Pretty good day - look for Randy Pausch's videos and story
Good morning … this is me. It’s been a while in getting here. I’ve been up since 4 am and it is now almost 7:30 am. Sheesh … you would think the path be straighter.
We had problems with our computer … she crashed a little and it took awhile to revive her. And, then I thought I’d calm down with a little music, and I found that my music devise had changed. It was Yahoo Jukebox, but now it is Rhapsody. I think they realize they get more money from me the more frequently they change. I’m not convinced they are a better service for being a new service. I turned on the songs “Like Sarah Brightman” and they threw in Tom Jones. YEEKS! What’s up with that? I have to keep it up just to bypass him when he does come up. It’s not often, but enough to make me wary.
Rich got up shortly after 6 am and showered soon after. He left about quarter to 7 am. He had to be ready to play the game at 8 am. Hmm, reminds me too that we haven’t taken our medicine. Seems to have been enough things to calm me down with some common sense – umm the meds. Shoot … I finally get here, and I have to go?
Ahem… I know, I know…
*Sigh* Still having computer problems. I’m back now from the medicine, but had to close down AOL because it had become frozen again while I was checking out a message on mybarackobama.com site. It’s really bogging down today and is very irritating.
Shoot, I restarted the AOL, but I’m having the same problems trying to switch sites on the Internet. It gives me the signal for (not responding). I think … yes, I know that. Please focus!
Eh, I’m going to ignore it maybe it will either correct itself, or go away. HMPF!
Hmm, I need to find myself some kind of groove here … Let’s see what we haven’t covered of the morning yet.
We got to the part that Rich has gone … he is going to be out the majority of the day. He’s got two baseball games this morning. It’s been a while since he’s done baseball. He’s been so tied up in this other job contract that he had to scale back. And, then after that … he’s going to come home and change, and then he’s going to be out the rest of the day on a wedding of one of his friend’s daughters.
He’s supposed to be going with another friend of his … these are two of his best three friends. I’m glad he’s around to support them like this. We’ll have to sit back and see how it goes … Always the bridesmaid and never the bride. That’s pretty much how I feel at being left behind so often from Rich’s adventures. But, I support him having a life independent of me too, so we have to take care of ourselves and the pity we raise being us. *Sigh*
That being said … let’s move on … well maybe not really on … need to say that Rich was out last night too. He had stuff up north, which included meeting up with his son. I didn’t hear any of that. We were in another not so good place when he got home. We had been preoccupied in doing some viewing of news on CNN.com so were absorbed. We followed Rich into the bedroom and we found ourselves massaging him again. Just that we were somewhere else. Rich suggested that we watch a little TV together, but then he was just cruising around vague channels, which wasn’t to my liking. I felt restless, because I didn’t like watching “stuff.” I would have rather been back at the computer or reading. But, then he wouldn’t be getting a massage, which is what he was looking for. I love my bunny friend. I don’t want to disappoint him.
I had been put off a bit too because someone decided to tell him that we’d picked up our old service with Netflix and we’d gotten a box to connect their automatic movies without leaving home. They’ve got about 10,000 movies to be automatically uploaded. I’m sure they aren’t all great, but we’re looking forward to choosing ourselves what we’re going to view if we’re going to be watching television. He didn’t like that we’d spent money again, and we didn’t like getting scolded for the same old thing. We told him that when we get our new TV and cable service that we were going to have real choices.
We ordered our first set of movies. I’m not sure what they all are, but one of them is the movie, Born Free. I hope it’s there by the time I get to work on Monday. I got it so that we could watch an “African” movie with the group. It’s only an hour and a half, so we should be ok. I hope the group likes it. Because that’s a long time to sit if they are going to be restless. I remember seeing it though when it first came up … looking at the dates now … it was released in 1966, so I would have only been 7 years old … pretty amazing memory of it then. I haven’t seen it since, but still remember being taken in by it. In that respect, I think it will be simple enough for the group to enjoy.
