How to get hold of me...

OK, I guess I have some of the uber geek in me. Let's just look at all the ways you can reach me without having to actually visit me in person.


I have an office phone, office fax, home phone, and a cell phone.


I have four email addresses (actually 6 but I rarely check the other two) - Work, Hotmail, Personal, ISP, Yahoo, Website provider.


To access my email I have a work desktop, a home desktop, a home laptop, and a PDA with cellular modem.


There are several newsgroups I read frequently, a few webboards, and many blogs where if you leave a comment I would see it.


So, with all that WHY don't I have an IM account?


You know, I'm not really sure. Maybe I just haven't met the right people, but I don't know anyone else with an IM account I could talk to. I suspect that is partly because I've never asked anyone I know if they use IM and what their ID is. Or maybe I'm just worried that I'd get WAY too addicted if I had folks I could chat with all day long. Nah, that couldn't be it... :-)

Great picture from the VLT

BBC this morning is carrying a fantastic shot of Uranus and it's moons as captured by the Very Large Telescope array.

Tag Soup

My take on Mark's discussion of Tag Soup:


Read my previous posting - then tell me how I would break it down into semantic XML that wouldn't be heavily biased. How do you tell the personal in an unbiased manner? For that matter why would you want to analyze a personal moment - so that you could search for articles where the author discusses personal tragedy and triumph in a semi-humorous tone?


To quote Dennis Miller "Of course, I could be wrong".

Savannah: Life Lessons Learned

One of the first things I remember about the night before our special needs daughter was born was the phone call. It was September 14th of 1991, and I was working a contract in Wausau, Wisconsin. Normally I called home around 8 or 9pm to see how the day had gone. I’d just get the status, talk to my son a bit, and reassure my wife that everything was going ok. About 6pm that evening my wife called, said she kept feeling these light cramps, and had called to see if I thought she should go to the hospital. I said yes, and she decided it wasn’t that serious. So another couple hours went by and I got another call. My wife now was having some irregular contractions, and wondered if I thought it was false labor, or if she should go to the hospital. I told her she should go to the hospital, and she decided that it would be best to stay home and see what happened. The third call came a little after 10 p.m. She was still having irregular contractions, and they seemed to be a little closer together, and what did I think she should do.


Having finally learned my lesson, I told her I thought she should try to get some sleep and see how she felt in the morning. She decided to get a friend to watch our son and to go to the hospital. An hour later I got a call telling me that she was in the first stages of labor, and could I please get there soon.


There is nothing quite as exhilarating as driving through Central Wisconsin at 1am at night. Exhilarating in the same sense as jumping from the second story of a house – you might not break anything, but you probably weren’t going to be better off for the experience. Of course, the one time I could have used a police escort, there wasn’t a patrol car to be found.


Finally, around 2:30am I roared into Mercy Hospital, and we went through the first stages of labor much as we had with our son. The doctor broke the bag of waters, and my wife’s contractions immediately came on hard and strong. Over the next three hours we were doing all the wonderful things we’d learned in Lamaze… at least I was. Sometimes Annette felt like going along; other times she just wanted me to stop with that infernal breathing.


Things were not helped by the war of nerves we were having with the attending nurse. We had noticed that our daughter’s heart rate seemed to be going all over the place according to the monitors. Finally we convinced her to go to an internal monitor, where we got the same results. We were told, “oh it must just be loose.”


If you’re familiar with these things, they screw the monitor into the top layer of skin on the scalp of the child. Loose is one thing you don’t complain about with them. Inconvenient, yes. Uncomfortable, yes. Kind of strange to look at… well you might think it, yes. But loose, not very likely.


Finally, the doctor came in with another monitor to see if there might be a short in the first monitor. That also inspired confidence. “These things get shorts?” I thought to myself, immediately picturing my wife getting shocks and then blaming me for the rest of my life.


It turned out that the monitor wasn’t loose, or having shorts, or anything else. At which point they wheeled Annette off for an emergency C-section, while our friend came over with our son because she had to leave for work.


For the rest of that day I was “Super Dad”. Faster than a doctor trying to come up with a diagnosis, stronger than a door that for some reason (probably related to the nurse on the other side) wouldn’t open. Able to leap between the emergency nursery, my wife’s recovery room, and the lounge where my son was watching TV in a single bound.


Things were a bit of a blur as doctors kept coming up with ideas, finally coming up with the one good one of transferring our new daughter to Children’s Hospital. They brought her in to see my wife for a brief moment, inside an incubator. If they were thinking of promoting some kind of bonding, they hadn’t thought it through. There’s nothing particularly warm and cuddly about a glass box.


