Blah. So we're leaving for Huntsville tonight, after I get home from work. We might stop partway and spend the night somewhere, but not sure. We threw enough stuff in the suitcase last night to last us the weekend... And Chad's supposed to be calling the neighbor to see if she can watch the animals.
His tumor is about the size of a golf ball. He has an appointment Friday with the radiologist to discuss radiation treatment, and not doing chemo at this point.
Monday, he talks to the neurosurgeon about whether they can take the tumor out.
Wednesday, he talks to the family doc about monitoring his blood sugar while on radiation.
Meanwhile, he can't drive, because he might have a seizure, so Mandie is driving him everywhere. And they put him on some drugs to reduce the swelling in his brain.
They are 90%-100% sure it's cancer. Not sure exactly what kind or whatever, but they are going to run some more tests and stuff. Dad has an appointment with Dr. Dang (his oncologist) on Wednesday... they are going to discuss what treatments are available (including whatever MD Anderson and Baylor have to offer, which wasn't really an option last time, but is now since I live in Houston). I might, depending on what the doc says, run home for the weekend, but we're not sure at this point. We're playing the waiting game.
please pray... Please pray for my family. My mom called, and said the doctor thinks they've found cancer in Dad's brain. This is pretty sudden, as he's been in remission for a while now, with only a few "false alarms" on his PET scans.
AI continues to amaze me... ...in fact, even though I have studied AI and know (more or less) the concepts behind it, it's really still kind of magic. Take for instance, this article, stolen from David. Amazing.
Another type of (less human) AI, Pandora, a customizable radio station program based on the music genome project, is also amazing. Probably the best ever "learning" radio station I have ever used. Way better than Launchcast. Check out my girly music station.
Overview of a "typical" day... So since I never have anything interesting to blog about, I thought I'd outline a typical day so that you people know what I do all day (you know, the stuff that's too boring to blog about).
Sometime between 5am and 6:30am (depending on how ambitious I am being), my alarm goes off. I hit it about a hundred and fifty times before getting up, because it's really hard to get out of the most comfortable bed in the world. I end up actually out of bed between 6am and 7:30am (typically, closer to 7 or 7:30). I try and find something semi-professional to wear to work (why doesn't the laundry wash itself?!)... let the dogs out... stumble into the kitchen and make sammichs. Two sammichs, one for me and one for Chad. Both with low fat cheese and lean lunch meat (because we're trying to eat healthy or something). I pack the rest of my lunch (fruit, yogurt, and propel fitness water), and somehow manage to grab a muffin or some other kind of vaugely healthy breakfast food while running out the door.
I drive. For like, an hour. And listen to an audio book (just finished: "Blink: the power of thinking without thinking", by Malcolm Gladwell). Then I finially get to work.
After having to show or swipe my badge three times at three different places (I mean really... you would think we were military or something), I make it to my office... And sit down at my computer. Where I stay, working dilegently, for you know, 8 hours or so. Currently, I'm working on a variety of projects that include icons, gui components, and trying to make sense of way too much source code written by way too many different people. Interestingly enough, one of my projects has generated enough interest that I'll be making presentations on it to two different groups of people in the next month. Typically, I eat lunch at my desk, because I think it's stupid to burn an hour on lunch when I'm eating a sammich by myself anyway.
Then I drive. For like, an hour. And listen to an audio book. (next week: A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleline L'Engle).
I get home and let the dogs out and cook dinner (why don't the dishes wash themselves?!)... typically, we finish eating dinner just in time to go to karate or go sign on to the computers and roleplay. Unless it's Monday or Friday, when we either end up watching a movie or finding some other way to totally waste time.
Then I try and go to bed. I have the best of intentions of going to bed at like, 10pm, but I hardly ever manage that. I make it to bed between 11pm and midnight...
So yeah. I am totally blogging from work right now, because if I didn't blog from work, I would never be able to blog.
I have still only logged like, 10 hours on Kingdom Hearts II, which makes me sad. I played for an hour and a half the other night while Chad was playing Civ 4 with Brian, and all I really accomplished was making my thumbs hurt. *sigh*
This weekend, our time will be taken up by lusting after the house we want, and watching Clerks (on DVD on Friday night) and Clerks II (in the theater on Saturday).
Interfaces, Internships, and... Houses? If HCI had an equivalent to X-Games, this project would be part of it. Ultimate HCI... move the computer into the brain!
So my intership is going amazingly well, considering the fact that I don't think I've really accomplished much. Everyone else thinks I have accomplished a lot, and I suppose that's what counts. I'm giving a presentation to upper level management the first week in August on my work with Common Components, and I have the potential to keep this job in some form or another during the school year. Which would be cool, but might actually require me to, I don't know, move to a planet with 30 hour days.
And we're thinking of buying a house. Torn, actually, between buying something sensible and, you know, cheap... and buying the house we really want. We're looking at about a $50k difference between the two, which is, interestingly enough, the price of a 2007 Shelby Mustang GT500. (not that we could get both... I'm just saying is all). We should figure something out, pretty shortly, I hope. The possibility of continueing my internship has changed the situation some... So yeah. Decisions are more complicated when you are a grown-up, I guess.
This is my brain..... in part, at least.
