Ricky Buchanan

01:09 am: Stitch & Bitch
G'day,

I'm going to be holding a "stitch & bitch" afternoon here on Sunday the 5th of October starting at around midday and probably 2-3 hours, depending on everybody's levels of health and ability (including mine!).

What's a "stitch & bitch"?
Just low key social stuff and bring along any knitting/stitching/art/craft stuff you'd like to do while we chat. I don't do anything that involves high stress, even high social stress, so it'll be very laid back.

Who's invited?
YOU.
Seriously, anybody who wants to come, even if I don't know you really at all! New friends are always welcome. If you can make it to near St Kilda on the right day you're welcome. Contact me via LJ message or any of the ways listed on my profile if you want to come - I can provide phone number and address and public transport type directions.

Caveat Salutator
(this is my probably bad fake latin for "Let the Visitor Beware")
As you probably know if you're reading this, I'm perpetually sick. So this might end up having to be called off at the last minute. My usual deal is to tell visitors to phone me just before they start getting ready to leave to check I'm still OK for visitors. I know it's crap that visitors have to deal with this level of uncertainty, but that's just my life. I won't even know the night before if I'll be healthy enough to cope with visitors.

Access Stuff
This is a ministry of housing flat set up for wheelchair users, so it's fully accessible to wheelchairs and mobility devices (all entrances plus kitchen and bathroom). We're smoke free and relatively scent free but there is a Burmese cat here who persists in cuddling all visitors. Any other access-related stuff, just ask.

Whose fault is all this anyway?
synecdochic is having one and I have been meaning to for ages and got all envious I couldn't go to hers. Plus, well, it seems like a cool idea to have one on the same day an LJ friend in the USA is having one. Distributed eventing?

Any other questions, just leave a comment or contact me any way you can.

Hope to see you there!

Cheers,
Ricky

03:11 pm: What do you know about survey design
Ok, this comes under "my flist knows everything"... so hello, very smart flist people!

Who knows about designing research questionnaires for people to answer? I know there's ways to do it so you'll get the biggest amount of valid information using the least questions possible. People don't like complicated or long questionnaires, so this is best!

Why? I'm designing some qualitative research about the stuff I wrote about in the letter here - the problem of people who can't physically attend events because of chronic illness/disability related problems. And I want the research to be an un-crappy as possible.

I already know it's going to be a "straw poll" type thing so it won't be numerically valid in terms of how many people have these problems, well except for the extreme lower bound being the number of people who answer "yes" to the questionnaire! But the goal is to get an idea of the range/types of issues that prevent people from attending events in person, the range/types of possible solutions people have used to this problem, and the range/types of solutions people would be interested in using if they were offered. Plus, possibly another questionnaire aimed at event organizers/facilitators which asks the inverse questions - are they aware of the issue abstractly, do they know if anybody has been excluded from events they've run because of this, what things do they think prevent people from attending, what solutions would the be most willing to offer, and so forth. The second questionnaire is the icing on the cake though, the first one is the most important.

Even if you know the name of the field of study relevant to designing good questionnaires of this type, that would be a help! Additional bonus points for offering good URLs and top marks if to anybody who has knowledge to share and could actually chat/email with me while I design the thing.

I really want this to be good. It's a topic that matters.

Thanks!
Ricky

11:52 pm: What do you do?
coffeeem has written in her journal asking all her readers what they do - both what pays the bills and what their passion/calling/etc. is.

I'm asking too, because the answers she got are fascinating and interesting!

So what, or who, pays your bills ... and what (or who?) is your real job, or calling, or passion, or what you'd do if you had unlimited money and health to pursue the path of your choice? You may answer in as much or little detail as you want, of course, but I'd love to hear more!!

Hugs,
Ricky

12:24 pm: What the world needs now...
Is Attack of the Super-Strength Cyborg Penguins!

W00t! I love it!

Unfortunately, they've called it "PISCES". Silly researchers - I was accidentally born early so I'm an Aquarius, not Pisces. I would have been Pisces if I was born full term though.

