Thursday, May 21, 2009

Update on Mom

Speaking of insomnia, why don't hospitals let patients sleep? My mom's chemo keeps her in for 5 days at a time, and she gets maybe 4 hours of unbroken sleep a night. Sleep is so important for keeping a body healthy and strong -- why is that? She was told "Hospitals are for treating the sick not for getting sleep."

Other than being exhausted, she is in good spirits.

Insomnia

For some reason I have insomnia. Scratch that, it's not persistent. In any case, my sleep patterns are off this week from dog sitting -- he and I were on different sleep schedules so I kept him up and then he kept me up. Earlier in the week I got through my to-do list, which felt great. Now, I've got a couple of posts on my mind, and I work some more on a computing project that I work on. Eventually, I'll be tired enough to head back to bed.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Life Balance

One of the things I've learned about myself is my lack of life balance. Due to having many responsibilities, my lack of life balance forces me to play catch-up in the areas I have been neglecting. Having recently been forced into a career change has presented me with the opportunity to try to re-balance my priorities, and I'm working on re-implementing GTD in my life. Yesterday I finally have all of my open loops collected into my system -- now I have to organize my projects, decide which ones are currently active, and start creating next actions.

One of my projects is figuring out how to balance my life better – I’ll post more as I read about it.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Cancer

I took my mom to the hospital today to start her treatment for melanoma. There is no cancer in her skin, they did not catch it early, and it has spread -- that's the bad news. The good news is her immune system is actively fighting, and she has a great doctor. I wish I could do more, but all I can do is pray and help however I'm needed.

Don't take today for granted.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

What does Chance of Rain mean?

I'm contemplating camping this weekend, and with 3 of my children at 3 years and younger I'm a little concerned about the forecast of 60% of rain for Saturday.

I've always wondered what Chance of Rain means. Does it mean there will be that much rain over the entire area over the course of a day? Or Chance for any given moment of a day there will be rain in one area? Or chance that rain will develop over all or part of the viewing area? I've always wondered at a time when I'm away from the computer -- but today I'll check Google.

From Carl Bialik's blog, it looks like different meteorologists define chance of precipitation differently. Some give the worst case scenario, but all use the term inconsistently. At least I've been confused for a reason. For What It's Worth paraphrases Weather For Dummies.

In conclusion, I can't conclude anything. However, I've decided what I really care about for camping is expected duration of rain for the area -- a storm or two is fine, but a day cooped up in a tent with my one and a half year old would wear on both our nerves.