Sheep Guarding Llama

We arrived in Houston around one in the morning this morning after our long drive down from Las Colinas.  We were about an hour away from the Grices’ when it occurred to us that we had forgotten to pack my CPAP.  Well this is a major catastrophe.

I absolutely need a CPAP in order to sleep.  It is actually quite dangerous for me to attempt to sleep without my CPAP as I could very easily stop breathing during the night.  So I had to stay up all night working in the hopes that Dominica would be able to go out and find a CPAP in the morning in the Houston area.  If we fail to do so she will need to drive us back to Las Colinas pretty much first thing in the morning.

To make the day even more challenging I have Linux server patching to do that fortunately I can do just about any time so I started doing around two thirty in the morning, I have seven o’clock deployments to be done and I have my final paper for my master’s class at RIT that is due to be handed in today.  So all of that has to be done while I get no sleep and possibly drive back to Las Colinas which takes about five hours.  One way or another it is going to be a pretty long, crappy, exhausting day.

Dominica stayed up late doing research on where to buy a CPAP in the Houston area.  Our plan is for me to stay up all night and to do as much work as possible to get it out of the way in the hopes that I will get to go to bed later on in the day.  Then, first thing in the morning, Dominica is going to get up and attempt to track down a place that will sell us a travel CPAP.  If we can get that we will run out and buy that right away and then I will get to go to bed in the middle of the day.  If we are unable to find one then we have to turn around and drive back home straight away in the morning so that I can get back to my CPAP in Las Colinas.

The night actually went by pretty quickly for me.  It was probably two in the morning when Dominica and Liesl finally got off to bed.  I set straight off to work doing my Linux server patching that had to be done today and then to work on my final paper for my Clinical Information Systems class at RIT which is due today.  That took all night and I was just wrapping up around six thirty this morning when I got paged out to go deal with a server.

I managed to get a jump start on my morning deployments as well.  It was a very productive evening and a great use of the time.  Today was going to be a really tough day but I managed to eliminate all of that extra work that I would have had to have done all throughout the day by a little after seven in the morning.  There was a lot of other work that I would have liked to have gotten done but I was so delirious by the time that I was done with what was mentioned that I could not possibly have done anything further.

I got most of my work done by eight when Dominica got up.  I was pretty much delirious already from a lack of sleep.  Dominica started calling around to places like CPAP.com to see what they could do to get me a CPAP but no luck.  So we had to wait until the next places opened up around nine.

What we learned at nine is that the state of Texas has, in their infinite wisdom and disregard for the safety of their citizens, classified a CPAP (a simple air compressor) and the plastic tubing used as a facemask as controlled pharmaceutical devices!  Talk about a state being bought out by the medical industry!  So now to get this absolutely necessary medical equipment one must get a prescription.  But, of course, prescriptions normally would come from a specialist as normal doctors are not equipped to know how to diagnose and recommend such things.

The problem with the CPAP is that it is absolutely necessary equipment for people like me who have central sleep apnea that can be triggered by traditional sleep apnea (bi-direction, in my case, meaning that my throat closes off as I inhale and exhale.)  Central sleep apnea means that if I stop breathing naturally that even if I can catch my breath that my brain is likely to just stop trying to breath and I will suffocate.  So having the CPAP is completely necessary to keep me alive.  I have not slept without it in over five years and if I don’t have it I do not dare fall asleep.

If we were in NY we would have just run to the store and picked one up.  But in Texas we had to run to urgent care, wait for a few hours, and finally get a prescription.  Of course the script was just the doctor writing up whatever I told them to write up so the Texan claim that this is done for “my safety” is obviously a lie since you can’t get a meaningful script for a CPAP in an emergency.  All the Texan law does is cost me an extra $105 and several hours and put me at extreme risk.

So we got the script and called the only CPAP dealer in the entire Houston metro that we could find that was both open today and had anything in stock.  We had them stay open late as it was an emergency and we drove for an hour and a half to get from urgent care to the CPAP dealer where we had to spend double the normal prices to get a CPAP.  Texas has really worked out how to milk this process!

It took another few hours to get the CPAP after we got completely lost trying to find the only dealer that was open.  The CPAP that we ended up getting, for $650 instead of $235 online, is pretty nice and a massive improvement over my old one.  The new facemask is quite a bit nicer too.