And not that I believe in Astrology of any stripe, but I recently found a list of the dates of Chinese New Year during the 1900s and found that because I was born before CNY in 1975, but my due date was afterwards, I would have had a different Chinese astrological sign too if I'd been full term. Can't remember which ones, offhand, but it amused me at the time.

- Rambling Ricky

02:21 pm: Cooking By Feel
I learned to cook mostly without a recipe book around. We only used them for cakes and other things rarely made, that I recall. So "cooking by gut feeling" is something I'm familiar with. But it's not something that's easy to learn if you've never been able to spend time with somebody who cooks like that - it's something usually taught one-on-one.

Blissfully, somebody in the pollanesque community is writing a series of posts about cooking by feel. An introduction for those who "can't cook" or are scared of deviating from recipes. She's updating the posts as commenters add information, and there's lots there that I didn't know. Highly recommended if you want to cook, can cook, or might want to cook in the future.

The posts so far, in chronological order:

• Cooking by Feel
  
• Flavor Families!
  
• More on Cooking By Feel

I do hope the series continues!

Ricky

01:16 am: Getting Started With Mac OS X
Testing 1 2 3...

Getting Started With Mac OS X

Posted using ShareThis

03:07 pm: Pwned by Cat
Mum took this on Sunday, it pretty much totally tells you who's in charge here:



It seems to me that if my life were CSI, the cat would be yelling "Clear! Human has been completely subdued!" at this point...

r

06:49 pm: The happy places not-a-meme
synecdochic posted just recently, asking people to List ten things that are your current happy places. She described "happy places" thus:

You know, the thing you retreat to doing or reading or watching or thinking about or whatever when you need to get away from all the things that are conspiring against you. The images you conjure when you close your eyes and chant "go to your happy place, go to your happy place". Those.

I took a while to get a response together, and in the end I'm pretty sure some of these aren't "happy places" by her definition but they're things about my life that make me happy. And it was good thinking about the positive things for a change - I've had a rough few weeks with a virus and my health generally so I've been a bit focussed on the negative. Trying to think of ten positive things was good therapy! Thanks, synecdochic :).

So here's my list:

1. Although I only have 3 current PCAs (ie: not nearly enough) they are all competent and nice to be around and good at understanding when I appear inexplicably snappy and explain later that I was in pain/too exhausted to cope/whatever.
   
   
2. Cuddles with my cat. Always a wonderful thing.
   
   
3. I've been rewatching the Starwars movies (the original trillogy, not the icky mess of the new movies) with Flatmate which is wonderful fun.
   
   
4. Talking and thinking and reading about Dreamwidth, especially the IRC discussion channel!
   
   
5. My osteopath (USA translation "physical therapist"?? Doesn't translate exactly) just came so I am all melty and full of endorphins right now.
   
   
6. The regular and wonderful "DVD extras" that Shadow Unit are making available even though they're between seasons.
   
   
7. Extra cuddling with the cat because it's the coldest bit of winter.
   
   
8. Watching 'Bones' from the start. Unfortunately I'm spoiled about the ending of the latest USA season but it's still fun. Usually I don't mind spoilers at all but it's difficult to watch the early seasons and know the stuff that's going to happen to my favourite character.
   
   
9. My guilty love for the all-but-content-free TV shows CSI & CSI:NY! They're fun and fluffy ... TV brain candy :).
   
   
10. Audio books. The thing I can do when I can't manage to do anything else. My in-progress audiobooks are currently - 'Genius' by Gleick (a biography of Feynmann), 'Stumbling On Happiness' by Gilbert (the current thinky book - very interesting), and 'Post Captain' by Patrick O'brian (the current non-thinky book, "age of sail" fiction).

I think I sort-of cheated by putting the cat in twice, so I'll plead exhaustion as my excuse!

What's making you happy just now?

