Stephen's Personal Blog

Sunday was Staci’s baby shower for Maddison. I stopped in for a few minutes. These are the pictures I took.

Remember, Maddison is due April 9th.

This is Debbie and Don’s snowfall before the big one.

The photos I took of the baby pigeon on my patio this summer and compiled into a slideshow have 25 hits on YouTube. I’m amazed that’s way more than the other videos on MySpace and YouTube combined. So here’s a shameless plug to get that number even higher.

Debbie’s baby, Aaron Speedy, born in Ambulance.

By Renee Gamela
Observer-Dispatch
rgamela@utica.gannett.com

Aaron Speedy is the fourth child in his family, but he might have bragging rights for the most memorable birth.

After all, he was delivered in an ambulance, survived birth complications and a collision just across the street from the hospital.

“It really is truly, I think, a miracle,” said the baby’s father, the Rev. Donald Speedy .

Speedy, pastor of Inlet Community Church, said doctors were supposed to induce labor Friday for his wife, Debbie. It didn’t work out that way.

Debbie Speedy gave birth at 7:33 a.m. Wednesday in an Inlet Volunteer Emergency Service ambulance on Route 28 near White Lake, her husband said. They called 911 at 6:15 a.m.

En route to the hospital the ambulance, driven by Robert J. Gordon, 70, of Inlet, was struck by a minivan, New Hartford police said. The ambulance was traveling north on French Road, approaching the Burrstone Road intersection, when it was hit by a westbound minivan driven by SherriAnn Young, 35, of Rome, police said.

The baby and mother were not injured and made it safely to Faxton-St. Luke’s Healthcare’s St. Luke’s campus after a second ambulance arrived to transport them, police said.

“They’re doing great,” Donald Speedy said. “The volunteers in Inlet did a wonderful job with the birth of the baby, so everything’s fine.”

Paramedics Carol Schmid, 52, of Inlet and Annette Curri, 52, of Eagle Bay and Donald Speedy were all jostled in the ambulance and suffered minor injuries, police said.

Schmid delivered the baby and was assisted by Curri. Donald Speedy commended both the women for his son’s birth. He said the umbilical cord was wrapped around Aaron’s neck, but Schmid was able to remove it.

“Carol Schmid said that in a lot of different ways this birth was truly miraculous,” the father said.

The Speedys relocated about seven months ago to Inlet from Louisville, Ky. when Donald Speedy became pastor of the community church, he said. None of the Speedys’ older children, Matthew, 6, Kara, 4, or Joshua, 2, had a birth experience like baby Aaron’s, Donald Speedy said.

Although, he admitted, he never expected for his wife to deliver their son in an ambulance.

“I was really scared because I know that they’re professionals, they do a wonderful job, but I would have rather been in the hospital delivering,” Donald Speedy said.

All involved in the accident were taken to St. Luke’s for minor injuries, were treated and released, police said.

Both the ambulance and Young’s vehicle were extensively damaged and had to be towed from the scene, police said.

No tickets have been issued and the accident remains under investigation.

I’ve got some links for the christmas pictures.

One is the standard holiday pics. I was experimenting a little with no-flash. The Canon A610 is mostly good enough to work inside at night w/o flash. It took a day to get the settings right. So, some pics have a slight blur in them.
Two is movies of Grandma at poker on Christmas Eve and Zoey’s laughing Elmo the next morning. I got a lot of SD card memory at Christmas and started experimenting with the movie feature.
Three is pics of Mom’s yard; tree damage from the ice storm and the frozen pond with the cat still trying to catch the fish under the inch of ice.

YouTube: “Grandma, Smile for the Camera”

For my Lucid Dreaming and Meditation class, the link to the mp3s is here. If you like anything leave a comment.

My mom’s going through a lot of stuff right now. On the 4th of July weekend, her house was broken into while she was out and some things were stolen. The police fingerprinted the area, which turned out to be her bedroom. If you have not seen the black fingerprinting powder you’re very fortunate. It’s extremely difficult to remove, especially from shag carpet. So in addition to the theft, she had to replace the carpet. Which was much more expensive than the items taken. With the carpet it seemed like a good idea to repaint the walls. Several months ago whe repainted the living room a soothing light green. For her bedroom, we went to Walmart and picked out an off-pink(?) mostly white latex.

On Saturday, Gma, Kayla, and I drove to mom’s house for the painting party.

My sister’s daughter, Kayla almost 3.5, was visiting for the week. I got several pictures of her. She obviously likes to pose for the camera. A very direct and smart girl. There are several anecdotes about her. It occurred to me that hers is the first generation that will grow up on the internet. I’m writing and taking pictures of her that will likely still be available as she ages. She could live to 100 with “intimate” publicly available documentation for the whole time.

And several pictures of mom’s pond and backyard. She had a number of fish and plant giant pumpkins everywhere. She has a contest going with her brother, Stanley, and Eric Carter’s(?) dad about who can grow the largest pumpkin. They have leaves that stand about 10″ off the ground and are 16″-20″ across.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures of the painting.

A lot of things happened this weekend when I went to my grandmother’s house. One of the coolest things was getting a picture of these three barn? owls roosted in the tree above the cookout. The owls are together with the left and right ones look in the away and the center owl looking directly at the camera with those huge eyes. This just screems out to be wallpaper so I’m posting it ahead of the other pictures. Several people requested a copy. I have the full size original, email me if you want a larger picture file.

Update 1: 7/23/2006 – Here are the July 4th pictures.