I arrived at the hospital, and got checked in. It went well, and I got into the ward. The folks were nice and started getting me ready for the surgery the next day. First thing to lose was body hair. Chest, legs, underarms, All gone. I feel so bare.. But it’s a good thing I guess because it keeps things clean. A lot of doctors came to see me that day to explain what would happen. I think I like the anesthesiologist the best. He promised drugs. But enough of that. I got word that I would be first up the next morning, and that’s a good thing. No waiting for me.

The next day they wheeled me out of my room and I don’t remember much after that. I guess it was all the stuff they gave me. When I woke up I was in a different ward, ICU, and had lots of extra equipment connected to me. They can monitor everything and it’s actually quite amazing. At the first sign of a problem, they know and can get the right things going. I think the worst thing is being hungry and not being able to eat. Eventually that comes, but it seems like it takes forever.

The rest of the time I spent there was recovery. There are three steps. ICU, then intermediate care, then back to the ward. They tend to be very careful. They check to make sure that you don’t have any extra pain, and that’s nice. I just hate sitting there in one position, and they could help with that too.

I’m glad to be home. I’m supposed to go to a “cure” hotel tomorrow. I’m just not sure I want to. I hate being away from home. But it’s for my own good, so I’ll probably do it for at least part of the time.

Now all the testing started, and my lungs are OK, but there were heart problems. After a bunch of testing, it was decided that I’ll be needing bypass surgery. That’s scheduled for this week. Am I scared? Yep, but as always, I’ve got a positive attitude, and trust the doctors. Hopefully I won’t have to spend too much time in the hospital, and can get back home. Everyone says I’ll be better than before, but I’ll just be glad to be alive.

Yesterday, I got a webcam for this computer. Nothing really fancy. It’s a logitech Quickcam communicate delux. It’s a nice cam that fit right on top of my monitor. Ah, but getting to work with linux. Well, google is my friend. I did a search, and came up with what I thought would be a driver for it. Alas, it had to be compiled and for the life of me I couldn’t get it to compile. It kept coming up with an error 2 from Make. Luckily, I did a search of the openSuSE site, and lo and behold there was an RPM just for this. Did a one-click install and then inserted the module into the system. The cam came right up in Skype. Nice.

The second one was today. I have had an internet radio for quite a while that I listen to. Mostly public radio stations. But also knew that if there was a uPNP player, it would play the music from my computer. I looked around and again, found a program called mediatomb. Again, it was a one-click install and I was off and runnning. It’s really a nice program. It comes with a web interface for setup. I fired up the browser, and setup all the music that I’ve got on this machine. It took just a couple of minutes, and I was ready. I went down to the radio and went through the menu. Wow! There’s all my music. I can listen to it everyone I take the little radio in the house.

I’m really pleased on how well this all has worked. I basically use openSUSE 11.0 on this machine. It does everything I need and now even more. And it just runs and runs.

Now, someone explain to me why I need Windows anything?

Yesterday I got the bug, and started the upgrade. It was easy and came right up. But not so unexpectedly, the HP printer was gone. My little brother Laser printer was found and properly installed. No problem, I’ll just re-install the HP. First I got the updates to 10.6 and that went well. But still no HP fix. I checked around the net, and found an update to the HP drivers for the Mac. I downloaded that, did the install, and still nothing. I worked on it for quite a while without any luck. Now where is that install disk for the printer. Searched the room, but couldn’t find it. No problem. I’ll just download it. Still no luck. I quit. Better to stop, than get frustrated, and throw the computer out the window..

I came back this morning, and found the disk. It was right beside the mac. I put it in, did the install, and then checked. There was still a problem, and it couldn’t find the right driver. But I clicked on something and up popped the printer with a strange name. I said install it, the mac said OK, and all is well.

Are there improvements? I think so. But she’s up to date now, and so far it works as it did when I bought it. It is nice to not have to worry about updating the virus protection, and so forth.

The other nutjob is Lou Dobbs. He really needs to leave CNN and go over to Fox like his brother Glenn. He is on the air with the so-called birthers. But CNN says that editorial content on his show is his alone. Damn.. Then they’d all be together. Dobbs, Beck and Hannity. Kind of reminds me of the wit brothers. Half, Dim, and Nit.

Nuff Said

Since that day we’ve done a lot of different things, been to lots of different places, and raised three great sons. Little did I know or even dream that we’d still be together for this long. It’s just not something that you think about at the time. But it has been absolutely a wonderful time. There have been rough spots, but nothing we couldn’t get through.

Tonight in celebration, we had dinner at Colmberg Castle. It’s not far and seemed to be the best place to celebrate. It was quite a change from the beginning night.

I can only hope that it lasts another 40 years. If it’s half as enjoyable as the first 40 years, I’ll be tickled.