Oct
31
Yeah, sad but true. I’m taking the blog down. I won’t bore you with the reasons behind my decision for killing the blog, other than to say it’s been a long time coming.
Oh, I’ll still be around. I plan on participating in NaNoWriMo again (if you count last year’s resignation after three days an attempt), and once that’s over I’ll probably fire up the ovens over at The Dimmer Switch. For what it’s worth the site will still be here (the blog will too, for at least another couple of weeks or so). I may look into an entire site redesign (ha! No, seriously this time) as I try to get back to doing what I initially had in mind when I decided to fork over some cash for my own little corner of the web.
Anyone who wants to get in touch can still reach me at my email address (replace the ‘at’ with @, obviously).
So in conclusion, thanks.
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Oct
2
Update on the cat: she’s doing better, but still on the baby food. She’s taken to growling at me when I go at her with a syringe filled with Gerber Graduates Chicken w/ Gravy so she’s getting some of her vigor back. Tomorrow we make a follow up call to the vet on her condition.
Hey, I wrote a new Dimmer Switch! How about that?
She’s not only good at her job, she’s quite handy with a broadsword.
So to answer the follow up question, yes I have regressed back into WoW. I now have an human mage character on the Llane server named Claven (yes, I realize it isn’t spelled the same as Cliff Clavin). Probably in three months I’ll cancel my account again only to renew it six months from now. Yeah, I realize it’s a pointless diversion and that game success is not a substitute for real world success, but it’s a fun diversion. Plus now that I have real world acquaintances in the game, it makes it a little more fun and feel more like I am socializing even though I’m just sitting at the computer.
Oh, and I suppose I wouldn’t be a blogger worth his salt if I didn’t mention the VP debate which just concluded. With disregard to any personal allegiance I may have towards either ticket, I felt Joe Biden was the winner when it came to providing responses to the questions asked by the moderator and not just parroting stump speech rhetoric and catch phrases (a bit of advice to the McCain camp: your core rebuttal to any policy question cannot be the word “Maverick”.) On the other hand, regarding the candidates stage presence and likability, I felt that Palin left the stage with the upper hand. The winks to the camera and using words like geewillikers or dadgummit or whatever yokel colloquialisms she kept using during the debate definitely played to her small town base, which is exactly who the McCain camp is trying to reach.
Let’s face it, the people voting on policy have already made their mind up. Most probably did so months before they even knew which candidates would face off this fall. So the voters still in play are the “you know what, he/she seems like a nice person, I’ll vote for him/her” voters. Talk all you want about the importance of voting and keeping yourself informed, but elections are won because of personality and popularity, not policy.
That’s not to say Joe Biden didn’t come off as likable; in fact I felt he handled himself quite well. Of the four candidates we’ve seen thus far in the debates, he’s stammered less than any of them. I was impressed with Joe’s stage presence even back during the Democratic primary, though in this situation he wasn’t as able to respond as candidly as he did last November. I think the Obama camp definitely reigned in Joe’s personality, and I think he was less effective for it.
So in conclusion, I’m basically just irked that they preempted The Office for this. Why can’t they have the debates on Tuesday? I have no television commitments on that day.
And there you have it: my two cents on the debate, a plug for my column, and an update on my vomiting cat. I love the randomness of blogging.
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Sep
30
I was up most of the night Monday, tending to a sick cat.
No, that’s not an allegory towards our current financial crisis; I actually have a sick cat. I do see how one could draw comparisons between the turmoil on Wall Street and a sick housecat. You don’t really know how to fix the situation; all you can do is follow it around and try to clean up the messes it leaves behind before someone else steps in it. You may make a few small attempts to coax the ailing cat into better health by encouraging it to eat, but you stop just short of cramming food down it’s throat in fear that it’ll just create an even bigger mess than the one you just cleaned up. So yes, a sick cat is just like a downtrodden economy: basically all you can do is clean up the messes as they pop up and hope the people in charge of mending it back to health know what the hell they’re talking about.