Savannah, our daughter, took the ambulance to Children’s, while I took the scenic route to another baby sitter for our son, through a McDonald’s (I hadn’t eaten for almost 18 hours – and you can imagine what that does to someone with my figure) – and then finally found Children’s Hospital after a brief tour of the neighborhood south of Chicago and Lake.


When I got to Savannah’s room, she was attached to a number of wires, and was in a drug-induced coma. When I say room, I of course mean her corner in the NICU. The nurse kept trying to get me to sit down, while I kept insisting I needed to stay up if I was going to stay up. By this point I’d been up over 30 hours, and I wasn’t ready for bed yet. Over the next couple of hours I met with more doctors than I’d talked to in my life before. Then there were various lab technicians, and people wanting paper work filled out.


Finally around 5pm it became clear that my daughter’s condition wasn’t going to change. I picked up my son, and we went back to Mercy where Annette was still trying to get over the feelings of loss she had about not having our new baby to hold. A couple hours there and then it was back home to fix dinner for Corwin and myself, and then do everything I could to convince him to go to bed early. I never made it to bed myself, falling asleep in a chair in the living room where I’d finished the day trying to clean up the house.


The next two days were spent shuffling between hospitals, day care, and wherever I could find a quick bite to eat. I think the folks at Abbott Northwestern showed keen insight in placing a McDonald’s near the tunnel connecting it to Children’s.


Once my wife got out of the hospital, daily life settled into a routine. I’d spend a couple hours in the morning trying to find work I could do from home, and then we’d get around and go to the hospital for a few hours to visit Savannah. Then back home where I’d look for work again until it was too late. The day would finish with Annette and I trying to digest the day’s latest news from our doctors.


Corwin enjoyed the visits a lot. He couldn’t go into the NICU since he hadn’t had Chicken Pox yet. So he would spend time with the young lady running the Siblings Play area. From his standpoint, Savannah was staying at the neatest place in the world.


As time went on, it became clear that Savannah had major problems. Her biggest problem was a heart condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Every time I tell people this they tend to get a blank look on their face. Then I usually get asked if I’m a doctor. My answer to this now is, “No, and I don’t play one on TV either.” In any event, the long phrase means her heart is thickened and enlarged, and tends to develop weird beating patterns. We listened to a recording one time, and at first I thought someone was playing the bass part from a hip-hop number – “Boom, ba boom-boom. Boom, ba boom-boom. Boom, boom, boom boom, boom”.


Anyway, other things began turning up as the doctors kept coming up with new things she could have, and new tests to check out if she had them. Sometimes I wondered if they decided HealthPartners had no idea either, and had begun inventing things. I mean a test called, “Carbodihydrate Degradation Level Check” sounds more like a diet to me. Finally they effectively shrugged their shoulders and classified Savannah as having a “Previously Undiagnosed Syndrome of Suspected Single Gene origin”. Evidently a diagnosis of “We don’t know” doesn’t cut it.


Time went on, and eventually I was able to start finding things I could do partly from home, and partly from the client site. That meant our schedule changed slightly, and as Savannah got larger we had to get through changes as she moved from one room to another.


We finally got to the end of Savannah’s first stay at the hospital after 76 days. Which meant we now found ourselves having to get ready to bring Savannah home. This meant learning about new programs with names like M-A and C-A-C (Kack)… excuse me… and having to order oxygen tanks and feeding tubes. Everything was finally arranged, and Savannah made it home – for 24 hours until she came down with another case of heart failure. It seems that someone had decided her last day there would be a good time to give her the DTP vaccination. She had a high fever as a reaction to the Pertussis part of the shot, which triggered the heart problems. Another two weeks in the hospital were in store, this time in the PICU, and then she was back home for a while.


This began my next lesson – learning to live with no privacy. Our son still took a nap on weekend, and spent 5-6 hours a day in day care when Savannah was born. So Annette and I had been able to get some time to talk, go to lunch, and do other things with only a little bit of planning. Once Savannah got home, that changed big time. We now had nurses, and therapists, and county workers, and equipment deliveries, and on and on. There were times when “I” started thinking about opening a McDonalds…


Part of the massive influx was due to Savannah’s condition. When she first got home she was still on oxygen in addition to a complicated medicine schedule and tube feedings. We almost had a celebration when we finally got her off the oxygen. It seemed like time for a party – although I have a hard time imagining what the invitations would have looked like. Even so we still have one tank in the house, just in case.


Our nurses were also an education. It’s one thing to deal with managing people at a client site. At the end of the day everyone goes home, tells stories about everyone else, and gets a tall drink of milk. But when the people you’re around all the time are at home, it’s a different story. Here are folks you can spend hours on end with, taking care of your child, and you’re all supposed to be on good, professional terms. Maybe its possible, but my experience has been that you either work things out, or you ask them not to work there.


