Then, my arms melted….

At a neighbor’s tag sale last week, I was reminded of an event from my work for Ace Frehley, which was reinforced by an internet meme today, so here’s my story.

Ace wanted to have the effects modified in the lit guitar. He only ever used a single pattern and sometimes, the controls got bumped while he was playing. He wanted them disabled. John and I drove down to Providence, Rhode Island, where KISS was playing that night. Once we got there, it was apparent that the smoker also needed some work. We hadn’t brought the special wire that it needed – the insulation on ordinary wires wasn’t sturdy enough for the temperatures inside the smoker so Teflon-coated wire was needed - but even it was damaged over time. The closest source for Teflon wire was back in Wilbraham, at Industrial Components Corporation, just down the road from us but a five hour round trip from Providence, and there wasn’t enough time to go back before the show! John called our neighbor’s son, Ronny, who was only too eager to pick up the wire and drive to Providence immediately if it meant that he could meet Ace and see the show from backstage.

Ronny arrived about two hours before show time – plenty of time for John to replace the wiring in the smoker. I couldn’t do anything with the lit guitar before the show as it had to be recharged and there wasn’t enough time to do it twice; Ace always wanted a full charge on the battery or the lights would die before the end of the song. I was hungry; I’d been hanging out at the venue since 10 AM and hadn’t eaten any breakfast before we left the house. It was dinner time and I wanted food! John had promised that we would get a good dinner (I wanted seafood) but there just wasn’t time to go and return before the show. I considered running out for a grinder but John pointed out the crew buffet in a nearby dressing room.

I found a paper plate and napkins, extracted a breast from one of the rotisserie chickens with my jackknife, selected a roll and buttered it to make a sandwich with the meat, and considered the available drinks. The pickings were thin; there were a few cans of Coke but I only drank Diet Coke. A full pitcher of orange juice was covered by plastic wrap and large plastic glasses were laid out nearby. I filled a glass, grabbed a handful of M&Ms from the bowl, and sat down to consume my dinner. 

Ace strolled in, asked me if the juice was freshly squeezed – it was. He poured himself a glass, too, grabbed some chicken, then left to get ready for the concert. I refilled my glass and dumped a handful of M&Ms into a napkin and returned to help John. He wasn’t hungry and asked where the juice came from. John had a piece of chicken breast, too, and informed me that he never consumed anything that wasn’t sealed – drinks in cans or processed snacks – at concerts. It was too late now, so I ignored his concern for the moment. I was wrong.

About 45 minutes later, I felt dizzy. Things didn’t look right. I’ve always seen lines coming from bright lights but the lines started to have more colored highlights. I also saw stop-motion effects, something I’ve never seen except when running a high fever. I knew that I’d been drugged. I went out to watch the concert. The bright lights were fun to watch but Ace, uncharacteristically, wasn’t playing well; he seemed to be tripping, too. I lay down across some chairs backstage for a while but eventually, the lit guitar had been used and Ace had switched to another guitar. I could go to work.

My arms were melting. I kept having to pick my hands up, off of the floor, and it was hard to hold tools and John told me to just pack everything up. I took the lit guitar home to fix it, but I only had a few days before the next gig, so I didn’t have enough time to make it a pretty fix.

Getting into the car, I was afraid that my arms would stretch so far I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands inside. I was sure my hands would be left on the ground, outside the car, and my stretchy arms would get run over by the tires - my hands would be amputated. How would I ever fix the guitar with no hands? John assured me that he wouldn’t let that happen and he got in and drove up home. I tried to sleep on the ride but all of the lights kept distracting me. I watched them with closed eyes. Eventually, we got home and went to bed. My arms were better the next day and I was able to start the guitar job.

I don’t remember exactly what was wrong with it but I think the microprocessor was acting up or not working correctly. After further consultation with John, I removed the entire microprocessor board and supporting devices, and replaced it with an octal counter and a few other components. An octal counter is a device that counts to eight, over and over again. Since the lit guitar had eight sections of bulbs (seven bars plus the border), and Ace only used the pattern that just marched the lit segments in order, lighting one chunk at a time from the neck to the base, then flashed the border, the octal counter was much simpler circuitry than the original microprocessor – a single (small) chip and a couple of components versus a circuit board full of large chips, half a dozen switches, and wires like a plateful of spaghetti. I didn't discard the board and still have the original circuitry in my collection of electronics.

There were a number of switches built into the side of the guitar, fastened by an aluminum bezel that I had made, years before; I removed all of them and covered the holes in the bezel with a single strip of black electrical tape. There wasn’t enough time for me to make up a new aluminum bezel before Ace needed the guitar back for the next gig.

So, when I ran into Ronny at his mother’s tag sale last week, he reminded me of the part he played in getting the smoker fixed. That and meeting Ace were highlights of his youth and no one ever believed him that they had occurred. He introduced me to his girlfriend and I reassured her that Ronny was not making it up. I’m not sure she believed me, either, but at least Ronny felt better that day. Then, an internet meme about acid today reminded me again of how my arms melted when I needed to work, which prompted this blog entry.

A few more memories of Jack in Mexico

We went to Mexico when Jack was five, touring (mostly) by bus. In the Yucatan, I rented a car for a week. Amongst other places, we spent several days at Chichen Itzá, including one night staying for the Light and Sound Show. They set up benches in the plaza and use colored lights and lasers to highlight the features of some buildings while an amplified voice-over tells different stories. Jack was horrified to hear that the ancient Maya had sacrificed small children by dropping them into the Sacred Cenote, a sink-hole that was sixty-five meters in diameter, about fifty feet deep, with a drop of about sixty feet and very steep sides. As the booming voice-over announced this, he turned to me in surprise. He hadn’t batted an eye at the pronouncements of various other human sacrifices, including the lighting and description of the skull-rack next to our bench. The show used colored its lights to illustrate the path of sacrificial victims down the pyramid, across the plaza, and down the sacbe (road) that led to the cenote. When he could be heard this story, he looked up at me and asked, “They sacrificed KIDS?” I nodded. He responded with outrage, “That’s pretty poor, Mom. That’s… pretty…. POOR!”  He didn’t have the words to adequately express his outrage. I nodded in agreement but could not verbally respond as the voice-over continued with its factoids about the Maya.Up until the announcement he had been entirely at ease with all of the descriptions of bloody sacrifice of adults but apparently, he empathized with the kids being marched down to the cenote!

