Daynotes on a budget

Between the short fellow wandering in repeatedly last night, and the two furry denizens (other than myself of course) attempting to annoy me while I was attempting to do what they do 23 hours a day, I'm a little short on sleep.  You see, we have two cats.  One, Tish, the elder, is a bit curmudgeonly about his prerogatives around Casa De Dominik  Probably because Tish is short for "Morticia" - when we went kitten-hunting back in the summer of 1989, we were looking to acquire a small, female lap-cat.  If the cat was bouncy and rambunctious, we'd have named it "Fifi" after one of our former managers, who was also a good friend, and extremely energetic.  

If, on the other paw, the cat was more sedate and calm (which we'd hoped), we'd call it Morticia, and Tish for short.  Well, my wife (She Who Must Be Obeyed, and the driving force for "us" to get a cat) went to pick up the little hairball, and there was "little no-namer".  His mother had delivered a litter of the little buggers, and then abandoned them for another batch of the buggers.  Poor family.  So "little no namer" was missing around the house, and they went looking - no cat.  They ended up lifting up the couch, and the cat wasn't there, either.  However, when my wife looked at the bottom side of the couch, there was the little bugger, hanging on for dear life.

Tish came home with us, and only then did we notice that there was a prohibition on additional small furry residents in our lease.  So we were young and foolish.  So we had to keep the cat fairly well hidden (one of the other residents in the property had a dog, so we figured they were a little loose with the rules).  The day after we got the little thing, I was in the bathroom getting ready for work, and I heard this horrible yowling.  I came out, and Tish had decided to practice climbing - on the screen door to the balcony.  Bright cat - he'd gotten up as high as my head - the problem was getting back down again.  He couldn't.

He's had a number of adventures since then, but the worst was when he was still a somewhat immature male (we didn't know about the danglers yet), and we spent about seven months living with a woman with the world's horniest cat.  Coffee, as she was known, was constantly yowling - we figured that the cat had the same "issues" as her owner, and required regular and constant attention (not necessarily servicing, if you know what I mean).  We'll just let that sordid little sub-plot drop, though.  So anyway, one day I was very much amused to see our "female" cat hop on top of the other female cat in the house.  Neither one accomplished anything, and I remained fairly stupid about the whole thing.

However, after we were married, Tish developed a seriously neurotic streak.  One time when we were gone for a trip to Iowa (we would occasionally take him along, though he didn't appreciate the car trip much, so we usually left him home with the automatic feeder and waterer for three to five days at a time.  This one time, however, we returned, and the poor fellow had worried a hole the size of a quarter in the middle of his back - and it was in a spot he couldn't have reached at all.  We took him to the vet, who looked him over, reached back around and behind, and grabbed.  Tish's eyes were nearly as big as mine, and the doctor said "You're no little girl cat."  

That's Tish.  Gilligan, more commonly known as Jabba the Cat, is another matter entirely.  I think I've written earlier here about Gilligan, who started life with a large number of cats, including one very large and very mean one.  The larger cat wouldn't let Gilligan eat, sleep, or really do much of anything.  As a result, Gilligan was a pretty small kitten - about half-normal size at the age of six months.  To Gilligan's enormous luck, his owner was coming down the stairs from his apartment when my wife was coming up from our parking space in the garage.  She met this fellow, who was about to release this undernourished house kitten to the woods, where the cat would likely have died in about fifteen minutes (Gilligan was repeatedly tossed against the brick fireplace by the fellow's larger cat; I think he's not all there).  As a result, we ended up with this little tiny kitten.  

The first night he came home, I told She Who Must Be Obeyed that we would not be keeping that little fluffball.  Nor would we name him, nor would we become attached to him, because we were getting ready to move to a new apartment where the deposit was $100 per cat non-refundable, and another $100 per cat, potentially refundable.  So, we survived night one of the fur-flying derby simply by putting Gilligan to sleep between us on the big waterbed.  When I arrived home the next day, we still had a cat and a kitten, no messes in the house, so things were going well.  Since it had been a rough day, I decided to take a short nap after coming home (ah, those wonderful pre-kid days).  When the boss walked through the door about 45 minutes later, I was asleep on the couch, and so was that little rat, with his little pink nose on my chin, snoring away.

So that's how we got two cats.  Last night, as per their usual, they both took up posts on the bed.  Tish, the general of the household (for a while his nickname was "Senator" because I would get up in the morning, and on my way to the bathroom I would get a feline dissertation on his nocturnal activities - every step I took would get two or three squawks (oh, phooey.  I'll spell Squack or Skwak or Scwak or squak or squack however I want to, and FrontPage can go fish if it thinks I'm going to worry about it) for every footstep.  Then he'd sit on the edge of the tub and let me know his opinion on the world situation at large, as he saw it apparently), will park himself on Herself's pillow, while Jabba will position himself at the foot of the bed.

Most of the time, they bother Herself, and not me.  Last night, Tish parked himself on my pillows, and Gilligan lay against my back for a good part of the night.  Ugh.  

But you didn't come here to read about my life with cats (gee, I wonder if I can get MY musical produced now that that OTHER musical is off Broadway?  Nah, didn't think so).  Or did you?  Man, you need a life more than I do - well, then again, maybe not.  I'm the one WRITING about these things, aren't I?

I've been holding off for about two weeks now on installing Red Hat 6.2 on a PC I've managed to acquire.  Partially fear, I freely admit, and partially from lack of space.  I've got to re-do my complete computer desk setup in order to make room for the new boxes.  And a little voice keeps saying "yes, but soon you might have other work to concentrate on".  I'm thinking that this week might be a good week to start looking at that.  Of course, I've also got to do a Dominik Deep Clean (that's not quite to the "Thompson Deep Clean™" level) through the apartment as the Mother Of She Who Must Be Obeyed will be arriving in two weeks for the Family Party - you see, we have a number of parties every fall to celebrate things - typically birthdays, and such, but this one will celebrate 1) My 37th year on this planet (without becoming worm food), 2) my daughter's 7th birthday (which was on the seventh of this month, the day after mine, conveniently), 3) OUR tenth anniversary, which is a big milestone as far as I'm concerned (though it wasn't nearly as much work as you might think - I'm not allowed to do thinking, planning, or commitment where anything important is concerned, that's why our relationship runs so well), 4) my son's big FOURTH birthday (which is the middle of next month), and hopefully 5) Our pre-approval for a home loan - step 34 on the way to 1,328,549 on getting a house.  Oh, and 6) Me going back to a daily grind.  We hope.

Now, on the net, let's see what's up.  Dr. Pournelle posted more last night - I think I learn more reading the interactions on his site than I ever did in school - Catholic education is good, but they're not completely into the give-and-take of education.  There were more than a few times where my questioning lead to a "Because I said so, that's why!" answer.  But they're getting better at it.  Mr. Syroid is probably doing more chandelier swinging, so we'll see his stuff a little later...  After I'm off and in the middle of laundry or cleaning, no doubt.  Seems Mr. Thompson is looking to do less of this sort of work and more of the "get paid for it" writing - can't say as I blame the man.  If I could get paid for sitting her blithering, I'd be pretty happy about the deal.  Then again, getting paid for blithering had better not catch on, or I'll miss the boat.  Ach, well.  

I've done some tweaking of the layout, partially at my own request (wanted more buttons, he said), and some at the request of the Warlock's representative to this realm.  Ignore, at your peril, advice from such a man - it's highly possible you could end up tasting like chicken in his barbecue.  On the other hand, Dave and The Silicon Underground (now THAT'S a heck of a band name) have moved, and I'm going to keep reading him daily.  It's rare these days to find a serious Mac person who isn't a Mac-ite Jihadnik, especially in the days of Apple's fumbling with the new machines.  But we won't grind that axe to a fine point just yet.  What really sucked me into Dave's page was his mention of the Amiga.  Yes, that old saw.  I started with a Vic-20, then moved for some stuff to a Commodore 64.  Then putzed with an Apple IIe before working on the family XT (without hard drive, but it was a PC).  Then, when I had the money, I went out and purchased an Amiga - I probably wouldn't have, but at the time I had the money, they also had a deal for employees of Software Etc. (My employer of the time) could purchase the Amiga at half-price.  I've still got my 500 somewhere in a closet.  Don't know if it still runs, but I will tell you this - I've YET to see gigahertz machines running games with graphics as good and smooth as some of the old Psygnosis Amiga titles.  Unbelievable back in 1990; they're still ahead of the standard today.  Oh well.  Dave still has my attention...

