Great to have her back from her rousing success at BlogHer Chicago. Update: photo of the panel participants! and a recording of the panel! from Craftzine and CraftSanity, respectively.
July 2007 Twenty posts
Joe Trains
I am back from Virginia, and I’ll have more to say about that later this weekend.
Leah is at BlogHer. She’s moderating a panel on crafting. I miss her. Things are not the same without her.
I’ve been keeping busy. I disgorged some cell phone photos to flickr. I also have done some cleaning. With all the traveling Leah, the kids, and I have done the house has fallen into some disrepair.
Meanwhile, here’s me on the train today! I took the train to Burbank Airport to pick up the van, which Leah left there since I could not get home in time to take her to the airport. In the spirit of making lemonade with lemons, I took Metrolink. It was a fun mini-adventures. After that I went to Fry’s and bought a USB 2.0 PCI card for my old Mac. (Only $12.99!). It’s a G4 Desktop and came without fast USB. Go figure. Then I drove to Simi Valley and saw the Simpsons Movie. Not bad. Not great, but I laughed. The nachos were good, though I spilled cheese on my pants. “I spilled cheese on my pants” is sort of an awesome sentence.
Lastly, here’s me from the train earlier. I’m unshaven, but can you tell how much I like train rides? Even short ones? Well, I do. And tunnels on train rides? Oh yeah.
Tomorrow morning I’ll ride my bike to get the car from the Moorpark Train Station. Yes, everything in stages. Baby steps, a wise man once said. Baby steps.
Next Up
Chemo on Friday for my Mom. She’s doing well.
I’m very glad I came.
Who can know what’s down the road?
All Things Grow With Love
Except, Cancer!
And have I mentioned the green?
Pretty, right?
Humidity is up. A little drizzling yesterday. I think I’m sync’ed up with the time zone now. Mom seems to be having a pretty good morning. Maybe we’re through the side effects of the chemo? Of course, the kidney cancer, and the tumor in her head. and her nocardia infection still might provide effects, and side effects, but today she seems as normal and energetic as she ever did. I think she’d say the same thing!
Illness is tricky, man. Fascinating.
I’m So Cute
Well, 35 years ago.
It Is So Green Here / Laptop Bummerville
It’s noon here, which means it’s nine ante meridiem back in California. It’s odd to think about that difference.
Meanwhile, I’m a little bummed because my laptop is going wonky. It’s an iBook G4:
Anyone seen this kind of “melting screen” effect. Happens at random. I suspect it’s the hard drive crashing and grinding. Luckily there’s lots of other machines I can do work on. I’m letting it take a rest for a while.
In Roanoke to see my Mom
I’ve come to the east coast for a week. Last night I left Los Angeles for Roanoke, Virginia. It was a short notice flight, but my family and I have been looking for an excuse to come east to see my Mom, recently diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma, cancer. She has Stage IV, the stage with the most effect on the body overall. My Mom has metastasis to her brain and lung. A few weeks ago she had Cyberknife radiation on the metastasis in her brain. Yesterday she started chemotherapy, and had a great day, she went and ate Red Lobster with my sister yesterday apparently. Today she was very active for the first half of the day, but has had nausea, dry mouth and most of all fatigue.
Meanwhile. I flew in to Greensboro from LAX, through Charlotte, on a red eye.
Here’s what morning looks like at CLT:
I arrived in Greensboro and was picked up by my Dad. On the way we talked some and stopped at a Sheetz, somewhere along the way. I’m sort of famous to Leah for being able to sleep well on planes, any mass-transit really. But my flights were not really optimal overnight for sleep. So I’ll need to adjust and adapt.
This photo approximates how I felt on the first leg of my flight:
Meanwhile, the thing I notice most around my parent’s place is how green everything is. I have managed to forget how green this part of the country is. All my visits have been at Christmastime — in the Winter. Never in the Spring or Summer, at least not for a long time. It’s very green out here:
My Mom had some side effects from the chemo today, and we (my sister, her fiancee, my dad and I) went on a road trip to a drug store locally. Our quest was for dry-mouth combat tools. Among them we acquired some Deb’s Frozen Lemonade — which I did not remember being a staple here. Truth is, the place is 15 years old. It’s been about 15 years since I lived here, coincidentally.
I miss home, and my wife, but I’m home here too.
Daily Links
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Fear!
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Great stuff. I’ve downloaded 4 of the volumes so far.
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Odd thing to do to educate parents. Possibly useful? Who knows?
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Wine, Wine Train, Dinner, Dinner Santa, Thomas, Murder Mystery Dinner, Christmas Tree, North Pole, New Year’s Eve
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Great conversation on what makes an expert on Wikipedia, and how Wikipedia deals with cranks who are expert.
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“I’ve never got over it. You never forget it. Never.”
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several fascinating and interesting points here
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i love that the blade runner cyberpunk dystopia that obsessed me as a
teen is now used to sell jeans. -
This reminds me of my job before last.
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This is some fascinating history I had never considered.
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John K is awfully fun to read
