With school this semester, I have never thought to see book expenses get dramatically higher with the passing days. It was nice in the early days, but now, it gets more and more pricey with school expenditures. Some classes require additional texts to supplement the learning and even some classes require gadgets. I'll talk on gadgets later on... Some folks are more fortunate to get student loans, others even more so with scholarships and other awards from private organizations or the government. There are also the younger folks who are privileged to have their parents foot the bill without even seeing a dime come to their own pocket books...
For most of my college life, I have footed the bill for my textbooks but at a sacrifice to something I own or possess. Sure, there was the time my family even believed in my education... but even then it was question of sacrifice.
That was always the "rules of engagement". My family never believed in loans and my luck wasn't too great with scholarships save for only one time. So I would just begin selling memories of my childhood off one-by-one. Things like rare games begin to fade from my collection, all just to fund a book that I would use once and possibly never get near the desired street value again. Once that bastion was exhausted, my last bastion was invaded... My electric guitar. Once I sold that, pretty much most of my childhood relics had finally been lost. Sure, my childhood wasn't too great, but I wish that I never had to lose those pieces of my life. Now, I have had to put aside my commitment to pay off the IRS and another debt... why? I paid $700 to get back into school and I still need to make a "contribution" to my family, before my book expenses...
You can keep your games and fail or you can sell your possessions and learn... Choose!
But let's get down to the cost and tactics for books...
With the modern era, textbooks for classes can easily reach $300 - $500 depending on the required curriculum's requests. There are some instructors feel that the textbook is only an additional "tool" and not a necessity, so that leaves a student to invest time to be in class or the lack of investing in a book becomes the sword that cuts a GPA asunder all from skipping class. There are some which endorse getting the previous edition, prior to the newest printing which is a great way to save some serious cash from the hard depreciation of an older edition. Last way to save a buck or two is just to hit up your local craigslist site and just try searching for the books there... With the advent of social networks, Facebook even has a marketplace where you can plug up ISBN's and they will filter local sales to find local deals. If you're unlucky to be stuck with no one local selling... You have two options:
- Buy from an online vendor and play the waiting game (I got unlucky once and had my book delayed for an entire month once...)
- Buy from the unofficial off-campus bookstore
- Buy directly from the school bookstore.
The first can be a godsend, as there are merchants like abebooks which sells some books for a significant fraction off of the street price. The main caveat is that some of the books are "International Edition" meaning that they were initially sold in other countries, but are still the same book. Which leads me next point, because of the international editions, the books could ship from (for example) Germany. The books are not from abebooks, but they are "marketed" there via third party, much like how Amazon had their "marketplace" set up if you want a used copy of something. Caveat Emptor. (Buyer beware for those not Latin initiated.) The last two can be a bit painful as used can range from $47 - $85 and new from $160 - $200+. The good part is that you are picking up the book in person... so there's no question if you have the wrong book or one that's not compatible with the course.
Of course... now there are the wacky gadgets that instructors require you to buy to get through class. electronic clickers and remotes to electronically respond to pop-quizzes. Those can range from $15 - $20, despite a few teachers saying "A used one should run you a couple bucks in an off-campus book shop." I would hate to be the unfortunate soul who signs up for 2 classes with a requirement to get a JoinIn remote ($20 new) and an iClicker ($20). I was unlucky to be drained to $0 after mine and I still don't have enough money for my books.
Personally, if teachers could say "Log on to my site and you can read the book on my Flash applet" or the school tuition fee could encompass for downloadable books, it'd be great! We should be making use of technology to make education cheaper for the masses. Hell, an e-book device issued out and then "docked" in a class terminal to get a copy of the book would be a great idea. The in-class responders aren't too bad... But why not make the books digital? A few schools are doing this in response that heavy books are hurting the backs of children... Why can't college students get the same deal?
On LifeHack.org, I found one of the posts involving student productivity involved the idea of getting a free wiki for academic use as a means to take notes or even organize them. Personally, I love wikis because they are very open to change and updates in a simple form and I figure in the case that someone goes "Could I get your notes?" I can just pass them my educational wiki.