Further around the horn - Gulp - Bo likes my rambling?  Well, I hope he's got a well-padded chair.  I ramble, veer, and wobble all over the place.  Although he's right - it's safer than mountain biking.  I was trying to tell my daughter the other night that "this fellow is in France, and this one's in California, and this one's in North Carolina, and this one's in Australia, and this one's in Sweden, and this one..."  I'm gonna love this part of her education; her eyes lit up, and she was completely excited.  Then she started jumping up and down.  "wow," I thought to myself, "she's really excited!"  Then she started yelling - "The Puppy!  the Puppy!"  - oops.  I'd left Dr. Keyboard's screen up, and Little Ms. Eagle Eye (the young lady who, with only four words or so, could spot a Barney (The Purple Dinosaur of children's fame) balloon in a crowded, busy grocery store in less than a second.  Let this be a lesson to you - to attract children to a site, do something with pets.

Oh, GREAT.  Dan brings up one of those points that really scares me.  I've got two older parents who probably take more pills than food groups, and their medication has so many different effects I'm not sure what all of it does.  Lovely.  Oh, no.  Now JHR has a bit of a rail (originally passed from Brian) regarding Linux-Elitism (Rabid Linuxaholics?  Lovely - just when I get out of the Mac-ite Jihadniks to this, I'm falling into another lunatic fringe.  I do dearly hope not).  I guess my take on it is that a little elite-ism is a good thing - Linux is, from what I've been able to glean when separating chaff from wheat, a better and more stable platform.  It lacks software, which is usually what drives the adoption of such things (said a man who was selling Windows/286 and Windows/386 - never sold a copy of Windows back then WITHOUT an Excel or Word, or sometimes BOTH, going with it).  But then he (JHR) goes and lambastes my future profession - Software QA.  

Without having worked a day in that field yet (officially - I was doing QA in previous jobs, just wasn't aware that I was doing it), I have a bit of an issue with Next – better consumer protection: Since UCITA became the Law of the Land, the SW consumer has NO protection whatsoever. Because of this, there is no incentive whatsoever for SW enterprises to develop & sell product that works as specified. Thus, the intelligent (short-term) enterprise maximizes its ROI by devoting all its effort to Marketing, rather than Development, QA, and CS.  I don't know about everyone in the QA field - I can only speak for the ones I know fairly well - and of those, I find them to be fighting a hopefully winning battle between programmers and marketers.  On the one hand, you have programmers who do not generate buggy code.  They never, ever do.  It's the operating system's problem, really (remember, folks, I've got to work with them), and the Marketers (the bastards) are the ones who get to pick the dates for release, etc.

Most software bugs are created by inexact specification in the design phase - it's the QA's profession to find that stuff before it gets to the code stage.  We hope.  Although JHR's got a good point.  What annoys me is that as a society we seem to have dropped our reliance on the individual's integrity and honesty, and have instead resorted to legal tactics.  What that begets, IMHO, is a situation where you get the minimum, rather than the maximum effort.  

For example - you are selling your friend a little red wagon.  You notice that one of the wheels is a bit bumpy, and he's going to be hauling his children around in it.  You'll either 1) Let your friend know that the wheel's a bit out of round, or 2) get a new wheel, or 3) get four new wheels to make sure they match.  Now, if you're selling your ... oh, let's just say you're selling your attorney the wagon, you get him to sign a paper on which you write "I hereby notify the buyer that this attached vehicle is free of substantial defect which would prevent it from performing the duties for which it was designed".  Then, when the attorney complains, you say "but you can still pull it, you can still put things in it, and it works."  Sheesh.  Is it any wonder that I think I was born way too late?  Or maybe too early.  Maybe we'll get around to implementing Mr. Shakespeare's ideas.

I hope JHR's wrong, but that's all it is - hope.  I've seen far too many "if you open this, you're stuck" notices on CD envelopes - no way to test the software, no way to make sure it works, just use it and hope.  Good night.  I agree with him on the Marketing thing - I think we group them with the lawyers, personally.  Less sizzle, more steak, please.

Argh.  I've got to get to work.  Enough - this has taken WAY too long.  I gotta run.  To that end, I'd best get in, get on, get this published, and move on...

Later <02:08 PM -0500 >: Well, I guess I shouldn't have turned on the TV.  Barak says I'm taking a time out, and Arafat tells him to go to hell.  Likely, he may well.  I've been rather harsh on the Palestinians in the past, but it seems to me that if you've got 120 casualties (dead), and the other side's had about 4 or 5, I'm thinking that you're probably not giving as good as you're getting.  Then again, it may just indicate you're a very poor shot in general.  I just don't know.  

Seems the gray and dreary day matches the news.  Aside from some personal setbacks, seems we're going to have to work a hell of a lot harder to pull together the down payment than we thought.  Lovely.  The good news is that we're exiting a pretty big financial obligation about 16 months early - that should help a bit.  I don't think we're going to be able to jump from the apartment right into a house at the end of this present lease, though.  Oh well.  We'll have to see.  If we do pull this off, I'm sure I'll be selling a few organs or something.  That, and (with apologies to those who use the things) when you get a call from the Kraftmatic Adjustable Bed™ people and you're only 37, you really have to wonder just what the heck you've done wrong.

And to top it all off, I happened to catch a re-run of VH1's "Behind the Music" profile of John Denver.  As a child (really) of the late 60's and early 70's, his music was a huge part of my life.  I remember as a kid in grade school, we concentrated on learning children's songs and church music.  Rocky Mountain High was probably one of the first secular non-big-band tunes I learned.  His message of environmental stewardship has probably affected me far too much, but I like it.  The man seems to be saying something, and yet it's also a "nice tune" thing.  I'm not sure this makes any sense, but then again, I'm not sure (yet) that this needs to all of the time.

Well.  After some goofing around last night (you'll note that the picture in the header now includes both of the small hairy house-apes which I tend, and the picture to the side shows my lovely daughter practicing goofy looks), I didn't get to update this site like I'd planned.  I did go online for a bit and stumbled across a site through the direction of Mr. Walder, that rather odd man who watches programs about eunuchs and has talking rodentia in his home.  

However, this site really hit home.  She Who Must Be Obeyed and I have gone through the whole pregnancy thing twice - while that does not make us experts by any stretch of the imagination (I've got a friend with five kids and she's had a few miscarriages beyond that, and I grew up near a small town with several families in double-digits, with two topping out at 18 kids each - talk about experts), it helps me identify with this gentleman's sense of the impending.  One child changes your life in ways that you cannot imagine.  Having two is a far bigger change than one.  And a third?  Well, another friend of mine said "it's like going from man-to-man coverage to zone - 'Honey, you take upstairs, I'll take down - or you take inside, I'll do outside'".  Apt description.

However, we've been extraordinarily fortunate that both our children were born relatively healthy and normal.  Well, then again, Jack was a little late on that one.  I won't bore you with the whole minute-by-minute report, but if you'd like to click on this link (and wait patiently), you can check out this page, which is our update on Jack.  Actually, that page was my original attempt at HTML layout.  I had two sisters, my parents, friends, and some relatives here that needed to know what was going on, and I also had relatives down in Iowa.  Rather than getting smart and inventing a phone tree, I decided to use the internet for at least half of my work.  It was, in a way, sort of my first attempt at regular internet posting.  I would visit the hospital or whatever and watch over Jack and then come home, make two phone calls (my parents and the relatives in Iowa) and then update the page, and FTP it.  

Jack was born three weeks early, which is nothing like what these people are going through, and had severe breathing problems.  I've said it elsewhere, and will say it again - Avoid Conseco whenever and where ever possible.  If you've got a Menard's card, for example, get out (I've got other reasons for hating Menards, which I'll likely go into at another time).  If you have any sort of loan through them, pay it off as soon as possible, and run to another lender.  

My wife worked for Conseco when it was still Green Tree Financial (could be one word, I'm not sure).  Locally, the company was originally a savings and loan with a lending arm that did a lot of lending to questionable individuals.  At the time my wife worked there, Lawrence Coss, the CEO, was in the tail end of a contract that had been negotiated during the worst of Greentree's problems.  As a result, when Mr. Coss turned the company around by targeting lower-income individuals who were uneducated and unable to meet their onerous financial obligations, Greentree could confiscate their home, and re-sell that home; typically through their own financing and make a whole lot more.

Anyway, you might have heard of Mr. Coss - At the time Ann worked there, he managed to pull down bonuses of $65 million and over $112 million - it was in the Wall Street Journal, among other places.  The entire company was pretty much like a whipped dog - unless you kept beating it, it was liable to bite you hard when you turned your back.  

What does all this have to do with Jack?  Well, Ann's bosses were rather hard on her (as she was the one delivering the bad news, they felt they had the historical precedent to at least severely abuse the messenger), and she was feeling poorly during the pregnancy.  Rather than make another doctor's appointment or two to discuss these feelings, or do something a little less stressful, she kept slugging away.  I told you she was one tough lady.  Anyway, when she delivered, they determined that she did have gestational diabetes, which affected Jack's lung development.

Now, however, you'd hardly know the kid had an extra week in the hospital.  He's a very happy and well-adjusted young boy, who occasionally gets a little too "high-spirited".  Anyway, Sam Shaw's in our prayers...  On to the rest of the world.