Hugs,
Ricky

05:05 pm: Accessibility Issues for those who are Bedridden/Housebound
As explained in a previous post, a long chain of happy coincidences lead to me sending an email to the head of the Disability Advocacy/Resources Unit about the issue of accessibility for people who are bedridden/housebound [Linked article is the Hoyden one which neatly explains all the Victorian-centric acronyms listed below].

I good some feedback from Sharon at VDAN a few days ago (sorry for the delay - I have The Plague). The issues was raised at the VDAN meeting and DARU has agreed to facilitate a meeting with interested parties around the issue of inclusion of people who are housebound. Sharon at DARU (who I originally talked to) will be organising the meeting, tentatively scheduled for Tuesday 19 August at 2pm.

The current plan is any bedridden/housebound people will be teleconferenced via phone into the meeting. I mentioned that I knew several other people who were homebound and could be at least semi-articulate about it and was she interested in more consumer reps and the answer was yes. So, anybody want to come with me ... in the virtual sense? I haven't asked about geographic location but I suspect that since it's only teleconferencing for the "client" types that people anywhere in Australia could be included if interested. I will query this point specifically but please let me know via comment or email if you're potentially interested in participating.

I plan to revise and expand the original email and turn it into more of a position statement rather than the informal style it's currently in. Something that's appropriate for distribution/publication. I'd like to collect some stories also, about a page long about people's experiences of how/why they're housebound and things they miss out on because of it. If you're potentially interested in contributing a story, also let me know.

And if you're largely bedridden/housebound and can't contribute anything at this point but you'd like to be included on my email list of "people who are interested" for occasional updates, please let me know too!

I think that's all. I'll come back later and add all the bits I've doubtless forgotten...

Ricky

11:31 pm: Not To Be Missed ...
The following are plugs for stuff I'm currently enjoying and want to inflict uponshare with my friends...

( Read more... )
I love the internet. That is all :)
r

12:26 am: Busy!
Have been busy with many things. Here are a few I wanted to share:

( blah blah blah? )

r

03:27 pm: CFS/Fibro Self Help Course Again
Remember a while ago I was rattling on about the online CFS/Fibro Self Help course at http://cfidsselfhelp.org/?

I intended to post a reminder to sign up but life happened, as it tends to, and I just realised the course starts tomorrow! So if you didn't already sign up, it's too late - sorry about that.

It was suggested that since the course breaks people up via severity and therefore we're likely to be in different bits of the course, that we might like to set up an email list of our own for more informal stuff and where we can chat to each other... so I have!

( details )

12:58 am: Why I Love My Pharmacists, By Ricky Age 33 1/3
My local pharmacist is a true god amongst men. Honestly!

( Here's why... )

02:18 pm: Can you code? Got a spare evening?
I'm working on a project and I could do with some help.

When it's finished, it'll be a web-available database of resources for people in Australia living with chronic illnesses. I could really do with a hand from somebody fluent in PHP/MySQL coding - it's fairly basic stuff, just the one database with simple validation rules. To start with, I just want the ability for users to browse the existing records. Added bonusses for later would be adding records or editing existing records, but that requires user logins and other annoyances so I'll start without it.

I can do some of this myself - it just takes a stupidly large amount of spoons and time for me to do it. But it does means that even just a few hours of coding help would give me a solid start and then I could chisel off the rough edges myself.

Drop me an email or leave a comment after the beep :)

r

05:07 pm: No Email!
My email, and all of notdoneliving.net and nopityshirts.com are either not working at all or working very intermittently at the moment. The very very very VERY old computer that darling thorfinn had been nursing along for them to live on is about at the end of its rope, so I'm moving them to Dreamhost where ATMac already is.

If you want to get hold of me, use my penguin username with the domain internode.on.net or leave a comment/message here on LJ. Or, you know, be radical and phone me ;).

r

01:55 pm: Tech Gods Hate Ricky Day!
Is it the official Tech Gods Hate Ricky day and somebody forgot to tell me???

