I just visited the very sweet lady that I’m attempting to help by raising money; and she is not doing as well today as she should be.  The truly frustrating aspect about this whole affair - there are no funds to help someone in her situation and I haven’t been able to raise the first cent.  I realize this blog isn’t necessarily the right outlet to support the effort, but I receive enough readers each day that there should be some sort of progress.  I urge you to consider the plight of this lady and the fact that if she does not receive medical attention her quality of life will diminish until the inevitable conclusion.  I can’t do it alone.  Please, please help me in this one small fight to save someone’s life.  

Also, if you have any suggestions that might heighten awareness of this issue, I’m open to any feedback. When I have completed work on the Crimson Foundation website, all information will be moved to that site. Perhaps then, someone will stand up and take notice.  Finally, I will be contacting some people I know within the tech community to encourage them to at least make mention of this effort either on their Podcasts or their blogs.  If we’re lucky we can get the support of people like Cali Lewis of the GeekBrief podcast and others like her who sincerely care about people.

Even from the title, you’ll immediately realize this post won’t be about less-than-stellar customer service. Instead, I have a more pressing, and far more important, topic to cover.  I met a senior citizen today who does not fall into a series of specific categories that would have enabled her to receive medical attention. What about insurance, you ask?  She can afford neither insurance, nor out of pocket expenses.  This is truly a situation of a senior citizen living on a fixed income.  Another example of what has become a norm for many people; the battle between receiving medical care or not starving.  Both of which many of us take for granted.  What about free clinics or non-profits in the area?  I made a lot of phone calls today and discovered two facts.  Fact One: there are no free clinics to be had.  Fact Two: Most non-profits simply are unable to focus on any single individual.

From the title you may have guessed that the condition I’ve been referring to is Cellulitis, a bacterial infection of the skin, which can be deadly!  Here is a link to information on the Mayo Clinic website provided through CNN that gives a concise overview of the topic and the inherent dangers.  I am personally very worried about this situation as the infection continues to spread across her leg.

Why not just give her the money yourself, you ask of me?  I can only give so much and I have, but there’s a little more to the story.  She has previously been treated, and barely succeeded in paying the bill at a “Community Health Center.”  Obviously, they failed to provide adequate medical care to ensure the infection did not return.  This time around, it won’t be as “cost efficient.”  I’ve seen the bill, it wasn’t cost efficient in the first place.  

By the jumbled wording, you may have already determined I’m writing this as hurriedly as possible.  I’m angered and saddened by a number of issues that crop up every time I sit down with my accountant to go over which charities to give money to.  I’m always concerned whether the money is actually making it to the people its been earmarked for.  

So, in an effort to at least help this one person, I have placed a PayPal Donate button in the left sidebar. Clicking that button will enable you to donate money to the “Senior Citizen Cellulitis Fund.”  My goal is to raise $5,000 to ensure she receives the medical attention she so desperately needs.  Please, please, consider providing whatever you can so that, together, we can make a difference.  I am certainly not above begging to make this happen, so if there is an online or physical route to be taken to help this person, please leave your suggestions in the comments.

As promised, I’ll continue the “Great iMac Odyssey” with the two hours of dis-enjoyment prior to calling Apple once again.  I’m sure you can imagine that I was tickled pink to have yet another iMac with upgraded specs, but that little feeling was tempered with the fear of what could go wrong; and much did in respect to “quality of life.”   Instead of going into great detail, I’ll simply list the problems the new iMac had right out of the box.

• A flickering backlight that would sometimes become so bright I had to decrease the brightness on the display completely.
• The optical drive would scrape and clank with every spin.  I only dared test one cheap CD, which was more than enough to instill fear.
•  An odor, very similar to sulfur and very metallic, pervaded the room just after opening the box.  The odor increased once the unit was turned on.
• Of less importance, but annoying none the less; the mouse wouldn’t always respond to clicks.

Apart from these issues, there was a question of cleanliness that cropped up almost immediately.  Just as I would refuse a meal from a restaurant if I discovered hairs wrapped around the shrimp, I wasn’t particularly amused to find several long, black hairs clinging to the plastic wrapping of the peripherals as well as the plastic cover for the display glass.

Once again, I contacted the Customer Relations representative I had been working with, informed her of the problems, and she prepared another Advanced Replacement.  Rather than having you wait with anticipation to discover what happened when the second replacement arrived, I’ll spare you the pain and let you know that I’m writing this post on that particular system.  Everything is fine, so far.  Let’s hope this one will last for at least One Full Year.