2011 was a very eventful year. I think that it will be remembered by the Golden family as a good year. If you havent been there for the blow by blow this is a recap of the highlights.
Noah: At the beginning of 2011 Noah was getting over the flu and his 3 day hospital stay. From that point on to the end of this year he has been awesome. He hasnt had to have oxygen at all this year and we have controlled his CCHS with nothing more than adjustments to his ventilation rate. For my Non-CCHS friends that is a huge achievement. He has had colds and minor illnesses but we have managed them and due in a large part to a correctly functioning CO2 monitor we are able to accurately measure his CO2 and make the appropritate changes to his ventilator.
Noah has transitioned from using an HME (artifical nose) to a Passy Muir valve and then to a full cap over the course of this year. We now wear the cap on a daily basis. As documented in prvious blog posts, the use of the cap has helped his speech and breathing tremendously. He now knows most of his alphabet and all of his colors. His speech is getting more distinct. This has caused us to lose most of our therapists and for them to declare him on track developmentally with a normal 2 year old. Again that is truly amazing considering where he started from.
On the developmental side Noah has learned to walk and then to run. He is now working on the daunting task of going up and down stairs. My hard headed son has tried to escape from his bed by diving out and learned that this is not the best way to get up in the morning. Noah is also en expert at using an Iphone. He can find it, unlock it and change screens to find his favorite games.
We were once told by one of the doctors that they couldn't say that they felt good about Noah and his prognosis. I'd love to see how he feels about him now.
Hannah: 2011 has been a good year for Hannah too. She has started to transition from a child to a young lady. She has the biggest heart of anyone that I have ever met. She continues to get better at piano and did exceptionally well at the first recital with her new piano teacher. In school, she was evaluated for the RLC (gifted program) program and accepted. She now goes to RLC every Monday and is really enjoying it too. She also is the best big sister that a little brother could have.
Beth: What can I say about Beth... 2011 has been the year of volleyball plain and simple. The year started with Beth deciding that she wanted to play on the school team and then practicing like a mad woman to make the team. Then once the school season was over she decided that she wanted to play on a club team and she went out for that and made it too. So as I write this we are in the beginning of the club season. It will be interesting to see if her new love of volleyball will be something that remains through 2012 and beyond. She has also developed from a young lady into a young woman and is preparing for high school. She is also working on her application for Jefferson County International Baccalaureate high school. She continues to amaze and impress me with her determination.
As a family we went to Disney World this year. We went before in 2008 and had a blast and we all decided that it was time to go back. We were concerned with how Noah would hold up to the heat and the walking required since Disney World is part amusement park and part marathon. He did excellent. Our only gripe was that we had to push the trip back couple of weeks and it turned out to be a hot week. Next time we go we are thinking that we will try for a Thanksgiving trip rather than a summer trip. The family is already talking about the "next" visit.
I hope that 2012 will be as healthy and fun as 2011 was. I look forward to finding out. So we say goodbye to 2011 but we will always have the 12,223 pictures that Melinda (and I) took during the course of the year to remember it by. Here's to a happy and prosperous 2012.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
All I want for Christmas is a Toothpaste Cap...
Its amazing how the simplest things can be what gives you the greatest pleasure.
Think about small children at Christmas and Birthdays. What do they always play with the most? Its not the fancy clothes or the new trendy toys with the kung fu grip. Its the wrapping paper and the ribbons that most kids play with and enjoy the most.
The same is true with Noah and his progress.
We have been working for the past couple of years to get him to wear his speaking valve and we thought for a while that it would never happen. Finally over this past summer, literally overnight, he decides that it is something he wants to do and he starts wearing it. His speech improved remarkably over a matter of just a few weeks. It improved so remarkably that one of his speech therapists declared that he was caught up and another reduced his sessions to one a month. This in itself is a huge accomplishment.
However, Noah's tenure with the speaking valve didn't last very long.
When Noah went back for his October clinic visit they were so impressed with how well he was wearing the speaking valve that they decided to try giving him a full cap.
For my non-trach and vent friends the speaking valve is a plastic cap that goes on the end of the trach and has a small flap of plastic in it. it will allow air in but not out. So since speaking is a process of exhaling (try talking while breathing in) it allows him to speak nearly normally but he doesn't breathe through his mouth and nose. The cap is just a small plastic cap that covers the trach entirely and closes it off so that all breathing (in and out) is through the mouth and nose (like normal). It looks like the cap to a tube of Crest Toothpaste.
We tried to get the doctors to let us try a cap on Noah in previous clinic visits since he wasnt tolerating the speaking valve. They were not in favor and even though they humored us once and let him try it, they were quick to deem it "unsuccessful" and sent us away capless.
This time the doctor covered Noahs trach and he fussed about it but she decided to let Melinda try it and Noah was perfectly happy. They gave us a few caps (that I am sure they got from toothpaste tubes that they had lying around and just sterilized and then sold for $300 each) and sent us home.
If we were impressed with the progress Noah made with the speaking valve that was nothing compared to the explosion of speech and new behaviors and unexpected helpful side effects that came from using the cap.
His speech has gotten remarkably better. Words that he learned to say while wearing the speaking valve have become clearer and much more understandable and he now uses many two word phrases. He is still a picky eater but he is getting much better and eating much more that he used to. We are really starting to push the table food now. The most entertaining benefit is that he has learned how to yell. I mean really yell. His favorite thing to yell is "DIE!!!!". I'm not sure why or where he picked that up from. We don't frequently scream "DIE" in our house, well we didn't use to. Now we do because its fun to get him going. I'm sure we will regret that later.
The benefits of the cap arent just developmental either. We usually had to suction his trach once or twice a day (which isnt that much) but now we will go days without suctioning him since he is wearing the cap. Also, his oxygen saturation and CO2 levels are much higher when he sleeps. Typically when he sleeps his saturation would dip to the mid to low 90s at times (anything below 90 is bad) and his CO2 levels would drift up into the 40s (anything higher than 50 is bad). Now when he wears the cap most of the day his saturation stays 98-100 most all of the time and his CO2 stays in the mid 30's, both of which are excellent. I dont know the medical reason that the body works better when you breathe the way that God intended but it seems that he did know a thing or two about how to build a human.
So this year we have gotten our Christmas present early. It wasn't big and fancy. It was a tiny little (toothpaste) cap that came with a huge amount of progress.
Think about small children at Christmas and Birthdays. What do they always play with the most? Its not the fancy clothes or the new trendy toys with the kung fu grip. Its the wrapping paper and the ribbons that most kids play with and enjoy the most.
The same is true with Noah and his progress.
