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Thursday, February 24th, 2005, 2210

Saw some Luther alums recently
I'll post about our visit to the TC Luther Alumni gathering later. The important thing to remember now is: "alums" isn't a word. The plural of alumni is...ALUMNI. The singular is alumnus. I think Latin should still be required in schools.

Thursday, February 24th, 2005, 1810

Goodbye, Bob.
Bob Sand, of Decorah, Iowa, passed away at 1320 hours today. He was a good man, a father of five, and a former SeaBee. He is survived by his wife, five children, and more grandchildren than I can rattle off the top of my head.
When I was attending Luther College, Bob and Verna always made me feel like their house was my house, and they plied me with cookies and homebaked meals. Their house was a short walk from campus, and a destination at which I did not find myself nearly enough. I've been meaning to visit for years and years now. Once again, I find myself regretful over my inability to fit that into my recent life.
Remember this: The next time you're too "busy" to go visit someone, consider the fact that no one lives forever. And whether they lead long, happy lives and have many children, or they are snatched suddenly in their prime, their loss will be felt. All we leave behind in life is an impression on others, good or bad. So spend the time with the people you like, avoid the ones you don't, and know that the world is a better place for your having done so.
Good night, Bob. You did a good job in life, and I hope I can do as well.

Wednesday, February 23rd, 2005, 0727

By his own hand?
On Monday, Hunter S. Thompson took his own life. I'm still shocked by this. Hunter has been such a fixture as a counter-culture figure, and around for so very long. He's weathered plenty of problems with work (or rather, his inability/unwillingness to do the style of journalism for which he was often hired), alcohol, narcotics, firearms and irresponsible behavior.
I always figured he'd have a stroke while drinking Wild Turkey and shooting at the neighbors. Certainly, if I'd known he'd die from a gunshot, I would have expected the preceding phrase to be "Following a prolonged police standoff..."
A local business owner took his own life four or five years ago. I remember most strongly what the owner of the hardware store said about it: "He took the coward's way out." I don't fully agree with that, but I don't disagree, either. Suicide is such a devastating thing. Obviously not to the person who commits it, but to their family and friends.
Links on his death: http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/books/02/21/thompson.obit/, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40737-2005Feb20.html, http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/02/20/235816.php, http://michellemalkin.com/archives/001559.htm, http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~53~2723492,00.html.
Still, geniuses are known to end their own lives. I believe he was a genius, but that genius never carries a guarantee of success. It does grant razor-sharp intelligence and a speed of thought. But these things are almost an antithesis to contentment. After all, what is more content than the bovine chewing cud?
I felt the world was a better place for Hunter being in it, and I know many would disagree. He was a deeply flawed man who wrote interesting (at least to me) articles and books. People who knew him in person were disappointed with him. People who waited to see him speak could not understand his drunken ramblings. This does not change what he did do--write some interesting articles and books. Just because you like one aspect of a person does not mean you'll like the others. I dislike ad hominem attacks--saying that someone's idea lacks merit because they have some personal downfall. An example of this is saying that Bill Clinton was a terrible president because he had an affair. An affair has nothing to do with how he was a world leader. Instead, it has everything to do with failing his wife. We cannot hire someone to be a good fireman and then be angry when they are a second-rate dogcatcher.
Good night, Hunter. I hope that the road now, if there is one, is easier going and happier than your last journey.

Tuesday, February 22nd, 2005, 2208

trumpauto.exe
I recently found a new executable running on my windoze box at work: trumpauto.exe. After a bit of research (which mainly consisted of locating the executable in the \windows directory, and right-clicking on it to see the properties), I found that it was made by Trumpion Electronics. Apparently, it was installed when one of my cow-orkers hooked a USB flash drive into my computer.
I haven't done enough analysis to determine if it's malicious, but I can't imagine it is. All the same, I used regedit to deactivate it. No adverse affects so far, but I haven't tested with that same Flash drive.