After the show ended and we walked to our car in the parking lot, he continued to expostulate about his horror at the sacrifice of children. We had been in Mexico for almost a month and, at long last, he was confronting his own culture shock. Coming from a country and culture that treasured (and spoiled) its children, he could not conceive of one that, while it equally treasured its children, they were so treasured that they were sometimes considered the perfect gift to the gods. He was only slightly mollified at the knowledge that, if they could survive while treading water for a whole day, they would be pulled out and feted as the bearers of vital messages from the gods. Although he could not swim, he believed that he would learn, some day (and he did).

                The next day, we went back to Chichen and walked down the sacbe to the cenote. There was a little booth nearby, selling film, batteries, and cold soda. We walked to the edge of the cenote – there were no fences to keep tourists back so we stopped about five feet away. I asked Jack how he thought it would feel to be dropped in. He grabbed my leg and said, “Pretty poor!” I was startled and even knocked a little off balance; the ground was uneven so this was not good. I stepped back from the edge, pulling Jack with me. We walked over to the shack and had cold sodas in the shade.

                A few weeks later, once we got home, Jack lectured his visiting cousins about child sacrifice among the Maya. I guess it made a big impression on him!

                We went back to Chichen Itzá in 2004, with Skia (this was the year Jack bleached his hair. I didn’t object as it wasn’t permanent the way tattoos and piercings are and he really wanted to pierce his ear, like his friend Alex). We rented a car in Merida and I drove. Along the way, my eye started itching. Without thinking, I rubbed it. By the time we got to Pisté, the nearest town to Chichen, my eye really hurt. We ate lunch and checked into our hotel, the Delores Alba, then jumped into the swimming pool. They had a terrific swimming pool, with underwater features that were like the local caves. My eye was starting to ooze so I wadded up a tissue and stuffed it under my glasses. The water in the pool felt good. We met an American doctor in the pool; she recommended that we pick up an antibiotic ointment at a local farmacía and that my eye should heal uneventfully. 

                I woke up the next day with my eye swollen shut and the other eye itching badly. The white of the first eye was a deep, bloody purple color. Jack called it “Demon Eye.”

Skia drove us to a farmacía, then to Chichen. We wandered around the ruins. Periodically, I smeared ointment in my eyes. It stung. By now, I could barely see out of the second eye. I held onto Jack’s shoulder, to be able to walk without stumbling. We went to the cenote, and again, had cold sodas in the shack. The main difference was that this time, a thunderstorm came up as we arrived; it was pouring outside the shack. We sat inside and chatted with an American and his two kids; I played tour guide and explained what the cenote meant. We later encountered them again at the Ball Court and I told them all about the Maya Ball Game. The man was pleasant and appreciative of all of the information; the kids were disbelieving until they saw the carved skulls on the neighboring skull-rack.

Skia and Jack climbed the Pyramid of Kukulkan. I started up, too, then thought the better of it and managed to get back down without injury. I sat on a bench; the pyramid is pretty steep and even though there is a chain to hold, I was afraid of falling since I could no longer see. We went back to the hotel, where I spent a totally panicked night. The ointment didn’t work. My eyes were glued shut by pus and were both so swollen that I couldn’t open them without prying with my fingers. Skia agreed to return to Merida and find me an opthomologist. And we did, with the help of the hotel in Merida – the Delores Alba in Piste called its sister hotel in Merida and they were expecting us. Despite the fact it was a Sunday afternoon, they found me an eye doctor who spoke English. He examined my eyes and prescribed an antibiotic/steroid eyedrop. We bought a bottle at Walmart and I dripped it into my eyes. It felt good. Within a few days, the swelling went down, I could open my eyes again without using fingers, and I could see normally. The whites of my eyes were badly bruised from the pressure of the swollen tissue; they continued to be dark red for weeks, finally healing enough to look mostly white for our return home.
It was a good thing that Skia was on this trip with Jack and me. If she hadn't been, Jack would have had to drive us back from Chichen to Merida, and then around Merida to find the clinic because both of my eyes had swelled shut and I was blind. At fourteen, Jack had been driving the Rover with his father in the woods for years; this would have been his first long-distance trip on roads, however! I'm sure that plenty of Mexican boys his age drive all of the time. We Americans tend to protect our children. Still, I'm sure he could have done it without any difficulty.

For Mary in Pennsylvania!

                When I started to write my master’s thesis, my adviser told me that I write telegraphically, that is, that I almost write in a kind of code, only covering what I think is the most important bits and leaving out all of the narrative that might connect those bits. I thought that I wrote like a car driving very fast down a dirt road, only hitting the top of the bumps and flying over the ruts. The first draft of my thesis was less than 25 pages.  I wondered how it would ever be enough to become an acceptable thesis. My adviser made me slow down, to cover every bit of the ground between the high spots. Both ways are a rough ride but when I finished, the gaps had all been filled in for my thesis and I had over 100 pages of text that covered less of the story than the original draft. Now, I’m going to try to fill in the gaps of my story on creating the lit guitar, as a friend commented today that what I’ve written so far leaves out all of the connections.  