I think one of the movies was on Marines, and I have no idea of the other … maybe one of the cartoon movies? We got some time travel for Rich in the Queue and a variety of other things including some action pictures. But, maybe tomorrow we can have Rich look around so that he can pick out something he might really enjoy. We got the subscription for about $18 where we can have up to 3 movies out at a time.
When we finish seeing a movie, we mail it back and then they send us another. Plus, again we’ve got those 10,000 instant movies to watch. What a blessing that will be. I have thoughts of watching instead of reading and so forth, but I have to admit, I like the graphic stimulation of movies and news videos.
I’m not sure if I mentioned that before, but we’ve taken to playing the TV on our phone on the way back and forth to work. For the most part we only look down at it while waiting at lights and such, but we take quick peeks too. I haven’t ran into any problems with it so far and it makes the trip that much more worthwhile. We’re listening to CNN Mobile. I don’t know and I’ve questioned my usage patterns as in … what is wrong with listening to news on the radio. I’m not sure why that doesn’t fly with me, maybe it’s just the novelty. I’m not sure, or again I like the visual stimulation. That’s not a bad thing.
Hmm, just got out some Lasagna pasta from Chef Boyardee. I’m really way too much into can stuff. But, it’s a remnant of our childhood. I remember when we were 10 years old for our birthday, my father got us a whole case of spaghetti from Franco-American. I thought it was one of the best birthday gifts ever. I’m like addicted to anything with tomato sauce. I’m afraid though, because Rich is noticing our heavy usage patterns and is thinking we are eating too much of it. I’m worried because I think he’s going to stop buying it then. That be disappointing to us, though we’d be probably eating more healthy.
Hmm, just ate about ¼ can better slow down. I would like to think this is going to stay in my tummy. We put it aside now.
Ok, ok … did we get last night down yet? Hmm, we should say one thing … after we got scolded we pretty much disappeared, we stopped talking and then after Rich teased us back by pulling out younger parts, we got really whiny. You should understand us here when I say whiny … I mean like irritatingly scraping fingernails across the board. Our part complains about everything like not being tired or wanting to go to bed. Poor Rich is wonderful with us. He helps us through our tiredness and coaxes us gently to bed. I can know this is happening, but when we’re in it … we can’t get out of it. I don’t know how all that works. I can hear us trying to discipline ourselves … just listen to him we think to ourselves. Don’t be argumentative – let him put you to bed. It will be ok. I don’t know why it is so hard to get us to bed, but that fact remains, so we’ve nothing to do, but watch it and continue to try figuring out how it works, and if we can break some of the spell. Most nights we go to bed as a younger part when Rich is here, but only sometimes when we’re on our own.
Rich said that we should figure out what we would like to do tomorrow. I know he is going to wake up and want to do things like laundry and picking up. We might think of doing a little bit of that today so as not to waste too much of his time. I know it’s been a while since there was any vacuuming or floor washing. But, I hate to spend my only time with him doing domestics. Part of that again is getting complainy younger parts out. I think that our older parts rebel too in that they don’t want any part of cleaning. This is not such a good thing. We’ve got to be more responsible. Just regret being told to do this or that, when our heart is aching to get back to the writing. Even now we can hardly type fast enough to keep our minds content.
We stopped by Marineparents.com this morning. We just wrote a short entry. There are a few things going on like one of our members had a small heart attack. That worries me a lot. I think that this person is one of the really good ones who worries over things he doesn’t have any control over. I know that he is poor and living out of a motel right now living paycheck to paycheck. His son calls at odd hours of the day to complain about his life, and that leaves this father worrying in excess. I think he tries very hard to be an ideal provider and he’s the type of guy that would give you the shirt off his back. So, we’re sending out extra prayers to him and his family.
I try most often to keep that world a little more private, but sometimes something will bleed over. It’s really a good group as a whole. I think many though have pulled back. There just isn’t as much going on – and there is only one conversation at a time where before there was many threads to respond too. I don’t know if people just stopped coming as their sons moved on, or if they are just reading and hanging back. I know of a few for sure doing that, but I’m not positive of the whole. I think that was one of the draws for me before – was the sense of holding a very big group together. I’m sure they could have done it without me, but I enjoyed my role.
