Note to self...

There is a secret to blood draws scheduled by MD Anderson—in some (I suspect) large number of cases, neither the appointment time nor location need be strictly observed (and my draws meet those criteria). This is, by the way, a really useful thing to know when something/someone at MDA sets up a 6 am blood draw at the downtown campus.

However, today's appointment was for 10 am, at the Clear Lake office (a 10-minute drive away, if all the lights are against me). So rather than interrupt my day to go have someone poke me with a needle, I decided to beat the crowd and show up at the dot of 7 am, when the office opens.

Upon arrival, I got in a line long enough to leave exactly one seat in the waiting room by the time I had formally checked in. The people behind me had to wait for seats!

Gotta be wary of blood draws scheduled for Mondays, I guess.

Cheers...

Blood for blood...

So today's blood draw will have me going back to the local MD Anderson facility tomorrow morning for more fun.

Meanwhile, today I visited a place called uBreakiFix to see what they could do about replacing the screen on the Air, and they quoted me a price of about $300 plus tax, with a week turnaround time. Doing the job myself is looking ever more attractive (despite the fact that each YouTube video I've found on the subject warns that it's not a job for amateurs).

I've been told there is a way of using the Air despite its cracked LCD screen, and that's via the use of the unit's mini display port, but the tricky part there is that unless one puts the unit into "clamshell" mode (i.e., lower the cover all the way to the keyboard), the external monitor simply displays additional screen real estate unless one plays with display settings on the main screen, which is not feasible if the main screen is cracked.

In "clamshell" mode, one must plug in an external keyboard and mouse to use the machine, but the resulting configuration reminds me of the joke that ends with the punch line "I don't know whether to get in bed or in the dresser." As the whole purpose of the exercise is to undergo the Macintoch "experience," I'm not too warm to this idea.

Among other errands, I stopped by Dromgoole's to pick up a vintage Parker pen I picked up there for a song during a store event in May, only to find out, shortly afterward, that the pen's filling mechanism was kaput. The parts to fix the pen weren't immediately available, but eventually, the parts were procured and the pen was made right (at no additional cost to me, I might add, which I greatly appreciate). The nib has a lot of flex to it, but even when writing without taking advantage of the flex, the line the pen draws is quite broad, and a surprisingly large quantity of ink gets laid down on paper (though it does not bleed through the pages in the Leuchtturm1917 notebook I started using yesterday).

Long day tomorrow. I should hit the rack.

Cheers...