Alin's Site

Zapped again in the O.R

Yesterday went great, the usual. Go in, get sevo’d out, swap trach, wake up, go home. The cool thing is I woke up very quickly after the procedure thanks to my great anesthesiologist Dr. Lowenthal. She is a very fun personality to be around!

ProCare Card… No More now JointVenture

Well Apple has pulled the plug on it’s ProCare program in favor of a program called JointVenture that is focused towards Small Business and Mid to even enterprise. However that leaves consumers stranded with longer lines, no more priority support and all the stuff that ProCare offered. Most important to me were two features of ProCare

Fast Track

If you have a quick technical question or need to drop off a repair, just flash your ProCare card. You’ll skip right to the head of the line at the Genius Bar — and we’ll take care of the rest.

and

Rapid Repairs

You rely on your Mac and need it in top working order. So if you ever bring it in for repair, you’ll want it back right away. As a ProCare member you get, “Next in Line, First on the Bench” service on all in-store repairs

Well the manager of our local store Al tried to ring up a ProCare card they had laying around and it would not go through because it is discontinued. He said don’t worry just give me a call at the store and I will Fast Track or Rapid Repair your machine for you. His genius Ryan rushed my computer into the back like it was a trauma victim off of a helicopter being rushed into an Operating Room of a hospital, he greeted us at the door and mom handed him the computer and off he was! He returned with my mac with a fixed microphone in less than 30 minutes. Yay!

Nearly 2 months after zappage

I am quite happy about the photo above, it’s a photo of my trach site and we have not had a single issue with it aside from dad winning the Zappy Award Back January 16th but hey that’s almost 2 solid months without a single issue! Not even a cuff rupture. So Monday at 9:30 AM is the trach change which should be a quick piece of cake, go in, go to O.R, swap the trach out, wake up, come home. And then we just need to hope for 2 months of no problems again.

And now the classic countdown.

Countdown is no more. it’s done!

Holding up it's little brother

In other news my 15 inch macbook pro is back. It has a new motherboard and should last me awhile. Hopefully for a long time but thanks to my 13″ machine I didn’t become a mental case the week it was gone! It also has this cool black case to protect it from drops and falls. Click above for some photos of me reimaging it and its little brother. Though Tuesday I have to take it back into the Apple store as either the Microphone is damaged or just not plugged in correctly as it is not registering anything. Thankfully I have an external one but it’s a pain to have to use that. They probably failed to plug it in correctly when I had my Motherboard replaced, I am hoping it is that and it is a quick repair! If not I am going to have to migrate everything back to my 13″ machine which is “Ready for deployment” which means it has a fresh install of OS X on it and is in migration mode, so all I need to do is connect my Time Machine drive and hit the button. If this computer has to go in for more than overnight then I will have to do a fresh OS X install and do the same “deployment protocol” to it when it comes back!

Protocol is simple enough but the fact that my big machine is broken yet again is a pain in the butt!!!

All up and running!

While the birthdate of christ only occurs once a year and the gift giving day is only supposed to be once a year apparently this year it’s like it’s happening twice, well at least with the present I got myself yesterday! I got myself a 13″ MacBook Pro, thanks to the assistive technology fund that I had money coming into and been saving money up in I was able to buy this machine that I am typing this blog post on. It is pretty much an identical clone of my 15″ machine only 13″ in size. The only tiny downside is the screen resolution is a bit small for multitasking of large amounts but it does it’s job for my day to day life! My old back up machine could barely handle my day to day life, this machine does it without a sweat!

Holding mel2 closely showing off my new shirt

I make friends really good with companies apparently. I made a friend at Stealth and she sent this wicked cool Stealth shirt to me. Cause I am a total stealth head, literally, whenever I get in my wheelchair, my head is in a Stealth headrest. lol and quite often in bed too. Hmm they need to design one that does not have all the mounting stuff jutting out of the back, would make sleeping a lot simpler hehe. So me and mel2 took a few photos!

I also have a friend over at Bodypoint, they are responsible for every strap on my wheelchair, even mel1! all Bodypoint, leg harnesses, ankle straps, seat belt, all Bodypoint. It’s cool when you meet people from two different companies on Facebook and really make new friends. It’s such a rewarding thing to have friends in the industry that I am a total nerd for and also in the industry in which a few of my beloved comfort objects are made.

OK so you don’t know this hoopla about a mel1 and 2 and such and what it means, then you might need to read my post on Objectum Affectionism