Asa Jay's weblog

Yea, I don’t post much here huh. Seems like most folks are moving to Facebook and exposing way too much of their personal lives. Some folks have managed to get themselves fired from a job or have ruined chances at getting a new job due to, shall we say, intimate details found on social networking sites. Rather than spend time in a long dissertation of the pros and cons of other social networking sites, I’ll just say I’m content with controlling all my own content, for the most part on my own domains. Occasionally something in life changes and it creates emotions, physical difficulties or other problems or concerns in life that at some point friends, neighbors and even strangers should be made aware of. That kind of change came to my family recently.

For those who have followed this blog and not died of starvation, will recall my son Samuel was born with a condition called Hirschsprungs disease. To recap, he had two surgeries to correct a problem in his colon. Well, a new problem possibly related (or not) to this disease came up recently. Sam had been admitted to Hospital twice in the past few years for a distended abdomen. Basically his guts blew up like a balloon and he couldn’t get the gas out. Not being constipation we were confused as were the doctors. This last few weeks however have changed all that and resulted in another surgery.

Sam was again admitted recently, twice in two weeks. His original surgeon as well as a new Pediatric GI specialist both agreed, his colon was not working as expected. It had to come out. This was real shock to Mom, but I have to admit, I was nearly expecting it. With that kind of heartbreak sitting in our minds, the surgeon called during the surgery with what turned out to be good news.

The surgeon found that under sedation, Sam’s anus was relaxed enough to properly release the built up gas and soft stool that was blowing him up. This meant there might be a chance to save his colon but it was going to be a long haul. First, they would install an Ileostomy, bringing his small intestine outside his abdomen and he would now be pooping in a bag. Next, after some months of recovery, we will have to perform dilitation on his anus. Sounds lovely doesn’t it. This means we’ll have to insert increasing size rods in his anus to help the muscle expand -and- get him used to object passing through.

Next we’ll continue anal conditioning by putting him through some biofeedback session to help him understand how his back door works. Eventually, we hope to hook him back up so he functions normally, with stool coming out the anus rather than out his belly. Until then, we have a huge paradigm change.

Dealing with an Ileostomy is not easy. We now have to empty this bag hanging on his abdomen several times a day. The bag must be changed every one to four days. This means we have to buy these necessary bags, classified as medical appliances, and other supplies to support our son pooping in a different way.

It was initially a shocking and gut-wrenching experience. I’ve always tried to be a neat and clean person, so having to deal with someone else’s poop in addition to changing a bag on something that is outside the body that normally is found on the inside, was enough to freak me out for a day. Three days later we are beginning to deal with it better, but it’s still our little boy and it hurts to see him this way.

Prayers and good thoughts are appreciated. This condition is made all the more difficult because of his Autism, though Sam does seem to be coming to grips with the fact he has a bag for pooping now. We just pray the future is better, that we can successfully get his anus trained to pass poop, get his colon hooked back up, make sure it all works and he can lead a normal life. Until then, both Mom and I have a lot of work to do.

Thanks for listening,
Asa Jay

So it got me wondering….

Wondering what all falls under the GM brand name? How much will
shutting down Pontiac really accomplish?

This list doesn’t necessarily count all versions or sub-models of GM
products available, but it’s an impressive list.

84 models just in this list, and this doesn’t count their overseas
operations in Australia, Britain or the orient. Many of these simply
have different branding on the same basic design, but that list would be
limited. And it seems to me they’ve all become so expensive that there
really isn’t a big difference between buying a Cadillac and a Chevy
anymore. I imagine you still pay a little more, but even many of the
bottom of the line cars are as much as I paid for my first house.

84 models (not counting sub-models). I wonder how many of each they
make in a year (I’m not going to look that up), average it across all
models. How many new drivers are introduced each year? How many
drivers retire (too old or die (old or young)) each year? How many
older cars are retired each year (scrapped or otherwise unusable)? Does
the production of just this one manufacturer supply enough to cover all
those conditions? Oh yea… probably so, but I don’t know for certain.
Now multiple this by: Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, Honda, Nissan……. I
think you get the idea.

To me, rail against unions as I might in some circles… this smacks of
corporate and shareholder greed more than anything else…. too many
models, too much diversity, too much dilution of product lines, and
over-saturating the market. I don’t know how to fix it, but I tell you
what I think….. if GM ends up in Bankruptcy, I see a few gems in here
that a third party could probably pick up, and if trimmed right and
managed right… could become a strong brand on it’s own. Same story
for Chrysler. What I mean by trimming, is removing some models from a
lineup, not nuking the entire brand.

