Providence Marianwood – Family Story and Ask

[I was asked once again to speak at the spring luncheon for Providence Marianwood, the long term care facility at which my father lived for his last 4.5 years. The keynote speaker for the luncheon was Robert Fulghum. I was also preceded by Gene Muren, whose wife Debra is a resident of the same wing that my father had been on, and who suffers from early-onset Alzheimer’s. Debra was diagnosed at the age of 46.]

I want to thank Gene as well for sharing his poem and story. Debra’s a familiar face to those of us who’ve spent any time in the Alzheimer’s wing. I also have to echo Gene’s characterization of the experience as both educational, and humbling.

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My EADS luncheon talk

This is the “Family Story” and “Ask” that I presented at the Elder and Adult Day Services luncheon on Februay 5th, 2009.
(Dr. John Medina of Brain Rules was the keynote speaker.)

I’m here to tell you some things that you probably already know.

Like my story.

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A Store Goes Empty

The doll shop is officially “between locations” right now – our brick and mortar location is not only closed, but as of today empty.

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5 Years. And some things never change.

August 10th marks the 5th anniversary of Ask Leo!. Technology changes, some things come and go, but one thing
that never changes is the stream of the odd, the strange, and the
downright … ok, I’ll say it … stupid questions that show up in the
Ask Leo! question queue.

As has been my tradition, it’s once again time to clean the question
barrel, so here are this year’s collection of odd questions scraped
from the bottom.

As always, every question is a real question I’ve received via Ask
Leo! within the last year, presented exactly as I got it (except that
any potentially identifying information will have been removed). Each
“answer” is the answer that I’d be oh-so-tempted to give…
[Warning: there may be “bad words” in some of the
questions. You’ve been warned.]

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New unit of measurement: The Bible?

The Bible turns out to be a handy unit of measurement,
particularly when you’re trying to help folks some grasp
large storage media or data transfer rates.

It doesn’t matter whether you believe in what’s in it, of
course, it’s just that most folks have seen one. I’d wager
that most folks have a reasonable concept of its size, even
if only in heft or “thud factor”.

I used it as an example way back when as I tried to convey
some concepts to my parents. This disk? It could hold X
bibles! And this connection here, we can send the entire
Bible in Y seconds! Wow!

A random copy of The Bible, text only, from project
Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org) “weighs in” at roughly
5 megabytes.

With that as a unit of measure:

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Seattle has no full time news radio station.

Yes, yes, I know that the two heavyweights in the Seattle
marker, KIRO 710 and KOMO 1000 both claim to be news
stations. And yet…

KIRO changed branding some time ago from “News Radio” to
“News Talk” to finally reflect more accurately what they
really broadcast: News and Talk. More of the later than the
former, I’m afraid. Fair enough, at least they’re honest
about it. (And I’m a fan of the talk part … if
that’s what I happen to be looking for.)

The real offender, in my mind, is KOMO.

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Why yes, I do live in Seattle.

During my recent trip to San Antonio, I found myself in a small shop
(gourmet dog cookies, if you must know) across from a Starbucks.
I told the proprietor that I was visiting from Seattle, and she immediately
said, “Yes, the home of Starbucks!”

Indeed.

It made me realize that I’m really, really from Seattle, because:

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Geek is Good

So my credit card company (or rather, the credit card company that issued the
corporate cards used for my wife’s business http://dollsandfriends.com) “upgraded”
their card access web site recently.

Already you can see where this is going.

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Aging Gracefully: Caring For Dogs With Degenerative Myelopathy and Other Mobility Impairments

As our dogs age, a common scenario is the loss of mobility. Often the hind legs begin to deteriorate first, due to disease, injury or simply because our friend is getting on in years. The front legs can also begin to lose their ability over time as well.

All the while the dog frequently remains otherwise healthy and alert.

Our Pembroke Welsh Corgi Guido brought us to exactly that situation as he developed and progressed through degenerative myelopathy.

If you’re looking ahead to a time where your canine pal may suffer from partial or major mobility issues, here are some tips we picked up along our journey.

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Leo J. Notenboom

A number of people have expressed sadness at my father’s passing.

And yes, it is definitely sad to lose your father at any age.

