Day 246 - Taking Chances

high speed rainbow

We've had mixed fortunes today, but the most important things are all positive...so this rainbow sums things up nicely, with its uncanny ability to conjure incredible beauty out of the grayest of days.

Most significantly, my nephew Chris is now back in the UK, so we had an opportunity to go and see him.   

The Specialist Burns Unit he's in is an hour and half north of here, and my mum wanted to go to see Chris too, so we picked her and Mike up in Coventry on the way.

I hadn't managed to get hold of anyone to confirm exactly where Chris was, but I guessed that he'd be in the Children's Burns Unit at the Queens Medical Centre in Nottingham.

When even the hospital ward didn't answer their phone, we decided to take a chance and just head on up there to see what was what. 

Parking at the hospital in Nottingham on a Sunday afternoon was as nightmarish (and expensive!) as you'd expect...but we found a spot, and went off hunting the Children's Burns Unit...eventually we located it, down a dim and dingy corridor...only to find WARD CLOSED in big bold letters all over the door...that's probably why they weren't answering!  

Enquiring on a nearby ward, they had no idea where Chris was, but helpfully suggested that he might be in the Adult's Burns Unit, and said they'd try to find him for us.

"Sure enough," they said, "he's in the Adult Burns Unit...".

"Great," says I, "so where's that then?"

"Oh, that's at an entirely different hospital on the other side of the city...".

So off we trekked to the other hospital, where the parking was much more accessible, if no less expensive. 

Chris wasn't in the Adult Burns Unit either, but we were assured that he was due momentarily.  Within 15 minutes or so he was wheeled back up to the ward, and we got to see him at last.

Apparently he'd been taken straight into Critical Care yesterday, then into Theatre for five hours today to have his dressings changed, wounds inspected and cleaned, then back to Critical Care to recover from the anaesthetic.

To cut a long story a little less long, we saw Chris and he's making the most remarkable recovery.  Medical staff expressed a level of amazement at the amount he's recovered in the last week since the accident.

He was morphined up and suitably mellow, but he was polite and chatty, and generally the lovely young lad that he always is (though I've heard his parents express a different sentiment!)...he didn't seem (to us) to be particularly traumatised by his experience, and overall he seemed fairly accepting of the situation. 

Of course he has significant challenges ahead, but he's a strong young man with a strong and supportive family around him...I'm confident he'll come through this ok.  

Hang in there, BirdZombie!

Otherwise, all day the weather was changeable and threatening.

We managed to mostly miss the rain, until the way home, when skies were dark and foreboding off to the East, and simultaneously bright and sunny off to the West...producing this remarkable rainbow...this photo really doesn't do it justice - it was spectacular.

Also, Anna took the photo through the car window whilst we were doing 90mph (erm, I mean 70mph, of course) homewards on the M1. 

And then there's this, which will mean nothing to any of you...

oh yeah baby

This is my Galaxy S3, which is currently unusable in that I can't connect to a mobile network with it.  Otherwise, it functions perfectly...although recently it's been a bit sluggish and I've had one or two annoying issues.

So for a long time, I've been wanting to install a decent custom ROM on my phone...that is, to completely replace the software on it, to remove its Samsung-ness, and its Orange-ness, and treat it simply as a small computer. 

It's a relatively complicated process, involving a bit of hackery to break all the little locks that the manufacturers and mobile suppliers put on the phone to stop you treating it as though it's your own property, to do with as you will (the cheek!)...

There are several stages, and each is risky in the sense that it can potentially break your phone if it goes wrong. 

It's also a sensitive process that relies on perfect communications and agreements between the exact combination of software on your PC and the exact make and model (and sub-model, and region it was made for).

For the longest time I've been trying to prepare my phone for this process, but little niggles have always got in the way...I've never felt comfortable enough to kick the phone hard enough to get past the problems, knowing that I might break my phone, which could then cause a new series of tedious and frustrating problems I'd have to deal with... 

Anyway, this morning I realised that whilst I've got the use of an alternative, and I'm no longer in contract, it's a good time to give it that beating that it needs.

So I forced the issue, took some chances, and this morning I finally got this fully customised ROM onto my phone!

Initial impressions are that it looks great, the phone feels fast and smooth, and I'm looking forward to tweaking it to make it look and behave how I want.

Also, I slept for 12 hours last night, compared to my usual 6 or so, and today I've mostly felt tired and run down.

And I've got to be in work early tomorrow - we're expecting a hectic day...

Yay...

:-/