Update
Here's what's been happening in the Land o' Mur since my last post (and sorry for not being better at keeping you up-to-date, and also sorry for assuming that you all are sitting around waiting to be kept up-to-date on Land o' Mur happenings).
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Mom is back in the hospital. Same thing as always, the COPD (despite her never having smoked a day in her life). Two Mondays past she just suddenly lost steam, becoming very weak and unable to catch her breath. Despite her doctor urging her to go to the hospital, Mom refused (usual religious reasons), and just steadily declined. When Warren and I were there for Easter dinner, Mom stayed in her chair in the living room the entire time, and we ate in there with her (which has never happened in all the time I have been alive - eating in the living room is simply Not Done). Mom had a couple of bites, and then announced that she was tired and went to sleep in the chair. Her mouth was open and her chest was cranking up and down like she was running a marathon in her sleep. It was pretty awful.
The next day, however, Dad convinced her to go to the hospital, and there she is. She's on a full oxygen mask, which they're using to force oxygen into her lungs and flush the carbon dioxide out. She's sitting up and alert (and grumpy), but she is physically very weak. Yesterday she managed a few steps using a walker, but then had to get back into bed. At this point we have no idea how long she will be in there for, but I'm hoping it's for a while. My Dad is not in the kind of shape he would need to be in to look after her the way she needs to be looked after right now. So we'll just have to see how things go, I guess.
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Computer Room Overhaul In less important news, this weekend I am picking up a series of desk components from IKEA and assembling my own L-shaped desk for the computer room. This will require the complete disassembly of the existing set up, moving of bookcase (ugh), and likely getting rid of my good and faithful desk. The current desk has been with me since at least 1977 (I remember sitting at it, pouring over an issue of Time Magazine that was reviewing a new movie that was coming out called "Star Wars"), and we picked it up second-hand then. I have no idea how old it is, but it is good, solid wood, and I will be a little sorry to see it go. I simply will not have room for it in the new configuration.
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New Computer! The reason for the reconfiguration is that I have had a new gaming rig custom built for me, and I will need space to have both it and my current computer operational and accessible. The new rig is named "Thor"; it came pre-named that, which is awesome, because my current computer is named "Mjolnar" (the Hammer of Thor). The computer before that was named Spock, and as a result, the laptop (which I still have and use) is named Katra. I may be a nerd.
Thor is ridiculously over-powered, and is kind of like the Ferrari of computers. Liquid cooled, with an Intel i7 six-core processor (like six CPUs all chained together), twin NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 graphic cards, 16Gb of DDR-1866 RAM, and a 240 Gb solid-state drive. That last one is killer; it's like a hard drive with no moving parts, so there is no slow-down in moving data from storage to processor. The average boot time, from cold start to Windows 7 login screen, is three seconds.
Thor gets shipped hopefully this weekend, so hopefully by next weekend I will be immersed in the computer world. Be on the lookout for newspaper articles in the coming weeks about "Dessicated man found jacked into computer".
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That is all.
♣ ♣ ♣
Mom is back in the hospital. Same thing as always, the COPD (despite her never having smoked a day in her life). Two Mondays past she just suddenly lost steam, becoming very weak and unable to catch her breath. Despite her doctor urging her to go to the hospital, Mom refused (usual religious reasons), and just steadily declined. When Warren and I were there for Easter dinner, Mom stayed in her chair in the living room the entire time, and we ate in there with her (which has never happened in all the time I have been alive - eating in the living room is simply Not Done). Mom had a couple of bites, and then announced that she was tired and went to sleep in the chair. Her mouth was open and her chest was cranking up and down like she was running a marathon in her sleep. It was pretty awful.
The next day, however, Dad convinced her to go to the hospital, and there she is. She's on a full oxygen mask, which they're using to force oxygen into her lungs and flush the carbon dioxide out. She's sitting up and alert (and grumpy), but she is physically very weak. Yesterday she managed a few steps using a walker, but then had to get back into bed. At this point we have no idea how long she will be in there for, but I'm hoping it's for a while. My Dad is not in the kind of shape he would need to be in to look after her the way she needs to be looked after right now. So we'll just have to see how things go, I guess.
♣ ♣ ♣
Computer Room Overhaul In less important news, this weekend I am picking up a series of desk components from IKEA and assembling my own L-shaped desk for the computer room. This will require the complete disassembly of the existing set up, moving of bookcase (ugh), and likely getting rid of my good and faithful desk. The current desk has been with me since at least 1977 (I remember sitting at it, pouring over an issue of Time Magazine that was reviewing a new movie that was coming out called "Star Wars"), and we picked it up second-hand then. I have no idea how old it is, but it is good, solid wood, and I will be a little sorry to see it go. I simply will not have room for it in the new configuration.
♣ ♣ ♣
New Computer! The reason for the reconfiguration is that I have had a new gaming rig custom built for me, and I will need space to have both it and my current computer operational and accessible. The new rig is named "Thor"; it came pre-named that, which is awesome, because my current computer is named "Mjolnar" (the Hammer of Thor). The computer before that was named Spock, and as a result, the laptop (which I still have and use) is named Katra. I may be a nerd.
Thor is ridiculously over-powered, and is kind of like the Ferrari of computers. Liquid cooled, with an Intel i7 six-core processor (like six CPUs all chained together), twin NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 graphic cards, 16Gb of DDR-1866 RAM, and a 240 Gb solid-state drive. That last one is killer; it's like a hard drive with no moving parts, so there is no slow-down in moving data from storage to processor. The average boot time, from cold start to Windows 7 login screen, is three seconds.
Thor gets shipped hopefully this weekend, so hopefully by next weekend I will be immersed in the computer world. Be on the lookout for newspaper articles in the coming weeks about "Dessicated man found jacked into computer".
♣ ♣ ♣
That is all.