Sometimes It Just Doesn’t Get Better

As those of you who follow this blog know, the last year has not exactly been a great one for me. It doesn't look like this year is going to be any better -- in fact I think it's going to be worse. Dad's cancer is growing again. It's obviously sending little spiderwebs out into new sections of his brain. The oncologist confirms that it's a growing, although I have no idea how fast or how far, etc., because nobody tells me this. I don't think they tell me because I don't think they register it. Dad not only doesn't remember things, I don't think he's registering things or processing things the way he used to. Sometimes he's really good, seems like his old self, and then other days he has hard time holding a conversation because he gets lost. He forgets what you just said to him so you can have the whole conversation over again.

The growth of cancer also means that dad is having problems in new areas. The scariest may be that he is now having balance problems. He's fallen at least twice, although he doesn't remember falling. The hardest time for him is the transition between sitting down and standing up. I don't think I'd ever really registered just how much balance was involved in that.

Anyhow, it's gotten really tough for me. I'm having a terrible time focusing on anything. And I spend a lot of time crying this week. I'm hopeful that will resolve itself as I get adjusted to the fact that it's now definite Dad is dying. God, what a horrid thing to say! But it's true, my dad is dying a slow, debilitating death.

And if that wasn't enough, I found that yesterday my best friends are moving to Seattle. This is going to be really good for them, but I will miss them terribly. Since they're a big part of my support system, I don't know how I will function without them. I've started crying again -- don't know if it will ever stop

Playing with Money

Okay, I admit it - hobbies are strange. I can say this because I've acquired a new one: Where's George? For those of you who don't know, Where's George is a website, more specifically, a website where you track where your money came from and where it's going. Sounds innocuous enough, right? Maybe yes, maybe no. It turns out that when you really start playing around with Where's George, you start spending your money in smaller bills. I suddenly found myself asking the bank teller if I can have that in flies in ones instead of asking her to make sure I get large bills. Suddenly my preferred build size is a five dollar bill instead of 20. Madness I tell you -- pure unadulterated madness. And yet, I'm having a lot of fun, some serious frustration, but a lot of fun.

For those of you who are not into the whole tracking your money hobby, here is a quick primer on how it works. I get a dollar bill (or five dollar bill or $10 bill or $20 bill etc. etc. etc.), then a rush off to my computer, go to the website, log in so I get credit for this event, and enter the basic information off the front of my bill. The basic information consists of the denomination, the serial number, and the year it was issued. I also enter the zip code which I'm currently residing (or visiting), and any comments about the bill what I want to enter such as where I got it. And then comes the magic moment -- I reach over and hit the enter button. This is the moment when I find out if somebody else has already entered the bill or if I'm the first one to do that. Generally, a bill is going to be marked if it's been entered, but not always. The ones that aren't marked are called stealth bills, among other things. I keep hoping to find a treasure trove out there -- a whole bunch of bills that haven't been marked. But so far no luck, I'm the first one to mark them and the first one to enter them. But all is not lost – there is the magic of a hit. Somebody could enter the bill I already entered, and I will find out where my bill went.

That is the frustrating part -- I have to wait! I have to wait until some stranger I don't know finds my bill. I have to trust the stranger is going to enter my bill into the computer so I'll know where my bill has gone. The good news is that statistically about a fifth of the bills I enter will end up being entered by somebody else at least once in the bill's life cycle. But it could be a long time. And that's the frustrating part. So why would anybody do this? The answer has to do with inconsistent rewards. It turns out that we are very motivated by rewards, as most of us know. If it is a consistent negative reward, we avoid the stimulus. If it's consistent positive reward, we seek out the stimulus. But the strongest effect occurs when it is an inconsistent positive reward, those are the events we really look for. So here you have this innocuous hobby where you enter dollar bills serial numbers into the computer in hopes of getting a hit and a hit is nothing more than an inconsistent positive reward. So you suddenly find yourself hooked. And that's how I became one of those funny people who play with their money.