We have been working for the past couple of years to get him to wear his speaking valve and we thought for a while that it would never happen. Finally over this past summer, literally overnight, he decides that it is something he wants to do and he starts wearing it. His speech improved remarkably over a matter of just a few weeks. It improved so remarkably that one of his speech therapists declared that he was caught up and another reduced his sessions to one a month. This in itself is a huge accomplishment.
However, Noah's tenure with the speaking valve didn't last very long.
When Noah went back for his October clinic visit they were so impressed with how well he was wearing the speaking valve that they decided to try giving him a full cap.
For my non-trach and vent friends the speaking valve is a plastic cap that goes on the end of the trach and has a small flap of plastic in it. it will allow air in but not out. So since speaking is a process of exhaling (try talking while breathing in) it allows him to speak nearly normally but he doesn't breathe through his mouth and nose. The cap is just a small plastic cap that covers the trach entirely and closes it off so that all breathing (in and out) is through the mouth and nose (like normal). It looks like the cap to a tube of Crest Toothpaste.
We tried to get the doctors to let us try a cap on Noah in previous clinic visits since he wasnt tolerating the speaking valve. They were not in favor and even though they humored us once and let him try it, they were quick to deem it "unsuccessful" and sent us away capless.
This time the doctor covered Noahs trach and he fussed about it but she decided to let Melinda try it and Noah was perfectly happy. They gave us a few caps (that I am sure they got from toothpaste tubes that they had lying around and just sterilized and then sold for $300 each) and sent us home.
If we were impressed with the progress Noah made with the speaking valve that was nothing compared to the explosion of speech and new behaviors and unexpected helpful side effects that came from using the cap.
His speech has gotten remarkably better. Words that he learned to say while wearing the speaking valve have become clearer and much more understandable and he now uses many two word phrases. He is still a picky eater but he is getting much better and eating much more that he used to. We are really starting to push the table food now. The most entertaining benefit is that he has learned how to yell. I mean really yell. His favorite thing to yell is "DIE!!!!". I'm not sure why or where he picked that up from. We don't frequently scream "DIE" in our house, well we didn't use to. Now we do because its fun to get him going. I'm sure we will regret that later.
The benefits of the cap arent just developmental either. We usually had to suction his trach once or twice a day (which isnt that much) but now we will go days without suctioning him since he is wearing the cap. Also, his oxygen saturation and CO2 levels are much higher when he sleeps. Typically when he sleeps his saturation would dip to the mid to low 90s at times (anything below 90 is bad) and his CO2 levels would drift up into the 40s (anything higher than 50 is bad). Now when he wears the cap most of the day his saturation stays 98-100 most all of the time and his CO2 stays in the mid 30's, both of which are excellent. I dont know the medical reason that the body works better when you breathe the way that God intended but it seems that he did know a thing or two about how to build a human.
So this year we have gotten our Christmas present early. It wasn't big and fancy. It was a tiny little (toothpaste) cap that came with a huge amount of progress.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Spike This Part 3 (She didnt need those eyebrows did she?)
The next match Beth didnt play at all. She kept working and going to practice but she wasn't put in to the game. I had mixed feelings about the next time she was put into the game (if there was a next time).
We continued to practice at home too. I just didn't get the sense that her heart was in it any more. I felt like I needed to say or do something to help her get her confidence back or at least the desire to play.
Beth is kinda funny.
I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, though.
If she is interested in something she is something akin to an unstoppable force. You don't want to get in her way. She will do anything or work as hard as necessary to get what she wants. By the same token if she isn't interested or has lost interest in something she is the unmovable object. She is extremely hard to motivate and will do only the bare minimum necessary. It has been true with her in school, piano and everything else. When she wanted straight A's, she made straight A's. When she wanted to learn piano, she learned piano. When she wanted to play volleyball she learned the game and all of the techniques on her own.
I got the sense that her motivation for the game was waning and that was bad. She would spend what was left of the season on the bench or just going through the motions of the game and getting little or no playing time.
I felt like I needed to do something to help her want to do this again.
I wasnt sure what to do.
I didnt feel like threatening to pull her off the team was the right approach though. A few days passed and we were in the street practicing and she was half-assing it and going through the motions as she had been doing ever since that game.
I finally stopped and walked over to her and asked her if she wanted to play volleyball anymore. She gave a disinterested shrug and said "Yeah, I guess so".
I said "Do you, really? I'm serious. If this isnt what you want tell me and I'll understand".
She said "I do, I guess".
Thats when I kinda lost it. "Then play the game. Get out there and play. Play volleyball or get off the court and quit wasting every ones time" I said.
I came out pretty sharp and I could tell that she was a little misty eyed after I said it.
Then she said "Ok. I will" with a little bit of venom in her tone.
We played a little while longer and went in.
Beth is a tough person to read. I didnt know if anything I said had actually registered with her or if she was just giving me a little but of her normal attitude.
The next match was at Pleasant Grove Middle school. As with all of the matches the team from the fartherest out plays first. Since Rudd was the farthest geographically we got to play Hueytown first.
Beth didn't play.
Rudd played poorly, they didn't call their balls or work together. It was 6 individuals on the court. There was no team work at all. The sad thing is that it was a game they could have won easily if they would have worked together. Rudd lost and went to the sidelines to prepare for the next match against Pleasant Grove.
Beth didnt play the first game.
The girls played better but not great. There was some more cooperation between the girls but again it wasn't a lot. In the end it was enough to win the game 25-23. The second match was about to start and I could see that the girls were huddled on the sidelines and Ms. Binder was talking to Beth. She had her by both shoulders and looked like she was encouraging her. I leaned over and told Melinda that it looked like Beth was going to be put in.
The butterflys came up in my stomach.
The truth is that I was probably more nervous than she was. The Lady Indians took the court and sure enough Beth took her position. As usual she looked over at me and I gave her a smile and a thumbs up. I said a silent prayer that things would go right for her and she would have a good game and get to play a while.
I was totally unprepared for what came next.
The match started and the first couple of points were volleyed back and forth and went to Pleasant Grove. Pleasant Grove served again. I went back and forth a couple of times and came to Rudd. The first girl to hit it bumped it up. The setter hit and put a perfect set on the ball.
It came to Beth.
A thousand thoughts went through my head. Would she hit it. Would she duck. Would she watch it hit the ground thinking it was someone elses ball?
No.
She moved under it, bent her knees and went to spike it as she had tried and missed so many times before. She jumped slightly and her arm moved to the ball.
The sound of her had hitting the leather on the ball sounded like a gunshot.
The ball sailed over the net very fast right at the head of the girl on the Pleasant Grove side of the net.
She put her hands up and covered her face and ducked.
The ball bounced off her her hands and went out of bounds.
She had scored.
