I went to the burial. It was a nice place, not ugly like most of Guatemala City. Everyone was at a little chapel, which scared me, cause I didn't want a funeral.

I looked inside, and at the altar was a tiny white box with tiny white flowers on it. I just walked towards it, every step welling up tears. I threw myself onto the little box, holding Mei inside, telling her how much I loved her.

I know I said I didn't believe in this, and wanted to not do anything, just maybe show up for 5 minutes, I had to see her again. My sweet precious girl. Someone checked her to make sure nothing was bad, and I opened her baby coffin and kissed her, told her I loved her so much, how sorry I was for this.

they took her to the tomb where we'd place her. I sang her song (Fly me to the moon) to her, kept my hand on her while the pastor spoke. I sang other little songs I made up; I just want her to know how much I love her, and always will.

Gaby and I held her head, ran our hands through her beautiful hair. I kissed her, hold her hand (it felt like she was still grabbing my finger), hugged my little Mei's body. Having to see your own little baby wrapped up and... not alive... I'm crying.

I picked up her tiny box, slid it into the tomb, said goodbye, that she'd be o.k. forever, and we'd always love her. They started laying the brick and I just wandered off. It's the first time I remember my dad crying in a long time. When they had the cement on, I wrote “We love you forever Mei“ in the cement. I'm going to get a little plaque that says Mei, and has her song lyrics on it, with little plum flowers around the edges.

I feel strongly that she's going to come back to us. That in a few months, I'll have great news that she's back inside Gaby's belly. I promised her we'd take the absolute best care of her this time, if she gives us a second chance. Or maybe, Mei is up there looking for a friend angel to send to us. Somehow, it will all be alright, sometime.

I sat on the edge of a cliff that's right alongside the cemetary, and I sang to her. The wind blew through the trees. I felt like she was flying around, sitting on the tombs, laughing at us cause we were kissing her old body. She is smiling and playing somewhere. She's the cutest, happiest, girl right now. Perhaps a mix of Sumomo (Chobits) and Mei from Totoro. That's where I first heard the name and liked it, “Tonari no Totoro”.

Somehow, everything will work out. Somehow, the shred of faith I have left will grow. Somehow, someway...

Everything is in pieces. I think human minds in default configuration cannot process this kind of event.

Rene Ordoñez is an incompetent idiot. We called him, we even called the OB because we thought he might Rene might be a dick. I should have just taken her into the hospital right away. He said she was just colic, that's why she cried. But that wasn't it. Her poor body was so messed up. She fought all day before we went to the hospital, we just didn't know. Maybe it's my fault for not being a crazy protective parent and bringing her in for everything. If she would have gotten in earlier...

She fought for over a day in the hospital. With everyone working on her, she struggled and was so strong. How can such a precious creature be submitted to this?

My wife and I were waiting so long for this little one. Why to us? There's people every day that get knocked up and never want kids. There are morons who, for reasons I can never ever understand, have abortions. Why don't THEY have their kids die on them instead? Ever since we were dating Gaby and I wanted this little girl. I spoke to Mei almost every day. Gaby took the best care of herself. We did everything good parents should do. Mei was our whole life! Why do we get punished? There's enought shit parents out there with kids, why not take one of the?

Why out of all the doctors in the country, we get the one who didn't give a flying fuck? While I was at the hospital, I thought about how Rene would pay. Right after Mei died, I tried to go hunt him down (everyone stopped me). I wanted to see HIM on a breathing tube. Revenge is a dish best served cold? Right now, I don't care. Even if I could watch him die, even after we get his license stripped and never able to work in medicine again, there's no satisfaction. Nothing matters anymore. He's still going down, since who knows how many other people he will hurt. But that doesn't help me now.

A recruiter from Microsoft Consulting Services has been emailing me for the past while. If only I would have accepted her offer. Full health care, decent doctors. My only problem would have been my wife saying she wanted her family to see and hold little Mei. Right now I'd be on a webcam, holding mini Mei in my arms, showing her to family.

G-d be with you, they say. Well, that's great. He shoulda been there before. Now it's a bit too late, unless there's an 18th level cleric who can cast resurrection on her. I don't get it. If her getting sick is Stan's work, and G-d was going to do a miracle, then why is it all of a sudden G-d's magical plan now that Stan killed her?

They say these kinds of incidents make your faith grow. I'm not sure who they are, but I'd like to know what they're smoking. I flip back and forth: Believing, and giving up the shred of faith I had left. We had hundreds of people praying for her, and what good did it do?