Unlike the economy, whose downfall can pretty much be linked to the subprime mortgage crisis, the source of our cat’s illness isn’t quite as clear. It started last Thursday when Lucy (our recently promoted first string cat) started acting lethargic and throwing up. We figured she was just having difficulty hacking up a hairball, so we gave her some treatment and hoped she’d pass it soon. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, more vomiting, still no hairball. Sunday she started having muscle tremors and difficulties walking. We kept her hydrated as best we could (she was still throwing up) and monitored her through the evening.
On Monday morning, my wife took her into the vet. The vet’s initial diagnosis was that Lucy was having some sort of neurological problem, possibly from a knock to the head. This made a lot of since actually since our new kitteh Mia enjoyed chasing Lucy, so there was a good chance that Lucy might have fallen and conked her noggin or ran head first into a wall while trying to avoid the annoying kitteh. The vet kept her for observations during the day, giving her a med that would make her eat and giving her IV fluids. When I picked her up Monday evening her tremors had gotten worse and she could hardly walk. We corralled her into the bathroom with a litter tray, some food and water, plus a towel to lay on (and to mop up the eventual cat vomit). She hadn’t eaten anything since we brought her home, so I tried forcing her to eat a little tuna. She wasn’t too pleased with me for doing that, but she kept it down. I was up until around 3am keeping tabs on her.
Tuesday morning she seemed much perkier. The tremors were gone and she was walking much better. She willingly ate some tuna (not much, but more than she’d eaten on her own the previous night), so we set her free for the day.
She seemed to be on the road to recovery, but this evening she started exhibiting the muscle fatigue and tremors again. Plus, neither my wife or I recalled seeing her eat anything today. Around 9pm I made a quick run to the store for some baby food and an oral syringe. Gerber Stages Chicken w/ Gravy, mmmm tasty. It had more fat and protein than the veggie alternatives, and I figured after four days of hardly eating she needed something hearty. I got around 15 mls of baby food in her figuring that was a good start and hoped that she’d manage to keep it down. Just like nursing an economy back to health, you can’t over do it too quickly.
I’m hopeful to have better cat news tomorrow. She seemed to perk up a little after the feeding, and if she keeps it down I’ll try to get a little more in her before bedtime tonight. If she’s still showing signs of muscle fatigue and tremors tomorrow the vet wants to see her again, so here’s hoping she’s feeling better tomorrow.
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Sep
29
Okay, Break’s Over
Filed Under General
Yeah, I figure it’s time to start writing again.
Oh I’m sorry, perhaps I should introduce myself. My name is Chris, and I’m the owner of this here establishment. I used to write here on a regular basis, but sometime over the past year or so my interest in daily upkeep has waned significantly. Not that I haven’t had anything to say, just that others had already said it more eloquently than I ever could, so I’d be just another person shouting in the echo chamber of the internet. After a month of silence, I figure it’s time to rejoin the chorus.
It’s been almost a month since I’ve posted either here or at The Dimmer Switch (coming back this week as well, promise). Project 52 has been shot to hell, but no matter. The stopping of one streak is just the beginning of another. It’ll probably a bit rough these first couple of weeks as I try to get back into the swing of things, but here’s hoping I can regain my footing.
So yes, I’m back for good. I think. Celebration starts below.
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Sep
5
I am broken.
This past month has been a killer. Apparently the month of August, in conspiracy with my job, extended members of my family, and even parts of my own body decided to officially team up and kick my ass. And they won.
Oh hi! Long time no see. Yes, I know I’m a slacker. The site’s in shambles, The Dimmer Switch unpublished for two weeks. But… as always, there’s an excuse, but where to begin with the month of August? Let’s start with the job.
The job is going well (been there for 9 months, so I can no longer refer to it as the new job), thank you very much. Honestly, after dreading getting up to go to work for the previous 6 years it’s refreshing to actually enjoy working. The nature of my position appeals to the problem solver in me and I think I’ve gotten pretty good at it in the short time I’ve been there. August was to be a bit different though since my boss was off for three weeks during the month to tend to his wife and newborn daughter. I had to step in as acting department manager in his absence, and though it wasn’t as smooth as I had hoped it would be, I think I handled it well. No major problems… none that I caused at least. But with running a dept comes responsibilities, such as making sure nothing is left hanging before you leave at the end of the day. My mind was constantly running, focusing on potential and known issues as I tried to cover as many bases as I could so no one could blame me if anything fell through the cracks. So by the end of each day (each long day, I should say), my brain was fried.