Featured article in discussion: Advice for Students - Use a Wiki for Better Note-Taking
I decided to just use PBwiki as my wiki host for edu-wiki as I don't mind it being indexed and the ads are a small price to get free hosting. With PBwiki, it's a WYSIWYG editor and does not require advance knowledge of how to edit wiki pages with the unique wiki codes. To create one is pretty simple, just throw in your desired wiki prefix name, as they format the wiki's as http://______.pbwiki.com/ which is actually pretty sweet and simple. I just chose mine out to be zeroxr-edu (my school wiki) to keep my notes in track. I like the ease of use as I can quickly compile notes to get everything off of my handwritten papers in a very neat way. I am glad that free wiki hosts like PBwiki have come out of the wormwood and can now become a great asset to the poor college student. I will definitely try to stick with the PBwiki for my school note use, as I know some nights... I can't even read my own chicken scratch for writing. I hope that my experiment will yield good results.
What do you have, what do you need and what do you want?
Submitted by Miss Scotch.
Have: Treo 680 (Cellphone and PDA), Franklin Covey Planner, Kenneth Cole Reaction series wallet, Dell XPS m140 with Ubuntu Linux, 160GB USB hard drive, HP F380 all-in-one printer/scanner/copier, executive desk, standard issue "cubicle rat" chair, Nintendo DS Lite (Onyx), 1999 MX-5 Miata
Need: Money, pay off IRS debt, pay off old electricity bill, pay off old apartment lease breakage, text books for school, oil change, 60,000 mile service on my car, food, new GSM cell phone provider, vacation
Want: Custom dogtag from military surplus store, R4DS card, Pokemon Pearl, Pokemon Leaf Green, Windows powered gaming laptop, Guild Wars: Eye of the North, LCD monitor, executive office chair, supercharger upgrade for car, suspension upgrade for car, light weight and flat black racing wheels, hard top for car, new stereo for car, Pioneer Elite plasma TV, Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 3, XBOX 360, games for corresponding systems, G35 Sport sedan, newer backpack, dragon and phoenix ring set.
So... The bleeding edge repos for Compiz-Fusion had committed proverbial suicide on me. I lost a lot of my great functionality that I had come to love from Compiz-Fusion. It crushed me, believe it or not. But I knew what I was getting in to by playing with something that's as deadly as a live razor blade... "If you play with the bleeding edge, prepare get cut!". Boy did I ever get cut... If anything, it smarts. After trying to flirt with the power of Terminal to use it as my sword to duel with the files that bring my user interface (GUI for the geek initiated) to life, otherwise I'd be returning to a VERY cold Terminal screen.
After trying to revive Compiz-Fusion with some prebuilt scripts to take the brain work out of slashing and mucking around in the Aptitude system, I decided to hack to the bone and get Beryl back up while reverting any severe changes from the install scripts for Compiz-Fusion from removing my ubuntu-desktop metapackage. After using a couple of commands to clean out bad Metacity themes and any other things being guilty of borking my configuration... I got the ubuntu-desktop package bolted up then I added the beryl, beryl-manager, heliodor, and emerald packages added to the mix. After all those installed and got all settled... I loaded the final bullet in the clip and pulled the trigger, sending the bullet into the body.
I rebooted the laptop and prepared to witness either one of two things... The death of my GUI or nothing at all. After the machine loaded up, it had my custom log-in screen... and I can't tell you the elation that ran through my mind. I realize that there's a limit to how far I can push the bleeding edge, especially when my laptop is my "production" machine. So some pearls of wisdom for new Linux users who want to play with the "knives" of open source and brand spanking new technology... Keep these in mind:
- Make sure you back-up everything.
- Make sure you fully know what each command does
- Read, read, read all documentation before mucking about
- Google (or any other search engine) is your friend
- Do not use a "daily" or "production" machine if you have any doubts.
- Respect the Terminal/Konsole/xTerm like a weapon, it can save your machine or hurt it.
So last night, I poked on to LifeHacker to check out if they had any slick posts about new productivity tips in either life or software, I found this slick little gem of an article there: "Power up your Linux Desktop with Compiz-Fusion" on LifeHacker. After about 20 minutes, I had Beryl replaced in favor of Compiz Fusion. I like it and it really does merge the best of both worlds.
Compiz was a "laboratory stable" project, but never was one to push the boundaries of neat productivity effects. Beryl, a fork of Compiz, did the opposite... It pushed to the bleeding edge. It was not for the weak at heart. After installing Compiz-Fusion, I can see the facets of both projects and it is spectacular...