                I picked up the guitar at John’s office, where the owner had sent it. We opened the box on his sofa and took the instrument out. An electric guitar is supposed to have a solid body. This one had been extensively altered already; the body had been cut out, leaving a rim of wood around the edge and a strip down the middle, extending from the neck to the area where the button for a strap might be inserted (on what I call the guitar’s butt). It had a pick-up inserted; a pick-up is the built-in microphone that captures the sound of the strings being struck. It is located in about the center of the body of an electric guitar. There was a bit of wood left to mount the bridge, which was in a plastic box in the case’s compartment. The strip of wood between where the bridge would mount and the butt of the guitar was cut back, so it no longer consisted of the full thickness of the body and had been drilled full of holes. All of the wood of the body had been painted with metallic silver paint. There was a piece of fiberboard inserted in the body. This fiberboard was coated with silvered plastic “holographic” film, to look like the lighted circuit board that was inserted in Ace Frehley’s lit guitars. The back of the guitar was covered by a piece of mirror, cut and drilled to fit the body.

                My task was to turn this guitar into an actual lit guitar, just like the ones that John and I built for Ace, “back in the day.”  

                It wouldn’t be possible to build an identical lit guitar; we had used a state-of-the-art microprocessor chip at the time but it was seriously outmoded in the year 2011! We also used about 1,000 incandescent light bulbs, each laboriously soldered on by me, and switched by large power transistors, each mounted on the aluminum back-plate of the guitar, which doubled as a heat sink.

                If you touch an incandescent light bulb, such as a 100 watt bulb in an ordinary light fixture, it will burn you! Incandescent lights require a lot of power a lot of which which turns into heat. A heat sink is a device whose purpose is to dissipate the heat that is produced by electronic devices. All of the power used by the light bulbs in Ace’s guitar had to be switched by the power transistors and they got HOT! By mounting them on the back plate, the plate warmed up but didn’t burn Ace (or destroy the transistors, which would have happened if the heat built up without a heat sink).

                We had to use modern components. Jack and I had discovered a popular microprocessor platform, the Arduino, whose source code is available to anyone (“open-source”). We had been experimenting with Arduinos since July 2010, when we went to “The Next Hope”, a conference for electronics and programming enthusiasts. So, we decided to use the ATMega328 chip and the Arduino programming language. I had designed and built prototype circuit boards as a teenager, so doing it again did not intimidate me.

                The big problem was figuring out how everything would fit together. When we made the guitars for Ace, he sent us new, intact Gibson Les Paul guitars, straight from the factory. We could think about how to minimize the amount of wood that we would remove. This guitar had had all of the wood that could be removed, removed! I worried that the neck would snap once the bridge and strings were installed, as the strings place force on the neck and body. The neck was already warped. For this reason, I did not want to install the bridge. Ultimately, I sent the guitar to an expert for set-up (straightening of the neck, installation of the bridge, proper mounting of the string adjusters, and installation of the strings). I opted to wire the pick-up and the jack (to plug the guitar in to an amplifier) because I wanted to connect the “ground” of this wiring to the “ground” of my electronics. By connecting the grounds together, I hoped to avoid any interference between the circuits (it worked).  On the original, the lighting effects caused loud pops and squeals in the sound signal going to the amplifier, so we had to add a lot of filters to the circuitry, to protect the sound circuit from the light circuit. Fortunately, I didn’t have to do this on this guitar, but I’m jumping ahead of myself.

                First, I designed a simple circuit for the microprocessor. The microprocessor has 14 digital I/O ports, which means they can be used as either inputs or outputs and will recognize or produce signals as either high or low voltages, not as shades of grey! I used them as outputs, each to control one of the fourteen segments of lights. I used six for the border and eight as vertical bars on the body. I also had six analog I/O ports. Analog ports are good for signals that you want to vary over a range. I used two as inputs; one for a speed control (a potentiometer, which is a variable resistor) and one for a switch to choose the pattern. I chose a switch with twelve stops, so the guitar’s microprocessor could have twelve different patterns programmed into it. As you can see, I had a number of decisions to make before I even started to build the circuit!

Next, I had to order parts. I wanted very bright LEDs, light-emitting diodes, for my light source. I researched a number of different LEDs before I chose one particular device. Some of my choices included color, size, the width of the angle at which light can be seen, and the intensity of light. I needed about 200 devices; the owner and I had decided on that number for the price he was willing to pay. I also needed voltage regulators; the LEDs that I chose worked with 3.2 volts, but the Arduino used five volt signals, so the power had to be stepped down. Each segment of lights needed its own voltage regulator; otherwise, too much current would be drawn through the devices. Since I had never used these devices before, I ordered parts for a much more complicated circuit. Once I got the parts in the mail, I used a “breadboard” – a method of building a circuit before you build the final version - and discovered that I could greatly simplify the circuit to use fewer parts. I was happy!

In my mind, I had divided the circuit into three parts – the LED board, power distribution (how each segment would get its power, including the voltage regulator) , and the logic board (which included the microprocessor and all of its associated components). I did this to mimic the division of circuitry in the original lit guitar. Finally, the circuit had to be powered by an internal battery. I used a lithium-ion battery, a long-lasting battery commonly used in radio-controlled airplanes.

Once I had a circuit that worked constructed on the breadboard, I built the power distribution board. The first time I laid out the pattern on my computer, I reversed the inputs and the outputs, so I had to build it again. Oops! I also cut out the big circuit board for the LEDs, to fit the opening in the body of the guitar. I traced the fiberboard insert that came with the guitar and cut out the circuit board with a jigsaw. Then, I used scotch tape to protect the copper on the circuit board where I wanted to leave the traces. I bought a bottle of ferric chloride at Radio Shack. Ferric chloride is commonly used to etch circuit boards; it completely removes the copper when applied either with a sponge or as a bath. The ferric chloride reacts chemically with the copper. I think it makes cupric chloride and iron particles. In any case, it removes the copper anywhere it is not protected and creates a sludge on the sponge or in the bath.