On top of the extra pressure at work, we also had some refugees from the state of Florida living with us. My wife’s sister (who is 8 1/2 months pregnant), her husband, his two teenage children, their cat and two dogs moved back to Ohio. To top it all of, it was practically unplanned. There were talks of moving one day, and there were loaded down trailers and trucks northward bound the next. They literally picked up stakes on Thursday and drove to Ohio with no place to live once they got here. So upon arrival, we unloaded the rental truck and trailer into three different garages while my wife’s mom and grandmother worked behind the scenes to procure a rental place until they could find a more permanent abode. A house was found but they couldn’t move in for at least a week, so until they could move in we had the two teenagers and one of their dogs living with us. As an omen of the week to come, the first thing the dog did upon entering the house was lift his leg on the first piece of furniture he could find. Niiiice.
Don’t get me wrong, the kids are wonderful. But I’m not ready for teenagers. All kids are noisy to a degree, but teenagers are a different kind of loud. Between the beep-booping of text messages bouncing off my skull, the constant white noise of iPod headphones in close proximity, plus the click-clacking of the Guitar Hero guitar until 2am (he was at least courteous enough to mute the television), I couldn’t think straight. Besides the noise, teenagers also eat a lot more than a 9 yr old and a 4 yr old do (yeah, I know. Weird huh?). After two days we went through a week’s worth of groceries.
Whether it was stress from all the buzzing going on around me or a result of loading and unloading 3 garages in the span of a week, my body had had enough. I woke up one morning and my neck felt like Stephen Segal had either snapped it or sat on it. I couldn’t turn my head more than a few degrees either way. Even today my neck is still quite stiff, thought the pain has pretty much subsided.
So now everything has returned to normal; or at least to what’s currently passing as normal these days. As all of this was going on we were also busy with the kids going back to school, the wife going back to work teaching, juggling soccer practice, dance practice, and all the peripherals associated with each.
Yes, I realize I’m whining. But after the month I’ve had, I think I’m allowed to whinge a little. Here’s to a calm September.
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Aug
18
Wow, August is halfway over. Where did the summer go?
Yeah, I know where it went. Same place it goes every year I suppose, just it never seems to hit you until it’s the middle of August and you’re doing back to school shopping with your children. As summers go, this one really didn’t have the trademark summer defining moment which summers tend to have. Although I suppose the lack of a trademark summer defining moment is the trademark summer defining moment for this season. I dunno, just seemed like something more exciting should’ve happened. Oh well, although school starts in less than two weeks, summer technically isn’t over for another month, so there’s still enough time to have a true trademark summer defining moment.
Along with the back to school shopping for the kids, we’ve also did some back to school shopping for the wife this year. She’s heading back to the classroom (as a teacher, not a pupil). It’s a part time-ish teaching position for this year since our youngest is still a year from kindergarten, this way we won’t have to pay for childcare besides her regular half-day preschool. For the past three years she’s been tutoring at home to help make ends meet (those ends being the bills and the on time payment of them), but she’s been itching to get back into the classroom for quite some time now. She’s both excited and apprehensive about the prospect since she’s not sure how her body will react to returning to a regular work schedule. She usually has an MS relapse every Sept/Oct, though the past couple of years have been milder since she’s been off work. Always seems to be the changing of the seasons that gets her. She’s recently switched doctors, and her new neurologist has changed her meds a little so hopefully the changes will help her weather the fall a bit better.
