It's time for another countdown. This time we are counting down to the approximate time of my G-Tube insertion surgery on Friday. I may blog on friday night about the day of surgery though it is possible I may not be able to get on the computer, with how "Morphy" I get from morphine and anesthesia. I may not get news out to you guys until Saturday and worst case Sunday or Monday.

I have gotten a new assistive technology device today in the domain of augmentative communications. I got a new data card for Verizon. This will allow me to communicate through the laptop anywhere in the world. This is needed because I cannot write, and I am not a very good speaker. So when I can type and send things out and receive back in text that is optimal. It is a BroadbandAccess NationalAccess Verizon USB720.

Photos are in the gallery, click above.

I have added a new link to the van dealer at which we purchased our 2005 Ford E-250 van with Braun Millenium Series lift. Secondly I have made some fixes to website grammar and picture sizes. I have also fixed the formatting on the "Powerchair has arrived" and "Podcast participation continues to dwindle" blog posts, as the text justification settings were wonky.

We got the new van! The only issue is it came with the lift and all, though there are no tiedown brackets for my powerchair, so the next week after G-Tube Friday we have to take it up to Steele Mobility in Gurnee Mills to get an Ez-Lock box and bracket installed. Even if it had tiedowns we wouldn't be able to use them since mom has bad hands and back and bending over to do it wouldn't work for her. But anyways me and dad got me up into the van on the lift and decided to take pictures. Oh, and there's a new photo in the powerchair gallery.

CLICK THE IMAGES ABOVE TO GO TO THEIR GALLERIES

You are probably going to ask, "Why the G-Tube picture again?" The reason is we went to my new Gastroenterologist at the Yacktman Pavilion on the 13th of this month and after reviewing my charts and checking my current condition he decided to say "You need a G-Tube as soon as possible." He proceeded to continue to explain about the side note of my H. Pylori infection stating that H. Pylori gastritis is not much of anything to worry about unless it starts producing ulcers. In my case, it is not producing ulcers and can be put on the back burner temporarily. He especially wants me to get the G-Tube because my feeding is getting very difficult due to my poor muscle tone making it hard to chew and swallow correctly and also my poor neurological control making the swallowing mechanism loose control of material quite easily. By having a G-Tube insertion done I will no longer have to have three battles a day at the kitchen table. The surgeon visit was scheduled for the 20th and her name was Dr. Loeff (Pronounced Leff) She decided that it was also a pretty critical case and has decided to schedule me for next Friday for the surgery. Hence, next Fridays podcast is CANCELED! I will get a countdown clock put up when we get the exact time of surgery.

Final word...
SURGERY IS NEXT FRIDAY FOR G-TUBE INSERTION... PODCAST IS CANCELED UNTIL MARCH 7TH...
MARCH 7TH IS A TENTATIVE DATE AND MAY BE CANCELED DEPENDING ON MEDICAL STATUS.

I am very disappointed, I ask my visitors to come to the podcast more often, talk about disabilities, learn things, have fun, and no one apparently wants to do that. The attendance numbers last week were acceptable, but today I had absolutely no one come, which proves that the attendees are very unstable in their attendance. Please if you are an attendee remember that Friday nights at 8:00 PM CST should be considered an event!

Please if you can click the link above and participate on fridays. If you wish to participate in the audio chat, you must either dial on your telephone or click "Talkshoe Pro" to use the software's built in VOIP system.

Hope to see you all there!

I know, I was supposed to get this text based news to everyone yesterday. Though I decided it might be better for me to just do both photos and text at the same time, I was trashed yesterday anyways and did not feel like getting on the computer last night to get the news up. A first in history, being too tired to get on the computer.

They arrived at 10:00 AM though the van with the dealer’s assistant, and powerchair was behind a little bit making the true time of arrival 10:20 AM. It took about an hour after they got me in for the first time to get everything adjusted and to get me the first drive around. It was very easy getting around the house, though the doorway in my room is a very tight one for going back in, not surprisingly for how many peoples powerchairs I have driven I was quick to figure out a good way of getting back into my room, after taking half the paint off the wall.