I don’t think any of the nurses got my wife madder than the one who just had to keep commenting on how much I was doing around the house. I gather her husband was not exactly a helper around their home, and she seemed impressed that I would work, then help with the kids, and then go back to work. The final straw for my wife came one weekend when she was out trimming the bushes while I watched Corwin and helped with Savannah. Annette was out for about two hours since she’d decided to do some other work around the yard. So she came in, and the nurse commented to me that I must feel like “Cinderfella” doing so much around the house. I never saw that nurse again, and I assume that Annette just called to ask her not to return… but then you never know…


Then again, there’s all the fun of dealing with the agency that the nurses work for. Our nurses and PCAs in Minnesota worked for HealthSpan, an organization that decided to drop their pediatric care in January 1997. Unfortunately, they claimed when they picked the cases back up that they were going to work with the legislature to try and get their reimbursement increased so they could afford to continue the cases past six months. Well, one of the few advantages of contributing a hundred dollars to the House and Senate candidates in your district is that you can call and eventually get an answer. So in mid-February of that year I was able to prove they hadn’t done a dang thing. At this point they changed their story to say they were actually working with the Department of Human Services, and the Department was too slow for them to get something ready in time for that legislative session.


Even funnier, if you consider that sort of thing funny, was watching the interviews with Nancy Reykamp – president of the HealthSpan division of Allina. The first evening after the announcement, she took a very combative tone. Their PR folks must have decided that didn’t play well, because the next night she was struggling to produce tears about how hard it was on all of them. Even a crocodile can produce tears, and yet this woman couldn’t seem to put on a convincing show to save her life.


Now, I don’t want to sound bitter (down with HealthSpan), or like I wish them ill will (Allina wears combat boots), but if you’re going to screw someone you should at least be decent enough to own up to it afterwards.


Fortunately, life is not usually that dreary. Which can be a surprise to your friends who assume that you are constantly worried or upset about your special needs child. When folks first find out, they inevitably think that they need to get an update from you every day. Let’s face it, generally people get sick, and they either get better soon, or they get worse. Chronic illness is still a fairly uncommon experience. So you’re there wondering why they don’t ever ask you about your other kids or how big a fish you caught. You can’t even get upset with them about it, because they’ll just assume that your child has taken a turn for the worse and that you’re preoccupied with that. Which is why you really need a support group – so you can be with people who know that you still have a life. Not to mention that its nice to have a place where you can go and compare the latest in McKee buttons and see which type works best.


Of course, all families have their little crises. The difference with a special needs child is that you generally have more complex ones. For example, in 1996 around Christmas I was having these unusual little pains every couple of evenings. Then my last day at my contract I managed to get two flat front tires. So, we all felt like getting out when the weekend came around, and drove down to St. Mary’s Basilica that Sunday. We went there because my son, loves churches and other fancy buildings. We arrived at the end of the service, and Savannah and our other daughter Zoe decided they wanted to change seats. So Savannah got in Zoe’s stroller, and Zoe got in Savannah’s wheelchair. Even though Zoe was only 18 months, she was about the same size as her 3-year-old sister.


My wife and Savannah’s nurse walked off to look around while I followed Zoe, who was doing a great job of cornering and moving back and forth with the wheelchair. People kept coming up and telling me how cute she was, and then asking what was wrong with her. So I ended up explaining again, and again, and again that she was just borrowing her sister’s chair.


After touring the church, Zoe insisted on pushing herself back out to the car. Not a bad idea usually, except that neither of us thought about all the snow on the ground getting on the tires. So we got back to the van, and Zoe’s cold hands were really bothering her. We all started trying to comfort her, when that pain in the side decided to flare up – badly. The drive home had me lying down on the floor, trying to not upset the kids, and with the nurse trying to diagnose what was wrong. We finally got home, and I expected to just take a couple of Tylenol and have the pain go away. It didn’t, so I ended up heading to the hospital where they decided I needed my gallbladder out.


Now I was the one getting wheeled in for anesthesia and surgery for a change. My wife hung around to make sure I came through ok, then tried to hurry home before the nurse had to leave. I say try because she had a flat on the way home. Through all this, the only thing “different” was that we had the wheelchair and the nurse. Everything else could have happened the way it did regardless of Savannah’s problems.


One thing that has been different for me as a father has been the struggle to try and balance family time and work time. This was hardest when Savannah was first born since I had to quickly find something, anything, which would at least let me work in town. Building a business was something we’d talked about doing, but having Savannah changed it from a desire to an imperative. Changing gears on a moment’s notice is not easy, but I was fortunate to be in a profession – Computer Consulting – where it was possible to find work outside the office. That first contract took six weeks to find, and taught me the true meaning of “living on borrowed time”. Or at least borrowed cash anyway. Even then, I had to be on site three days a week.