Sunday, February 20th, 2005, 2135

Ah, woodworking
Got the built-in shelves made in my office this weekend, with the help of my parents. The shelves are topnotch, and they hold a lot of books, but not quite as many as I'd like. Turns out that Angela and I have...well, a book problem.
I've removed pretty much all references to my job from this blog. Why? They didn't ask me to. They have not even, I believe, found this blog. But it's just simpler to have that stuff off. If you're curious, ask me in person some time, and I'll tell you. I apologize for retroactively editing my life. Maybe someday, that stuff will make it into an autobiography, but most likely not.
Oh, and our washer and drier died, so Friday night (and saturday morning), Dad and I wired up the new appliances. It is AMAZING how much better the new drier works. Here, I'd thought the drier vent line was too long. Well, CJ over at ApplianceSmart disabused me of that notion, and hooked us up with some nice, brand new Amana models. Very, very nice. The washer is MUCH bigger than the old one, and doesn't sound like a Sopwith Camel warming up. The drier doesn't take 4 tries to dry out a towel, and neither of them has rust or dents like the old ones. Plus, they took out the old appliances for us. Woo woo! Total damage: just over $800

Thursday, February 17th, 2005, 0812

http://www.thorwaldgustav.com/ goes live
It's semi-complete, and will be getting changes soon, but at least it's up and running. Go to http://www.thorwaldgustav.com/ for updates on Thor's status. Posted as things change...

Tuesday, February 15th, 2004, 2218

Oy.
Figured I'd update the old blog with our latest bout of bad news. When I said that Thor had gotten an infection, I guess I wasn't kidding. I've never seen our Surgeon look so vexed as today. Two weeks with no sign of infection, then overnight Thor has swelling, a fever of 102F, and great discomfort.
Dr. Wood is pretty sure it's MRSA, and this means a radical change in what we've been doing. At 1515 hours tomorrow, Thor goes back into surgery. Dr. Wood will take a sample of the fluid in the infected area, and have it cultured immediately. If it's MRSA, the expanders will be considered compromised and will be removed immediately. Thor will then spend the night in the hospital, getting IV antibiotics. We're then looking at a 6 to 12 month break in treatment, while we let Thor heal, and let his immune system slowly and surely wipe out this MRSA.
Turns out that Thor's nasal culture turned out negative for MRSA, but his rectal culture tested positive. That means this is almost certainly MRSA rearing it's ugly head. Thor is a little uncomfortable right now, but the Tylenol w/Codeine is helping out.
On a tangentially-related topic, if you're looking for someplace you can get rid of some new toys, consider donating some to Gillette. A lot of the kids who go in don't have a lot of extra money, and a new toy is a wonderful thing. Even for the kids whose families DO have money, a shiny new toy can really distract them from the fact that they're in the hospital. Last night, for example, I bought Thor a Hot Wheels car. Ja, Ja, I know, he's too young for them. But he doesn't play with them unsupervised, and he NEVER puts stuff in his mouth. But I digress.
Today, Thor was understandably upset in the doctor's office. Elizabeth from Child Life was there, blowing bubbles at him, and it just wasn't taking. He was paying a little attention to the Hot Wheels car, so she bounced into the other room, and came back with a brand new one for him! That helped a lot. It turns out that somebody called the hospital a while back, and wanted to donate Hot Wheels cars. What they didn't tell Child Life was that they were actually cars attached to books. According to the publication data on the inside cover, the books are produced by a publishing company in St. Paul. My guess is that these were merchandise that didn't sell as well as they'd have liked, or that was overrun, or somesuch. I'd list their name here, but it's entirely possible that they could get in trouble for doing this. Weird, but if Hot Wheels got crabby about a bunch of cars being _given_ away, they could dump this company as a publisher. Anyway, I have to say that I think this company did a wonderful thing, and if you work for them, and I can use the company name, I'd really appreciate it. People should buy more of their stuff, because they COULD have just thrown it in a dumpster.