I think then … this and more gets me past where we were last night. Maybe not in too much length … we should do a brief update of how the day went yesterday, and then I’d like to be more forecasting of our thoughts now and toward planning. It’s been awhile since we’ve done that. Hmm, yesterday morning … we started with the Leadership group. There were just a few people at first … so we waited going into the room to lead until 8:30 am, when there was more of a crowd. The room was very full in the end yesterday. All nine clients were in. There’s really not enough room for all of them – it’s a small room, but we make do and there is a lot of switching chairs trying to get everyone toward the computers where they want to be.
We did an evaluation or summary of the day when we first got in there. And, then we went into some material from Jane Goodall and her research into chimps – in Africa our theme for now. We had some good pictures from the National Geographic. The group has a harder time in listening and in discussing things that have to do with others. They are very self-inflicted. I’d like to do more to change that and I don’t know how other than to keep presenting them with news from outside their world. I’d like them to be more interested in their world, culture, and environment.
After that we worked for a half hour on goals, which was to become the theme of the day. I really wanted to get some of them in. At 10 am, we switched over to food preparation. We were going to try a light snack from Africa. It was made of flour, oil, sugar, salt, and chili pepper (cayenne). The group was optimistic, but the food didn’t really turn out good. It didn’t hold together well, so was impossible to snip. The frying pan didn’t really work well and I couldn’t get enough oil on the pan to fry it proper. The group tried it and tried to make the best of it, but it was dry and overly flour-ery. Two of the group took extras around to the other groups to try, and then the balance of what wasn’t eaten went over the fence out back for the birds to eat. I felt bad though … after it had been done … one of the group reminded us that it would probably draw the attention of the city’s BIGGG RATS! ACK! Why don’t I think of this sort of stuff before it happens?
After that we went outside for a little bit and then finished the time looking at a book sister had put together on the year in pictures and comments. It was sitting on the staff table for anyone to look through. They enjoyed seeing themselves in so many pictures.
We still had a lot of goals to get through so I told Holly I would continue to take people until I had to stop and plan the Thinking Group at 1 pm. Holly this time must have felt guilty, because she too took people for goals. There is only really one more person to go … and he’ll be back on Monday. Maybe I will take him during the movie if that comes in. Let’s hope for the best. And, then I will want to get started on it again earlier this time to get everyone in. I don’t want poor Sue to be startled if she comes back. I do pretty well with goals as long as I can get toward it, but I’m not real good planning for other things for the group to be doing while we’re doing goals. It really cut into our time to be doing anything else.
But, of course, 1 ½ hours of cooking can really take a bite out of your schedule too.
Ok, good … fine … just keeping track of us. We’re moving on.
We had Thinking group yesterday. I can’t say I was real pleased with the results.
The group seemed to be going good and I was exceptionally happy to be as limber as we were. We spent almost the entire time up on our feet and moving from one spot to another. We felt much lighter than we have in any time near present.
We did a group on looking at individual’s characteristics toward volunteer work. We had about 20 questions or statements, such as, “I can get along with people who are different from me,” or “I am good at communicating.” They did the X’s on a table.
Although the group has done this many times in the past … there was a void in honesty I believe. Mostly, just because the vast majority … other than 4 clients filled in the paper in all positive terms … they did everything right. That didn’t serve any purpose other than it got them to think through things. I chastised them a bit … gently of course, but I said you all are marking it down like this … X X X X X X all in one long straight line. Does this mean you are all perfect? They responded, “YES!” ACK!
Hard one to deal with, but believe me I’ll come up with a way to do it soon. Maybe we’re going to have to do an exercise in just charting tables or graphs where they NEED to fill in other columns, but the “just positive one.” I’ll have to think that through. Maybe when we get a bit stronger, because it’s going to take some walking around making sure everyone does as they are supposed to. Maybe have something like, “I agree I look like a gorilla,” or “I disagree Ms. Holly isn’t green,” agree and disagree of course being in two separate columns – where they can’t put everything going down a straight line – it should cause them to listen more carefully.
