The Johnson Blog

Ramblings of a geek with a few hobbies…

  • Laptop Woes

    The laptop I bought a year and a half ago is having a display problem. Any video output that’s supposed to be black is actually a bright, vivid green. While it might be pretty, it’s gotta get fixed. When I purchased it, I was offered the 3 year service plan and it was a lot cheaper than expected (80 bucks) so I went ahead and bought it. Hopefully it won’t turn out to be as crappy as Circuit City’s support. Here’s where I hope I don’t regret buying it from Sams Club.

    This afternoon I went online and “registered” my service plan and opened a service claim. Here’s to hoping it won’t take too long to get resolved.

  • Starbucks

    I just read this little blurb about how Starbucks all over the country are closing their doors for 3 hours to reinvigorate the coffee passion and retrain their people.  I can see this sort of thing working in Seattle, where they are headquartered, where there might actually be some passion involved.   But was there ever any passion to be lost in the 7,000 other stores throughout the country – like say the one in the Target store here in Springfield?  Yeah… I bet they just take 3 hours off and wander over to the connected Pizza Hut Express.

  • Prednisone

    Ana had her 2-week visit with the new hematologist, and her platelets levels were the same as they were 2 weeks ago so that apparently finally “proves” that prednisone isn’t helping.  Glad it took 5 months for that to be clear.

    Anyway, she’s going to start the weaning process – dropping her dosage 10mg/week while continuing to get blood tests every week.  The plan is to see if once she tapers down slowly her levels stay where they are – they are low (51k) but definitely manageable.  If they don’t continue to drop, they’ll call it good enough and, I presume, just test her every now and again as well as us being on the lookout for the symptoms of the low platelets.

    If on the other hand she does drop again after stopping the prednisone, it’ll be time to look at the spleen removal as the next phase.

  • Nothing

    I’ve got nothin’.  So here’s a picture.  Yep, we were coding.

    It’s snowing again but I don’t feel like shoveling.  But if I don’t shovel we’ll get that compact-snow-turned-to-ice tire track speedbumps in the driveway that won’t melt until mid-August.

  • Google + Medical Records

    It looks like we’re one step closer to Google being able to search your genes and offer targeted online ads for medicines for your deficiencies!

    Umm, no thanks.

  • Awesome Moon Photos!

    Well, not of last night though.  But since several local bloggers are putting moon photos up, I figured I would direct people to a couple photos of my own.  I’ve even got… a planet!


     



    More can be seen here and here.

    Which reminds me, I really need to get the telescope adapter for my 30D. That would be a lot of fun.

  • We’ve been assimilated

    I was online for the last moment of our Insight Communications internet connection.  At 12:05am we lost connectivity, and as of this morning we are now on the Comcast network: c-98-215-177-37.hsd1.il.comcast.net

  • Hey!

  • Jericho

    Ana and I have been pretty big fans of the tv show Jericho since its pilot episode last year.  For the uninitiated, it’s about a post-nuclear-attack United States, focused on a small town in Kansas’ tribulations.  The show was dropped at the end of the season, but due to overwhelming fan support it was brought back for a second trial run this season (6 episodes).  I find it to be a very interesting and entertaining show, one in which I’m able to easily ignore some of the usual tv/movie technology stupidness.

    But so far this season there are a couple things that have started to tarnish the show for me.  The part of the story so far this season is that a new government has formed in the Western US and is starting to spread further East.  They even have a new/modified US flag being flown everywhere, and the military has this flag patch on their uniforms.  In tonight’s episode a local teacher was given new “US History” books to distribute and teach in her class – it’s clear the new government is a veiled dictatorship.  This is all something like 6 months after 20+ bombs have taken out large cities all over the country.

    6 Months.  A new flag was designed, chosen, MANUFACTURED, and distributed all over the place.   In 6 months.  With what you can only assume would be a dramatically reduced capability to produce anything.  Then, they even got tons of military patches made.  Again, in 6 months.

    Then comes the textbook.  History was literally rewritten in 6 months, and again they were able to get them mass produced in a country with a destroyed infrastructure.  It occurred to me as I was typing this that maybe the story would end up showing that all of these things were planned before the bombs, all part of the unfolding conspiracy.  But I find it even harder to believe such history-rewriting could be done “in the clear” without any one of the million failure points letting the secret out.

    Arrgg!!

    I know, I know, it’s just a show.  I’ll shut up now.

  • Dwight, meet Edward

    Dwight Shrewt meet Edward McConaughey

    Now, before you think being at home has already made me go crazy – please note that my plant has been named Edward McConaughey for about 2 years now.  What’s amazing is not that Edward is related to the infamous Matthew, but that I’ve kept a plant alive for 2 years!