Viruses and Backing Up Files

My laptop was recently infected by a virus. I'm supposed to get it back today from the Geek Squad. In my mind, I thought that I backed up my files on a regular basis, but after being without my computer all week I've learned that I don't do it nearly enough.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they were able to recover all of my files...

Stimulus

I read online (either cnn.com or msnbc.com, but I'm not sure which) that the stimulus bill is going to help with COBRA costs. For those people who lose/lost their jobs between September 2008 and December 2009, the federal government intends to help people by picking up around 60 or 65% of the costs of COBRA.

When I read the information, it was before today (Mr. President's day to sign the bill) so I would check the info more carefully to make sure that it made the final cut. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, because with the economy doing what it's doing, I don't want to have to foot the whole cost of COBRA alone...

Murder

Per Ann Rule's book, A Rage To Kill, there are mass murderers, serial killers, and a third category of murder who kills a lot of people that I had not previously known about. Pages 183-238 follows the story of Chris Wilder, a spree killer.

A Rage to Kill is all about true to live murders. The chapter on Chris Wilder has affected me more than the others. I found myself more afraid of the idea of a spree killer than a mass murder or a serial killer. For lack of quoting a large section of her book to define a spree killer, I'll paraphrase. A spree killer is someone who is seemingly normal but who morphs into a killing machine, killing gobs of people in a very short amount of time. The spree killer only stops because he is stopped by being caught. Unlike a serial killer, there aren't long breaks between killing. After reading the section on Chris Wilder, I understood that a spree killer is probably the human most equivalent to a predator. There is no longer the fear of being accepted into normal society once the killing begins, nor is there necessarily the careful calculation that a lot of serial killers go through when plotting a murder. In the case of Chris Wilder, he made more and more mistakes becoming bolder and bolder over time. He killed a lot of women in just a number of weeks.

I intend to write a review of this book after I finish it on RedKissedReviews.blogspot.com. I'm not sure when that will be, but hopefully soon!

Kidneys

Due to a family member having some medical problems, my mother told me that according to a doctor, the kidneys need to function at a minimum of 15% capacity for a person to live. Anything below that and dialysis is needed.

I wouldn't have thought the percentage would have been that low. After hearing this, I went online and also read on a random website that for certain conditions that it is possible to be on dialysis but to get better and get off of dialysis. It makes sense, but everyone I had ever known who had been on dialysis (that I knew about) was on it for the rest of his/her life. It's good to know that a person can recover from certain conditions to acceptable kidney function. I didn't do gobs of research on it, but I want to believe that this is true :)

SWAT

Per the book Police Procedure & Investigation: A Guide for Writers by Lee Loftland, I've learned a few interesting tidbits of information. Of special interest are a few things I should have known but probably couldn't have pinned down if asked before reading this book.

• SWAT stands for Special Weapons And Tactics. (page 63)
• DUI/DWI (Driving Under the Influence) and (Driving While Intoxicated) charges vary by state. I thought the two acronyms meant the same thing and were basically interchangeable. (page 56)

There are gobs of interesting facts in this book. These two things only stood out to me because I thought I knew what they were exactly but I had an erroneous understanding prior to reading the book.