Last week was a new beginning of sorts for me over at The Dimmer Switch. Well, yeah I did start publishing again after a two week hiatus, but last week’s column is the first in over two years that I didn’t syndicate over at Gather. I’ve decided to move on, I suppose. I flirted with the idea of quitting the site back in April but was persuaded to hang around to see how a few new upgrades would pan out at the site. Can’t say I was too pleased with the changes made, plus after reviewing my traffic data against the pageview counts over at Gather I realized the site really wasn’t increasing my exposure by that much. Sure, I get a lot more comments and the occasional gift card, but that’s really not my goal.
(Speaking of goal, we will not discuss progress toward said goal. Let’s just say my procrastination and propensity to find diversionary activities are my biggest hinderance these days.)
I haven’t nuked my profile yet, so I’ve left the door open to potentially reviving the Gather presence. I’ll probably still read and comment over there (though the recent changes make it much more difficult to find anything new), but I have no plans to publish anything over there again anytime soon. Unless they pay me. 
Speaking of diversionary activites, I just finished reading “Bite Me” by Christopher Moore. Up until now pretty much every book I read that wasn’t a class assignment were verbose, 800 word tomes (I cut my teeth reading Stephen King and Tolkien). It’s one of the reasons why I gave up on writing fiction (well that and my previous admission of being a procrastinator and seeker of entertaining diversionary activities). Maybe I’ll give it another try.
Speaking of entertaining diversionary activities, I’m flirting with the idea of returning to WoW. Yeah, I know, I killed myself off many months ago, but WoW is like the old GI Joe cartoon from the 80s; despite all of the war and violence, no one ever really dies. My characters are in a virtual stasis, waiting for me to re-up my subscription. Although if I do return, I’ll probably start fresh on a new server. I made the mistake of joining a PVP server the last time, and after hours of getting literally stabbed in the back by random members of the other faction I finally decided it was no longer worth the hassle. But then a guy I worked with mentioned the server he was on was listed as PVE (player vs. environment, for those of you who don’t speak the lingo), plus he was a member of an adults only guild which piqued my interest. Besides the random stabbings, the maturity level of some of the other players was also a drawback to the game. Younger players tend to have lots of Ego-Armor, which is quite annoying. I mostly solo’d when I played but I would occasionally accept a random guild invitation from time to time only to find out that everyone else in the guild was 15. Awkward.
As of this post I haven’t signed back up yet, although I did begin re-downloading the game to the new computer. It should finish downloading by Tuesday (3.9 GB, the game isn’t tiny). Of course getting back into a game like this would greatly eat into my writing time, so I’m taking that into consideration. Well, that and I have to talk it over with the wife.
Well, that should do it for now. See you later (Thursday at the latest).
(I hope)
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Aug
14
8-14-08
Filed Under Dimmer Switch, Me
A Dimmer Switch. I has writed one:
Living with IOMS, One Day at a Time
Yeah, I’m waaaay behind schedule on these. But I’ve been busy. Busy painting.
The wife decided it was time to deck the walls with latex and pigment, fa-la-la-la-la la-la-la-la! I don’t have a lot of patience for home decor type stuff (or home upkeep in general to be honest), but the project has gone along quite well with very few inappropriate swears uttered in front of young children (my mastery of masking swears inside like sounding phrases has come in handy). I’ve been assigned the rather tedious duty of edging, and knowing my propensity for rushing through such tasks in a haphazard manner I’ve actually done a decent job thus far. Of course it’s usually towards the end, when I can actually see the finish line that I start to cut corners. There’s still a ways to go, so I’ll keep you posted.
Oh and we also got a new kitteh. Her name is Mia. A few years back I made the statement that for another animal to enter our house one animal would have to leave, and I have stood strongly behind this statement, keeping our net gain of animals at zero for the past three years (not including fish, which are disposable pets). But after many years of putting up with Prozac cat’s uncontrollable whizzing on the furniture, we found another home for him where he’ll use the great outdoors for his litter box. Since he was cycling out, this opened up the opportunity for a new pet in the house, and the girls seized the opportunity. The initial target pet? A turtle.
