Good News

It's not often that we get a Christmas wish provided well before the holiday, but Peter D has managed.

This is what I received in the mail this morning:

Hello all,

I am pleased to advise that after a brief consultation with my medical oncologist [Dr Desmond Yip] last Thursday I was given the all clear and told to report back in May 2009. That now entitles me to use the middle name NED [No Evidence of Disease], which I will do with pleasure!!! Next big milestone will be 05 Feb 2009, the one year anniversary of my surgery. Thank you all for you ongoing support.
--
Email from
Peter NED Davis
Canberra, Australia

What a great message to receive on a bright Sunday morning.

Thanks for making today a great day even better Peter by allowing all of us to rejoice in your battle against the beast.

Alas, not all of us have managed such outstanding success. Still, each day above ground is better than one below it, so nothing to complain about.

All the best to those others who are just heading into the maelstrom of this illness. If you are frightened by what is happening to you and most of us have been there, then sharing is one way to alleviate some of your fears. It may also be a way in which the experiences of those who have and are continuing to go before you can help with information and possibly suggestions you might like to consider. I know that both Peter and I are willing to share our experiences if you wish to ask. So don't be shy, just ask.

The Dim and Distant Past

Got a call from a long haired young fellow of around 15 or so (at least that was my memory of this chap) asking if I was the person who had been a youth worker back in the 1970's when he was last in touch with me.

You could have blown me over with a feather.

After a brief, but intensive "let's check each other out to ensure that neither of us gets hit with Internet identity scams" using Skype, I came upon a hair challenged individual with a great moustache, that bore a resemblance to the young man I had known all those years ago. I could figure that out because I still have pictures, now digitally renewed of those earlier times.

When I sent him a few of the photos, one of his comments proved how priceless the wisdom of time can be.

Here was this man, this father, being asked by his children why they could not have long hair, now surrounded by pictures of himself with long hair.

There is possibly no cure in the comments that I received from John, but they sure made me feel good to know that someone I had interacted with in the 1970's felt strongly enough about the difference our interaction had made to his life to chase me over the Internet to say as much nearly thirty years later. Wow!

I hope we can chat some more so I can learn about him and his life. It would be sad after all this time and effort if the contact was only a "one off."

Thanks John. You have made a difference in my life too. Give me more opportunities to listen to your stories, the brief bits I heard were fascinating.

The day after the day before

After a really shocking day, when I was able literally only able to get out of bed for "comfort breaks" I started today in deep fear of what the next day (ie. today) was going to be like.

Apart from an early attack of nausea that was fixed with some medication, it's been fine.

Fortunately, I hope that the change in the medication regime which started last night will continue to have the same sound effects they had from now on.

Suffice it to say that I even managed to get some work done on family genealogy AND believe it or not, even rattle the shrunken brain stem that I think I still have left, after all the medication, with a visit to some sites I used to favour when I worked (and I kid you not) in knowledge management, records management, change management and the like.

People do not seem to have advanced much, because I found the following entry on one site called BRINT which claims to be "the World's No. 1 Resource for Business Technology Management and Knowledge Management:"

Hi,

I am trying to get a view of what innovative ways people are applying tools and techniques in knowledge management.

I know the basics like Document Management Systems, Wikis, Blogs, Discussion Forums, Intranets, but what innovative ways are people collaborating/utilising these tools in knowledge management. Furthermore, what sort of techniques are people applying to both capture and disseminate knowledge (i.e. recorded lectures/discussions, presentations, informal discussion (how to capture these I am not sure) etc. )

If anyone has any ideas, or can provide me with any insight as to how they are implementing KM in their organisation I would be greatly appreciative.

Thanks

As a "Registered Affiliate" I could not resist replying with the following:

Have you thought of using the facilities provided by Google ie. the equivalent of their on line and freely available office suite, their linked application suite called "Pcassa2" - an application that stores pictures on line and more and their Google Talk application which enables you to link to users anywhere on the planet with both audio and visual web cam capability to have key conferences about anything and everything?

