Memorial for mom

I used Google pages to put up a memorial site for my mom. I miss hearing her voice, but am glad she's in her savior's arms.

I don't get it

Last thanksgiving weekend I was out with my wife picking up my in-laws pizza dinner. While waiting for the pizza to come out of the oven I was opening the door for people going in and out – I have had people do the same for me many times when picking up pizza for my family. Most people were thankful, but one young man insulted me (somewhat unintelligibly) as he left (stormed out). My motivation wasn't gratitude so I wasn't angry or hurt -- just puzzled. A gift must be received in order to be given -- what made this man so distrustful to not accept my help? Was it pride? I am definitely out of touch with certain segments of our society.

Mom

Virginia Anne (nee Bruce) Williams passed away from melanoma on April 23, 2011. After 43 years of marriage, Gini leaves husband John, son Doug (Liz), grandchildren Jacob, Bethany, Elijah, Trinity, Charity, and Selah (Cincinnati), daughter Elizabeth (Laramie, WY), brother Robert (Lin) and his children and grandchildren, and sister Margaret. Gini grew up in Laramie, graduating from the University of WY in 1967. John and Gini settled happily in Cincinnati in 1979, with yearly summer trips back to her beloved SE WY mountains. She was an active volunteer in her children?s schools and served ably in her church in many roles, including deacon, elder, handbells, choir, and financial secretary. She touched lives wherever she went and will be missed by all. Memorials may be made to Northminster Presbyterian Church, 703 Compton Rd, Cincinnati, or to the UW Bruce Scholarship in Psychology. A celebration of her life will be held at Northminster on June 4 at 10 am and a graveside service in Laramie on July 16.

Firefox and Encoded URLs

Firefox seems to automatically decode URLs. Not a bad thing, but it's important to know! Developers encode URLs to pass data between internet applications through URLs because not all data passes well (an easy example is the Carriage Return character). I was working on a single sign-on web application by copying and pasting generated data into a second application; however, I failed to realize the errors in the second application came from Firefox decoding my safely encoded data. I actually switched to IE in order to get the proper values.

My wife zings me, and for once I laugh last

There are some key ways that I fit the stereotypes about guys to a T, and one of them is reading maps and asking for directions. If I don't know an area I almost always arm myself with a google map, but this time I was taking my family only about 15 minutes away -- and why waste a sheet of paper for such a short trip? And if the trip takes longer than expected -- so much the better because I love to drive new places and find new routes in the car.

My wife, who doesn't share my love of exploring, is a model of sainthood on these expeditions --but I know she suffers. So recently when she came up with one of the all time great zingers, I could do nothing but practically laugh myself off the road into a tree.

As I mentioned, we're on a short 15 minute drive to my friend's house. I glance at the google map, but don't print it because I think I know right where this is and how to get to it. I do jot down a few street names in my GTD moleskin notebook, and give the list to my wife. We get to our first major turn, and I take it. My wife immediately points out that the name in my notebook does not match the street sign. I say (of course), "I'm pretty sure this is the street though. Let's check the next street sign. "

We drive a little ways, and of course the next sign matches the first one -- but I drive on having a hard time digesting this turn of events. Immediately my wife says, "Quick honey, call the county because someone has put up the wrong street signs. Someone must be told!" After laughing myself to tears for several minutes, I tell her we're going to take the next planned turn and double check that the street sign doesn't match. She accepts this arrogance in quiet amazement as I try to talk her through that this really is the only possiblity of the route as we know the other streets around there reasonably well.

So we take the turn and look at the street sign -- and it Matches what was on the list! That never happens to me -- usually when I insist on the stupid choice I immediately pay for it in some wonderfully humiliating way. But this time ... I was right.

Putting that aside, the zinger has come up countless times and provided tons of laughs -- another credit to my lovely wife. But, she now has to put up with another couple of years of new routes as I remind her about the last time I knew the route.

What I've been Doing -- Thing One

One of the things that has kept me busy is my recent acquisition of a new computer. I used to buy a new computer every 5 years to semi-keep up with the gaming curve. I'd usually spend a couple of thousand dollars on it, and it would be very good but not the best.

A couple of months ago at work, one of my excellent co-workers mentioned he bought an amazing gaming laptop from Best Buy (pictured at left) for $800. I checked it out, and was immediately jealous. After thinking about it for a while, I decided I couldn't really afford a new computer.

Step forward another month, and my dad decided to take the plunge and purchase a computer to use for work and for gaming at home. I did a lot of research on price points, and ended up recommending a Gateway 7805u from Best Buy. Dual Core, 1066MHz FSB with 4 Gigs DDR3, and a Tier One video card for $1200. That is crazy good. Only negative was the screen, which was 1440x900 -- but what a price. Of course, he had to go through the University so couldn't get that laptop, but that's a different story ...

So I was researching the laptop for him, and told him -- it will be around for a while if you change your mind. The next day, I visited a Best Buy and learned the model had just been discontinued. A few weeks later I was at a store that had one left, and it was deeply discounted. I finally gave in to temptation -- and was especially pleased to learn it was one of the early 7805 which had a full 1900x1200 screen. It's taken me a couple of weeks to set it up and get used to Vista, but it is finally performing well -- incredibly well. I still can't believe the price I paid for this thing.

BTW, my dad ordered a roughly equivalent laptop, and only paid 350% what I paid. Them are the rules ...

Update on Mom

Hard to believe it's been over a month since I posted -- lots and lots going on. I've been using GTD to get my life organized, so I have lots of blog topics. I thought I would hit the most important one tonight -- mom :)

As I mentioned, she came through her first chemo treatment really well. The second one hit her like a freight train. She came home from the hospital dehydrated, and it turns out very anemic. She also is getting blood clots from her pic lines.

Now that the doctor is aware he is of course working on treating the symptoms. She just finished her third round of treatment -- actually was in the hospital over the fourth of July -- so let's see how she bounces back. If she bounces back really well, the doctor may let her go to Wyoming. I think it is one of the things keeping her hopes up.