the bouncey zone

The pharmacy finally solved the cough medicine problem. It’s definitely not an over-the-counter formulation. Now I’m just waiting for it to take effect for the night.

This stuff tastes orangey…

Yesterday I went to see the doctor. He said it was bronchitis, infected congestion, but no pneumonia. Something about how it’s okay to cough up clear or frothy mucus, but “earth tones” — yellow, green, brown, red — are bad.

The prescription:
– Drink plenty of fluids. In other words, unlimited Jolly Ranchers, but drink a full glass of water before each one. (Apparently that phrasing is popular with teenagers.)
– Amoxicillin
– HC Tussin, which he called “shut-me-up cough syrup”, to be taken only at night.

The first two aren’t a problem. The third one is. I took my prescription to the Wal-Mart pharmacy near home, because we needed to get some other things anyway. They refused to fill the prescription for the cough medicine. It’s not available there. No reason given.

But because I wasn’t thinking too clearly (I was sick of course), I didn’t think to ask for my prescription note back. So today Wal-Mart Pharmacy has been playing phone tag with my doctor. They want him to prescribe something they actually have in stock. He hasn’t called them back yet.

I suspect the drama might be due to potentially addictive materials. (Would other pharmacies would have given me as much hassle over cough syrup?) But while I wait, I still have to deal with this cough. I need to feel well enough to travel before Saturday morning.

Cough drops and Vicks ointment did okay last night. Not perfect, but I got some sleep. At least I didn’t need a prescription for them.

I wonder if I should take his advice about Jolly Ranchers literally. Are Lemonheads close enough?

I still have the Coughing Snots today. I’m feeling a little better, but definitely still sick.

Several times last week I thought I was over the stuff, that maybe it was a very short cold or perhaps just a bit of allergies. It came back with a vengeance every time. Sometime on Saturday it decided to stop messing around with just the head and took over my chest too.

I’ve been experimenting with home remedies to soothe sore throats and relieve cough. The best so far is hot cocoa. It works at least somewhat. Even if it doesn’t, hey, it’s hard to complain about hot cocoa…

I mentioned in the previous post that Scott will be getting a laptop computer for Christmas. Specifically, it’ll be an XO unit from the “One Laptop Per Child” project. Someone finally convinced them that sales to private citizens would not be an unpardonable crime, and in fact might be a great way to raise cash while lowering the per-unit cost and heading off a potential black market. So for a limited time they’re doing a “Give 1 Get 1″ program. [OLPC G1G1 link]

David Pogue did a good review recently: [NY Times link] [or just the video]

I’m excited about a children’s machine both as a programming target and as a general concept. Many years ago, when I was in K-12, there was a thing called an Apple II. We used it to learn fundamental programming skills in Logo and BASIC. We used it to drill on difficult words until we could spell them the right way. We used it to guide a wagon train to Oregon and to check out books at the school library. We even did a little word processing!

Simple, affordable, and reliable, it was a genuine educational tool. Never was it for learning how to use a computer for using a computer’s sake, or for any imagined “office” skills. That’s what the computer lab’s pair of Macs were for.

That all changed around the time I started at OSSM. At first we had a time-share UNIX system that was only for word processing and the occasional primordial instant messaging. They quickly moved us over to Windows 3.1 PCs and a few token Macs.

There and in college we had all kinds of computers, up to and including serious Unix workstations and vast networks of cheap PCs. But never again was a computer something that could reliably fade into the background and act as a tool for teaching other subjects. The software was bloated and complicated, and the hardware was costly and fragile. Viruses and worms started making the rounds. And most of the time the software was chosen only because we might need that particular program on the job someday. Which was almost never true, except for Microsoft Office.

At some point, around the time I graduated, the College of Engineering started toying with the notion of issuing laptops to every student. Big expensive things with primitive wireless networking. A few years later some grade schools elsewhere got the same idea, but this time with iBooks and Dells. A computer as a universal teaching tool, what a great idea!

Except they’re iBooks and Dells. The up-front cost of issuing these computers to one classroom of students is comparable to a teacher’s annual salary. Then there costs for maintenance, training, repairs, and the risk of theft. And what about schools that can’t afford even the cheapest laptops?

Overall, an XO costs 1/10 as much (including maintenance etc) as a real laptop, is a lot lighter and more rugged, and has less that can go wrong with it. I’ve been playing with the software in an emulator; specific activities are right up front, while everything else slides out of sight unless needed. And with the right key combination, a computer nerd can find a Unix shell and have a big heap of arcane fun. But that feature takes some effort even to find.

