Alright, so it’s the same old room with the same old stuff in it for the most part. Even the cats don’t appear to be overly excited in the picture. Still… it’s BETTER.

First of all we did our friend and professional furniture rearranger, Kelley, proud by rearranging all of our furniture for the first time in 5 years! Kaycee and I spent an hour pushing stuff around the living room to see how well it fit. I think we ended up with a really good arrangement that opens up more space and puts all of our storage in one spot.

As if that wasn’t enough, we also changed things functionally. Kaycee had the DirecTV rep crying in despondency yesterday as she heartlessly ripped away their $70+ per month allowance. See the rabbit ears on top of the TV to the right? That’s now our live TV feed along with a CM7000 DTV converter courtesy of our own tax dollars.

Right now, the rabbit ears give us a fairly decent digital signal. I’ll soon be boosting that BIG TIME by building one of these beauts for a couple of bucks.

The final thing we’ve done is integrate a Home Theater PC (HTPC) which is tucked in to the left of the entertainment center. Hardware-wise I built it from a throwaway machine and added a video card from our friend Nitin. It’s running Ubuntu as an OS, and uses XBMC and PlayOn to play media from a variety of sources including DVDs, downloaded content, music, and live content from places like Hulu, Netflix, and YouTube. It’s a great little system that can be remote controlled by anything with a web browser, and will soon be remote controlled by… a remote control. 

What’s left to do: Another shelf for the entertainment center would be useful for the Wii Fit (which you can see is kind of jammed in there). The speakers are in weird places at the moment and I’d like to correct that. I’ll be running some cable in the crawlspace for surround speakers, and also to wire up the HTPC which tolerates wireless but occasionally disconnects itself when it’s doing heavy lifting. All simple stuff, really.

Being out from under a monthly TV payment makes us happy. The kids are going crazy over old shows (Flipper, for example) and we’re not missing out on anything except for some live sports (*cough*Hurricanes*cough*). Overall I think we’ll be glad we kicked DirecTV to the curb.

Before I start, I’d like to reassure you that I won’t spoil a thing.

Ah, Stephen King. Everyone knows who he is, and I’ve heard from just as many folks who don’t like his work as those that do. Those that don’t like it have lots of good arguments:

    It rambles. It’s too wordy. It lacks good pacing. Who would be afraid of that anyway?!

Funny thing is, I think all of those are true! I also happen to love what Steve-o writes not simply in spite of those arguments, but because of them.

During a conversation with my brother last week, he shone a light on the fundamental quality I like about Steve’s work. Every story of his is a study of humanity! From the made-up language we came up with as children to the strange times when something ordinary seems downright creepy. All of the weird quirks people tend to keep to themselves are on those pages. It’s all about what makes us tick.

When he’s “on” (which is a lot of the time in his books) Steve shows what’s going on inside his characters’ heads like no other author I’ve read. It is so much more complex than giving a character a sense of motivation or sticking to a plot line. When he writes it’s as if he becomes those people in a way that is very real, and is doing everything he can to describe what it’s like to be them.

That’s as well as I can explain it. So… about the book…

Just After Sunset is a collection of thirteen short stories. Most are short enough to read in one sitting, which I thought was particularly nice. Several might even be considered vignettes. Unusual for Steve, isn’t it?

It has been forever since I’ve seen short stories by this guy, but he hasn’t gotten rusty at all! He has a knack for throwing me into the story with the first sentence, and I’m held in thrall until it is done. With just a couple of exceptions he succeeded in doing this with every story in the book. Even in the cases where he didn’t, I enjoyed myself. When the last story is done, you’re treated to a behind-the-scenes look at his motivation for writing each one of them.

If you’re a Stephen King fan you must get this. It gets a 9 out of 10 score from this fan.

If you’re not a Stephen King fan this book might still be worth a try if you’re into fiction. The stories are short, and extremely well done. I say get the paperback and give it a go. At the very least you probably know someone who would appreciate it if you gave it to them.

Last night, it was determined by the post-mortem investigatory team (me) that this Tuesday, as we sat through a horrible storm at the about-to-be-cancelled Def Leppard/Styx/Foreigner concert, a friend of mine was experiencing injury so grievous it would lead to their death two days later. That friend was my Linksys WRT54G version 2.

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A while back our friend Jonathan, from England, sent us a care package with some extra special goodies in it. Two of them were specifically marked for me. I don’t say that because they had my name on them or were marked in any way. I could tell because of what they were, and the fact that no one in their right mind would want them.

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Woohoo! I’ve changed an infusion set!

Today was Shealyn’s first change after the one at the hospital. Since Kaycee had done the initial one she stood by for support as I did everything. Other than a little initial confusion about priming the set, it went perfectly!

I would think that having a needle push a tiny tube into the right side of her butt would be the worst part. NOOOO… that’s nothing to Shealyn. The only thing she hates is being held still while daddy carefully does what he’s read so much about for the first time. She didn’t even notice the poke (thank you, modern needles).

I’ll take doing this every two days ANY TIME over the injections. Not to mention there’s a world of difference between the two control-wise. Shealyn’s numbers right now are so much better than we could have ever gotten before.

It’s going to completely change how well we can manage Shealyn’s blood glucose levels.
It comes with in-home or at-work personal training for family members, teachers, and other care givers.
It costs as much as five 32″ LCD HDTVs OR two top-of-the-line stainless steel professional quality refrigerators OR a nice used car. (Thank God for insurance.)
It fits in the palm of my hand…

(click for larger picture)

It’s Shealyn’s insulin pump!

After having representatives from two companies come to our home and give us demonstrations, we decided on the CozMore System from Smiths Medical on Monday, and received a pump and supplies on Friday. How’s that for quick?

Almost all pumps do the same things, and there are very few differences between them. Among the differences between this pump and others, we like the fact that this one comes with a glucometer which attaches to the back of it and inputs measurements via an infrared connection between it and the unit (the same infrared connection that we’d use to communicate between the pump and a home computer). There’s one less chance of making a mistake. When we do a blood test, results are automatically beamed to the pump.

You guys heard right about training! A major part of our decision to get a pump was to make things easier on family and other caregivers. You’ll still need to know how to draw insulin and give injections in case of an emergency, but the pump means that – under normal circumstances – Shealyn will be receiving a base rate of insulin automatically and you’ll have an easy way to very accurately give her what she needs for meals. Smiths Medical will send a person to you so you can receive training and gain confidence in using the system.

I’ll cut this short since Kaycee has told me she’s following up with a more detailed overview of what we’ve received. We’re VERY EXCITED though! This is going to be a wonderful tool for keeping Shealyn’s diabetes under control!

Hello!

I’m testing gallery2 on my site as a potential addition to this one. So far it looks like a wonderful way to share pictures and allow people to get prints from their choice of a few different vendors (or print their own from the originals if they wish!). Follow this link to check it out.

Added by Kaycee on 3/27- Don’t panic at the sight of a newborn in those sample photos. Please take note of the “Photos from January 2001″ in the upper left before you assume I already gave birth to our third child. I’ve had more than one person email me about it and their big double take. Lol

Comments work, but I’ve gone into the code and changed things to make it clear where you can post them (adding an “Add Yours!” below each post). I keep my own blog with my geeky stuff here, but family stuff will show up on this one from now on. I might actually cross-post some things since my friends visit the other one a lot. Needless to say I haven’t posted to it a lot lately since we’ve been a bit busier than usual. I’m sure everyone understands.