Tuesday, February 15th, 2004, 1405

Go Team OpenSource!
This one is worth taking a two minute break from work to post about. The clamav guys have released a GPL'd free windows virus scanner, called clamwin. It's available at clamwin.com. I've ripped Grisoft AVG off my workstation at work, and am about to begin evaluating clamwin. In fact, I have to reboot right now to do that.
With firefox, thunderbird, clamwin, zinf, and Cygwin/X, you can make a windows XP box into something useable, stable, and relatively secure. Thanks, team ClamAV!
Oh, FWIW, I note that the UofMN mirror of clamwin.exe is broken. I suggest downloading from a different mirror, at least as of this writing.

Tuesday, February 15th, 2004, 0733

All is not well in paradise
You wouldn't know it from this blog, but for the most part, Thor's medical procedures are VERY routine. Of course, what I'll say next will convince you of the opposite.
Thor's right-hand incision is infected. I went home early yesterday, so I could go see the doctor about what I thought was a sinus infection. Turns out to be mere sinusitis. I got some Flonase to get it under control. But when I got home, Thor was still napping, and it was VERY hard to wake up him up. Then, he was extra clingy with Angela. Normally, this wouldn't be an issue, but Monday is her lesson night--she's got students coming to the house for Oboe and Piano lessons. Needless to say, a toddler standing at the gate to the basement stairway, screaming "MAAAAMAAAA!" can be a bit disruptive.
I noticed that he seemed to be in discomfort whenever I moved him--which is HIGHLY unusual. This is a kid who LOVES to be tossed into the air, and spun around, and any other generic disorientating activity.
Sure enough, when I pulled up his shirt, the right-hand incision was swollen, red, and showing some signs of pus beneath the skin.
He was scheduled for an expansion today, at 1530 hours, but that'll be shelved, I'm sure. We'll still go in and let Dr. Wood look at it. We'll get an Rx for some new antibiotics, I'm sure. We'd kept the antibiotics from his surgery, and they haven't expired yet, so we started him on those last night. Once he got a little tylenol with codeine, he bucked right up, and slept the night away. He's still asleep as I write this.

Monday, February 14th, 2004, 0741

Happy Valentine's Day
Can you believe that 11 years ago today, I asked my wife to marry me? Thankfully, she said yes!
We did Valentine's Day Dinner at Underwater World last night. It was a hoot! The food wasn't the best I've ever had, but it was great watching the sharks and sea turtles swim overhead. We ate in the tunnel, which would've been a bit claustrophobic if there hadn't been so many distractions. Thor stayed with Angela's parents, and had a grand old time.
I also recently learned that if you can't get an Adaptec 29160N working under Mandrake...you've got a hardware problem. Seriously. Turns out the rack mount server I was configuring had a bad PCI riser. Joy.

Wednesday, February 9th, 2005, 1055

Looks like I'm always the last to know
A little blurb on MPR this morning suggested that caffeine may have psychological side-effects. Sure enough, about 2 minutes of Internet research indicates that caffeine and depression are closely tied. Basically, drink too much coffee, and you'll be depressed in a few hours. Besides, caffeine apparently spikes insulin release, dropping bloodsugar levels and generating fatigue.
Woulda been nice to know this a few weeks ago! Turns out my six-to-twelve cups a day are excessive. Tomorrow I should have a raging headache, since I'm going cold turkey on this stuff. I've only had five cups so far today, and I actually dumped the remains of the last cup. Interestingly enough, my coffee intake has skyrocketed since I took this job. The whole "free coffee in the break room" thing.
Live and learn, eh?