Perhaps I'm not supposed to be bitter, sarcastic, questioning G-d. Perhaps it's His way of showing me something. It's quite a crappy way of going about it, if I may be so presumptuous. Having her in the hospital and being so sick was a big enough of a lesson.

Gaby says that Mei was a little angel, one of G-d's special angel. She says He got confused and accidentally sent us to her, but had to take her back. I think I'd like to believe that. Julie told me that Mei will come back to us in a different body (can't get any more perfect, scroll down and look at her beautiful face). I want to belive that too. So if anyone still believes in praying for us or whatever, that'd be my only request. Pray that I can believe in something beautiful and have peace.

We're going to her burial now. I didn't want to go. Last night, I went into the room after she had moved on. I gave her body a little kiss on the cheek. Her eyes were closed. That was the hardest thing. During the day, she was looking into my eyes, squeezing my finger. My little girl, with her darkest blue eyes, just staring around, glancing at me. And those eyes are closed. I was in the room when they turned off her oxygen machine. That was horrible.

I don't want to go the burial. I don't believe in it. Mei is not there anymore. but Gaby says we created and brought her in, and regardless if Mei is not there, her body is, and it's a perfect, beautiful body. I think that, just like going into the OR afterwards, it's something I will regret if I do not do it, even if it hurts.

I miss you so much Mei. I can never describe how happy I was when you were with us, and how sad I am now that you are not. I love you forever and always my perfect divine little one.

Mei-chan dear, I love you so much. Your mommy and I care for you so much. Like we told you, whatever you had to do is ok, and we're going to love you forever. That last hour I spent with you was nice. I'm sure you were looking around and could see the angels with you. I tried to ask them to not take you, but I guess that didn't work out.

Your mommy and I had so many plans for you. We're going to miss you so much, every day. But we're not angry at you at all. You knew what was best, and if your little heart couldn't take it, I'm sure you made the right decision. I wanted to sing that song to you one more time:

Fly me to the moon
and let me play among the stars
Let me see what spring is like
on Jupiter and Mars
In other words, hold my hand (you did, remember, your little hand held me. I had been waiting months for you to do that)
In other words, darling kiss me

Fill my heart with song
and let me sing forever more
You are all I long for
all I worship and adore
In other words, please be true
In other words, I love you. 
 I love you!

I guess you remembered me singing that to you a few times. I made up some songs for you too; I hope you liked them. I'm not much of a songwriter. That song, I got from the end of the episodes in EVA. But I think it's an old song.

Thank you for being so precious and beautiful. You were a shining gem, a pure angel to mommy and I. Those days here were just absolutely perfect. We loved every second. I never got to change one of your dirty diapers, but I really wanted to. I was waiting and waiting. I would do anything for you Mei.

I'm so sorry this happened. I was a fool to trust that idiot. I should have taken you in and not listened to him. I hope you can forgive me for not doing so. I'm gonna deal with him, don't worry. He'll never hurt another precious baby like you ever again.

There's so much I wanted to talk to you about. So many things. I wanted to take care of you growing up, watch you learn and play on your computer. I wanted to play games with you. Photograph you with our little rabbits. I was so excited that you'd be in school and we could study all the hanzi you would have had to memorize. I really would have gotten you on that NHK show. I'm not sure what it's called. I-nai-I-nai-I-nai-iway! Something like that. With elf girl and green dog. You would have been the cutest baby on the set. You'd have had to learn a bit of Japanese I guess, but we coulda done that together too.

Mei-chan, my dearest little girl, I love for you forever and always. Wherever you are out there, I hope you're ok. Everyone was there with your body, but I didn't want to be. I knew you had already moved on. I hope that's ok with you. Mommy and I are gonna move. Maybe Atlanta. We had a great time when we lived there. That was just a bit before you came along, my sweet angle. Mommy really can't go back to the house. It was supposed to be a surprise, but she painted your whole room. The had little Strawberry Shortcake strawberries on the wall, little flowers, all pink. Mommy was really worried about finishing it on time. She had done it with little Care Bears and clouds, but decided that pink flowers were prettier for you. I wish you would have seen it. Mommy's mom is going to clean out your stuff. I'm gonna keep a bit (and some photos I have of you), but Mommy doesn't wanna see them right now. Mom just wants to keep you in her memory. Please understand. One day we'll look at those things again, just not now. I'm gonna hold your little pijamas, the one with the pink cat on it. You were wearing that for the few days at our house. You were sooooo cute in it.