Another thing I’ve been learning is that you still have to plan for a future. While the doctors have suggested that it’s much more likely that we’ll outlive her, you still have to plan for the other way around. When your daughter can’t talk, and you’re not sure if she ever will, this gets very tricky. You have to come up with some plan that will allow her to go out into the world, without you there to protect her, and somehow still make sure she’ll be ok. You end up talking to your lawyer, and your insurance agent, and your banker, and your accountant. You try to sort through your options, and come up with a plan that will be fair to the other kids, and will give your special needs child the best chance at a decent life. Then you put it all down on paper, and pray that you didn’t miss some loophole that will allow someone to take advantage of her later on.


We got a taste of this again when it came time for Savannah to move from strictly home-based care to center-based care. We had all sorts of horror stories in mind, and all types of unanswered questions. How would she do on the bus, how would we know if the teachers were doing her therapies, and so on. It got to the point that I started checking into some Internet sites that sold surveillance equipment. Let me tell you, there are some pretty strange things available these days. I was partial to the little flower pin that contained a CCD sensor that led back to a VCR or other recording device. Maybe with the additional ultra-sensitive high-gain microphone for audio pick up as well. I was somewhat disappointed that my wife decided we could make do with just having the nurse go with her the first couple of weeks. After all, I was missing out on the free night goggles with any qualifying purchase…


The first week wasn’t as bad as we thought it might be, but it wasn’t as smooth as everyone had hoped. It turned out that Savannah really enjoyed the school, but was getting freaked out by the noise of the wheelchair lift. It took us a while, but we finally found a comfortable pair of headphones for her that allowed her to listen to her Sesame Street tapes without hearing anything else on the bus.


If there’s one thing that motivates Savannah, its Sesame Street. I am just thankful that it’s our youngest daughter who turned out to be the Barney fan. Because if I had to watch Barney as often as I watch Sesame Street, I’d probably be in an asylum by now. We literally have all but two of the Sesame Street videos that have been published. Some of them I’ve only seen five or six times. Others, like the one Savannah normally watches before bedtime, I can do almost the entire tape from memory. I’m not going to do that on here, for which I’m sure you’ll all be thankful, but if there’s a bedtime song you’d like the lyrics to, I’ll be happy to provide them later.


Her being a Sesame Street fan actually saved us some money a couple years ago. One of the therapists at school had gone into Toys R Us in mid-October, and found this Sesame Street character that would make a noise when you squeezed it. She suggested we should get one for home. My wife went out the next week, and sure enough, there were a couple of shelves of these “Tickle Me Elmo” dolls. She bought just one, and we both figured that the store had bought too many. So we thought that we might get another one for the other kids when they went on sale. Needless to say, they didn’t. Since Savannah was pretty good about sharing hers, we ended up not going through a lot of time and money trying to get another one.


Having a motivator, like the Sesame Street videos, has also been helpful the couple of times that Savannah has been in the hospital the last few years. She hasn’t been as sick as when she was there the first time, but she doesn’t much care for the noise and the needles. So we make sure there’s a TV in her room with a built-in VCR, and away we go. When they have to wheel her somewhere, it’s the tape player with the cassette tapes. It’s not a cure all by any means, but it helps make her feel more comfortable and secure to have her TV friends with her.


Even before Savannah was born, heck even before Corwin was born; I was a Muppet fan. I’d occasionally catch one of their shows on TV, and always thought it was nice that there was something geared towards kids that also was fun to watch as an adult. Along the same lines, it was always nice to reread the occasional Dr. Seuss story. One of my favorites was the Dr. Seuss Sleep Book, and when one of the nurses on Savannah’s second day in the hospital suggested we should tape our voices to play for her, I did a reading of that book. I sometimes wonder if that isn’t one of the reasons that Savannah learned to sign Daddy before Mommy.


Over the last few years, there have been plenty of up, down, and in-between times. The two things that have sustained me through all of this has been the love of my family, and an abiding faith that no matter what happens, it will ultimately work out for the best. I’ve never had occasion to question that love or faith. There have certainly been times when I couldn’t see why things might be happening, but a while later, it has almost always made sense. Even those things I still don’t understand, I’m sure I will some day. I don’t know that there is anything that could be more comforting to a person.


In closing, while I would not have chosen to have a special needs child, it has not been the melodramatic soap opera that many people seem to think it is. As I’m sure many of you have also learned, you get by day-to-day. Over time, you even can become a better person, with more of a focus on those things that should be important to you, rather than the things people may try to convince you are important. As we walk through this garden of life, we may have found the thorns in the rose bush, but the roses are no less beautiful for it.

Patience - or lack thereof...

