morrowlife

Here’s the free jazz concert Mark and I attended this past Saturday evening. This was the warmup act – three jazz students from a nearby music school, as I recall. They were quite good. Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken at the Jazz in the Park season opener here in beautiful Henderson, Nevada, and part of my famous Event and Las Vegas series.

Missed a couple more days of blogging again. I’ve been out with Joanne every night this week and I guess I’ve just been distracted. But it’s been a great week! Tuesday, we went to the Hard Rock hotel for happy hour. They had delicious pretzel fondue appetizers and amazing fried chicken. I mean amazing. Try it. Fly to Las Vegas, go to the Hard Rock, and try the fried chicken. You won’t regret it.

We went out to a really fun Italian restaurant called Capo’s Speakeasy last night. You go into a lobby, push a button and convince a guy who opens a little panel that he should let you in. Then he opens a secret door in the wall and in you go. The place is nearly pitch black inside. They seated us in a booth and brought our menus, which came with flashlights. The food was excellent, the atmosphere was fun, and we had a great time. After dinner, we went to the Fremont Street Experience and walked around for a while. It was pretty crowded and lots of fun. Some crazy stuff over there. I’m really enjoying exploring Las Vegas.

Tomorrow night, we’re going for dinner at the home of Joanne’s friends Phil and Rosie. I met them at the Hard Rock on Tuesday and like them very much. They’ve just had a koi pond built in their backyard and have invited a few friends over to see it. It ought to be fun. We have plans on Saturday too. All this social life is wearing me out!

Made some good progress on the Common Core app. I got about half the work done to allow the user to skip entering a password. Should finish it tomorrow and then I’m going to release it. Well, I do have one critical bug I have to fix first. I introduced it when I updated a bunch of variable types to facilitate Apple’s suggested change from 32-bit to 64-bit. There were some updates in the algorithm used to hash passwords. The change apparently causes the app to generated hashes differently, so existing users would be unable to get the app to accept their existing password when they update. It should be a pretty straightforward fix.

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

See you tomorrow.

Here’s Shannon getting ready for the first of her two air ambulance flights from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. She reported that the plane was incredibly crowded, even though the entire passenger list consisted of her. There were also two pilots and a nurse or two, so she didn’t get lonely. She didn’t have much to say about her second flight, which took place in January, 2014. She was quite a bit sicker by then and we had other worries. But she enjoyed this one. Great Art courtesy of Shannon’s iPhone 4S, taken by one of the air ambulance nurses, and part of my famous Shannon, Las Vegas, Medical, and Machinery series.

Pretty good day today. Got a reasonable amount of work done. We have a meeting room reserved for our October PhotoDoc seminar! And I wrote  a rough draft of the seminar announcement. Also started looking for new WordPress themes for the PhotoDoc website. Much more work in that direction due tomorrow.

And . . . I can’t really think of anything else I did today. Spent a bit of time on the phone. Transferred Flat Earth to Chris’s Apple developer account. Had leftovers from Monday for dinner, with the addition of some corn and tossed salad (with grated cheese!). Watched a few episodes of Top Gear. Did a bit of reading. And that’s about it.

The house got cleaned today, which is always nice. It looks beautiful

Oh, I also made reservations for a few meetups during the coming couple of weeks. Tomorrow I go to a ramen restaurant with the “Sushi and more” group. I’ve never been out with them, so I’m hoping to meet some more nice people. Can’t remember exactly what and when the other ones are. I’ll figure it out in due time.

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: chainsaw-wielding man attacks Mr. Whippy van!

See you tomorrow.

Here are Shannon and me posing last November in front of our front door here in Las Vegas. As you can see, her hair was coming back in nicely. As you can also see, her protracted serious illness hadn’t diminished her beauty. What a cute couple! Oh, how I miss being a part of that couple. Great Art courtesy of Shannon’s wonderful Canon EOS Rebel T3 camera, taken in front of our house, and part of my famous Shannon, Las Vegas, and Architecture series.

No post yesterday. I forgot until it was too late. Mark and I hung out in the jacuzzi from about 10:00 until 12:30. By then, I was tired and it was too late to write. So I didn’t. I can’t tell you how bad I feel about that, Loyal Readers.

Another thing I didn’t do: acknowledge the two-month anniversary of Shannon’s death on Wednesday. I did remember it on the day, thought of Shannon, and quietly grieved. But I wasn’t as desperate as a month ago. I strangely feel kind of guilty to be doing as well as I am (functional and relatively happy, although terribly lonely) so soon. But I’m not interested in being any more miserable and I’m also not interested in feeling guilty about recovering. So many mixed emotions.