Want to try it for yourself? Go to www.wheresgeorge.com and open an account. It is a free website and a cheap hobby. All's it takes is the money you were going to spend anyway and a little time. But I warn you – you might also start using smaller bills…

The joys of technology

I write for a living. I don't write novels or short stories or anything the general populations is likely to read, but nonetheless I write for a living. I write manuscripts to submit to technical journals, and I write grant applications in hopes of getting money to collect the data so I can write more articles for more journals. With all that writing, you think it would be easy for me, but it's not. Somehow it's incredibly difficult to get the thoughts in my head down on the paper. Most of the problem stems because I think faster than I write, and I really think faster than I type.

That where technology comes in. Several years ago I tried a dictation program but was really unhappy with it because it took so long to train. I plugged along and had just gotten up to about the point where it was working for me and then they upgraded Windows, and it didn't work anymore. The technology people all said to me, "look, Windows does come with a dictation program; you're going to love it." Who were they kidding? Like so many things, the Windows dictation program was much worse than what I'd been using. So I gave up on dictation programs for awhile. But a month and a half ago, I got a new 1 -- Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9. I like it! It still isn't perfect, but then what is? The thing is, I can talk out what I want to say. And then I just go back and fix all the errors it makes. Sometimes I can't get the original thought, but all how much easier it is to draft out that original copy.

And that pays off for those of you who glance occasionally at this blog. Why you ask? Because it is so much easier to write a blog when I could just say what I'm thinking. I don't have to worry about my hands keep up with my head. And so that whole list of items that are in my drafts pile is likely to get and posted.

Blogging your dreams

A friend of mine, the Cheeky Librarian, sent me this link for blogging your dreams. It's a contest, which I'm likely to enter and unlikely to win. But it got me thinking about what are the things you dream of and how possible are they. For instance, I dream about economic justice for everybody in the world, about children having access to a good education no matter where they live, about available medical care, food and shelter for everyone, about a world without war, where people could visit one another across boundaries without worrying about nationality or religion. I would love to see a world where we lived with nature, instead of trying to conquer or overrun the nature. I don't even know how I would go about building economic justice in my own hometown. When the football coach who was fired makes 5 million and I'm making about 1% of that, I really don't see how I'm going to affect the difference.

I also found that I got to thinking about what dreams are practical and which ones aren't. For instance, I dream of a US political structure, where Bush is not president, where civil liberties are more valuable than so-called security measures, and where politicians really try to help the citizenry, all the citizenry, have better lives. Between you and me, I don't expect that to happen anytime soon. I suppose I could submit my dream of getting rid of Bush , but that's going to happen anyway. And unless you and I get off our duffs and elect an all-new cadre of politicians, I have little hope for Congress. But that presupposes that we get a different type of candidate running for office. Of course, the real solution would be for somebody like me to run for Congress.

Which brings me to another dream -- I'd like to be a Congressional Representative. But I don't have that much hope of obtaining that one either. First place, I live in Nebraska. For those of you who don't know it, Nebraska is a very conservative state. As far as I'm concerned, our Democratic candidates would be Republicans in any other state. So what are the chances of a woman who with a very liberal political views ever getting elected in Nebraska -- probably nil. And of course I'm not rich -- seems like you have to have an incredible amount of money to even run for Congress. And finally, who wants to go through the mudslinging that is part of modern politics.

And so I will probably enter my very plebeian dream of having a backyard refuge for birds. I love wild birds and I truly do dream of having a yard which provides food, water and shelter for hundreds of birds. I'd have splashing fountains, run by solar panels. I would put lots of bushes with fruit around the edge of my yard, the part that still get sunshine (I have a big tree in the backyard). I woulf find a place to put a cherry tree and leave all of cherries for the birds. I would put up a swallow house; the summer I bought my house, there were swallows in the yard, but I haven't seen any this year. I'd have bird feeders that the squirrels could steal all the food out of.

Or maybe I could have my dream of an aviary so I could free all those poor birds at the pet store from their little tiny cages. But I really don't have a house for that. So I probably won't use that one. See it all comes down to what's practical -- after all, they're only talking about $5,000. Maybe if it was $200,000...

what's your dream? Is it practical? What could you do toward it if you had $5,000? Maybe you should enter the contest too. The contest is run by the advertising team of Washington Post Newsweek Interactive: http://www.bloggingyourdreams.com/registration.html .