In Mouse Blues I chronicled my first steps towards having a Bluetooth enabled laptop and a Bluetooth mouse. Here, then, is the next chapter in this ongoing saga.
The Mouse BT After returning the Targus Bluetooth mouse I returned to MicroCenter and bought a D-Link DBT-120 Bluetooth UCB adaptor. This it appears is the only after market device to enable Bluetooth on older Powerbooks that didn’t come with Bluetooth originally. It’s a tiny little dongle, maybe inch and a quarter long. It worked instantly when plugged into the laptop.
Unfortunately, none of nearby computer retailers had in stock a Bluetooth mouse without an adaptor. I even went back to the MicroCenter where I had purchased the MacAlly Bluetooth mouse to see if I could re-buy the one I had returned in haste the day before. It had already been shipped back to the manufacturer. Looking online I discovered that while I could order a MacAlly mouse, their only available shipping method would require a signature upon delivery. Living as we do, in an apartment, getting deliveries is tough enough without requiring a signature. Time for Plan B.
I had seen ads in the print magazines for “The Mouse” from MacMice. This mouse is made to look like an original Apple mouse, but with a scroll wheel and two buttons. As an added enticement they had a model that was silver to match my Powerbook. I order one immediately.
The Mouse BT is visually appealing, and its size, shape, and heft are all perfect. However, I find that the having the entire upper shell form the buttons makes it hard to move the mouse without random clicks. The scroll wheel is a thing of beauty, smooth and quiet. After initial pairing with the Bluetooth dongle on my Powerbook everything seemed to be working fine. It did take me a day or two to figure out the best sequence of events for transporting the computer daily to and from work. I didn’t want to leave the dongle sticking out of the back of the computer while in transit, and pulling it out before turning it off seemed to lock the OS.
Once I had the proper on/off connect/disconnect sequence down I started enjoying the new mouse. Only its behavior has been quirky, and so has my Powerbook’s. The right-click menu for whatever application has focus randomly appears - when I’m not even touching the mouse. The mouse pointer jumps to the top of the screen all by itself, and there seems to be a conflict between the mouse and the screen saver that totally freezes the computer force a cold reboot. I visited the MacMice support forum and followed all of their suggestions.
All to no avail. So I have contacted MacMice to arrange a return of the mouse. Their support page notes that some percentage of The Mouse BT users are experiencing all the problems I am having, and further that, the mice in question when used on other machines work perfectly. So they feel there is no point in exchanging the mouse. Maybe soon they’ll have a solution, but for now this mouse is going back.
The Search Continues Today while we are out exploring I hope to swing by the MicroCenter and purchase a(nother) MacAlly BT Mouse Jr.
Ever since moving to Overland Park in late June last year, we have been trying to sell our house outside of Springfield Illinois. Initially we were basing our asking price on the loan valuation the mortgage company / bank gave us in order to load us money against the equity in the house. We had a slight tax problem, and borrowing against the house was the only way out.
Unfortunately, the loan valuation of the house was high, we were good customers who had placed 20% down on our home when we bought it. The bank was eager to loan us more money so they fudged the valuation a bit to make the numbers work. Our first realtor warned us that the house was priced too high, but we were insistent on starting in the mid-190s; we wanted to see some money from the sale of the house after all. After six months of no real offers we were throughly disillusioned and fed up with the entire process. Having a mortgage and a second mortgage there, in addition to the rent and normal bills here, was bleeding us dry every month. We had lowered the asking price again and again until at best we were going to break even, and at worst we would have to borrow more money to cover the shortfall at closing time.
Our realtor was never overly communicative, and we often felt at odds with her, so in early January we switched to a different one on the recommendation of a friend. The new realtor did a market appraisal of the house and advised us to set the price just $10 under 180,000. She feels we’ll get the asking price that way, but she doesn’t think we can get more than 180 for it. Depending upon the real estate tax escrow we’ll owe something like 12,000 at closing time if the house sells for 179,990.
I made a painful call to the mortgage company to ask what our options were; would they loan us the money, or should we start a “deed in lieu of foreclosure?” The mortgage agent I spoke with was very helpful, especially since she never once made me feel embarrassed or shamed by my situation. She agreed that the bank would work with us to write a new personal loan to cover the shortfall at closing time. She also said we couldn’t do a deed in lieu of, since we had two outstanding loans, one with the bank’s mortgage company and one with the bank proper.