The dealer forgot to order the laptop mount and so he has to order it, since those are not custom made that will be only another week or so. Until then I can only use the laptop when it is on the kitchen table. Being the kitchen table is pretty low I cannot use my tilt system, which is responsible for helping remove pressure from gravity on my compressed spinal disks, thus removing pain. That said I will only be on here for short periods throughout the day. So contacting me via Instant Messenger is not a good idea. If you need me send me an E-Mail through the Contact Me tool. Those E-Mails make it to my cell phone which I can use whether I am tilted or not. Upon receiving said laptop trey I will be able to use the laptop more often. Still will not be on all the time like I used to be. Maybe that's a good thing.

Photos are up on the gallery already, so please click the image above to get there.

Note about the photos: Dad knocked the harness out of adjustment which threw out the good positioning. Hence, why my position does not look prime.

Last night one of dad’s friends met dad for dinner and handed him an auto classifieds magazine with this van on the front cover. After careful discussion this morning we decided it was necessary for us to go and inspect the van ourselves. We went to the dealer’s location this morning and looked at the van, Opened the doors, hood, and looked inside. The lift is on the rear of this van since it was originally used for hauling large medical equipment, for example, a dialysis machine from a small hospital to a patients home. When we opened the rear doors I freaked out at what lift was inside, a brand-new Braun Millennium Series commercial grade lift. The rear "cargo" area of the van was sectioned off with a large thin removable wall made of the same material the rest of the inner fuselage is made of, the dealer explained that this cargo wall is easily removable with nothing but a screw driver. After showing us around the van the dealer decided to say "Here, take it for a ride." Since my current wheelchair is not approved for occupied transport dad had to lift me up into the passenger's seat and mom sat in the back. The engine was much quieter than I had expected it to be, and the ride was very smooth. Mom when it was her turn to drive was a little scared since she had never driven a van of this size in a long time, however, she got in and drove it as though she had just driven it yesterday. During the test drive we stopped off at a McDonalds and parked for a short meeting on whether we are going to purchase it or not. We decided that we would indeed purchase it and would put down the deposit while the dealer worked on fixing a few things for us. The vans drivers side door lock is broken, and the dealer is replacing that at no charge to us, the dealer is also going to clean up the interior and exterior and tune up the engine. The dealer told us that he would call us in a few days with the status on our van, but he said that all his work should be done by Thursday, and he will await payment in full. The only reason we are paying in full is the fact that we are selling dads current Dodge Ram truck. The Dodge Ram covers only about half of the price of the van, the other half will have to come out of our bank account and tax refund. This does cause some financial instability for us as in the event of a major emergency requiring a large sum of money the money will not be there in that emergency account. Hence, this is another expense that I am hoping donators at this website will help us absorb.

Hosted by: Alin S
Title: EPISODE8 - Disabilities - Down Syndrome
Time: 02/15/2008 09:00 PM EST
Episode Notes: Tonight we will talk about Down Syndrome. It can be dealt with by using different life changing strategies and therapies. We also taked about AAC devices and medical conditions associated with down syndrome. last 10-20 minutes we will be talking about the NIU shootings that occurred yesterday and other news about my website.

The powerchair dealer called today with our delivery time. My powerchair is set to deliver at 10:00 AM on Monday. I can't wait for this baby to arrive; the current wheelchair I am in is absolutely horrid. Getting this powerchair is the same thing as going from a 1956 Ford P.O.S to a 2008 Rolls Royce. We are all excited about the arrival. Sadly dad cannot be home for the arrival as he still needs to work. However, we will have the camera out and will take lots of pictures. Photos will likely not be uploaded until sometime Tuesday, however, text based news will be posted on the blog sometime Monday afternoon. I still have yet to figure out what I am going to do with the obsolete "The Powerchair" page, if anyone has a suggestion as to what I should do with it they can either leave a comment on this blog post or use the Contact Me feature.

