Alice in Chains is a good band, and Layne Staley was a unique singer. I really did like his voice and the Alice in Chains tunes that he performed. Now he's dead and people are describing him with phrases like, "an angry angel". It's enough to make any prince of darkness cringe. [Bubbles?!]

So, to prevent any tired catchphrases showing up in my obit., I would like these things to be reported to the newspaper in the event of my death:

From my colleagues: "She was just some chick that hung around here a lot. I don't think we actually paid her for anything."

From my husband: "I think she was trying to kill me slowly. She knew I was diabetic, yet always served me pie."

From my parents: "We're honestly surprised that she was never jailed as a serial killer. Honestly. But they never found any bodies."

From my son: "Stevie Wonder is a Motown great.

Well, this explains why I feel like crap today. Finally got the medicine that I needed, and then promptly ate all the wrong things. I almost was better off when I had the fear of God in me that I would be in worse chape without it, rather that the way I am now, using it as a crutch. I really need a vacation. Going away this weekend, hopefully I can relax some then.250

I have this friend, let's call him Adam who does something that I really admire. He tips everyone.

Well, ok not everyone, because I have never gotten paid for talking to him, but then again I do make fun of him regularly. What I mean is that he makes an effort to tip people who provide a service to him, even when it is not necessarily something that they are expecting.

Case in point. Two days ago, we went out for sandwiches to this cafe down the street. After he paid I saw the cashier walk over to the guy making the sandwiches and pass a buck to him. There was no tip jar and they guy probably never gets tips. Also, Adam wasn't tipping for other people to see, and quite possibly the sandwich guy might not have even know it was from him. He was merely letting the guy know that he appreciates what he did for him, the money itself wasn't as important as the message.

Anyway, now Adam is going to mock me for saying something nice about him, but that's ok.

I feel like I should just get back into bed and sleep the rest of this week. Might as well. I ran out of Humulin N, my slow acting insulin yesterday. It was my fault, and I should have ordered it sooner, but I didn't. I called CVS to get refills and they informed me at 7 AM yesterday that they needed to get approval from my doctor. Usually this takes a few hours, but I didn't need it until last night so I thought I would be ok. After numerous calls to CVS, my doctor and a visit to CVS last night at 10:45, no dice. The jerk never got around to calling the prescription in.

If this was headache medicine or something less important I could understand, but as a diabetic, insulin is literally my lifeline. Also, last night the battery in my glucometer died. Of course it had to be one of the strange battery types that not only is expensive, but hard to find. After searching for about an hour I gave up and just bought a whole new glucometer system for about $20. I figured the battery might have cost me almost 10, so another 10 for a new system was worth it. I haven't updated mine since I first was diagnosed overe three years ago, and there have been some significant advances in this field since then.

For now, I am forced to eat about 25-50% of the food I had been eating recently and managing my sugar by popping myself with more frequent injections of the fast acting insulin. Not really the preferred method, and not the most accurate either, but it is what I have to do. By the way, this is one of the many reasons that I am changing doctors as mentioned in a previous post.

The stats that I have been reporting here are always my morning sugar, which is probably not the most accurate way of tracking this process. My sugar is high again this morning, primarily due to what I ate yesterday. It was Earth Day and Ben & Jerry's gives free ice cream away all day. My biggest problem is learning how to say no to food and making the right decisions about what I should be eating.

In the mornings I eat very well, Oat Bran cereal for breakfast with tea or coffee. I usually need a snack around 11-12, because I am going low by that point and then my lunch is at 1 PM.

Breakfast is easy because I have set things up so that there is no choice. I have a box of cereal and that is what I eat. On the weekends when I am at home, I tend to have some eggs for breakfast, which is good too. Lunch and Dinner are where I falter. I don't have a set meal for those times and because of that my insulin doses are not as accurate as they can be. Then what happens a lot, is that I am going low sometime before or after one of these meals and end up overeating because I am afraid of going too low and passing out.

Aside from making a more regular plan of what I will be eating, I need to focus on training myself to overcome my desires to eat food that is harmful to myself. As a child and young adult, I was always snacked, and frequently overate. These habits are difficult to break, and I think I need to find some method of developing these skills. I am sure that there is a book or course out there that can help me, gotta get focused. 209

Ugh. Slept badly last night. Probably because I had a bowl of ice cream last night. Bad move. Anyway. 202

Who in their marketing department saw these shirts and said "Hey this is a GREAT idea"?