Ach, well.  Off to see what's up with the web...

Looks like it's a quiet day.  Mr. Pournelle's still having trouble with an on-line vendor (you'd think these nitwits would just pop over to a search engine and look up customers just in case - then again, they may have too many of them.  Though I'd look through the list of customers daily just to see if I recognized some names.  Heck, with the technology that's available these days, I'd put in a filter - if the names Pournelle, Thompson, Dvorak, Machrone, Berst, or any other name I'd found on computer magazine web sites showed up in my customer list, they'd get expedited.  Oh well.  Perhaps that's generation 2 of the e-commerce systems we're building.  Jonathon, however, has a very very good bit on dogs and light bulbs.  It's useful to know if you're looking for any sort of dog breed.  He left out a few key breeds over here, though - 

Husky It looks like snow, can I eat it?

Beagle I'm going to have to get back to you on that, my agent's calling

Snoopy That's how we get the Dark And Stormy Night!

St. Bernard That is but a snack for one of my august peerage.  Fetch me another.

Looks like the rest of the gang is quiet...  Makes my life easier (and these posts shorter).  Although I guess I'd love to have this kind of problem.  "Uh, sorry, Mr. Dominik, but you're going to have to stay in orbit a few more days."  "Doggoneit, I was looking forward to...  oh, well, never mind."  <GRIN> .  And of course, our local Gopher Basketball team managed to never exist.  Here's a thought - how about for all college coaches and athletes, they are required to live in college dorms.  The athletes get paid to work a student job - but they have to maintain a B average in their studies in order to play.  AND, they get paid for playing (the colleges make a ton of money off these folks - why not pay them for the income?).  The coaching staff lives in the dorm, as well, with fully 95% of their income delayed until they leave the college.  At that time, the income is paid out at 10% for the first five years.  After that, the coach gets the remaining balance at a percentage equal to the graduation rate of their team members.  Just a thought. 

Oh, Great.  Like I hadn't NOT adjusted to having a daughter, and here Time is telling me to worry about puberty earlier and earlier.  Good grief.  And it looks like my next best chance to get up in space might be coming down. Well, that's enough of that.  Time to go check on the sicko - She Who Must Be Obeyed is out today with the galloping crud.  Hope it doesn't come running my way.

But first, some daily funnies (and politics - sometimes they aren't too far apart)...

 The State of Texas under the leadership of Governor George W. Bush is ranked:

• 50th in spending for teacher's salaries
• 49th in spending on the environment
• 48th in per-capita funding for public health
• 47th in delivery of social services
• 42nd in child-support collections
• 41st in per-capita spending on public education
• 5th in percentage of population living in poverty
• 1st in air and water pollution
• 1st in percentage of poor working parents without insurance
• 1st in percentage of children without health insurance

AND

For those tired of the usual "friend" poems, a touch of truth!

When you are sad... I will get you drunk and help you plot revenge against the scum sucking bastard who has made you sad.
When you are scared... I will laugh at you and tease you about it every chance I get.
When you are worried... I will tell you how much worse it could be and to quit complaining.
When you are confused... I will use little words to explain it to your dumb ass.
When you fall... I will point and laugh at you.
This is my oath... I pledge till the end.
Why you may ask? Because you're my friend, you dumb shit.
 

Our Hero: Gee, I wish the sun would come out.
Typical Smart-Ass Voice: Wot?  Waffor?
OH: Because it's always so much nicer when it's sunny.  That, and people don't do so many stupid things.
TSAV: 'Ere, are you sure?
OH: Well, we can hope.  For example, that bus driver up ahead usually turns back a block - why he decided to make a left turn out of a right turn lane, put both front wheels up on the curb, nearly knock off a hydrant, and then go back only to find out there's not a hope in hell of turning across the divider in the middle of the street is beyond me.
TSAV: Righto.
Narrator: Here, we compress the details of Our Hero picking up his children from Daycare and starting his return home.
OH: Oh, look, kids - the nice man in the big gray blazer seems to be blind in both eyes
Kid: Why do you say that, dad?
OH: That's the only thing I can think of that would make him want to kill us by driving over our hood like he almost did.
Kid: That's not very nice, is it?
OH: No, it's not.  He's a meanie.
Kid: But Daddy, what's that car's problem?
OH: I really don't know honey.  I'm not sure why we can go faster than that big Lincoln.  You know that we've got Huey, Dewey, Louie, and Lucky under the hood, right?
Kid: Who?
OH: The Four Chipmunks of the Tempo!  Huey and Dewey are arthritic, Louie's lame in one leg and can't run a straight line to save his soul, and Lucky's blind with only three legs.
Kid: Oh.  But she's got a V8, right?
Our Hero - Mental Voice: Damn, how'd she know that?
OH (out loud): How do you know, honey?
Kid: Because it says so right there on the side of the car!
OH: Very good!
Narrator: Our Hero arrives home and gets the kids upstairs.
Sick Wife: Hi, kids.  How are you?
Kids: MOMMY!
OH: Hey, you guys be careful with Mom - she doesn't feel good.  Honey, do you want me to make dinner?
SW: Yeah, could you?
OH-MV: Gee, she normally doesn't want me anywhere near the kitchen - I'm not nearly as limited as some cooks I know, but damn, if she wants me to cook, she must not be planning on eating.  Let's check that.
OH (out loud): Hey, are you gonna be eating with us?
SW: No, I don't think so.
OH-MV: Great!  Burgers!
Narrator: So we see Our Hero thaw his ground beef and turkey, mix them together with the secret ingredients and spices, and patty them up for the grill.  He also chops up his Yukon Gold potatoes for the "fried potatoes" cooking on the stove.  He tosses onions and spray butter in a non-stick skillet, covers it so the onions will soften, and then adds the chopped potatoes, and continues to cook on medium heat with the lid on - adds some spike season salt to the pan as needed.  
OH: Hey, Kids - Time to set the table!
Kids: Mommy, do we have to?
SW: Yeah.  Go.
OH-MV: That doesn't sound normal.
OH (out loud): Honey, you OK?
SW: Yeah, I feel a little warm, though.
OH: Oh.  OK.  Anything you need me to do?
SW: No.  I'll be fine.
OH: (later) All right - Supper's ready.  Come and get it!
Narrator: We watch as our hero makes plates for the kids, and gets their milk.  Then he gets his dinner together, and sits down.
SW: (in bedroom, faintly) John!
OH: Yes, Dear?
Narrator: No answer.  Our Hero rushes into the bedroom.
OH:  You OK?
SW: No.  I hurt.  Call Doctor.
OH: OK.
OH-MV: Damn.  This is the woman they named Maggie Thatcher after - although in Thatcher's case, they changed "Bitch" to Maiden, so it wouldn't sound so intimidating.
Narrator: We watch as Our Hero calls the regular Doctor's office.
Voice-Over: We're sorry, our offices are closed.  If this is a medical emergency, please call 911.  If this is an urgent medical matter that is not an emergency, contact our urgent care clinic at ...
Narrator: We watch as Our Hero calls the Urgent Care Clinic
Voice-Over: Thank you for calling our Urgent Care Clinic.  We're closed now.  If this is a medical emergency, please call 911.  If this is an urgent medical matter that is not an emergency, please contact our offices.
OH: Damn!
Narrator: We watch as our hero calls the Nurse Warm Line
Nurse-Line: Hi, can I help you?
OH: Uh, yes, my wife is having abdominal pains and -
NL: Just a minute, is this a medical matter?
OH: Uh, yes?
NL: One moment please - I'll direct you to a nurse so you only have to tell your story once.  *Click*
Narrator: We watch as our hero stays on hold, listening to music and warnings not to hang up or he'll lose his place in line.
OH: Oh, Pooh. 
Narrator: Our hero hangs up, and dials the non-emergency number for the local emergency room
OH: Hello?
ER Reception: Hi!  Can I help you?
OH: My wife's in some pain, and I'm trying to decide if I need to bring her in.
ERR: Just a minute, let me get you a nurse.  *Click*
Narrator: We watch as -
ER Nurse: Hi.  What's the problem?
OH: (Describes symptoms).  Is this serious?  Should I bring her in?
ERN: Well, yes, but just a minute now...
OH: What's the problem?
ERN: Well, I'm trying to find how quickly we can get her here...
OH: I'm less than 10 minutes from the Hospital by city streets - I can get there pretty quick.
ERN: That would be best.  Come on in.  
OH: Thanks!  Bye.
OH: (To kids) You guys each grab two soft toys and a book if you want - we're taking mommy to see the doctor
Kids: Okay.

