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This is right in San Diego. Now, San Diego is huge, but this is in the middle of a populated area, near where my father used to work. Photo from the Union-Tribune. I thought it was strange that my iChat buddy list was so low lately. I’ve called cellphones but have had trouble getting through. I hope you guys are all ok. I bet Scott’s working overtime.

Update: I hear he’s been working since Sunday morning. It is now Monday evening. He doesn’t expect to go home any time soon.

Hey. We got a house. Not to own, of course, but to rent.

I got 96 at level 6. What did you get?

Yeah so working hard and having not much else happen in the world has kept Alternate pretty slow.

Although, the other day I halfway had lunch with an old boss/friend of mine who sent me to his site to check out some of his video he’d been taking all around the world since selling his half of the company I used to work for. My favorite is the one on top, Tokyo Trains. It’s a little long, but watch it like you were watching Koyaanisqatsi, as I’m pretty sure that was the inspirtaion. Very sure, actually. Hopefully, you’ll just watch the patterns and the movement instead of wondering why you’re watching Japanese people getting on and off of trains.

Did you know that HyperCard is still sold by Apple? HyperCard! Christ. I was trying to explain it to my brother the other day; he’d never even heard of it. How about you? Did you go to a computer/math/science magnet junior high school too? Did you use HyperCard to create interactive games based on *cough*Dragonlance*cough* ? Sigh. Apparently now, HyperCard can use embedded QuickTime movies and can be exported to the web. And can have color. Them’s the upgrades. I used this thing like maybe 11 years ago and that’s all that’s new. It’s version 2.4.1. The page on Apple’s 2003 website suggests hosting it on WebStar, an OS 9 webserver.

This all comes because John Sculley thinks HyperCard should have been used better by Apple. Gee. Ya don’t say. It was great technology for the time, if they’d just given it network ability it may have lasted longer. Yet another thing Apple did right before anyone else. And then figured wasn’t that important. Can you say Newton?

I spent this past weekend over 10,000 ft.

Photos of the excursion are here.

At the risk of turning into the annoying weblogger our taglines make fun of, I’ve started my own blog. The thing is though, I’m not sure I’m going to keep it. I don’t want to take away steam from Alternate, but I also don’t feel it’s really the place to spout off my most annoying inane personal daily details, which people have actually asked that I do.

My idea is to keep Alternate the same tech-y, witty (right!) place it has been, but to just augment my daily ramblings with another log that looks exactly the same (almost) that tells you what I had for breakfast today.

Thoughts? Care one way or the other? Am I already turning into the average LiveJournal writer simply by bringing it up?

A few days ago, before he was released.

I’d like to thank all of you who commented (and even those that didn’t), and I’m happy to report that all four of us will be at home tonight.

My son was released at 11:30am today and we were instructed to drive directly over the the Barbara Davis Center here in Denver. Today we learned how to take his blood sugar reading and how to admister Insulin shots. He will get 4 readings a day and 2 shots, which will be a mixture of 2 different kinds of Insulin.

He is happy, moving around, and (what I have been told is very lucky considering his condition Sunday night) shows no signs of other permanent damage (vision, kindey, etc).

We had had fears recently about his health, the possibility of Diabetes in particular, but when you’re a self-employed person who happens to make more that $34k a year, your insurance options are slim and expensive. My wife had been hoping to get a CNA job this week so that we could get insured so that we could get him tested before he got too sick. Our fear was that if he got diagnosed prior to having insurance coverage, any coverage in the future would include existing condition clauses and refuse to cover his illness. The entire time he was in the hospital, I wondered how much it would cost. I would then remind myself that not taking him would have cost him his life, which puts things into perspective. He’s worth every penny and he’s a very brave little boy to have gone through the things he went through.

Anyway, just wanted to let you all know that he’s safe and sound with us now, minus a few sticks in the finger and pokes in the arm a few times a day. He’s very apprehensive about these, as you’d expect a 5-year old to be who just spent 2 days in the hospital and was closer to death than I’d even like to consider.

You’d expect me to be scared and worried about this situation, but for some reason I’m not. The bill will get taken care of somehow, and my son is alive and I look forward to him turning back into the great little kid he was before he started showing signs of the disease we know now he has. Our worry and concern and fear has turned into action, responsibility and knowledge. This feels better than I’d ever known it could.

I’m only home very quickly between hospital trips right now, but since a lot of my close friends read Alternate, I thought I’d post a quick note about my night last night.

At around 4pm, my son began throwing up and acting sick. We took care of him and tried to make him comfortable. Around midnight, he couldn’t keep fluids down and couldn’t control his breathing. By 2AM his skin started turning gray and his lips blue and he still was not calming down.

My wife took him to the hospital and reported that his blood-sugar levels were in the 450 range. Normal for a boy his age is 80-150. I arrived around 3:30AM. He was quickly diagnosed with Diabetes and insulin was administered. They couldn’t get it into a vein as he was too dehydrated so they had to give it to him in a bone in his leg.

He is currently at Children’s Hospital in Denver, his glucose is almost normal and his color and condition have greatly improved. He will be fine, but he’ll be in the hospital at least until tomorrow, directly after his release, we’ll be attending 2 days worth of classes on how to admister insulin and take care of a child with Diabetes.

Your prayers and thoughts are greatly appreciated.