Te amo, y te quiero siempre, mi linda divina. I'll write to you again. I want to keep you so close to me, as you fill my heart. I know I've said my life's destroyed now, but it's not your fault at all. Mommy and I are gonna be ok, so you just go and enjoy everything you're doing now, ok? Right before they started the transfusion, I told you I was gonna go, and I'd see you soon. Let's just take “soon” as very loose, ok? But I so want to be with you again, someday, somewhere. I love you honey.

That's all.
I wrote a letter to her. I don't know why. Maybe it helps “the process”. This blog is going to be rather dark and grim, so if you're having a nice life, don't come back for a while. If you want to share greif, then just keep reading here.

A quick update on Mei. Doctors have found she has some brain hemorrhage. Also, her kidneys are not doing so good. So, the doctors are having a meeting to decide how to proceed (whether to infiltrate her kidneys or not, etc).

Since we will allbe at the hospital all day and tomorrow, feel free to call us. My dad's cell phone is +011 (502) 5814-4878. My cell is +011 (502) 5215-8722. I have Miami number, 1-305-455-9823 that forwards to my cell.

Just got a phone call. Mei stopped breathing this morning. They got her going again, but she's having some liquid in her lungs and problems with her kidneys. Doctors are looking at putting a shunt in or something. I'm heading down now.

Update: She stopped breathing this morning.

That is, all of got through the night. Very strange coming back, seeing all Mei's stuff, lying down, and she's not there. Plus the neighbours baby was crying this morning, so for a split second I thought perhaps Mei was back here. At any rate, Gaby and I feel a lot more...composed. Mei is doing fine according to the nurses. Gaby and the grandmothers are going there this morning.

A little bit of information on what Mei has:
http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/pubs/hirschsprungs_ez/

A lot of people have said “Buying blood, WTF?”... Well, I guess that's how they do it down here. As far as I can tell, each hospital keeps a bit of blood themselves, but rely on a bloodbank for {many|some|most} requests. However, the idea of pre-stocking is a completely foreign concept here. I think I wrote before on this blog, but we went to a store once, asked for soap. We were told there was no soap. “Well, shouldn't you buy more, since you already sold out and it's only the middle of the month?” “No, we only sell soap for the first half of the month.” Another time, shopping for an out-of-stock item, I was told ?(quite angrily) “We stock enough of the product, the problem is that people just buy it so fast.” I guess the same applies to blood?

Things are complicated by the fact that the donation requirements are absurd to say the least. Obviously you want healthy blood being donated, but they will deny someone from donating for any reason, such as having taken aspirin a day before. My wife's doctor was denied because... he's a doctor. Went I want to donate yesterday, the nurse said I couldn't because I was “scared”.

Then, throw in a good dose of inefficiency (really, I almost flipped on the receptionist when she said “receiving blood??” and seemed puzzled at how to handle our order), and there you go. When I was paying, the lady insisted on a national tax ID number and wouldn't let me say “no, I don't need a government-authorized invoice, just let me have the blood so I could go“. Fortunately the doctor was with me (I don't think I'd have been the best driver), so he gave his... crazy.

The whole blood issue is small however compared to the doctor who handled Mei. This should have been caught quickly, before it became a major issue, if he wasn't negligent. Probably doesn't help much to think about it, but it just infuriates me to know that this was so easily avoidable, and *should* have been avoided.

The kidney expert said that they needed to change Mei's blood to help fix her kidney, so they performed a blood transfusion on her. They also lowered her sedatives so she is slightly awake, but without any pain. Gaby's (my wife) is going to go there all day tomorrow and I'll show up later on at night (since Mei only wakes up at night anyways). I guess this is progress?

Just a short update, Mei's white blood cell count is now up to 2700, from 1300. It should be around 10,000. But at least this is good sign that she's making some leeway against the infection. At least, I'm guessing that's what it means.

Her kidney is still having some trouble. While she did pass a bit of urine, her kidney isn't at normal levels at all. A specialist is coming in this night to check it out.

Thanks to those who have emailed and left comments. Your prayers and messages are deeply appreciated.

Updates, click here.

I haven't written here for a long time, so I don't know how many subscribers there are... but anyways. Something personal. For those who want to skip the article, I just beg a second of your thoughts to Natasha Mei Giagnocavo, who's in intensive care. A prayer, short meditiation, positive thought, any little bit helps. 