Beth scored and spiked the ball. The Rudd side of the court erupted in cheers. Beth looked over at me and a tiny little smile crept up at the edges of her mouth.
It. Was. On.
It was as if the heavens opened up and the gods of volleyball had possessed my daughter. She spiked three more balls, all for scores. She served 5 serves for points. She returned three balls that she had to dive for that no one else had a chance to get. What was even better was that her team responded. They began to communicate and they worked together. She got high fives from her teammates and their parents were yelling "Go Number 20". She looked over at me in the middle of the game and instead of mouthing "Im scared" she smiled and mouthed "Its hot in here". I smiled and thought to myself that right now the hottest thing in here was her.
Poor Pleasant Grove never stood a chance.
The final score was Rudd 25, Pleasant Grove 17. When the game was over the team gathered around Beth and congratulated her on the game. The parents all patted her on the back and told her how good her game was.
I couldnt express how proud I was of her. What was best was that the twinkle was back in her eye and she was happy to be playing volleyball again.
There have been good games and bad games since that evening at Pleasant Grove. Beth has played fairly well for the most part. She hasn't gotten discouraged even when things don't always go well. I think she has learned that she can play and just has to keep working hard. Her dedication to the game has increased and we are now looking at playing club volleyball to keep her in the game and help her to continue to develop.
There might be another chapter to this story in the future. We'll just have to find out where it goes from here.
We continued to practice at home too. I just didn't get the sense that her heart was in it any more. I felt like I needed to say or do something to help her get her confidence back or at least the desire to play.
Beth is kinda funny.
I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, though.
If she is interested in something she is something akin to an unstoppable force. You don't want to get in her way. She will do anything or work as hard as necessary to get what she wants. By the same token if she isn't interested or has lost interest in something she is the unmovable object. She is extremely hard to motivate and will do only the bare minimum necessary. It has been true with her in school, piano and everything else. When she wanted straight A's, she made straight A's. When she wanted to learn piano, she learned piano. When she wanted to play volleyball she learned the game and all of the techniques on her own.
I got the sense that her motivation for the game was waning and that was bad. She would spend what was left of the season on the bench or just going through the motions of the game and getting little or no playing time.
I felt like I needed to do something to help her want to do this again.
I wasnt sure what to do.
I didnt feel like threatening to pull her off the team was the right approach though. A few days passed and we were in the street practicing and she was half-assing it and going through the motions as she had been doing ever since that game.
I finally stopped and walked over to her and asked her if she wanted to play volleyball anymore. She gave a disinterested shrug and said "Yeah, I guess so".
I said "Do you, really? I'm serious. If this isnt what you want tell me and I'll understand".
She said "I do, I guess".
Thats when I kinda lost it. "Then play the game. Get out there and play. Play volleyball or get off the court and quit wasting every ones time" I said.
I came out pretty sharp and I could tell that she was a little misty eyed after I said it.
Then she said "Ok. I will" with a little bit of venom in her tone.
We played a little while longer and went in.
Beth is a tough person to read. I didnt know if anything I said had actually registered with her or if she was just giving me a little but of her normal attitude.
The next match was at Pleasant Grove Middle school. As with all of the matches the team from the fartherest out plays first. Since Rudd was the farthest geographically we got to play Hueytown first.
Beth didn't play.
Rudd played poorly, they didn't call their balls or work together. It was 6 individuals on the court. There was no team work at all. The sad thing is that it was a game they could have won easily if they would have worked together. Rudd lost and went to the sidelines to prepare for the next match against Pleasant Grove.
Beth didnt play the first game.
The girls played better but not great. There was some more cooperation between the girls but again it wasn't a lot. In the end it was enough to win the game 25-23. The second match was about to start and I could see that the girls were huddled on the sidelines and Ms. Binder was talking to Beth. She had her by both shoulders and looked like she was encouraging her. I leaned over and told Melinda that it looked like Beth was going to be put in.
The butterflys came up in my stomach.
The truth is that I was probably more nervous than she was. The Lady Indians took the court and sure enough Beth took her position. As usual she looked over at me and I gave her a smile and a thumbs up. I said a silent prayer that things would go right for her and she would have a good game and get to play a while.
I was totally unprepared for what came next.
The match started and the first couple of points were volleyed back and forth and went to Pleasant Grove. Pleasant Grove served again. I went back and forth a couple of times and came to Rudd. The first girl to hit it bumped it up. The setter hit and put a perfect set on the ball.
It came to Beth.
A thousand thoughts went through my head. Would she hit it. Would she duck. Would she watch it hit the ground thinking it was someone elses ball?
No.
She moved under it, bent her knees and went to spike it as she had tried and missed so many times before. She jumped slightly and her arm moved to the ball.
The sound of her had hitting the leather on the ball sounded like a gunshot.
The ball sailed over the net very fast right at the head of the girl on the Pleasant Grove side of the net.
She put her hands up and covered her face and ducked.
The ball bounced off her her hands and went out of bounds.
She had scored.
Beth scored and spiked the ball. The Rudd side of the court erupted in cheers. Beth looked over at me and a tiny little smile crept up at the edges of her mouth.
It. Was. On.
It was as if the heavens opened up and the gods of volleyball had possessed my daughter. She spiked three more balls, all for scores. She served 5 serves for points. She returned three balls that she had to dive for that no one else had a chance to get. What was even better was that her team responded. They began to communicate and they worked together. She got high fives from her teammates and their parents were yelling "Go Number 20". She looked over at me in the middle of the game and instead of mouthing "Im scared" she smiled and mouthed "Its hot in here". I smiled and thought to myself that right now the hottest thing in here was her.
Poor Pleasant Grove never stood a chance.
The final score was Rudd 25, Pleasant Grove 17. When the game was over the team gathered around Beth and congratulated her on the game. The parents all patted her on the back and told her how good her game was.
I couldnt express how proud I was of her. What was best was that the twinkle was back in her eye and she was happy to be playing volleyball again.
There have been good games and bad games since that evening at Pleasant Grove. Beth has played fairly well for the most part. She hasn't gotten discouraged even when things don't always go well. I think she has learned that she can play and just has to keep working hard. Her dedication to the game has increased and we are now looking at playing club volleyball to keep her in the game and help her to continue to develop.
There might be another chapter to this story in the future. We'll just have to find out where it goes from here.
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Spike This (Part 2) ((The Empire Spikes Back))
So the season started...
Let me just say that as a first time sports parent I was unprepared for several things. First, was how short the season is. Well I should clarify... The season is short time wise. It runs from August to the end of September but in that time nearly every day of the week has some volleyball related activity (practice, games, etc) so your entire life revolves around volleyball for those two months. The second thing that I was unprepared for was how skilled these kids are. I expected them to play ok, maybe a little better than your average school yard game but these kids are good and hit hard. They dive, slide and jump at the ball and set up complicated shots against their opponent. A large part of them serve overhand and some of the serves will flat take your head off.
