Double Your Reds, Double Your Fun

I finally gave blood again after skipping the last several drives. The Red Cross is almost like the telemarketers - once they have you, they keep pestering you to give, give, give. The last time I gave, they had trouble finding my vein and it was not a pleasant experience. They were digging around my arm with the needle and I ended up pretty bruised. They even cut me with the needle as they were pulling it out. Needless to say, I wasn't too keen on going through that again so I begged out of the last several drives.

They called again recently and I figured it was time to try again so I headed over there on Monday. When I got there, they asked me if I wanted to do "Double Reds". This is where they hook you up to a machine that runs your blood through a centrifuge that separates the red cells from the plasma. They keep the red cells and pump the plasma back into you. Since they give you back the plasma, they can take two pints worth of red cells and not leave you dehydrated, hence the term "Double Reds".

Things didn't start off very well. They again had a hard time finding my vein. The first two ladies couldn't do it but the third one got things going. It wasn't nearly as bad as the previous time but still somewhat irksome. Another benefit of the Double Reds procedure is they use a smaller needle which is more comfortable. I guess.

So they got the blood flowing and the machine started working. I watched the blood being pumped through all kinds of tubes and circular pumping wheels. After a while fluid that looked like beer started filling up a bag hanging on the front of the machine. It acutally had a foamy head on it! The nurse said that was my plasma and would get pumped back into me after they got the first pint separated. Just behind the "beer bag" I could see another bag filling up with blood - presumably the extra rich red cells.

They mix the plasma with some saline which is at room temperature - meaning cold - so when they started pumping it back in, my arm started getting very chilly. I could see the plasma bag draining as my little micro-brew was injected back into my arm. My arm was a little cold but I soon started feeling my lips tingle. I wondered if my core temperature was being lowered and making me shiver in a weird way. I also started feeling kind of tingly in my chest. I asked the nurse about it and she said it was from the citrate they add to the saline (not sure why they add that).

After the plasma bag empties, they pump out another pint of blood, separate it out, and pump the plasma back in for round two. After it was all done, I was still a bit tingly but I didn't have to sit at the "Canteen" table since I hadn't really lost any fluid. I felt pretty good but decided not to go to Deb's Aerobic class that evening. Tonight though (Wednesday), I went to another aerobics class and basically couldn't keep up. I guess it will take a while to regenerate those cells and be back to full aerobic capacity.

Live from Ubuntu

No, I'm not in some foreign country. Ubuntu (oo-bun-too) is the name of a distrubution of the Linux operating system that I just installed on this laptop.

Back up. I've been using this third generation, hand-me-down laptop that was originally purchased for Kyle for his High School graduation present in preparation for heading to college (four and a half freekin' years ago!). After Kyle got his Macbook, this laptop went to Carly who used it until she got a Macbook for her graduation and then I inherited it. Sigh...

I've been using it downstairs to browse while watching TV or just lounging so that I'm not always sitting in the computer room (or for when Deb hogs the main machine). It's actually not bad for a Windows machine. Over the last couple of days however, I started getting virus warnings that the virus scanner was unable to fix. Who knows what all the kids had put on this thing so it's integrity was suspect anyway. So, I could re-install Windows or I could try Linux.

Linux is an open-source operating system that is built on a version of the Unix operating system which powers the big data center servers. Linux is supported by enthusiasts who contribute things to it to make it better and support all kinds of things. One problem with Unix (and therefore Linux) though is that it was designed for computer nerds and is really not suitable for the general public. For example, here's how you turn off the sound that plays when you login:

nftool-2 --set /desktop/gnome/sound/event_sounds --type bool false

Yeah, that ain't gonna play in Kansas.

So, various organizations have come up with packages to make Linux more friendly to the average user. Ubuntu is one such organization and is relatively popular so that's the one I chose. Ubuntu gives each version a different name. This one is Karmic Koala. Others have been Jaunty Jackalope, Hardy Heron, you get the idea. Way to take yourselves seriously guys...

Anyway, with the laptop still running Windows, I downloaded a CD image of the Ubuntu installation CD and burned it to a blank CD. Then I rebooted the laptop to boot from the CD and it went through the installation process - wiping Windows off the machine. No going back now...

It went through pretty quickly and in about a half an hour, I had a new system. Only problem was that the wireless network wouldn't work. Hmm. One kind of catch-22 with this stuff is that all the fixes and updates are basically only available over the internet so, in cases like this, in order to fix your internet connection, you have to have a working internet connection. Ruh-Roh.

It's not as bad as it seems though. Usually, the wired network connections will work so I took it upstairs, connected the cable from the router to the laptop and established a glorious, soul-saving, all-things-are-now-possible, connection to the web. Yeeh-Haw!

I then set about the process of figuring out how to make the wireless connection work so I could use this thing downstairs. With a bit of Googling and tweaking and fiddling, I was able to make the wireless card work again and got connected. I'm now downstairs, sitting on the couch, typing this post.

I've spent most of the morning (while the blizzard rages outside) trying to get the automatic updates running so that security patches and system upgrades can be downloaded and applied. I *think* I've got that working but it hasn't been fun.

Not really sure about the whole Linux thing overall though. Twenty years ago, all this tweaking and modifying would have been a lot of fun but now I just want things to work. Still, it's free and all I really need is a web browser and that's working so I can't really complain too much.

What I really need to do is turn this thing into a Hackintosh - a regular PC laptop running the Mac operating system. THAT would be cool!

First Snow

Last night was the "Uxbridge First Holiday Night" celebration/parade. The Community Chorus was slated to sing so Deb (and me for some reason) had to go down to the common at around 3:45 for the start at 4:00. The weather was terrible - a drizzly, cold rain so it wasn't very pleasant at first. About an hour into it however, the rain started turning to snow and it was kind of pretty. By the time Deb finished singing and Santa had gotten off the fire truck and lit the trees, we were both pretty cold. Despite the weather, we decided to head to the mall for some shopping.

By the time we got home, we had some pretty good accumulation and by the morning we had this!