Mark and I went with our friend Mark to First Friday Las Vegas tonight. We had dinner and a smoothie from a food truck, walked around, listened to the music, and looked at the Great Art. We spent roughly three hours or so and had a very nice time. It was a bit outside of my comfort zone (I’m a notorious crowd and noise hater), but it was fun. I might even do it again. Or maybe not.

No work today, unfortunately. I spent a bunch of time on the phone getting Shannon’s credit cards canceled. I still haven’t been to the Social Security office and I have no idea whether I’m supposed to get her driver’s license and/or passport canceled. Maybe Google knows. Hold on a minute.

Okay, I’m back. It looks like the passport people will cancel her passport if I want them to, but I don’t have to. The driver’s license people are pretty much the same. So we’ll have to see what happens. No promises.

And I need to go to sleep. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: communicating, cooperating chimpanzee!

See you on Monday.

Here’s a bit of Great Art from Shannon and Mia. Originally, it had a beard made out of paper loops – 24 of them, to be exact. It was a really cute little advent calendar. Now, it’s garbage. Great Art courtesy of Shannon, Mia, and the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken on our kitchen countertop, and part of my famous Event and Vacation series.

The event was Christmas, of course.

Notice anything different, Loyal Readers? That’s right, I’m no longer calling Loyal Readers by their Loyal Reader number. I’m tired of it, so it’s time for a change. It was fun while it lasted, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it? Hello? Anybody?

Pretty good weekend. Shannon’s doing quite well pneumonia-wise. She’s feeling good, although they’ve had to pump up her oxygen just a little bit. She’ll get off of it sooner or later. She was able to take a shower today for the first time since she went into the hospital, which made her feel great. She’s breathing better, looking better, eating better, and in every way greatly improved.

Now for the less-good news. Even though today was day four of chemo, her white count continues to go up and the percentage of blasts in the white cells is also increasing. It’ll get into the danger zone pretty soon. Fortunately, we’ve been in this situation before – last August to be exact. The chemo she’s getting is pretty slow to act, so it’s not unexpected. But her numbers need to start lowering pretty soon. Keeping fingers crossed for that to happen right away.

Made a little progress on the work front. I’ve been working on the documentation for PhotoDoc. There is a TON more work to do, but it’s moving forward again. I’ve also been working on PhotoDoc’s logo. I’ll show it to you as soon as it’s finalized. Many thanks to non-Loyal-Reader Matt for working on it for me. Also many thanks to non-Loyal-Reader Clifford for working on the videos my non-Loyal-Reader partner John has made. All that delegation is starting to pay off.

Got my new business cards in the mail today. They look very professional, as far as I’m concerned. Behold:

The phone number and email address have been obscured to keep the spammers at bay. If any of my Loyal Readers want to get in touch with me, you already know where I am.

Although that information was also in the post from a few days ago. But nobody will notice that one, will they? This one looks just like the artist’s conception, doesn’t it?

And that’s about it for today. I’m trying to get to bed earlier and now’s the time. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: Cookie Monster of the sea!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s my new business card. It hasn’t been printed yet. I had just finished designing it on the Staples online print shop and was about to order it. Their online system showed me this amazing digitally-generated prototype. Doesn’t it look real? This Great Art is a little rough because I took a picture of the screen, rather than taking a screenshot. Don’t know why. Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken in LRN4’s hospital room a couple days ago, and part of my famous Las Vegas series.

Wait, I remember why I took a picture of the disembodied hand with my upcoming business card – I was on the phone with my nephew and business partner John and wanted to order some for him too, so I wanted a quick approval. The quickest way I could think of on the spot was to take a picture. So I did.

LRN4 appears to be on the mend, finally. It’s been pretty touch-and-go for quite a while, but we hope she’s finally turned the corner. Her fever appears to have subsided (not necessarily permanently) and her breathing is much better. She reported tonight that this afternoon was the first time she could breathe without concentrating on it since she got to the hospital. She looks a lot stronger too.

Our doctor told us tonight that we’re continuing to beat the odds. She’s been sick enough the last several days that her survival has been at stake much more than we realized. The pneumonia in her lungs has been so bad that her heart was starting to malfunction. That appears to have turned around at least a bit, fortunately. But more progress is needed. Courage, LRN4! Also, courage, me!

We still have no idea when to expect LRN4 to come home from the hospital. I miss her. I want her to come home. I want her to live. I need her to survive.

And that’s it for tonight. Nothing else matters. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: official-residence-infesting possum!

See you tomorrow.