But this is a case worthy also of happiness and celebration. My father lead a rich, long life. He died as peacefully as we could have hoped for, and in the company of loved ones.

I choose to celebrate his life. I choose to feel a deep gratitude for the gifts I’ve received from him. I choose to remember not only most the recent years but the years he truly was my father and the stories of what came before.

I choose to be happy and thankful.

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Half Century Mark

50 years ago today, 9 months after a snowstorm hit the greater Victoria, B.C. area (or so I’ve been told), I showed up.

It’s been quite the ride, so far.

An interesting thing to watch as you age are your beliefs and opinions. Some solidify (into concrete, if my father is any indication), and others meld and morph and turn into things you never would be predicted at an earlier age.

I think they call it growth. But I could be wrong. Or you may not agree. Whatever.

So, using this half-century mark as an excuse, I thought I’d jot down a few things…

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The One Big Thing – In Your Way?

I was having a conversation with a friend the other day about what was
coming next for her web site. She has a new site design. The design itself is
ready to go, and I’d say that the “important stuff” has been moved into it, but
not everything. A bunch of older content hasn’t yet been moved. On top of that
the older content needs updating as it’s moved into the new design.

So she’s been waiting to release the new website design until more (all?) of
the old content has been revised and moved. And of course, that’s just an
overwhelming amount of work – all those pages. It’s a big deal.

So naturally, since it’s such a daunting task, it’s not happening. Smile

My response? Just do it.

No, not the old content migration. That is an overwhelming
task.

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Those “Other” Questions

Today’s the fourth anniversary of Ask Leo!,
and that means it’s time to collect up some of the questions that you didn’t
see me answer. You’ll soon see why. We’ve got quite the bumper crop this
year.

As always, every question is a real question I’ve received via Ask Leo!
within the last year, presented exactly as I got it (except that any
potentially identifying information will have been removed). Each “answer” is
the answer that I’d be oh-so-tempted to give…

[Warning: there may be “bad words” in some of the
questions. Y’all been warned.]

Enjoy.

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Relic

Cleaning out a desk drawer I stumbled onto one of these:

Intel MCS-86 Assembly Language Reference Guide

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DirecTV Take 1. Take 2. Take …

As I mentioned elsewhere,
my 11 year old big screen TV decided it was tired, and wasn’t going work
any more. That, of course, accelerated my HDTV education and upgrade
timetable.

My replacement HDTV is on
order.

But as I mentioned to Kathy, this is a slippery slope. Programming.
Audio. Recording. Etc.

And so I found myself on the phone to DirecTV to upgrade our programming
to their HDTV package with their HDTV DVR. No problem, they said. They’d
be happy to take more of my money. No surprise really.

We scheduled an appointment for the upgrade, which includes a new
(bigger) dish and the DVR. I made note to the representative to make sure
to mention that a 30 foot ladder was going to be required, as the
existing dish was at the peak of one end of our house. No problem, they
said.

And here the enumeration begins by visit and technician contact… (you
know it’s bad when a numbered list is the right approach)

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Geek Wars – Home Wiring Division

Inspired by a post by a former
colleague of mine I decided to grab the Canon (camera that is) and throw my
volley into the “show us your geek” competition.

This is what’s tacked up on a wall in a room in my basement:

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Empty Office & Clean Desk

We’re having all of the woodwork in our home re-varnished. The time came
for my office, which from the following picure you can see is mostly woodwork.
We took advantage of having to empry the walls and bookshelves to go one step
further and empty the office and move the carpet to a different room so it could
be cleaned as well.

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Finished: Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451 is one of those books I thought I’d read. I’m a Sci-Fi fan,
and ate up a lot of the “masters” of Sci-Fi years ago. I started with Arthur C.
Clarke (Childhood’s End was
my first Sci-Fi read, what a way to start!), and quickly ran through most of
the works of Heinlein, Asimov, and others, including, I thought, Ray
Bradbury.

Apparently not.

My only thought is that perhaps I got sidetracked by the weirdness that is
Something Wicked
This Way Comes, and set Mr. Bradbury aside.

Fast forward some [mumble] years, and I find a reference to
Fahrenheit
451 in the always popular and thought provoking This Is True weekly email.

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