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -- Clothing maker Abercrombie & Fitch said on Thursday it was pulling a new line of Asian-themed T-shirts after Asian-American groups complained they were a blatant example of racist stereotyping.

The shirts, which retail for $25, hit the shelves this week and carry caricatures of slant-eyed Asians in conical hats along with such slogans as "WONG BROTHERS LAUNDRY SERVICE: TWO WONGS CAN MAKE IT WHITE" and "WOK-N-BOWL -- CHINESE FOOD AND BOWLING."

"It is not and never has been our intention to offend anyone," Abercrombie spokesman Hampton Carney said.

"These graphic T-shirts were designed with the sole purpose of adding humor and levity to our fashion line. Since some customers have been offended by their content, we are pulling these shirts from our stores," he added.

Web usability expert Jakob Nielson has this to say about participation in online communities:

"A few users contribute the overwhelming majority of the content, while most users either post very rarely or not at all. Unfortunately, those people who have nothing better to do than post on the Internet all day long are rarely the ones who have the most insights."

Here is a resounding *yes* in response to Jakob's quote. The most popular people in online communities are those who A) post often B) post inclusive, yet unchallenging things. And for anyone who thinks this is incorrect, I have one word to say to you; "Relish."

Tara suggested I make it more clear what the number I have been posting at the end of my "Diabetes" posts is. That number is the most recent blood test that I do 1-4 times a day (usually twice, but sometimes more if I don't feel good). It represents the mg/dL (milligrams per deciliter) of sugar/blood. The normal person's blood sugar is in the range of @50-80 mg/dL. The healthy range for a diabetic such as myself is 70-110 mg/dL, and anything over 140 starts to cause damage, but it really doesn't start to cause big problems until it gets well above that.

Last night I ate pretty well, but it is a little higher than I would like it to be because I am trying to make some adjustments to my insulin right now. I keep finding that I am going low around 10-11 AM and a few hours after dinner each day. So in an effort to reduce this I have dropped my Humulin R by one unit per dose to see if this makes the change needed. I think that it may help things, but I need a few days to acclimate to this new dose.

I also barely slept last night. I guess I can't drink coffee so close to bedtime anymore. It didn't used to bother me, but since I watched 5 episodes of "Who's the Boss" last night at 3 AM, I think it might. When I don't sleep enough, that can also affect my sugar level because my body isn't well rested.150

After seeing Robert Blake all over CNN tonight being arrested for allegedly murdering his wife, Tara and I zipped over to IMDB to check out his profile. Tara had apparently never seen Baretta (I wonder why? hah) and needed a picture to know who this guy was. As it turns out, Robert Blake was born and raised in my hometown of Nutley, NJ. Not to mention that his real name is Michael James Vijencio Gubitosi . Yeah, I would change it if that was my name too. After all that, she still doesn't recognize him. Tara keeps mixing him up with Albert Brooks, whose real name is, no joke Albert Einstein. But that really doesn't count for much since she insisted for years that the evil terminator in Terminator 2 was played by Ray Liotta, who also happens to be from NJ. Ok, I am going to stop now or else this will ultimately end up getting me back to Kevin Bacon.

In an effort to be constantly learning new things about the world around me, I have decided to spend some time over this summer learning more about animals around the world. I have always been partial to amphibians, as opposed to Clay, who favors shelled reptiles, I am starting some reading about amphibians. The Friends of the National Zoo have assembled a decent site that includes the proper latin nomenclature for many of the animals that they keep on site. These two guys were on my reading list for this evening.

"Tiger salamanders (Ambystoma tigrinum) range throughout much of the United States. Like most salamanders, the aquatic larvae have feathery external gills, budding arms and legs, and a fish-like tail. The terrestrial adults live in underground burrows or beneath logs and rocks, except during the breeding season, when they converge upon bodies of water to court, mate, and lay eggs."

"Keepers at the National Zoo successfully bred species such as the White's tree frog (Litoria caerulea) by showering the frogs with dechlorinated water and playing tapes of male calls. These simulations usually result in tens to thousands of frog eggs by morning."