In the end we feel like we have lost; lost the investment of the house, lost the potential equity it could have represented in a few years. But we also win; we win by getting the monkey of an empty house 400 miles away off our backs. We can rebuild our savings, and we can buy another house. We just have to let go of the current situation in order to allow that to happen. Yes, there is pain in the letting go, but ultimately it is less pain than we are suffering through by hanging on hoping for a miracle.
Ever since learning my mother had inoperable lung cancer I feel as if I have been operating at a diminished capacity. My thought processes have become muddy and indistinct; the mental sharpness that I normally possess is not currently attainable. There are periods of time where I just sit and stare, not thinking about anything, not processing any stimulus, not being aware of the passage of time. I suspect that were my thoughts sharp and clear I would be disturbed by this lack of focus. However, the silver lining of this malaise is a general lack of concern. I am too removed from myself to work myself up over much of anything.
The mindless drudgery of daily chores is a welcome relief; making dinner or taking the trash out is comfortably mindless. And the minor sense of accomplishment that comes from their completion is very rewarding in my diminished interaction with reality. Of course, minor setbacks seem huge and insurmountable now. Yesterday’s attempt at a pot of chili failed to have the flavor I was looking forward to enjoying. This “defeat” left me in tears. Not only is my capacity for cogent thinking greatly reduced, my resilience to criticism or failure is similarly reduced.
Michele and I have labored under so many sources of outside stress for so long with out a break that we are starting to seriously breakdown. We need an escape from all the large uncontrollable forces in our life for a time. We need to refocus on the little things where we can succeed and have some measure of control.
From the time I was in high school, until he retired, I spent the last minutes of every day with Johnny Carson. I was greatly saddened to learn of his death today.
Johnny Carson 1925 - 2005
This is the 500th posting to zanshin.net since I started using the domain as a blog in late 1999. Originally a place to try and attract people to read my thoughts, this weblog has grown into an essential part of my self-maintenance routine. Whenever I need to understand a thought or emotion at a deeper level I put it into words, and those words find a home here. Knowing that anyone with Internet access can read them is nice, but for me the real importance of posting here is the feeling of permanence that is added by putting my inner self down into words. The mechanical process of typing coupled with the mental process of organizing my thoughts has more than once led me to new understand of myself.
Not bad for a medium that largely smoke and mirrors.
In early December 2004 my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer. She had been suffering a shortness of breathe for a few weeks, and after a series of tests to eliminate other causes a chest x-ray revealed the tumor. Further images located it up against and around her pulmonary artery, making surgical removal impossible. Early indications also point towards involvement of the lymph system under both arms, meaning it has already spread further than surgery could ever hope to eradicate. The team of doctors all agree that containment and control are the only medical options open to her.
My mother is going to die from lung cancer.
We don’t know the time frame for anything other than the initial round of chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Mom isn’t asking; her approach is to take this day by day. I can’t say that I blame her, and I fully support her right to die in a manner that suits her.
On Christmas Day, Michele and I traveled to central Illinois to spend part of the day with my family. Mom hadn’t started the chemotherapy yet, and was still having a great deal of difficulty breathing. Christmas has always been a rather tortured holiday for my family since my sister’s death on December 25th, 31 years ago. Having the spectre of cancer looming over us once again, and seeing my mom in such distress, was awful.
My family isn’t over communicative about most things, and an elephant as large a lung cancer parked in the living room, goes remarkable unnoticed. In order to keep my sanity as I process the death of my mother I have decided to write about it here on my website. I find solace at times in the mechanics of putting my thoughts and emotions down on paper (as it were) for posterity.
I have started calling her more often, and I am planning on opening a dialog via email. I am doing this for purely selfish reasons; I need to be at peace with my relationship with my mom before she dies. Amy died so abruptly, and without any fore knowledge on my part, that it took me decades to come to terms with her passing. I have known and understood ever since Amy’s death that all the people I knew were going to die eventually. Knowing that, and being prepared for it, it turns out, are two different realities altogether.
