Thinking Out Loud

13:24 Wednesday, 18 February 2015
Words: 82

It's interesting to me that I find it very easy to quickly write comments to the things people link to on Facebook, but I find it much more difficult to begin writing something here, which is where I'd prefer to do most of my writing. I suppose it's the stimulus of a likely audience and the chance for rapid feedback. That's a bit of a double-edged sword, as the immediacy and artificial sense of urgency can lead to some unfortunate misunderstandings.

Silence

13:53 Wednesday, 18 February 2015
Words: 258

At first, I thought my comfort and enjoyment in experiencing silence was a reaction to many years of working in a very noisy environment. But I've been away from that environment for over twenty months and I still seem to prefer silence than some artificial source of sound, be it television, radio or recorded music. There are no fewer than twenty speakers within 10 feet of me right now, and none of them are emitting any sound. I've even gone through and silenced most of the notifications and alerts from my various computers and mobile devices. The phone still rings, and there's a discreet sound for an iMessage, but nothing else.

And that's the way it is for most of the day.

Of course, there is a bit of a downside, it sometimes makes my tinnitus much more noticeable. And the sounds from outside the condo are often unwelcome and intrusive. We're doing maintenance and repairs on the exterior steel staircases, so there's the sound of hammers and grinders and the like. On Thursdays, the landscapers come and it's just a cacophony of small internal combustion engines and leaf blowers. On Thursdays, I sometimes do wear headphones.

It's anecdotal, so I'm not sure if it's significant though I do find it troubling that there seems to be far fewer Cardinals singing this year. Mockingbirds too. I've been out looking for the Cedar Waxwings, but their numbers have been far below what they had been in years past. Perhaps they've found better places to go. I hope so anyway.

Donna 2015

14:23 Wednesday, 18 February 2015
Words: 661

Last Sunday, I ran the 26.2 with Donna half marathon (so, perhaps only "13.1 with Donna?"). My legs have been pretty healthy this year, I haven't had any achilles tendonitis or plantar fasciitis to contend with for the first time in a long time. I didn't train as much as I should have, but I did better than the previous two years.

One of the things that is somewhat frustrating in running any sort of distance race today, especially ones that are put on in support of causes, is that there are so many runners using the Galloway Method. I want to be supportive, but I really don't enjoy running with them. The Galloway Method is a combination of running and walking that can offer better finish times than running alone for a certain type of runner. Ironically, I'm probably that type of runner, i.e. not especially gifted when it comes to running. Nevertheless, the experience I'm most accustomed to, the one I seem to prefer, is to simply plod along at a consistent pace.

The problem comes with the Galloway people and the tendency they have to run in packs of anywhere from two to twenty people. I was planning a 12:30 pace and I was stuck with a similar pace group of Galloway runners. I'd be plodding along, and then there'd be a bunch of electronic beeps, someone who fancied himself a drill sergeant or something bellowing "Running!" and they'd pass me (by the whole bloody clot of them running past me on my right and on my left) on the running cycle of their run/walk. Shortly after they'd pass me, there would be the beeps and the bellow, "Walking!" (Like, what? They can't remember what to do next?) and they'd slow to a walking pace, and I'd have to run around or through them! That slowed me down and was frustrating. Wash-rinse-repeat, every few minutes for over two hours!

Adding to the annoyance is the fact that it seems to be a social event for them; and because they're walking for much of the race, they carry on endless conversations! The chatter did diminish as we started running up the overpass over A1A, and the bridge over the Intracoastal Waterway toward the end of the race. At that point I just let them pass me and stay ahead of me. I was a bit spent from running faster than I'd intended for miles 5 - 11, which included the mile on the beach, just trying to get away from them. They were supposedly running a 12:45 pace, though I had to keep up a 12:06 pace to stay ahead of them. On the bridge, my Garmin showed I could still make my 12:30 pace if I just walked and let them get way ahead of me. (Officially, I ran the course at a 12:31 pace. Garmin and RunKeeper showed 12:23 pace over a distance of 13.24 miles.)