I usually do not post "News" on this blog. This blog is almost always about me and things that directly affect me. Today is an exception, for yesterday February 14th 2008 was the day that 18 students of NIU in DeKalb were shot. DeKalb is only about an hour drive from my house. This news upsets me even though I have nothing to do with NIU, the reason I find this upsetting is because of the quantity of shootings that have been occurring in the United States schools, as NBC5 news quoted last night "It is really hard for a student to cope with tragedies like this. School is meant to be a very safe place, and when a student no longer has that feeling of security in their school it causes unrest." I uphold that statement with huge support, for this news is making me rethink going to college physically. I am beginning to think about not going to college at all physically and doing it online if I do any college whatsoever, this leaves a flaw though, the fact that hands on labs are missed all the time.

What is the United States going to do about this? All I ask is that the United States government create a federal task force that is designed to inspect the security of schools and help fund projects to increase security. Metal detectors should be funded by the government for the schools, security cameras should be funded by the government. It is time that the government began stepping in and helping secure the schools. The TSA has done a great job of securing our airports, it is time we had a School Security Administration created.

I have created a vigil tag on the front page, which shall remain until the end of the month. This post will remain forever as a permanent memorial to all of the victims and their loved ones.

Condolences to the victims and families of the February 14th, 2008 shooting at NIU

If I had the ability to be all over the place running around screaming ITS FINALLY COMING!!! I would, though I do not have that ability and had to settle for a blog post. Anyways the powerchair is set to be delivered next Monday!!! And it is about time, that so called "companion chair" does no justice for my horrible positioning and mobility, It is a disgrace. This powerchair is going to allow me to do so many things that I have not been able to do for a very long time. I do not take mobility for granted anymore, I want everyone to understand this, mobility is a fragile component to life, and can be broken quite easily, if powerchairs and wheelchairs did not exist mobility would be gone forever, for me and a lot of other people in this world! The powerchair was invented by George Klein in the World War II timeframe to give soldiers who were rendered quadriplegic in battle a second chance at mobility back home. I am really grateful that the wheelchair and powerchair were invented for if they weren't I would be bedridden for the rest of my life.

Did this blog post make you cry as you were reading it?

When I was doing my final copy edit, like I always do I get the text to speech synthesis system to read it back as I scan along for errors. Surprisingly I was tearing by the end of the post.

Final word...
ITS COMING AND ITS ARRIVING ON MONDAY!!!

As stated in the Google analytics system removed blog post there will be a monthly statistics report posted on the blog. I have discovered that it is not possible for me to do mid month report construction. I would have to manually create charts from the 24th of one month to the 24th of another. Hence all statistics reports will be given on the 1st of each month instead of the 24th. This change also applies to DisabledPlanet statistics.

The old plan was to have reports given on the 22nd for DisabledPlanet and on the 24th for alinssite.info instead of doing this both reports will be given on the 1st of each month...

There will be no January report. The first report will be the February report which will be released March 1st.

Excuse the dark picture. But that is what it looked like right after the big snowstorm on February 6th, when dad woke up to leave for work. He made it to work ok, after taking an extra hour to shovel everything. The snowstorm was very bad and me and mom were surprised dad went to work that day. We had to stay home due to how temperature sensitive I am due to my respiratory difficulties.

More pictures in the gallery. Click picture above to go to gallery.

Hosted by: Alin S
Title: EPISODE7 - Disabilities - Central Auditory Processing DIsorder
Time: 02/08/2008 10:13 PM EST
Episode Notes: Tonight we will talk about central auditory processing disorder, a component of certain autistic spectrum disorders. It can be dealt with by using different life changing strategies and therapies. There are no medications available. last ten minutes we will be talking about our internet connections. PERMANENTLY CHANGED TO FRIDAY NIGHTS.

