Archive for May, 2013

Space flowers

Friday, May 24th, 2013

spaceflowers

Here are possibly the strangest flowers I’ve ever seen.  Do any of my Loyal Readers have any idea what these things are?  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken at Longwood Gardens in January of this year, and part of my famous Garden series.

Great day today.  LRN4’s white blood cell count is up to 0.8, which is dangerously close to high enough to get out of the hospital.  She didn’t need either platelets or red blood cells today, so that’s another good sign.  Her new stem cells are starting to produce blood!

Had a great dinner tonight with LRN5 and family.  They really enjoyed their week in San Diego, and Clifford reports that it was relaxing for all of them.  LRN5 really needed a break, so I’m delighted for her.

Got my free honk suppressor in the mail yesterday.  Now I need to figure out what to do with it.  Can I make something electronic out of it?  I need help, Loyal Readers!  Give me an idea.  Please!

And it’s time for me to get to bed, so I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: pizza topping heist!

See you on Monday.

Old spigot

Wednesday, May 22nd, 2013

spigot

Here’s part of a water fountain at Longwood Gardens.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken the day after my birthday last year, and part of my famous Garden, Machinery, and Statue series.

Great day today!  LRN’s white cell count is up to 0.5.  We’re looking for it to make it to 1.0 before the end of the month.  With that done, LRN4 free from needing blood products most days, and her able to get enough nourishment (which I think she’s doing already), we should be able to get out of here next week.  Fingers crossed!  We are so, soSO ready to get out of here.

LRN5 and family will be back here in two days!  LRN3 will be here in three days!  It’s going to be an exciting weekend and week.  I’m really looking forward to it.  I wish LRN1 and LRN2 could be here too.  Maybe we’ll be together sometime soon.

And there’s nothing else in my life right now, so I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: toilet seat gum theft!

See you tomorrow.

Painting genesis

Tuesday, May 21st, 2013

paintingshannon

Here’s another look at LRN4’s painting from last week.  This version’s a bit less complete.  This is how true artistic genius begins.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam and part of my famous Workbench series.

Don’t give me that look.  That’s a workbench.

Great day today!  LRN4’s white blood cell count is up from 0.2 (200 cells/microliter) to 0.4!  That means the transplant is “taking.” Things are moving forward right on schedule.  We are so ready to get out of here.  This needs to work.

Nothing else new.  Spent some time trying to get a TIFF file manipulation library to compile as part of a program I’m working on.  It just won’t work!  I’m not sure how other people do it, but there must be a way.  I keep changing directions to try to make something work.  Changed directions again this afternoon.  I made some progress before coming up against yet another dead end.  Very frustrating.  This ought to be the easy part.  What am I doing wrong?

Anyway.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: missing-taco rage!

See you tomorrow.

Lighthouse tower

Monday, May 20th, 2013

lighthousetower

Here’s the lighthouse in Portland, Maine, as seen from below.  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken during last year’s east coast cruise, and part of my famous Cruise and Vacation series.

Good weekend.  LRN5 and her family finally arrived!  We had nice visits on Saturday and Sunday, after which they departed on their vacation.  They’ll be back on Friday and they demand a dinner that night.  We’ll work something out.  LRN3 comes in on Saturday and demands a dinner that night too.  Pretty tough Loyal Readers, but I can handle ’em.

On Sunday, our dear friends Art and Cathie made a surprise visit.  We really enjoyed seeing them.

Moved out of the Residence Inn and into the Hampton Inn on Sunday.  It’s way smaller and not nearly as nice, but it’s also way cheaper.  I mentioned in my letter to the family yesterday that it’s helping me prepare for the Village.  I have a feeling that place will be relatively humble.  I’ll be ready.  Actually, I don’t care how humble it is.  I’m ready now.  Get me out of this hospital!

Otherwise, I hung out at the hospital with LRN4.  She’s doing pretty well – just a little better each day.  Still no increase in the white blood cell count.  We expect it within the next couple of days.  Hopes are extremely high.

We had a nice birthday celebration for LRN4 on Friday.  The nurses sang Happy Birthday to her and gave her a piece of cake.  Then they told her it’s not low-bacteria, so she couldn’t eat it.  So it became mine.  Then my cousin Betsy and her husband Bob came over with a carrot cake (that LRN4 could eat!); birthday plates, napkins, and forks; birthday presents (from them, LRN3, and me); a birthday sign; and birthday hats.  We had a really nice time together.

And that’s it for today.  I’ll leave my Loyal Reader with this shocking food violence news: hot-dog-dumping helicopter!

See you tomorrow.

Dragon rider

Thursday, May 16th, 2013

dragonrider

Here’s another view of the dragon from yesterday’s post.  Only this time, LRN4’s taming it.  Observe the crazed look in the eye.  Ride ’em, dragongirl!  Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken at Dorney Park, and part of my famous Machinery and Statue series.

Very quiet day.  LRN4 is starting to have some symptoms that indicate engraftment is starting to take place.  It’s a pretty uncomfortable situation for her, but it’s fantastic news anyway.  We’re excited.  The discomfort won’t last forever, but the healing will.

It’s LRN4’s birthday eve!  Tomorrow is going to be a great day.

I’ve been thinking the last couple of days about making one of these.  I don’t really need it and that kit is outrageously expensive.  In the original Make magazine article on the plane, they said it could be done for about a hundred dollars.  So I would buy the parts myself wherever I could find them for a good price.  I don’t need it, though.  And I’m not sure I could find anyplace around here to fly it.  The attraction is that it’s simple and cheap to repair when I crash it.  And it’s a machine.

But it might be more fun to make a robot.  Or maybe to get a couple of old bicycles, fix them up nicely, and use them to ride around the hospital campus while we’re here in the hospital.  But I think I’d probably enjoy the airplane or the robot more.  There’s no place for bicycles in our garage.  What do you think, Loyal Readers?

Struggling with work.  Can’t get deep into anything.  I keep hoping that’ll happen when we get out of the hospital.  Don’t know, though.  I need to decide what I really want to do and start doing it.  Sigh.

And that’s it for today.  I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: yogurt spill!

See you tomorrow.