From time to time I'm asked by those I help or those who want to help me or thank me for some reason - "what would be a special gift for you?"

I do the same for others, including sending programmers and sysadmin types everything from DVDs on an Amazon wishlist, a digital camera, hosting services or a subscription fee to an online group, etc.

I've enjoyed gifts of flowers, Godiva (but I'm on a diet now, no sugah please), Issey Miyake perfume, cases of Red Bull, store gift cards, CDs, pre-owned items no longer needed by the giftor, etc.

There are some things which would enhance my ability to do a great job helping others. If you are in a position and wish to provide or contribute toward something, the following list may be considered a guide. (Amazon gift certificate works well if you prefer simple.)

Thank you,

- April Lorenzen

Yep tomorrow is my birthday. 44.

I would like a toaster and cds of the "Starseeds" and or William Orbit ...   more »

I don't do Itunes, but would like the track "Awaken" by Sophie & Ives  

I heard it on SomaFM.com's Groove Salad downbeat ambient internet radio station.

For the Outbound Index expansion and our support of all-volunteer organizations:

Texas Memory Systems solid state disks and lots of them, specifically in the 10's of gigabytes would be helpful and we could put 100's of gB of them to work immediately.

Rack mount servers needed: minimum p3 or equivalent, duals are great, the more RAM the better, hot swap RAID nice, redundant P/S nice. Even if some are non-working for parts / spares this would be helpful.

Network Attached Storage

Reasonably modern high capacity hard drives, SCSI, IDE or SATA.

RAM

2U or 1U cases

Pulizzi power units that take two power sources (data center A and B power) and supply single power supply servers.

A good large frame bike, lightweight is nice. I've had several very interesting bikes to ride. One had a cam system on the crank such that the down stroke on the pedals had a different effect than the up. Another was just a very nice but lightweight comfortable seat mountainish bike.Friends left them with me for awhile and asked me to ride them to keep them from rusting up. I need a bike with a lot of gears because we do have hills here on the island.

An electric car like the cute ones rented to tourists in San Francisco. I could use this in good weather for 90% of my travel and I have a couple of very nice big solar panels I could use to do some of the charging.

Or an electric motor assist kit for my Rhoades Car. That's a 4 wheeled bicycle I have. Unfortunately I think the ahem un-ergonomic unevolved positioning of the recumbent seats makes it far less efficient to pedal than a bicycle. Both passenger and driver can pedal and it has 36 gears but - it is not practical around here w/o power assist. Again I have the solar panels I could use to charge it if I had any workable motorizing kit.

A secondary disc brake for the Rhoades Car. Already has the primary one.

UPDATE: I have a 2001 Volvo V70 now so we have seatbelts and heat. Gas mileage not so good :) - avg 22 mpg. We don't go far now.

A newer, safer automobile than I have (1991 Dodge Colt)  - ie one where the seat belts will definitely work in a crash. Either gas or hybrid but I'd need something with decent gas mileage. I used to have a wonderful Honda with a moonroof, A/C and power everything - but we got T-boned by a pickup truck on the passenger side. Luckily my son was unharmed due to the good construction of the doors and side reinforcements of the Honda Prelude.

Wild request - Segway - for the geek fascination factor.

UPDATE - I have all of these for the moment but unsure if the arrangement will be sustained. I don't get covered for everything in Rhode Island because I'm a single mother.

Here in the USA we do not have socialized medical care. If you work for a small company as I do, you can wind up with no medical coverage. On my wishlist:

A routine medical appointment

A routine set of lab tests for my age range

Two routine dental visits

Medical insurance. In Rhode Island, I think Neighborhood Health is the best.

UPDATE: I got everything except the Lasix but did get the See Clearly Method which I believe works - I could just use some support in doing it daily... also I found online places to sell glasses for $39 or even $10 (only down side is the nose pads coming off on some) such as 39dollarglasses.com.

Eye exam from Vision World or Lenscrafters or Dr. Grimes office in Newport Rhode Island.

New lenses which will be needed after the exam - new frames as the  enamel is worn off these frames in most places and one side cannot be folded up due to super glue. Nice job on the gluing tho, its quite invisible. One of the few times super glue has actually done any good for me.

Lasix or similar laser eye surgery to correct near-sightedness.