My wife, Michelle, and I have three sons, Connor (4), Cade (2), and Collin (1 month).  While Collin isn’t quite old enough to get into computers, Connor and Cade both love it.  Their favorite educational programs are the Reader Rabbit series, followed closely by several Blue’s Clues games. 

To make life easy on mom and dad, as well as to protect the CDs, we ripped all their games as ISO images using ISO Recorder and keep them stored on my wife’s laptop.  Even using the ISOs, the procedure for playing the games at the kids’ request was still a pain in the neck:

1. Log on to the laptop using either mine or my wife’s account.
2. Navigate to Control Panel and turn down the mouse sensitivity to something more appropriate for a preschooler.
3. Mount the ISO for the game they’ve requested using Virtual Clonedrive.
4. Launch the game.
5. Watch the kids close the laptop lid when they were done, forcing the laptop into standby mode with these full-screen kids’ apps still running and the mouse sensitivity turned way down.  Meaning the first thing we’d have to do when we woke up the laptop was bring up task manager to kill the kids’ app (which would inevitably be pegging the CPU at 100%) and then dig into control panel to readjust the mouse sensitivity.

At some point in there, I realized there had to be a better way.

So the first thing I did was give the kids their own account on that PC.  I created a limited-access account with no password (my wife and I both keep our accounts password protected).  I logged on with that account, set the icon size to large, the mouse pointer scheme to extra large, the folder options to “single-click”,  and set the mouse sensitivity to low.

Then to ensure that the kids didn’t do anything on that system that I didn’t want them to, I ran a tool called Windows SteadyState.  This thing rocks.  It lets you lockdown a PC (and individual accounts on that PC) to a very high degree.  It’s not unlike some of the more draconian GPOs I’ve seen, like in schools and libraries, but it works on a standalone PC. 

It took me some trial and error to get the lockdown to what I thought was an appropriate level.  For example, I left the new-style start menu enabled so that there were no icons placed on the desktop that I didn’t place there myself.  I also re-enabled Fast User Switching, which SteadyState disabled, by setting HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\DisableFastUserSwitching to 0.

So now I had a solution to a lot of my problems, just by hitting Windows-L to drop to the Welcome Screen, and then clicking on the kids’ new profile.  The last step was making it easy for the kids to launch their programs.

Putting big, single click icons on the desktop was a no-brainer, but I obviously couldn’t expect the kids to mount the ISO images before launching their programs.  Luckily, Virtual CloneDrive has a command line mount utility.  Good old-fashioned batch files to the rescue!  Here’s an example of the files I wrote, this one to launch Reader Rabbit Toddler:

@echo off
start /wait "c:\program files\elaborate bytes\virtualclonedrive\vcdmount.exe" "c:\disk images\Reader_Rabbit_Toddler.iso"
timeout 7
cd "\Program Files\The Learning Company\Reader Rabbit Toddler"
rrtw32.exe

The “start /wait” was, I had hoped, so that the CD would be available to the system immediately after that line was done executing.  It wasn’t, so I added the “timeout 7” for 7 more seconds of waiting before trying to launch the program.  The Blue’s Clues games, interestingly, will show a screen asking the user to insert the disk, so the wait isn’t an issue with them.

Finally, I created shortcuts to these batch files on the kids’ desktop, using the icons from the actual executables. 

Now my boys can easily launch the programs they want without any intervention from mom and dad, and mom and dad don’t have to worry about the boys getting into things they shouldn’t.

On Monday, the 5-week anniversary of my surgery, I get my first “fill,” where they will inject saline into my band to provide more restriction.  It’s probably about time, as I still get full pretty easily but it doesn’t last very long.  That said, I’ve lost about 15 pounds since surgery, so I guess it must be working.

We’ve been doing some remodeling around the house.  The room we were using as my office has been made into a bedroom for my boys, as their old bedroom has been remade into a nursery in preparation for our newest addition, who should appear in March.

Since we’d completely finished our basement, we moved my office into the end of the basement hallway, which was really a bit of a dead space before (we just used it to store a few things, including some guinea pigs and turtles).

Here’s the view as  you walk down the hallway to my office.  To the left is the door to my den, and to the right is the door to the garage.

Here’s the view from the door to the garage.

Let’s talk about what we see.  First, a Microsoft Natural Keyboard 4000 and a Microsoft Natural Laser Mouse 6000.  I’m big on ergonomics.  That’s part of the reason I still use this desk, even though a different style of desk would allow me to set up multiple monitors.  This desk is a corner design with a desktop that “wraps” around you to a degree, and it provides good support for my arms.  The monitor is a 19” DVI LCD.  All three are connected to a nice DVI KVM which allows me to share them between my personal desktop PC (lower left) and my work laptop (in the docking station on the left).