There are several ways to create precise copper traces on a circuit board. All require some chemical or device to protect the copper (that has been applied to the epoxy base of a circuit board at the factory) and “resist” the action of the etchant. I used scotch tape, applied carefully but by eye, for the LED board, but it is more common to create a precise layout with a computer drawing program, and print out a precision copy of the pattern of traces. 

I used a photographic process, using a photo negative and special chemicals to sensitize and develop the circuit board, when I made circuit boards as a teenager (I drafted the board layout by hand, using special decals and precision-cut tape). While researching products for the guitar, I discovered a special paper for laser printers which could then be used with an iron to transfer the toner onto the board. After peeling off the paper, the toner-traces were protected with another product, an iron-on plastic film. Since I had a laser printer and it seemed to be a simple process, I bought a new iron and packages of the papers. 

A “Sharpie” pen can also be used as a resist, although I discovered that only a black pen works, and not as well as one might hope. Finally, one can paint fingernail polish on the copper to resist the etchant. I used a Sharpie and fingernail polish to touch up spots that didn’t completely bond by using the special paper process. In this way, I made the boards that I needed.

After etching the boards, I had to drill holes to insert electronic parts and connectors (all of these are collectively called components). Some parts have to be soldered before other parts could be inserted. For example, it is easier to solder all of the surface-mounted devices (SMDs - usually really tiny parts with lots of legs that have to be soldered to the top of the board without creating any bridges of solder between the legs) before anything else. You have to be careful in soldering, as keeping heat on any part for more than a few seconds can damage the part, rendering it unusable, but the solder has to completely melt and the part has to be hot enough for the solder to properly adhere. It’s a balancing act that requires practice to do well. I like building really intricate circuits that call for lots of SMDs. I think they are pretty and I like to show off my talents by using them. I draw like a jittery four-year-old; this and sewing are the only really artistic endeavors in which I am successful.

I was lucky; the circuit board with all of the LEDs on it had to be covered by Plexiglas to protect the circuit from the fingers of the guitar’s player. Otherwise, the bare LEDs would bend or break in the process of playing the guitar. I found some spacers, pieces of cylindrical plastic cut to a specific length, that I thought might work to hold the clear plastic away from the circuit board at the MIT flea market. I cut out a piece of Plexiglas to fit the opening but it cracked and a bit broke off. Plexiglas is rather brittle; it wouldn’t do. I found some Lexan at Home Depot. Lexan is another type of clear plastic sheet. The Lexan wasn’t very thick, about half of the thickness of the Plexiglas, but since Lexan is made from a different kind of plastic, it isn’t at all brittle. Thick pieces of Lexan are used to make bullet-proof windows. This piece was thin enough to be a bit flexible but I thought, once it was attached by the spacers to the circuit board, the whole thing would be stiff enough to protect the LEDs. When I sandwiched the LED circuit board, the spacers, and the Lexan with some machine screws and nuts, it fit exactly into the opening on top of some blocks that had been glued into the guitar by whoever had removed all of the wood before I received the guitar. The top of the glass precisely matched the top of the guitar’s edge; the height of the “sandwich” was perfect for the location of the blocks. I couldn’t have made it fit better if I’d planned it! Sometimes, you get lucky!  

I wired all of the circuit boards together into the back of the guitar, so I sent it off for final set up. When I got it back, all I had to do was program the chip and wire up the battery. I’m a little intimidated by power systems, probably because I’ve accidentally touched house-voltage twice, once as a really little kid. When I was about seven, I discovered (the hard way) that our kitchen wiring had improper grounding when I simultaneously touched the oven and the refrigerator. I had been standing on a step-stool, trying to get some turnovers out of the oven when I touched the refrigerator for balance as I opened the heavy oven door. The power to the appliances flowed through my body; I was knocked unconscious and blown clear across the kitchen! Ever since, I’ve been very suspicious of hooking up the power in anything.

I had thought for a long time about how to brace the battery. I didn’t want it rattling around loose in the back of the guitar, where it might short out and damage something. Originally, I thought I might use some plastic straps to hold it in place but there was nowhere to mount straps. Next, I thought I would put a piece of aluminum on the back, under the mirror, to have something solid to attach straps to. I didn’t like this idea because the only aluminum I could use was very flimsy. Finally, I switched directions and decided to mount the battery in a hole in a block of foam. I bought a piece of foam at the local sewing store; I cut it with a serrated knife. The block was too thick so I sliced it in half. The revised block fit very well, so I inserted the battery and got ready to wire it all up.

I bought a connector block, wired the power switch, and soldered the special connectors for the battery onto some wires. Finally, I took a firm grip on myself and hooked up the battery. I didn’t want to do it on my kitchen table, where I had done almost all of the rest of the project, so I did it in the company of some fellow geeks, who were watching to make sure the “magic white smoke” didn’t appear to curse the project! The guitar was fine but the program still needed some tweaking.

Both Jack and I used a storyboard to figure out the programming for the patterns. His program allowed each pattern to have ten “steps”. For each storyboard, we drew ten little guitar shapes and colored in the areas where we wanted the lights to be turned on. Each step was slightly (or very!) different from the last. The program would then repeat. One pattern consisted of only the leftmost bar of the body turned on for step one, only the adjacent bar turned on for the second step, then the third bar for the third step, and so on for eight steps. Step nine had the whole border turned on and step ten was all black with none of the lights turned on. The pattern then repeated as long as the switch stayed in that position and the guitar was turned on, so the light moved across the guitar, flashed the border, went black and repeated. The speed is determined by the speed knob. We each came up with twelve different patterns of lights, each pattern having ten steps. Jack’s patterns were very complex and looked chaotic in execution. I made very simple patterns. They look better. Simple is often clearer.