Monday, January 31st, 2005, 2022

Safe and sound at home
Dr. Wood was kind enough to let us come home tonight, so Thor is back in his element again. He's dealing with the anesthesia better than he did last time, and Thor got to see Nurse Nikki today, so that perked him up. Unfortunately, Nurse Shell was so busy we didn't even see her today. But we had a nice anesthesiologist (a gent we've had before, though I've once again forgotten his name), and everyone on the care team was great.
Surgery was uneventful, and about forty minutes long. Thor now has TWO expanders in place, one of which is intended to bring the nevus down on his right flank.
Probably the most interesting portion of the day was noticing a gentleman with a Blomkest Fire Department jacket in the waiting room. Turns out that it was the son of one of my dad's friends. I can now say that Dr. Wood is the official pediatric plastic surgeon of Whitefield Township--after all, he's now operated on grandchildren of two of the three-member township board! We had a nice talk with the father of that child (I'm leaving names off, because I respect their privacy), and it was good to talk to him again. It's probably been sixteen or eighteen years since we've seen each other, and the Fireman and I were never good friends. We went to different school districts, though we only lived a few miles apart.
Anyway, Thor is in the living room, saying "Da da! Da da!" so I think I'll wrap this up, and go see the kid. In two weeks, we go in for another expansion.

Monday, January 31st, 2005, 0646

D-Day
Thor's official surgery time is 0800 hours. He's still sleeping. We just snuck downstairs and showered, and we'll have to fetch him momentarily.
New expander today. We're on the short side of the tissue expander journey now. I expect we'll be done with surgeries inside the year, perhaps after only two more sets of expansion. We'd keep going, but we're rapidly approaching the point of diminishing returns. With luck, I'll be able to find a wi-fi hotspot in the hospital. But if not, and if I can't hijack a connection anywhere, I'll update late tonight when I get home.
We're hoping to NOT spend the night, but I fear they will want to keep Thor overnight. Hopefully, we'll be on 4-South. The girls on 4-west are REALLY nice, but Nicki works on 4-South, and Thor LOVES Nicki. Come to think of it, he hasn't met a Nicki he hasn't adored. Of course, I think every Nicki he has met has been very attractive, but _still_. Whether it's the daughter of a consulting client of mine, or a nurse, or some teeny-bopper sitting at the restaurant table next to us, it's all the same. He smiles, he turns away, he makes eyes at her for as long as he can see her. I foresee some late nights in my future...

Tuesday, January 18th, 2005, 2121

Hotels.
As a rule, I dislike business trips. No, let me change that statement to this: I really dislike business trips. Hotel rooms are lonely, I'm away from my family, the pillows suck, and you don't get the TV channels you want.
When you hear the following things, begin to pity and fear the people saying them: "We're not bothering to track down that problem, because resetting the units usually fixes it," and "If there are too many errors, this service will just stop. Now, it won't SHOW as stopped status, but it won't be doing anything."
If you ask how something can be automated, and they reply: "Why automate it? It only takes about 15 minutes a day to check." My recommendation is that you should run like the wind.
Does NO ONE understand how important automation is? If you work in IT, and do systems or Network Administration. You really must read The Practice of Systems and Network Administration by Thomas A. Limoncelli and Christine Hogan. This book will clue you in to why automation and self-monitoring is so important. The short answer: in IT, we're desperately short on time. Mindless busy work like "checking servers for 15 minutes" is not a luxury we can afford. We need to free up our brains for thinking about the future, or pretty soon, our day is full of 32-40 "15minute" tasks, and we're STILL expected to provision for the future.
That reminds me: On my wishlist is a conduit from DotProject to PalmOS, so that my tasks from dotproject automatically show up on my palm. I may have to write this someday. But it's lower on the list than several other projects I want to do.
It is amazing how little a person has in common with people in a training class. The more classes I go to, the more I suspect that I am not necessarily a typical IT person. I hate the "reboot it now, we'll fix it when we have time" attitude. I really dislike the whiz-bang mentality of people who always go with the latest and supposedly greatest of everything. And I am flabbergasted by people who gripe about how much MS sucks, and then...get this...continue to use MS products. Here's a clue, people: The Free Market is like a Democracy, but we vote with our dollars. If we continue to buy defective products, the vendors will never change them. If MS is hosing you, stop supporting them with your money. Draw a line in the sand, pick a service, and switch it over to Linux. Try it Gratis for a while. Pick a distro you like. Me, I like Mandrake Linux. It has URPMI, which is dreamy for updates, and I'm very used to it. I tried SuSE Linux on a server this year, and I will never buy SuSE again. It's harder to use than Mandrake, it's buggy (as Linux distros go, so it's only about 10x as stable as MS Windows), it's just plain different. It seems to be different for the sake of being different.
People have this conception that IT has to be painful. Why? It doesn't, I tell you! Pick stable platforms. Educate your customers (some people like to call them users) as to realistic expectations. Follow good development practices. Need some tips on those? Mike Schwarz, fellow author of MultiTool Linux, has written a new book: Java Application Development on Linux. Buy it, read it.
By the way, amazon.com sucks. They no longer sell new copies of Multitool Linux. Buy it at Barnes and Noble. I should probably write a new Linux book one of these days. I'll keep my mind open for new ideas...

