The best.
This week was a bit of a whirlwind. It started with Maggie going to Philly with Carrie (I stayed home with Clara, who was sick) to see Dr. Storm at CHOP (www.chop.edu) about her head. That turned in to a lumbar puncture, which turned into surgery on her brain to install a shunt.
The surgery process started yesterday at about 12:45. Maggie hadn't eaten anything all day. She went in to surgery at about 3 and was done in an hour and a half.
We first saw her in the PICU, and she was sleeping. There was a small incision on her abdomen and another on her head. The surgeon did such a good job that he hardly shaved any hair and there will be minimal scarring. Which gets me to the point of this post.
Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia is the best hospital I have ever been to. Ever. Period. From the moment we walked in the door, we always knew what was going on, were always met by smiling faces, and were set at ease immediately. Everything about this place is amazing. We were never alone in the icu, and had really great nurses.
It goes to show you that quality care does exist. It is alive and well and confined within the walls of a teaching hospital in downtown Philadelphia, PA.
And in the off chance that maggie's nurse, Mary Jo, ever reads this, you are truly appreciated by Maggie, Carrie and I. You picked the right carreer. Thank you.
Getting older… and lighter in the wallet.
I messed up my back this weekend. I tried to pick up Maggie and the next thing I know, I'm laying in the middle of the street and I can't stand up straight. Sucks. But what's worse is that today I went to see my doctor. The same doc I've seen for 15 years. But now they tell me (after my appointment) that he's a specialist now, so my co-pay is higher. Nice. So I saw a pulmonary specialist about my back, and that'll be $35. Want to know the real kicker?
Wait for it..
I didn't even see him, I saw his PA. So I paid more to see a specialist's assistant in a field that isn't his specialty. I think our health care system is on the right track, don't you??
Another must see.
Tonight was a great night. It started with a great meal at Alto with Carrie. After that Carrie gave me the night off and I went to see Ironman with some friends. I recommend this one. It had good action, funny dialog, and lots of explosions. All the makings of a good guy flick. As Rey put it so eloquently, run, don't walk.
Great technologies should be shared.
I just recently decided to look into a new GTD (Getting Things Done) solution for myself. I want a tool that I can use on both my Macbook Pros, and and my iPhone. Ideally, they should be able to sync with each other. Bonus points if the iPhone syncs wirelessly.
Anyway, I'm looking at two great looking products. The first is OmniFocus. This is a really nice looking product. Very complete, with tons of features and a lot of flexibility in how you GTD. Based on OmniOutliner, which is also a very well designed tool.
The second is called Things. The nice thing about this product is that it is really well designed. The folks at Cultured Code definitely put a lot of thought into this great app. It looks great, it has nice features and even though it's slightly more limited than OmniFocus, it's still extremely usable.
The one thing that's not included (yet) in Things is syncing. I'm hoping that this is done soon, but in the mean time, I heard about a great technology that makes syncing Things between Macs a snap. It's called Dropbox.
This is very similar to .mac, however it syncs on the fly, instantly. So you have a folder called your Dropbox, and every time you copy a file to it, it automatically syncs it to the Dropbox servers. Then you can access your files from any machine (Mac or PC) or even via a web interface. Public files can even be accessed through a web link by anyone.
This is really great technology, but unfortunately it's not quite ready for prime time yet. It's still in beta and if you want to get a look at it, you need an invitation. I was lucky enough to get an invite from Eric Belanger, and now I have 10 invitations that I can pass on. So if you want to take a look at Dropbox, post a comment here. I'll send invites to the first 10 to ask.
I'll give my take on GTD apps next time.
Forget about Blockbuster and Netflix… what’s in the RedBox.
Last week Carrie and Clara were sick, so Carrie's parents came and took Maggie for a few days. It was tough, we've never been away from Maggie before. We got over it quickly though... it was like a vacation! The house was so quiet! So we rented a movie for the first time in months! We rented No Reservations, which was cute, and the new Die Hard movie.. which I liked 
.
What we rented and the fact that we rented is not the point. What was cool was where we rented. We went to the Redbox.
For those not in the know, Redbox is this new thing that keeps popping up in grocery stores and places like McDonalds. We have 3 of them here in State College, so as far as I'm concerned, they're everywhere. But all you do is go there, swipe a credit card and get a movie. Easy. What makes it better is that you can go online and see what's in the box and check it out. Then you just go there, swipe the card and it spits it out at you.
And it's cheap too, a buck a day. Return it by nine pm or you pay another buck. Blockbuster no longer has a return by date... so they can charge you more. I don't need it for two months, or two weeks even. Sometimes I want to rent a movie and watch it. Boom. One dollar. Nice.
So check it out, it a good thing. Check out what's in the box.