Letterboxing is a new trend of the same ilk as geocaching. It was started in England and migrated to the US recently. Participants use clues to find hidden boxes with rubber stamps, guesbooks and other treats in them. Finders sign the guestbook and stamp their own notebooks with the rubber stamps.

From the US site:
"Letterboxing is an intriguing pastime combining navigational skills and rubber stamp artistry in a charming 'treasure hunt' style outdoor quest."

There seem to be quite a few letterboxes in the Boston area. I think we're going to give this a try.

We take for granted that Web sites are 24/7 entities. Whenever I visit Amazon, it's there, ready to sell me something. The moment I hit Salon, even if it's 3am, I get content. But is this really the best way for all sites to do business?

It would be very unique to have a community site that had hours of operation like a cafe. Instead of taking for granted you could post anytime, you'd have to wait until it was 'open'. Instead of hours of 'dead time' when only a handful of insomniacs and international users moped around, everyone would have to wait a few hours to come back and meet again.

Boredom and stagnation are real killers in online communities. Perhaps by eliminating some dead time, users would have the feeling every morning of walking into a fresh, clean store that had just opened - not a revolving mess that's been droning on endlessly.

It wouldn't work for sites with immense user-bases, like Yahoo. But a smaller community-type site with primarily North American members could give it a try.

A little better today. Although I was expecting it to be higher because I cheated last night and ate some chocolate. 145

I know what you're asking yourself:

Is there a way that I, too, can be a ninja?

Well yes. There is:
Ninja Mask Lessons

Doing a little better today, but still too high. The thing is, I know exactly why it is high, I ate too much last night. My Humulog (fast acting insulin) is too high I think, and it makes me go low a few hours after I eat, therefor I snack and then I overshoot my mark. The culprit last night was Pringles, hah. This is one of the reasons I am changing my endocrinologist.

When I go in for an appointment and tell him things like this, he responds by raising or lowering both my fast and slow acting insulin with a broad stroke. Then what ends up happening is either my sugar gets all out of whack, or I don't listen to what he say because it makes me feel bad and then I am not as vigilant in my personal care. The care of a diabetic (as I am learning) is more of an art, with targeted changes here and there until the ultimate goal is reached (or at least your aim improves). There also has to be a very high level of trust between the caregiver and the patient. If you don't trust what is being offered to you as health management goals or practices, you are less likely to succeed. I found a new guy and I am calling to make an appointment today. 181

Over this weekend, all in one day I was exposed to the uncommon word "velocipede" three times in one afternoon. Two books (Good Omens and Uncle Tungsten) and a movie (Life is Beautiful). I found that pretty interesting.

ve·loc·i·pede Pronunciation Key (v-ls-pd)
n.

1. A tricycle.

2. Any of several early bicycles having pedals attached to the front wheel.

I am not sure if I have ever mentioned it here, but I have diabetes. Those of you who know me, already know all this. I was diagnosed three years ago on February 23rd, after a few weeks of developing textbook symptoms. I haven't really posted much about it here before, not because I was keeping it to myself, but because I didn't see it being interesting to anyone besides me (and even I really gave it little thought for a long time).

I recently have been trying to get a better hold on it so that I can remain healthy and stick around. Posting here is really more for myself than anyone else. It is a highly visible location (at least to me) where I can make reference to my efforts and remind myself of what I need to do. If you want to remark on these posts, feel free. I could use the support, mostly because I have no willpower, but also making these drastic changes in my lifestyle is tough (for me it is, even though I have been working through this for the last 3 years). 205

Tonight is the drawing for The Big Game - 325 Million Dollar Jackpot. I purchased two tickets this morning for tonights drawing and I am positive that I am the sole winner. In a philanthropic effort I am offering to anyone that signs in here before 10:59 EST tonight a free computer if I match all of the numbers and I am the only person holding a winning ticket.

If you get a chance, take a look at what the birds are doing outside. They have started collecting pieces of paper, grass, straw wrappers, etc to make their nests for this Spring. It is amazing how they know what to do, and when to do it. Very cool.

