morrowlife

Here’s The Button. The Button that launched the first person into space. Yuri Gagarin, that is. That’s a younger version of me about to push The Button. Great Art courtesy of some old camera, taken at the Baikonur museum on June 2, 2001 during the Astra 2C launch campaign, and part of my famous Machinery and Electronics series.

Yes, I now have a famous Electronics series, after the great outcry of a few days ago. Well, at least LRN16 thought I ought to do it. By the standards of this blog, that counts as an outcry.

Pretty good weekend. LRN4 has had a pretty bad-looking rash for a few days and she’s been running a fever. That makes us worry a bit about an infection, doesn’t it, Loyal Readers? Well, we discussed it with our doctor today and . . . she has an infection! Not a good thing, but the doc doesn’t seem all that concerned about it, so we’re deciding not to worry too much about it either. She got a whole lot of new antibiotics and they sent us on our way. We’re hopeful. But infections are not a good thing for her. Not at all. Could land us back in the hospital if she doesn’t start getting better real quick.

Today’s good news: LRN4’s white cell count is still down at 0.2 and her red cells and platelets are fine. So we’re doing okay.

Nothing else new. I’ve been spending my few working hours on the app for my brother and the medical app. Making a bit of progress. Not fast enough, though. We’ll get there. Did I mention I’ve paid the exorbitant price for a booth at the big conference in February? Well, I did. Now I need to get the software done, finish the documentation, develop promotional materials, get everything needed for a professional-appearing booth, get airline, car and hotel reservations, and do all the stuff I haven’t thought of yet. Sounds easy.

Great news! Another season of [amazon text=White Collar&asin=B00B58948U] has found its way onto Netflix. We’ve been watching it tonight. Well, LRN4 saw the first episode, anyway. Now she’s napping while I watch a few more. Enjoying it. Recommended.

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: itchy power-killing cow!

See you tomorow.

Here’s the spacecraft for my second ILS launch arriving at Baikonur in October, 2000. I was already there for my first launch, which took place a few days after this spacecraft arrived. It was summertime when we got to Baikonur – very hot and dry – and winter by the time we left – very, very cold. This picture was taken sometime in between. Great Art courtesy of my junky old first digital camera and part of my famous Machinery series.

Pretty good couple of days. We stopped giving LRN4 her Micafungin today. I still need to flush her lines daily, of course, but we’re saving a bunch of time now by giving her anti-fungal pills. Fortunately, I had saved our previous prescription, so we just dug it out of the Island of Lost Prescriptions and started using it again. LRN4’s feeling pretty good and doing very well. Her fever is gone now. She bought a really cool, really effective [amazon text=thermometer&asin=B004T6G550] today. I played with it for a while and like it a lot, including taking her temperature a few times. So I’m quite sure she’s back to normal. Thermometer: recommended.

Also took my own temperature several times. No fever. Thanks for asking.

By the way, I’m sure my Loyal Readers know that if they click through to Amazon from my blog and buy all their Christmas presents, I get a small kickback. Not that I’m encouraging anybody to do anything, of course. Not at all. Nope. I don’t even like money.

Got my app for LRN23 done tonight except for two things: the icons and testing the algorithms. Hopefully, that’ll get done in the next day or two and we can submit the app. Then I’m back to the medical app’s documentation, which needs to have its first draft completed by the end of this month. I also need to look at promotional materials for the February conference sometime this month. Plenty to do.

I really enjoy iOS programming. It just makes me feel good to develop an app and then see it work. And it’s even better when people actually download it, use it, and like it.

Speaking of which, my Common Core Classroom app has now been downloaded 87 times. That’s not a lot yet, but it’s a start. The great thing about iOS apps is that they just keep selling on their own. Of course, I’m working on doing some marketing, but it’s making a tiny bit of progress all on its own. Cool.

I’ve started listening to Christmas music! I love this time of year. We’re decorating the house tomorrow. Can’t wait.

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: protesting sheep!

See you on Monday.

Here’s a hostage I’ve taken during the last few days. I know it doesn’t look much like a hostage, but it’s definitely doing the job. Turns out LRN1 left his beloved mouse here when he went home the other day. It also turns out he has my pneumatic wrench. So we reached an agreement – one mouse for one wrench. Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken yesterday as proof of life during intensive negotiations, and part of my famous Machinery series.

I think I need to start an Electronics series. Any opinions, Loyal Readers?