Jack wrote a very clever program to determine how the microprocessor would interpret the controls and to turn on the lights that included a matrix of binary numbers. Binary numbers consist of ones and zeros (we normally use decimal numbers, with ten different numerals – binary only has two numerals). He used two eight-bit numbers (bytes) for each step, so each line had twenty bytes, separated by commas. Each line controlled a single pattern, so there were twelve lines in the matrix. The first byte controlled the body; the first digit was the first bar, the second digit was the second bar, and so on. The second byte controlled the border. Since the border only had six segments, the left-most digits of the byte didn’t matter, but each segment was controlled by a specific digit. A one turned on the lights for that segment in that step, a zero kept the lights off.  You call this kind of matrix a bit-map. I just had to alter the bitmap to alter the patterns, not the entire program. This was a nice piece of programming; Jack is a talented programmer.

I have a dedicated Picoduino board with a cable to connect it to my computer. Using it, I can upload a program into the chip in the board, then carefully pry the chip out of its socket and plug it into the socket on the guitar logic board. This is how I update the program in the guitar. I can reuse the chips; the old program can be erased and a new program inserted by simply uploading a new program into a previously used chip.

Chips can only be inserted into sockets in one direction; if you put it in wrong, you can ruin the chip. I’m always very careful whenever I insert a chip. Chips are marked on one end, and I always put an index mark on my circuit boards, although sometimes, the index mark is pretty small!

I’ll take some photos to illustrate this and add them in a day or two. I hope this explains some cryptic portions, and the photos should help!

Death

     I just received word that my stepmother died yesterday. Alice was a nice lady. She didn’t tolerate any abuse from my dad and made him a much better husband and man than he was for my mom. She moved to live nearer to her daughters when my dad died, so I hadn’t seen her for about fifteen years. My sister said she will be cremated and her remains will be divided to be scattered, some in Granby and some in Maine.

     When John G. Robison died, he also wanted his remains to be scattered. He explicitly stated that he did not want a funeral. To my mind, a funeral, or at least some kind of memorial service, puts the period on the end of the life-sentence. I’ve always felt off-balance about John G.’s death – there was no time for reminiscing with family and friends. 

     My uncle Charlie died last month and there were two days of events: calling hours at the funeral home, the funeral, the procession to the cemetery, and a gathering at a local banquet hall. My mother, the only living sibling, came up from Florida. Cousins from almost every family group sent at least one representative. At the cemetery, many went to visit the graves of older family members. At all of the events of those two days, stories were shared about Charlie. Some stories I knew but some I didn’t. It allowed me to see Charlie in a variety of different roles when I had only seen him in life as my uncle.  I also ran into people that I knew from other contexts, who didn’t know me as Charlie's niece. Most importantly, it let me see and acknowledge Charlie as someone who had died; I do not expect to go and visit him anymore. After the funeral, cousins continued to gather for days, not to reminisce any further about Charlie, but to re-establish and reinforce our bonds as an extended family.

     When John G. died, I kept thinking that I needed to see him, to either to take Jack to visit or to celebrate holidays. For people who are cremated (and whose remains are to be scattered), I think a funeral, some kind of service, or even a party(!) is a necessity. Especially where there will not be a grave or other marker to visit, there needs to be a rite of passage, not for the dead, but for those who are still living. John G.’s death never had a concrete reality for me since I never had the opportunity to celebrate his life and I had no grave or other death-marker to confront.
     I've talked to Margaret a lot about her end-of-life plans. She also wants to be cremated (with her remains scattered). I've said that we must also have a party to celebrate her life. She seemed bemused by my plans.

Lit guitar, update

     I've finished the hardware portion of the Lit Guitar, now I just want to tweak the bitmaps of the patterns it makes and it will be totally done! Here's a link to the video that Jack and I made of the first pattern. I'm very pleased it turned out so well. And ignore the black spot on the border - it's just a chunk of electrical tape that is holding the battery in place while the back is removed. Since I have to remove the microprocessor chip to update its program, I didn't want to put the back on until it totally finished.
     I designed the hardware, figured out how it would all fit inside the existing cut-out on the guitar that I was sent, and built the whole thing. Jack wrote the program and came up with the initial bitmaps. I will story-board what I want the patterns to do (tonight) and alter the existing bitmaps, now that Jack has explained to me how the program interprets them.Then, I just have to upload the program into the microprocessor, reinstall it in the guitar, and replace the mirror-back.Yahoo! The end is not only in sight, it will occur in the next 24 hours!
     I'm really happy. This is the first BIG project that Jack and I have completed together. Next, the quadrocopter!

Jack and television

I tried to limit the amount of television that Jack watched when he was a kid. I didn’t subscribe to cable, as we had acceptable reception for the original three major networks plus PBS, and my budget didn’t allow for unnecessary expenses. Sometimes, the reception was snowy and sometimes, the C5A's that were landing or taking off from Westover interfered, but we just didn’t watch much TV on those days.

                It was cheaper to purchase one video a month than to subscribe to a cable service, so we built up a substantial collection, first of tapes and later, of DVDs. I had a collection of Pokemon and other kid shows. I also had all of the science fiction and old television series that I liked, as well as a number of programs that I used in teaching. Still, I limited the amount of time that Jack could spend watching either TV or videos. Jack was not allowed to watch videos in my office, where I had a small TV with a built-in VCR, and he was only allowed to watch a total of one hour of TV or videos per day.

One day, as I cooked dinner, I suddenly realized that Jack was both quiet and no where to be seen. This was a bad sign and a dead giveaway that he was doing something that he wasn’t supposed to be doing. On that particular day, he had already used up his allotment of TV time watching Pokemon cartoons after school; he was supposed to be doing his homework before dinner. I pushed open the door to my office and caught him, sitting on the floor, watching a video on my little TV. I started to scold him, but suddenly realized that he was not watching Pokemon, he was watching one of my Monty Python videos (I had purchased the complete set at Costco). He was giggling madly at the “Ministry of Silly Walks.” He looked up at me. I watched the full range of emotions cross his face – beginning with mirth from watching the show, then worry as he noticed me and remembered that he was sneaking a forbidden treat, then back to glee as he realized that I wasn’t going to yell at him. My own face must have been a sight, beginning with irritation and ending in utter perplexity and my own amusement.