All right - you get the picture.  I was minding my own business as this unfolded over about two and a half hours, and suddenly Ann had these horrible pains right across the bottom of her rib cage; pains, she said, that were worse than she'd ever had.  Never having had children, I'm not qualified to diagnose such,  but this was the woman that was on pitosin TWICE for over twelve hours and ended up having a C-section.  And then she said that the pains she had from her gall bladder (before that puppy was blasted electrosonically into little bitty bits and suctioned out through a little hole) were far far worse than childbirth.  Then she says *this* is worse?  Jesus.

So, anyway.  We get her to the hospital, and that's a complete comedy of errors.  If you've ever seen E.R., you get the real feeling that these places are pretty happening outfits, and there's always stuff going on.  Perhaps in Chicago.  Here in Burnsville, it's rather slow.  At least it was at 7:20 pm when we got there.  

Of course, slow could also refer to the nurses, etc., admitting Ann.  We pulled up to the ER Admitting desk at about 7:24 pm, and then they had to ask me questions - they pulled Ann up in the next booth over and started running thermometers, etc. into her.  Her blood pressure was VERY low, and her body temperature was at first, 93 degrees, then 94.2.  Not normal, by any stretch of the imagination.

So we got the paperwork out of the way, and then I was left standing out in front of the desk with Ann in a wheelchair while they "admitted her" to the ER.  We stood outside the door for what seemed like hours as Ann had two more severe attacks of abdominal pains, and I threatened to take her through the door, ready or not.  Finally, a nurse came out to get her, and I was stuck between staying with the kids and finding out where Ann would end up and what was wrong - so I pushed Ann and asked one of the nurses to watch the kids (they were happily playing in the play area they had for kids).  

I rolled Ann back into the ER, and we went past empty bed after empty bed, and looped through the entire E.R. to get into a small exam-type room further back in the E.R.  With Ann in a known room, I went back out to the waiting room to wait for my sister and her husband, who lived 5 minutes further away from the hospital to come over and watch the kids.  Emily and Jim arrived about 20 minutes later, so I went back to check on Ann.  

Now mind you, this woman had been in the hospital for almost 30 minutes now.  We'd been in the E.R. for 20 minutes.  I walked back into Ann's room, and she was still laying on the exam table.  No one had seen her, the best they had done to this point was to close the curtain around the bed and the door to the room.  Being the typical protective husband and father, and not having a damned thing to do, rather than pushing the button on the wall, I went out to the nursing station to find a human to help Ann out.  I found the Nurse who had walked us in, and she said she'd be in in a minute.  Walked past the same empty beds (saw two more than had had people (there were only four occupied beds in the 20-bed ER area that I saw) emptied out, so they were down to three patients in the whole ER - I counted about a dozen people standing around at the nursing stand.

Finally, the nurse came in, and did some blood pressure checks.  Ann's BP is normally low, but this was in the 90 over 50 range.  Her heart rate was also very low when lying down, but when standing, it went up by almost 50%.  The doctor came in and poked and proded, and said "could be a bladder infection, kidney infection, some other organ, a bleeding ulcer, or you could be pregnant."  Oh, shit.  We were about as sure as you can be that it wasn't the last, but all of the others were in play.

The apparent consensus was that she was seriously dehydrated, so they hooked up an IV and pumped about half a bag of saline into her in under 20 minutes (it was actually 700 milliliters in something like 22 minutes - we timed it at 100 milliliters in about three minutes).  After that, they dropped the rate to push the last 250 milliliters in over an hour, and Ann started feeling better.  I found out later that drugs could claim a majority of the credit for that, as they'd boosted the IV with happy juices, as well.

After the hour was up, one of the doctors came in and chatted with us for a few minutes, and we learned that it might well be pancreatitis.  Whether or not the spelling's right, I dunno, but it's the damned pancreas which is possibly causing her discomfort.  Since she had her gall bladder out over six years ago, one of the doctors mentioned that it was highly likely that the other organs kicked in to aid in the digestive functions - this means that some might have overstepped their capabilities somewhat, and it's entirely possible that she's got some problems in that department.

After waffling for a good hour, they came back and said, point blank, that she would be admitted tonight, and would stay for at least a couple days.  The one doctor mentioned that they would try to "empty her stomach out" and then work on feeding her different things to see what would cause problems.  I guess this is where all of her record keeping for Weight Watchers will come in handy - she writes down everything she eats, and tracks her water consumption and everything else.  As my wife says "when they call me anal retentive, I ask if it should be hyphenated" - Please - don't bother telling me if it should or not.   She's the one who needs to know.

So - instead of laundry, haircuts, and lunch with my daughter this week, we're going to be pounding on the hospital doors, waiting to see what comes of this load.  I'm going to go to bed now, and lie awake for a couple of hours before I need to get up.  Updates to this space will likely be done late in the days to come, and hopefully be full of good news.  I could sure use some.

Wednesday, October 25th, 2000 - Part 2

Ah, Laundry.  Laundry today, since I didn't get it done last week, is a BEAR.  The kids have four loads going right now.  I remember when we first moved in here, it was seventy-five cents to wash, and fifty to dry.  I could do all of our clothes with only one roll of quarters.  Now, it's a buck twenty-five to wash, and a buck to dry; and if you're lucky, you only need one pass with one dryer to dry your clothes.  The management recommends running them through twice OR running one load of wash into two dryers.  Lovely.

I have discovered that my son seems to be predominantly right-handed - most of his shirts are stained in the middle and right side.  Which is why I use a garden sprayer to spray Shout onto the kid's stains (and we all know I NEVER stain my clothes, right?).  Saves a lot on the hands cramping, etc.  However, I'm getting a real good appreciation of what my parents went through keeping me in clothes.  Jack seems to be blowing out a pair of pants every other week or so.  This week it was some pretty new corduroys (which the Good Doctor, being fluent in the language of kings, would tell you is based on the French "Cloth of kings").  Wow.

I've also learned that the state of Minnesota is now considered "in play" politically.  Last week, I think I saw two Gore ads, and nothing else.  This morning, while watching the news, I saw one four-minute commercial break with a 30-second auto ad, and ten political ads, two for Bush, one for Gore, one for Buchanan, and one each for our two major-party candidates for the US Senate, Mark Dayton and Rod "The Rod" Grams, plus a couple of smaller local races.  Man, will I be glad when the silly season is over.  

I remember a Bloom County strip a few years back where Opus complained about some lunatic scheduling the presidential elections so close to Halloween.  I suppose when you go door-knocking, and you're the penguin veep to a comatose cat candidate (like that alliteration, huh?) for president, you've got all sorts of legitimate gripes.  Of course, if you assume that penguins can talk, you're probably closer to exceeding the recommended daily allowance of something we'd best not discuss.

Ach, well.  On to the medical news du jour (and to top it off, I once saw a sign in a restaurant that said "Today the soup du jour of the day is Chicken Vegetable".  Yow.  I'm not sure the person who wrote that should be allowed near any sharp objects - such as a pointed comment).  After posting the above at about 12:45 am, I figure I'd better put more up here.

First, we found out some of the delay last night in the E.R. - aside from being a little short staffed (apparently four people to one patient is understaffed in a suburban ER), they had a young lady who was going through heroin withdrawal who had at least one heart stoppage.  On the one hand, I'm glad she's trying to stop using this drug, but on the other, the protective husband in me is yelling "dammit, that was self-inflicted - this is something wrong inside!".

Oh well.  Anyway, after dropping the kids off, I went to the hospital, and saw Ann.  She's feeling better, and very hungry.  They've still got an IV in her, but they slowed the flow from about 3000ml/hr last night to 10ml/hr this morning.  We sat around for a while, and they said that nothing would happen until about 10:30 am, so I went to get a haircut.  The fun part was I went to Cost Cutters (mostly because they had a deal if you came in early - or so I thought.  It ended last week.  The bad news was that the young lady who cut my hair is probably a very charming conversationalist.  At least with some people.  After trying about five different times to get some sort of conversation going, I gave up and sat there.  She took about 20 minutes, so that was a bit of a surprise as well - I'm used to being done in ten.  Of course, removing half the weight of my head's worth of hair takes some time). 

Anyway, I went back home after that and picked up the list She Who Must Be Obeyed sent me home for - mostly books - there's nothing to do but sit and wait, and she's bored stiff.  She had to drink about four cups of very funky-tasting Apple Juice (so much for this year's attempt to get her to try to like Apple Cider), and then hop into the CT Scan machine.  That was kinda cool, from my viewpoint (okay, I'm a sucker for big computers), but other than that, there was nothing to do, and no real news.

Some of the lab work did come back this morning, and one of her enzyme levels (reminds me of the old joke - "what's the difference between an enzyme and a hormone?".  If you don't know it, I probably shouldn't be contributing to the delinquency of a minor by finishing it) for something (she didn't remember exactly what) were up over 4000.  The doctor indicated that it was that enzyme that pointed him towards pancreatitis.  Something I'm going to research here on the internet in a bit.

