Diane’s dad has been transferred to a regular room; they’re running tests and have had specialists in to see him. He says he’d feel much better if he could cough something up (wait till he sees the bill!). They’re letting him walk around in the hospital, which sounds encouraging, but he said that he’s likely to be there for a few days.

Evening update

Diane spoke with her Dad this evening, and he’s feeling much better but is still coughing a lot. He’s using a breathing mask of some sort which is helping; the specialists are still visiting, but they haven’t figured out what’s going on yet, and they don’t want to let him go while he’s still coughing, so he’s probably got another few days to spend in the hospital. And we reached her brother, who’s on vacation, and gave him the news.

Almaden doesn’t formally participate in “Take Your Child to Work Day”; instead, the lab policy is that you’re welcome to bring your children any time, but that they’re your responsibility to keep safe (not much of a problem for a programmer like me, but somewhat harder for someone who works in a cleanroom or laser lab) and entertained (this could be a problem). Jeffrey wants to come and see what I do next week, and that sounds like a good idea — but I bet he gets bored watching me do e-mail and make phone calls (and if I’m lucky, do a little programming!).

I spent much of the morning in the Extreme Blue lab as the guest speaker — I talked about standards and their importance to IBM. My talk was titled “Confessions of an ex-standards weenie” (thanks to Carl Cargill of Sun for coining the term), and I think it was helpful — if nothing else, none of the interns fell asleep while I was talking, and given the hours some of them are putting in, that’s a vote of confidence in my presenting style.

When we came home, there was a message on the answering machine from back East. Diane’s father had come back from a tour of the Maritimes a few days ago, and apparently there was a case of pneumonia being passed around on the tour bus; both he and his girlfriend have it and have been visiting doctors. But today, he was feeling really hot and then discovered he had a 105-degree temperature, so he got a neighbor to take him to the hospital. He’s in stable condition and will be transferred from ER to a regular room in an hour or so, which is about as good as can be expected, but it’s still unsettling news. Al, I hope your colleagues at Franklin General Hospital are in good form!