Unable to scold him, I shrugged and returned to the kitchen. My eight year old had discovered Monty Python and he LIKED it! There was hope for the next generation!

Rants on "The Big Bang Theory" and Facebook

I’m amazed at how few interviewers have written about the connection between “The Big Bang Theory” and Asperger’s Syndrome. To me, all of the characters epitomize various stereotypes of Aspergians. Jim Parsons’ character, aka Dr. Sheldon Cooper, is usually the only one that people assert has Asperger’s but, to me, all of the male characters exhibit traits. In an interview in 2009, Parsons said that John Galecki had read “Look Me in the Eye” and had passed it on to Parsons for character development possibilities for Sheldon Cooper’s behavior. I contend that Galecki should keep the ideas for his own character, Leonard Hofstadter. Leonard, Howard Wolowitz, and Rajesh Koothrappali are as oblivious to unspoken social cues as Sheldon Cooper is. Sheldon just doesn’t care that he has the social skills of a boulder, because, like the boulder, he just sits there, whether it is convenient for others or not. The rest genuinely desire the full social package (including girlfriends) but haven’t a clue how to acquire the objects of their desire. Sheldon is merely the most obvious but all of the boys fall on the autism spectrum. The writers in a four page discussion on the forum, WrongPlanet.net, mostly concur with my assessment. One even suggests that the character Penny may not be neurotypical as she does none of the stereotyped behaviors of a neurotypical woman, that is, shopping in groups, etc. And she hangs out with geeky boys, which no neurotypical woman would unless she had ulterior motives. After four seasons, she still hasn’t tried to take advantage of any of them, so does this mean she is also on the spectrum? I don’t think so. I think she’s just a nice person who has acquired some friends who truly need her. Who doesn’t want to be needed?

            Leonard and Howard have both been involved with other women on the series but their female companions are as socially inept as they are; Leslie Winkle and Bernadette Rostenkowski are clueless about how to attract neurotypical men – they understand that sex works but how to neurotypically get from point A to bed is a mystery, but as women have more control over this, both have found willing mates when they wanted them. With respect to their relationships with our boys, it is a case of life attracting like. Raj can only talk to women if he has been drinking alcohol. This is getting old.  

Amy Farrah Fowler is another character who has a very peculiar relationship with Sheldon. Neither has any interest in sex beyond the purely academic. In this, they have found their true mates. Someday, they may produce a test-tube child together, who will either be exactly like them or a complete sensualist. Roll the dice.

            I’m getting very tired of Facebook; it’s not something that I’m willing to devote a lot of time to. I guess you could say that I’ve got a real life, not just a Facebook life. As a result, I’m not a frequent poster. I read my wall to see what my friends are up to. One of my Facebook friends, someone with whom I share a casual acquaintance, posts between three and ten times a day, always the latest thing the kids have done or what’s up with the employment scene. I hate to say it, but it is as boring as reading the phone book. Maybe it would be of some interest if I had ever met the kids but I probably need to be a close relative to find it vaguely interesting. Everybody thinks their kid is the smartest kid on the planet – and they aren’t. They’re all pretty ordinary kids. But then, I had the smartest kid on the planet so the rest have to be pretty pedestrian!

I recently read “Momzillas”. One of the more odious mothers in the book was constantly boasting about the brilliance of her child; you wanted to smack her upside the head and tell her that her kid was just another spoiled brat and it was her own fault. My friend’s kids aren’t the little beasts in “Momzillas”; they’re normal kids, not baby Einsteins. Heck, even Einstein wasn’t an obvious genius as a child (although I understand that the myth about his failing math in school is just that, a myth). I made sure that Jack wasn’t spoiled, no matter how wonderful I thought he was.  In any case, I’m tired of people using Facebook as their moment of “fame.” I don’t mind one or two posts every week about your kid; it’s the nonstop, “My kid is a real-life miracle and you should feel privileged to read about them,” that annoys me. Most posts are not terribly interesting but it’s hard to say what will actually catch my fancy. Today (as I wrote this, not the day I posted it on my blog), it was a posting about the allure of leftover brownies as a possible breakfast treat. Most posts are as forgettable as dishwashing. I’m tired of not only the same old thing on a daily basis, I’m really tired of having it shoved under my nose multiple times a day! Bleah!

Having Jack - some more thoughts

Margaret had her stroke 11 months before Jack was born. I had helped her for a few days when she came home, installing various devices to help make it possible for her to live by herself. I specifically remember drilling a hole in her cutting board and hammering in a spike, so she could impale vegetables that she wanted to chop. Still, I worried about her and was reluctant to give her any shocking news.
So, a few weeks later, when I knew I was pregnant, I was afraid to tell her. We were chatting on the phone. I decided to get cute and asked her how she felt about being a grandmother. She let out a horrible shriek. I said, “Margaret? Margaret? Are you all right?” I was afraid I had killed her. It seemed like hours before she answered me. I almost hung up to call the rescue squad to check on her. When she was finally able to speak, she assured me that she was happy. Still, I decided to never give her any more surprising news over the phone!

                Sometime during the period when all I did was throw up and hurt, I started having nightmares about the baby. Repeatedly,  I dreamed that I wasn’t having a human child, I had an Alien fetus growing inside me, eating my innards and getting ready to tear its way out of my abdominal cavity, leaking my guts and goo, on its way to a pillaging frenzy and finally, to take over the planet for all Alien-kind. I was relieved when they did an ultrasound and I didn’t see a tail. I wasn’t sure about the safety of the world until Jack was finally born and he looked human. Still, you never know.