Again I figured that Beth would be overwhelmed, that maybe she had started a little too late in sports to catch up with where these kids are. I realize now that I have underestimated my daughter and her desire to play this game.
The 2011 Rudd Lady Indians have 17 members on their team. 4 or 5 of them played last year and are the veterans. The coaches try to insure that all of the girls get some playing time as much as possible. But due to the large team size and being a first timer Beth typically plays about every third game in relief of one of the veterans. After several practices they determined that Beth would play middle. Most of the time she plays front middle. Beths typical playing schedule is to have games on Mondays and Wednesdays. The first week we were at home for the games and after that we travelled to other schools to play.
With Beths limited playing time and her natural disposition to be quiet and reserved she is not the most aggressive player and didnt have to opportunity to develop as quickly as she needed too.
About the 3rd of 4th game in Rudd played McAdory and Beth was put into play in the first game of the match. She played well, better than before. She served 4 straight un-returned serves and returned several balls that came to her. Overall I felt like it was a good game for her and that her confidence in her skills would benefit from it.
The season rolled on.
I am making this sound like months ro weeks went by but in reality the whole middle school season takes place in a month and a half start to finish. At this point we are a little over midway through the season and Rudd was scheduled to play Irondale and North Jefferson at North Jefferson.
The game started and the first match was Rudd vs Irondale. I learned that in these games the team that is the farthest away geographically gets to play first. Presumable this is to help with the travel time back home from the game site. This meant that Rudd would play the first and the third matches since they were a little closer to North Jefferson than Irondale. Beth didn't play the first match against Irondale and Rudd got beat in two straight games. They didn't play well and Ironale took advantage of their mistakes. Once that match was over Irondale played North Jefferson; the team that just had beaten Rudd pretty convincingly got hammered by North Jeffereson. During this pounding I started to look around and I noticed that there were banners on the wall and North Jefferson was the reigning the County champion two years running. Yikes.
Rudd took the court and Beth was put into play. I was already a bit nervous about our chances against them and rightfully so. North Jefferson seemed to be moving about twice the speed of Rudd. The girls were not calling their balls or working together in any way.
This was going to be bad.
After a couple of serves North Jefferson netted a serve and Beth rolled into the serving position. While we were still working on her overhand serve she was using her normally reliable under hand. She never missed an underhand, ever. She didn't miss in practice and she had never missed a serve in a game. She took her position and served the ball. It hit the net. The color drained out of her face and you could see any bit of confidence that she had drain with it. North Jefferson took over serving and the beating continued. Beth was in the center of the court and several of the serves came to her.
She missed every single one.
She was in the wrong position, her approach to the ball was wrong and none of them had a chance for anyone to assist. To make matters worse when she went after one she was slow getting back in position and and the next serve came to her spot and someone else had to scramble to cover it, unsuccessfully.
North Jefferson scored 6 quick points.
In between serves Beth frequently looks at me. I like to believe this is for reassurance or to see what my opinion of the game and her performance is. She did during this game and I struggled to think of something positive to say. I mouthed "Its ok" and she mouthed back "I'm Scared". I knew right there that she was done in this game. Her confidence was gone and she was not going to be able to help her team. She was in the process of self destructing mentally and it wasn't going to get any better. I told Melinda that the best thing they could do at this point would be to pull beth out.
They should have cause it didn't get better.
The next serve came over and someone managed to get it back over the net. On the return it came directly at beth. I said a silent prayer that she would somehow find the strength to get the ball, that luck would go her way and something good would happen to settle her down and get her back in the game.
It didn't.
She did the one thing that you never, ever do in volleyball.
She ducked.
She ducked the ball like she was in the world championships of dodgeball.
She had no intention of trying to return it or play anymore.
Finally, mercifully, they pulled her out of the game. I think she was as relieved as Melinda and I were. The game finished, North Jefferson beat Rudd very convincingly and we went home. Privately I wondered if volleyball was the right sport for us or if Beth was really cut out for the pressure of team sports or not.
I tried to reassure Beth that it was ok and these things happened but I could tell that she was pretty upset about the whole thing. I hoped things would get better as the season went on but there wasn't a whole lot of time left in the season and it didn't appear that things were going to have a chance to get better. Honestly, it wouldn't have surprised me if they never played her again.
Stay tuned for Part 3...
Let me just say that as a first time sports parent I was unprepared for several things. First, was how short the season is. Well I should clarify... The season is short time wise. It runs from August to the end of September but in that time nearly every day of the week has some volleyball related activity (practice, games, etc) so your entire life revolves around volleyball for those two months. The second thing that I was unprepared for was how skilled these kids are. I expected them to play ok, maybe a little better than your average school yard game but these kids are good and hit hard. They dive, slide and jump at the ball and set up complicated shots against their opponent. A large part of them serve overhand and some of the serves will flat take your head off.
Again I figured that Beth would be overwhelmed, that maybe she had started a little too late in sports to catch up with where these kids are. I realize now that I have underestimated my daughter and her desire to play this game.
The 2011 Rudd Lady Indians have 17 members on their team. 4 or 5 of them played last year and are the veterans. The coaches try to insure that all of the girls get some playing time as much as possible. But due to the large team size and being a first timer Beth typically plays about every third game in relief of one of the veterans. After several practices they determined that Beth would play middle. Most of the time she plays front middle. Beths typical playing schedule is to have games on Mondays and Wednesdays. The first week we were at home for the games and after that we travelled to other schools to play.
With Beths limited playing time and her natural disposition to be quiet and reserved she is not the most aggressive player and didnt have to opportunity to develop as quickly as she needed too.
About the 3rd of 4th game in Rudd played McAdory and Beth was put into play in the first game of the match. She played well, better than before. She served 4 straight un-returned serves and returned several balls that came to her. Overall I felt like it was a good game for her and that her confidence in her skills would benefit from it.
The season rolled on.
I am making this sound like months ro weeks went by but in reality the whole middle school season takes place in a month and a half start to finish. At this point we are a little over midway through the season and Rudd was scheduled to play Irondale and North Jefferson at North Jefferson.
The game started and the first match was Rudd vs Irondale. I learned that in these games the team that is the farthest away geographically gets to play first. Presumable this is to help with the travel time back home from the game site. This meant that Rudd would play the first and the third matches since they were a little closer to North Jefferson than Irondale. Beth didn't play the first match against Irondale and Rudd got beat in two straight games. They didn't play well and Ironale took advantage of their mistakes. Once that match was over Irondale played North Jefferson; the team that just had beaten Rudd pretty convincingly got hammered by North Jeffereson. During this pounding I started to look around and I noticed that there were banners on the wall and North Jefferson was the reigning the County champion two years running. Yikes.
