I am glad that Dottie is feeling better. I hope th…

Susan - Dec 1, 2007

I am glad that Dottie is feeling better. I hope that she keeps up her spirit and her strength as she starts treatment. If you need anything just call.

E! Article

New Line, meanwhile, was the woozy-feeling patient after its would-be franchise starter The Golden Compass (third place, $9 million) fell off a cliff, down 65 percent from a disappointing debut weekend.

So far, the $180 million fantasy film is the unwanted fruitcake of the holiday season, having taken in just $41 million overall. (It has performed stronger overseas; so, perhaps any sequels could be made expressly for Slovakia, et al.)

Sweet finish, dude.

Jeff Roberts - Dec 2, 2007

Sweet finish, dude.

Yes, it’s that good.

Just finished watching the Odyssey-in-a-Microbus, Little Miss Sunshine. It’s the type of movie my wife hates, but which I love, where all the characters are shades of gray. They’re intensely real, and flawed, and they love and hate one another. Yet they’re bound together by bonds that bring them together when it counts–death, adversity, and the bald insanity of life.

Steve Carell is a revelation as Frank Hoover, the frustrated homosexual academic who we meet in a hospital fresh off his failed suicide attempt. Out of work, without insurance, he’s kicked out of the pysch ward to the care of his overwrought sister, Sheryl. We meet her blended family next: Her husband Richard the self-help guru, the vow-of-silence goth teen Dwayne, the heroin-snorting profane Grandpa, and the little ingenue Olive.

Hey, everyone you know won’t hate Little Miss Suns…

BryanCombs - Dec 3, 2007

Hey, everyone you know won’t hate Little Miss Sunshine. I love it. It’s actually my favorite film from 2006. (Right ahead of The Departed and Borat) Dixie loves it too.

Happily, Mom didn’t have chemo on Friday.

Her oncologist looked at the results of her PET scan and said the surgeon was full of it.

She doesn’t have ASC, she has CCC, Cholangiocarcinoma, a cancer of the bile duct that is fairly rare (1-2 cases / 100,000 ppl), but which is curable through surgery. Mom had surgery, and there’s no evidence the cancer had spread through her lymphatic system.

The short answer: Prognosis is much better than with ASC. Surgical resection allows for a cure, and follow-up radiation shows good results. Mom’s scheduled intensive, local radiation 5 days a week for the next 5 weeks, and an oral chemotherapy tablet after that. Her hair probably won’t fall out.

Praise God, what great news!

Jeff Roberts - Dec 1, 2007

Praise God, what great news!

CompUSA to close all its stores

Meh. I’ll just have to go to Louisville to lust after Macs, I guess.

Bummer…only went there rarely but I’ll have to f…

Jeff Roberts - Dec 1, 2007

Bummer…only went there rarely but I’ll have to find a new source for the one or two things I used to get there. Pay to UPS a UPS? I don’t think so.

Yesterday was pretty tough–I was up at 4:30, at work by 6, and home by 2:45 to watch the kids (4 kids now–our two and two from Whitney’s BFF Sarah). While firehosing me with all the TODOs (change this, change that, sippy cup, etc.), Whitney mentioned, “Oh, and a guy from Kirby should be here from 3 to 5 to clean the carpets and shampoo the carpets for free.”

Thanks everyone for your thoughts and prayers as I’ve shared about Mom’s sickness. I’ve not posted more, out of deference to her, and simply because we didn’t know much.

Mom had surgery on Halloween, but didn’t get any follow-up on pathology results until 2 weeks later, November 16th. That day, we went into the Transplant Clinic at UK Hospital (!) to get some results. I won’t go into it fully here, but it’s a rare hybrid of two cancers of the liver itself. They said to set-up an appointment with Oncologists as soon as she felt better.

Glad to hear Markey’s on the case and being agress…

Jeff Roberts - Dec 4, 2007

Glad to hear Markey’s on the case and being agressive. We’ll keep her and you guys in our prayers.

I’ve been with Firefox ( originally Phoenix, then Firebird, forked to IceWeasel) for years now. Yes, it was the chip off the old block (Son of Mozilla, rise!), and it was build upon Good Code©, and it bore no hint of That evil corporation that won the browser war by not playing fair

It was the best parts of mozilla, with none of the bloat of the suite (that email program that no one used)

If you ask a student out of college or technical school how software is developed, he’ll say the software development lifecycle (SDLC) is something like:

2. Gather requirements for a new system

3. Design the new system’s inputs, outputs, screens, etc.

4. Develop the system

5. Test the system

6. Deliver the system to the customer

7. Maintain the system

If you’re *really lucky* he’s read enough slashdot to know, it’s more of a spiral or iterative approach–less initial work, more testing, earlier customer involvement.

I think you’re right (and I live in the same world…

DavidJarvis - Dec 3, 2007

I think you’re right (and I live in the same world). One question is, how are companies like Microsoft making this sort of thing work? (I guess that presumes you accept that they are, as I do.) How do you “ride the nerd” to success and avoid the bloated remnant product? (Sort of like a lot of TV shows’s second season …)

So, on the 16th, I sat with my Mom at the Transplant clinic of the UK hospital to get the lowdown on her cancer. The room was on the 4th floor, off the ‘B’ elevators, and the atmosphere was grim. The people here had been or would be very sick, and most had a thousand yard stare, wishing they or their loved-one was anywhere but in that waiting room.

Except, that is, for my Uncle Dan.

Funny story. I’m praying for your mom. Your Uncl…

Tabitha - Nov 1, 2007

Funny story. I’m praying for your mom. Your Uncle Dan sounds like a good guy to have in a somber place like that. Take care.

Keeping you all in our thoughts & prayers.

Watched several movies over the past few days (Thank you, Netflix). Some thoughts on them:

Constantine: Creepy, dark film about a man blessed/cursed to see the interplay between angels and demons in our world. I really liked it, especially for its vivid portrayal of Hell.

The Muppet Show: Wow, this doesn’t age well. It’s about as interesting to the modern eye as the 70’s variety shows upon which it’s based. Plus, without “Pigs…in…space.” Bah!

Movies I’ve seen lately…

1. Perfect Strangers… DavidJarvis - Dec 3, 2007

Movies I’ve seen lately…
1. Perfect Strangers. A good friend recommend this. I told him afterwards he is no longer allowed to recommend movies to me. Ever. This movie leaves you with the same feeling you might get after finding someone had barfed in your food. After you ate it.
2. Bertie and Elizabeth. Interesting and sympathetic look at the lesser-known brother of Edward VI (and a very unsympathetic look at the woman he dumped the crown for)
3. Beowulf. Some are panning this because it doesn’t follow the original story exactly. Actually it does fairly closely but adds some unifying elements that I thought worked rather well. I liked it a lot, but adaptations don’t have to be authoritative versions for me to enjoy them; I guess I’m not a purist.
4. How Green Was My Valley. Sappy but touching.

So, I’m trying to print something to our color printer. I go to our internet site to download a driver, then I find that the site is dog slow. So, I thought I’d report it to our IT operations.

IT Guy: Hello my name is ____. How can I assist you?

Me: The driver download site is very slow.

IT Guy: Let me check. (pause) No it’s not.

Me: Umm…I’ve tried this three times and wasted 20 minutes of my life trying to print something.