Thanks to Google, MSN, and Yahoo, there’s a new tool to fight comment and referer spam: the no follow tag.
MovableType already has a plugin that works simply by dropping it in place.
To celebrate I have uncommented the comment link, and open comments for this posting. I realize that spam will continue for a time, but with the major search engines no longer cataloging it from inside comments (or on referer pages) most of the incentive will be gone.
In late November my mother-in-law was admitted to the hospital after collapsing at home. She had been weakened almost to the point of death by an unchecked and undiagnosed bleeding ulcer. After a short stay in the hospital to receive blood transfusions, she has been recuperating in a nursing home. To call my mother-in-law stubborn, secretive, and more than a little paranoid, would not be putting too fine a point on her personality. The forced invasion of medical and social services personnel has heightened her personality quirks.
Preferring to live well outside the light of normal interactions with government agencies or medical providers, Mom had no real safety net in place. Two years ago Michele put into place Medicare part B, as her mom couldn’t (or wouldn’t) do this for herself. Based on information from the medical staff who has examined her mother, Michele realized that her mom could no longer function safely on her own. At the very least her mother required regular in-home care visits, and for the time being she really needed to stay in the nursing home. Her blood counts were dangerously off, and the risk of stroke or embolism were high. All of this care would require more than Medicare would cover.
Michele undertook the complicate and time consuming process of qualifying her mother for Medicaid. Each move her mother made, from ICU to general care, from hospital to nursing home, has resulted in at least one change in social worker. Michele has had to start the process of getting services and coverage for her mom over and over again. She has had to deal with more or less helpful case workers; some are cheerful while others are rudely intrusive. Along the way she has become the focal point for all the emotional angst from her mother’s sisters, and from her own brother. Not to mention the increasingly hostile responses from her mom, who wants no part of any of this.
Every day for weeks now Michele has set aside her emotions about the wanning days of her mother’s life in order to coax, cajole, finesse, bully, plead, navigate, grovel, and push her way through the thickets of red tape surrounding her mother. Every day I see the toil this herculean task has taken on my wife. The unrelenting, unending nature of this task has eaten away at her limited reserves. She is totally spent, and the end is no where in sight yet.
What is most amazing to me, and the reason for this posting, is to record the amazing grace Michele has shown consistently throughout this ordeal. Over and over she has allowed her mother, or aunts, or brother to vent their frustrations while never getting a place to vent her own, with them, in return. She has been courteous in the face of a vast and seemingly uncaring bureaucracy, and she hasn’t once taken out any of her anger, fear, or depression on anyone else. I’m not saying that she hasn’t broken down and cried, or raged, or been depressed. On the contrary, she vents almost daily about the absurdity and lunacy of the entire situation, but she does so in ways that are appropriate and healthy.
I am honored to have been a small part of her efforts to provide a comfortable, stable, and relatively safe environment for her mother. And I have been privileged to the safe place where Michele can fall when it all gets to be too much to bear. I have a new standard for grace to use in my life.
And that standard is my beautiful, incredible, wonderful wife, Michele.
For almost two years now my mouse of choice has been a Kensington Wireless Pocket Mouse Pro. This mouse was nearly perfect for me. The size was right in my hand, the scroll wheel had a positive notched feel has it turned without making any annoying click, and the USB dongle stowed neatly inside the mouse for travel. There were two slight drawbacks to the Pocket Mouse: the USB dongle was “L” shaped, causing it to partial block neighboring plug ins on the back side of my Powerbook. Even though the long part of the “L” swiveled it still got in the way. And the automatic power saver feature caused a significant delay when first using the mouse after it had been idle long enough to “go to sleep.”
This past week the scroll wheel suddenly disengaged from what ever mechanism that made it work; turning freely and without effecting the computer in any way. I make heavy use of the scroll function, and have the wheel click set to Command-click; losing these functions ruined the mouse.
Fall Back Mouse My fall back mouse is also from Kensington: a wired Pocket Mouse. This was the first USB mouse I purchased after getting the Powerbook two years ago. I was attracted to the retractable cord and plug storage built into the side of the mouse. Unfortunately the scroll wheel made a surprisingly loud click as it ratcheted its way around its axis. Also, the sides of the mouse were translucent allowing the flashing of the positioning laser to leak out. Having an intermittent flash of light in your peripheral vision takes some getting used to, and in the end I upgraded to the Wireless Pocket Mouse Pro.
