell glucose conversion into energy). Steel by itself can't create the process to create a new assembly plant (cellular mitosis; cell division).

Just as it is obvious that someone designed and built that car you are driving; it is obvious that someone designed and built proteins. Just as it is obvious that someone designed and created the processes of General Motors, it is obvious that someone designed and created the processes of cells. Each cell in your body has a specific purpose and works together with other cells. Doctor's still don't understand how everything works in the human body because it is so complex. There are around 300 cell categories. At this level, imagine a company 300 times the size and complexity of General Motors all working together. There is an estimated 10 million species on earth. At this level imagine a company 3 trillion times the size and complexity of General Motors.

Consider the biological process complexity. The processes and interactions between the processes are incomprehensible. Consider your job. Whether you flip burgers or are Joe the Plumber; processes don't happen by accident. At any level, you had some kind of training or education to do your job. Processes are designed.

But couldn't over millions of years the amino acids combine to create the DNA chains? Couldn't the processes be created by accident by the environment? Let's take that same argument to our GM example. Over millions of years, couldn't the raw steel create blueprints to create assembly line robots? Couldn't the raw steel create the assembly line robots? Couldn't the raw steel create the hardware programs and processes for the robots to create the cars? As silly as that sounds, the equivalent comparison is what evolutionists are claiming about amino acids. By itself, raw steel does nothing. By itself, amino acids do nothing.

Someone had to make the banana so you could eat it. Someone had to create the processes in your body to digest it. Someone had to make the bacteria in your intestine to break it down.

That someone is God.

Search & Replace SQL Characters

2008-10-07T13:17:00.002-04:00

Here is how to replace m-dash characters with a dash character:


UPDATE Customer
SET CompanyName= REPLACE(CompanyName,CHAR(150),CHAR(45))
WHERE CompanyName Like '%' + CHAR(150) + '%'

SQL Server Object Dependencies

2008-08-08T11:03:00.004-04:00

Paul Montgomery was kind enough to pass this one on. This is great for seeing what function or stored procedure is used by.


SELECT DISTINCT
o.name AS UsedBy
FROM Sys.sysdepends j
JOIN sys.objects o on o.object_id = j.id
JOIN sys.objects d on d.object_id = j.depid
WHERE d.name = 'MyFunctionOrStoredProcedureName'