We decided to call the powerchair dealer yesterday for a status update, the dealer said, "I think your powerchair arrived today; I have to go check in back. I will call you back." Surprisingly enough she became so busy yesterday that she didn't call back. So we decided to call her back today and low and behold the powerchair has arrived at the dealer’s office! All we need to do to the house now is move the furniture around in the house a bit to make for prime accessibility. We have to get the new van quickly and so that is going to be quite costly. If you are able to donate please donate to help us pay for the van. The powerchair will not even be ready for delivery for a few days since they need to get all the components that shipped separate from the powerchair put together, headrest, chest harness, custom seating system, and various other components. Then they need to program it. After all of that is done it can be considered ready for delivery. The only problem is we are not ready to take delivery just yet. We should hopefully be ready to take delivery in the next week or two. The van is not extremely critical to accepting the delivery.

Another, not so little tweak has been made to the blog. We now have a comment's system again thanks to HALOSCAN. The new comment system also allows you to rate a blog post instantly with the click of your mouse. Just like the old website, all comments will be personally read and responded to by me. Hope to hear from you guys soon!

When leaving comments make sure to use your name or nickname on your comments. Comments without names or nicknames will be deleted without notice. The same policy applies to comments without E-Mail addresses.

For the last few days I have been having progressively worsening trackpad issues with my MacBook Pro. We finally decided to take it into the Apple store and get this thing checked and fixed when the trackpad started giving me constant trouble today. Hence, why some of the blog posts from today are from earlier time stamps because they never got uploaded due to my loss of control over my laptop. While we were waiting for it to be fixed we went and checked out the MacBook Air. According to the manager they just got them in late last night, so I was one of the first few hundred to touch the MacBook Air. During that time I decided I would write a review.

More photos in the gallery. Click the photo above to go to the gallery!

MacBook Air Review
By Alin S

Aesthetics

I myself must agree with everyone else. The first thing that really slaps you in the face is the thin factor of this beautiful machine. The funny thing is that it is actually light enough for me to pick up, remember that with the progressive disease I have my muscle tone is really low and I can barely lift my 5.4 pound MacBook Pro. The MacBook Air's aluminum finish and thin-ness scream at you. "Touch me, Buy me, Touch me, Buy me." The only problem I have in the aesthetics department is the keyboard keys, they are plain ugly. I wish Apple took a copy of the MacBook Pro keyboard and put it in the MacBook Air. Black keys on an aluminum machine just look terrible. Aside from that the aesthetics of the MacBook Air are astoundingly beautiful.

Speed

This area seems to have a lot of people worried. I have no qualms about the speed of the MacBook Pro, to me there is a lot of power packed into a very small package. The PATA hard drive based model boots in 30 seconds flat and the Solid State Drive model boots in under 15 seconds. Both much faster than when I used to use windows and had to put up with boot times hovering around three to five minutes. The MacBook Air does everything they said it would do.

Size

People were expecting a new power oriented machine, this is not that machine, that machine will probably come in the August keynote. But this machine definitely will fit for most traveling business people especially those who wish to have a laptop that is extremely light and easy to stow. Weighing in at a feather weight three pounds and measuring 0.16 inches thick at its thinnest point and 0.76 inches at it's thickest the MacBook Air is truly a real life marvel of design and engineering. I have no qualms about the size, though I wish there were a 15" inch or maybe even a 17" inch MacBook Air. Lighter and thinner MacBook Pro's would be nice.

Input

Some people really like the keyboard, I don't I heavily prefer the feel of my MacBook Pro's scissor style laptop keyboard. Though I must admit, the multi touch trackpad is probably the best invention since the iPhone's multi touch screen. Apple is beginning to roam into the market of input devices now. I would like to see an Apple Cinema touch screen display soon. Aside from the qualms I have about the keyboard the MacBook Air has no problems in input.