OK, so I am beginning to work on some options for expanding my blog. The problem is, virtually none of the blogging organizations are noted for speed. I suspect this is because most of the organizations have few (if any) full time paid staff. And of course if they did they'd have folks on holiday or going on holiday...


So I'm getting another opportunity to work on my "patience". I just wish I already had more of it...

Personal Web Proxies

Kind of like the tool that l. m. Orchard is discussing here.

A Charlie Brown tarot

Wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it. Someone has remade a tarot deck using the Peanuts.


Wonder what the likelihood is of ever seeing this deck actually printed... :-)

Evidently not a joke

I would never have thought "Urban Cowboy" would make a great Broadway musical. It appears I was wrong...

Sunday, Sunday...

Another pretty quiet day. Main activity was trying to keep the kids busy without going too crazy ourselves.


The "event" of the day was to go to a smaller local mall and do some walking around. My son spent some time at the arcade there playing "Dance, Dance Revolution". He's rather good for his age and for how infrequently he plays the full version.


Hope things are going well for you wherever you are...

Worth Checking Out

An excellent example of art taking advantage of it's media. You should definitely spend some time with "Fly Guy".


Trick here is to realize that once the animation starts you can use the arrow keys to literally fly around the place.

Special Day Ahead?

I'm kind of surprised I haven't seen anything about this in the press. But if you look at next Thursday, it's 01/02/03.


In other words, it's 1-2-3 day (or 3-2-1 if you prefer countdowns).


Seems like there ought to be a celebration or something :-)

What My About Page would Say if I had One

Greetings to one and all. My name is Ewan Grantham. First name is pronounced like Obi-Wan, but without the Ob :-)


It is the same spelling, but with a different pronunciation, than Ewan McGregor who now plays the young Obi-Wan in the Star Wars saga. Which just shows the interconnectedness of life I suppose.


Currently I work at Southwest Research Institute as a Senior Research Analyst. What that really means is that I use my wide technical knowledge base to work as a team lead on various projects that our division is working on. Currently I’m helping with the middle-tier architecture for a scheduling system that will be used nationally by a government-owned and operated hospital system. Our division specializes in Medical Technology, and has worked on projects for doing triage work using handhelds, as well as systems for tracking medical data for the military.


Before coming to SwRI in June, I had worked for 9 years as an Independent Consultant for a number of Fortune 500 companies (for example – Pillsbury, Blue Cross Blue Shield, US Bank) doing System Architecture and Technical Lead work on various projects. The good side of this was being able to see how many different companies handle the same types of problems. The bad side was constantly having to sell my services and “prove myself” over and over again. Previous to that I had been a technical consultant working at Coopers and Lybrand. The main problem with that job was the constant, often unscheduled, travel. I have also worked as a janitor, a disk jockey for a small country-western station, a machine operator, a programmer, a UNIX administrator, and a network administrator.


I’m 41 years old and have been married for a little over 19 years. We have three children and recently moved from Minnesota to San Antonio, Texas as part of the job change. Our oldest (a son) recently turned 11 and has severe ADHD, Asperger’s, and Tourette’s – as well as a really high IQ. That combination was difficult for the school district to handle, but in the last month they've managed to put together a program that actually has him excited to go to school. Part of that has been giving him plenty of time to work with computers and create his own Anime drawings. Our middle child (daughter, 9 years old) has multiple handicaps, which was easy for the school district to handle and so she is doing well in her special education program. She has always been a big Sesame Street fan, which is ok as I've always been partial to the Muppets. The biggest downside to her handicaps is that she tires easily, and even though she's smaller than our youngest she still expects me to carry her a good bit. How I manage not to lose weight doing that still amazes me. Our youngest (daughter, 7 years old) is bright and athletic, and so is also fitting in well at her new school. She hopes to be a doctor someday, although I keep trying to convince her that Scrubs is not a good representation of how that works. My wife (a few years younger than I) has her hands full getting the two oldest to their various appointments and so hasn't been able to work in her field in a number of years. Fortunately her Bachelor's is in Psychology and her Master's was in Social Work so she at least understands "the system".


My main hobby (besides helping take care of the kids and maintaining our home computer) is photography. I have a Minolta Dimage 7 – which is a 5 megapixel digital camera. For me that has meant that instead of taking 24 shots, paying to get them developed, and then finding two or three I really liked I now can take about 100 shots, and only develop the 10 or so I really like. Hopefully I’ll figure out how to increase that ratio some day as well. I also have done some professional writing and editing – mainly chapters for technical books.


Which brings me to "Why am I writing a blog?"


Part of it is as a way to share some of the interesting things I find on the web with a larger audience. Part of it is to share some of my images. And part of it is a way to try and share a bit of myself with folks. I enjoy email, and hope that you will be inspired to drop me a line now and then.

