H1N1

The Princess seems to have bounced back from her weekend of fever / sniffles / cough, and is back to high energy, full speed ahead.

Her father, not so much. Yesterday he started with the sniffles. And aches. Then the fever.

Today, the flu test. It was positive for Influenza A. The clinic we went to doesn't do a strain specific flu test, but since "Ninety-nine percent of all subtyped influenza A viruses being reported to CDC this week were 2009 influenza A (H1N1) viruses" and his symptoms fit the model, that's what they're calling it.

We went to the Walgreens clinic instead of to his usual doctor because we wanted very badly to get him on Tamiflu before he hit the 24 hours of symptoms mark. His doctor could get him in today, but not until the afternoon, and by the time we got out of there and picked up a perscription it would have been closer to 28 hours. Walgreens, we walked in, waited 5 minutes, swabbed, waited 2 minutes (it can take up to 10, but his test showed positive in less than 2 minutes), and the diagnosis was done.

I just became a big fan of the Walgreens clinic.

So, wash your hands. Stop touching your eyes, nose and mouth. And if you start feeling crummy, go get a flu test as soon as you can.

He's quarantined for now, and I'm off to pop a few more vitamins and get back to sanitizing the surfaces. Hopefully we'll get through this without passing it on any further.

Never a Lemon Tree when you need one

Since the sad death of Mary Travers this week, I've had all the Peter, Paul and Mary in my music folder on my Playlist. I thought I'd share one of my favorites with you - Lemon Tree - but after half an hour searching I can't find any on YouTube or Google Video that are actually PP&M, not a cover.

So instead, here are Peter Paul & Mary singing Jesus Met The Woman At The Well. The passion that the three of them brought to the song makes this one really stand out.



Goodbye, Mary. You will be much missed.

Charged up

My old laptop battery finally died it's final death last week, and my new one came last night. This is the first laptop I've owned long enough to kill 2 batteries. *knocks on wood* I'm hoping this battery doesn't live longer than the laptop. I'm glad to have it working again. Things like google reader and and facebook and twitter and chat - I've usually got those open on the laptop, not the desktop.

Batteries are so freaking expensive. In the back of my head I hear this voice saying "for what you spent for the battery, you were a quarter of the way to a Netbook." Hush, voice of extravagance. I don't need a Netbook. But they sure are shiny.



Writing - not enough this week. 2700 words this week so far, plus a synopsis about half finished. I don't know if I'll get much progress this weekend, but I'm going to at least finish the synopsis by tomorrow night.

Princess came down with some sort of cold / fever and came home from school early yesterday. I'm running around behind her with sanitizer, trying to keep the germs away from Sean. He's got a trip coming up in a few days and I'm trying to keep him healthy until then.

Possibility City

Hubs just came out snickering and took me back to the bedroom.

Hush, the kids are home.

"I just saw a commercial for your hometown. At first I thought it was a Saturday Night Live skit."

It really does look a bit like a fake commercial. But it's also pretty cute, and has me giggling still. He saw it on ESPN, so this isn't just a goofy YouTube viral ad, this is something they're putting some real $$ behind. And you know, I'm ok with that. Also, ok with how they found a voice-over actor who can pronounce Louisville correctly.

Enjoy - it's "Possibility City"

Next! And it was good.

Ever found something that you love so much, you wonder how you went without it? What's even worse is when this same something has been there for years, and you never even knew it wast there.

It's "Yay! This rocks. How the hell did I not know about it before now."

So ok, I've been using an RSS reader to follow the several hundred blogs / sites I keep track of for a couple of years now. I was all sorts of happy with myself about how much time it saved me, because I don't have to sit there clicking on all these websites every day just to see if there's something new. When it's new, it pops up on one site and says "Hey, look whats new today".

Using Google Reader it looks something like this :


But for all my love of reader there are two downsides. First, it's way to easy to just read the post and go on to the next one. If I want to comment, I have to click through and reload what I just read at the original site, and gee is what I was going to say really that important anyway? Much easier to just skip commenting and read the next post.

Second, and this is the one that really bothered me more, is that I never even see some of these sites. Because I'm reading the content in the reader window, I miss all the fun stuff - the sidebars, the polls and page layout and fancy work that makes each site special. And the comments - sometimes half the fun is in what other people said. (Just because what I was going to say isn't important, doesn't mean that what someone else had to say isn't!)

But wouldn't you know the people working at Google felt pretty much the same way? And came up with a way to use the beauty of RSS feeds - visit only a site that has new content - and still actually let me read the site at it's source?

Living with Lindsay has already written up a nice little post telling you how to get this working for your own Google Reader (it takes 'bout 4 clicks and 30 seconds and involves nothing more than dragging a bookmark up to your menu bar). And if her post ever disappears, you can just google "google reader goodie next bookmark" and find the simple instructions.

Google, what else don't I know you've already thought of?

Fox News : Proving made up news is more fun than actual news.

I can't make this stuff up. FOX News wasn't going to let a little thing like the absence of real footage stop them though.

New FOX promo suggestion : When we can't get real news, we'll recreate stories we hear and call it news. Open auditions for "bear" being held in studio.

Fit enough to be a Marine?

Are you fit enough to be a Marine?

If the 3 pull-up's didn't end my hopes, or the 45ish crunches in 3 minutes, then running 3 miles in less than 30 minutes would. Yes, you can now approximate my age by checking the charts.

I don't think I'm going to be passing this fitness test in this lifetime.

Nostalgia. It's not what it used to be.

After my sadness this week that "V" wouldn't be on ABC's schedule until November, I checked Netflix and was excited that they had the miniseries available on DVD. Three clicks and it was at the top of my queue, and two days later in my mailbox.

I put it in last night after the princess was in bed, and settled in for some warm fuzzy times with aliens-that-aren't-what they seem.

And was asleep in 20 minutes.

Some memories are not meant to be revisited.

Now I'm hoping the new version is as good as I had remembered the '80's miniseries being. Which is much different from how "good" it seemed last night.

In much happier Netflix news, Mobile Suit Gundam 00 season 1 part 1 disc 1 also showed up in my mailbox yesterday. It made much happier viewing than "V" did.

Rearranged

Why am I overcome with the urge to rearrange the furniture any time my husband has to leave town for more than 4 days? Is it because I miss him so much I need to do something to keep me busy, or is it because I hope that after 5 days or more of being gone he won't realize I've moved things around when he comes home? (He's not a fan of change, so the comments are usually more "You moved stuff around again huh" than "Hey, it looks great in here!")



At least the dog's happy, now that his favorite chair is back in my library / writing room. He's about 100lbs of dog, so there's only one chair big enough for him to fit on. He's happily snoozing on it now.

Is there *anything* good on tv this fall?

I'm over at Beyond the Veil today asking "Is there *anything* good on tv this fall?" Let me know what I've forgotten!

Fresh start for September

I love the start of a new month. There's over 4 weeks of projects, plans, and things to look forward to. My deadlines always seem to fall at the end of the month, so the first few days always seem relaxed compared to what I've just been through.

And it's not quite as hot outside as it was at the start of last month. Another reason to be happy.

Today I'm doing some web updates on a few sites, then I'll be shutting off the 'net for a few hours to get some writing done. Abby's about to be in a really bad accident, and I need to make sure she comes out of it a stronger person for it. Or at least, a more interesting one.