Reminders

I awoke and lay in my bed in darkness for a while. But sleep would not return, so finally I got out of bed. The time was 1:30AM.

Gallo Pinto and Sausage

I had gone to bed just after 8PM—very early for me. But I was tired, estaba cansado. I had risen at 1AM yesterday morning.What does one do at 1AM? I don't know what other people do, but I went to my computer and began my Spanish lessons. At about 6:30AM, Nuria joined me from Costa Rica, and she assisted until 7:30AM. At that time I quit Spanish lessons to make some breakfast. 

I made my own version of the popular Costa Rica breakfast, Gallo Pinto (pronounced "Guy-yo Pinto"). I used brown rice, black beans, diced onion, and Salsa Lizano. I heated and stir-fried the mixture in a frying pan, then poured scrambled eggs into the mix and stirred until the eggs were cooked. I plated the Gallo Pinto and topped it with two link sausages. It was good, and a tasty break from the usual microwave sausage-and-egg biscuit. 

I cleaned up the breakfast dishes and returned to the computer. I worked on Spanish on-and-off all day. I discovered a way to get more points from the lessons and by the end of the day I had doubled the number of points I had collected during the previous eight months. On Duo, I'm in what they call the Diamond League, which is their top league. I began the day in the #3 spot. I finished the day in the #2 spot, closing in on #1. And by 8PM, my brain was definitely tired.

I'm teaching myself the Spanish language, with help from Nuria. Years ago, I taught myself computer programming, which is another kind of language. First I learned machine language, then I learned assembly language, and finally I decided to teach myself how to code programs for Windows computers. I decided to use the Microsoft tool Visual Basic. Despite the name, there is nothing basic about Visual Basic. It's a very powerful tool. If I could start over, I would have chosen to learn C# (pronounced "C sharp") because it's more widely used in the world of business. But both VB and C# compile to the same intermediate code that then runs on the JIT (just-in-time) interpreter. Ain't computers fun!?

I learn best by doing, and so I had to decide what kind of program I would write. I decided to write a Reminder program. I remembered how difficult it was for my mother, in her advancing years, to take her prescription medicines. She was taking seven or eight meds, and some she took every day, some every other day, and certain meds could not be taken at the same time as certain other meds. It was complicated, and she failed at the task and ended up mostly skipping her meds. That probably contributed to her demise (but who can say for sure?)

So I began studying Visual Basic and writing a program called RxReminder. The program took a number of years to complete, but every day I learned more and the program became more powerful. Eventually I had a program (by now it was called Reminder XR) that could be setup on a home computer and it would issue alerts in the form of a popup window and a loud alarm sound (which could also be a voice recording, "Mom ... it's time to take your (whatever)"—you get the idea. I think it was around 2016 that I quit developing it. I didn't know that I would end up using it myself. It's the most useful computer tool I've written. It is on my PC and it alerts me to medications, doctor appointments, when to take out the trash, when to take out the recyclables, and anything else that I want it to remind me of. It will issue reminders at multiple times and dates, so important appointments don't suddenly pop up and surprise me.

Teaching myself computer programming also came in handy at a job I had, back in that far away time known as "the day." I had a job designing computers. These were industrial computers, not consumer computers. They ran industrial mobile robots. Sometimes I had to design the computer, both the schematic and the printed circuit board, and then write the operating system that ran the board. So the result was my baby, end-to-end. That was fun!

What is education but the process of learning. You can pay someone to teach you, or you can teach yourself. There is so much on the Internet now that you can learn a lot without a formal education (though I had that, too, but it didn't help me learn to program computers).

What, you may be asking, happened to the Reminder program? I use it every day, and it's a big help. I gave copies to a few friends. One of my readers, whose comments have the initials "LL," uses it every day. She refers to it as "Scheduler," because that is what the program does for her. 

The Reminder setup (installer) program still lives on the Internet, and is stored on a Google server. I thought about putting a link to it here, but I think that would just cause confusion, and in the years since I developed it, plenty of similar programs must have been developed (though I haven't looked for any). So I'll use my Reminder program, and Linda will use it, and maybe even Nuria in Costa Rica will use it. At least, I think she uses it, but I may be wrong about that. I'm wrong about a lot of things.

Now it's 3:10AM. It's time to get back to my Spanish lessons. But first, I'm going to make some Gallo Pinto for an early morning snack.