Output

The glossy screen really stands out and extends the MacBook Air's general point of being very sleek. It has extremely crisp colors and photos look gorgeous on the screen. The only qualm I have in the department of screens is the fact that it only comes in a one size fits all 13" inch screen. Sound output is amazingly clear and crisp, I was expecting a tiny speaker on the mother board that could only beep, but Apple figured out a way to get nice speakers in there. The sound output like any other laptop is not very bassy but I don't mind since I'm not much of a bass lover anyways.

Ports

This is where I only have a few small qualms, and where a lot of people have some huge qualms. The arrangement of ports is quite limited, but the cool thing is the ports are totally out of sight until you open the little ports door. The lack of more than one USB port is a bit disappointing but can very easily be mitigated with a small portable USB hub. The lack of a Firewire port is slightly disappointing but not by much since all of my devices support either both or just USB, majority being USB only. I would have liked to see a DVI or Mini-DVI port on the MacBook Air since it is a machine designed for business travelers. Business travelers are likely to use a projector at some point in their trip and it would be nice if they could directly connect to the projector with the MacBook Air like they can with the MacBook Pro. Aside from those two small qualms I have none elsewhere.

Batteries

A lot of people have qualms about the sealed battery that can only be replaced by Apple or by the 16 year old geek down the street who has three Mac's taken apart on his desk per day. Personally I have no problem with this, I nearly never take the battery out of my MacBook Pro aside from when I need to change the RAM and the MacBook Air does not require it's users to ever upgrade the RAM since it comes with a spacious 2GB. You must remember that the MacBook Air is mainly a business machine, so 2GB is pretty spacious for most to all business oriented applications.

Cost

This is where the MacBook Air really gets slammed. The cost of this machine is astronomical. After the sticker shock you begin to realize that Solid State Drives are quite a new technology and the price per gigabyte is still relatively high. You also must realize that a lot of things about this machine had to go through a lot of work to become small enough to keep the MacBook Air's Airiness.

This concludes the MacBook Air Review

It's not very common that I really badger people about getting on Talkshoe and coming to my podcast, but lately in the last few weeks attendance numbers have plummeted. Please if you can click the link above and participate on fridays. If you wish to participate in the audio chat you must either dial on your telephone or click "Talkshoe Pro" to use the software's built in VOIP system.

Hope to see you all there!

Over the last day I have made some tweaks to the website. The first tweak I did yesterday was fix the way the Google box looks and make it more integrated, This was completed with a few minutes of HTML code tweaking. Today I decided that I wanted episode notice blog posts to look like they did in our old iWeb based website and so I decided to tinker with some HTML code and voila, like iWeb RapidWeaver accepts HTML in the blog posts.

I have decided to remove the Google Analytics's system due to the fact that I just found out about a server side system that is pre-installed on our sherver. By using a server side system you get much more accurate tracking since it is not based on getting data from a javascript to another server, this results in a very inaccurate statistics system due to the fact that some people do not support javascript on their computers and or the data gets lost in transport.

Being that the statistics system is server side I will also be able to keep track of disabledplanet.net and its performance. Sorry Google, but your statistics system is not going to work for me.

Google Analytics is more designed for when you have lots of advertisement on your website apparently with all of the ad tracking features it has, which are completely unnecessary clutter for my usage. Awstats which stands for Advanced Web Statistics has zero clutter of unused features, like Google Analytics it also can keep track of how people got to my website and what search query lead them to my site from a search engine, apparently this is all stored within the referrer tags and is not a proprietary Google Analytics's feature.

Even though I didn't know Awstats existed on the server it began tracking my website the minute it got uploaded on January 24th 2008 hence, the monthly statistics report will be done on the 24th of every month. The alinssite.info statistic's report will be posted to the blog!

A disabledplanet.net statistic's report will be posted to the statistics thread on the 22nd of every month.

I have also decided to remove the AdSense powered Google search box. We now have our good old good looking custom built search box.