In the category of "Now I've Seen Everything"

I can't say I've ever even thought of an inflatable church before. But obviously these people did. I'd hate to be the person trying to play the inflatable organ though...

Only 100 to go...

According to the Technorati web site, it appears you can make "the list" by only being linked to by 100 other blogs. I notice that another place that tracks the blogsphere will put you on "the list" with only 40 other blogs linking to you.


To think, I'm only 100 links away from being famous... (not) :-D


Oh well. Guess I should be glad that according to Site Meter there's nine of you out there reading some of this stuff. Though it's not real clear if it's the same nine people or not.


Does it matter? I'm not sure. I'd like to think I'm a step ahead of writing in one of my old diaries that only ever gets read when I'm trying to decide whether to throw them out or hold onto them for another year.


In any event, I suppose I should get back to reviewing our team's use cases. Just needed a break and thought someone out there might feel the same way...

Your own (sortof) robot

Always wanted to play with a robot, but couldn't afford one? Well, now you can.


At least until the site gets so popular that no one's commands can get through.

After Christmas Pictures

Promised some more pictures (click any image for larger version), and this seems to be the right time to deliver :-)

This first image shows a feature at the Natural Bridge Caverns just north of San Antonio, TX called "Sherwood Forest". The guide told us the name came from the resemblence of the rock to trees with canopys and trunks.




The next image is a detail of one area of the "forest". I have a shot from a couple years before this of the same feature where the muddy area in front had actually been a lake due to heavy rains preceding that visit. Hopefully I'll get a chance to post that one as well.




Final image in this collection shows some rock "eggs" which are being formed by the water depositing different chemicals at different places. I love the way the rock itself looks like it's still flowing here.




All pictures were taken using a Minolta Dimage 7 with natural lighting (hence the "noise" from shooting at a virtual ASA 800).

Comments via email are always appreciated :-)

Find a relaxing spot on your monitor

Start with a virtual fireplace. Then choose from a number of other options tailored to your mood.


Very cool site - although I'll be happiest once they get the National Parks TV working and I can have the Rocky Mountains in my virtual window...

Merry Christmas

My first present of the day was the middle daughter sleeping in. In fact we almost got up too late as she needs to get her initial meds for the day within an hour of 7am, and I got a little close to the limit.


The kids ended up doing pretty well. My eldest (son) got a couple books on how to draw Anime. He already does nice work, but figured some "formal training" wouldn't hurt. He also got a couple different art sets and a PC tablet from his grandparents which I then connected to the PC. Saves him from having to scan stuff in.


Middle daughter got a number of Elmo and other speaking Sesame Street characters. Although her favorite was actually a talking Spongebob doll.


Youngest daughter got a nice carry-all makeup kit (she's soon to be eight, but sometimes it's hard to remind her she's still a little girl), as well as some art kits of her own. Her favorite was a set of "Blow Pens" (as seen on TV).


Of course the most difficult part of the holiday was to remind everyone just how fortunate we are to have this kind of Christmas, and to remain properly humbled by our good fortune. While this wasn't the kind of Christmas we used to have when the Tech Market was hot and I was toward the top of the curve as a consultant, it still was very nice and everyone got pretty much what they wanted. Compared to so many people we are very fortunate, and I try to help the kids make sure they realize that.


I hope you and yours also had a wonderful Christmas!

Quieter Christmas

agendacide relates a story of the spirit of giving even in these less certain times.


It's been kind of tight around here this season as well, but at least we're warm and dry :-)

Spherical PC

Text is in Japanese (I believe), but from the pictures you can see how they've made a spherical PC. Not sure I care for the color scheme, but the concept is tres cool.

Looks like Dr. Fun is getting into the Spirit

Be sure to check out his Christmas 2002 Bonus collection.

Why aren't there RSS feeds for comments?

OK, so I'm browsing through AmphetaDesk (thanks Morbus), and seeing which blogs have been updated in the last hour. And there are certain entries where I find I click through anyway because I want to see if there have been any comments to an item I read. Or almost as often if anyone had anything further to say about a comment I've made.


So the question then becomes, why isn't there a way to setup your RSS feed to indicate that there are new comments on an item? Or is there and I (and evidently a lot of others) don't know about it?

Free CIA classes

megnut mentions that the CIA (no, not that one, the other one) is offering some free online classes if you're looking for something else to do over the holidays.


The Wine one looks most interesting to me - although I'm curious to see how many recipes they can come up with for the raisin class...

A Little Nugget to Mull Over

bOingbOing has a link to the Real Live Preacher's blog - which has one heck of a story about faith and unbelief. Worth a read IMNSHO.

Legonomics

defective yeti has an article on why Legos should replace the US Dollar that is rather compelling.