So, after fourteen straight hours of trying to deal with getting me a CPAP and some way to sleep we finally had a solution.  We headed back to the house and grabbed Jack in the Box on the way because I had not eaten in almost twenty four hours.  JitB does breakfast all day long which is really cool.  I have never eaten at JitB before.

The number of things wrong with how Texas deals with CPAPs is really astounding.  The level of risk that they put people at is insane.  It is only because we are relatively affluent, have a large amount of information about my CPAP (I knew the prescription details that were necessary, for example,) that it happened on a Saturday and not a Sunday and I had a spouse who was able to drive me everywhere that I needed that I was able to get a CPAP at all.  Any one of those factors being different and we would have been in an unsolvable situation.

Houston is the sixth largest metro area in the United States and for a city of this size to not have a way for a very common medical emergency to be fixed on a weekend is unthinkable.  Even as it was by the time that I needed to go see a doctor I was far too tired to drive safely.  One of the problems with CPAP emergencies is that the person being affected by it is not in pain but becomes rapidly unable to make decisions, drive, maintain their sanity, etc.  Once I can’t get to a CPAP a clock starts ticking and after roughly forty-eight hours I simply become too tired to keep myself awake any longer and I die.  Texas seems to think that doing this to me is more important than letting small air compressors fall into the wrong hands.  They claim that the law is there because some people would buy CPAPs and kill themselves by setting them up wrong.  So instead they decide to put my life and many other innocent peoples’ lives at risk rather than letting someone hurt themselves with it.  Thanks Texas.  I see where your priorities are.

The person getting a CPAP in front of me at the dealer said that they had almost died that day trying to drive around to get the CPAP since they were so tired that they couldn’t drive and didn’t have someone to drive them like I did.  So Texas is putting other drivers’ lives at risk too as CPAP owners desperately try to get a way to keep themselves alive.  Of course, deaths caused by sleep apnea and driving deaths caused by the Texan government putting CPAP owners at risk don’t show up statistically in that way.  So they conveniently put those of us at very high risk who don’t statistically show up as being “their fault” while letting an extremely tiny minority of people who do show up in the statistics as hurting themselves with a CPAP that they obtain in other ways other than through appropriate channels.

To add insult to injury Texas claims that they must protect CPAP owners from themselves so it is illegal for CPAP owners to be told how to operate the CPAPs that they have to pay a fortune to buy.  The whole law is there to keep us from hurting ourselves because only trained professionals are supposed to set up a CPAP for you.  Of course, when I got my first CPAP, the company that sold it to me wanted to make more money so they got the insurance company to pay for a C-FLEX over a standard CPAP which costs more.  They then set it up as a C-FLEX rather than in CPAP mode, even though the original prescription was clear on it being a CPAP, and I almost suffocated because the machine closed off my throat and I didn’t get any air.  So, in my case, the law in Texas not only puts me at the insanely obvious risk that they did today but also puts me, and thousands of other apnea sufferers, of a technician setting up the CPAP incorrectly.  So as unlikely as both scenarios sound, both have now happened to me in the course of my five years with my CPAP and they have only happened just twice because I learned how to set up the original CPAP myself and made sure that it was correct after that.

I was unable to go straight to bed when we got back as my final for RIT was due today and Dominica had not had a chance to proof read it yet since we had this emergency going on.  So she read it through and I made the necessary corrections and got it submitted.  I am all done with that class now.

So I went to bed around five and slept for several hours.  Oreo snuggled with me.  I slept pretty much solidly until around ten or eleven o’clock.  Then I got up for about two hours and watched Starstruck with Dominica – a Disney Channel original movie.  Then it was back to bed for me.

In the morning Brian is flying into Houston’s Hobby Airport on Southwest around eleven in the morning so I am driving up there to pick him up.  I need to be up working before that.

The new CPAP works well and I like it a lot better than my old one.  This one is going to live in the car.  One for the house and one for travel.  Much safer that way.  The risk of not having one available and working at all times is just way too great and far greater than we had realized.  We had never heard of not being able to just buy one before.  My dealer in NY had even offered to just overnight the CPAP that I needed to me but that would not have arrived until Monday and that would have been too late.