Rudd took the court and Beth was put into play. I was already a bit nervous about our chances against them and rightfully so. North Jefferson seemed to be moving about twice the speed of Rudd. The girls were not calling their balls or working together in any way.
This was going to be bad.
After a couple of serves North Jefferson netted a serve and Beth rolled into the serving position. While we were still working on her overhand serve she was using her normally reliable under hand. She never missed an underhand, ever. She didn't miss in practice and she had never missed a serve in a game. She took her position and served the ball. It hit the net. The color drained out of her face and you could see any bit of confidence that she had drain with it. North Jefferson took over serving and the beating continued. Beth was in the center of the court and several of the serves came to her.
She missed every single one.
She was in the wrong position, her approach to the ball was wrong and none of them had a chance for anyone to assist. To make matters worse when she went after one she was slow getting back in position and and the next serve came to her spot and someone else had to scramble to cover it, unsuccessfully.
North Jefferson scored 6 quick points.
In between serves Beth frequently looks at me. I like to believe this is for reassurance or to see what my opinion of the game and her performance is. She did during this game and I struggled to think of something positive to say. I mouthed "Its ok" and she mouthed back "I'm Scared". I knew right there that she was done in this game. Her confidence was gone and she was not going to be able to help her team. She was in the process of self destructing mentally and it wasn't going to get any better. I told Melinda that the best thing they could do at this point would be to pull beth out.
They should have cause it didn't get better.
The next serve came over and someone managed to get it back over the net. On the return it came directly at beth. I said a silent prayer that she would somehow find the strength to get the ball, that luck would go her way and something good would happen to settle her down and get her back in the game.
It didn't.
She did the one thing that you never, ever do in volleyball.
She ducked.
She ducked the ball like she was in the world championships of dodgeball.
She had no intention of trying to return it or play anymore.
Finally, mercifully, they pulled her out of the game. I think she was as relieved as Melinda and I were. The game finished, North Jefferson beat Rudd very convincingly and we went home. Privately I wondered if volleyball was the right sport for us or if Beth was really cut out for the pressure of team sports or not.
I tried to reassure Beth that it was ok and these things happened but I could tell that she was pretty upset about the whole thing. I hoped things would get better as the season went on but there wasn't a whole lot of time left in the season and it didn't appear that things were going to have a chance to get better. Honestly, it wouldn't have surprised me if they never played her again.
Stay tuned for Part 3...
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Spike This... (Part 1)
I've never played a lot of sports.
I mean I like to watch college football and I played soccer for a couple of years and baseball one season in 6th grade but I never went out for the football team or the baseball team in school. Just wasn't my thing. Melinda was even less sporty, way less sporty. Way way less sporty.
You get the idea.
So needless to say I was a little surprised when Beth came home from school one day and said that she wanted to try out for the volleyball team at school. I was even more surprised when she said that tryouts weren't until April or May and it was like February and she started asking me to go out and practice in the street with her. We started practicing at home at least two or three times a week. We practiced serving, hitting balls, returning, etc. I have never seen Beth go after something so intensely. She was so dedicated to learning a game that she had only played for recreation at school. She just inherently knew that if she was going to have a chance of making the team she had to learn the game and get good enough to compete.
I was impressed.
Honestly, I still figured that it was a fad and would pass. I figured that she would either go try out and most likely not make the cut or get bored with it and let it go. There were so many things that were against her. She had never played team sports before, she was going to try out against girls that played on the team last year, and she was very inexperienced. She just had some basic, self taught skills. When tryouts came around Beth was excited and nervous. They had over 70 girls show up for the try outs. It was almost twice as many as tried out last year. Again I figured the odds were against her. She made the first cut which went from 70 girls down to 25 girls. I was impressed. Then after another day of tryouts she made the second cut to the 17 girls that were to be the 2011 Rudd Lady Indians. I was so happy and proud of Beth. She was ecstatic, of course. Rather than thinking that she could stop, back off or quit practicing she got even more into it and we started practicing more. She went to a volleyball clinic at Samford over the summer. It was required for all players on the team. She had a blast at clinic and you could tell that she refined a lot of her basic skills and learned the rules of the game.
Finally, the season and practices started. She really seemed to be enjoying and getting better and better. Her confidence and skill really seemed to be growing.
Rudd was invited to play in a pre-season jamboree. They played 4 games and Beth got to play in the last one. Beth was very inexperienced. She didn't know where to stand or how to rotate through the positions. However, she played with some confidence and even though the team wasn't playing very well Beth held her own, she returned several serves and served several balls to the other team that they didn't return. I found out after the fact that she had bent her thumbnail back and it was bleeding during the game and she kept on playing. She showed some toughness and I thought that she could really have a chance to do well at this. I was very proud of her first effort and she really seemed to enjoy it. We left the game very optimistic about her team and her chances to play and grow. In a few short months she had gone from knowing nothing about volley ball to playing in a tournament and scoring points on the other team and doing her part. We left very excited and encouraged.
Part 2 Coming Soon.
I mean I like to watch college football and I played soccer for a couple of years and baseball one season in 6th grade but I never went out for the football team or the baseball team in school. Just wasn't my thing. Melinda was even less sporty, way less sporty. Way way less sporty.
You get the idea.
So needless to say I was a little surprised when Beth came home from school one day and said that she wanted to try out for the volleyball team at school. I was even more surprised when she said that tryouts weren't until April or May and it was like February and she started asking me to go out and practice in the street with her. We started practicing at home at least two or three times a week. We practiced serving, hitting balls, returning, etc. I have never seen Beth go after something so intensely. She was so dedicated to learning a game that she had only played for recreation at school. She just inherently knew that if she was going to have a chance of making the team she had to learn the game and get good enough to compete.
I was impressed.
Honestly, I still figured that it was a fad and would pass. I figured that she would either go try out and most likely not make the cut or get bored with it and let it go. There were so many things that were against her. She had never played team sports before, she was going to try out against girls that played on the team last year, and she was very inexperienced. She just had some basic, self taught skills. When tryouts came around Beth was excited and nervous. They had over 70 girls show up for the try outs. It was almost twice as many as tried out last year. Again I figured the odds were against her. She made the first cut which went from 70 girls down to 25 girls. I was impressed. Then after another day of tryouts she made the second cut to the 17 girls that were to be the 2011 Rudd Lady Indians. I was so happy and proud of Beth. She was ecstatic, of course. Rather than thinking that she could stop, back off or quit practicing she got even more into it and we started practicing more. She went to a volleyball clinic at Samford over the summer. It was required for all players on the team. She had a blast at clinic and you could tell that she refined a lot of her basic skills and learned the rules of the game.