So it’s a tough, inexpensive, educational appliance. I already have so many great ideas for what to do with it that I’ve started learning Python. I’m sure Scott will appreciate it, too. Already he routinely seizes Dana’s computer for games and mine for sending messages (random gibberish) to his mommy at work. He knows exactly what “move mouse” and “hit enter” mean.

I know a teacher who’s interested in XO laptops as electronic textbooks. Schools spend a lot of money buying, distributing, and disposing of books. Imagine if publishers could provide books to schools as ordinary PDF files, reducing the price to account for the difference in distribution cost but still with a reasonable profit. (I assume there’d be some occasional checking to keep schools from issuing books without paying.) Then the students could get their new books over the school net. Or the teacher could pass around a keychain drive. Backpacks would be much lighter. Maybe I should start preparing a basic demo for my teacher friend.

Well, enough of that for now. We’ll see how well the XO works when it actually gets here. I don’t know when that will happen yet. But for now, I have my emulator.

Nerds: Look at wiki.laptop.org for more technical info.

I’m sick. It’s the Coughing Snots again. Every few hours I have to take a small pile of over-the-counter pills just to feel human again. Normally it’s not such a big deal, but I picked it up during a week-long trip to Kentucky. That made driving back a lot of fun.

Driving? To Kentucky? Yep, it really happened. Flying would have cost $1000 more.

On a Friday evening we drove from Norman OK to Joplin MO. We crashed for a few hours at the Econo Lodge, which seemed extremely spacious and luxurious after becoming accustomed to Japanese budget hotels. Then we drove to Louisville via the northern route.

Important travel tip: When making this journey, top off the gas tank in St Louis. The southern parts of Illinois and Indiana are generally devoid of anything resembling modern gas stations. The main exception is a place were two interstate highways briefly merge in Illinois, where a modest outpost of civilization can be found.

But that’ll do you a fat lot of good when you’re running on fumes in the middle of nowhere and your only alternative to a tow truck is to get a few gallons at an outrageously overpriced general store that seems to cater exclusively to desperate tourists. The guy behind me walked up with a plastic gas can.

Of course on the way back we filled up in Louisville.

Another travel tip: If there is a small child in the car, station a grownup in the back seat. Otherwise the child will scream a lot because he wants to be up front with Mommy. We learned this one on the turnpike northeast of Tulsa.

On the way back we did the whole trip in one day. We pulled out of Louisville at 6:30AM (eastern time) and rolled into Norman around 9:30PM (central). It was rough but we got home okay. That sort of drive is best split over two days.

The week in between was all family time. Dana’s sister, her husband, and their baby girl flew in from Colorado. Already there were Dana’s parents, grandmother, brother, and their dog. Dana’s grandmother turned 98 on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Scott helped her blow out the candles on her cake.

On Thanksgiving day we started the morning with Christmas-on-Thanksgiving, because we’ll be in Oklahoma for Christmas this year. Scott really understands “PRESENTS!!” now. He was very helpful with delivering them to their proper recipients, especially his little cousin. He tore into his own with an appropriate amount of zeal.

Dana’s brother gave me a big jar of Taiwanese coconut gel snacks and half a gallon of local dark beer. More people should learn from his example. I mean, no, I’m not really that much into beer. But it’s possible to give really nifty gifts that show a lot of thought without paying a fortune or filling up the house with useless stuff. Small, inexpensive, high quality, and gradually consumable… More gifts should be like that.

Speaking of which, Uncle Charlie’s Soap is just a few days from having a working online catalog! I used some vacation time to put the finishing touches on marketing text. My father-in-law helped a lot with photography. I’ll post something when the official launch happens. In the meantime, you can see us in Kingfisher on Dec 1 or in Norman on Dec 8.

My other brother-in-law (from Colorado) brought a Wii game console. It was fun, but I’m a little disappointed that it doesn’t seem to play DVDs. I like the small form factor, though, and the reactive remote controls are fascinating. My usual sources all seem to be sold out of Wii.

Another exciting piece of technology will be little Scott’s Christmas present. He’s getting his own laptop computer! But that’ll be in the next post.

Today Scott and I went to the post office to mail some letters.  We needed stamps.  I put money into the machine, pressed a few buttons, and got change.

When the change clinked into the hopper I said “we won!” as a joke.  Of course Scott ran around the post office squealing “WE WON!! WE WON!!”

Better odds than playing the lottery…