Posted by Scott Laird
Sun, 02 Dec 2007 05:50:54 GMT
I bought my wife an Olympus 790SW point-and-shoot camera before we left for Hawaii on vacation, and I’m growing increasingly fond of the little thing. It doesn’t really compare to my Canon 5D’s image quality, but it’s so small and handy that it’s easier to carry. Even better, it seems to be indestructible–it’s submersible and can be dropped up to 4.5 feet without breaking anything.
In other words, it’s the perfect beach camera for families with small kids. Plus, you can take it snorkeling, just in case one of these pops up:
Sea turtle
or some of these:
Reef fish
There are more pictures on Flickr if you’re interested.
It also takes semi-decent video. I wouldn’t confuse it with a HD camcorder, but I wouldn’t take the camcorder in the water, either. Here’s my son’s first time snorkeling:
It’s around $260 on Amazon, if you’re interested.
Tags family, photography, review, vacation | no comments
Posted by Scott Laird
Sun, 22 Apr 2007 06:50:44 GMT
My maternal grandfather passed away this evening after a long fight with lung cancer.
When I saw him last week, it was clear that the end was near, but I’d hoped to be able to see him one more time.
Tags family | 1 comment
Posted by Scott Laird
Tue, 08 Jun 2004 22:20:50 GMT
My wife lost one of her grandmothers last night. In a single month, my kids went from 6 great-grandparents to 4 great-grandparents.
Posted in Personal | Tags death, family | no comments
Posted by Scott Laird
Wed, 19 May 2004 17:09:21 GMT
So, I drove up north to be with my family yesterday, after finishing up a couple critical things for work in the morning. There are a dozen or so family members waiting in the intensive care waiting room when I got there around 1:00. Grandma was still on the ventilator in the ICU, and they were keeping her sedated to keep her from trying to pull out the breathing tube.
We were waiting for two things:
- My oldest uncle to arrive from Spokane. He was expected in around 4:30, but traffic and bad weather in the pass delayed him until around 6:00.
- Her doctor to show up and give us all a prognosis and options. He was due in around 5:30.
From 1:00 to 4:30 or so, family members came and went. Some of the people who lived locally went home or back to work, while others dropped by for a visit. Around 5:00, a dozen or so of us went downstairs and had dinner at the hospital cafeteria.
The doctor arrived right after dinner. By the time he started talking, we had around 20 family members present, and another half-dozen or so drifted in while he was talking, as they got off work. He explained her condition like this:
- Her heart was damaged by at least two heart attacks in the last week.
- All four of her heart’s arteries are clogged. The re-opened one partially, but she’s prone to having another heart attack any time.
- Her kidneys had shut down during angioplasty, when they were trying to re-open her arteries.
- She nearly died during the surgery. They weren’t able to finish.
- Somewhere in middle of all of this, she had vomited and aspirated at least some of it. She was almost certainly going to have either bronchitis or pneumonia within a couple days.
- She was bleeding internally.
- She is diabetic.
As he presented it, we had two options–we could aggressively try to fix things or try to make her comfortable. The aggressive side of things didn’t have a lot of options–without kidneys, she was going to need dialysis, but her heart wasn’t up to it. It might work for a couple days, but that was about it. The alternative was to remove her breathing tube and make her comfortable.
Everyone agreed that Grandma wouldn’t have wanted the aggressive treatment. Everyone agreed that she didn’t want the breathing tube in her. She had an aneurysm fixed a year or so ago, and she hated the tube then, and she was trying to pull it out now. Plus, she’d repeatedly asked not to be resuscitated.
None of that really made the decision any easier for Grandpa.
It took them most of an hour to get the staff lined up to remove her breathing tube. She was breathing okay on her own, and was awake long enough for us all to talk to her. Dad made a few jokes that really cheered her up. The last round of tests actually looked pretty good, and her kidneys looked like they were starting to work again.
I made the decision to drive home around 9:00. I’d been able to say goodbye, and it looked like she might be able to make it for another day or two. My family needed me at home, and I missed my wife and kids.
Mom called at 6:26 this morning. I didn’t really even have to look at the caller ID to know who was calling, and what the message was. Good news rarely calls before 7:00.
I did a bit of digging, and found a picture of her from last January that I like, and I suspect she’d have liked, too:
Posted in Personal | Tags death, family, grandma | 1 comment
Posted by Scott Laird
Tue, 18 May 2004 15:10:40 GMT
Once or twice, I’ve chided my wife for not taking good care of her grandparents; she only has two grandmothers left, while I still have a full set.
It doesn’t seem very funny this week. My maternal grandmother had a heart attack over the weekend, and apparently had something major happen last night, and they had to resuscitate her in the middle of some sort of bypass operation. She’s 82, with diabetes, with heart trouble, in the hospital for the second time this week. The end is near.
The thing is, it’s been years since I really lost anyone particularly close to me. My family is basically intact. I lost one cousin either before I was born or slightly after, and one step-aunt a few years ago, but that’s it–all 20-some first cousins, their kids, my parents, siblings, neices and nephews, my aunts and uncles, and grandparents are all still with us. I’ve lost former coworkers and I lost a former high-school classmate to a serial killer, but that’s not exactly the same.
Posted in Personal | Tags death, family, grandma | no comments
