The past week was kind of crazy.
From early 1998 to early 2002, I was employed by AOL (also for about a month in ‘97 before my bad car accident). On the whole, I generally enjoyed the job, and that’s in great part due to the people. I met Lisa there, and made some great friends. Lisa made some great friends too. One of them is an awesome guy named Shawn Storey. I didn’t know Shawn very well in my time at AOL, but I knew who he was, what his roles were, and had heard generally good things about him. As Lisa became good friends with him (and the rest of the training department), I feel like I got to know them fairly well as well. I don’t think I ever saw Shawn without a smile on his face.
I’m not sure of the exact details, but I believe that on Friday, January 4th, Shawn had a massive stroke. We got word of it on Tuesday, and we went and visited, but didn’t see anyone there. We went out for awhile on Wednesday night, and stayed there with him and his family for awhile. Lisa made a really awesome guest book/scrapbook on Thursday, and we took it up on Friday and spent several hours there with him and family. He’s in adult intensive care, and sleeps a lot, but is at least stable. Lisa went down and visited him again today.
It’s gotten together some of Lisa’s old coworkers, a lot of the people from training, as well as various other AOLers coming through to visit. It’s really quite amazing to see and hear about how many people have come to visit. If it’s your way, prayers and thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
In lighter news, we tried to adopt a new dog. Working with Lapdog Rescue, we brought the little dog named PokaDottie on that website into our home. The site lists her as a Terrier cross, but she didn’t exactly look like a terrier to us. We had her groomed, and our groomer said she thought that Dottie was a Chinese Crested. After digging out our ASPCA book, we agree. We kept her overnight, and she did start to fall for us, but something didn’t feel right. There was a bit too much aggression between her and Gryphon, and she was oddly loud and aggressive towards my parents-in-law. She wasn’t right for us, and we reluctantly had Lapdog Rescue pick her back up. She’s still listed as available, so if you’re looking for a cute and cuddly dog, she might be right for you, but she wasn’t for us.
We also learned through the dealings with a new dog that we’re really lucky with Gryphon. He’s an absolutely awesome dog with a great demeanor and we’ve fallen in love with him more than we ever thought we would have. Heck, we have pictures of him framed and hanging in the house. He’s really improved our lives and I’m glad we have him.
So, yeah, been quite the week. This week seems to be off to a calmer start, which is good.
If you knew Shawn and want more information, contact me personally via email/IM and we’ll talk more. Regardless, thoughts and prayers are greatly appreciated, both by us and his family.