The fact that my personal economic situation would be improved has nothing to do with my fascination with the concept... ok, maybe it does a little :-)

Programming Note

OK, for those who are curious - and may or may not have noticed - I have been having some "fun" with the Site Tracker tool. It seems that while IE works just fine with the JavaScript version of the tool being in my right column "div", that Mozilla chokes when it's there.


Now, I can live with the HTML version since the referral info that the JavaScript version provides can only be accessed by purchasing the ST upgrade. And as I've mentioned before - I'm working hard to blog "on the cheap".


However, there's a part of me that isn't happy with "Oh I don't need it so I won't use it so I don't have to understand why it didn't work". On the other hand, if I had time to chase down every strangeness I see on a computer I probably would have time to do a lot of other things I don't do daily. :-)

AKMA's Theorem

From the article discussing the theorem:


It’s the hackers’ manifestation of entropy: order costs more energy than chaos.


Something to think about anyway...

Another weekend almost over

Middle daughter was up at 4:30am this morning - which is the time I usually get up for work. Wouldn't have been bad if it weren't that I had stayed up somewhat late working on the blog, and so added significantly to my sleep debt. I suspect that will catch up with me one of these days...


Our main outing for the day was to the McNay Art Museum here in San Antonio. The lady responsible for it had great taste in 19th and 20th Century art. So the collection includes works from Monet, Picasso, and others.


Equally important (from our standpoint), they've worked hard to make the museum handicapped accessible. If I use my middle daughter's sport stroller rather than her wheelchair I can go just about anywhere in the museum with her. Of course she's getting a little large for it (she's 9, but shorter than her 7 year old younger sister), but as long as we can get by with it we probably will.


I should add that she can walk for short distances - so she's not restricted to her chair. But for almost any outing it's easier all around for her to be pushed. That's one of the reasons that I'm looking forward to our planned trip this summer. We're looking at going to Carlsbad Caverns - which is one of the few caves that is handicapped accessible. Hopefully I'll get some of my cave pictures up from the local caves soon. But all of the local caves require you to be able to go up and down several long, steep sections. So I haven't been able to go since the family got down here in mid-September.


Oh well, I guess that's enough for one day :-)

North Korea Worrisome

I'm not interested in turning this into a political blog, but I have to admit I find the North Korean Brinkmanship discussed here to be very concerning.


I hope this is a desperate regime trying to get our attention rather than an insane one trying to take us all down together...

Saturday Morning

No rest for the wicked :-) Middle daughter was up at 6:30am, and I'm getting a couple minute break in between doing her cares. Guess I'll have to put up scanning blogs until later in the day...


One request - I finally had a chance to look at my site in Mozilla yesterday - and everything ended up in the right hand column. If you see anything in my source that would explain the problem, please drop me an email.

Testing Remote Picture Links

OK, so I'm rather tight on cash these days, and so am trying to blog on the cheap. Someday I probably ought to write up my tips on that subject :-)


Assuming this works, you should see a thumbnail of one of my cloud pictures. Clicking on it should take you to a larger version of that image. At this point you'll have to hit the back key , but I'm hopeful I can figure out how to handle that as well.







Updated - Yup, it appears to work :-)


Updated again - Rather than try to make it come back from the larger pic, I now open it in it's own window. Not sure if that is a problem if you're using a pop-up killer or not. Let me know if you have problems.

Archive Back Online

It appears that the archive problem is one that has been "making the rounds" of blogger accounts recently. The fix is to ask for help and have a kindly admin "kickstart" the server that your blog is on.


I notice that I never see complaints about that problem from folks using Moveable Type. Then again, I have no real interest in learning PHP and MySQL (and paying substantially more for a web site) just to be able to blog.


Oh well... :-)

Archive Removed for Now

Blogger seems to be having a recurring problem with archives, forcing me to turn mine off for the present time so that folks don't get errors every time they try to load the site. My apologies to anyone trying to pull anything they can't find on the main page.

Can I Get in on the Clinical Trials for this?

OK I'm a 42-year old man, and you think that having a beer belly wouldn't be that big a deal, right?


Still, I'd be interested in trying out the chemical liposuction being discussed at New Scientist.


Am I crossing the line between wanting to be slimmer for my health and wanting to be a "grey fox" by having in interest in this? I wonder...

Some Days You Wake Up and Find a New Comet

Seems there may be a naked eye comet visible in the next month. Cool!

Invisible Actors

bOing bOing has found a site where there are quizzes about movies where the actors have been removed, but everything else (including their clothes) remains.


Some of the current ones are pretty easy (Wizard of Oz shot with the mix of color and B&W almost doesn't need Dorothy's costume), others are a little generic..

Wreaths from the alley

NPR has a wonderful bit about creating wreaths from items found foraging through the alleys of an urban community.

Geeky Christmas Songs

Seems to be the season for a Geek's Christmas Song collection.