Wednesday, January 12th, 2005, 0741

Surgery: January 31st
Thorwald is going in for the next set of tissue expanders on Monday, 1/31! Exciting stuff, particularly now that the end is in sight. He's completely recovered from everything now, but appears to be making more efficient use of his insulin, somehow. We've had to drop back his night-time basal rate to almost nothing. I think that for a few hours a night, we'll have to set the rate to 0.0 units. Currently, it's only at 0.05 units from about 11 pm to 8 AM. This is about a third of what he was getting before the virus. Funky stuff.

Sunday, January 9th, 2005, 2125

*SIGH*
Well, we've survived this years only (I sincerely hope) bought with something akin to rotavirus. No sooner did Thor and I get over our big Xmas cold, than he came down with something nasty. He had almost three days of vomiting, and a week of the runs. Poor kid. He's feeling better now, and actually eating again. We were having a blast keeping his blood sugars high enough to be safe. Thankfully, Angela managed to avoid getting it, but alas, I did not.
I'm FINALLY feeling better, after missing Thursday and Friday at work. Did I think I was behind before? Heh. Anyway, it's amazing how people at work react when you tell them you aren't coming in, because you're "...just waiting for the vomiting to start." Yarg. Man, I tell you, you just don't look at a Wendy's Spicy Chicken sandwich the same way after you've seen it come back up. Ooof. As if fast food wasn't bad enough the FIRST time.
I've gone and registered thorwaldgustav.com. I need to find some PHP-based blogging software, so that Angela can do updates on it. Then, we'll move all the kid-based stuff there. Nice and simple, eh?
We met with Dr. Wood again, and got some mixed news as towards future surgeries. The good news is that Thor's scarring is minimal by anyone's definition, and we've had really good success so far. Dr. Wood believes he'll be able to get the nevus lower on the back and the sides, and maybe a little in the front. The legs, however, are a no go. He does not believe that tissue expanders in the legs will be anything approaching successful.
The upside, however, is that they're doing experiments with a new laser-lightening technique. They don't believe it'll reduce the eventual chances of cancer, but in terms of cosmetic effects, they have high hopes. Mind you, less than a year ago, Dr. Wood said he'd never been impressed with laser therapy before, so this goes to show how quickly advances are coming.
I still think the eventual answer will be cloned stem cells, laid down in a polymer framework to grow new skin. Recent work by Medtronic (in the realm of heart repair) lends credence to this idea. Of course, we have to wait for a new President. I DID hear, however, on MPR that a recent UN scientific envoy to China had this to say:
"In the west, we're talking about stem cell research and stem cell based cures. In China, and in SouthEast Asia, they're banking on it. Where the west theorizes, the East is trying."
Big news, and good stuff.
Christmas was, as always, great. I hope yours was as well.