Finally, the season and practices started. She really seemed to be enjoying and getting better and better. Her confidence and skill really seemed to be growing.
Rudd was invited to play in a pre-season jamboree. They played 4 games and Beth got to play in the last one. Beth was very inexperienced. She didn't know where to stand or how to rotate through the positions. However, she played with some confidence and even though the team wasn't playing very well Beth held her own, she returned several serves and served several balls to the other team that they didn't return. I found out after the fact that she had bent her thumbnail back and it was bleeding during the game and she kept on playing. She showed some toughness and I thought that she could really have a chance to do well at this. I was very proud of her first effort and she really seemed to enjoy it. We left the game very optimistic about her team and her chances to play and grow. In a few short months she had gone from knowing nothing about volley ball to playing in a tournament and scoring points on the other team and doing her part. We left very excited and encouraged.
Part 2 Coming Soon.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Progress is a funny thing...
Someone recently asked me if I remembered way back when I wrote a blog. It couldnt have been that long since I wrote one. It was just the other day wasnt it? What do you mean it was April? Ouch. It has been a while. Anyway, my apologies I'll try to do better next time.
Progress is a funny thing. I said that already didnt I? Most of the time progress happens slowly; so slowly you can barely even notice that it is happening. My children only grow one of two inches per year. It takes years for them to learn numbers, letters and colors and then take that information and learn to read and write and then even more years to go to college and learn a career and get a job.
Although if you look at the big picture progress appears to be a painfully slow moving snail-like thing sometimes it can be very fast and abrupt and nearly instantaneous. This is the case with Noah lately. Noah is nearly two years old and has been home from the hospital for 20 months. In that time he has done a really fantastic job of adapting to his condition. He has learned to make noise and around the trach and sign words that he couldn't say. His progress has been slow but continuous. We have had a Passy-Muir Speaking Valve (PMV) that we have tried to get him to use. For those of you who aren't up on your tracheostomy lingo a PMV is a small device that attaches to the end of his trach that allows air in for him to breathe but wont allow it out so that it goes up his airway and out his mouth and nose (like normal). This allows him to speak since speech is a process of exhaling air and vibrating your vocal cords.
Noah hated his PMV.
That's an understatement. He hated his PMV with a purple passion.
If we put it on him he would hold his breath til he nearly turned blue and then when he couldn't hold it anymore he would start screaming and crying. This would go on as long as we kept it on. As soon as we took it off everything would be fine again. As parents we really wanted him to wear the valve because it really would help his speech development and get us one step closer to capping the trach and ultimately getting it removed. It represents progress. His reaction to the PMV was so severe that we began to question if he would ever tolerate it and if he wouldn't tolerate the PMV how would he ever tolerate a cap over the trach that would force him to breathe in and out through his nose and mouth. I never realized that breathing normally was going to be a challenge. We even began considering modifying the PMV by drilling a hole in the side of it so that it would allow some air to exhale through it and some through his nose and mouth in hopes that maybe he would tolerate it. We were desperate for some sort of progress that would help him speak and breathe better.
About once every two or three weeks we would try to put the PMV on him because we are into torture and screaming. The reaction was always as described above. No progress. While we were at the beach a couple of weeks ago someone asked about how he was tolerating (or not tolerating) the PMV. I felt like a demonstration was in order. I wanted to show them how severe his disklike of the PMV really was. I took it out of the case and put it on his trach and braced for the screaming fit that was coming.
I waited.
Waited a little more..
And a little more...
He wasn't screaming or turning blue. He was just standing there. Then he started making a few small noises. Then it happened. He made a zurbit, you know, a rasberry, mouth fart whatever you want to call it. He had been trying to do them already with the HME on but since all of the air comes out through his neck it just comes out as a puff of air. With the PMV on it all of a sudden came out of his mouth. He giggled. Then he did it again. Then he started making noise all kinds of noise. He just started doing a continuous stream of sound. He had never been able to do that before.
He still wasn't screaming. He actually seemed to be enjoying it.
You could almost see him realizing that he could do something new.
Over the past two or three weeks since the beach he has worn the PMV nearly continuously when he is awake. In that short time his speech has improved noticeably. He already has several new words and sounds that didn't exist previously. He has had to learn volume control. The first few days that he wore it he talked very loud. He had to use so much air to make noise around the trach and he was doing the same with the PMV and it came out very loud. He is learning to talk a little softer now but he does like to scream a little just because he can now.
Noah insists on wearing the PMV now. That is a huge change. He now brings the PMV to us if he wakes up from nap and we don't put it on him immediately. That is amazing considering that he used to run from us crying if we were to show it to him.
Progress is a funny thing but I am enjoying the heck out of it and I cant wait to see whats next.
Progress is a funny thing. I said that already didnt I? Most of the time progress happens slowly; so slowly you can barely even notice that it is happening. My children only grow one of two inches per year. It takes years for them to learn numbers, letters and colors and then take that information and learn to read and write and then even more years to go to college and learn a career and get a job.
Although if you look at the big picture progress appears to be a painfully slow moving snail-like thing sometimes it can be very fast and abrupt and nearly instantaneous. This is the case with Noah lately. Noah is nearly two years old and has been home from the hospital for 20 months. In that time he has done a really fantastic job of adapting to his condition. He has learned to make noise and around the trach and sign words that he couldn't say. His progress has been slow but continuous. We have had a Passy-Muir Speaking Valve (PMV) that we have tried to get him to use. For those of you who aren't up on your tracheostomy lingo a PMV is a small device that attaches to the end of his trach that allows air in for him to breathe but wont allow it out so that it goes up his airway and out his mouth and nose (like normal). This allows him to speak since speech is a process of exhaling air and vibrating your vocal cords.
Noah hated his PMV.
That's an understatement. He hated his PMV with a purple passion.
If we put it on him he would hold his breath til he nearly turned blue and then when he couldn't hold it anymore he would start screaming and crying. This would go on as long as we kept it on. As soon as we took it off everything would be fine again. As parents we really wanted him to wear the valve because it really would help his speech development and get us one step closer to capping the trach and ultimately getting it removed. It represents progress. His reaction to the PMV was so severe that we began to question if he would ever tolerate it and if he wouldn't tolerate the PMV how would he ever tolerate a cap over the trach that would force him to breathe in and out through his nose and mouth. I never realized that breathing normally was going to be a challenge. We even began considering modifying the PMV by drilling a hole in the side of it so that it would allow some air to exhale through it and some through his nose and mouth in hopes that maybe he would tolerate it. We were desperate for some sort of progress that would help him speak and breathe better.
