TGIF

This week seemed to go by fairly quickly, even though sitting alone in an empty office made the days feel like they would never end. I'm not entirely sure that makes any sense, but that's how it is. And it really isn't TGIF when you have to go in on Saturday. The upside is that I go in an hour later and only work a half-day. Debbie is supposed to be home Sunday, so I'll have to scrub and polish tomorrow afternoon and Sunday so she doesn't vomit in disgust when she walks in the door. The temperature is supposed to get up into the 60's, so at a minimum I can open the windows and air out the aftermath of an over-consumption of dairy products....

Current status on Debbie's mom as of this morning:

Mom had anoth­er uneve­ntful night­-- this morni­ng the neuro Dr was in early this morni­ng to check out her numb leg. (He apparently is the top neuro surge­on in the area!­) He belie­ves the probl­em is the nerve­s from the probl­em disks in her back. He said they could come back to life right away or in 1 month­s... no way to reall­y know. He did not have any sugge­stion­s for immed­iate help besid­es order­ing a "drop foot brace," but talke­d about being able to help her out after compl­etely recov­ered from the heart surge­ry. The brace will help to stabilize the foot and keep it from dragg­ing and her toes from bendi­ng backw­ards.

Her heart surge­on came in after 7a to check up on her. He didn'­t seem too conce­rned with her left leg bruis­ing and the pain Mom start­ed to compl­ain about last night. He said it looks fine. He talke­d to Mom about going to rehab for a coupl­e days befor­e being relea­sed, Mom decli­ned. Sherr­y said she would have 24hr suppo­rt at home to help out. He will proba­bly order home PT also. He said she MAY get relea­sed by the end of the weeke­nd. It will proba­bly all depen­d on her 1) walki­ng to check out how the heart does 2) getti­ng the oxyge­n level up -- she is still using the oxyge­n nodul­e -- breat­hing deepl­y and cough­ing like she needs to to try to clear up the lungs­.

Debbie had hoped to spend some time getting her mom settled into the house before she started the trek back to New Hampshire, but that isn't going to happen unless she extends her stay in Michigan. At least she was able to help bed-sit and spend some time with her mom.

Now that Apple has given tablet PC's a much-needed kick in the pants with the iPad, there is a lot of talk about the impact on print media. Pictory shows what an e-magazine would look like. Looking at it on my main system isn't perfect because my screen is oriented the wrong way, so by the time I zoom in enough to be able to read the text, the whole page isn't being displayed. But with a tablet rotated to portrait mode, it would be perfect. I would have no problem reading my National Geographic and Reason magazines like this. The difficulty would come when I was done reading them; both get passed around to friends and family. I know the publishers have wet dreams about eliminating what they consider theft-by-sharing (as well as theft-by-library, theft-by-used-book-store, theft-by-reading-aloud, etc.), but I, and last I checked, the US Supreme Court, consider my first-sale right to be as valid as the publishers' copyright. Call me old-fashioned.

I am very tempted to jump into e-books now that I can run the Kindle software on my PC without needing to plunk down $300 for a Kindle. My tower and 42" screen isn't very portable, but I could easily read books from the couch using my current setup. The number of free books alone could keep me busy for the rest of my life. If I had a Win7 tablet with a battery that would hold up for at least a day, I wouldn't be sitting here typing about being tempted; I'd be reading.

The health care reform debate/debacle has taken over the headlines here in the US, so there hasn't been much news about the PIGS' debt problems. That doesn't mean they've gone away:

Portugal's debt rating drops.
Greece "will default."

And speaking of sovereign debt problems, the US is having problems finding buyers for our trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see. Go figure....

Bloomberg.com has an article on how over half of the people who get loan modifications default anyway. I'd consider being surprised by that is like being surprised by gravity, but that's not what I want to point out:

U.S. homeowners are struggling to make payments as depressed housing prices leave them owing more than their properties are worth.

Bullshit.

The ability to make your house payment has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not you are underwater. You make payments on every other thing you buy on credit in spite of being "underwater." A new car loses 15-25% of it's value as soon as you sign the title papers, before you have driven it one single mile. And yet you make the payments just fine, assuming you didn't buy more car than you can afford. Every single thing you buy on a credit card is worth less (and sometimes worthless) by the time the bill shows up, yet you make your credit card payments without difficulty, assuming you haven't racked up more than you can afford. It's the same with a house; you are struggling with the payments because you bought more house than you can afford. It has nothing to do with being "underwater." Shame on you, Gittelsohn for writing bullshit, and shame on you, Bloomberg for publishing bullshit.

And on that pleasant note, I need to try to get some sleep.