At the moment, I'm feeling totally at a loss.  I can do nothing but keep the house running (and that poorly at best, 

This afternoon's pretty booked - laundry, then get kids, hospital, dinner at Mickey D's, then Karate, then back to the hospital, then home for a Jack-bath, then bedtime, hopefully early for all - I don't know how far I'm going to be able to go on less than four hours sleep today...  Might be more later.  We'll just see what the doctors say.

All right, how about Pancreatitis information?  http://www.pancreasfoundation.org/diseases.html has a section on Pancreatitis - lovely, a 10% mortality rate.  Yikes.  I don't like those odds (then again, I like them better than 90% mortality, but I'd prefer 1 in 100,000).  Then there's this - http://www.informatik.uni-rostock.de/pancreas/acute/treatment_research.html.  Lovely - a 56% mortality rate for certain types?  She's not going to be that bad, I don't think.  Or perhaps, I hope and pray.  Ohmygod.  http://www.wf.net/~bbagwell/pancreas.htm is a site with a long list of people with this disease.  Oh, dear God, not that.  These people sound like they've been through hell, and Ann does not need that.  Time to pray harder, and not tell her about this for at least a week.  The first fellow there (B. Bagwell) seems to hold out some hope for a transplant of special cells; thank GOD we found her birth parents and brothers, just in case we need the help (if they're willing, of course).  Time to switch laundry and pray some more.  Yikes.  I guess I'll need to be strong and get through this.  If that's what we need, that's what we need.

Much Later: Well.  Nothing wrong with internet medicine that fifteen minutes with a competent doctor can't clear up.  We discussed what happened to Ann, and we got very lucky.  According to our doctor, there are four main types of causes to pancreatitis.  One of them is alcohol.  One of them is gall bladder problems.  One of them is a collection of various small percentage causes, and one is completely unknown.  It breaks down to a quarter, each.  Ann's cause boils down to "unknown."  However, her enzyme levels have dropped from over 4000 last night when she was admitted to about 230 today.  That is good, but puzzling.  The doctors basically have agreed - if she can take it in, and get rid of it, without pain, they can ship her home.  And this would make three of us very happy.  Not, of course, including Ann.  She feels well enough, just bored, and is  chomping at the bit to come home.

Of course, there were a couple of left and right hooks in the day today that had me running around in circles.  One blast from the past, a recruiter, called me this evening - she'd placed Ann at her last two jobs, and has a couple of opportunities she would like to market me into.  Since I haven't worked for even a minute yet for the new outfit, I'm fairly certain I would be able to go elsewhere without running into the various legal entanglements in my contract.  We'll see what happens.  I'm pretty hopeful I'll be doing something within two weeks.

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Thursday, October 26th, 2000
Let's start with something funny...

A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a man below. He descended a bit more and shouted, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet her an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

The man below replied, "You are in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You are between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude."

"You must be an engineer," said the balloonist. "I am," replied the man, "How did you know?"

"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I am still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help so far."

The man below responded, "You must be a manager."

"I am," replied the balloonist," but how did you know?"

"Well," said the man, "you don't know where you are or where you are going. You have risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it's my fault."

And I will tell you this - never ever ever copy and paste from Outlook to Word to FrontPage if you know HTML code - I've never ever ever seen a more disgusting abomination than that load of crap. I'll show you - in the blocks of text above, a blank line separated the text in the e-mail I got it from - but this is what the Outlook-to-Word-to-FrontPage pasting did - 

<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none'><span
style='font-family:"Courier New"'><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>

Now, the good news - 

ANN'S COMING HOME!

Yes, you can imagine my joy.  The last three days have left me feeling like I just went fifteen rounds with <substitute your favorite heavyweight boxing champion's name here>.  I'm still on my feet, but I suspect that's only because I'm too stupid to fall over.  It's got some potential.

Anyway - I'm not going to divulge details yet until it hits the press officially (and the bottom line is that it will), but I've a former good friend of mine who has needed some serious help for a long time.  The last time we spent any time with them at all was completely by accident (we've tried to avoid them for about the last six years or so), and one of their children was extremely rough with then-not-quite-two-year-old Rhiannon.  

Now, this fellow, who is a teacher, will be charged with Child Abuse.  I preach a lot to my kids about personal responsibility; if you do something, take responsibility for it - you're going to be in far more trouble when I find out you lied or evaded than you will if you just tell me.  In most cases, they get a "go sit in time out, and don't do it again."  

On one memorable occasion, my daughter stole a yoyo from the grocery store checkout aisle.  Yes, I should have been watching her.  However, it's my job to unload the cart, and then bag the groceries.  She Who Must Be Obeyed has the charge of the children at that point.  I think she might have had to run back and get something we'd forgotten, but at any rate, Rhiannon came home with a yoyo.

When we found that she had A) lied about where she got it, and B) had stolen it, we all went back to the grocery store.  Rhiannon and Ann went to the counter, and Rhiannon had to tell them what she had done.  When it became pretty apparent she was hysterically crying (despite her mother being at her side), Ann explained.  The assistant manager came down, and brought two of the biggest employees they had on at the time (one of whom could have taken me easily), and another woman.  The four of them surrounded her, and they told her that stealing was wrong, but the fact that she'd brought it back was important.  We then paid for the yoyo, and Rhiannon had to work off the yoyo (I think it was $1.99) by setting the table - she couldn't whine about it or she'd have to set the table anyway, this time not for pay.  I think she got a nickle each time she did it.  When the yoyo was fully paid for (and it sat where she could see it but not touch it on top of the microwave), we threw it away, as a reminder that she wasn't going to profit from the experience.  Right or not, that's how we handled it.

This former friend of mine is responsible for what he's done.  However, I've seen enough of the interaction between parents and himself (yes, we go back that far) to know that his parents need to accept some of the blame.  I won't go into specifics other than to state that I hope he gets better - gets some help, and gets this resolved.  Because if he doesn't, I'm personally going to end up in jail for kicking the crap out of him.  No matter how old his children get, I will still remember him with his daughter, who barely reached to his knee, coming to visit me at work, at a job he'd helped me get, and her saying her sister "had ishy pants" just two days after birth.

Cute kid, beautiful young woman, and screwed up by her father's problems with his parents.  Oy.  What a waste.  At least I have this outlet where I can get this sort of thing out.  I don't understand frustration to the point of actually beating your children black-and-blue.  Given Jack's "high spirits" I can certainly understand the desire to apply corrective action with some small household nuclear weapons, and the like, but usually with Jack it's a case of yelling first, time out second, and swatting his behind a distant but viable third.  Fortunately, we don't need to resort to the third option more than 2-3 times a week now (high point was about twice a day, tops), and it's steadily going down.

On to better (we hope) news.  The doctors have no clear cause of Ann's abdominal pains, but we're blaming a combination of factors;

1. She'd been having some basic gassy-stomach problems (nothing serious, just a Gas-X moment)
2. On Monday night, she consumed a serving (36 grams, I think - she weighed it) of "Wow" Chips with "Olestra" in them.
3. Tuesday she had some slight flu-like feelings
4. She managed throughout the course of Tuesday to dehydrate herself, which lead to
5. Abdominal pains consistent with Pancreatitis.

The doctor said that all of the chemical signs of Pancreatitis were there - elevated enzymes and other counts (one indicator was near 5000 when she was admitted Tuesday night, when the normal number should be in the 200s, another was in the 300s when it should be under 50) were consistent.  However, to have those same levels drop within eight hours to near-normal is in her experience unheard of.  I told you she was unique!  Thank God it doesn't appear to be persistent or chronic.  Thank God, indeed.

Now, to get her clothes up to the hospital.  It's going to be nice to have her nagging me to get things done around here...  And please, remind me that I've said that.  I'm sure in the coming days, there will be substantial disturbance around here as I get things moving again in a normal fashion.  The really good news, however, is that she will, at the very least, be able to advise on dinner selections and guide my cooking, if not do it herself.  After spending two days sitting in the hospital, I'm sure she'll want to do something.  Yippee!!

Wow - she really feels better - she even wants me to bring earrings!

Later: Well, I guess I should revert to play-by-play to keep this up to date.  I arrived at the hospital with nearly everything needed to get Ann home - forgot a few details, but I think I'll live.  She was already checked out, and ready to go - just needed clothes.  SO : got her dressed, and then headed over to a certain seven-year-old's school for lunch.  She bought, mostly because we weren't going to get as good a deal anywhere else - pint of chocolate milk, two carrots and a celery stick, half an orange, and a very large piece of french bread with garlic butter and cheese melted on it - plus pizza sauce in a little cup.  Not too bad.

Although I have noticed they're building those schools and the accessories smaller and smaller.  I'm telling you it didn't used to be a problem to fit into those tables and such <grin>.  Rhiannon had a smile on her face that practically swallowed her ears.  Ann actually ate her pizza, too.  Although I was fairly certain that the lunchrooms WERE quieter when I was a kid.  At least I thought they were.  