I really wanted to post something today. Something pithy, interesting, funny, whatever. I just couldn't get it together to write something worthwhile, something that would be topical. How lame am I? In my defense, I got about 5 hours sleep last night and I am really tired today. Trevor freaked out last night around 4:30 and I got very little sleep after that.

Here in Boston there is the Boston Marathon going on. Whoo Hoo. I can understand the athletes wanting to test themselves, push their bodies to the limits and farther. What I don't get are the people who stand someplace along the race route to watch their friend pass by, once, for a split second. How is that interesting at all? After your friend goes by, what do you do? Do you leave, stay and watch other people? I just don't get it.

If you've ever wondered about the magic behind the Magic 8 Ball - it is revealed in stark scientific detail.

And I always thought there was a little warlock inside conjuring the answers..

And something else you simply must see today.

It will make you laugh.

Pong

In order to curb my relentless sarcastic comments, I've been fitted with a device that administers painful-but-harmless electric shocks to my left foot whenever I lapse into sarcasm.

In celebrity news: I have been extremely concerned for Halle Berry, upon hearing that she was injured on the set of the new James Bond movie. Imagine my heartfelt worry when I learned that production was halted as Berry was treated for "a slight inflammation" due to dust in her eye. We all wish Halle a speedy recovery and no further wind-bourne particle incidents.

In other news: My left foot just fell off in a smoking mass of quivering flesh.

What you need to see today is this animated CAT scan of a 13-pound rubber band ball. Because you can, that's why.

Okay, so it is no secret that I am a fan of Spider-Man, and I am really looking forward to the Spider-Man movie coming out in a few weeks.

This great piece of fan art comes from a guy name Louis Ferina who was recently featured in an article in Yahoo Internet Life magazine article about the web-slinger.

He has a bunch of other interesting pics and projects that he has worked on that are pretty sweet too, but I think this one is my favorite.

Today is my little bro's birthday. He is turning the big 22.

Happy Birthday dude.

The new mayor of New York has recently been included in a major ad campaign by NORML promoting the legalization of marijuana. He was quoted during his campaign for the mayoral race and has been quoted on ads that they have plastered all over the internet and NYC.

He didn't willingly participate in the ad event, but cannot fight it since he wilingly made the comment to the press. It cracks me up that the mayor of New York is helping promote the legalization of pot!

Be careful what you say...

Last night, Fear Factor had a pretty cool stunt where contestants had to have 50 venemous tarantula's crawl all over their heads for 3 minutes.

The image of this contestant was too good to pass up, he was arrogant before the event and stated that because he had a short haircut all the spiders would slide right off. Hah. They seemed able to hold onto his head better than anyone else. Tara has dubbed this new hairstyle the "Arachno-fro" and anyone who is afraid of his hair suffers from "Arachno-frobia"!

Someone absolutely must get me these: Operation Enduring Freedom Trading Cards

I can just see it:
"I'll trade you one 'Emaciated Afghan Man with Brains Blown Out' for one 'US Training Exercise Goes Horribly Wrong'."

This was so unbelievable that I just had to post it. Please read the article and let me know what you think.

Revised report lessens impact of Arctic oil drilling

I love Sundays. Not busy Sundays that involve lots of running around, but the kind of Sunday where the newspaper finds it's way all over the house and long spans of silence occur multiple times.

Today we had just such a Sunday. We slept in (kindof - I had to appease the boy with copious amounts of cartoon and children programs, but he let me doze on the couch with him.) and spent the early part of the day watching some TV. Then I ran out and grabbed a paper, while Tara made us a breakfast/lunch/early dinner of quiche. After that Trevor had a bath, we all flipped through the paper and listened to the radio.

Around 4 we headed out and took advantage of the extended sunlight that Daylight Savings time offered to us this morning. We stopped of at the library where we all picked up a few books. I grabbed two books on Diabetes and a copy of Uncle Tungsten. I had first heard about this book a few months ago while watching CSPAN and a appearance by the author Oliver Sacks, where he read a chapter of his book. Should be pretty cool.

Then we headed to the park where Trevor and I build a sandcastle (even though it turned out more like a sand pile) and I taught him the finer points of moat construction.

Tonight we are chilling out and I am looking forward to seeing The Sopranos and Six Feet Under.

