(no subject)

I went to the ALS clinic with my aunt and four of her friends, Patty, Barb, Stan, and one other whose name I don't remember. Five and a half hours later, I was wandering around in the parking lot looking for my car. I think we got a hospital bed for her townhouse until she moves, and a hospital bed after she moves. Plus a new wheelchair, and they're going to do an onsite visit to determine if she should get a motorized wheelchair at Jones-Harrison. (The ALS Society provides these for free if they've got them.) More access to doctors and information than much else. The physical therapist was exceptional. It was a long morning.

The downside was that the Dr. said the rate seems not to vary. I'd take this to mean that the advance will be fast and furious, since her symptoms seem to be increasing at a fast rate.

Two of the drs. Talked about feeding tubes and breathing machines. I don't think Sandy's very wild about either.

I'm really hoping the assisted living works out for a few months. We pretty much stopped looking at nursing homes after we visited Jones-Harrison. It just seemed so right for Sandy.

(no subject)

Janis Ian on downloading music: http://msnbc-cnet.com.com/2010-1078-944488.html

New Computer

The new computer has been up and running at least since New Year's Day. I've got Windows and Office XP working on it. Windows XP is registered. Office XP is counting down from 50. Outlook is working, ditto on FrontPage and Word. I've not felt the speed much yet, but then I've not done too much on it other than install software and download updates.

My first computer, a Kaypro II had 64 K of memory. (I've still got it in a closet although it no longer works.) This computer's IDE RAID controller has 256 Meg of cache memory. I've got something like 628 meg on the motherboard.

My first computer had no hard drives. It ran on two 400 K floppies. This computer has four 120 Gig hard drives, three of which are in a RAID 5 array. (I could not get the computer to load the Promise RAID controller drivers so I could put all four drives in the array.)

My first computer had a a Z-80 at 2.0 MHz. My new computer has two Intel PIII 1 GHz chips. (OK, so it's far from the bleeding edge...)

My first computer's operating system was CP/M. Then I went over to the dark side and have remained.