Having Jack

Being pregnant with Jack was not much fun. I wanted to have a baby but had difficulty getting (and staying) pregnant. Then, just as I was starting graduate school, I missed my period. I went to the doctor’s office during the first week of school and was sent to the lab for a pregnancy test. Afterwards, Dr. Smith had a kindly demeanor as she ushered me into her office.

“Now, do you know the results of the test?” she asked with a worried one.  

“Well,” I replied, “if I’m not pregnant, then there’s something terribly wrong with me!”

“Oh! You want the baby?” Dr. Smith was surprised. Since she practices at the University Health Services, most of her pregnant patients are young co-eds and unhappy with their state. She was pleased to have patient who wanted her news, for a change. Then, problems arose.

 I thought it was morning sickness, but it got much worse. Every day, I puked until I had nothing left in my stomach. I continued to wretch until I threw up bile. It was awful. I would try to force myself to stop vomiting and sometimes, it worked. I couldn’t keep anything in me. As soon as I got up, I threw up. As soon as I ate anything, I threw it up, but I also threw up without any provocation. My stomach started to really hurt. Some of it was the stress on my abdominal muscles from all of the vomiting but within days, the pain was terrible.
I went to the doctor. I got Dr. Rubin, a kindly fellow. He asked questions, poked and prodded, and sent me for an ultrasound, but didn't find any obvious source of my problem.

I continued to vomit, as many as fifty times a day. I vomited so often, I broke all of the blood vessels in my face and eyes. I looked like a drunk after a bender – my eyes and cheeks were so bloodshot, I hated to look in the mirror. Hydrostatic shock was the problem – the force of vomiting actually shattered the veins under my skin. I was lucky I didn’t stroke out. I had to drop out of graduate school; I couldn’t stay through a three hour seminar without repeatedly leaving to puke in the ladies’ room. My adviser was sympathetic and told me that I could come back the following year, without penalty.

Finally, I started to throw up blood. Even with this symptom, it took months to diagnose my problem. Since I was in the first trimester of pregnancy, there weren’t any tests that could be performed without compromising the safety of the baby. Dr. Lentz started me on Zantac, an anti-ulcer medication, but it didn't help, so she sent me to the gastroenterologist, Dr. Zucker.

Dr. Zucker’s office was in Northampton. He stopped the Zantac and scheduled a gastric endoscopy for as soon as the second trimester started, a few days later. The endoscopy was unpleasant. Since I was pregnant, I wasn’t given any of the normal drugs, such as Ativan, during the procedure. The advantage was, I was able to drive myself home afterwards; if I had been given any sedating drugs, the hospital would not have allowed me to leave without someone to drive and take care of me. John never came with me to any of my doctors’ appointments or procedures when I was pregnant.

For the endoscopy, Dr. Zucker sprayed the back of my throat with an anesthetic, to paralyze my gag reflex. That was the only medication he used. He told me that whatever else, I must not grab his hand or the instrument. I wrapped my hands around the rails of the procedure table. Then, he inserted a thing that looked and felt like a garden hose being jammed into the depths of my throat. I started to shudder; I couldn’t breathe and thought  that I would suffocate. Suddenly, I remembered that there was nothing wrong with my nose and inhaled deeply. I would survive. Dr. Zucker took a good look around inside my stomach and duodenum. After it was over, he told me that he found three large patches, the size of silver dollars, of irritated and inflamed tissue. A normal ulcer is no larger than the size of a dime so I was pretty sick.

He prescribed a different medication, Carafate, which he said would coat the patches and protect them from stomach acid; this was what caused all of the pain and bleeding. The Carafate coating would allow them to heal. Carafate wasn’t a drug that was absorbed into the bloodstream; it seemed the best thing for a pregnant woman with ulcers. I was to take the giant pink pills before every meal. Since I wasn’t eating normally, I was to take them three times per day. If I had any dizziness or lightheadedness before my next appointment, I was to call his office and immediately come to the emergency room. He was afraid that one of the inflamed patches might perforate  - that my stomach might spring a leak into my abdomen - and I could bleed to death internally without surgery.

I picked up the Carafate at the pharmacy and went home. I took one and threw up. I took another. This became my practice. Since Carafate wasn’t something that I could overdose on, I could keep taking it until I could keep it down. One morning, it took five tries. John never knew what my mornings were like.

After a week, I was starting to feel a little better. I could usually keep the second pill down and I was even able to eat half a slice of dry toast. I caught a mild cold but it didn’t dampen my rising spirits. Then, as I got up one morning, the world started to spin.

I was afraid. This was exactly what Dr. Zucker had warned me about. I was very dizzy but I had no lightheadedness. I didn’t think I was bleeding internally. This was just dizziness – everything was spinning. I called Health Services and staggered out to the car. I drove carefully; it wasn’t too hard because I didn’t have to stand up. Getting into the building was an adventure but the doctors quickly diagnosed me as having with vertigo from a viral infection, not internal bleeding. I went home and spent the next few days in bed. John complained that I didn’t cook him for him. I still wasn’t eating anything but lukewarm decaffeinated tea and dry toast, so I wasn’t interested in cooking, even if I had felt well enough to stand up.

The first meal that I was able to eat and keep down that entire autumn was Thanksgiving dinner at my father’s house.  Turkey with gravy, mashed potatoes, corn, stuffing, cucumbers with sour cream, rolls, and plenty of cranberry jelly - it was the best meal of my life. I had two plates, consumed very slowly, over the course of four hours. It was delicious. I’ve never been able to eat turkey again without remembering the feeling of complete gratitude that I enjoyed that day.It really was a day of thanksgiving for me.