I'm glad that the Galloway Method™ allows people who might otherwise not run these type of races to get out and participate, but I think they're oblivious to the effect their participation has on other, more conventional, runners. If they had any awareness, perhaps they'd exhibit some consideration and run two abreast in their groups, keep to one side of the course and keep the chatter, the beeping and the bellowing to a minimum. But I'm not holding out much hope.

In any event, I'm pretty happy with my performance. Some friends of mine even made a sheet poster they hung from their house and cheered for me as I ran by, that was pretty cool! The weather was just about perfect, and my quads have stopped hurting this morning.

Maybe by the time I need to start training for next year, I'll have forgotten about how incredibly annoying the Galloway people are and I'll sign up and do it again.

Bit of Blog

05:26 Tuesday, 18 February 2020
Words: 1234

Over halfway through the second month of the year, and nothing heard from the Marmot.

Do not be alarmed. I'm still here. A tiny bit of a lesser man, but still here nevertheless.

Had my gall bladder removed last Friday. Yep, Valentine's Day. Never let it be said that I don't plan ahead. Had flowers delivered Thursday! Hold your applause. They were very well received.

A couple of years ago, I was doing some intermittent fasting, which I'd done before with no ill effects. Except, you know, I don't really follow the recommendations. Most of the diets I'd read about recommended you eat about 200-300 calories on the day you're fasting. I figured, "Screw that! I'm just going to eat nothing!" Which was easier than I thought it might be. The key thing is to keep yourself distracted and drink water from time to time. And I found if I did that, I could lose between one and two pounds a week, as long as I maintained my activity level on fasting days. Cool.

But, "diets" don't really work unless you stay on them, and I'd go off after I'd lost ten pounds or so and then I'd gain that back, which isn't good. I was fasting two days a week, Mondays and Thursdays, days not really associated with social dining, except for Thursday once a year, but otherwise it's pretty transparent to your daily life. One remarkable thing I noticed was how much time you devote to eating; and on fasting days, when you're really conscious of time, well, it adds to the challenge a bit.

Anyway, started my third go-round with intermittent fasting on a Thursday and as usual, I wake up on Friday morning and have a nice big breakfast of bacon and eggs and toast, probably some avocado, some cheese. Yum!

About two hours later, I'm doubled over in pain, feeling like I'm being punched in the stomach. If a stomach punch was a continuous experience. At first I thought it was food poisoning or something. Experience lasted for several hours, finally abated and wow! Hoped that would never happen again!

Fasted Monday, Tuesday morning had a big breakfast with different groceries and two hours later, boom! This time I'm on the phone to my doctor and they got me in that day to see someone. They draw some blood and I get a call later that afternoon and the doc tells me (he's a resident, so he consults with an attending) that they considered having me drive to the ER and admitting me. My liver enzymes are off the charts. But there's no other indications, so the plan is to come back the next day and draw some more blood and see what they're doing.

I end up chatting with my little sister, Diane, who works for a medical malpractice insurance company, and she says, "It's your gall bladder. Get it out!" She'd had her gall bladder removed several years previously for similar symptoms. I told her the doc had said they thought it might be gall bladder, but they don't see liver enzymes like this with gall bladder. So she gets on her computer and in a couple of hours I have some papers that show an association of gall bladder attacks with high liver enzymes.

So I go back in for the blood work, and they'd also scheduled an ultrasound for my liver and gall bladder. Get all that done and then wait for the results. It's Mayo, so they're pretty quick. I get a call back that day from the resident and the good news is the liver enzymes are down - a little. Liver looks good. (Yay, liver!) Gall bladder though, well that thing is full of "sludge" (that's a medical term) and stones and so forth. And they give me a surgical consult.

Meet with the surgeon, he says it should come out right away. Well, we were getting ready to go to Ireland for almost two weeks. A lot of lifting of heavy suitcases, pints of beer and so forth, probably not compatible with recovering from surgery. It is laparoscopic, but still. Meanwhile, I'd stopped the fasting and was symptom-free. My theory was that as long as I was eating daily, my clogged up gall bladder could manage to regulate itself such that it wouldn't feel like it was trying to kill me. But if I gave it a day off, it probably filled up a tiny bit more than "usual" and then when it had to suddenly do it's thing, it got all plugged up.

