Close the Distance

Crazy visit to the hospital

Trevor McCready — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 23:37:04 +0000

Much has happened since I last posted. My son has undergone a number of tests. At his endoscopy, we went to the hospital where as we were leaving we watched a helicopter come in for a landing. Not a big deal right…well, it turns out that as it passed the building between us and the landing pad, it crashed on the roof. My wife saw the billowing smoke out our rear window. All very crazy and exciting. I can say it was exciting because everyone ended up being okay and I’m sure the hospital has good insurance, that is if our hospital bill didn’t cover it

Oh and by the way, my son’s test did go well, and led us to follow-up with an allergist for more testing (more on that later).

My yard rocks!

Trevor McCready — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 15:53:41 +0000

The weather is getting nice and that means its time to get started on planting and landscaping our yard. The first thing we did was draw up a landscaping plan so we knew what trees we wanted to plant and where we plan on building things like our shed, swingset, ice rink, pool, etc. Yep, we have lots of dreams with regard to building an in-ground pool someday and I’m hoping to put in an ice rink each winter. The first big project we will try to tackle is building a shed to store our new John Deere and other gardening supplies and tools. Hopefully we can finish that by the time winter rolls around so we can have our garage back.

I’m including a picture of our landscaping plan if your interested in seeing what kind of trees we will be planting.

For the next couple weeks our focus will be on preparing our yard for planting grass. The problem we are facing with planting the grass is that there are about a gazilleon rocks scattered across our yard. We have already dug up about 10 buckets full of rocks. We’ll use them for decoration around gardens and such, otherwise, anyone have a rock quary they want to fill

Its been fun so far. God has been so good in giving us such a nice home on a beautiful property. We look forward to the day when the trees are grown and we can use the yard to play and relax on.

CU Online

Trevor McCready — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 00:49:16 +0000

Work has been very busy lately. Since December:

we selected the ANGEL LMS as our learning management system to replace our current Blackboard System.
designed and developed a website, cuonline.cornerstone.edu, for all the university’s online programs and courses.
started development of the online curriculum for the online MBA program which will be launched as early as May.
plus all the usual, “other duties as assigned”.

It has been a lot of work, but it has also been lots of fun. I really look forward to seeing the online programs take off at Cornerstone University. There is so much potential for helping people who aren’t able to travel to Grand Rapids or elsewhere for their education. Cornerstone is certainly committed to the fundamentals of the Christian faith and will remain so, by God’s grace, with the hiring of Dr. Joseph Stowell as its next president.

This past year has been so exciting and I am hopeful that the coming year ahead will be just as exciting if not more so.

Oh Deer!

Trevor McCready — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 21:12:20 +0000

Well, it happened…living in the county with the most car-deer collisions per capita in the USA, it was inevitable. I hit two deer on the way home from work tonight. It was dark and my eye was caught by another car about to turn in front of me and the next thing I knew, I saw from the corner of my eye three large deer jumping onto the road getting larger by the millisecond. I’m pretty sure I hit two of them – or they hit me, I’m not sure which. Anyway, after coming to a complete stop, I saw about four more cross the road. Wow, what a scary experience. No airbags, no damage to my lights, or windshield, just a crumpled hood and some of my front grill is gone and my VW badge on the front of the car is also gone. I found no traces of the deer or my car parts after getting out to look around, but it was dark and I didn’t want to linger lest I get hit by another car or deer There was hair from the deer stuck on my car, so I know I wasn’t hallucinating or something.

God is good…more significant damage could have been done, or worse yet, it could have come crashing through the windshield and hit me. Of course, no doubt that I wouldn’t do the stupid thing and try to swerve to end up rolled over and pinned under my car.

I’m including a picture for those that want to see the damage.

Eye construction

Trevor McCready — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 15:36:50 +0000

I failed to tell most anyone that I recently had “outpatient surgery” on my left eyelid. It was all very sudden. I went to get my eyes checked to get new glasses and ended up with an appointment to see a specialist about a growth on the inside of my eyelid.

So, I went to the specialist and he recommended removing it which they did that afternoon in their large office. I had a patch on overnight and then was able to function pretty normally after that. It has pretty much healed completely. They did send a sample off to the lab for testing. Allison was able to watch the whole procedure, so if you have questions about what it was like under my eyelid, she could tell you how pleasant it all was I told her she couldn’t take pictures of the procedure, although the doctors were quite open to the idea. I have no desire to see behind my eyelids. If God wanted us to be able to see behind our eyelids we would be able to see it when we close our eyes. I don’t know about you, but all I see is darkness. Oh, and the doctor was so reassuring saying that he didn’t think the growth was anything to be concerned about, but they did say during the procedure, “I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

Moving in

Trevor McCready — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 15:26:05 +0000

We are coming to an end of our summer of moving The house is finished! Well sort of. I can say that we are so grateful to Cornerstone University and to Allison’s parents for welcoming us first in the campus apartments for two months, then to Allison’s parents who welcomed us into their home for what has become two months. It is uncommon to find people of such kindness and hospitality these days. I don’t know how Allison and I could have survived the past two months without Bob & Martha’s hospitality. Given all that they have done for us, one continues to wonder how we could ever repay them…I know they would say there is no need…but one still wonders.