And I've learned one key thing about elementary school principals - they need to be part cook, part mother, and part Marine Drill Sergeant.  At my daughter's school, they pack them in two grades at a time - when each class is about 25 kids, and you've got three classes per grade, that's 150 per class.  Man, was it ever noisy.  But we had a good time, especially when the principal blew her whistle and started giving directions.  Interestingly enough, I didn't even think of questioning them - I just moved along like the rest of the sheep.  Thank GOD she wasn't a nun, or I probably would have scurried and crawled around.  

Anyway, somehow, they knew She Who Must Be Obeyed was coming - dessert was those chocolate-covered "ice milk" bar things - one of her favorites.  Then we went outside and somehow got drafted to turn the jumprope.  I guess I've forgotten the absolute joy of being free and running like a banshee.  Does that mean I'm too old?  I sure wanted to yell and scream and run, though.  

Ann's doctors think that the attack WAS Pancreatitis, but a self-correcting version.  Anything that goes from 25 times normal levels in the bloodstream to "normal" in eight hours with nothing but straight IV fluids (there were NO painkillers in her IVs, at any time - the doctor reviewed the chart), that's a "freak occurrence."  Gee, I thought I was the one who was signed up for those "freak" things...

So I decided to mess with all of this now that she's back taking a nap - I've removed the "automatic" redirection to the most recent update - you can click on the links above, and we'll see how it goes.  Let me know if you've got a preference either way - Thanks!

Now, on to the internet.  First off - wow - my wife's favorite character on Friends has it too?  I think she's taking Chandlermania a bit too far.  There's a whole heck of a lot going on (with the exception of the good doctor, who apparently is suffering the after-effects of Birthday mania) around the daynotes circuit, but mentally, the slack in the rope is here, big-time.  I'm too whipped to comment - then again, I think I'm drooling on the keyboard.  The good news is that the new official employer is looking to move me along a bit faster into a contract - the bad news is that I'm not working (yet).  We can hope.  Ach well.  More later (or tomorrow) as the wit returns.  

To that end - LOST One wit - all I possessed in the department, come to think of it.  Should you find it out wandering, please send it home - it's far too small to be out by it's lonesome.  Also seeking large amounts of unmarked, non-sequential US currency, in the $1- $1000 range.  Others outside that range accepted as need be (hey, I'm not greedy - yet - but please note the title of the page - any budget is sensible, though I'd much prefer something more Gatesian than Dominikian.  Then again, I don't need to duck pies).  TTFN.

And Finally, Much, much later: That was fun.  We got the kids from Daycare (Jack didn't know Mom was out yet), and on leaving daycare, we saw a very very bright rainbow - well, OK, the start of one.  It was bright enough to see the purple on the inside of the rainbow.   We don't get a lot of major thunderheads around here in October; especially this late in October.  On the other hand, we had a dewpoint of 61 this morning.  Yuck.  

So on our way out to dinner we drove through a driving rain - very very unusual for October, as noted above.  On the good side, though, we're getting closer to our normal rainfall for the month (we were almost three inches short, which lead to things like major grass/forest fires like we had last week).  When we got close to home, the sun came out again.  We were stuck at sunset between a stack of thunderheads running up to nearly 45,000 feet to the east, and a low, fairly narrow band of clouds to the west.  It was a strange kind of light; the thunderheads were reflecting the sunlight down  and it looked nearly like early-morning sunshine, but off to the west was a beautiful sunset of purples, grays, and oranges.  After all of the events of the last few days, it was nice not only to see the sun come out, but to see that was a special reward.  We're doing lots of thank-you's in prayers tonight.

Windows Me, Minnesota edition

Dear Consumers:

Due to apparent Piracy, or a bug in our distribution software, we've discovered that a number of copies of the Windows Millenium Minnesota Edition have been shipped outside the state of Minnesota. If you have one of these, you may need some help understanding the commands.

If you purchased the Full Standard Retail version of Windows Millenium Minnesota Edition (WinMeMn), the box will have included a feathered boa. If you purchased the upgrade edition of WinMeMn, the box will contain feathers and string.  You can assemble your own boa.

Upon booting WinMeMn, you will see a Green Bay Packer's football helmet, which will be smashed into little bits by a much larger picture of a Viking's helmet. The product also ships with screen savers advertising Jesse Ventura's new book, a request for you to support a new Stadium and/or facility for the Vikings, The Minnesota Twins, the Minnesota Timberwolves, the St. Paul Saints, the North Stars, and the Golden Gopher football, basketball, hockey, baseball, track, swimming, diving, and chess teams. These cannot be disabled or removed, sorry about that.

Please also note:
The Recycle Bin is labeled "Dat Dumpster"
My Computer is called "Dat Uf Da Box"
Dial up Networking is called "Dem Wires Dere"
Control Panel is known as the "Dat Dere Ting"
Hard Drive is referred to as "Dat Spinny Ting"
Floppies are "Dem tings"
Instead of an error message an "Ole" cartoon pops up to say "Whoops - Uf Da!"

CHANGES IN TERMINOLOGY IN WINMEMN EDITION:

OK . . . . . . . . . . . . . Yup
Cancel . . . . . . . . . . . Nope
Reset. . . . . . . . . . . . Dat's Busted
Yes. . . . . . . . . . . . . Yahsureyoubetchadere
No . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nope
Find . . . . . . . . . . . . Duck Season
Go to. . . . . . . . . . . . Get it, Dammit
Back . . . . . . . . . . . . Whoops
Help . . . . . . . . . . . . Hey dere youse
Stop . . . . . . . . . . . . Nope
Start. . . . . . . . . . . . Where's dem damn booster cables?
Settings . . . . . . . . . . Don't Screw Wit Dis Stuff
Programs . . . . . . . . . . Tings dat do dat
Documents. . . . . . . . . . Tings I done dat I want to keep

Some programs that are exclusive to WinMeMn:

Wert . . . . . . . . . . . . A word processing program
pitchers . . . . . . . . . . a graphics program
dat ting dere. . . . . . . . calculator
dat dere ting. . . . . . . . notepad
dat odder ting . . . . . . . Microsoft Explorer 4.0
dat odder odder ting . . . . A graphics viewer

We regret any inconvenience it may have caused if you received a copy of Windows Millenium Minnesota Edition (WinMeMn). You may return it to Microsoft for a replacement version. Tanks, and haff a goot day!

Bill Gates, Da boss, Microsofd.

And let me be the 800th half-wit to note to the rest of the world that New York won the World Series.  And New York lost, too.  So next week there's going to be a big ticker-tape parade in New York.  What a surprise.  I've heard that in New York, the average day is two hours longer - I'm thinking it just seems that way, but on the other hand, it's no wonder they're a little wonky out there, as well - the schizophrenia is probably induced by two or more of everything.  We'll leave it at that.

Wow.  I'm very very tired, but given the way this week has gone, I'm not at all surprised by it.    Yesterday was one more day on the roller coaster, this time mostly up.  While I was sitting here with Ann at home after lunch, I got a call from a place I'd applied to back in late August.  Now, granted, they're an academic institution with a great reputation locally, but I'll tell you, I didn't think for what they were looking for the pay was that low.  Anyway, given the other benefits they do have, I'm going to keep them on my list of places to check out regularly.  More places to find jobs, the better.

I should probably start sending checks to Dr. Keyboard - earlier this week I found the traffic stats page on Spaceports.com, my host here, and the amazing thing is that I moved all of my stuff here on October 3rd.  For that first week, I had one or two unique visitors (myself and my wife, apparently) daily.  The week after that I wobbled between four and seven a day.  Then the Good Doctor linked to me in his daily log, and pop went the roof.  I went from 8 visitors on Monday to 25, 68, and then 70.  Wow.  Apparently people do stop by here.

Perhaps it's because I'm not selling something?  Lord knows these pages look wretched.  In my defense, they haven't been well-thought-out, at least so far.  There are a number of daynotes pages out there that are very well done visually; there are daynotes pages out there that I read through, scratch my head, and go "wow, they're a heck of a lot smarter about this stuff than I."  But these pages look pretty ugly (at least to me) so far.

So I've decided to start sprucing things up.  I'm going to take a look at changing some things, and including "white space."  I used to be pretty heavy into desktop publishing.  I've used everything from WordStar to PageMaker for simple documents/brochures, I've used Ventura Publisher (and no, our governor had nothing to do with that package) and Quark Xpress, and many other packages.  To date, probably the easiest package to use for me has been (believe it or not) WordPerfect.  Back when they were a character-based program, I tried them when struggling with WordStar.  WordStar sucked, and WordPerfect was a huge improvement.