So far I've had one drive die completely - SMART status is "failing" and OS X thinks it has no valid file system. Both of my other drives have had some softwarish errors (since fixed, yay Disk Utility). There's Something Wonky with the fans in my Mac Pro as well.

Oh, and the computer has locked up solid (grey "please press power button" screen) twice and it's only 2pm[*]. One of these times, of course, was while I was trying to record a friend and my doc on TV this morning talking about CFS. Did anybody else record it in a sharable way?

The drive that died was the one that had my backups on it, which was actually the Least Worst one to go if one was going to go. And it's under AppleCare warranty so the Apple techs will be visiting shortly. In the mean time I have connected a USB drive and I'm backing things up to that as I type because there's no way I trust this computer right now!

If you don't hear from me, you'll know the Tech Gods won :)


r

[*] For reference of my Windows friends - this has probably only happened once since Christmas, aside from today.

03:59 pm: Accessible Blogging
All Access Blogging has a great section on How To Make Your Blog Accessible which is still under construction but already has great content.

r

05:49 pm: State of the Ricky
Positives and negatives...

+ Brother and father visited last week.
- Brother now in QLD to study so won't see him for a long time.

- Been VERY fatigued, needing to sleep 2-3 hours every afternoon. Seems to leave no time for LIVING. Life ends up being: Wake up. PA here. Lunch. Possibly 1/2 hour of doing stuff. Sleep. PA here. Dinner. TV with Charlie for a little bit or some doing stuff. Sleep. Rinse and repeat! ["doing stuff" means computer stuff, reading or occasionally typing like now]
+ More time to cuddle cat and meditate?

- Had extra problems with pain in my neck and arms and migraine-like headaches, both of which mean no typing. Hence lack of updates.
+ Cute osteopath visits to help with above. Yay for cute young male osteopaths!
- Cute young osteopath may be changing jobs and not able to treat me any more.

- No visitors lately - seems everybody is sick or busy or away.

+ All PA shifts are now filled by at least semi-competent people.
- 14 shifts filled by 3 people is a disaster waiting to happen as soon as one of them becomes unavailable.
+ Is OK for now.

That's all.

Hugs,
r

02:22 pm: Access Hacks
Access Hacks - do-it-yourself ways to make life more accessible for people with disabilities. Ones that aren't marked up 1000x by the "disability industry" but are open-sourced so anybody can construct them. This is Liz Henry's fantastic proposal for a general Access Hacks project. Spread the information!

r

02:23 am: Ugh
I feel like crap.

Neverending crash, it feels like. In fact probably little things one after the other but they PILE UP something awful.

Not looking for sympathy, just wanted to let people know why I am not much around. Haven't even managed to train MacSpeech Dictate properly yet (it doesn't like my voice changes when I tire :/) or keep up with my self-set schedule for ATMac postings :(. Very not happy about both of these things.

Also having MAJOR trouble with my right shoulder apropos of nothing. Both massage goddess and cute osteopath have worked on it and it's improving, but far from right.

And according to CFS Doc, my vitamin D ratio is 12.68 now. This will possibly mean something to others with CFS but it's Not Good. CFS doc actually thinks it's SO bizarrely bad (and different from the last set which IIRC were <2) it might be a lab mistake and wants to repeat the tests in a month. Waiting is.

I am grumpy. And lonely. But i had a lovely troll visitor today who helped me to test out my snugglebed - thanks to mordwen and journey2master for the snugglebed and its delivery.

Anybody wanna visit? Either for chatting or for the the "bring a book/your knitting/homework and sit with me" type of visits would be HUGELY appreciated. I is lonely. Friends have been super-busy (haven't seen bestfriends since November!) and regular visitors are all sick or away or busy or ... something.

Bah. Humbug.

r
PS
Shadow Unit is still the best thing since sliced bread.

PPS
I want one of these: Power Meters now they're a reasonable price. Anybody could pick it up for me?

PPPS
Who knows stuff about UPSs?