Well, we took possession of our new home on Thursday of last week and have been moving and building ever since. It has been fairly chaotic, but manageable I guess. We have the walls framed for Josh’s bedroom in the basement, we had a water softener installed and have had to have the air conditioning fixed all since moving in. Oh, and we have been unloading the PODS that we had stored all our stuff in before. I hope to have the stove installed tonight so we can start cooking and connect the water line to our refrigerator. Oh, all the details, the list of things we need to do. I doubt we will feel settled till next year sometime. We still don’t have closets. I guess this is what happens when we try to save a few bucks here and there by not having professional installation of some of these things. The house is beautiful…it will be wonderful – actually it is wonderful, but I can’t wait until we can get to the place where we will actually be able to enjoy it.

House progressing well

Trevor McCready — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 21:50:02 +0000

This weekend Allison and I (mostly Allison) have been painting our new house. We have focused on the bedrooms first since work was still being done on the dining room floor. The floor was finished today and so all that remains for flooring is the carpeting. Our builder did some special tile work in the main entry and in the master bath floor and I think it gives it such a nice touch. She will also do some special tile work around on the wall above the master bath. The house is coming along really well. This week will be very eventful as the kitchen cabinetry and counter tops are put in. Also, some of our appliances will be delivered
and connected.

Hopefully the rest of the details will come together quickly. As with most new construction houses, theft is all too common. I drove by tonight and saw a suspicious truck on the road of the development. When I approached, he sped off and so I followed him a little bit and he did a quick turnaround into heavy traffic. The house is locked up, but since they sit vacant, some losers prey on them thinking they can get power tools and building supplies for free. Our builder has been wise so far and not left much of anything at the
house when they aren’t there and had what they needed delivered when
right when they need it. Unfortunately, would be burglars don’t necessarily know this nor do they realize how much it costs themselves when they steal from others, if they get caught or even if they don’t get caught. The house done the street apparently was burglarized and they vandalized the house too. That could be a major setback for the building schedule and is so discouraging to everyone if someone were to do something. I pray that God protects the house and the builder’s tools and supplies.

No longer stoned ;)

Trevor McCready — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 21:47:41 +0000

Well, relief came this week from my kidney stone. It passed on Wednesday, and each day I have felt better as my body has regained strength. It is amazing how wiped out a person can get from such a small little stone. I will be submitting it to my doctor for testing and I anticipate that I will be changing my diet somehow depending on what the makeup of my stone is.

Kidney Stone

Trevor McCready — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 11:46:14 +0000

Wednesday morning, I woke up with extreme back pain. I had similar pains back in January when I had my first kidney stone. I say first, because I confirmed later in the day that I now have my second stone. It was a terrible day to get one as I was due to give a 45 minute presentation to all the faculty at the University. I ended up getting to the presentation about 15 minutes later than planned as my boss, was very gracious and did introductions to our plans and introduced me during this delay. I was drugged and still in pain, but the presentation still went off okay – at least from what I could tell.

I think these kidney stones derive from my many years of soda consumption. I was drinking a can or bottle of Coca Cola once a day or more. I love the stuff. I think I may have to swear off of it, or at least reserve it for special occasions like following a good hard hockey game or something. Now that I am in Grand Rapids, and my commute is so much shorter, I should be able to start finding ways to exercise during the extra time I will have (although I’m sure it won’t seem like extra time).

Anyway, pray that the stone passes on its own and doesn’t cause too much pain as it does. I want to be able to continue to work during this time, hopefully I will be able to.

Mortgageless :)

Trevor McCready — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 22:39:57 +0000

Not sure if that is a word…mortgageless…but that is what we are now. The closing on our house in Indiana was Friday. Went off without a hitch. We discovered that the people that bought our house used to work where I did in Chicago (before I worked there though). Anyway, we hope the best for them and their family. It is kindof nice not having a mortgage to our name for a time. But it won’t be for long.

Our family took some time yesterday to go to the Dutch Festival in Greenville, MI. It was a fun time, unfortunately we weren’t able to go to all that we had wanted to because it rained out late in the day and completely on Sunday. Maybe we will go again next year. The kids were hoping to see the elephants that were promised for Sunday afternoon. That would have been pretty exciting.

Allison said that she would take the kids rock hunting this week…on our new property…hopefully they find some good rocks for our future garden.