Here’s a close-up of the left side.

In this view, you can see my Linksys WRT54GL (running Tomato firmware), Vonage gateway, and cable modem on top.  You can also see my two phones, one that has an intercom to the rest of the house,  and one that has a headset.  All of this is running on a UPS so I never have any downtime.  The little black button on the desk next to the silver phone is the switch button for the KVM. 

On the right you can see some books and stuff.  Not a whole lot here.  Just storage and a nifty lighted document stand.

To the right of my desk is my printer stand and a bed for my office assistants.  One of my dogs and one of my cats take turns.  Usually it’s the dog.

Here’s the local office manager, Spartan 117.  He’s a bit of a slave driver.

And that’s pretty much where I spend 9 hours a day.  Generally it’s pretty quiet, and I manage a good amount of productivity.

What’s your home office like?  Would you be comfortable working from it full time?

Well, tomorrow is the first official day of my "mechanical soft" diet, which technically means anything that can be mashed with a fork.  I've been cheating a little on my pureed diet, increasing mashable foods over the past week, because, well, let's face it: Baby food is not meant for adults.  I've been taking it slow, and I've been really very careful to thoroughly chew my food so my stomach doesn't get too much of a workout though.  And I've been sticking with soft foods, nothing too fibrous or tough like beef or celery.

I'm able to take my pills down now without crushing them, the exception being my metformin, which I still split.  My blood sugar is doing really good.  In fact, it's going too low (hypoglycemic) every day now, which leads me to think I need to cut back on my glyburide (a drug that stimulates insulin production).  I'll meet with my  family doctor sometime in the next few weeks to put together a game plan on my meds.

As far as eating goes, I really am feeling full on a relatively small portion of food (less than my wife eats, but more than my kids), and I haven't found any foods yet that give me trouble so long as I chew it thoroughly and take my time.  When I get my first fill and get some more restriction from my band, I should be able to take even smaller portions.

Assuming nothing noteworthy happens, I don't expect to blog about this anymore for a couple weeks when I transition back to a "normal" diet.

I'm not in any pain anymore, nor do I feel bloated.  The swelling in my stomach must be going down, because I'm getting hungry now, and I'm not "filling up" on liquids like I was.  Well, maybe a bit, but it doesn't last nearly as long.

Speaking of liquids, I'm sick of them.  I'm sick of clear liquids, I'm sick of full liquids.  I'm sick of cream soups, popsicles, Cream of Wheat, Malt-o-meal, fruit juice, decaf iced tea, water, and everything else liquid.  I want real, solid food.

To that end, I cheated a little.  I'm not supposed to start pureed foods until after my follow-up appt. Monday.  Well, tonight I ran some of my wife's chili through the blender and ate it with a small piece of cornbread, which I chewed really well.  Michelle's chili never tasted so good, even if it was more like refried beans than chili.

I actually feel a bit better this morning.  The port incision still hurts a little, but bloating is down and my fever has broken.  It's easier for me to get up from a sitting position. 

I'm feeling kinda drained, probably because there isn't a whole lot of nutrition in a clear liquid diet.  Tomorrow I move to full liquids, so I'm looking forward to some nice creamy soup or cream of wheat.

Speaking of liquids, the swelling around the band has made it hard for me to take liquids down.  I have to go really slow, just a sip at a time, or the band punishes me.  I guess this is a good preview of what normal meals will be like.  It's not horrible, just uncomfortable.  I can learn to work with that, I guess.

Here's a handy tip I discovered: My daily meds are way to big to fit through the swelling around my band, so I'm having to crush them.  The easiest way I've found to get down a handful of nasty crushed pills is to mix the powder with children's Tylenol.  That seems to pretty much mask the taste.

Not a whole lot new to report today.  My port incision is still pretty sore, but I'm a lot less bloated today, at least in my chest.  My belly is still kinda bloated.  And I've got a mild fever of 99.3°F.  Yay.

We (my dear wife Michelle and I) reported to the surgery center dutifully at 6:30, and were then informed that we'd have to wait a little bit because my surgeon moonlights as a trauma surgeon and got called in to patch somebody up.  At about 7:30 they called me from the waiting room to get ready.

They took me to my room, where I was instructed to don the backless robe, surgical cap, etc., and let them know when i was ready for my IV.  After gettting me all hooked up, Michelle was allowed to see me. 