Enjoy, and be sure to pass along some virtual egg nog...

Ultimate SNL Site

Here's a link to the ultimate Saturday Night Live fan site...

South Texas Christmas

This one has been around a while, let me know if you know who originated it...


NOCHE BUENA

It was the night before Christmas, and all through the casa
Not a creature was stirring. Caramba! Que pasa?
Los ninos were all tucked away in their camas,
Some in long calzones and, some in pajamas.

While Mama worked late in her little cocina,
El viejo was down at the corner cantina
Living it up with amigos. Carracho!
Muy contento and poco borracho!

While hanging the stockings with mucho cuidado
In hopes that old Santa would feel obligado
To bring all the ninos, both buenos and malos,
A nice bunch of dulces and other regalos.

Outside in the yard there arose such a grito
That I jumped to my feet like a frightened cabrito.
I ran to the window and looked out afuera,
And who in the world do you think that it era?

Saint Nick in a sleigh and a big red sombrero
Came dashing along like a crazy bombero.
And pulling his sleigh, instead of venados,
Were eight little burros, approaching volados.

I watched as they came, and this quaint little hombre
Was shouting and whistling and calling by nombre
"Ay, Pancho! Ay, Pepe! Ay, Cuca! Ay, Beto!
Ay, Chato! Ay, Chopo! Maruca y Nieto!"

Then, standing erect with his hand on his pecho,
He flew to the top of our very own techo.
With his round little belly like a bowl of jalea
He struggled to squeeze down our old chimenea.

Then, huffing and puffing, at last to our sala
With soot smeared all over his red suit de gala,
He filled all the stockings with lovely regalos
For none of los ninos had been very malos.

Then chuckling aloud, seeming muy contento,
He turned like a flash and was gone like the viento.
And I heard him exclaim -- and this is verdad --
"Merry Christmas to all! Feliz Navidad!"

Cool Space Animation

Courtesy of massive braincase, this link to an animation of the moon's shadow traveling across the earth during an eclipse.


I agree that color would be nice, but it's pretty nice just the way it is.

Want to control a face?

Here's your chance to make a computerized face do whatever you want it to...

Treating Cancer in a very unique way

BBC News Health discusses a new cancer therapy where the organ is removed from the body, given chemo, and then reimplanted.


Kind of boggles the mind... at least it does mine.


Of course there are some organs where I can't see that being particularly practical. I mean if you had cancer in your small intestine, can you imagine that procedure?

Amherst understands Recycling

According to this article, Amherst is taking an old nuclear bunker and turning it into a nice, new library storage area.


Must be that swords into plowshares meme...

Another Interesting XMAS Gift Entry

The website says this won't be available in time for the holidays, but I consider it a fair entrant anyway - since you can't buy much of anything at this point and still get it delivered in time.

Slow News Day

You know things are pretty slow when CNN feels the need to publish this.

Welcome to Zen TV

Adam Curry's blog points to this interesting article on Zen TV.

Roles of Blogrolls

Burningbird has an interesting discussion going on about blogrolls, delisting, etc.


My thoughts on this are:


I can certainly see the interest in going to a format that shows WHAT was interesting about a person/blog rather than just pointing folks to a particular who/where.


However, there are some blogs where I'm afraid I could start simply adding their feed to mine because the only way I could feel I can properly show how much I'm influenced by their thoughts and ideas is to link to virtually every article anyway. My blogroll is slowly growing, and I'm trying to keep it only to people I read daily, but if I had to start linking to every article of Burningbird's (or Mark Pilgrim's or ...) to show what I find interesting about that blog, well...


Guess I'm just wondering if there aren't some blogs where it's more "efficient" to simply point folks to the home page and say "here is someone I'm simpatico with".


Anyway, I think it will be interesting to see where this goes. I just hope that if a tool is developed for doing this (as is being discussed) that someone comes up with a way to do it in Blogger.

ABC's of Nuclear Science

Everything you might want to know about Nuclear Science here.


Interesting stuff and well done graphics.

Worst Case Scenario - Telecom

As the article says:

A Blatant Rip-off Parody For The Holidays


I think my personal favorite is number 9 (which isn't true only of the Telecom industry I might add).

Long Distance Repair

ArsTechnica has this article on what must be the longest distance repair job to date.


Nice to hear that at least some things are still going right for NASA/JPL.

More evidence of how little we know about the mind

In an article at Reuters Health this morning, a case is described of a man in the late stages of Dementia who suddenly develops an interest in art. Reading the article, it appears that when his language centers "burnt out", that his visual centers became less constrained.


Of course, this is the kind of example that furthers the meme that there's a link between creativity and "madness". Which I'm not sure I'm really comfortable with. Not that I am creative enough to worr