I think one of the reasons I like working with HTML so much is that I can use various tools (such as FrontPage) which do a fairly nice job of managing the mundane code - when you get to the fancy stuff, I can pop over to the HTML tab and tweak the code - WordPerfect had that in their "reveal codes" window (ALT-F3 - I still remember that useful bit of information).  I could go in and find that I had three tab sets, and the one I wanted was first, while the other two overrode what I wanted.  Now, I know that no one ever intentionally includes multiple tags and such, but hey, I'm different.

I'm going to cut the various ramblings short, so I can get other things done...  And I need to shorten up these posts - Front Page is starting to blink at every single keystroke.  Let's shut it down and restart it.  Now THAT'S odd - when I shut it down, FP said this page (without these lines of text) would require 36 seconds to load over 56K lines - now it says 29 seconds.  Hmmm...  Ach well, it's not like we get full throughput on this stuff anyway.  I used to rely on MultiTech modems for connections anywhere - in a previous life I had to connect timeclocks to telephone systems which would then be polled for their punches.  We swore by Multi-Tech modems, even over the internally supplied models by the manufacturer.  They were tanks.  I had one client who had been a very early adopter of the software, and had an old MultiTech 1200 Baud modem.  No acoustic coupler on it, but nearly that old.  Anyway, when I went in about 9 years after they adopted that system to upgrade them to one working on an AS/400, they were still using the same modem.  Exactly the same.  And we used it on the AS/400.

My second-favorite modem was Practical Peripherials.  They weren't quite as reliable (okay, about two failures out of a hundred instead of zero), but at less than half price, it was easier to buy replacement modems.  They were far easier to work with in our environment than the US Moronics we had to rely on.  And every once in a while we'd get a REAL Hayes modem.  Weird how the whole modem world relies on standards set originally by a now-defunct company.  But I digress...

Around the internet news horn.  OH, NO.  Dr. Keyboard will be highly upset over this news.  And that's not a good thing.  We all hope he hasn't ended up like my wife did, hospitalized and bored for a few days.  Though it could explain why he's out of contact - then again, he did mention a vacation, in New York...  Oh no.  An Englishman, who lives in France, stuck in New York, during a subway series.  Man, this could be more fodder for humor than last week's Dollywood/Spanish Armada deal.  Looks like Bo is looking at large stacks of paperwork from the Pension Authority - good for him - I'm about as likely to see mine come out of Social Security as the Titanic is to spontaneously re-float.  Dave has an excellent short-form guide on file sharing between Macs and PCs - that does not mean you can share as in "I'll edit the picture in Photoshop on my Mac, then you edit it in PhotoDraw" or anything foolish like that (although it could be done were hoops involved).  It means "Here, I'll shovel my files over to your computer, you play with them and send them back.  

Ach.  Well.  Nuff of this stuff.  I need to get moving.

Later: You know, this sometimes sucks.  I'm of Selician and Prussian descent, with some Swiss thrown in for good measure.  As my wife, the Viking Nazi, so enjoys to point out, I'm Polish, German, and Swiss.  Perhaps.  Some of my family passed through the port of Danzig years ago before it became G'dansk.  One of my relatives (a cousin of some remove, or something along those lines) once said "you've got to be born within six axe handles and a plug of tobacco of the Alps to be an Appert."  (Yes, one portion of my ancestry is Appert, which is Swiss when we left; another branch of the family was distinguished by Nicholas Appert, that semi-genius who invented the tin can.  Of course, it took another couple of decades before anyone invented the tin can opener, so I'm not quite sure what utensil Napoleon's troops used to open the damned cans).

Anyway, I'm supposedly from this stoic German stock.  Show no emotion, etc., etc., etc.  Right.  Today was Rhiannon's last Karate class.  The story has unfolded over the last month, but briefly; she got a free lesson at one dojo (sp?), and then this was the second place we tried.  This place was $14.95 for the first month, and included her "gee" or Karate outfit.  Spelling assistance warmly welcomed on those two.  At any rate, Rhiannon was signed up for this one, for a month.  

After the first week we were "pitched" the long-term plan.  It was $1200 for whatever it took to get her to "Red Belt" level.  Sometimes it took nine months, and sometimes it took longer; up to two years was the maximum, according to what we were told.  I had three concerns - first, the amount of money, if spread out over 18 months (which seemed long), was about $67 a month - YMCA membership down here is $75 a month for an entire family.  Second, it seemed to me that it was a bit suspect that the people who were collecting the money were also determining how fast the student progressed.  If the business experienced some cash-flow issues, they could just move some students along faster to completion.  Third, I felt that the "sales pitch" we were given was pretty poor.  I can't speak about the gentleman who pitched my wife, but I was pitched by the apparent manager of the place, who looked at me twice during the entire four-minute presentation.  The rest of the time was spent checking his desk and other material.  I wasn't comfortable with that.

So, anyway - today's Karate class was Rhiannon's last.  When she performed well in class, they would hand out "Karate Bucks" - basically certificates for good attitude, performance, etc.  During the course of Rhiannon's two-a-week attendance, she had acquired something in the neighborhood of four of these things (she seemed to average one a week).  So she was doing pretty well.  

Today, we got there about two minutes late for class (not a major sin), and Rhiannon got right in there, remembered to bow and all the rest.  She participated in a couple of exercises, and the toughest one came up - twelve kids, most of them under the age of nine, had to stand in a circle for one minute, with no fidgetting, laughing, giggling, or looking around.  Sixty seconds is not possible for some adults, let alone children.  Rhiannon did very well, and actually only scratched her leg twice (that I saw).  So she got another Karate Buck.  

She also performed very well during the drills and so forth, and did so well that at the end of the class, she got her second red stripe on her belt, and a second Karate Buck for the day - two in one day was pretty big.  Unfortunately, she really wanted one of the little Karate bears which took seventy-five of the Karate bucks, and we had six.  So, I handed in the Karate bucks - even though we didn't have to - because I figured they could still use them.  I didn't think it was right to hand them over to some other child, because after all Rhiannon had earned them, so I gave them back to the instructor with our thanks.  And then I left, and got rather emotional, which kind of caused some problems for me.

You see, my parents were of that true stoic German stock.  Don't get me wrong, we had plenty of hugs and whatnot growing up, but we had a healthy respect for personal space.  My parents showed very little emotion - I don't remember my father crying other than the time his mother (my grandma) died about the time I was eight.  So emotion was pretty well forbidden.

You can imagine what kind of hell it was, perhaps, to find yourself in such an environment where emotion was pretty-well contained - and I would often get choked up at some TV movies and the like.  I was, and remain, someone who isn't always "blocked up" emotionally.  On the one hand, it can some times be embarrassing.  On the other, I'll be damned if I'll teach my son to keep a stiff upper lip and show no fear, or anything else.  As I read somewhere (I think it was Heinlein), courage isn't ignoring dangers - courage is in knowing the dangers, and going ahead despite your fears.  By that measure, someone like myself who isn't overly fond of heights (I can fly with absolutely no problem, but tall buildings or balconies with 20 or more feet over the edge give me the freaking weak-kneed willies) who manages to grab a cat who's out on a ledge is just as courageous as someone who runs into a burning building to rescue people.  The two rescues might not be equally note-worthy, but they're certainly exhibitions of courage.

At any rate, I stood outside that Karate dojo and was quite proud of my daughter, and at the same time upset that I had to 'let her down' by not allowing her the opportunity to continue in Karate to get that little bear.  There's pops - sniffling, choked up, upset - all over a stupid little stuffed bear.  I think the reason it bothered me so wasn't that she couldn't get the bear, but that she had done such a good job and put forth such effort, and the effort was not rewarded in the method she would have preferred.  She understands, and was the one who suggested that we look at the YMCA - after all, they've got a pool, not just Karate equipment.  But it was still disappointing to me to have to let her down like that.

So, parental guilt kicked in, and after I picked up Ann (silly goose, she worked all day despite getting out of the hospital yesterday), we went to the grocery store and happened to loiter a little long in the book/toy aisle, and she went home with the usual Barbie.  Number twelve, I think.  And Jack acquired the usual Hot Wheels/Matchbox car.  That kid takes better care of his cars than I ever did with mine - most of mine had the paint crashed or scraped off through various auto accidents.  Mini-accidents?  Whatever.

Although the rest of today isn't exactly in the tank, either.  Got a call on a resume I sent out last week - small but growing company that's looking for someone with project management experience to run around the country implementing their systems.  While I'm not at all excited about the travel portion (they say 50-75%), it is an opportunity that's right up my alley - back two employers, I was in charge of timeclock implementations, and I was pretty good at it, if I do say so myself.  I enjoyed it greatly.

They're looking for someone to basically do the same thing - this time, however, they're looking to write the manual we did back at the old employer.  Could be very much fun in that job.  The drawbacks are 1) I haven't been hired yet, 2) the 50% or more of travel, and 3) it's clear across the town.  But anyway, we'll see what comes of it.

