Month: March 2006

bookmark_borderElena and Marley

Posted on by PaulaO

My friend, Elena, has a service dog named Marley. Marley had surgery Tuesday (14th) and below is her latest email:

Marley’s Home!

A quick synopsis for those of you who haven’t been getting the almost daily updates via Amateur Radio . . .

On Christmas Eve morning, Marley woke up lame. The vet said she had a partially torn cruciate ligament. She had probably planted her foot wrong while chasing a squirrel. No running, no jumping for six weeks and she’ll be fine.

Six weeks later, the orthopedic specialist diagnosed a genetic disorder that is causing her knee ligaments to deteriorate. Her left knee ligament was now completely torn. The right one was partially torn. The only fix — surgery.

Then during her pre-surgery exam . . . Marley has a slightly slipped disc in her neck. The neurologist was called in. No signs of any nerve damage.

Then a mass was found in her spleen. The biopsy determined “normal” old age mass.

Then she was checked for Cushing’s Disease (her blood work wasn’t quite right). The tests came back normal, but they want to recheck in six months.

Okay, I know she’s not a spring chicken, but this was rubbing my nose in it! I knew Marley was of retirement age for a while but hadn’t taken it seriously. She’ll be eleven this spring. The average life span for beagles is twelve to fifteen years. The orthopedist said Marley MIGHT have one or two more working years.

When all the pre-surgery exams were done, it was time to decide which surgery — we had a choice of two. One wasn’t cheap and the other was really expensive. With the not so cheap one, the surgeon would attach a thread to her two bones creating a replacement ligament. The success rate for full recovery is eighty percent.

We hoped that Marley could have the really expensive surgery – if her bones were big enough. The success rate is ninety percent. And, in the long run, Marley would be a lot more likely to be able to return to work (I am not looking forward to the day I have to tell her that she can’t work any more. She loves her job!).

As it turned out, Marley had the really good surgery – TPLO (If you want to read more about it, this is pretty good. http://www.vetsurgerycentral.com/tplo.htm). She had to spend the night in the hospital. It was sooo quiet around here. She came home Wednesday afternoon moving really slowly.

Its now Thursday evening. Marley is still very weak but getting around a bit better. Her leg is quite swollen. She’s becoming accustomed to the warm compresses against her leg (she screamed the first time I touched the fur on her foot). We haven’t counted the staples yet. There are three at her ankle and several more at her knee and up her thigh. Lew caught her licking the staples last night, so she got to wear an e-collar while we slept. The wound was seeping slightly in one spot, but seems to have finally stopped. The staples come out in about two weeks.

For the next eight to twelve weeks, she’ll be on leash or in a cage 24/7. The purpose is to limit her activity – no running and no jumping. (Sorry, Lois, no playing either.)

I made a platform for Marley to ride on so we can still go out.


Oh! And what she looks like now. Her stomach was shaved for the needle biopsy. Poor baby!

I’m hoping to flesh out the story over the next few days (though, Marley has top priority). If you’re interested, check her web pages at www.RideMaps.com (Click on the link near the top).

Elena

bookmark_borderAttn Lesbian Readers/Writers:

Posted on by PaulaO

The Golden Crown Literary Society will hold its annual convention in Atlanta June 8th – 11th.

You do not need to belong to GCLS to attend.

More information can be found on the GCLSCon website.

Authors attending include:

    Lynn Ames
    Nann Dunne
    Jane Fletcher
    Vada Foster
    Karin Kallmaker
    Lori Lake
    BL Miller
    Radclyffe

The GCLSCon website has a full list of attending authors, editors, publishers, and sponsors.

Readers of lesbian fiction will get the chance to meet with their favorite author(s). Writers will get to meet publishers. Workshops range from The Editor / Author Relationship (Editors and authors in a round table on issues that arise in the editing process) to Creating Special Worlds (Featuring authors who are working in fantasy / sci-fi / speculative fiction) to Tales from the Crypt – Writers Wives Dish (It must be great living with an author – oh, really?).

bookmark_borderCSS help

Posted on by PaulaO

Found this article on Wired News Blogs:

Tweak Up Your CSS

Building valid and easy-to-use layouts in CSS is a matter of trial and error for most of us. And of course, after all of that editing, deleting, and cut-and-pasting, we’re left with a stylesheet that’s functional, but probably fairly ugly and disorganized.

Not to worry — CSSTweak is here to save our code. CSSTweak is a web-based tool that can crunch your CSS down, making it sleeker and more well-formed. I ran a few of my own stylesheets through it. It made all of them smaller by 8 to 10 percent and it reorganized some of my div declarations to make them uniform.

