We’re so far behind web page technology: we know basic HTML, but we never learned CSS, and these days most blogging packages are a mix of CSS and php (another technology we never learned). We understand (sort of) what CSS is and does, ditto for php, it’s just we’ve never coded pages with them. So, we are behind.
We started this introduction to CSS this week, and have made our way to a basic understanding. Next up will be figuring out the integration of various blogging packages to the CSS and php components – usually there are header, sidebar, content and other components that integrate a CSS style with content that php pulls out of the database. www.gulker.com’s Wordpress software works this way, as does Movable Type et al. Another area where we are making our way…
We decided to bring the Leica on our 1/2-mile morning walk this AM, did Cassie and I, and managed this snap of morning clouds.
The M8 was fun (for me, anyway) as usual… such a combination of the very old (rangefinder focusing) and the (kind of) new (Leica’s very basic digital technology).
I’m using a walking stick at physical therapist’s orders, and juggling dog, leash, walking stick and camera proved interesting. Sigh… making our way…
Walked a half-mile with Cassie early, then checked work email and went to rehab, a good 45-minute workout. Got home, logged in to Adobe’s network and promptly hit the fatigue wall… it’s a cumulative thing after chemo, and I haven’t been getting naps in this week, between work and schedule. I was glad I was WFH today: I just crashed for a couple hours. Back up now and catching up… fortunately we have the weekend: I have 2 work projects I want to move forward…
This Graffitum, on a trackside wall between Lawrence and San Jose train stations has caught my eye on the near-daily Adobe commute.
I used the high-speed multiple-image-capture feature of the Lumix DMC FZ50 to grab this image as the train wizzed by. It helped that I was on a slow local train this PM – I’m normally on the ‘baby bullet’ which really flies past this particular wall. I have tried and failed to grab this pic from the fast-moving bullet train.
As it was, only one of 4 frames captured our zombie graffiti: I missed with the other 3. I’m sure I could spend days investigating and photographing graffiti: there is a fascinating offering of same facing the tracks between about Mountain View and San Jose: and even here graffiti is sparse, confined to just a few bands on fences and industrial buildings. Much variety, and some interesting graphical content like the blue face, bottom left, by zombie’s leg (though property owners may not be as amused as I)…
To and from San Jose Diridon train station and Adobe – six tenths of a mile each way. 5 weeks ago I was doing this easily – today, at my chemo and steroid nadir, it was hard: my muscles were burning at the terminus of both trips. But I did it…! All I can do to get better, I guess…
We’ll let this one speak for itself. What a ‘howl’…
Light and shadow made an interesting play as I waited for my train at San Jose’s Diridon Station this afternoon. Despite not feeling my best (chemo, steroid problems, anemia and I think even our edema is back) we decided to make the best of things and go in. It’s hard, because I’m limping and stumbling and feeling very stupid-looking, but life goes on. A la Mrs. Edwards, I choose to keep on living my life, pretty much unaltered…
I completely forgot this very cheery birthday card that arrived from friend David Perry, yet another of his inimitable rubber stamp oeuvres. More cheer, a la the birthday party Saturday night, despite current setbacks…
So, we’ve spent 2 pretty miserable days coping not with cancer, but with the side effects of drugs that we are taking to deal with cancer (or the side effect of some other drug or procedure).
The big muscles in my legs are very weak, thanks, I’m told, to ramping down the steroids that were given to me to control the edema (swelling in my brain) caused by the radiation therapy. I might have been better off dealing with 4 weeks of partial paralysis caused by edema: I’m now in my 5th week of steroid-induced problems (though we are at a particularly low ebb just at the moment).
Blood test today showed very low hemoglobin and hermatocrit, consistent with the relatively massive Temador round I took last week – I think my anemia is back on top of the steroid weakness, and the two together are the pits. I got down on my haunches today, and I literally couldn’t stand back up. This sucks, but docs say nothing to do but wait and work my way out of it best I can…
Linda has a thoughtful post about living with treatable but incurable cancer in light of the Edwards’ interview on 60 minutes last night. We’re dealing with the same issue, and have some of the same feelings we heard expressed last night.
Backing away from daily living – job, family and friends – represents a big change. Are you starting to go down the path to death if you decide to stop working or ‘do the things I always wanted to do?’ Depends, I guess – hard question to answer. But I can appreciate wanting to go on doing what you’re doing to the extent you can. Despite Ms. Edward’s courage, I’m wondering if chemo has the effects on her it does on me… some days I am just weak and knocked down (and today is such a day), despite wishing, mightily, that it were otherwise.
Living with cancer isn’t quite the same thing as living without it. Linda and I have embraced this by talking about ‘painting a new canvas’ for our life together. We know that a few colors just aren’t on the new palette (and those can be hard disappointments).
We also really dislike pity. Linda has said ‘I’m so tired of being pitied’ at the top of her lungs more than once now when we’ve come back from an event or cocktail party. The Edwards make the point that a. everybody’s going to die someday, and b. some of us just have a little more information about our mortality. Nobody really knows what tomorrow will bring. So, one day at a time seems like a good plan to me…