And on we go to the longest weekend of the year (thank GOD, I need the rest)...  But before I go, I've put up next week's page a wee bit early.  If you feel inclined to comment on it, please feel free to let me know.  Thanks!

And finally - I realize that I've neglected the local news for a lot of you - (like you're hanging on baited breath for this stuff)...  But here goes.  That big grass fire we had starting last week is now 100% contained.  And unfortunately, the poor fellow (or moron, accounts differ) who owns the land where the fire started is now on the hook for not only the cost of fighting the fire, but all of the damages.  I'm thinking that the fellow's insurance agent pulled into the driveway, walked into the back yard, and collapsed straight-away in a dead faint.  Wouldn't you?

This one, however, irritates me.  This fellow is not going to stand trial because of a guilty plea.  Currently the alleged "trigger man" is on trial - his defense (if you can call it that - I call it asking to have your ass lobbed into a deep dark jail cell) is that he wanted to scare someone.  By shooting at them.  Yeah, I think this fellow is an ideal candidate for crash-test dummy status.  And we've lost our fourth rabies victim this century to a bat bite.   

To celebrate, we had dad's special omelets™.  It actually worked out pretty well.  I did find a trick for doing up the ham.  I put the ham (about a cup, chopped into quarter-inch cubes) in a pot (rather than a frying pan) and warmed it, with some water to keep it from burning.  Then I added some liquid smoke (about a tablespoon, which was way too much), and about half that of real Maple Syrup.  Let it basically warm over low heat, and put that in the middle of the omelet, along with some shredded cheese.  Yum.  

But before we goof off too much, I've got to get on-line and check the want ads.  I've used Dice.com, HireTwinCities.com (which is where I think my current sort-of employer found me), Hotjobs.com, Techies.com, Monster.com, and Thingamajob.com, but the most useful has been Star Tribune Classifieds.

Whoops - before that we need to get hotel reservations for Grandma - we've got a two-bedroom apartment with a hide-a-bed, which works, occasionally, for really desperate people.  Making my mother-in-law sleep on that hide-a-bed is rather brutal, if you ask me.  I've slept on it, and it's pretty uncomfortable.  It works for short-term, but not for longer than a night, and an uncomfortable one at that.

And we've really got to plan the menu for next weekend's shindig.  Since we're doing it in the apartment's party room, which has a microwave, fridge, sink, and little else, we're going to have to borrow crock pots and other things.  I'm thinking we should get cracking on that, and do sandwiches, and perhaps sloppy joes.  Plus other considerations.  Ach, well, off to menu planning.

Of course.  My local ISP (Goldengate) is running just fine - it's my damned local phone company, Vista/Frontier/Global Crossings (Hawk, patoie), that suck dead animals through small aperatures.  Our local calling area changed several months ago from two area codes (St. Paul and Minneapolis were separate) to four (Minneapolis kept 612, while the northern suburbs took 763, and southern took 952).  Now, we're having problems calling between area codes.  Goldengate resides in the 612 area code, though some of their offices are in 763.  Attempts to call from 952 to 612 occasionally are met with frequent fast-busy tones, indicating all lines between the area codes are busy.  At other times, I get connected, apparently using cheap wire run by A.G. Bell himself, and the connection drops after four or more minutes.  I do DEARLY want DSL, but it comes after a house - and then, we need to make damned sure the Global Crossing chimpanzees are not responsible for my DSL/Cable/Whatever high speed access method I can get.  Good grief.  This isn't supposed to be this difficult, is it?  Oh, sure it is.  This is the internet, after all.

Later: Well, I won the prize for the scariest costume - hospital patient, me?  Could be escaped, could be not.  We just have to see...  Pictures tomorrow; I ate too much crap and need to get those want ads downloaded before I go to bed.  Oops - And set the clocks back.  Yipee!!!

Last night as we were leaving for Emily's party, the lobby had four different PC cases - all of them marked "Free".  I took a look, longingly, at them, and She Who Must Be Obeyed, slowed only slightly by her recent illness, glared at me.  I retracted my claws as if touching a hot poker, and stumbled into the vehicle.

Upon our return home, however, I looked again, and the case for an IBM Aptiva was loudly calling my name.  It even had a convenient handle where I could grab it and bring it home.  Against both my better judgment and the glare of SWMBO, I attached myself to that case, and brought it home.  Seems the thing even includes the motherboard, which is likely a loss for me, but hey, it's a case.  I can build from there.  I'm still in the doghouse, however.

Anyway.  We got up this morning with every intention of making it to church.  As we all know that road to hell and the paving thereon, it sort-of figured.  We also knew we would be going to a Zoo to do some trick-or-treating.  After doing some thinking and checking, we figured we'd leave the choice to the kids.  Como Zoo had "Zoo Boo" which was $10 for the family if we bought tickets ahead of time - if not, it was $13 at the door.  Minnesota Zoo, on the other hand, was doing a Costume Parade at 1:30 pm.  Since the Mn Zoo is only twenty minutes away, and Como's easily 45 minutes, we thought we'd put the question to the kids.  They wanted the Minnesota Zoo.

So, we went to Apple Valley.  Apple Valley's a "New" zoo in many respects.  It was built in the early-to-mid seventies, when cages weren't for animals any longer.  Como Zoo is the older, "cage 'em and stare at 'em" style, while Apple Valley is more the "natural habitat" type.  We wandered around, and found one of their newest exhibits - a working Farm.  Yup, right here in the comfortable bedroom community of Apple Valley, we have the model of an average Minnesota Livestock farm.  There's even a grain elevator which gives the kids a pretty good idea of what that looks like.  Of course, they turned the inside into a "climber" as Jack says.

No one in our party wanted to milk the goat, however, and the kids were terribly apalled by the smells eminating from the cattle and swine barns.  They seemed pretty happy with the sheep and goat pens, but I'll tell you, there are some sheep who really need a good clout on the noggin.  We had one little fellow (believe it or not, he was a true black sheep) who felt most keenly that he, and no one else in the pen, should be fed by hand.  The Zoo folks had placed one of those little quarter-a-handful candy dispensers (when I was a kid it was usually a nickle a gumball or dime a handful) full of sheep feed pellets.  Both Jack and Rhiannon held out their hands, and "Oscar" (so named by me at least for his grouchy disposition) got only one pellet.  Both kids giggled wildly with the goats and sheep lipping the food from their hands, so that was fun to watch.

Of course, on the way back from the barn, we learned that the Vi'Queens, being crowned the only undefeated team in the NFL, and having it announced in the pre-game that "no team under Denny Green has ever gone 8-0", managed to suck it up and finally, FINALLY, snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, and put one in the loss column.  Finally.  Now we can stop worrying about the damned Super Bowl and start thinking draft picks.

So we got back in time to catch the end of the bird show, and we watched as these birds flew around the room.  At one point, the bird guy was looking right at me, which is a BAD sign, and I thought I should sit up a little and turn around to see what was behind me.  Whoosh, a great horned owl, with a wingspan of probably five or six feet, went less than an inch over my head.  Time for me to get some new underclothes.

As we were rushing, however, to see the tropics, SWMBO found a sign which said "become a member, and today's admission will apply towards your membership fee."  She looked at me and said "we paid $30 to get in.  A Family Membership is $60.  Next time we come here we'll pay $30.  The kids love it here.  What do you think?"  And me, in my usual fog, said "uh, huh?"  And that's how we got signed up with the Minnesota Zoo for a family membership.  Nice place.  We especially like the snow monkeys.  That, and there's absolutely no primate of any stripe that comes anywhere near confusing my children into thinking that they're looking at me, instead of an orangutan.  More on that another time.

Oh well. Run around a bit, return home (and as we do so, we discover the kids who were giving out the candy bags at the Zoo must have gotten bored, and the last three bags we were given were in fact filled with multiple bags.  Instead of getting three pieces of candy, a little flashlight, a reflector, coloring sheet, and halloween tips, we've got about enough candy for the halloweenies who stop by here, plus some for Dad for the remainder of the week.  

So I get onto the internet, and see the Good Doctor has returned, updated his diary, and then left to New York.  Lucky fellow - I think the Yankees are doing their parade this week.  Poor fellow. 

And here's hoping that the interview tomorrow goes well, the new current employer gets me some work, and/or we win the lottery on Wednesday.  Let's face it, $42 million (in a lump sum, after taxes, we could net about $12.8 million in a lump sum payment; if we went with annual installments, we'd get about a million a year for 25 years.  I could relax on that.  AND go house hunting without needing to get a mortgage.  I'll tell you this, though - I get that kinda money, I'll be looking for a far more expensive house than I am now...  Ah well, a fellow can dream, can't he?

OOPS - and there's next weekend to get ready for - The Mother Of She Who Must Be Obeyed will be arriving next Friday, 4-ish, if NorthWorst Airlines regional carriers are to be believed...  Away I go...

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