Four days ago, my first daughter, Mei, was finally born. Perfect quick labor (< 2hrs, out of the hospital in 19 total), everything checked out just fine, we were home the next day.


That's me in scrubs with Mei, minutes after she was born

Having a baby is the the most awesome, most amazing experience I've ever had. She's pretty cute, and when your baby opens her eyes and just stares at you... it's something profound. But enough: People who haven't had children won't understand, and those who have, already do.

Anyways, two days later we were a bit worried as she hadn't had a BM at our house. So we called the pediatrician, and he assured us that she had had a BM at the hospital, and that everything was normal and fine.

Sunday night:
She cried a lot at night, making us think perhaps she was colic. Sunday night, same thing, she started crying a lot, mainly little cries as she exhaled. She started having green vomit come out, and her stomach was hard as rock. We called the pediatrician again, and he told us to give her a sedative. Not believing the quack, I called my mother, who is a registered nurse (RN). My parents drove down immediately, and when my mom saw Mei, she knew we had to leave for the hospital immediately.

Mei was coming up this green stuff, but barely crying. The whole evening, she had her eyes (dark dark blue) wide open, just staring at us, crying a bit. I had no clue what pain she was in, how bad things where.

At the ER, we got a tube down her nose to start bringing up all this green stuff. They tried to get an IV in, but weren't able because her veins were so small. All the time she just stared, calmed down when I spoke her name, looked so precious.

For those few who actually subscribe to my RSS feed, sorry... I'll be posting info about spammer companies I find in Guatemala so I can refer their clients to the pages. 99% of Spanish spam I receive is from companies who have been fooled by spammers. Usually I receive a good response after talking to the client directly, so we'll see. This could get interesting, in which case I'll make a separate /GuatemalaSpam/ directory and get it off the blog.


Offending Spammer:
Direct Publimedia
3 Ave. 8-37, zona 9 Guatemala
Telephone: (502) 2361-7900, (502) 2377-1272, Fax: (502) 2339-1779
ventas@directpublimedia.com

Confirmed spamming client of Direct Publimedia:
 -SuCarrito (SuCarrito.com)
   Av. Las Américas 18-25 Zona 14, Guatemala
   Telephone (502)2385-2261 (502)2459-1434 (502)24591410 
   soporte@sucarrito.com

Offending Spammer:
Estrategia Digital (Publinet):
Avenida Las Américas 18-81 zona 14
Edificio Columbus Center Oficina 2 
Guatemala, Centroamérica
Teléfono: (502) 23633084

Here is the list of confirmed clients that spam with Estrategia Digital (Publinet):
 - Nina Caps (2436-0261, ventas@ninacaps.com, 10a calle 27-67 Finca El Naranjo Zona 4 de Mixo)
 - Carolina Y H (they are a big Pharmacy and Hardware store... (don't ask about that combination)) 2368-3990, ventas@carolinayh.com
 - MoviExpress, a pirated software vendor (5692-7916)

Here is the list of unconfirmed clients that spam with Estrategia Digital (Publinet). I have not collected an email from them, but have good reason that they have sent out spam or soon will, as they are dealing with Estrategia Digital.
 - Inter Mall (1a. av. 15-54 zona 10, 2470-2964)
 - Unnamed perfume store “La Perfumeria” (calling them gets nervous people saying “umm... perfume... yea, hey, call this number and talk to this guy...“) 5615-2155, 2238-6467. 

Install took about 15 minutes. I installed the database server + workstation components. No reporting, analysis yet. Maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me, but it seems that it will install multiple components simultaneously if dependencies are satisfied. That's neat. Anyways, the setup is a very slick setup, and I didn't get any annoying errors about having to reboot (which always seems the case with SQL 2000). No errors reported.

After you are done, it tells you to run SQLSAC: Surface Area Configuration. Wow, this is very cool. Right in your face: Do you want local only connections, or remote connections via TCP/IP or named pipes or both? For the many people that have a single-server setup (i.e., tons of web sites), this should be a nice and easy way to lock yourself down.

The old “client network setup” and server setup is replaced by an MMC-based configuration manager. Quickly view your setup. Nice.

The old help system has been replaced by the new kind (Help 2?). In the earlier versions of Yukon, this meant it sucked, as the help was very messed up. But now, like Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2, the help flies and works just great.

I tried adding an operator and adding an alert. While the alert shows it's been triggered a few times, the operator is never contacted (email). I set up “Database Mail”, but that didn't seem to help either. The help files had some really lame advice. Like “to set up notification, click notify” kind of stuff. Spent probably 10 minutes trying to get some notification going, to no avail. :@. Anyone know how to do this?