Avant Window Navigator (from the bleeding edge Compiz-Fusion Repos) with the bouncing icons and window preview
The Cube with a custom background and reflections enabled
The Ring, an alternative to the Flip3D of Vista or your boring Alt-Tab of yesteryear
Expo, see all your desktops and drag apps to the workspace desired, reflections are enabled
dare2dreamer has shown me a great example of something which defines my vision of what I would like the site to look like. I like the clean and simple layout as it just uses PHP and text with an image of the community logo. I would like to see if anyone else would be fine with me obtaining his tarball and unrolling it for our site. I would hate to upset a number of folks just because I did something without delay...
http://dare2dreamer.gotdns.org:8080/images/ubuntu-dallas/site/?page=main
Check it out and it does have our mission statement that was developed in the IRC room.
Let me know if you see me in the IRC room.
I'll admit, I am a sucker for clean looking desktops. I don't like clutter and prefer a clean look. To the Linux crowd, Avant Window Navigator is an open-source replica of the OS X window-list and launcher. It is the most well known one with regard to the Gnome desktop environment users, but it still is under development. I originally held off on it as the functionality was lacking... until now. ExxonValdeez from #ubuntu-dallas had told me that the functionality has been increased so things have become a little more functional with it. After fighting the install for a good while until this morning... I have it tweaked to my liking. Enclosed in this post are images... I have retired the XP Inverse wallpaper for the press-release images of the Aston Martin DBS, a replica of the latest James Bond car in the most recent movie, "Casino Royale", for those who are curious.
Disclaimer: If you are seeing the "black bars" around Avant Window Navigator, that's a sign you need Beryl or Compiz-Fusion.
Esteemed members of Ubuntu Dallas,
Many of you who've been in the IRC room (#ubuntu-dallas on irc.freenode.net) remember either me (ZeroXR) or schpenke mentioning about what happened to our site with an announcement via an IRC meeting. If you missed out, then allow me to quote from an e-mail from Jono on the official announcement about the site takedown:
On Monday evening (UK time) it was reported that one of the hosted community servers that Canonical sponsors had been compromised. After investigation, it became apparent that 5 of the 8 machines had been compromised. Since it was reported that they were actively attacking other machines (and because it's What You Do), the decision was taken to shut the machines down.
On Tuesday morning we started the procedure of bringing these machines up in a safe state so that we could recover data from them. Unfortunately, this took far longer than we would have hoped or liked due to a combination of having to use remote hands, arbitrary limits imposed by those remote hands and (relative) lack of bandwidth to copy data off site.
This process is still ongoing (though only one remain has yet to be fully recovered - tiber).
How did this happen
-------------------Unfortunately:
a) The servers, especially zambezi were running an incredible amount of web software (over 15 packages[1] that we recognised) and of all the ones where it's trivial to determine a version, they were without exception out-of-date and missing security patches. An attacker could have gotten a shell through almost any of these sites.
b) FTP (not SFTP, without SSL) was being used to access the machines, so an attacker (in the right place) could also have gotten access by sniffing the clear-text passwords.
c) The servers have not been upgraded past breezy due to problems with the network card and later kernels. This probably allowed the attacker to gain root.
[Quoted from Jono Bacon's E-mail, August 10th, 2007]
The site has been under the restoration and possibly a server move, so we're just waiting on Canonical to bring back the servers up so a few members of the Dallas team can assist with the effort to migrate to a different content management system (CMS) as we have had aggressive discussion with regard to how poor PostNuke has been to us. The main proponents of the site migration are: Myself, schpenke, JJNova, goodtimetribe, dare2dreamer, File13, and ExxonValdeez. Just there is one thing that we must know before we may proceed... What are Canonical's terms should we choose to use their hosting? What if we choose to go at it alone and manage our own server? I will post the next part of the very same e-mail with Jono below:
Loco teams/services can choose to either:
(1) be migrated to the Canonical data centre. This comes with both restrictions and benefits:
+ Better hardware and bandwidth.
+ Fulltime support from Canonical's sysadmin team including software maintenance and integration into our existing backup infrastructure.- root access will not be available.
- Access by per-user SSH key only, limited number of accounts per loco team / service.
- Can only support certain software (e.g. drupal, wordpress, planet, moin, ...)
- No ability to run arbitrary CGIs.(2) or stay on the hosted/outsourced servers.
However, assuming anyone chooses option (2), some things will have to change with how we handle these servers. Specifically, Canonical will continue to sponsor the servers but they will have to become entirely community run, i.e.