I woke up a little early this morning and got a jump on the day.  If I manage to get up and get out the door in the morning before Dominica and Liesl wake up then it only takes me about one hour to leisurely get ready and get to work – and I arrive at work just five minutes later.  Today I was up at seven and, even after taking Oreo on a longer than usual walk, I was to the office by a few minutes after eight.  If Liesl is awake before I leave it easily takes another hour to get out of the house.  I like seeing her in the morning but she cries when I leave and makes me very sad.  Sometimes sneaking away early just works out better.

With the extra time this morning I got caught up on SGL.  Finally.  Now to get to work on my paper for RIT.  That is going to be my big project.  That is going to be extra tough as I have very little time to sleep tonight between driving to Houston tonight and then having to start work at seven tomorrow morning.

To make things harder at RIT, and this seems to happen each class that I take there, I have very little feedback on my work coming up on the final.  I have not gotten feedback on my midterm or over half of my weekly coursework or my last reflection paper yet.  Not that I am concerned about my work on any of them but it means that I am doing my final mostly blind.

The major news today is that Lindy Matsko and the Lower Merion School District near Philadelphia, PA got caught using district funds to buy laptops, supposedly so kids could stay connected to school even when home, so that they could watch children in their bedrooms at home.  The school got caught when Lindy decided to yell at a boy for his behaviour at home and claimed that she had taken photographs of the boy doing “inappropriate things” in his bedroom.

The thing about pedophiles, I guess, is that they aren’t very smart.  So Lindy and the Lower Merion School District are now facing some pretty insane federal charges from some pretty irate parents and teens.  They are now looking at a minimum of eighteen hundred accounts of everything from invasion of privacy, violating constitutional rights and, of course, collecting child pornography is a real possibility (or at least the attempt to collect it.)  This is a major embarrassment for the state of Pennsylvania and the entire US education system.  Not to mention a sickening display of felonious behaviour.  How people like this aren’t caught before being allowed to work around kids is unbelievable.

If anyone ever wonders why Liesl isn’t going to public school, now you know.  This person, Lindy Matsko, beyond being sick and needing to be locked up forever, is clearly a complete idiot and having a person like this be in charge of educating anything smarter than a snail is a serious educational oversight.  What possible educational advantage does having this person running the school serve?  I realize that Lindy is likely the scapegoat for a child pornography ring being run by the school administration or some other seriously nefarious activity – someone had to approve the purchasing of eighteen hundred overpriced Apple laptops – but still, getting into that position isn’t one that any halfwit would make the mistake to do.  Maybe Lindy needs to take an anonymous suitcase and embark on a trip to China to start a pop singing career.

Today was slower than the rest of the week.  Thank goodness.  Final a chance to catch up a little bit.

I found out this afternoon that I get to take a Red Hat Architect training class.  That is pretty cool.  I have not had training from work in a few years.  Nice to take a break and take a class now and then.  Not a real class where I get to go somewhere, just one where I have to take it from my desk but better than nothing.

I completed writing another article this afternoon although it still needs to be proof read and edited.  A lot of work completed though and one less article rattling around in my head that I am trying to hold on to before forgetting what I might have wanted to have said.

I got a start on another article as well which I really hope to be able to have done by the middle of next week.  This weekend is going to be crazy so there is not all that much that I can do before Monday and writing during the week is pretty hard although Dominica’s idea of having me use the bar stool as a mini desk will help quite a bit.

I managed to finish all of my reading for my final paper so I will be able to get to work on it first thing tomorrow while thinking about it on my drive down to Houston tonight.  Work slowed down this afternoon which was great.

At just a little after six I was able to leave the office and head for home, on foot of course.  Dominica should be ready to go when I get there.  We are driving right down to League City tonight since we missed Madeline’s birthday last weekend.  It will be nice to do something different this weekend.  We haven’t been down to League City for several weeks.

It will not be a relaxing weekend for me but getting a jump on the travel by getting out of the office at a good time tonight is going to make it far better than it usually is.  Driving down to League City on a normal, two day weekend is a ton of driving for very little time spent down there but getting out early makes it not too bad.

This is our last chance to make it down for several weeks.  Next weekend I have to be in Austin and Round Rock and then the weekend after that Dominica, Liesl and I will be in Las Vegas for Andy and Miranda’s wedding!  Then back to Houston not long after that.

I am posting early tonight as I leave the office so that I can close out the post and get a jump on the weekend.

My latest article, Trends in Thin Client Computing, was published on Datamation this morning.  I am the top headliner of the day and my article is also the top of the “Networking” section and my picture is on the “front page” today too.  Triple win for me.

