The Boston Diaries

The ongoing saga of a programmer who doesn't live in Boston, nor does he even like Boston, but yet named his weblog/journal “The Boston Diaries.”

Go figure.

Wednesday, September 25, 2002

A Life Less Interesting

It seems that wierd things are happening all around.

Earlier last week Mark was attacked by a feral cat. Mark's bathroom opens up to the back porch in his house, and he heard some noise at the door. When he opened it this cat latched itself to Mark, scratching and biting him, then it flew around the bathroom, breaking anything and everything that could be broken.

Mark was able to remove the cat from his house before more damage could be done. He then called Animal Control who came out to set traps for the animal (since Mark's house is on the edge of a nature preserve). They also told him to get rabies shots.

The first hospital he went to (in east Boca Raton) told him he did not need the shots and that a case of rabies had not been seen in Boca Raton for years. The next day when Animal Control came back out to check the traps, they were horrified to hear that Mark was blown off by that hospital.

So, Mark went to the West Boca Medical Center (which is where we took Rob) and they set him up on a rabies shot schedule.

I also heard some news about John, the paper millionaire of a dot-com. I haven't heard from him in almost two years (I think the last time I saw him was Thanksgiving of 2000). I occasionally wondered about him, his wife and how they could afford to live in that house of theirs after the DotCom Bubble burst.

Well, it seems that John lost most (if not all) of his money when it burst, since most of his money was in stock to begin with, and sometime last year he apparently split without telling anyone, including his wife where he went.

She, however, is still in the house and how she can afford it, I don't know. Perhaps John, the paper millionaire of a dotcom didn't loose all his money and just decided to leave everything behind.

Perhaps.

But I'm not even to the wierd part in this story.

John, the paper millionaire of a dotcom, had wired up a computer to control the house. Lights, music, air conditioning, you name it, it was controlled by a computer. He was, after all, a paper millionaire of a dotcom, and with that much (paper) money you can buy some pretty fancy toys, like a computer controlled home.

And even though John, the paper millionaire of a dotcom, no longer lives there, he still, however, has control over that computer. And he's been using that control to control the house, remotely.

And his (ex?) wife has no idea how to prevent him from logging into that computer remotely. Even after she cut the Internet access, John, the paper millionaire of a dotcom, apparently still has a way in.

Me, I find that terribly amusing.


The roof! The roof! The roof is under construction!

Work continues on the roof.

WHAM WHAM WHAM WHIRRRRRRRRRRRRR WHIRRRRRRRRRRRR WHIRRRRRRRRRRRRRR WHAM WHAM WHAM

All

day

long.

Scream.


The bureaucratic shuffle

“What do you mean he's not on record?” asked Spring. It was four in the afternoon and we hadn't heard back from the hospital about Rob, so Spring called them up. “We brought him in last night! … No record … okay.” She hung up.

“I guess we better go there and ask them in person,” I said.

“Yes,” she said.

Half an hour later, we arrive to the emergency room and start asking. Oh, Rob was moved to another medical facility. Why weren't we notified? Don't know he was just moved. Oh.

Fourty-five minutes later we arrive at the other medical facility, where were weren't allowed to see Rob. We got no information about Rob at all, since we were not on a list to have information. We don't even know how bad off he is. We have to come back tomorrow during visiting hours (and there's only four (4) hours per week anyone can visit at this particular facility).

Sigh.

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