A good friend of ours just flew from Frankfurt to Newark. Along the way, he IM’ed me. Yep, he was on Lufthansa, and was LOVING the in-flight net access. $30, but who gives a crap? He and I chatted for a bit, which was just fun :-).
Thank you Slashdot, for letting me know that AOL changed the TOS for AIM. And that they can read and use anything from your conversations. I need to change, methinks. At least I’m not using fully AIM software, which seems to change it. Adium is my poison. But are any of our friends interested in changing to Jabber with me?
Interesting. A nice way to get schools things that they need, in a way. Teachers list what they would like/need for the classroom, and you can donate to them.
iLoveSchools.com
Finally he’s getting the props he deserves. Good on ya Wil. Can’t wait to download this episode. I might even watch it before the Hurley episode of Lost…
Seriously, Wil’s really blossomed as a writer. His two books are wonderful (Just A Geekcontained many read-out-loud-to-the-person-you’re-sitting-next-to moments) and he seems to have come into his own skin. Which is nice to say about someone. And I’m lucky enough to have had him friend me at Orkut :-). He apparently WILL do anything for some Guinness :-).
If you are as much of a dork for CSI as I am (tho I want to know who writes some of those lines…groaners), and if you like ST:TNG, tonight (in the States) is the episode where Wil Wheaton guest stars. Once it airs, he’ll talk more about it in his blog. He’s a great writer, and I really enjoy his style. Can’t wait til someone uploads it, so we can see it :-).
The online horoscope asked for a first name. So we gave ’em one. You guess what name we chose.
Right now you might need to develop some more trust in others, dickhead. You could be a little frustrated because you want to do things your own way. But you could be encountering some restrictions. Your dreams might require more time, money, and energy before they can come into reality. Try to have faith today. Realize that you have survived worse challenges in the past and have ended up triumphant. Don’t worry – you can make it through!
Then, cause I was going to say that we were looking at this cause our friend John pointed us to it, I went looking for a webpage that referred to him at all. Which is difficult, since his name is John Rambo. No, really. And then we found this, which made us cry with laughter even more than the horoscope.
It’s nice to be back in our own bed, ya know?
Traveling was a long day. Thank the goddess for JetBlue and the live DirecTV personal monitors. If they didn’t have Nick Jr, we’d have been in trouble. 🙂
Problems started when we got to Boston, finally got checked in and through security. We hadn’t eaten since about 8am, so we’re all starving (this is at about 4p). Went to a “nice” place (according to one of the check-in attendants at Aer Lingus), sit down, inside the security area. And ended up having this skanky bitch ho for a waitron. Now, I’ve waitressed. I know it’s not easy. I know it sucks. But the *second* I said “Our son has food allergies….” she got this blank look on her face. Like she didn’t want to hear it. Anything we asked her about, she would roll her eyes, sigh deeply, and huff away. After the last time, when she cut me off in the middle of explaining P’s allergies by saying “Yeah, my grandkids have food allergies too”, she just walked away. I shouted after her “Then WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?!?!?!” She didn’t come back to us. I went up to the hostess after 10 minutes (of waiting with a cranky, hungry 3 year old) and asked for a new server. We got a lovely woman named Sandra, who had some food on the table for P in about 5 minutes. They gave him something that wasn’t on the menu (pasta) and he was thrilled. So we tipped her. Handsomely.
When I talked to the manager later, I explained that I was a waitress, and I know it’s not easy. But for fuck’s sake, that woman needed a slap upside her head. B and I were wondering how she deals with her grandkids.
Even worse, when we got on the plane, we checked about our special meals. Only one. DAMMIT. I called the day before the flight, was told that there were two vegan meals, no toms, no nuts. That P’s wouldn’t be overrode by the fact that he was a kid (that happened once before). They managed to get a veggie plate on the plane as well, and that helped. The vegan food, by the way, is a keeper. Since food on airplanes has to be over-seasoned and have TONS of flavor (apparently your tastebuds don’t work so well up there, dunno why), I have had some excellent vegan meals on airplanes. This one was grilled tofu with rice and steamed veggies. The sauce on the rice was a fake-butter (I hope!) sauce, but it had curry powder in it. YUMMY. With the tofu it was faboo.
And P is recognizing things. He looked at the airplane (distinctive logo on it) and said “E-lingus!” Um. Okay. It’s Aer Lingus tho. “NO, E-LINGUS!” Okay, kid, whatever.
Thankfully, P crashed out during taxiing for takeoff. Didn’t wake up til 15 minutes before landing at Shannon. So he didn’t really eat. And I scarfed down tons of food :-). We all slept decently, but we were still out of it yesterday. And it’s 12:18 now, and I’m still in bed (love the laptop!). About to get up tho.
It’s nice to be home 🙂
So. B’s in San Fran. And I’m home with P. And…the DSL box dies. A quick, sudden death. No lights, not even power. Can you say PANIC?! I mean, what am I supposed to do with NO INTERNET?!
Talking to B, it turns out that Declan, our friend up the road, has his brother-in-law’s old dsl box. I RUN up the road. Plug it in. And start geeking. Man, this is frustrating. It took a day and a half, 4 phone calls to Eircom (“We’ve never had that DSL box model…are you sure that’s the right model?” Yes, I’m sure, and we’ve had it for 3 freaking years, and you got it for us!!) Finally got Eamonn’s box working, and I have access. And at the same time, eircom (fondly called eircon by most of the net community in Ireland) finally realized that they were supposed to replace our dsl box a while ago with a Netopia. So that’s in the post now (supposedly…). Using the word supposedly is a requirement when speaking about eircom.
So I’m back up. 77 messages waiting for me. And I still don’t have all the normal features that I did with the other box. But I just have to wait for B to get back and finish the full install of the box.
If I can just get eircom out here to fix their shoddy wiring where the dsl comes into the house, then we’ll be all set. Oh, don’t hold your breath….
I just got my Irish passport in the post! Whoo hoo! It has these neat security features in it…no, not drop of blood for DNA testing. My pic and signature have been digitally engraved into a hard plastic page. And then, the clear plastic coating on top of it has my pic digitally engraved into that (just seen from an angle-type), and the other side has it too. It’s really neat.
Now fingers crossed that P’s passport arrives before we leave…
Things are just…being. We did, however, get the results of P’s allergy blood tests back. Apparently, we’re doing everything right. His IgE levels for milk and egg have gone down. Not huge amounts of down, like outgrowing it, but enough to give us hope. Our avoid list is still the same. But…since we were the ones who mentioned the tomatoes thing to the doc, he didn’t test tomatoes. So we’re testing them at home today. First step: cut tomato in half (okay, first step was running up to friend’s house up the road to see if we could borrow a tomato.) Second step: rub a little of the cut side on P’s arm. Third step: give it a few minutes. If any reaction, stop there, and keep avoiding toms. If no reaction, tomorrow rub a little on his bottom lip, and see if there’s a reaction. Again, if reaction, stop. If no reaction, move on to the next day, and let him lick the tomato. (You get the drift.)
Do it slow and easy, and see where were are. I would literally KILL to get tomatoes back.
There might be reactions with wheat and potato and beef, but not enough for the doc to make us restrict those. So, with all that, we’re still in a holding pattern. But there’s a good chance that he’ll outgrow it all. Phew. Nice to know that we did the right thing.
Food allergies suck.
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