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by M. J. Young

Disease

February 22, 2008 in Blogs

Hundreds of kids are sick right about now. The nurses in our doctor’s office were not at all surprised to see yet another one, our kid, our bass guitar player, showing up with those flu symptoms.

Our doctor, however, is a brilliant diagnostician. I think maybe Gregory House was designed on this man’s abilities. He determined immediately that it was not the flu (I think because of the tonsils, but he didn’t go into detail and I’m not that good with medical details). It is either strep or mono (both quick and easy verbal abbreviations for diseases with considerably longer names). The strep test is already underway; I have to arrange for the mono test, but the lab closed early today, apparently not due to the snow storm. I did get a bit of editing done while sitting in the doctor’s office.

The snow was the cause of the school closures, which means that despite staying home sick he did not miss a day of school.

I missed a substantial amount of work time, first with the trip to the doctor, then running around trying to get the lab work done, then picking up medicine. So I’m behind schedule for a Friday, and tired to boot, but I’ll get through the rest of the night, I think.

–M. J. Young

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by M. J. Young

Boot in the Pants

February 17, 2008 in Blogs

When I left last Monday, I had no idea that it would be so long before I was again posting here. Upon my return Tuesday, the computer refused to boot.

If you follow the forums, you already know this; John Walker, who has been invaluable in restoring things to operational status, posted almost that much there. As to the battles and the solutions of the past week, little need be said but that I am now working with a slightly faster processor and a new operating system, and I am getting through the frustrations of programs that won’t run from the old drives because they were not “properly installed” under the new system. (If anyone knows a cute shortcut for getting Windows XP to recognize software present on another drive which (the drive) was added after the operating system was installed, please pass it my direction.)

I still do not have all of my e-mail accounts working, but the one which is not is not one commonly used (except by a few important services–PayPal, McAfee). As of late last night I got all the M. J. Young Net boxes working. I’ve not yet attempted the FTP program. The music program has been reinstalled as a trial demo, and I seem to be missing a number from the release key, so I’m going to have to contact the publisher to see if they can give me my missing digit.

The most serious problem is that the CD-RW is not working. I am guessing that the problem with the computer (all the components seem functional, including the mother board and processor, now that things have been rebuilt with parts of another computer into two complete systems) was that the boot files on the primary drive got scrambled somehow and the CD drive took that moment to fail, so nothing would boot the system. There seems no way to prove that guess, so there’s no point pursuing it.

I’d like to say how much work I accomplished in the down time, but most of it was spent on the very stressful process of trying to get everything fixed. I did a bit of editing here and there, mostly in Romans, and that’s really the bulk of it all. Most of my work is highly dependent on my computer.

For anyone who was wondering about the documentary that did not happen, the young filmmaker has reported that he ran out of money and could not afford to finish the project. He will keep us in mind if he tries again.

I am hoping we have resolved enough of the problems now that I am back in action for the foreseeable future; there are still problems to fix, but we’re fixing them.

–M. J. Young

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by M. J. Young

An Off Day Off

January 20, 2008 in Blogs

I think I’ve been struggling with the schedule changes of the past year. Rising at six to get the youngest on the bus was already a struggle, particularly since I was always still up to provide supper for my wife whenever she got home, which was seldom before one and often meant serving food closer to three; now the six o’clock alarm has been pushed back to five, as the houseguest son of the absented houseguest becomes my responsibility, and his bus is most of an hour earlier. Thus I am not only not good at mornings, I’m starting to lose afternoons.

I say that I take Saturday off; that’s not quite an accurate statement. I have church on Saturday mornings (Seventh Day Baptist, thank you), but I’m usually late, and later when I’m more tired. I made it in ample time to hear an excellent sermon this weekend, but it was a drag-yourself-out-of-bed effort to get there. Thus Sunday morning is the only day on which I am usually able to sleep in, and today I did so well into the afternoon. I then had disruptions dropped into my lap, and only now am preparing supper as the calendar is preparing to change. I’ve much to do, and do not relish being up late doing it. In my favor, though, there are no school buses in the morning.