+ Community admin team liaise with hosting company for reboots, etc.
+ Community have sole responsibility for all aspects of administration of servers, including but not limited to day to day sysadmin tasks, backups, security, upgrades, recovery if compromised, etc.
+ Use of servers for loco team services only unless previously agreed.
- Both the Community Council and Canonical have oversight on this
[Quoted from Jono Bacon's E-mail, August 10th, 2007]
With that being said, "what" are our options? From the same e-mail, here is what Jono lists off as approved web app recommendations...
As far as what transpired today in the meeting with regard to the LoCo team pages, here's the "Cliff's Notes" from Matthew Nuzum's e-mail to the LoCo Contacts mailing list:
Art-Web
Gallery
Drupal
PHPmyadmin
Wordpress
PostNuke
phpBB
SMF
Moodle
Planet
ASPseek
Moin
TaskFreak
CMS Made Simple
MediaWiki
Hello everyone, here is a quick summary of the meeting today regarding the canonical sponsored loco team web hosting.
In a nutshell, if you are using one of the "approved" webapps listed in that e-mail, you are welcome to use the hosting provided by the Canonical sysadmin team in the London based Canonical data center (CDC).
If you are not using an approved application and don't feel migration to a supported application is possible, the US based servers will still be maintained, but not allocated the same administrative resources that the CDC hosted sites will receive.
All of the above means, "don't worry, everything is going to be OK." ;-)
Sites that had PHP, CGI or other executable code need to make arrangements to have that code replaced, since it could be compromised.
Also, each site will need to make arrangements for getting their site set up in the proper place.
To do this, follow these steps:
*Log into #canonical-sysadmin on freenode and ask for help migrating your existing loco site. The first available sysadmin will contact you to make proper arrangements. As always, be patient. Loco teams far outnumber sysadmins.Change: Instead of logging onto #canonical-sysadmin (which has turned to chaos), file a bug at https://launchpad.net/loco-webhosting. This way you'll be notified if there are questions or when its been completed.* Contact us to make sure we can make DNS changes for your site by filing a bug against the loco-webhosting project in launchpad . This process is not instantaneous unfortunately.
If you do not yet have Canonical sponsored hosting but would *like* to have hosting, please understand that there will be a slightly longer than usual delay, then follow the existing instructions at
Thanks for your cooperation as we work through this event.
[Quoted by Matthew Nuzum's E-mail, August 14th, 2007 at 11:17am]
As far as which CMS everyone wants to go with for our site, the most popular choices seem to be Wordpress and Drupal. Wordpress has many advantages as there are lots of modules and plug-ins that work great with the CMS. Drupal gets notes for the ability to control management from what schpenke mentioned in the channel. If anyone has more details about Drupal, please comment and I will append this news post for the changes.
I would like to make a "state of the union" to our members at Ubuntu Dallas: Let us know which CMS you would like us to impliment and why. If you have a particular design or site template you would like us to use with a corresponding CMS, please show us and we'll let our users give their input. We also need a logo as well... dare2dreamer, JJNova, and File13 have there logos on display, but I would like to see more "competition". After all the chosen logo will be our emblem for the coming months! If you're artistic, get cracking!
Show us your first car.
Submitted by The Greenhows.
Ah... My first car. It's been almost 2 years since I parted hands with the machine, yet still... I somewhat miss it. I would take ownership of my Integra back in 1999. This was a time when all of the "greatest" sports cars were nearing extinction. While friends and classmates of mine were buying Integra Type-R's, Civic Si coupes, 240SX coupes, or even used sports cars that would soon have cult status like the Supra or RX-7... I was passed this car. My family didn't believe in me at the age of 17 and to be dropped into a sports car with a manual transmission. They believed that the sedan format was the way to go and that an automatic transmission was a "safe choice". Well, they couldn't have been wrong on that as I found later with my ownership of my current car. The cool thing was that many of the second generation Integra coupe drivers liked how clean the car was stock. I had big dreams for the car. Unfortunately, one fateful day would cut things short as a high school kid would t-bone my car and proceed to hide in his web of lies before his insurance company sent a private investigator and get the real story from him vehemently denying that he had even hit my car.
