Whoa. The new year looks a whole lot happier through a haze of Pot and Tequilla Shooters! Dude.
Or so I've been told, because that is NOT what's going on with us! This year we're in watching a video and hanging out with our little broken legged boy. We wish you all a Happy and Healthier New Year!
Joi reports on Kevin's new edition. Awesome. Good luck all.
Welcome to our world Esther Ann Werbach
Welcome to our world Esther. Sorry it's not in very good share. Hope to get around to fixing it up a bit more before we pass it on to you.
Congratulations Kevin!
Our family was in the ER on Christmas day.
Let me be more specific. My over-anxious 2-year-old
was so excited to try to get the doorbell when it rang
that he pushed my wife aside on the stairs, tripped
her and she fell and broke his leg.
Ouch. Ouch is right. It was awful.
This was not the middle of the night -it was 4pm. More
awful - waiting 30 plus minutes for an ambulence from
the next township since our town's was busy.
Then, having to go to a different hospital than our
usual one where our doctors have "rights" (acutually a
closer hospital but in NY state not NJ) because the NJ
one was full.
Then, having to wait an hour for the X-ray tech to get
to the hospital, waiting 45 min more for the doctor to
come in, waiting for surgical staff to come in. He
didn't get an X-ray for over an hour from arrival (and
the ER was basically empty), and he didn't get pain
meds and casted for 2 or so more hours.
Our son is currently in a cast from mid-ribcage to
toes on his right leg, and to just above the knee on
the left, with a bar inbetween the legs to make sure
the left one doesn't hit the right one and knock it
out of alignment. For the next 6 weeks, or as we like
to say, 40 days and 40 nights, an active 2 year old is
basically immobile from the midsection down. Hence our
desire to stay over and learn how to help him.
We stayed over (and the staff was really nice getting
us Cots, etc) but then he couldn't be 'released' until
the doctor called. My son wanted to leave, we wanted
to go, at around 8am.
The doctor was in surgery all AM at another hospital
(and he had TOLD our hospital staff this last night).
He said he wouldn't be able to call and that they
would find an attending. They didn't.
The staff also wasn't that knowledgeable about how to
handle this bundle of cast with a child inside - we
all figured it out together.
Finally, the doctor's call was basically - he has no
fever, he has a good pulse, send him home. This
happened around noon. So, we had sat and waited for a
minor check-in call for info that any General
Practitioner could have done in person in 2 minutes.
The hospital or they system was, IMHO, more afraid of
the liability of sending him home than of doing what
he wanted and sending him out.
I realize, even in my annoyance of waiting that there
are many places in the world where he would have
received not a fraction of this care. That's not the
discussion here.Our doctors and staff were of very high quality.
The amount of time and waiting for
care, and the stupid rules that kept us there,
exhausted (they woke our boy up every hour to take his
temp, of course) are what I'm a bit pissed off about.
There's more, but I'm exhausted.
Later. We'll be here. At home. For 6 weeks....
MoveOn's set of commercials against the President have spawned some really nasty ones. Seriously.{registration may be required}
Well, stuff has just been piling up here. For years, I guess. I finally had to throw out a few items, which made me think of a few folks.
A shout out and happy holidays to Tom Hammer, who I managed to see recently in CA. I had to dump some original NetObjects documentation, as well as Danny Goodman's Hypercard Handbook and some other Hypercard and apple-related stuff. Even if I ended up somehow going back to the Mac, I don't think a lot of the system 6-era stuff I have is going to help...
A shout-out to all my old WWWAC friends - found some old stuff including the certificate of appreciation for being a founder of the group. Good times.
Hey Dave Winer, I found some Userland Frontier sdk disks marked 1991. And a button from an old MacWorld Expo, with the "mean ThinkTank guy" on it. Remember those old ads?
I finally dumped some of my masters degree notebooks from the ITP program.
There's still more to dump. See you later. Happy holidays!
...Frosty The Snowman. None of these characters are visiting my house. However, last night there was a Tooth Fairy sighting! Brooke lost her first tooth! Quite exciting!
It seems that NYNMA as an entity is dead. From their site:
The SIIA which had bailed out NYNMA around two years ago has basically absorbed it and made it SIIA New York.