The weather is much, much nicer today and I was able to walk into the office without a jacket.  It is amazing how rapidly you go from “too cold to walk” to “don’t need a jacket” in Dallas.

Work is continuing to be way too busy.  I am very much behind on SGL and I have some other writing that I am trying to get to plus this weekend I have to turn in my final for my class at RIT and getting time to do that is proving to be rather difficult.  I have to write a real paper by Saturday night.  Tomorrow night we are planning on driving down to Houston after work so my night is going to be really, really late.  Then Saturday morning I have a lot of work scheduled so my whole weekend is going to be crazy between work and paper to write.  No time off for me.

I tried to go out to lunch today but work was so busy that I missed going with John and was still stuck in a meeting when he got back.  I ended up just walking home after two in the afternoon!  I had a quick lunch with Dominica and Liesl.  We ate lunch while watching an episode of Primevil and then I walked back to the office.

The afternoon, what was left of it, was not as bad as it might have been and I was able to head home at six thirty.  I had tried to get out around five thirty but someone called and kept me on the phone for a really long time (for no reason, of course, and for an issue that wasn’t mine or even something that I could help with.)

We spent the evening relaxing.  I played with Liesl for hours.  She was in a great mood and wanted to play and snuggle for a long time.  We watched several episodes of Primeval and are into the third season now.  So far each season has gone downhill quite a bit from the previous season.  The very short first season really started off strong and had some serious potential.  We really liked where they were going.  Then after about six episodes they decided that they didn’t like the story and they pulled a bad plot device and “reset the universe” and started a new show at the beginning of the second season.  It appeared to be really going somewhere, although never as strong as the first season, and then in the third season they changed a whole bunch of things and made the show even cheesier than it was the first two seasons – which was hard to believe.  So the show is not holding out well at all.  It is sad because the first season did really good character development and while the writing was pretty bad it was enough to really hold your interest.

We went to bed around midnight.  Tomorrow is going to be a busy day, I can just tell.

I drove to the office again this morning.  I still have a pretty bad cough.  Work was super busy, yet again.  This week has been awful thus far and looks like it is going to stay that way.

At lunch I drove home and dropped off the car.  We had sandwiches at the house and I played with Liesl.  Then I walked back to the office as it had warmed up a bit.  Finally the chance to walk again and get back into getting some exercise.  I have not really been able to walk for the past week and that does not make me happy.  I really need the walks to and from the office.  I feel much better when I walk back and forth all day.  I am not going to be happy when it is too hot to walk.

Work was incredibly busy today but I did not have to stay too late like I did last night.  Dominica was out shopping this afternoon and just got home around five.  She picked up a new entertainment center today at Walmart while she was out getting soda and snacks for this evening.  She also bought a vacuum cleaner which we desperately need.  It is awful buying yet another vacuum when we own several and just donated one.  Our collection just keeps growing no matter what we do.

I walked back home around six and spent an hour helping Dominica to clean as quickly as possible.  The apartment is looking pretty good.

Maggie, whom I know from SpiceWorks, SpiceWorld and SpiceCorps DFW, came over at seven.  She brought us our first houseplant and a new learning toy for Liesl with buckets and shapes that fit through a lid (I don’t describe children’s toys very well.)  Liesl had a lot of fun playing with her new toy right away and was able to fit the shapes through their slots in the bucket lid on the very first try!  She is really growing up.

We had a really good time hanging out.  Maggie’s husband had to work late and wasn’t able to make it to visit with her.  We ordered food from Blu Ginger and I walked over to pick it up.  We all had Pad Thai which was delicious as always.  We eat at Blu Ginger enough that the owner knows me now.

Maggie hung out until around midnight.  Then she went home and Dominica and I headed straight off to bed.

My latest article went in to Datamation tonight so I am hoping to see it “in print” tomorrow.

I am feeling rather a bit better today.  Far from perfect but well enough to go to work.  It was a bit chilly today yet after we had a very cold weekend so I decided that it would be smart if I drove to the office rather than walking and making myself cough all day.

Dominica’s back is still really hurting today so she does not have a way to be driving anywhere so she will not miss the car.

Work was really busy today.  Long weekends do this to us.

I was able to get my latest article submitted today so hopefully we will see it published tomorrow.

Sorry for the short update.  It is a busy week!