We had a couple of weeks before we were supposed to leave, I figured I'd watch what I was eating and see what happened. Didn't want to be in Ireland being sick either, so it was kind of touch and go. But no symptoms as long as I wasn't fasting.

So, go to Ireland, had a great time, no problems. Come home, no symptoms, kind of forget about the whole thing.

Then last summer, Diane comes to visit us in the Finger Lakes and she asks me about my gall bladder, as sisters do. I told her I still had it and she said, "I told you to get it out. You don't need it and you don't want to know all the horrible things that can go wrong!" So I promised her I'd get it out.

Well, we came back from the Finger Lakes, started to move into the new house and then Mitzi broke her wrist! So we do the Mayo thing for her wrist and one walking wounded is enough, so I put the gall bladder on pause. Fast forward to last November, and we realize that Mitzi's wrist has met our max out of pocket for Tricare, and I should probably try to get my gall bladder removed while it would be fully covered (no out of pocket).

Things don't happen that fast. Had another surgical consult and the soonest they could get me in was Valentine's Day. So that's what we did!

Outpatient surgery, but you do have general anesthesia so there's a bit more to it. Went in at 5:30 a.m., was home by about 1:00 p.m. No heavy lifting for several weeks. Didn't need any narcotics. Took some acetaminophen the first couple of days, felt like a mild stomach ache and an occasional twinge from an incision (there are four). But nothing since. Probably overdid it Saturday, ended up in bed at 4:00 p.m. and stayed there until Sunday morning, but fine since then.

Once I'm fully recovered, I'm going to give the intermittent fasting thing a try again. See what happens. I'd like to try the "fast five" thing, where you eat all your calories in a 5-hour period during the day, every day, but that doesn't align very well with the social aspects of eating, and I enjoy breakfast too much. I'd rather have five normal days and two days when I'm unavailable and slightly grumpy. But we'll see.

Anyway, I'm still here. One little bit less of me than before, but no big deal. Joni Mitchell comes to mind, "Something's lost and something's gained, in living every day." Who needs a gall bladder anyway?

Thanks for stopping by. Hope you're well. I'll be back this way again soon.

Life Goes On

08:54 Friday, 18 February 2022
Current Wx: Temp: 50.31°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 94% Wind: 4.61mph
Words: 371

I was catching up on a bunch of unread blog posts in NetNewsWire, which is such a good feature of a feed reader. A lot of great stuff that I'd missed, but it was all still waiting for me.

Anyway, I read this post from Mike Warot and wanted to mention something about it.

There's only one aspect of the post that I wish to mention. Mike talks about visiting webcams in Ukraine to determine for himself what the situation was on the date he reviewed them. He hasn't subsequently updated the post, so I don't know what a current review would reveal.

One of the things I found kind of surprising in both The German War, and the documentary, Berlin Diary of a Metropolis, is that life goes on, even at war.

I can't say why I found it surprising. I guess I'd expected that everyone would have been fleeing, the city would have been empty. But people are weird. Many, perhaps most, don't leave. Maybe they don't feel they have anywhere to go, maybe they feel defiantly that it's their city, their home. I don't know. But even with the Russians just kilometers outside the city, people went to the movies.

I'm reading My War Gone By, I Miss It So, by Anthony Loyd about his experiences in Bosnia. It began in Sarajevo in 1993, after the city had already been wracked by war. People still lived there. Still had to go to the market. You risked death from a random mortar round landing in front of your house, or sniper fire as you made your way to wherever you needed to go. But life went on, punctuated by death I suppose.

So I would say that looking at webcams, expecting to see some evidence of anxiety or preparation for invasion, is likely futile. Unless or until someone is actually shooting at you, or rounding you up and putting you in a concentration camp, life goes on.