About once every two or three weeks we would try to put the PMV on him because we are into torture and screaming. The reaction was always as described above. No progress. While we were at the beach a couple of weeks ago someone asked about how he was tolerating (or not tolerating) the PMV. I felt like a demonstration was in order. I wanted to show them how severe his disklike of the PMV really was. I took it out of the case and put it on his trach and braced for the screaming fit that was coming.
I waited.
Waited a little more..
And a little more...
He wasn't screaming or turning blue. He was just standing there. Then he started making a few small noises. Then it happened. He made a zurbit, you know, a rasberry, mouth fart whatever you want to call it. He had been trying to do them already with the HME on but since all of the air comes out through his neck it just comes out as a puff of air. With the PMV on it all of a sudden came out of his mouth. He giggled. Then he did it again. Then he started making noise all kinds of noise. He just started doing a continuous stream of sound. He had never been able to do that before.
He still wasn't screaming. He actually seemed to be enjoying it.
You could almost see him realizing that he could do something new.
Over the past two or three weeks since the beach he has worn the PMV nearly continuously when he is awake. In that short time his speech has improved noticeably. He already has several new words and sounds that didn't exist previously. He has had to learn volume control. The first few days that he wore it he talked very loud. He had to use so much air to make noise around the trach and he was doing the same with the PMV and it came out very loud. He is learning to talk a little softer now but he does like to scream a little just because he can now.
Noah insists on wearing the PMV now. That is a huge change. He now brings the PMV to us if he wakes up from nap and we don't put it on him immediately. That is amazing considering that he used to run from us crying if we were to show it to him.
Progress is a funny thing but I am enjoying the heck out of it and I cant wait to see whats next.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Water Cooler Talk...
Water. H20. Aqua. Other than air it is the most fundamental substance on earth. We cook with it, drink it, bathe in it, swim in it and if you watch old movies they need it for birthing babies. Although I have never seen it used for that with any of my three. However, most of us would never willingly put it in our electronic devices. That usually results in the magic blue smoke coming out and it never seems to work the same after that.
I think I might be getting ahead of myself a little bit. Let me back up a little bit.
As most of you know I like computers and electronic stuff. I have been building and fiddling with computers for 30 of my 40 years. I built my first computer at the age of 16. It was a clone of an IBM 80286. It had a whopping 256K of RAM and a 32 Mb Hard Drive. My cellphone puts that to shame these days. Before that I had a home built Apple 2E with DUAL FLOPPY DRIVES!!! I have probably built 200+ computers for myself and others over that time and upgraded or repaired more than that.
However, over the past few years with my increased responsibility in my engineering business and the addition of my third child I have found less time and desire to build and rebuild my computer every few months. Three years ago I gave my desktop up for a laptop computer. Over the past few months I have been getting more involved with some new 3D drafting software at work and the hardware requirements are significant. The limitations of my laptop were beginning to show. I decided that it was time to build a new computer for myself that would have the increased horsepower necessary for my work needs. I made the decision to build my new machine rather than buy something prepackaged. Building from scratch gives you the ability to control whats in the computer and truly tailor it to your needs. You also get more bang for your buck since you dont have to pay for things you already own or bloated software packages that you will never use.
So I started to research components.
I knew I needed a CPU with some real power so it didnt take too much to convince me that I needed an Intel Core i7 processor. AMD still has some nice chips but nothing out there today compares with the dual-quad core power of the i7. I could write a whole blog about the cool things that Intel has done with that processor. I chose the i7-940 running at 2.93 Ghz.
The motherboard is almost as important as the processor. I have always been a fan of Asus components but for this machine I settled on a Gigabyte Ultra-Durable 3 motherboard. It was very highly rated and uses the Intel LGA1366 chipset, SATA 6.0, DDR3 support and USB 3.0. It also had the M.I.T. integrated into the BIOS. This is the tweaking function that allows you to dynamically overclock the processor and get more CPU power for your buck.
I decided that I needed a minimum of 8 GB of DDR 3 RAM. The motherboard is rated for DDR 3 1600 (overclocked from 1100). So I chose G. Skill Ripjaw. I got a matched dual channel set of RAM with 2 banks of 4 Gb each.
The hard drive is a Hitachi Deskstar 2Tb SATA 6.0 hard drive.
The optical drive is a 16x LG Blu-Ray Writer.
The video card I already had at the office. It was left over from some upgrades that I did to the other machines. It is a Zotac implementation of an Nvidia 220 GT with 1 Gb of VRAM on board.
The case is several years old. I bought an all aluminum case (most of them are steel) several years ago. I really liked the case but when I made the move to laptops it got moved to the computer graveyard in my basement. The aluminum case is much lighter and is supposed to help with heat dissipation. So after a little cleaning it was ready to go. I also found a multi-function card reader in one of my old computers and removed it and put it into the new machine.
I was really starting to feel good about this new machine. I thought this was going to be one hot computer. Boy was it...
Assembly went well. I was surprised how much fun I had assembling one from scratch again. After an hour or so I had it all put together in the case and it was ready for the test run. I hooked up all of the wiring and pressed the power of button. Fans started whirring and I was greeted with the familiar beep of a booting computer. I went into the BIOS and started poking around a little. I typically check the system diagnostics to see if something seems out of whack. While there I noticed that the processor temperature was 55C at idle. Thats 131F. That is really hot for a computer that isnt doing anything. Back several years ago processors would shut down at 60C and my computer was 5C away from that and it wasnt even doing anything. I shut the machine down and started to check and see if anything was hooked up wrong or not working. Everything appeared to be in order.
I did some more research on the internet and found out that i7's are the hottest processor intel has ever developed. Literally. The temperatures that I was experiencing weren't uncommon and were actually well within design limits. I finished with the computer and started loading software. After the initial shock about the processor temperature I started logging the temperature during usage and I found out that the processor would go up to 100C when it was fully loaded. Holy crap!!! 100C is 212F. Thats boiling. Again this is within design limits and the processor has circuitry that actually will reduce the speed of the machine to keep the computer from going over 100C and damaging the processor.
After a week or so with the new machine I started to wonder if there was a better way to cool the computer than the stock fan that came with the processor. My brother said that I should look into a water cooler like his alienware computer has. I told him that water coolers were too much of a risk and too much hassle to use. In all of my years of building and working on computers I had never fooled around with water coolers. A water cooler is a system where you construct a piping system in your computer that has heat sinks that attach to your processor , video card, hard drive, etc. These are piped to a radiator unit and a pump unit that circulate the water and cool the system. They have been used by people who wanted to seriously over clock their machines for years. The problem is that you have to custom build the system and cut the tubing and assemble all of the compoents and insure that you dont have any leaks in the case with your very expensive components. One mistake and you have a big steel box full of wet, non functioning computer equipment.