Hmm, that should solve that problem or at least give light to it. I also have to come up with a way of getting them to think of themselves in degrees of “good and not good.” Not sure how to do that one yet. A lot of this group has trouble thinking of things in the negative, especially about themselves. They think they do everything right and are really surprised to find differently. I think Sr. Theresa really had a lot to say about that in that … she was very crabby yesterday and verbally reprimanded everyone she came into contact with. That never helps. We talked to Rich a little bit after the group while we were up front checking on Sr. Florine’s chrononotes. Other than that … we tried to clean up our desk area a little and we finished our own chrononotes.
Hmm, we’re still bogging down. I have delayed reaction to the typing. That’s pretty irritating. I usually like to see my words progressing on the screen. It helps to cut down on the errors too. I’ve turned off everything, but the post and the music and American Online. I’m trying to turn off American Online now too just to see if that’s the problem … next option is to turn off the music. Hmm, seems to be better all ready. Let’s type a bit and see how it goes. Maybe I’m going to need doing Internet Explorer at home like I do at work now. AOL is a pain in the rump sometimes. Seems to have been the problem. Everything is good now. Ok, now let’s try IE to see if it’s the Comcast Internet connection or AOL. The music is on-line and that’s not causing a problem though. It could be my computer too. OR, the new speed feature I tried to put on-line … not sure if that was a good decision, but I’m going to wait until the new TV comes out and the Neflix get’s hooked up … we’ll also have a Comcast guy come out and put on new cable. If it doesn’t straighten itself out by then … we’re going to scrap the speed costs. Because as we say … just not sure why she’s bogging down.
Hmm IE is slow to load too. Hmm, might be the computer, because it took “my computer” a while to load too. It says it’s 77% capacity … might want to clean up the computer – frag it today.
Oh MAN! I’m really frustrated now. One of my neighbors came up and knocked on the door to say that my car had just been hit. He had the driver’s license and make of the car. I think that his wife had seen it. They knew the color and which way the car had headed. I went down and took a look at my car WHICH IS SITTING IN ITS OWN APARTMENT PARKING LOT. It wasn’t dented in as much as it was scratched/scraped up on a space of about 1’ x 1 ½’. It is going to need being touched up. We gave the police officer we called the information, pointed him to the neighbor’s apartment who’d seen it, and we gave him our insurance information.
The police officer said there was already police looking for the car. I looked out the window a minute ago and there was already a second police car out there. He’s still out there. I don’t know if the first police is still talking to the downstairs person. I suppose that I should get a picture too. Next time down – I’ll get a picture with my phone camera. If it’s not clear, I will get another with the real camera. Man … it’s just frustrating. The police officer said they would find the car and they’d issue some tickets and connect the insurance people. I said it wasn’t a lot of damage, but its still going to need being fixed. I asked … This is a hit and run then, isn’t it? He said yes and there would be some tickets issued. We know it wasn’t anyone who had lived in the apartment next door. I think the officer’s name was Hahn. But, I have a very bad memory. I can’t believe how glad I am to have the other person’s memory having seen this. Man … she got license AND make of car. That was quick! I’m really very thankful.
Hmm, just had a reality check – I made a couple of calls. I didn’t get a hold of anyone, but I left a few messages.
Ahh, we’ve made some kind of progress. We got a hold of my sister … we’ve been meaning to do that longer than I want to admit.
SPEND SOME TIME WITH THIS GUY - HE'S TREMENDOUS. ESPECIALLY LOOK FOR HIS VIDEO LECTURE ON "THE LAST LECTURE" AND "TIME MANAGEMENT." HE WAS A PROFESSOR AT CARNAGIE MELLON WHO DIED JULY 25TH 2008
http://news.aol.com/article/man-behind-last-lecture-sensation-dies/100948
http://download.srv.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/shortsummary.html
http://www.cmu.edu/index.shtml
http://download.srv.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/Randy/oldRandyPage.html
http://download.srv.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/
http://www.cmu.edu/randyslecture/
http://download.srv.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/news/index.html
posted by Ann Marie @ 7/27/2008 06:00:00 AM
Comments: 1