Personally I use these applications (and indeed other of the Google products such as their Google Earth, Google Desktop, gmail and of course their search engine) as part of knowledge sharing and knowledge management related to Genealogy.

The tools mentioned above can connect anyone with known members of their family available on line to build on individual data and photo collections and then through on line real time document sharing and discussion actually save hundreds of person hours of searching and recording.

Each person in a different country can add to the mix data which only they can easily find in their own country and then through collaboration build on the knowledge of the whole group as well as benefit new family members as they come on line to "join the party" as it were.

The beauty of this collaborative effort can then be further presented through Google Blogs or Google Web pages or for those still addicted to paper through Adobe Acrobat conversion on the fly.

Last, but by no means least, because the products mentioned enable strict security controls on who can read and who can read and edit documentation, view and edit pictures, work together in audio visual conferencing etc. etc. the combination of the products create a better outcome for users within one setting than can be found in most corporate settings where they are still mucking about trying to create networks that operate throughout their corporate structure much less throughout the whole world.

Alas I am not a shareholder of this company, but whether it survives or not is irrelevant to me as their products are FREE.

Is there anyone out there who can match this combination of tools for knowledge gathering and management at the price anywhere?

I suspect not. But, hey, it's just a suggestion"

I waiting to see what sort of thrashing I get on line.

Then I can ask Leanne for some more pain management medication. This time though, I have to confess I have no idea where she can apply it, nor what level of pain I can ascribe to the outcome.

After all, the thrashing will only be applied on line, so the pain as well as its application, will be virtual.

Then again I may have wrecked this 'on line' wonder for those of us who use it. As firms start to find their financial backs to the wall and no longer have the megabucks to purchase corporate licences for other products maybe they will have to resort to my suggestion as the way to go.

It would be interesting to see if there was a corporate take up of the ideas in my suggestion.

I hope not, I really like to see people wasting their time and our money, don't you?

After all, if they work in government, they will get their money back in taxes and if they are in private enterprise they get it back through fees and charges.

Genealogy a treatment for those who are dying

I have spent the last four days totally immersed in genealogy related work.

I have been given some information about Camden Pioneers and from this information together with my data base and a look at BDM NSW (Births Deaths and Marriages) on line, I have been able to find distant family members with the surname of Adams, Roots, Emery, Buttenshaw and all of their links to the S family and of course to each other. I have confirmed stuff I know, changed stuff where the source from BDM tells me I must and adding rounding out things that are interesting.

In other words I have been working hard, but having fun and realising that while we live one life only, by sharing stuff about ourselves we are contributing to the prolongation of memories that others have about us and also ensuring that those who have never known us can get an idea about who we were and how we lived and enjoyed our lives - or not

What's Happening?

Hi everyone, it's been a while.

I have not been writing because in all truth the material I want to share is not really suitable for this blog. I want talk about politics, about the financial crisis, change in the world and not the same old same old about me. So from today I will be going BACK to my normal and main blog at Pete's Place

Updates about my illness etc wqill still remain right here but items that I wish to comment on will be placed on the other site.

How is my illness? To be perfectly honest I have no idea.

My oncologist was surprised (hopefully delighted) that I was still around and my doctor from the Hospice was delighted that his suggestions thus far have kept me from oblivion.

I have a lot of oedema in my limbs and pain in my right arm. In discussions about this I have some reading to do about bier blocks and about having a neural block in the arm. Essentially what seems to be proposed is that by killing off the nerves in the arm and the hand the pain will go bye bye as well. Alas what this is also likely to mean is that the arm does not function at all either.

Before I have a completely dead right hand and arm I think I would like to think about the pain and my ability to tolerate it versus having no pain with a dead arm just hanging by my side.

I think I will get back to people about this when I have done all the relevant reading. Off the top of my head I am not sure I can handle a deead hand as the price for lessening of the pain.

Apart from that we have beeb busy with other matters that I wiil now discuss on Pete's Pages.