One that that is great about the Studio is that things actually work. In the earlier versions, nothing was implemented. I've successfully attached my SQL 2000 databases. This is a huge thing, as now I know I can just upgrade my servers and go full 2005! Bye bye SQL 2000. It's been great.

I really, really, like the SQL Server Management Studio. No more having to go to Query Analyzer separately. Now I can do everything right there. Very, very, nice.

The only ugly thing is that the grid UI they have looks really old and ugly. It still reminds me of SQL 2000's Query Analyzer or something. It's also terribly slow. The rest of the UI seems fast, but those damn grids are just screwed up. I can actually see the lag. I hope they get replaced.

Database diagrams are back (like they should be!). This is great. However, after importing my SQL 2000 database, I couldn't view my existing diagrams, and trying to create one results in:

Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio
----------------------------------------
Failed to retrieve data for this request. (Microsoft.SqlServer.SmoEnum)
----------------------------------------
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
An exception occurred while executing a Transact-SQL statement or batch. (Microsoft.SqlServer.ConnectionInfo)

Cannot execute as the database principal because the principal "dbo" does not exist, this type of principal cannot be impersonated, or you do not have permission. (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 15517)

However, it did work fine on a new database. The diagrams are way uglier than before, but whatever. At least they are there. Having them makes up for the table editor sucking. Seriously, the table editor is as bad as Visio's table editor. This means you must click a field, and then go down to the bottom and use this little property editor to set basic parameters. I just don't get it...

Support in Visual Studio looks like exactly what I'd expect from a development standpoint. It appears that you get the entire tree of SQL Management Studio from the database on down. Cool.

Well, anyways, that's my first quick look. I'll be using SQL 2005 as my primary database from now on, so I'm sure I'll come up with a lot more feedback.

I got my Windows 2003 machine installed without a problem (well, except for the bloody floppy disk drive being needed). After installing SP1 and Office 2003, I decided to go put on what I had been waiting for since Saturday: Whidbey Beta 2.

Install went smooth and fast. I think it was under 30 minutes (not inc. MSDN). I install almost everything except J# (haha), Crystal Reports (yuck), and Dotfuscator (I have way better!).

I reboot, install MSDN, run Visual Studio.

---------------------------
Package Load Failure
---------------------------
Package 'Microsoft.VisualStudio.QualityTools.TestCaseManagement.QualityToolsPackage, Microsoft.VisualStudio.QualityTools.TestCaseManagement, Version=8.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a' has failed to load properly ( GUID = {A9405AE6-9AC6-4F0E-A03F-7AFE45F6FCB7} ).

Damn, there goes all the testing features. While all the pretty icons are in, none of them work.

*Update! A friend who works on Team System says that not installing the Team Foundation Client will cause problems with Beta 2. I'm also told that I don't need to wait to install TFS first. So, I'll go install it. Thanks, I hope that works!

Next, open up a project, try the properties. Everything works smoothly. The properties window even closes correctly. This was a major pain point before.

Performance testing. Oh, wait, that doesn't work:
---------------------------
Microsoft Visual Studio
---------------------------
Could not load type 'Microsoft.VisualStudio.Performance.PerfWorkItem' from assembly 'PerfPkg, Version=8.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a'.
---------------------------
OK  
---------------------------

OK, well, I don't use those features everyday. I'm sure someone will find a fix shortly. I haven't even looked yet.
*Update: Supposedly related to not having the TF Client installed.

I got a crash while saving my settings (I can't resist going through all the nifty options). But I tried again and it worked.

Graphically, the whole program looks quite polished. Except for the test on the splash screen not being antialiased, and a few icons here and there (solution icon in the solution explorer), it looks very refreshing. The docking tabs (is that what they are?) for the toolbox, solution explorer, etc, are redesigned. A tad space wasting, but attractive. Dragging a toolbox around has a nicer targeting system. There have been a lot of great colourizing enhancements. (Yes, and my suggestion of maroon-coloured strings is now a default! Yea!)

Seems quite fast. Compiling my only real Whidbey app (~25K lines of C#) works great. UI does not lock up while compiling. Compiling web projects does not take forever (before, it'd hang for about 10 seconds).

ASP.NET... ok, here's the big one... *IT IS NOT FIXED*. Yep. Everyone (like me) who was hoping that the ASP.NET team would stop tripping before Beta 2... welcome to reality. You're gonna develop your web apps like ASP Classic, and you're gonna like it, dammit.