A Quest for Bluetooth Yesterday, while I was idling at home waiting for a new contract to bill against for work, I went out in search of a new mouse. My aim was to get a Bluetooth PC Card to insert in the heretofore unused PC Card slot in my Powerbook. Then, not only could I use a Bluetooth mouse, but I could (over time) upgrade my cell phone and perhaps PDA to models with Bluetooth capability and gain wireless synchronization for those devices. The Micro Center here had a BTMouseJr that I really liked the looks of, and they had a Bluetooth PC Card whose packaging claimed Mac OS X compatibility. $112 later I was on the way home with my new toy.
After 10 minutes with a sharp pair of scissors I had managed to destroy the impregnable packaging enough to free the PC Card, its install CD, and its “manual.” The card inserted into the slot on my Powerbook and immediately starting flashing a “Here I am” blue light. However, none of the Mac OS X included Bluetooth utilities recognized that there was a Bluetooth device attached. The install CD was useless has it contained only Windows drivers, and the “manual”, while printed in five languages, provided no help either. A few minutes with Google made it apparent that I wasn’t going to get the PC Card to work. Apple doesn’t provide a native driver for Bluetooth PC Cards, and the only open source one I could find provided limited functionality for 3com cards only. After fishing the blister packaging out of the trash and washing it off, I returned the mouse and the card to the store.
After leaving Micro Center my wife suggested that I try Comp-USA or Best Buy to see if they had any replacements identical to the wheelless Pocket Mouse. We struck out at both stores, but I ended up buying a Targus Bluetooth Mini Mouse with Bluetooth Adaptor. The adaptor in question is a tiny little USB dongle that sticks straight out of the port. The mouse itself is small. With the pads of my fingers on the buttons, the body of the mouse doesn’t even extend to my palm. After the initial Bluetooth pairing process, the mouse seemed to work fine. Unfortunately, the scroll wheel isn’t recognized at all. And Targus doesn’t appear to offer a Mac driver either.
To add insult to injury, the mouse refused to bind to its own Bluetooth adaptor after the computer has been asleep. Repeated attempts to reconnect failed. So back to the store for it.
Having resigned myself to living with a dongle as antenna, sticking out of the back of my laptop, I am prepared today to return the $90 Targus mouse to Best Buy, and return to Micro Center to re-buy the MacAlly mouse I originally wanted, along with a third party USB Bluetooth dongle. While not as slick as using a largely internal PC Card, this combination will get me the mouse I desire, and open up the world of Bluetooth communications to me.
A note about trackpads I considered abandoning a mouse altogether for the built-in trackpad. I have experimented with the trackpad ever since getting the laptop. My single largest complaint stems from my occasionally touching the pad while typing, thus moving the insertion point in the document. Not really the trackpad’s fault but annoying in any event. I have been using the SideTrack driver from Raging Menace for a couple of weeks. It allows you to map portions of the trackpad to act as scroll areas, or right-, or double-click hotspots. On the whole I think this works rather well, but I can’t seem to gain the second-nature comfort I have with an external mouse.
Recently I added a beefed up htaccess file to my site to give me another tool to fight the pond scum defacing it with referer spam. Initially it was a few lines of code borrowed from examples I found.
In less than a month it has grown significantly. There are over 100 Rewrite conditions to display a “403 Forbidden” error page to bogus referer attempts. And there are 40 odd IP addresses that are banned explicitly.
I realize that fighting spam is for all intents and purposes a losing battle. The pond scum spewing forth the spam have automated tools and no conscience. For them it isn’t a personal thing; that the script they downloaded effectively visits their electronic graffiti on my site has nothing to do with me. Still it offends me that my bandwidth (and therefore my money) is being used to promote their filth. I expect that my htaccess file will continue to grow.
I could take down the referer pages altogether, but that would deprive me of the ego stroking I get from seeing the counters grow everyday. It would also feel like giving up to the bullies that are abusing my pages.
And it gives me something to joust at; a windmill to tilt.