Last night was a bit of a family night with my ma, my sister, and my brother. We were all sitting around the table playing Monopoly Deal (which is hilarious and awesome, and does not lead to the 3 day games that the board game does in my family), and my sister takes advantage of a lul in conversation to ask “So, does everyone know what tomorrow is?” My mom and I glance at eachother, and at my brother. We knew, but we didn’t really need to talk about it. My brother says “The 22nd of November? I let it go by like any other day.”

From my livejournal post on that day.

09:19 am
thank god for wireless internet in hospitals.

Saturday morning I took gramma into the hospital. We determined that her CHF was acting up, and that she’d broken another vertebre (or two). Treatment was going to be the same thing as always. Diuretics and morphine.

Yesterday morning (was it really only yesterday?) around eight AM I got a call from the hospital nurse: “I just came on, so I’m not real sure what’s going on, but I’d recommend that you get up here as soon as you can.” I call her back, and by “you” she means “you and everyone else who might want to see your grandmother before she dies.”

I call mom, thereby activating the phone tree. We spent all day yesterday up here. Family, friends, the one Great-Aunt who didn’t even go to the hospital when her mother was dieing. It’s surreal. [there aren't many words that make sense in here, meaning, for the rest of the day.] around 11:30 last night, when she’d lasted five hours longer than they expected, we decided to take shifts for the night. I went to Theio’s and hung with people, took a shower, and came back for my shift. I probably won’t be home today until it’s done.

Five years ago today, we said goodbye to my Mother’s Mother. I probably shouldn’t have been surprised that I dreamt of her last night, but I was. I am surprised, too, that the pain is still so raw.

Gramma's grave

I miss you Gramma. Every day.

I have so much more to say about this, but we’ll start here:

3:22:21 PM me: http://starwarsblog.starwars.com/index.php/2010/11/18/young-girl-bullied-for-liking-star-wars/ — another example of the internet mob. Doing good, though, with no real negativity.
3:23:56 PM SCollins: oh snap. star wars even.
3:24:04 PM SCollins: geeks take arms!
3:24:22 PM me: Ohyes.
3:24:26 PM me: Nasa even got involved.
3:24:52 PM me: http://twitter.com/#!/NASA/status/5611410558033921
3:26:42 PM SCollins: awesome

[time passes...]

4:25:20 PM me: http://starwars.com/
4:25:30 PM me: look at the second box below the header. (This story was there: http://starwarsblog.starwars.com/index.php/2010/11/18/young-girl-bullied-for-liking-star-wars/ )
4:26:27 PM SCollins: ha
4:26:29 PM SCollins: awesome

I am absolutely stunned, again, at the positive force we can have when we band together. This little girl will not only be happy with her Star Wars fandom, but likely a strong supporter of everyone’s right to be a little different. It reminds me of the energy and excitement that the Browncoats pulled out to make Serenity happen. So much fun and awesome.

Taft, TX., originally uploaded by randomgoodness.

For the first time in my life I just got pulled over while I wasn’t doing
anything wrong. He said I didn’t turn my brights off quickly enough. He
really just wanted to know what this black charger full of white girls from
michigan was doing in his tiny ass town. Got away with a verbal warning.

On the way back to Sinton, originally uploaded by randomgoodness.

We spent. Few beautiful hours on the beaches at Port Aransas today. Brandy
and DJ’s first time in the ocean. It might have pooped us out a little bit.

About two months ago, my mom got a new Dell Inspiron 5010. Soon after its purchase, she started complaining about her laptop exhibiting a symptom that I had never heard of before. She said her screen would lock up, but she could still move her mouse, and if she waited long enough it would start working again. I had her try all the normal phone-support things (close everything, reboot, kick it with your boot), and nothing seemed to alleviate it.

I got a chance to see it myself, and was amazed: At random intervals (but nothing longer than five minutes), her cursor would turn into the Windows7 version of the PinWheel of death and hang there for anywhere from 30 seconds to 90 seconds. There was nothing taking up enough CPU or Memory (task manager would continue to update while it was locked) to cause the symptoms, but programs would lock for long enough for Windows to mark them as ‘Not Responding’, and the whole computer would become useless until the screen unlocked.

The Window7 PinWheel of Death

In the last two months, to fix it, my brother and I have both tried our hands at it. We’d removed all of the pre-installed Dell software. We removed all of the software that Ma said she didn’t need. We scanned for viruses and mal-ware. We turned off PowerNow! (thinking it might be a power-saving problem) and we turned off Virualization (because, honestly, why the fuck not, right?). We did EVERYTHING we could think of. Finally, last week, we caved. Admitting defeat, I told my mom to back all of her files up on her external harddrive, and I’d be by Saturday afternoon to reinstall Windows.

One non-working laptop, two working laptops.

Through an afternoon of adventures, which involved installing the wrong version of Win7 (Pro) twice, and the right version three times, I not only was able to correct the problem, I was able to CAUSE it again!

After the first installation of Windows7 Home, I used Dell’s CD that had all kinds of drivers for this model of laptop. Long story short, I fought to get the wireless card to work, and broke two installations doing it. I was able to figure out that the interface that Dell provides to help you get all of the drivers installed… leaves something to be desired. In that interface, a check mark next to a specified driver means that your computer contains that piece of hardware. *Not* (as one might normally assume) that the driver with the check mark designates that driver is installed.

Once I figured that out, I installed the correct driver for the wireless card over the top of the incorrect driver and all of the sudden the symptom started showing up again. Rather than risk it, I took the 20 minutes to wipe and reinstall again, and then went through and made sure that only the correct drivers were installed. Now it’s running like a top.

That made me both instantly happy, and ready to kick puppies.

Mom’s specs, pre-fixing:

OS Name    Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium
Version    6.1.7600 Build 7600
OS Manufacturer    Microsoft Corporation
System Manufacturer    Dell Inc.
System Model    Inspiron M5010
System Type    x64-based PC
Processor    AMD Athlon(tm) II P320 Dual-Core Processor, 2094 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 2 Logical Processor(s)
Installed Physical Memory (RAM)    4.00 GB
Total Physical Memory    3.75 GB
Available Physical Memory    2.65 GB
Total Virtual Memory    7.49 GB
Available Virtual Memory    5.87 GB
Page File Space    3.75 GB
Virtualization disabled
PowerNow! disabled

I spent the better part of yesterday contemplating different php modules, in between mucking with my mom’s laptop (which will get its own post). I’ve decided to go with fCGI, but I really just wanted to share this chart. It’s terribly helpful.

PHP Handlers Summarized By Miraenda from errorcodex.com

It sure looks good., originally uploaded by randomgoodness.

Sometimes I forget that this kind of setup isn’t normal for everyone. One
non-working computer, two working computers, and one external hardrive, plus
the extra monitor? Done and done.