How they arrived at turtle I have no idea. All I know is last Friday we visited the pet store with the intent to purchase some sort of turtle like animal. When we arrived the store had only one turtle and he cost 200 dollars. It was quickly decided that there would be no turtle that evening. While we were there, we made our usual pass by the kittehs just to pester them. There was one calico kitteh there who was quite playful that both the girls seemed to like, so the wife and I had a sidebar conversation to see about making a pitch for a kitteh instead of a turtle. We asked them point blank, would you have a turtle or a kitten?
“Kitten.”
“Turtle.”
The younger wanted the turtle, so she and the elder held another sidebar conversation to decide the species of our next pet. After hearing the argument that the turtle really doesn’t do anything, both finally agreed on the kitteh.
We played with her and another kitten in the isolation booth for a few minutes before making the adoption complete. And it was good timing too, since a few other people came up to inquire about the kitteh’s status while my wife was filling out the paperwork.
She assimilated quite well into the animal fold of our house. Oliver (aka the big dog) pays hardly any attention to her and vice versa (I think she thinks he is furniture). Sara(aka the small dog) wants to play with her but isn’t quite sure if the feeling is mutual. Lucy (the other cat) pretty much still hates the new kitteh, but she’s coming around.
Well, that’s about it for today. I’ll be sure to post some new kitteh photos soon sometime eventually.
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Aug
8
Yeah, I’ve been away. Everything is fine, but I’m still away. Sorta. Wish I had more to share, but it’s just the usual daily life stuff keeping me running and keeping me busy.
The new computer? It crashed last week. Apparently an Apple leaf fell on my achilles as I was baptized in the fount of Apple glory, so I was still susceptible to the unprovoked, unexpected computer lockdown that plagued my days as a PC user. It was quite odd, especially for someone like me who’s still adjusting to the quirks of Mac. I went to power up the computer and instead of the nice, normal Mac turning on sound I was greeted with a white screen and five loud beeps, a pause, then five loud beeps again, repeat. And they were loud, angry beeps, not to be silenced or lessened in volume.
I repressed the urge to hold down Ctrl-Alt-Del as I searched through the index to see if there were any references to five beeps and a white screen. Nothing…. not a single mention of that possibility. There were a few tips to try if your computer was unresponsive, but nothing specific towards the situation at hand.
Out of ideas, I called the Mac Store for assistance. They said to bring it in, so I did. Turned out to be a bad RAM module in my computer and they needed to order in a replacement. All in all they had the computer for about 4 days total. I tried visiting the local library to get some work done but I’m not a library working type of guy. I can’t think in all that quiet, I need as much noise outside of my head as I do inside.
The rest of the family is home from their trip, no more seizure issues or bouts with the West Virginian Medical System. They had a great time but glad to be home.
Yeah, about The Dimmer Switch…. it’s coming back. P52 is pretty much shot to hell, but I fully intend to pick up with the publishing again next week. I have explored some external publishing opportunities, but nothing to report yet. Besides writing, I do have a couple of other irons in the fire, nothing I can share just yet but when I can I’ll be sure to let you know. Nothing too big, or maybe it is. I’m as vague as I am ambiguous.
Well, have a good weekend and see you next week.
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Jul
28
Took a bit of a detour through West Virginia today. It wasn’t a planned trip, nor was it one that I enjoyed making for a number of reasons. I’ve been through West Virginia a number of times, and I can’t say any of them have been pleasant. Well, except for one brief stop on Wheeling Island on my way to Pittsburgh where I won $400 at the slot machines during a half hour stop. That visit wasn’t too terrible, but every one since then has been less than appealing.
Today’s trip wasn’t a planned one. I had intended on spending my day at the Dayton Celtic Festival when I awoke this morning, but those plans changed after I received an early morning phone call from my wife. She had just left the day before with her friend to attend a conference in Virginia and had taken both of our daughters with her. The plan was to have one watch the kids while the other attended the conference. The plan was also to stop for the evening in Charleston, WV to rest for the night. It was an 8 or 9 hour drive straight through to Virginia, so they decided to split the trip into two days to make it a bit easier to manage since there were two 4 yr old, a 9 yr old, and a soon to be 2 yr old traveling with them. Any longer than 4 hours in the car would be pushing it.