He told me that the water cooler in the alienware was different. It was a closed loop system prepacked from the manufacturer. I started to do a little research and I found that he was right. Corsair makes a system called the H50 that is a prepackaged water cooler for Intel systems. All you do is install it on the processor like a typical air cooled fan and them mount the radiator to the back of the case like a case fan nd connect the power. It is already prepiped and ready to go. I ordered it and installed it in the machine.
The results were amazing. Prior to the installation of the water cooler the computer idled at 50C and went to 98C under load. With the H50 installed the computer idles at 38 C and under a heavy load of all 4 cores ripping a Blu-Ray disk it went to 60C. That's a full 40 degrees cooler and only 5 C warmer than the air cooler kept the processor at idle!!! Physics tells us that water has 4x the capacity to absorb heat than air. That is why it is such an effective heat transfer medium.
Ill run some bench marks of temperature and performance and post them later. Suffice it to say that it is a very cool machine now.
I think I might be getting ahead of myself a little bit. Let me back up a little bit.
As most of you know I like computers and electronic stuff. I have been building and fiddling with computers for 30 of my 40 years. I built my first computer at the age of 16. It was a clone of an IBM 80286. It had a whopping 256K of RAM and a 32 Mb Hard Drive. My cellphone puts that to shame these days. Before that I had a home built Apple 2E with DUAL FLOPPY DRIVES!!! I have probably built 200+ computers for myself and others over that time and upgraded or repaired more than that.
However, over the past few years with my increased responsibility in my engineering business and the addition of my third child I have found less time and desire to build and rebuild my computer every few months. Three years ago I gave my desktop up for a laptop computer. Over the past few months I have been getting more involved with some new 3D drafting software at work and the hardware requirements are significant. The limitations of my laptop were beginning to show. I decided that it was time to build a new computer for myself that would have the increased horsepower necessary for my work needs. I made the decision to build my new machine rather than buy something prepackaged. Building from scratch gives you the ability to control whats in the computer and truly tailor it to your needs. You also get more bang for your buck since you dont have to pay for things you already own or bloated software packages that you will never use.
So I started to research components.
I knew I needed a CPU with some real power so it didnt take too much to convince me that I needed an Intel Core i7 processor. AMD still has some nice chips but nothing out there today compares with the dual-quad core power of the i7. I could write a whole blog about the cool things that Intel has done with that processor. I chose the i7-940 running at 2.93 Ghz.
The motherboard is almost as important as the processor. I have always been a fan of Asus components but for this machine I settled on a Gigabyte Ultra-Durable 3 motherboard. It was very highly rated and uses the Intel LGA1366 chipset, SATA 6.0, DDR3 support and USB 3.0. It also had the M.I.T. integrated into the BIOS. This is the tweaking function that allows you to dynamically overclock the processor and get more CPU power for your buck.
I decided that I needed a minimum of 8 GB of DDR 3 RAM. The motherboard is rated for DDR 3 1600 (overclocked from 1100). So I chose G. Skill Ripjaw. I got a matched dual channel set of RAM with 2 banks of 4 Gb each.
The hard drive is a Hitachi Deskstar 2Tb SATA 6.0 hard drive.
The optical drive is a 16x LG Blu-Ray Writer.
The video card I already had at the office. It was left over from some upgrades that I did to the other machines. It is a Zotac implementation of an Nvidia 220 GT with 1 Gb of VRAM on board.
The case is several years old. I bought an all aluminum case (most of them are steel) several years ago. I really liked the case but when I made the move to laptops it got moved to the computer graveyard in my basement. The aluminum case is much lighter and is supposed to help with heat dissipation. So after a little cleaning it was ready to go. I also found a multi-function card reader in one of my old computers and removed it and put it into the new machine.
I was really starting to feel good about this new machine. I thought this was going to be one hot computer. Boy was it...
Assembly went well. I was surprised how much fun I had assembling one from scratch again. After an hour or so I had it all put together in the case and it was ready for the test run. I hooked up all of the wiring and pressed the power of button. Fans started whirring and I was greeted with the familiar beep of a booting computer. I went into the BIOS and started poking around a little. I typically check the system diagnostics to see if something seems out of whack. While there I noticed that the processor temperature was 55C at idle. Thats 131F. That is really hot for a computer that isnt doing anything. Back several years ago processors would shut down at 60C and my computer was 5C away from that and it wasnt even doing anything. I shut the machine down and started to check and see if anything was hooked up wrong or not working. Everything appeared to be in order.
I did some more research on the internet and found out that i7's are the hottest processor intel has ever developed. Literally. The temperatures that I was experiencing weren't uncommon and were actually well within design limits. I finished with the computer and started loading software. After the initial shock about the processor temperature I started logging the temperature during usage and I found out that the processor would go up to 100C when it was fully loaded. Holy crap!!! 100C is 212F. Thats boiling. Again this is within design limits and the processor has circuitry that actually will reduce the speed of the machine to keep the computer from going over 100C and damaging the processor.
After a week or so with the new machine I started to wonder if there was a better way to cool the computer than the stock fan that came with the processor. My brother said that I should look into a water cooler like his alienware computer has. I told him that water coolers were too much of a risk and too much hassle to use. In all of my years of building and working on computers I had never fooled around with water coolers. A water cooler is a system where you construct a piping system in your computer that has heat sinks that attach to your processor , video card, hard drive, etc. These are piped to a radiator unit and a pump unit that circulate the water and cool the system. They have been used by people who wanted to seriously over clock their machines for years. The problem is that you have to custom build the system and cut the tubing and assemble all of the compoents and insure that you dont have any leaks in the case with your very expensive components. One mistake and you have a big steel box full of wet, non functioning computer equipment.
He told me that the water cooler in the alienware was different. It was a closed loop system prepacked from the manufacturer. I started to do a little research and I found that he was right. Corsair makes a system called the H50 that is a prepackaged water cooler for Intel systems. All you do is install it on the processor like a typical air cooled fan and them mount the radiator to the back of the case like a case fan nd connect the power. It is already prepiped and ready to go. I ordered it and installed it in the machine.
The results were amazing. Prior to the installation of the water cooler the computer idled at 50C and went to 98C under load. With the H50 installed the computer idles at 38 C and under a heavy load of all 4 cores ripping a Blu-Ray disk it went to 60C. That's a full 40 degrees cooler and only 5 C warmer than the air cooler kept the processor at idle!!! Physics tells us that water has 4x the capacity to absorb heat than air. That is why it is such an effective heat transfer medium.
Ill run some bench marks of temperature and performance and post them later. Suffice it to say that it is a very cool machine now.
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