I'm still here

No blog posts in a while. You might say I took a vacation from blogging. That's true, but it's about the only thing I took a vacation from. I've pretty much been as busy during break as when school is in session (at least the less hectic weeks of school).

New Year's eve

We went to Des Moines for the day on New Year's eve. Linda was against it, because we'd already seen everyone at Thanksgiving and traveling is a pain. But we went anyway.

Traveling was a pain. Most of it is OK, except stopping to go to the bathroom. We're always stiff after sitting in the car, and accommodations vary in terms of convenience. People don't go out of their way to make things easier, like the woman at McDonald's who grabbed the only handicap-accessible bathroom stall even though she saw Linda walking to the door. I hope she gets boils on her ass.

Ellie enjoyed playing with her cousin Gwyn. They are almost the same age, and, being 4, the quality of play can be good or bad. But this time it was good. Ellie didn't want to go home. She suggested that I take Linda home first and then come back and get her. It would have been a very reasonable suggestion if we hadn't been so far from home.

The turbine in Violette hall

Room 2220 in Violette sounds like it has heavy machinery in it. It is the new computer that Math and CS ordered. When I turned it on for the first time, it reminded my strongly of a Hoover. I had it in my office for a couple of days while it was being set up, and two different people called me at home to say that something might be wrong in there. I feel bad for my student worker who will work in that office.

The server came on Thursday, and I've worked really hard to get things running perfectly on it. I wanted to have it ready before classes start. It was originally scheduled to arrive when I still had the help of students, but it was delayed. I felt much better after Tuesday when I had it all running smoothly.

The auto-what?

Linda and I went to Rusk yesterday so she could be evaluated to use the autoambulator. That's a big sort of exoskeleton that attaches to your legs and moves them in a natural walking motion across a treadmill. Linda had tried it when she was still at Rusk as an inpatient. At the time, she didn't feel like she was far enough along for it to be as helpful as other things.

Now that she's stronger, it seems like a more reasonable therapy. So we'll be making the drive to Columbia once a week to do it.

As always, it was nice to see the nurses and therapists that we know. Linda remarked that it is much easier pushing a wheelchair around than she remembers (we used her chair so she wouldn't be tired out before she did her eval).

In the eval, the therapist asked Linda what kind of equipment she uses at home. He was astounded to learn that she has her own set of parallel bars. Our girl takes her rehabilitation seriously.

The eval went pretty well, I think. In many ways, it was just to set a baseline. If you measure improvement after doing the therapy, that justifies during more if you think it would continue to help.

It was also useful to be evaluated by a different person, because they ask you to do unusual things. Some of them were easy for Linda, but a few were hard and she has new ideas for practice.

Last big project

I completed my last big winter break project. I updated the software in our classroom computers with the help of one of the members of ITS. I had it very streamlined, but there are inevitable glitches, so it still took a while. It was good to get around in the classrooms, because we discovered several that had non-working equipment in them. I do a lot of my work via the network, so those kinds of issues aren't always apparent.

It was tiring work. Tomorrow I think I'm going to do something that doesn't require being in the office.