The day that I got hit by that kid was a day of change... The arrogant confidence that was in me as a Honda/Acura driver was finally knocked out of me. I saw the error of my ways as a driver. I was overconfident in a machine I had no control over. A machine where I had not even pushed it to the extremes and get bit back for saying I was not ready. I got into a few accidents and even a traffic offense because I put too much faith in my car. I realized that for me to become a stronger driver and one more confident in my own skills as a driver, I needed a car to have barely any of the technological toys that are taken for granted by your average driver. I needed a car that was as spartan as they came to put me in my place and say "You are not my master, I am your master." The car would meet its maker in Automotive Heaven when it would become a "sacrifice" to the car I drive now.
From the "ashes" of my Integra's life, I bought a MX-5 Miata in, ironically, the polar anti-thesis color of my Integra (Black). The first month was the hardest as the car flogged me especially when I got overconfident with myself. The real benchmarks of my progress wouldn't show until my sixth month and first year with the car would show the merits of my time in with my car. I had improved by a large margin but the question does remain: "How much could the driving potential be if I was put back into a sport sedan with a manual transmission?" I wonder what the reality would be like if my Integra was a manual transmission. Would I have gotten into the same accidents? Would I have been able to slow my car down enough to avoid that fateful accident? I will never know the alternate reality.
The question, however, is a little bit relevant to the situation I am soon to arrive into. With my family aiding my escape from debt, they are asking me to repay them for their loan. I have been asked to look into alternative cars as family wants me to get a family car for the sake of versatility. The said "family car" is under the requirement that it must be new, if I wish to have my family to help with their credit record to assist me with an interest rate much lower than what I could get at my credit score. From seeking to integrate the driving experience that the Miata has taught me with the memories of my Integra, I have only found one car to integrate the best of both worlds.
I hope by late next year or early spring of 2009 to be in an Infiniti G35 Sport sedan to merge both the convenience of digital automotive advances with the true sense "If you want to play on the bleeding edge, you best prepared to get hurt or learn quick" driving. The choice of white will be more in honor of my driving roots and to honor the memory of my first car. As much as I hated the memories of my first car, I will never forget that it was the car that opened the door to so much more.
If you knew you had one week to live, what would you do, where would you go, who would you see?
Submitted by normatheartist
If I were terminally ill and given a prognosis of one week... It'd be one hell of a week due to something pretty grave. I'll say that my "prognosis" hits on a Thursday at an Emergency Room at a hospital. That way I can run down my entire week of productivity for the sake of this exercise in writing.
Disclaimer: This is just an exercise in narrative writing, do not take it as real and literal fact. I am not dying.
To set the scene, my family has decided to take my little sister to Japan for a month for vacation as a reward for graduating college nursing school. I am on medical leave from work just to recuperate from a bout of medical problems for a few months paid time off. I have requested for my girlfriend (to her family) to stay over with me to help care and nurse me under doctor's orders while logging my changes in health. The doctor has asked me to keep logs on my health, as they have not gotten comprehensive results on my labs to find what I am afflicted with. Lately things become complicating to my health and things drastically become complicated with the last few days.
Thursday
At about 5am in the morning from what started off as a nightmare to a very real and serious migraine that had me screaming in agony. My girlfriend would quickly wake from her sleep and rummage my desk for my migraine injection pen medication to administer an emergency dose to subdue my suffering. On finding my injection pen, she would hold my arm down and just jam the pen onto my arm and load the needle to inject me with the medication. I would feel the medication rushing through my blood stream and begin mellowing me out. I had not experienced this intense sort of pain for nearly 3 years so out of concern my girlfriend drove me to the hospital to take a look at me in the ER.
At around 6am, I was admitted into ER. I was given an anti-anxiety drug and they had wanted to have a neuro-surgeon to do a CAT scan to check for any unusual growths in my brain. I took my tablet and was then instructed to change into a sterile gown about one hour after dosing myself with the medication. Being laid onto the "table" and then being slid into a tube was somewhat of a claustrophobic experience... like being sealed up in a morgue, except you get to escape alive after your CAT scan. The anti-anxiety drug kicked in and I finally felt the effects of mellowing me out from my claustrophobia. The scan took what felt like forever, but that was the least of my suspense.