These were some of the longest minutes of my life.  As you may know from my previous posts, I've really felt conflicted about this decision.  I'm overweight, yes,  but not enough to contribute to any serious health conditions other than my type 2 diabetes.  I'm relatively pretty good about my diet (with some exceptions), but I have had the hardest time losing weight since I got my blood sugar under control, thanks to side effects from my medications.  So on the one hand, I had a voice in my head imploring me to back out, that I'm not that fat, and it wasn't too late to call it off.  Then I had another voice reminding me that the only way to reverse diabetes is to lose huge amounts of weight and this is the best possible thing I could do for it.

Finally the anesthesia nurse gave me a shot of something that made both voices just shut the hell up.  My RN called it the "I don't care" drug.  It was definitely that.

A bit later, they wheeled me into the OR, where I can remember cracking a couple jokes with the staff, and that's pretty much the last thing I remember.

My next memory was coming to in the recovery room.  What a crappy feeling.  I could tell that I had some sore incisions, and I was trying to have coherent thoughts, but I could only manage two-word sentences to the RN.  My throat being sore from the breathing tube didn't help, either.  I couldn't focus my eyes on  anything, nor could I keep them open for any length of time.  And my upper back hurt, which it always does when I'm in a hospital bed.  I know I said something to the RN, but I can't remember what.  Eventually I was moved back to my room.

The next few hours consisted of lots of walking, and before I knew it, they released me.  It was about 3 PM, and I could have left earlier if I had peed sooner.  Michelle drove us to Hy-Vee to pick up my pain prescription while I dozed a little in the car.  Next stop was home.

So here I sit, perfectly conscious.  Most of my incisions don't really hurt at all, with the exception of the incision where they installed my port.  That's really tender, and it's the one that really hurts whenever I put too much strain on  my abs.  I'm on a clear liquid diet for the next few days, but I don't think that'll be too hard, as I'm passing liquids through my new pouch really, really slowly due to swelling.  I actually got a full stomach on a popsicle earlier today.  I'm also feeling really kind of bloated thanks to the gas they used to inflate my abdominal cavity.

All in all, it's a pretty easy procedure and I don't feel too bad.   We'll see if I feel like this tomorrow.

Part of the preparation my surgeon requires pre-operation is a clear liquid diet the day before surgery.

My brother-in-law Brian is here this weekend because I hired him to put in laminate flooring.  The timing could be better, but the factory where he works is going to be closed the next two weeks, so Michelle and I decided to take advantage of her brother’s unwanted availability and at the same time help him out at a time when money is kind of tight.  He’s an absolute artist when it comes to handywork, so the floor is going to look fantastic.

Brian is a Mountain Dew fanatic, so while I was making a hardware store run this morning, I decided to stop by the grocery store and pick up some Mountain Dew for him.  If Dante had added another circle to hell, I’m pretty sure it would have consisted of being in a grocery store while on a clear liquid diet.    Being there in the grocery store was absolutely torturous.  I was mildly hungry when I went in.  Within a few minutes, I was famished.  I stocked up on South Beach Diet “Tide Me Over” drink mix, basically Crystal Light with extra protein to help you feel full.  And I bought a lot of sugar free Jello.  Also some pudding and protein shakes for Thursday, when I transition off my clear liquid diet to my “full” liquid diet.

I hope that Mountain Dew is the best Mountain Dew Brian has ever had.

As I've discussed this decision with my friends and family, I've gotten a lot of questions about it and encountered a few misperceptions. My mom, for example, thought it was a much more extreme procedure, like gastric bypass. The official Lap-Band website has a short animation about the procedure. It's totally G-rated and is actually very informative. If you have any questions about it, please take five minutes to watch this and I guarantee you'll have a much better understanding of what it is and what it does.

As the date draws closer, I'm a little nervous. Make no mistake: I'm not particularly crazy about this whole idea. But as I consider my age and the long-term complications of type 2 diabetes, and the horrible health problems my dad suffered before he finally died at the relatively young age of 58, I see this as my best chance at maintaining a relatively normal life. I actually compare my feelings on the subject to those who have to consider pre-emptive surgery because they are at high risk of cancer. I'm not comparing diabetes to cancer; I'm just saying I feel like this is a pre-emptive action that will require short-term cost to provide the best long-term outcome.

Besides, as I told my friend Todd, it'll be nice to fit in my favorite suit again. :)

I was already thinking of picking up a Dell Mini 9 when Scott Hanselman blogged about his, and I'd dropped hints to my dear wife that I would love one for Christmas.  She told me point-blank that she wasn't buying a computer for me, so I went to back to shopping on my own. 