My wife called me this morning around 8am and told me that Maggie, our youngest had had a seizure during the night. She had a febrile seizure almost a year ago, and like the previous one this one came without warning. After the first one the doctor informed us that this might happen again, but it’s been over a year since the last one so we weren’t expecting this to happen again.
She took her to the emergency room in Charleston. We were told it wasn’t completely necessary to do so after the first one, but since it had been so long in between them it seemed like the right course of action. While this was happening, I was getting dressed and awaiting an update from my wife. She finally called me about an hour later. Because she didn’t have a fever when she arrived at the hospital, the doctor wouldn’t classify her seizure as febrile, so she requested the full battery of bloodwork and cat scans to rule out the usual suspects.
The doctor was also concerned that it might be encephalitis or possibly meningitis, so she also wanted to do a spinal tap. My wife had been through a spinal tap previously (it’s the only sure fire method of diagnosing MS), and wasn’t too keen on having our youngest daughter have that procedure unless it was completely necessary. The doctor agreed, so the tap was shelved until the first battery of test results came back. If there were any positive signs on the bloodwork or scans, she would order the tap.
After hearing this, I went to the computer, Googled the directions to Charleston, then started driving. It was roughly a 3 1/2 hour drive to Charleston, but I was hoping to make better time. Along the way I tried calling my wife for updates but she wasn’t answering. So I resorted to texting. I am not exactly what you’d call “skilled” when it comes to the craft of text messaging, especially since I refuse to use short hand. I’d much rather drive head first into bridge embankment than be caught using U for ‘you’. As I drove, I quickly rememberized all of the letter locations on the numbers so I no longer had to look down at the keypad while typing, so by the time I reached Chillicothe my texting skills had improved quite immensely.
Turns out it was much easier for my wife to respond to text messages than call me, especially since I knew she wouldn’t be checking her phone messages. She responded back with short messages (helping the nurse, she’s doing better, no news yet, no more seizures).
I was about an hour away when my wife called to let me know that the test results came back negative. Nothing in the bloodwork, nothing in the catscan, nothing in the urine test. Despite all of this, the doctor still wanted to do the tap just to be certain. So she gave us a choice: either sign a waiver stating that we refused treatment or allow the doctor to perform the procedure. This was when I got pissed.
If she was going to do the spinal tap anyways, why the hell not do it first? Why even bother with the other tests? And, as parents, how could we live with ourselves if we refused the treatment and then had to deal with the worst case scenario? I really didn’t want her to have the spinal tap, so I told my wife to contact our regular pediatrician and have her talk with the ER doc. If our doctor agreed it was necessary, then we’d consent to the test. About ten minutes later, I received the following text message from my wife:
phone dead going to do it
I sped the rest of the way to Charleston, making it there in just under three hours. Only problem was I didn’t get directions to the hospital; come to think of it, I didn’t even know which hospital it was. I thought my wife had called it Children’s Hospital, so I called information to see if they had the number. There wasn’t a Childrens, but there was a Women and Children’s Hospital. They connected me to that number, and I asked the switchboard operator there if my daughter had been admitted to the ER there. She had. Next, I asked for directions.
“Uuuuuuuuuuh. Let me connect you w/ security.”
Apparently only the security guard is authorized to give out the hospital’s secret location. So after a brief pause, I was connected with the security guard.
“Hi, my daughter’s been admitted to the emergency room there and I need directions to get to the hospital.”
“Uuuuuuuuuuuh (not an exaggeration), where you coming from?”
“I’m on I-64 heading East. I’m coming up on exit 67.”
“Uuuuuuuuuuuh (still not an exaggeration), what’s the road name on the exit.”
I told him.
“Uuuuuuuuuuuh (I really wish this was an exaggeration), hang on a second. (incoherent mumbling in the background) you need to get off one of the exits just over the bridge, I don’t know the name of it.”
I stopped listening at this point and hung up. Generally I’m not one to rush to judgement about people’s mental capacities, but in my current state I was picturing the guys from Deliverance sitting in the guard shack picking a banjo, thinking about how purty Jon Voight’s mouth is.
