Archive for October, 2005

As I mentioned last week sometime, one of the patients from our clinic received his transplant last week.  He came in to see us today, and he looked great!  He was only in the Hospital for about 4 days, and was up and walking the day after the surgery (the surgery took place late at night).  After a minor "blip" or two, he’s home, and beginning his new life with renal function.

We hope Ethan remains healthy, and hope not to see him back in the dialysis clinic for a long long time!

Lite what? 
LiteStep …  it’s a shell replacement.  It’s been around quite awhile and has gained some popularity over the years.  For some unkown reason I have just found it. 
As an aside, I think this is what I love about technology.  It is SO broad, that I am constantly finding things I haven’t found before.
Anyway, back to LiteStep.  It basically takes over and allows you to change how windows looks and interacts with you. 
Installing LiteStep allows one to download and install many different themes and skins that significantly change how windows looks and acts.  For example, I found one theme called hysterica which aligns everything in your taskbar vertically at the top-left of the screen.  It removes ALL icons from your desktop (I LOVE clean themes), and even gets rid of the windows toolbar on the bottom of the screen. 
A right click anywhere on the desktop gives you quick, intuitive access to all your programs and applications, while the theme itself displays lots of useful information about your computer on the desktop (% of CPU usage, available memory, etc.).  There’s even a command line right on the desktop!  This is perfect for those of you constantly hitting windows-key, followed by "R", followed by "application-name".

I am enjoying it immensely so far, but wouldn’t recommend it for the faint of heart.  I’ve had some issues trying to get different themes running properly, and while some are much much better than the traditional Windoze interface, some are not well thought out, and probably should be avoided.
The plus is, you can always easily switch back to your Windows Explorer shell, and have things the way you like them (none of this affects the operating system in terms of how or where things are stored — just the appearance).

I’m watching CNN while at dialysis on Monday, and they’re telling me through the T.V. that I’m getting 20 inches of snow.  I thought that was weird, not having seen a single flake.  Sure it was raining, over night and all day (that’s a big deal in CO), but not a flake of snow here.  Now, I shouldn’t make it seem as though the whole area didn’t get any snow, because most of the Denver Metro area did.  For some reason though, this little pocket around Boulder got zilch.
Of course with an early or late snow, comes all the normal problems.  Trees still have leaves and can’t hold the weight of the heavy snow.  It’s quite odd to walk out on a quiet morning in early or late winter, and hear popping all over the neighborhood as huge limbs of tress just break off.  Every Colorado kid has at some point in their life had to wake up really early and go outside with a broom and knock the snow off of the limbs by tapping them.  Of course the kids do this because they can
a) fit under the shorter trees, and
b) adults don’t want to have huge piles of snow falling on their heads.

This is why every kid needs a big dog for a friend.  There’s nothing more fun than going out to shovel or clear snow with a large dog hopping around with you.  My German Shepherd "Attila" absolutely loves the snow.  He likes it most in fact, in the form of a snow ball hurtling through space directly at his face.  He jumps straight into it, mouth wide open, in hopes I think of being able to swallow it whole.

Let this be the official welcome of potentially snowy weather.  I’m ready to play in the snow, and thankfully here while it gets snowy, it doesn’t typically get too dark or cold during the day.

I have to say though, it’s hard keeping my fistula arm warm when playing in the snow!  With the blood supply diverted through the fistula, less makes it to the hand, and as a result I frequently have a very cold, or numb hand when out in the cold.  Nothing a hand warmer can’t take care of though.
*note*  I should also mention for those who may not know – be careful when bundling up if you have a graft or fistula.  You never want to constrict it in any way.  Don’t put on cloves or jackets that are too tight around the wrist or arm. 
Enjoy your play time in the snow!