Basically, it boils down to that every bloody class is its own freaking assembly. What a pain in the ass. I mean, seriously. They do ASP.NET 1.0, and blow everyone away. Then they think that even though people like me have been saying it should be this way for years, they feel it is too early to introduce real app development to web apps. If you want to share code, you have to put it in the “App_Code“ directory. I guess this helps people who are used to <!-- #include “inc/functions.asp“ -->.

Another thing, ASP.NET isn't listed in the new project dialog. Somehow the ASP.NET team things that they aren't projects. I'd *love* to find out why this is, besides “idiots who could barely figure out PHP couldn't figure out ASP.NET need help“. Why I have to have this “file based“ “web project“ thing just keeps annoying me.

But, despite my complaining, I will, like an abused girlfriend, keep coming back for more from ASP.NET 2. The other features (i.e., great designer, awesome C# code editor, freaking fantastic framework) outweigh the huge annoyance that ASP.NET projects have become. I swear, if it wasn't for ASP.NET's new features (like Master Pages), I would not, repeat, would NOT, develop new web apps with VS 2005. But, they know this. They know their feature set is so sexy, I'm gonna happily get smacked around. They know I'm addicted and will play whatever little game they want to play to keep using. They want to treat me like dirt^H^H^H^HMort, fine. Whidbey is such a huge jump ahead that I'll just have to move on. Really. I will. Eventually. BTW, I'm not just complaining for no reason. Even on the relatively small projects (say, 18 project solution, ~100K lines) that I've done, I can't imagine ever, ever, using this new project model.

Of course, maybe I'm just missing something, and it actually is fixed. If I missed it, then I guess I deserve it. But I'm pretty sure they aren't hiding much.

Moving on...

I am also going to install Team Foundation Server and the Team Client. In the TFS setup, it says to install the client after the server (*Update: which might be incorrect). And the server needs SQL Server 2005, so I'm waiting for that to finish downloading. Finally.... real source control, defect tracking. Wow. I'm also looking forward to playing with the revised (hopefully revised) data tools. The ones in Beta 1... were next to unusable. I understand they've been fixed and features left in (like diagrams).

I heard there was community integration, and sure enough, there's a Community menu item. However, clicking anything there ends up with a:
---------------------------
Microsoft Visual Studio
---------------------------
The operation could not be completed. The RPC server is unavailable.
---------------------------
OK  
---------------------------

Maybe the install is messed up. Or maybe it's a crappy error message for “Couldn't contact Microsoft's community servers.” No idea.

In C++, I've had more success with the “go to reference” feature than before. This is a non-Microsoft C project. I'm using VS as the editor only. The experience seems to be improved over Beta 1. Cool.

MSDN works! It's fast too! Quite fast actually. And so does the search (well, haven't tried in detail, but before it was pretty crappy).

Upgrading. On my 25K line project, I had 34 errors and 10 warnings. The majority of them were from ASP.NET's changes (the ones that improved it from Beta 1). Not bad!

Well, that is my first quick glance. I'll have some real time during the next while to really get involved.

As of right now, I have 760GB in my computer, temporarily. My Western Digital 120GB IDE drive had an error a month ago, so I got some Seagate 7200.7s and put them on an Adaptec SATA RAID card (RAID 1). After I remove my old drive, and discounting the mirrored drive, I have almost half of a terabyte of storage on my local computer (and it's mostly full already).

What's interesting is that almost ten years ago, I was making the similar claim about having 500MB -- half a gigabyte! Most other people I knew either didn't have a computer, or had much less than 500MB. Heh, and today, I've got 1.5GB of RAM alone :P.

Oh, one little rant. Windows setup sucks. Horribly. If you've had to install Windows onto a “3rd party mass storage device” (well, duh, Microsoft doens't make hard disks), you know what I'm talking about. It actually requires you to have a floppy disk drive. A floppy! Who the hell has one of those? Oh, you can do the $OEM$ thing, if you can figure it out. Microsoft doesn't have any guide on adding your drivers to the Windows boot CD. Nope. I mean, would it have been that difficult to have it also be able to load from a CD-ROM? I've got 2 spare CD burners here. Not a single FDD! I had to get someone to bring one down, and then waste probably an hour trying to get it to work, find an actual diskette that worked, etc... Sigh.

Well, at least I hear Longhorn will have an amazing setup system...