I took the first exit as I came across the bridge (the first bridge, turns out there was more than one). I didn’t see the hospital at first and was about to try information again when I saw Pennsylvania Street. I vaguely remembered the information operator mentioning the hospital was on Pennsylvania, so I had lucked out. I did a quick scan further up the road and saw the hospital.
I told the receptionist who I was and who I was there to see. She buzzed me right in (thinking back now, I was surprised she didn’t ask for ID), and I wandered back through the triage area. She didn’t give me a room number or anything, just sent me back to wander. Eventually I found a nurse who informed me that she was just finishing up her spinal tap and directed me to her bed. A few minutes later my wife and daughter returned from the tap room (I don’t know what else to call it). Both of them looked very tired, but both were very happy to see me.
She wasn’t even back in her bed when another nurse showed up at her bed informing us that she was there to take her back for her tests.
“What tests?” my wife asked.
The nurse looked puzzled. “Is this Liz?”
“No.”
“Oh, my mistake, they gave me the wrong room number.”
I was beginning to lose confidence in West Virginia’s medical system. A few minutes later, the nurse asked if she could bring our daughter something to eat (she had been up since 5am, had thrown up twice and hadn’t eaten a thing). She rattled off a list of foods: pudding, sandwiches, fruit cups, french fries. My daughter jumped at the word fries, so the nurse put the order in for her. Twenty minutes later, her food arrived. Tomato soup. Another crack forms in the shaky trust I have in WV’s medical system. Luckily there was pudding and a small ice cream cup with the luke warm bowl of soup.
This was at 12:30 pm. We would sit at the hospital for another two hours before anyone gave us any news either way regarding the spinal tap results. The results finally came back (all clear), so after the ER doc made another call to our family practitioner, she was finally released from the hospital and we got the hell out of there.
Our family doctor informed us that as long as her tests came back okay, there was no reason to cancel the trip. Besides being a little tired and hungry she was fine, so the plan was to get some lunch and then they’d continue on their trip to Virginia. I joined them for lunch at the mall near their hotel. My wife had promised Maggie that she could go to Build a Bear for being so brave at the hospital, so all of the girls made bears.
After lunch and the bear session, I walked them to their hotel, kissed them goodbye, then headed back to my car for my drive home. I made it back just before 8pm.
They called me around 10:30 to let me know that they had made it to their hotel in Virginia and that everyone was doing fine. The plan is to stay in Virginia until Saturday morning and then drive back home in the afternoon. If all goes as planned, there’ll be no need to stop in West Virginia on the trip home, thankfully.
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Jul
15
I know I’ve only had it for two days, but I love the Mac. I don’t miss the PC one bit.
Tonight I installed Microsoft Office on the new computer since I need it for writing and for the occasional take home project from work. The install wasn’t anything special, just the usual registration keys and initial software updates, but it was what happened after the install that made me oh so happy to no longer be on a Windows based system. Besides installing the usual Office software (Word, Excel, Powerpoint), it also installed Entourage and Messenger. I had no clue what Entourage was, so I clicked on it. Turns out it’s some sort of email software similar to Microsoft Outlook, which I really didn’t want. The first thing it asks me after starting the program is if I want Entourage to be my default email program. Just like that, no tour of the features, no hi how ya doin, right out the gate it wants to take everything over.
You know that annoying friend you have who makes himself too comfortable in your house. That’s Microsoft. Microsoft comes into your house, helps himself to your fridge and plops himself in your favorite chair while drinking your last Coke Zero. Oh, he’s also got the remote. And it doesn’t matter how many times you take the remote from him, he always asks for it back.
Yeah I know Apple’s probably not much better, but at least they’re a bit more subtle. I recall a few months back when Apple snuck Safari onto my old laptop during an update of iTunes. Yes it was a sneaky trick to get more people using their browser, and although it was a little annoying at least it didn’t try to set itself as my default browser.
Messenger wasn’t as annoying when I tried to remove it from the Applications bar, it just gave me a helpful reminder that I could always go back and set it up later should I feel the need. I don’t think I will.
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