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Well this is my last Spring Break. Just 2 months till graduation.

In my previous journal entry I mentioned my sister coming for a visit. She was supposed to come last weekend, but had a party to attend so it was rescheduled for this weekend. Now someone is sick so it's just been canceled. I was kinda looking forward to seeing my niece, but I'm glad I won't have to put up with my sister.

So on Wednesday there was a blood drive. For the first time ever I gave a double red cell unit. Essentially they use a machine to suck out some blood, then they spin the blood in a centrifuge machine until the plasma and red cells separate. They then add saline (salt water) to your plasma and pump the plasma back in your body. The saline has just a slight concentration of salt so it's really meant to rehydrate you. Anyway things went well. The real problem I had was when the plasma was pumped back in me. It hurt pretty bad. It was probably just the needle position since my friend Destin gave one too. He has a lower tolerance for pain, but he said it didn't hurt. A concern arose though. Since the donation I've been feeling really tired and light headed. I got to thinking about all of it and after my donation all I saw them do to the machine was remove the tube the needle was attached to. I hope that after I left they changed everything else that came in contact with my blood. I didn't even think to ask about cleanup procedures. They're careful with everything else so they probably replaced all the tubes and bags. Still I can't help but feel concerned. If someone with HIV or some other virus used the machine then the virus could be transferred to me. I'm probably worried about nothing though.

Anyway yesterday we finally got grandpas new computer going. The new motherboard came in. After he built it he kept getting a long beep from the internal speaker indicating a problem. I went to the manufacturers website to fine a troubleshooting page. They said a long beep indicated a possible memory error (which is your ram). I checked out the computer and his RAM chips weren't properly secured down on one side. It surprises me that he hadn't thought of it. He was just going to give up on it since everything he tried failed. I remember when I first started using a computer. Whenever anything went wrong he knew what was wrong right off the bat. He could always fix it. Now it's almost like he doesn't know how to do any of it and I have to help him with it all. Still he deserves credit. He's 80 and he built the computer all by himself minus the whole RAM issue. Most people I know have no clue how to build them yet they are experienced at using them.