Right about the time I was ready to click "buy" on Dell's website, my friend John Batdorf told me about his new Eee PC.  He was infinitely pleased with his, so I went to NewEgg and bought one of my own for far less than I was going to spend on the Dell.  It got here today.

It's slightly larger than I expected, having seen the previous generation of Eee PCs, but I suppose that's fine since it yields a slightly larger keyboard.  Upon unboxing it and booting into Windows XP Home, I fell in love.  It's a zippy little thing, easily as fast as my 1.8 Ghz Centrino laptop.  The keyboard layout is cramped,  but pretty easy to navigate, and Asus provides all the usual hotkeys, as well as some new ones (like a key for Taskman).

After taking the dime tour in XP, I installed a 2 GB DIMM.  For reference, here's the procedure I used:

1. Reboot, press F2 before Windows loads to go into the BIOS setup.
2. On the "boot" tab, disable Boot Boost (and LEAVE it disabled at least until Vista is installed and stable).  Save your changes, shut down the PC.
3. Unplug the PC and remove the batter. 
4. Remove the service panel on the bottom by removing two screws.  When you pry the service panel open, it will put up more resistance than you anticipate.  Be gentle, but persistent, and it will come off.
5. Remove the 1 GB DIMM.  Replace it with the 2 GB DIMM.
6. Replace the service panel, reboot, verify it worked.

At this point, I decided it was time to install Vista.  Using an ISO of Vista SP1, I created a bootable USB flash drive using this guy's procedure.  Then I started my Vista install.  Here are the steps you'll need to do the same:

1. Insert the USB drive with your Vista installation files, reboot, press Esc before Windows loads to bring up  the boot menu, and select the USB media (not F9, my bad, sorry John!).
2. Once in Vista setup, configure your partitions the way you want them.  My Eee had 4 partitions, two of which were NTFS and were obviously my C: and D: drives.  Partitions 3 and 4 were not NTFS, and looked suspiciously like restore partitions, so I left them alone.  I deleted partitions 1 and 2, however, and created a single primary NTFS partition for Vista.  Apply your own preferences as applicable.  45 minutes later, I booted into Vista for the first time.
3. The first thing you'll want to fix are the bad devices in Device Manager.  First, I updated the two "Network Adapter" items with drivers from the included support DVD, and they turned out to be the wireless and ethernet adapters.
4. Then I went to Intel's website and downloaded and installed the latest driver package for my chipset.
5. Finally, there was one additional bad entry in Device Manager.  I followed this procedure to download and install the ACPI driver, which corrected that last bad entry, as well as enabling all my hotkeys.
6. I went to the Asus download page and installed the Super Hybrid Engine utility, the Asus Instant Key utility, and the Asus Updater, which I used to update to the most recent BIOS.  For each of those,  the Asus installer will throw an error that Windows 6 isn't supported.  Sure it is.  Just don't use the Asus installer.  There will be another executable in the same directory as the Asus setup program.  You'll recognize it by its InstallShield icon.  Apparently, Asus' program is just a bootstrapper.  Go straight to the InstallShield installer.
7. After the BIOS update, the wireless network card  and the webcam were disabled by default.  The system tray utility that came with the ACPI driver can reactivate them.
8. At some point during my first few hours with my Vista-enabled Eee PC, sound quit working.  Since I was just using Vista's default drivers, I  downloaded and installed Asus' drivers, which appears to fix the issue.

And that's it!  My little Eee PC is running Vista happily with Aero and all the bells and whistles.  There's no serious degradation in performance over the default XP installation.  I noticed that the CPU appears to be dual-core.  It's not - it's hyperthreaded, so to Windows, it appears to be dual-core.

I installed Chrome, Firefox, Pidgin, Windows Live Writer, some miscellaneous other stuff, ran TweakUAC to get UAC to nag me less, cleaned up my start menu (I loathe messy start menus), and am now enjoying my Eee PC with Vista.

I've had several people ask what happened after my last post.

Well, I did call them the next day and scheduled my surgery for late November. However, due to my family's travel schedule around Thanksgiving, I rescheduled for early December. Then my surgeon had to cancel due to a conflict, so we rescheduled yet again. I'm currently scheduled for surgery on 12/22.

I guess something like bariatric surgery is something a lot of folks would consider personal information and might be a little wary of putting on a blog. I do feel a little weird announcing this to the whole world. I'm slightly embarrassed about it, too, because when you think about lap-band surgery, you think of huge people who can't even get out of bed. I'm far from that. I'm overweight, sure, but I have lots of energy, I don't waddle when I walk, and I don't have to shop at big and tall stores.