I would also say, sadly, it is perhaps useful and instructive to read twentieth century accounts of cities at war, or with active insurgencies.

Probably some useful and practical tips that may come in handy here in America, sooner than we think.

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Ephemera

09:28 Saturday, 18 February 2023
Current Wx: Temp: 46.27°F Pressure: 1028hPa Humidity: 74% Wind: 10.36mph
Words: 651

Certain eastern spiritual traditions adhere to the notion of "the transient nature of all phenomena." Things arise, and they pass, like feelings. Like us.

They also counsel against "attachment," some emotional connection to something that you value perhaps out of proportion to its actual worth.

I've been reminded of these things the past few days as I've struggled with what to do with my image library. I spent a couple of days and deleted over five thousand images. And I still have over 105K images.

One approach I'm considering is printing books of events or subjects, some to give away, others to hang onto. The question I'm trying to resolve is whether to then delete those images from the library, because they're reified into a physical artifact; or should I delete all the images not in the books because they weren't valuable enough to print? Hang onto the digital originals of the printed ones in case someone wants a copy?

The point is, I think I'm spending a little too much time thinking about what to do with this library. This is the snare we get trapped in.

When I was in BAINBRIDGE (CGN-25), we made a port visit to Alexandria, Egypt and I took a tour to Cairo and the pyramids. Took a bunch of 35mm pictures. When I got home, my daughter took them to school to show her friends and lost them.

It's harder to lose things today, which may not be a good thing. Nevertheless, we still lose some. I spent much of yesterday nursing a limping 1TB 7500rpm 2.5 in. disk drive, trying to recover the masters from an old Aperture library. Once upon a time, I had the brilliant idea of uploading only reduced images to iCloud, thinking I could always access the full resolution images locally. Somehow, I seem to have managed to lose most of 2012. But sometime in 2018, I just started letting iCloud have the "originals." I had been maintaining my system library on an external drive, so I wasn't worried about storage and I still had the "original-originals."

In 2019, when I got the iMac with a 1TB SSD, I started using the internal drive, allowing Mac OS to "optimize" storage, keeping only thumbnails locally, while the originals upload to iCloud.

Well, the first book I printed was a 2018 wedding, and I can't find any full resolution originals. Fortunately, it's a book, I'm not printing large. There was only one image I wanted in the book that the software objected to, but I included it anyway. We'll see how it turns out when the book arrives. It's supposedly on its way.

Part of yesterday's effort was to see if I could recover those 2018 images. Alas, no. But I think I've found most of 2012! I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not.

I've been printing some at home as well. I just received a large order from Red River Paper. I hope to be printing a lot of cards. I made a couple of large prints of panos I stitched together from drone shots. I think they turned out pretty nice. The question now is, what do I do with them?

My plan, itself a transient phenomenon, for now is to print books of significant events with people I care about. Perhaps one or two of images that pleased me in some way that aren't necessarily associated with an event or people.

If I can accomplish this in a year (and afford it), I think my intention is to simply archive the Photos library on an SSD, stick it in a drawer and forget about it. Get rid of my 2TB tier of cloud storage with Apple. Process every day's images, share them with whomever or however I would share them. And then delete them.

We'll see. I'm not optimistic, but it feels right.

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Note to Mom

09:59 Saturday, 18 February 2023

Current Wx: Temp: 61.86°F Pressure: 1011hPa Humidity: 92% Wind: 3.44mph
Words: 195

I've undertaken a new project. Along with printing photo books (two completed so far), I'm going to print and mail a card to my mom every day.

Mom's going to be 90 in September. My brother visits twice a week, and she has her meals with fellow residents. My other brothers and I call regularly. I'm usually Sunday at 11:00. But I figure this should give her something else to look forward to, assuming I can keep up the effort.

I bought a bunch of card stock, a few different kinds, from Red River Paper, along with envelopes to mail them. I write a little note about the picture or what's going on here. I mailed the first one on Sunday, so she should have received a couple by now. I'll find out this Sunday.