1. What are the first things that you do in the morning to start your day?
I pretend to be asleep so that Dave has to climb over me to get the alarm. Then I flail wildly in bed, attempting to smack the unlucky person (Dave again) who is trying to make me wake up. I lie in bed listening to Howard Stern and determine whether I'm outraged, disgusted or amused at him for the day.

2. What are the last things that you do at night before going to bed?
I read. And read and read and read. I read to Trevor, I read to Dave, I read to myself. We read passages out of our books to each other. We trade books, we make up stories. We have a sickness called literacy.

3. What daily routine have you recently added to your day?
Recently, I've started making Trevor breakfast before I get ready for work. He had been eating in the car on the way to school, but I got tired of the mess and cries of, "Mommy, my yogurt spilled again!" Ick. Now he has Special K or waffles or scrambled eggs or jelly on toast, depending on his choice.

4. What routine do you wish you get rid of?
I really don't like getting Trevor dressed in the morning. It's like trying to dress a hyperactive octopus that wants to watch Clifford and eat breakfast while you try to button shirts and zipper pants. But they don't look kindly on mom's who drop off their kids at school with pj's on and clothes in a bag. "Here could you just dress him, because it's like, not fun."

5. What's the one thing that makes you feel like something is missing if you don't do it some point within your day?
Eating my oatmeal. It's warm and filling and settles my stomach in the morning.

When I was little, whenever I would find a green potato chip, I would eat it. I figured it was from an unripe potato and generally harmless. Then one day, after I was married, my plant scientist husband stopped me from eating a green chip: "Have you ever seen a green potato?" he asked. I hadn't. "It's not unripe, it's fungus." Eww. From that time on, I've thrown away the green ones and passed on Dave's explanation to any other would-be green chip eaters. Now, I come to find out on a show about potato chips, that the green part is caused by the potato being exposed to sunlight during growth which stimulates photosynthesis - producing the green pigment. Not fungus. Totally safe to eat. Just thought I'd let you know, don't listen to Dave on the subject of green chips.

1. What are the first things that you do in the morning to start your day? The first thing I do is take a shower, then get dressed and walk to the train station. Sometimes, Tara and Trevor give me a ride, but I like to let them sleep an extra 20 minutes and walk. I get some exercise, read a book or paper and collect my thoughts for the day/week. Then I take the train into Boston.

2. What are the last things that you do at night before going to bed? I usually watch some television while reading a book (or not). Some nights I surf and check email for an hour or so before bed. Regardless of the activity I am performing I also attempt to keep Trevor in bed with his head on his pillow. Many nights we find out that he has climbed under his bed and fallen asleep there while pretending to be hiding in a cave or something.

3. What daily routine have you recently added to your day? In the last few months I have added the new routine of commuting into Boston via the Commuter rail. I find this very relaxing and it gives me time to collect myself and spend a lot of time reading. It hasn't really affected the speed at which I read, but provided more opportunities to get some in.

4. What routine do you wish you get rid of? I would like to get Trevor to stay in bed at night once we put him to bed. The constant back and forth negotiations are tiring and I am sure that the conflict in the Middle East would be resolved before Trevor agreed to stay in bed for the entire evening.

5. What's the one thing that makes you feel like something is missing if you don't do it some point within your day? If I don't grab a coffee somewhere along my inbound trip each weekday morning, I think I would miss it. It's not that I need the coffee but there is something comforting about getting it.

So Dudley Moore has died. I guess I've seen Arthur one too many times on Sunday afternoon network television because I can't picture Dudley without Liza Minnelli.

I'm really quite annoyed when I find out that someone has pulled a fast one on me. I like to think I know what's going on around me - and I'm very particular about what goes onto my new computer.

So you can imagine my chagrin when I learned that a company called Brilliant Digital made an agreement with Kazaa to bundle their P2P network with the Kazaa download. When activated, this software purportedly allows Brillant to 'borrow' processing power from users' machines and sell it to other companies.

"It plans to use the machines—with their owners' permission—to host and distribute other companies' content, such as advertising or music. Alternatively, it might borrow people's unused processing power to help with other companies' complicated computing tasks." (News.com)

Excuse me? So I spent my money to puchase a 1.1 gHz processor just so that Brilliant Digital could take advantage of the speed of my machine? If the processing power really is 'borrowed', can I have some from their machines at some point when I have a need for it? I didn't think so.