After the scan, I changed back out and I was told to wait for the neuro-surgeon as he needed to speak to me after reviewing my scans. Under the ER doctor's orders, they had wanted me in a wheelchair in case I had another random spike in pain. Every minute seemed like it became a tick towards eternity. After what felt like purgatory, the neuro-surgeon asked me to come to his office. After I was wheeled in and my girlfriend sat down. The doctor opened up my chart and showed me images of my CAT scan. He had said the trigger of my migraines was due to an increase in inflammation of my brain and there was an unusual growth close to my brain stem. On closer inspection with his staff... It was determined that the growth was cancer and due to its location, my spinal column is a very easy target and surgery was not an option. The doctor gave me a prognosis finally, "I'm sorry... but you only have until possibly a week to live. The cancer is spreading fast..." The surgeon would go on and on... My girlfriend sobbed and I just couldn't go on to listen to what the surgeon was saying. I never expected to die from brain cancer and that's all my mind was centric over. The doctor would say that by Thursday, the pains would be so intense due to the cancer's progress that even taking medications like Vicodin or Oxycontin would not be able to control the pain. At that point, I would have to be on IV drips just for therapeutic pain control. I would heed the surgeon's warning and pay up for my time there just to learn the bad news. It would be almost 10:30am before finally finished my paperwork and payment for receiving medical services.
My girlfriend drove me home and from there, I asked her to let me drive. I would take my reliable and tough as nails Miata to the Infiniti dealership for my final driving evolution... At the dealership, I would work quick to tag a salesman. I found a black G35 Sport sedan with every option available and just wanted to eat the negative equity from my Miata just to take the car home today. I would make haste just to get my car traded in and then get the contract signed off for my new car. I sniffled a little when I saw my Miata being taken in... but I knew that better things were ahead for my last days alive. After all the paperwork and expedited checks just to get me in my new car and out... I had nearly lost the day. It was already 4pm. I rushed home to change into to a comfortable set of clothes and drove to my girlfriend's home.
On arriving to her family's home, she ran inside to change clothes. Her father saw my new car and asked what happened to the Miata. I told him about my prognosis and my intentions on trying to spend the last days on Earth as happy as possible. He gave me a very reassuring hug. One that just melted my heart. After my girlfriend changed out and saw her father giving me a reassuring hug, I asked her father if he would honor my request for me to take the family out to dinner. He was surprised but did not mind honoring my wish. My girlfriend would hurry to rally up her mother and younger sister to get dressed. I would wait around in the living room to gaze at the paintings on the wall while everyone else got dressed.
Once everyone was dressed, I would take everyone to a Chinese dumpling house that I had made many fond "family" memories of meals with them. I would call some of my closest friends to join me for a "last meal". After everyone got settled in and ordered their drinks, I went ahead and ordered some of my stable favorites as well as honoring the requests of anyone who wanted something off of the menu. Once all the food was there... I wanted to make my announcement to the table and even a "eulogy" with regard to my declining health. My guests were filled with a silent respect for me. I didn't want everyone to eat with a somber mood, so I made an announcement that was one I wanted to shoot for the moon. I proposed to my girlfriend to get married at the courthouse right at 9am tomorrow morning. The guests were in shock and happiness that I was just in anticipation for my girlfriend's response. I looked into her eyes and just hoped she would accept. "Let's live a good life together, I would be honored to be your wife". Everyone was in excited with joy from her reply and we finally ate at around 7pm. Everyone shared stories and laughed. That was what I wanted to see for one last time... My friends and my girlfriend's family smiling and being happy. By about 9pm, we all left and I took my girlfriend's family home to retire to sleep. I would return home with my girlfriend and we would just head to sleep by about 10pm for our "wedding day".
Friday
My alarm clock would ring at 7am and I would rouse my soon-to be wife up to watch the morning sun with me as well as help me administer my medical cocktail of pills. After I was finished with my medicine, she would find me my nicest suit and dress me up for our wedding at the courthouse. I was just expecting it to be a "boring wedding" but I was about to be surprised... On arriving in the parking lot, everyone from last night's party surprised me and my girlfriend! Her family brought her a simple dress to change into and we would walk into fill our paper work to file before our wedding. After our paperwork was done, we waited our turn to stand before the county judge who would pronounce us "man and wife". After almost an hour passed and we were to stand before the judge and recite the vows. After we exchanged "I do's", we walked out and everyone cheered.