Birthdays, Friends and genealogy - what more can you want? Freedom from pain and frustration for one thing

We had a lovely time celebrating a birthday for one of the members of this group of people from l-r Nancy, Steve and Roberta. Leanne and I were both there of course , with me being somewhat worse for wear. The sunshine was very pleasant and by the time the clouds rolled in and the wind turned less than nice the afternoon was over and with it went the joys of the day

The food prepared by our gourmet chef consisted of slow cooked Moroccan veal with cous cous and vegetables, to be followed up with a spectacular desert of home made Tiramisu.

This was so nice in fact, that I actually tried to eat some of the desert and to my surprise I actually succeeded in getting a small portion down my throat. It's nice to know that Marmaduke has competition, albeit in a very small and insignificant way.

Pain is still the major event in my day and at present it requires what is known as breakthrough medication every four to six hours. It appears that the oedema in the right hand and the legs is not getting any better and the pain that accompanies this is excruciating.

I am also troubled by sleep during the night having fears about all sorts of things and being kept awake by all of these. I keep hoping that things will get better, but I suspect that this is not going to be the case.

So now, it's off to my makeshift day lounge where I can elevate those legs and try and reduce the swelling. I then look forward to being reconnected to Marmaduke and with a little luck, get some sleep after all this while the Saturday night movies drone on around me.

Yesterday I was fortunate to have a visit from a former work colleague called Salim who is also doing family research and unfortunately experiencing far more problems than I am. So if anyone knows how to get information from Turkish authorities about the populations of the countries that were part of their empire prior to the first world war, please let me know so that I can pass this on to him. Frankly I am out of my depth for both the periods and the locations of the research. Apart from the Mormons who may have been allowed into the areas that were ruled by the Turks prior to the first world war and who of course may have an office here in town.

PAIN, GENEALOGY and Cirque du Soleil

It's been a while since I last wrote. Yep, you guessed it, pain.

A couple of weeks ago I had some massage done and it was lovely. Then I had it again and once again it was lovely, then I had another session which I recall as lovely as well. At some point after this though, my right arm started aching more than normal.

We have had this looked at and we think its the pain killing drug I am taking. One of the possible side effects seems to be to cause swelling - oedema I think it's called - in limbs. Since my legs and ONE arm have swollen - its a smallish leap to make this connection. So what to do? In the interim SUFFER - that was written under pain duress - there are other drugs taken for breakthrough pain which I can take four to six hourly. I could of course stop the other drug but that would let through even more pain (go figger)

There may be a hope in the drug's earlier version which does not have the side effect.(No doubt it has others) and do I am not stupid enough to mention its name in the open.

We will see.

Meanwhile genealogy occupies my brain when it's awake and relatively pain free for both my family and Leanne's side.

On my side things are a bit slow, but on Leanne's side may I say in the words of Fats Waller, "The joint is jumpin!"

I joined Genes Reunited the other day - a pommy run site, paid my money, and even this non colonial boy is getting a lesson in organisation. I have had hot flashes from people I have never heard of who may turn out to relatives on Leanne's side. Some have been kind enough to send links to their ancestry site and I have had a wonderful time just starting to look at them and see who we have in my data base and who we need to add. It's simply fabulous!

Speaking of fabulous we went to see Cirque du Soleil - THIS is sheer magic.

It's not often that I advertise places but you simply have to check this out. Try Cirque du Soleil

We sat four rows from the front really in the thick of the action and it was fast and furious. At times I thought we would be part of the show like some poor unfortunate (probably a member of the cast) who was behind us at the start and then suddenly at the bidding of one of the clowns (if I dare call them that they were so much more) he was starting to clamber down over the seats to the end of our row (and we were in seats 9, 10 and 11) from whence action began with the clowns chasing him to do things like read the program etc with more jokes happening along the way.

There were people who did things with a trampoline we never learned at school including climbing walls that from my position must have been at least 20 - 30 feet high.

Then there were the acrobats, the fliers, the tumblers, the jugglers etc. but, what flying, what tumbling and what juggling. Amazing stuff.

Don't just read about it, get up off your well polished behinds and go and see them, they are simply magic and not in Canberra all that long.

(Yeah, go on you sceptics do check the site and just TRY and find any ways in which I am making money from this. Just once I am doing it for the lurve!