Brilliant is planning to compensate users for their processing power with "Altnet resource dollars". Thanks, I'll take United States dollars instead.

Buy your own damn computers, don't use mine.

That was the sign on the McDonald's I passed on the way to work this morning. I looked again. The "a" and "r" in Dollar had fallen off the sign, changing "New Dollar Menu" into "New Doll Menu". But thinking about how McDonald's uses cheap kids meals stuffed with Beanie Babies, Barbies, and Peter Pan toys to push marketing propaganda onto children, the sign seemed quite appropriate.

I get the feeling that the producers of The Osbournes were hoping to suprise us. They thought we imagined Ozzy Osbourne's home would be one of goth Satanism and depraved acts of horror. They probably wanted to catch us off guard with a mostly-normal, slightly quirky but lovable family in the new MTV show, The Osbournes.

Well I was surprised, but not in the way they intended. Quirky, yes. Lovable, not really. Mostly-normal, god I hope not. The Osbournes are an illustration in how people can be trashy and uncouth no matter how rich and famous they are.

I have lived near some fairly trashy people and here are the warning signs exhibited by the Osbournes:

- More animals than people living in the home. Bonus points if they are untrained, jump on every visitor, tear up the furniture and poop all over. Double bonus points if you can convince Elijah Wood to clean up dog pee.

- The hurling of expired food items and chunks of firewood at neighbors.

- Excessive use of the f-word by parents and children alike. This makes for a show that sounds like this: "What the *beep* did that *beep* dog do on the *beep* floor? I *beep* told you no more *beep* animals. Who the *beep* is going to *beep* clean up that *beep* pile of *beep*?"

- No one knows how to turn on the vacuum. All family members have a crack at it, and there is much joyfulness when a child comes over and finally finds the 'on' switch.

- Mom feigns a sexual act with son's teddy bear while son and his girlfriend are in the room. Son is horrified. Some audience members are horrified as well.

It's really quite uninteresting to watch all of these crude tasteles people pick on one another and others. Rock icon Ozzy Osbourne is just a lost old man shuffling powerlessly among his out-of-control family. He whines, "Sharon!" any time something needs doing and mumbles inchoherently the remainder of the time.

The Osbourne home is decorated in a cross between French country, English vampire and American slob. As the cameras move through the rooms I get the urge to straighen, dust and clean. They could have easily substituted the people who live next door to me and ended up with the same show. I won't be wasting my time with the Osbournes again.

This is the core reason why I would like to buy only computers from Gateway.
Gateway CEO take 92% paycut

But I don't because qualityand price are too important.

There are lots of differing views on what is the official start of Spring. I always feel that once you see forsythia blooming that it has begun.

This morning I saw my first blooming forsythia for this year.

As per Clay's suggestion in his most recent post, I performed a small experiment with some of my fellow coworkers. During one of our conversations, I mentioned that it might be fun to learn more about one of our computer systems that went beyond the normal daily use that was needed for our purposes.

Immediately, one of them responded by saying, "Why would you want to do that?", and the other said something like "That wouldn't be fun". Now both of these people are what I would consider to be intelligent and open-minded, but following the idea that education for personal benefit carries a social stigma, they stepped right in line. I told them what I was doing after the conversation was over. Both of them understood what I was getting at, but declined to comment further other than busting me further for being a geek.

I finished reading Fast Food Nation last week and this article offers some more details on the state of livestock slaughter in the US. Production lines are going too fast for workers to keep up. Conditions are unsanitary and dangerous to the workers and the animals; some of whom are skinned or cut into sections while still alive.

Read it and get a true picture of what's going into your Big Mac.

Each day that I buy lunch from the cafe, I pass the office of a woman who works for another company. Every time I pass her window at lunchtime, she's playing computer solitaire.

I don't know the rules of her company, nor do I care. It's presumably her lunch break, so I don't have a problem with the fact that she likes to relax with a game. It's her choice of game that bothers me. Computer solitaire is so lackluster and old school (not Pac Man old school, 14.4 modem old school). If you're going to chill out during lunch, why not at least get some entertainment value from it?