For the wedding meal, I just wanted to go to my favorite Japanese restaurant just to eat great and thank everyone for coming out to a very special day. (1:30pm) My wife's family wanted me to stay with them under their care so that my wife would not be strained on the complete care of me. I agreed completely on the decision and came home to their house after gathering all of my comfort items for my last days. I wanted to spend my wedding day with my wife, so we went to the local jeweler to have him craft a custom ring for her as a memento of my fatally short marriage to her. After her consulted with us on her visions for the design, he told her that it would not be until Thursday until the ring would be ready for her. After that, we spent the rest of the day playing video games with her family to bring a simple close to the day. I would once again take them out to eat again to their favorite Korean restaurant and have no qualms with paying for their dinner. I was glad that my pains were not causing me any agony. By the time dinner was done, we went home to play more games and I had to take my medical cocktail again. Everyone went soon went to sleep except myself, because my insomnia struck me. My wife just couldn't sleep because of her concern for me, so she suggested we do something that has been a "ritual" for a very long time: Take a trip to Wal-Mart at 1am in the morning. I had put a close to my final will I was working on and then we went.
On our late night trip out to Wal-Mart, we were ourselves again... That same mindset when we were dating and just going to Wal-Mart on a whim "just because". We goofed off and even did our usual gazing at deals and such. I got a few more family oriented games to play with her family tomorrow and we both ended up picking up a late night snack to eat when we got home. It was like old times... Just we were living together and with her family. I would be like the child just breaking the seals to the games while snacking on the food we bought. The time had crept up to 3am and sleep was finally hitting me like a ton of bricks. We both slept on the couch with a fuzzy throw blanket to keep us warm.
Saturday
I woke myself up at around 7am and I find everyone already awake. I could feel my head hurt as my last dose was starting to bottom out. I took all of my medications and joined everyone for breakfast. After eating, I ask if anyone wanted to go to the zoo that is two cities out. I just wanted to spend time there to look at the animals as well as spend time with my girlfriend and her family. Everyone liked the idea and we took my car out there. I found the drive to be a fun experience. I had never been able to take others along with me in any of my cars since my first car, so to drive "the family" around and hear them laugh and discuss things was interesting. I just lost myself in the driving experience as a form of self-hypnosis to aid in taking the pain sensitivity a notch.
We would get to the zoo at about 9am and proceed to wait in line for entry. I planned on fronting cash for the excursion as it was my idea and I did intend for a great day. After we were in, we wandered through all the exhibits and checked out all of the animals. Time passed by so quickly and before we all knew it, it was already close to 5pm. We all were famished from the trip and the afternoon lunch didn't do much for us. I would take them out to their favorite Chinese restaurant for dinner and just end the night simple. The zoo may not have seemed like much, but to me, it was plenty of fun.
After dinner and going back home to their house, I would continue finalizing my last will to be reviewed by legal professionals tomorrow. I wanted to ensure that no organization got too greedy with taking my items away for their own auction. I felt a slight aura of a migraine coming on, but I took a oral dissolving migraine tab and finally called it a night and went to sleep.
Sunday
I woke with severe pain that I have to reach for my break through pain medications before my morning's lot of pills to take to sustain reasonable life. I found that my motor skills were starting to deteriorate from my brain cancer's metastasis. Brushing my teeth or even changing clothes was a struggle... at this point, I knew that this would seal my fate as an unsafe hazard to even consider driving. I asked my wife to drive me to a few law offices that morning to make sure my last will was locked tight with no loopholes. After that, I had to do a few things to pass ownership of my car to her as my days of driving were over. After the law offices, title transfer and etc were completed, I wanted to visit my job to say goodbye to my superiors for one last time. The time was already 2pm after all was said and done... This day, I wanted to spend with her as my beloved wife and just spend time with her.
We went to the park where we had our first date, just to remember that our beginnings were small and humble in addition to the fact that we've come so far. The parks renovations put the reality into perspective as the city finally spent money to bring it up to scale with the times. We sat and talked about the early days while watching the hustle and bustle of the city. We would stroll around the path a bit and then go to a nice sit-down restaurant just to talk about the future we wished and how my time to life is just unfair. We sat by the window and watched the sun set while dining. I had champagne with my meal to just remember that life is the sweetest gift of all, but the greatest gift being the love shared with a man and his wife. After the dinner, we would return home and just step out to the backyard to gaze at the stars... After taking my final daily dose of medications, I knew things were about to get worse... as I was nearing the end.