Having been a board member of the organization, I feel a certain sadness about this. There was an opportunity to turn the group around after the SIIA reorg and create new programs to reach new audiences. However, that opportunity was squandered due to, in my opinion, lack of good management, good marketing and lack of investment in the old, but loyal member base. Even when I resigned and joined NYSIA, I was willing to help NYNMA, but there wasn't really a person in the organization to listen to the offer. The last few years the group was understaffed and under resourced. There's more to say, but I don't want to turn this into a personal attack. It is sad when something you worked on for a while dies, but, after all we've been through in the Dot Com Era, such things sting less and are less surprising.
Good luck and good bye.
Update: See Greg Elin's moving post.
Got to see the Broadway show Hairspray this weekend, and went backstage to meet see the cast, including the famous Harvey Firestein. My friend Larry Aronson obtained the tickets and was our gracious guide via his friend in the cast. I highly recommend the show! Great fun and energy.
Larry is of note for being the author of the first book on HTML - I guess I've known him for around 10 years now!
Also joining us was the fabulous Courtney Pulitzer, looking more wonderful than ever. It is rare that I use "fabulous" to describe anyone, but Courtney rates it. Thanks for a fun night.
Joi writes:
So far so good...I haven't had a drink since I quit drinking. It may just be the novelty, but I'm enjoying myself greatly. [via Joi Ito's Web]
I enjoyed meeting Joi this weekend and I'm sure he can do about anything he puts his mind to. Though he may need an IRC channel, two or three mobile devices, a powerbook and wifi.... :-) Good luck.
So I'm in this Starbucks under the NYU space at the Woolworth Building. I could use the T-Mobile service, but the fine folks of the New York Downtown Alliance provide Free Wifi in City Hall Park. But, as they say, the weather outside is frightful. So I'm inside sipping latte and packets, albiet having to sit by the window next to the door to get the signal from across the street. Everytime the door opens, it is quite chilly. The things we do for bandwidth...
I enjoyed meeting Dana this weekend, and am now enjoying her blog(s). Here's one to ponder....
social networking overload I read this article about social networking entering the enterprise and i couldn't help but hold my head in dismay....Social networks are harder to tease apart because it's the framework that's different, yet there is an expectation that the classic theories apply. Until new theories are developed to address the digital social network tools, it's quite a bit harder to unpack this concept, to discuss why it's different online than off. Of course, that's my job...[via connected selves]
My old friend Sunny Bates has a book on earning what you're worth coming out tomorrow. Check it out - she has years of experience as an executive recruiter helping people do exactly that.
At EWR there is AT&T wifi at Continental gate 109. But don't ask the continental employees. They don't know about it. Even with the signs, and all.
Off to the west. Looking forward to seeing a whole lot of interesting folks, thanks to Jerry. Later..
Today I ran into Maria Milito from Q104.3. What a sweet person. Glad I met her. She's got one of the best personalities in NY radio - she really has that convincing sound that says she's your friend on the radio.
When I was in radio back in the late 80's, and in college, I hope I did half as well as her. Since then, I've been into Internet Radio, and have bitched a storm about Radio, especially on the Internet.
Uh oh. Kevin suggests that it's Christmas time and Uncle George and Co. are running up the credit card without wondering how we're going to pay it back. Let's hope we don't have to have it cut at the counter...
U.S. needs your money Funding the US's massive current account deficit (running at 5 per cent of gross domestic product) requires some $1.5bn of foreign capital every day...In simple terms we are spending more than we take in, and our bankers, the people who buy our debt, are showing that they have less confidence in us. This means the same to this country that it does to your household. Bad news.
[via Kevin Jones' Blog]
I mailed David and Doc about this article, which takes a lot of ideas from the Cluetrain, and David noted that Doc's comment that "Markets are Conversations" has now entered the great domain of the unattributed."
Markets Shaped by Consumers Give an imaginative consumer a basic idea and, voila, a market is born. It happened with cellphone messaging. [via New York Times: Technology]
Halley writes:
Electable Is it even a word? I hear it everywhere I go from every undecided Democrat I meet.
"We'll go with whoever's the most electable."
Isn't time to stop holding back, and by stepping up to it, MAKE one of these guys electable? [via Halley's Comment]
Yes. The primary season seems to be more about how the Democrats can fritter away any possible advantage over the incumbent administration, and less about coming to a common position, or opinion about anything.
But, I could be wrong. I just read the papers.
Such a bargain! I use this a lot...
ActiveWords SE In Lockergnome Windows Fanatic and IT Professional Newsletters, we notified readers of a free license for ActiveWords SE. It's for the regular version not ActiveWords Plus. Gnomies, of course, are welcome to try the 60 day trial of ActiveWords Plus and get a 20% discount. (Meryl) [via Lockergnome's Technology News]