That said, I look ahead to the future and I see diabetic complications. This is something that has been proven to be extremely helpful for type-2 diabetics to avoid complications. So, in spite of a huge out-of-pocket expense, I'm doing it. I'll blog my experience, so with any luck, I might be able to help persuade other people to take this step for their health.

Wow, it's been a while since I visited my own poor neglected blog.

I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in 2003 at the age of 25. I don't think it phased me at the time. My dad was diabetic, so I always expected it would happen sooner or later. I was a little shocked that I was so young, but I dealt with it, I moved on. I've been taking meds for it ever since, and basically maintaining effective control of my blood sugar. That's a good thing, because the complications from mismanaged blood sugar are awfully scary: Heart disease, blindness, hearing loss, kidney failure, neuropathy, impeded immune system, gum disease... the list continues...

Well, over the past year, it became apparent that my original drug regimen was losing its effectiveness. My past two A1C tests have been high. My last urine test showed an elevated level of proteins in my urine, which is an indicator that my kidneys are definitely being damaged. Not enough to be too concerned, but enough that they're not filtering as much protein as they should, which is a precursor for more serious kidney damage. My doctor and I tweaked my meds, and I've got good control again, for now, at least.

The loss of my blood sugar control bothers me. It bothers me quite a bit. My new medication regimen will work for a while, but it'll probably lose effectiveness after a few years, and we'll tweak again. Up and down. Constantly fighting my diet, constantly living under the threat of complications. Eventually suffering from some of those complications. Very likely dying relatively young after years of being miserable. I've seen it first hand in my father, and I don't look forward to it, nor do I particularly think my wife or kids deserve it.

So... I consider all that, my future, the drugs, the up and down battle, and the complications, and I desperately feel like I have to do something to get it under control. The only thing that can put type 2 diabetes into remission is major weight loss, but I've fought that battle constantly my entire life, particularly since I became diabetic. Diabetes meds make it very difficult to lose weight. Believe me, I really, really tried.

So what other options do I have? Well, the one I've been considering, with the blessing of my wife and my doctor, is laproscopic gastric banding (aka Lap-Band). This is a low-risk, completely reversible, outpatient laproscopic operation wherein a ring is placed around the upper part of the stomach, creating a very small stomach pouch. The smaller stomach pouch helps the patient feel satiated very easily. It successfully causes significant weight loss (generally a loss of around 20%) in almost all patients. The really interesting thing is that a study in Australia last year showed that 70% of patients who were type 2 diabetic when they underwent the procedure went into complete remission within a year, while most of the rest had a far easier time controlling it. It's generally thought that this is almost entirely attributable to the weight loss, although it could be tied to reduced nutrient intake, or some other unidentified cause. The difficult part of it is that it's a complete lifestyle change: The patient's stomach pouch can only hold 4-6 oz, so that nice big juicy porterhouse is out of the question. In fact, there are a number of foods that are very difficult to eat, never mind the quantity. It's also pricey, running around $17,000 in my area, and my employer's insurance plan specifically excludes it.

I've been wrestling with two factors: The first is the cost. We can afford it, but it'll have an impact on the family budget for a few years. And something about having another monthly payment higher than my car payment is making it a little difficult for me to pull the trigger.

The other factor is fear. I don't think I'm particular scared of the surgery itself (link is a YouTube video of the actual procedure, and is not safe for lunch). Well, I guess I am maybe a bit scared of the surgery, but my rational mind knows there's nothing to be afraid of. When I say Lap-Band is "scary," I mean it's scary like it was when I quit smoking - being afraid of a lifestyle change. The first month will be a liquid diet of varying consistencies. After that, when I'm back on solid foods, I'll have to completely re-learn how to eat my meals. Compared to the prospect of diabetic complications, like losing a foot, or my eyesight, or a kidney, I suppose it should be an easy choice.

I've been to a local surgery center. I've had my initial consult, and I cleared all my pre-op tests. They called today to get my CareCredit (surgery financing) account number so we can schedule the surgery, and I chickened out. I said I couldn't find my wallet with the CareCredit card, so I'd have to call them back. The truth is, I'm trying to summon the courage to go through with it. The thing I have to keep reminding myself is that my dad would have done it, had he the option when he was young and healthy. And I don't want my kids to have to watch me suffer and die young like I witnessed with my dad.

Besides, I call myself a geek. What could possibly be more geeky than having your own body's plumbing modded for improved efficiency?

I'll call the surgery center back in the morning.