I realize few offices advocate lunch-hour intraoffice Quake tournaments, (if you work in one of those offices, please let me know where to send my resume), but she could at least check out the multiplayer poker at Yahoo! Games or catch up on her online reading with an ebook from Fictionwise. Anything seems better than that monotonous jumble of cards being sorted into piles.

In high school, I spent a summer at my father's pool filter manufacturing plant, where an assistant to the VP spent her entire day playing computer solitaire. I would walk near her desk to file things and she would panic and click to a spreadsheet. But it only takes the human eye a fraction of a second to recognize a pattern and I could see it was solitaire before it changed.

I didn't then, nor do I understand now, the attraction of that inane game. Perhaps if it was SimCity or Diablo II, I could sympathize. But I haven't found a way of concealing the screams of dying Stygian Dogs or the intermittent reports of Sim Copter One so that I could play either of those games at work.

I think the woman by the cafe may have noticed that I stare at her electronic card game because she recently turned her monitor to face away from the window. The angle isn't quite right though, and I can still see her daily round of freewheeling solitaire fun.

This morning I woke up late and I had already missed my train as well as the one after it. I was verging on missing the next one too and ultimately getting to work really late. I showered, dressed and left the house within 4 minutes of realizing that the alarm never went off and started for the train station.

The next train was scheduled to leave at 7:30, the walk normally takes 20 minutes from our house to the station platform approximately 1 mile away and it was already 7:20. I started walking and quickly realized that there was no possible way that I was going to make it this way, so I began to run. Being out of shape, I was not able to run for very long. Actually, it ended up being only about 1 block, which was not enough to get me there in time for the train, so after walking for a minute or so, I ran again. I did this four or five times, running half a block or so, then catching my breath. On the street right before I got to the platform, I looked at my watch and saw that the time was 7:27, possibly about to turn 7:28. I knew that if I didn't get to the far side of the platform before the train got there I would not be able to catch it, as the train blocks the platform once it pulls in. I ran full speed all the way to the platform and made it in time.

The train actually was a few minutes late, heh. Go figure. The problem started once I stopped running. I continued to walk to try and catch my breath as I walked up to the area of the platform I usually wait for the train. After about 10 seconds I knew that something was wrong, I couldn't focus on anything, my head was spinning, and I felt nauseated. My legs were hardly holding me up and it felt as if every ounce of strength was sapped from my body. I shuffled over to a quiet area, away from the other commuters and leaned over the railing. My eyes were pounding in my head and I had to actually convince myself that I should get on the train when it came. I could feel myself getting worse but assumed that if I could keep breathing and sit down for a few minutes I would start to feel better.

As the train came up I waited until the other riders boarded and followed them on, hoping to find a seat in the first few rows, knowing that I might not make it much farther.

No luck. The train was packed and there was standing room only. Well, mostly. I grabbed a piece of floor near the entry and tried to collect myself. I know that I am not in shape and running was a strain on my system, but this was crazy. I was able to stand and walk off the train once we got to my stop, but I am still feeling somewhat shaken. I won't be trying that again.

Thomas Pacheco is a bright and creative seven-year-old who was diagnosed on March 7, 2002 with a rare cancer. Thomas will lose his right eye and eye socket to this cancer, and will subsequently undergo at least six months of chemotherapy. This horrible course of treatment is Thomas' best hope, but he is fighting a rare and tenacious cancer with long-term survival rates of less than thirty percent. The struggle of Thomas’ family is on all fronts, from soaring medical bills that their health insurance does not cover, to caring for Thomas through his painful ordeal, to keeping their own financial and emotional stability.

The thomaspacheco.org site was conceived with the idea of helping Thomas and his family raise money for their medical and related costs. The idea was simple: sell Thomas's artwork to raise money. At first it even seemed a bit crazy, but the idea grew on Thomas and his family, and they decided that they had nothing to lose.

That initial idea has now expanded into a larger vision, and if they can raise sufficient funds, the Pacheco family wants to form a full-fledged organization that would use web technology to generate support for children around the world suffering from such tragic diseases. Thomas’ father, Ron, already has registered a domain to be used for that purpose: artforhope.org. But first he has to save his son.

Anyone reading this, please check out their site and pass this on to others who might want to learn about Thomas and his family.