I’m not going to complain about not accomplishing anything during my time off; it is, after all, time off. I stumbled upon the DVD copy of Sliding Doors, which has been missing since New Year’s Eve, but could not have been where I found it. I did a bit of Romans editing while waiting for a son who was browsing video games at Walmart, looking for a way to spend his money. I made a recording of one of the Collision songs, because I wanted one of the drummers to hear it, and because I think Brittany will have a better shot at learning the very difficult contrapuntal vocal instrumental duet if she has a good recording of it. I’m not saying this is a good recording, but it is at least an accurate rendering of what I expect of the song.

So I did a bit more than nothing, and I’m making a push at getting through the rest of today’s work tonight.

–M. J. Young

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A List of Apologies

January 13, 2008 in Blogs

I will begin to apologize here; I will have more apologies to make on the forum. I had planned to take a son’s girlfriend home, and while that far from here visit an old friend to talk about Collision, music, and drummers, then return home to finish my work Friday night. Part of the derailment was due to the fact that wives always retain the prerogative to rewrite all plans to suit themselves; part of it was that it took longer to do some of the steps than anyone anticipated. Oh, and the part about making the wrong turn on Route 46 and going fifteen or twenty minutes in the wrong direction when we had been not more than a few blocks from our destination also helped. In any case, it was almost dawn by the time I got to bed, and I did not get my visit, although the girl was delivered to her abode sometime after one in the morning, and I do not wish even to consider how far after one that might have been.

I had intended then to go to church, take the trash to the dump, and do the grocery shopping, and including in the cracks the delivery and retrieval of our dialysis patient to the hospital. I did not make it to church, and each of those tasks ran either long or late, and there was a phone call interrupting the process at a point that did not need interrupting. By the time I sat down to do my Saturday morning study in Corinthians, I fell asleep in front of the computer; I gave up attempting even to make dinner, bought pizza, did some Romans editing while waiting, and attempted to get some sleep. Even this was derailed, as once I got to my bed I became absorbed in an episode of House I had never seen, followed by the Hitchhiker’s movie which despite being a disappointment to fans of the BBC miniseries was still worth watching, and then I was rousted a few times for various reasons ranging from being offered ice cream to needing to track down someone’s buzzing alarm clock.

There was a directors meeting today, so that again set me back; but business is part of the job, and it was a reasonably productive meeting.

Now I’ve got to go offer apologies to people on the forum, and try to finish my work at a decent hour. I’ve been warned that tomorrow is not going to run on schedule, so I’ll need to get some sleep tonight if I’m going to function through the day.

–M. J. Young

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Medically Amergent

January 8, 2008 in Blogs

Our dialysis-supported houseguest needed support today; he cannot really drive himself to dialysis (or rather, he cannot drive himself back from it, which comes to the same problem), and he had no alternate transportation. It thus fell to me to deliver him there early this afternoon and retrieve him early this evening–which I would do without complaint.

So why am I complaining? Well, I drove right past the bank on the first trip, and completely forgot that I had a check in my pocket which definitely needed to be in the account and could not really wait for evening, so after I got home from the first trip I had to go out again–which is, of course, entirely my fault. Then when I got home again I was informed that one of our other houseguests was going to need transportation to the hospital, too, and I needed to talk to him about it. I took care of a few other things, then asked if he wanted to catch a ride with me when I picked up the dialysis patient. Apparently that would be too soon–this emergency was not so emergent that the patient couldn’t wait for an important phone call first.

So here I am starting my work late on a Tuesday, usually the heaviest day of online work, and I’m expecting to be interrupted to make yet another trip to the hospital, and either stay for hours (I have my Romans editing ready) or come home and go back again yet later. Days like this cause me to hesitate to start anything until I know when the interruptions are going to happen, but I can’t know that so there’s no point worrying about it.

Let’s get something done, anyway.