I also need to look into how images are being exported for this little automation I have going on. I think they should look a bit better than they do.

On a Tinderbox note, the Suggested (links) notes are all image posts, which makes sense.

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Tinderbox Community

10:11 Saturday, 18 February 2023
Current Wx: Temp: 61.48°F Pressure: 1011hPa Humidity: 92% Wind: 0mph
Words: 147

On Sunday, I joined the weekly Tinderbox Zoom meet-up. (Alternates between Saturdays and Sundays at noon, Eastern time. Link and agenda usually posted in the forum.) Mark Bernstein had emailed users that the topic for this get-together was "What is Tinderbox For?" It attracted a large number of users, including James Fallows who may be familiar to some of you. Writer for The Atlantic, NPR commentator, Tinderbox user. I'm unashamed to admit I'm a fan.

It was an enjoyable experience. If you're someone who's read about Tinderbox, or might be interested in trying it, I think this might be something of a gentle introduction.

Apart from being a remarkably powerful and flexible tool for working with ideas, it also has a generous community of users built up around it, who can make much of that power and flexibility accessible.

Here's a link to the video.

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Jupiter and Venus Redux

10:32 Saturday, 18 February 2023

Current Wx: Temp: 61.77°F Pressure: 1011hPa Humidity: 92% Wind: 6.91mph
Words: 70

Clouds cooperated yesterday evening. Shot this with the 75-300mm zoom on the OM-1. Could've used the 100-400, but I don't think it would have resolved much more, perhaps another moon? ISO 25,600 shot with noise reduction by Topaz DeNoiseAI. I'm not the most skilled user and I'm afraid it shows. Still, kinda cool.

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Learning As We Go

15:35 Sunday, 18 February 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 68.4°F Pressure: 1024hPa Humidity: 92% Wind: 6.91mph
Words: 363

Still grinding away on figuring out how to use Automator. Figured I'd drop by here and wave at everybody.

Imagine my surprise when I didn't have a new March container already set up and waiting for me.

I checked my Blog Test Platform, which is where I developed the automation. There was March 2024, right where it belonged, in the 2024 container! Hmmm...

Head-scratcher. Tried a bunch of "jiggling the cable" stuff. Closed (saved) the file and re-opened. Quit Tinderbox and re-launched. Copied the working code from the test platform to the 2024 container (it was identical, but I'm easter-egging here).

I thought I'd better look at the prototype p_Year, which contains the Edict action code that 2024 inherited.

There, as one of its children, was March 2024!

Hmmm...

I'm using local variables, $MyDate and $MyString, in the Prototype and therefore in the 2024 Container. In the 2024 Container, there was the numeral "1" at the end of the Action Code. "1" means "True." I'm guessing the Edict ran first in the Prototype, which is above the archives in the Outline order.

When it ran in 2024, it seemed to be echoing the work of its Prototype, noting the existence of "March 2024" in its Prototype and so just returned a "1". Like, "Checks out, Dave. Everything's cool."

The Edict was also checked as "Enabled" in the Prototype, as I thought it would inherit that setting when the Archives container creates a new 2025 container next year, and it's OnAdd action will assign that container the p_Year Prototype, and it wouldn't be helpful if that Edict didn't fire and create "January_2025" automatically, requiring me to manually enable the Edict, you know, like an animal.

I consulted aTbRef and the Enabled check box controls the $EdictDisabled attribute, which is intrinsic and therefore not heritable. I can disable it in the Prototype and not affect the status of the Edict in the $Created notes.

Once I disabled it in the Prototype, and deleted that March 2024 container, it ran automatically in 2024, as designed. I'll update the Test Platform accordingly.

We'll see what happens on April Fools' Day.

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Updates

07:10 Tuesday, 18 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 42.91°F Pressure: 1023hPa Humidity: 67% Wind: 5.77mph
Words: 268

Crown re-attached yesterday afternoon. Doc did it himself. (Tech last time.) Time will tell.