I went back to Dr. Zucker. He was unhappy that I hadn’t called him for the episode of vertigo but was pleased with the improvement in my ulcer symptoms. He recommended that I try to discontinue the Carafate. If the ulcer symptoms came back, I should resume the Carafate. So, I stopped taking the Carafate. Within two days, I had started vomiting again and having abdominal pain. I restarted the Carafate and continued to take it for the rest of my pregnancy. It took over a week for the vomiting and stomach pain to subside but it was a worthwhile trial; Carafate interferes with the absorption of some nutrients and I worried about the consequences of taking it while pregnant but I had no other choice.

I was also following the directions of my OB/GYN team. I saw a group of nurse-midwives regularly to monitor the progress of the pregnancy. One of the tests early in my pregnancy had been an ultrasound, ordered my Dr. Rubin to determine the source of my abdominal pain. It showed that I had placenta previa. Placenta previa is when the site of the umbilical cord’s implantation within the uterus covers all or part of the cervix; during childbirth, it can be fatal for both the baby and the mother as the cord will detach long before the delivery, suffocating the baby and causing the mother to bleed to death. However, if it is diagnosed early in the pregnancy, it often resolves itself as the uterus stretches with the growth of the fetus. And that’s what happened with me. I still needed a second ultrasound, just to be sure all was well, a week before Jack was born.

As my pregnancy entered the third trimester, I started to have stomach problems again. I first met my friend, Amysue, when I had to run to the bathroom to puke just as Mike Moyle introduced us at Arisia, a science fiction convention that I had been working on for several years (the first one took place in 1990, when I was six months pregnant, but we had been planning it for about three years). I had a lot of responsibilities; Amysue was worried about me and followed me into the bathroom. She continued to check on me all weekend. I was the chief financial officer for the convention and I had to approve of expenditures and sign checks throughout the weekend; I kept a bottle of Maalox to drink between Carafate pills in the side pocket of my backpack, next to my laptop. I regularly swigged Maalox all weekend. Another fan, not knowing about my stomach problems, commented that running a convention must be stressful if committee members kept a flask of Maalox handy!

                Finally, the end was in sight and I signed up for childbirth classes. John came to most of them; these were the only appointments that he attended with me. It was the rule for that OB/GYN practice that only partners who had taken the class could be present for the birth. We had our last class about a week before Jack was born.

                In the last month, my blood pressure started to rise. I got sent to the hospital for fetal monitoring twice, once in the last week, straight from my appointment with the nurse-midwife. I was told to stay in bed, lying only on my left side. It got very boring. John didn’t understand why I had to stay in bed when I didn’t feel bad, but he hadn’t been very nice when I had felt sick, either.

                Finally, on April 11, I woke up from my afternoon nap feeling crummy. John had told me that he had to go to Boston, to pick up some car parts. He left about 3 PM, just as I lay down to take my nap. I hadn’t thrown up for over a month but was feeling nauseous that day. I wasn’t sure if I was having contractions. I threw up twice, then, I had diarrhea. Eventually, my system was empty and I felt better. But my back really hurt. I took a shower. I paced around the house and took a few more showers as the evening wore on. I tried to call John on his cell phone repeatedly but there were a lot of “dead” spots in those days and I couldn’t get him. I talked to the midwife and to my sister (also a nurse). Karen told me to call our dad; if I couldn’t get a hold of John, I needed to have a back-up to get to the hospital. I was timing the contractions – I had decided that they were real about 6 PM. The nurse-midwife told me to call her and come to the hospital when they were five minutes apart.

                It was 10 PM and the contractions were five minutes apart. I called my dad and asked him to come and bring me to the hospital. I had my suitcase ready by the door. After half an hour, my dad had still not arrived. I was on the phone, seeing what was keeping him, when John finally got home.

                John had taken a nap by the side of the road and never went to Boston. I was pissed but there was no time for me to be annoyed. I needed to get to the hospital. Then, John decided that he had to start a load of laundry - the towels that I had used over the course of the evening, taking showers to help ease my severe back labor. John fussed around the house, picking up various things, for about 45 minutes. Finally, I grabbed the keys and hauled my suitcase outside. I was about to drive myself to the hospital when John finally came out. We got into the Jaguar and he drove across the river and up Route 5, along the Connecticut River, north from Holyoke to Northampton. The road was under construction; it was being repaved and was entirely dirt with traffic cones everywhere, to show where the lanes would be.

At first, John drove very slowly. As we approached Northampton, he complained that I wasn’t having any contractions and was the trip even necessary? I had been hanging onto the lip of the sunroof, lifting myself up to get through each contraction. I managed to squeal out, “I’m having one NOW!” When that contraction ended, I told John that the contraction were lasting about a minute and were coming every two minutes; I was timing them with the clock on the stereo. He sped up and bounced along the bumpy road so fast, I screamed in pain and begged him to slow down or he would bounce the baby out!

                We arrived at Cooley Dickinson Hospital at 11:45 PM. John drove up to the emergency entrance and I got out. I had to hang onto the side of the car to have another contraction. Then, I walked quickly into the hospital. I hung on to the admission desk to have another contraction. A nurse came down from the labor and deliver unit with a wheelchair. I sat down, then jumped out and hung on for another contraction. The wheelchair just didn’t work for me; I couldn’t sit during the contractions that were now almost continuous.

                We arrived at the labor and deliver unit. I was given a johnny; I undressed and put it on. I had to pee and was warned to not push while on the toilet; who wants to deliver their baby into a toilet? John finished signing me into the hospital and came up. It was time to have the baby. John pressed hard on the sorest spot of my back; it almost made up for his absence earlier in the evening. Jack was born at 12:14 AM on April 12, 1990. He weighed 6 pounds and ½ an ounce. At first, I thought he was so small because of the Carafate that I had to take while pregnant but later, I decided he was light because he was just a skinny kid. He has always been slim. Even now, at the age of 21, he is still long and lean.

                I stopped taking Carafate a week after Jack was born. I never had another ulcer symptom.