–M. J. Young

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New Year’s Eve Eve

December 30, 2007 in Blogs

Two years ago tonight I mentioned making preparations for New Year’s Eve, but I did not mention anything about our celebration. There’s not much to it, really, but it’s a bit of an extravagance. I buy quite a few foods I would not buy at any other time of year, from pizza rolls to spinach puffs to pigs in a blanket to potato skins to mini eclairs. My evening is spent getting such things as french toast sticks and chicken dippers and potato puffs heated and served in a continuing feast, along with making a punch that contains soda, several fruit juice concentrates, and sherbet. At midnight we bang pots and open doors (this was much more difficult when we tried to keep all the cats inside, but that seems to be an objective we have abandoned, and the cats do not wish to be inside when this racket is raised). My wife is big on the tradition of chasing out the old year and letting the new one arrive; I’m in it for the food.

I mention it because that’s where I was late this afternoon, first visiting the store that

  1. closes early on Sunday
  2. has the best prices and
  3. will be limited in selection,

and then going to the other store where I can get those items not available at the first, as long as I am willing to pay for them.

I did a bit of editing on the Romans notes–my pastor, who took the time to encourage me after church and to thank me for the Corinthians list which he says he is compiling into his own file copy, is looking forward to being able to browse through them when I’ve finished. I’ve also started writing a new song, about passing through a portal to a new world, which I keep poking at when I’m driving or otherwise intellectually underoccupied, but which I keep telling myself to save for Thursday so that I can involve Baxter and Brittany in the process, both of whom are hoping to get a bit of teaching on how to write songs from me, and not to snub Adam, he should be part of it, too. If it comes out well, we’ll add it to the Collision repertoire.

So I guess I’ve been busy, although the largest single thing in terms of time I did yesterday was take an early evening nap, which by then I needed.

–M. J. Young

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China to Rome

December 11, 2007 in Blogs

I was on my way here when the phone rang. Someone at work had forgotten a critical piece of equipment, and needed it delivered. I located said piece of equipment, and since I often wind up sitting in parking lots for extended periods on such errands, I took my recently neglected Romans editing with me. It happens that I waited no time at all there, but that I was then hit with a request to provide Chinese food (specifically, a delicacy which is rarely on the menu even at those places which make it, Coconut Shrimp). Thus I routed myself to a particular Chinese restaurant, and settled into a booth while awaiting the preparation of an order large enough to satisfy the unpredictable number of mouths which would have to be indulged.

And thus I managed to move the Romans editing forward several pages.

I am encouraged to note that I am very near the halfway point; I split the material into two roughly equal folders, and have only a few pages left in the back of the first folder. I’m not running as many sit-and-wait errands as I was a month ago, though, so this work has slowed significantly. On the other hand, other work has benefited from the decrease of that commitment.

On yet another hand, though, there are too many projects awaiting my attention; I’d better go see to things.

–M. J. Young

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Ahead of Ahead of, and Behind, Schedule

October 23, 2007 in Blogs

Kyler is home tonight. There is much rejoicing.

When he left, we all expected that he would be gone into early November, and would miss Ubercon for it; however, he did so well that they announced a while back that he would be finished tomorrow–and then decided this morning that he could leave today. I was supremely pleased to be able to bring him home, and proud that he did so well.

Unfortunately, that, plus a few other problems, put me well behind on today’s work–it is, after all, Tuesday, my heavy day. One of those other problems had me sitting in a parking lot for most of an hour when I should have been starting dinner–but at least I remembered to take my Romans notes for editing.

Speaking of editing, I got flagged by the printer of About the Fruit because I had not properly placed the ISBN on the copyright page (mea culpa, I did not pay enough attention to the directions, and was worried about how I was supposed to add the barcode to the back, so when I saw that they had done that I didn’t look further). I have made the correction to my copy, but still have to upload it to them; at the same time, I will adjust the price to the regular price, but that means also changing the Specials page on my site to remove the sale announcement. So that’s more work, probably more than I can accomplish tonight. Tomorrow already has its own scheduled disruptions, but hopefully I’ll be able to squeeze a bit extra into the day.

In other good news, the gout is subsiding rapidly, and I’ve started leaving the walking stick behind.

–M. J. Young

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