Pretty good day today. LRN4 is doing well, although there are a few worrying signs. Mainly, she has a fever today. It’s apparently just over 100 degrees. She visited her doctor today. They took her temperature several times just to make sure the reading was accurate. It was. The doctor kind of shrugged his shoulders and said there’s really nothing to do about it until she starts showing some kind of other symptoms. He listened carefully to her lungs, of course, and did whatever else doctors do. So we’re watching and waiting, just like we are with a hundred other things.

In other LRN4 news, we have reservations to go to Houston to do the evaluation for the new clinical trial. We’ll be there for four days, starting on the 16th of this month. After that, we’ll see. Our doctor here told LRN4 today that the doctor conducting this trial is the premier FLT3 specialist in the world, which sounds pretty good to us. We have a lot of hopes pinned on this thing right now.

LRN4 has to be off of chemo for two weeks before the clinical trial, so they discontinued those treatments today for the time being. They need to keep a close eye on her white cell count while we wait.

On a sad note, LRN3 went home yesterday evening. The whole family is now gone. We had such a great time having everybody here and it’s sad that it’s over, possibly not to be repeated for a very long time. At least we have our memories. And I have LRN1’s mouse.

I’ve been working on the iPhone app for LRN23 some more today. I made some major changes to the previous version. It’s currently working on the iPad only; I’ll get the mods made to the iPhone version tomorrow. I’m having fun working on the app. It’s pretty simple conceptually, but it’s always a challenge to make everything work just right and look just right. I think this will be a nice app when it’s done.

For various reasons, I decided to reinstall Windows on my Bootcamp drive yesterday. Spent a very large part of the day accomplishing that, and then I spent some time today getting the medical app working on it again. I’ll get back to my documentation efforts on that program tomorrow. I registered (and paid a whole lot of money) for the February conference in Seattle where we plan to introduce the application. We have a 10×10 booth in the exhibition hall. Now all we need is the final product (scheduled to be completed by the end of this month), documentation and training materials (scheduled to be completed during January), promotional materials for the conference (January also), and the ability to take people’s money, including collecting sales tax and amending my business license accordingly. Lots to do, but I’m excited about it.

LRN2 and I took my beloved pickup to the upholstery shop today to have its driver’s seat cushion recovered. Sadly, the guy there got the wrong material for it, so he has delayed it until Saturday. Hopefully, the right thing will come in by then. This has been a bit of a slow process.

And it’s late, so I’ll end here for the day. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: rock-eating dog!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s a rocket emerging from the assembly building at Baikonur. It’s on its way to the launch pad.  Great Art courtesy of . . . umm . . . some old low-res digital camera, taken by me in June 2001 at Baikonur, Kazakhstan, and part of my famous Architecture and Machinery series.

Yeah, there’s some architecture in this picture. Pretty rickety-looking architecture at that. There were some terrible buildings there. But the clean rooms were very, very clean. Really.

Very good several days since my last post. Sadly, most of the Loyal Readers have now gone home. LRN5 and family left on Saturday afternoon and LRN1 and girlfriend left this afternoon. LRN3 is out tomorrow night. Boo hoo! I miss everybody already. We had a great time.

Didn’t do too much this weekend. Had a great Thanksgiving with just the ten of us here at the house. We went to LRN31’s house on Friday evening for family bingo and snacks. Had fun there. The kids went out on the town a couple times, we jacuzzified a time or two, we ate a ton of great food, the kids all played about a million video games, and we generally enjoyed being together.

LRN4 is doing pretty well. She got a bunch of blood on Sunday, so her counts were really good today. Her white cell count is down to 0.2, which is very good. And she’s been feeling pretty good. She did a ton of work all week and lived to tell the tale. So there’s that. We’re getting very serious about a clinical trial at MD Anderson Medical Center in Houston. We plan to go there for a consultation later this month, if everything works out. Full of hope over this.

We got a couple of new games and some DVDs from LRN8 a few days ago. What a nice Thanksgiving present! And we never receive Thanksgiving presents. Of course, we never give them either. She sent us four [amazon text=Disney dog movies&asin=B008H6GHLU], a game called [amazon text=5 Second Rule&asin=B003BLQG6M], and one more game called [amazon text=Spot It&asin=B0039S7NO6]. Thanks, LRN8! They’re all a ton of fun.

Didn’t do any Black Friday shopping this year. I really didn’t want to face those crowds. A few of our guests went but nobody seemed to find any really great deals anyway. And I don’t care. I’m sick of Black Friday. It’s stupid and it has turned violent at Walmarts all over the country. Time to put it out of its misery, thus ending our misery.

And that’s about it for today. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: lion-impersonating dog!

See you tomorrow.