Here is the list:
Read the rest of this entry »

Two and a half years of school has left me a little out of the loop. I knew the BBC was producing a new Doctor Who series but two things prevented me from getting involved. The first was the fact it makes it to the United States late, and the second was that I was I still in school. Be that as it may, a friend at work has allowed me to watch a copy, starting from the beginning. Tonight, I just finished the first two episodes and I am suitably impressed.

It’s been some 20 plus years since I was first introduced to The Doctor. My first experience was in tech school with the Air Force, while stationed at Keesler AFB in Mississippi. One late night surfing through the channels on the television in the day room, I stumbled across this odd English program with a frightened young girl and a curly haired tall man in a long coat and even longer scarf. It looked sci-fi so it intrigued me. The episode was “The Brain of Mobius” or something like that (I don’t really follow these that close), and it ran uninterrupted. Even at the end of the show, I didn’t really understand what I had seen.

The acting was alright, the sets seemed a bit cheesy but the back story was intriguing. Who was this doctor person, and what was the relationship to this Sara Jane Smith person? Well, I didn’t manage to catch any more episodes there but once I got back home, I found this show called Doctor Who on the local PBS station, and it all became clear. I then followed it through the next two Doctors and it faded away. For almost any sci-fi fan, the resurrection of Doctor Who is almost a watershed event.

Tonight as I watched, I found myself engrossed in the same old, but familiar theme. Having only watched the first two episodes I can at least say it was certainly made for old fans. We get a passing quip from the new Doctor as he passes a mirror and comments on his new appearance. We don’t really know what his very last appearance was but he seems to be okay with his new look. This of course plays on the fans knowledge that The Doctor regenerates. Something else the fans knew about, was the TARDIS. Read the rest of this entry »

Two and a half years ago I started down a path to a new degree. I had reached a kind of glass ceiling that didn’t allow me to move up in the working world and experience new challenges. I tried changing jobs to take a promotion but that didn’t work out so well, and that in itself is another long story. But one of the things that hit me hard was an experienced division manager looking me square in the face and asking me point blank why I didn’t have a four year degree. That was embarrassing. But what followed hurt me more, he asked if I thought I could run the local office. He was from another division and was most likely going to fire the manager who had hired me, and this was a way of telling me I might have had the chance at being the office manager if had a four year degree.

I told him I’d like to think I could do a good job, but was realistic enough and perhaps a bit humble enough to also tell him I wasn’t ready and didn’t have quite enough experience. He thought that was a good answer and we got along very well. He had me work with one other person in the office and between the two of us we managed the end of the critical project we were working on. All this after our direct manager resigned, probably seeing the writing on the wall. But it all got me to thinking… maybe I need that four year degree.

At the time, I recently had a friend who graduated the accelerated continuing studies program at Whitworth College, obtaining a degree in Organizational Management. Since that was the direction I felt my strengths were in, I contacted him, got the details and then contacted an advisor at the college. The rest is now history.

Twenty classes, two and a half years, a name change from Whitworth College to Whitworth University, and I’m done. Read the rest of this entry »

I currently receive an email newsletter called WinXP news, which is also available on their web site. Vol. 7, #16 – Apr 17, 2007 – Issue #273 talks about Open Source and asks the question if one is really better than the other. I just had to respond to this in several ways, here are some of my thoughts.
When talking about Open Source, the author states:
“If I find myself stuck with a hunk of junk that some stranger gave away or my free
download hoses my system, what am I going to do? Ask for my money back?”

. . . and I say. . .

Try doing that with Windows, or any other proprietary Windows Software product. You’ll get the same answer, “sorry.” When was the last time you read (really took the couple hours it takes) to read a EULA? There are no warranties that protect you or your data. At best, you might get an acknowledgment from the proprietary vendor that they know of the bug, and might fix it, or might not. With Open Source, chances are less than five minutes with Google, and 10 minutes on some forums and you’ll find others who has suffered the same fate and have already fixed it. In each case there is no way to get your money back. So what was the author’s point?

Later, the author asks the question:
“Do you buy the idea that being “open” makes software more secure, or automatically makes it “better” or somehow morally superior to closed source software?”

. . . and I say. . .

In the author’s own editorial, they never even approached real answers of security. The only thing they got into was how a proprietary kernel (MS) is closed source so no one can figure it out, while an open source kernel is open so everyone can peek, poke and monkey with it. Nobody can draw conclusions of security with such generalities. As for the MS kernel being more secure, BAH! When programs like most of Symantec’s products actually MODIFY the kernel, what kind of security is that? I’m in week number two of a WinXP rebuild because a Norton product failed it’s install in the middle of modifying the kernel. Talk about being screwed and having no warranties!

Next the author asks:
“Have you tried open source operating systems? Did you come back to Windows or do you still use Windows for some of your computers?”
Read the rest of this entry »