Monday
The pains were unbearable and I would just have to seek the care of a home infusion pharmacy for doses of IV morphine. I would call the neuro-surgeon to forward my chart to an IV pharmacy and have them contact me with their plan of care. My motor skills vastly deteriorated and I couldn't possibly even brush my teeth. I had to ask my wife to help me brush my teeth... A wheelchair was requested for delivery so that I could go places. She would try to call and get a handicapped exemption tag so in case we went to any establishments we would be able to have some room to maneuver me in and out of my wheelchair. She would run out to the Department of Public Safety office to get the tag while her family would wait for the infusion pharmacy to get my medications delivered to me.
The wait was long for both my wife's return and my medications... The auras from my migraines became increasingly strong. My current pill medications would just take the edge off of the pain. I took a migraine tab just to subdue the pain and the family would open the door for the medication delivery and the skilled nurse to prep my injection port for the medication infusion. The nurse was quick to action to minimize any chance of me experiencing pain. Once the port was in, her family was instructed to gather around to learn how to administer my medications as well as clean the injection port. My wife came at a good time as they were just starting... After the cleaning procedure was reviewed, they would dose me with the IV morphine. I was not swimming in opiates but the pain was easing up on me. My wife remembered one of my favorite foods was pizza, so today was just a stay home day with her family.
They made a home made pizza, but the wife decided to just cut up my pieces so she could feed me my food if I couldn't use my fork. For some reason, the pizza I just had was the best tasting for some reason. The soda I drank was extra crisp for some reason as well. Her family stepped out for a moment and I just spent some alone time with my wife playing games. She tried to help me with the games because I couldn't quite properly play from my failing motor skills. After about 2 hours, I just wanted to write my final letter to my blood family as I didn't want them to grieve and suffer when they were having a great vacation. I asked my wife to take a dictation from me so that I can be at peace when I pass away. After taking my dictation, she sealed my letter and we drove to my parent's house to put it on the coffee table and took one final look at their house and then we returned to her home. My heart became sullen as I never would see my parents again, but I was glad they didn't see me in my dying days. To end the day, we drove back to her home and she would wheel me out to the park and bike trails close to there. I would load another infusion pack of the morphine and we would continue with our trip. The trip was fun, but was special to me. I came home to find a nice and fluffy Asian white cake topped with fruits from the bakery after the park journey. It was a simple cake, but today it just seemed like so much more... After the cake and family time, bedtime finally came. I would load my last dose after my wife cleaned up the injection site and got everything prepped so I could sleep peacefully. I knew my final 48 hours were going to pass by like I had never existed soon enough.
Tuesday
I had lost over 95% of my motor skills except for basic speech and living functions (breathing, blinking, digestives). I was sad that I couldn't even move my own body to bathe myself... It was one of the toughest mornings for my wife to take care of me. I would have to have her assist with bathing me as well as dress me. I wanted to dress in my nicest street clothes as I just wanted to be looking my personal best when I could pass at any moment. After my morning rituals with medicine, my day could finally begin. Today's meal was a simple rice porridge so I could eat it with out straining myself to chew. Every action exhausted me due to both the rapidly spreading cancer and also the chemo drugs. I just wanted to stay home with my wife and just watch movies with her.
My wife went the distance and decided to make my final days very sweet... She pulled up my collection of Family Guy and we would just watch that through the entire day. We shared lots of laughs and had a great time. Sure, it wasn't anything great, but the thoughtful idea was all that counted. My pains would spike every now and then, so I was infusing more and more... I knew that my end was soon. I had another round of rice porridge for dinner and went to sleep early. I was just so exhausted...
Wednesday
I couldn't even move, but it didn't matter, today was my last day. I wanted a secluded death to be with my wife's very supportive family. My wife would log on to my blogs and announce my passing in addition to closing out all of my e-mail accounts. She would also log on to IRC and my other internet messengers to announce my death to my friends online. After all that had done... I just wanted to be with my wife at my side. I tried my best to make my peace with her as she has come a long way through everything we've suffered. With her, I felt at ease...
We just talked and laughed to try to make the best of my day... Her family decided to step-out to get a traditional Chinese dim-sum take-out brunch for me as they remembered I had liked it very much. After they got back, it was one of the last meals with family. Her family would then step out to give my wife alone time with me... We just resumed talking and laughing about the memories we had shared... I noticed I was bolusing more and more morphine, so I knew my day was short... I asked my wife to pop in her DVD of "My Sassy Girl" to watch with her. I watched while hugging her. Through out the movie we laughed and all... close to the end... I noticed I was fading away. I saw a halo of light and my hand stroked her cheek for one last time as I finally passed away in peace.