CSSTweak will also alert you if your stylesheet isn’t valid CSS. You don’t get any specific info about which pieces are invalid, but rather a (literal) red flag. If you want a more robust validator that spits out specific information about required fixes, try the W3C’s validator. Just don’t expect it to tweak your stylesheets for you.

(full article)

bookmark_borderSci-Fi Coming True

Posted on by PaulaO

I read this article, well, most of it, and didn’t understand much. But I was working on my first glass of choc milk so maybe later in the day, I’ll give it a try again.

For those of us who write or try to write Science Fiction, this article is a great resource chock full of ideas.

From Georgia Tech Research News via Science Daily

Carbon-Based Electronics: Researchers Develop Foundation for Circuitry and Devices Based on Graphite

Graphite, the material that gives pencils their marking ability, could be the basis for a new class of nanometer-scale electronic devices that have the attractive properties of carbon nanotubes – but could be produced using established microelectronics manufacturing techniques.

Using thin layers of graphite known as graphene, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the United States, in collaboration with the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in France, have produced proof-of-principle transistors, loop devices and circuitry. Ultimately, the researchers hope to use graphene layers less than 10 atoms thick as the basis for revolutionary electronic systems that would manipulate electrons as waves rather than particles, much like photonic systems control light waves.

Because carbon nanotubes conduct electricity with virtually no resistance, they have attracted strong interest for use in transistors and other devices. However, serious obstacles must be overcome before nanotube-based devices could be scaled up into high-volume industrial products, including:

  • An inability to produce nanotubes of consistent sizes and consistent electronic properties,
  • Difficulty integrating nanotubes into electronic devices using processes suitable for volume production, and
  • High electrical resistance that produces heating and energy loss at junctions between nanotubes and the metal wires connecting them.

(full article)

bookmark_borderBooks to Read

Posted on by PaulaO

From NYC Public Library:
25 Books to Remember from 2005. Contains fiction and nonfiction books. (nod to Miss Snark)

and

From Shelf Awareness:

The 10 Most-Challenged Books of 2005
At least 405 challenges were made against books because of content or appropriateness last year, according to the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, and likely represent only 20% of challenges. The Office defines challenge as “a formal, written complaint, filed with a library or school.” Most of the challenges were reported by public libraries, schools and school libraries. For more information, please visit www.ala.org/bbooks.

The following are the 10 titles most often challenged in 2005. If the list is depressing, consider that several books of recent years didn’t make it this year, including the Alice series of books by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.

  • It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health–for homosexuality, nudity, sex education, religious viewpoint, abortion and being unsuited to age group.
  • Forever by Judy Blume–for sexual content and offensive language.
  • The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger–for sexual content, offensive language and being unsuited to age group.
  • The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier–for sexual content and offensive language.
  • Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher–for racism and offensive language.
  • Detour for Emmy by Marilyn Reynolds–for sexual content.
  • What My Mother Doesn’t Know by Sonya Sones–for sexual content and being unsuited to age group.
  • Captain Underpants series by Dav Pilkey–for anti-family content, being unsuited to age group and violence.
  • Crazy Lady! by Jane Leslie Conly–for offensive language.
  • It’s So Amazing! A Book about Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies, and Families by Robie H. Harris–for sex education and sexual content.

bookmark_borderResearch On Writers

Posted on by PaulaO

Last year, during NaNoWriMo, I participated in a research project. It was easy enough, just a minute out of each day to fill out a questionnaire.

The researcher, David McGarva, has posted his report on-line. He came up with some interesting results. He used a model I’d not heard of before (Reversal Theory) but it made sense.

And, as a reminder, Butch Girls Can Fix Anything was written during NaNoWriMo 2004 and has been bought by Regal Crest Enterprises (RCE).

bookmark_borderWriting and Updating

Posted on by PaulaO

Putting two posts into one so try to not get confused.

I have successfully updated to WordPress 2.0.2. It was easy enough. While I was at it, I checked all my plugins for updates. Time consuming!

I also got some writing done earlier today. Wrote a short short story. It was fun, really. And funny. I also wrote some more on Centric. Not much, since I had to keep stopping and doing either more research or find my notes on the research I’ve already done. I don’t know how long I’ll keep this up. I like it and its fun to write too. Can’t get much better than that.

bookmark_borderWild Hair

Posted on by PaulaO

I got a wild hair and decided to work on my perpetually researched SF project.

I’ve written some of it before but this has some more personal aspects instead of the boring details it was. Centric is a science fiction novel based on technocentric and geocentric peoples. There’s more to it than that but that’s the basics. Think computer geeks vs farmers except on a very large scale. Toss in sustainability, symbiosis, and sentience and you have Centric.

Anyway, I got 1800 words on it tonight. I want to get more but my brain keeps wandering. I think right now its in the kitchen in the bin with the Reese cup eggs.