It would appear that Mapquest on iOS is enjoying a bit of a renaissance by Gulf of Mexico enthusiasts. $1.99/month subscription for the ad-free experience. Sounds like it may be a good deal if Apple goes ahead and puts ads on Maps, because they're just greedy, capitalist corporate assholes. Installed.

Amazon is fucking with your Kindle ebooks, you have just a week to grab your library and download it before that goes away. Epubor is supposedly the go-to app for converting them to something more useful, but my efforts to install the free trial have only been rewarded with a crash on launch. I've emailed support.

At least I've downloaded my library, though I don't know if the new version of Kindle has placed some new encumbrance on them. I like ebooks from the standpoint of weight and volume, but they suck in nearly every other dimension. (See "greedy, capitalist corporate assholes," above.)

Looks like there may be a fix for the backup camera recall. I'll reach out to my sales rep and credit union. May get a 2024 Ford Maverick XL this week.

It's like 5°F at Winterfell. Glad we've had this extreme winter experience. It'll help to calibrate our design specifications for the new place. So far it hasn't "cooled" our desire to flee Florida.

Looks like it's becoming unsafe to fly.

Started watching Only Murders In the Building on Hulu. Looks like this may be the best $1.99/month subscription ever. Well, that and maybe Mapquest.

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The OM-3 and Me

15:58 Tuesday, 18 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 62.83°F Pressure: 1020hPa Humidity: 66% Wind: 13.8mph
Words: 302

I visit the micro four-thirds forum at DP Review because I have too much time on my hands, and probably also because it's something of a habit. I don't find the experience especially enjoyable. "Opinions are like assholes," and most of the content there is ("are" Verb agreement?) just opinions expressed repetitively.

Anyway, I did read a post there today that I found thoroughly enjoyable. There inevitably followed the "discussion," where some individuals repetitively expressed their opinion that the OP's (original poster) analysis was flawed, or incomplete and his conclusions certainly unjustified.

Because I'm a flawed human being, sometimes I forget that "feelings pass," and I acted on this one. I wrote a lengthy reply to the OP, though it quoted James, who remained "perplexed," as to why anyone would want to buy an OM-3.

It may get me some kind of warning from the moderator. I've been slapped on the wrist enough times that I don't often comment there anymore. I do from time to time, as my profile will show. But I've been on DP Review for a long time now (started in the Kodak forum), and I only have 821 posts (Total? M43? Probably the latter.), so I don't hang out there all day every day and respond to every little thing that scrolls across my screen.

But James kind of pissed me off.

I've had at least one of my posts deleted by a moderator. It was far less vituperative than this one, and far shorter, but who knows? So I made a copy of this one and stuck it in Captain's Log. If my reply gets deleted, I'll post it here.

It's not even a "love/hate" thing with DP Review. It's mostly "bored/hate," and I really should find better uses for my time.

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Paradise

16:42 Tuesday, 18 February 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 61.65°F Pressure: 1020hPa Humidity: 71% Wind: 9.22mph
Words: 34

I'm really enjoying Paradise on Hulu.

Especially as a commentary on why you shouldn't let emotionally damaged billionaires be in charge of anything.

Seems topical.

Also seems like it should be getting more buzz.

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Echoes From the Ether

07:19 Wednesday, 18 February 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 31.64°F Pressure: 1014hPa Humidity: 97% Wind: 3.06mph
Words: 305

Got a nice note from MacOS Guru in response to my Blogs Answer Questions post. He affirmed that the current state of affairs makes it hard to post about MacOS or emacs, his two topics of interest. And indeed, he hasn't posted since last December.

Today, AKMA makes mention of the Questions post, pointing out a blind spot in my view of "life." I'm not on any social media platform, for reasons I think I've made clear ad nauseam. AKMA mentions that his reactions and responses to the current crisis have largely occurred there.

And Jack has posted a noteworthy quotation from Hunter S. Thompson.

I'm accustomed to "ranting into the void to no discernible effect." I flatter myself that it's my Buddhist "non-attachment to results," when really, it's nice to get a response. But I would do this anyway, even if no one was reading. I've been doing it so long, it's become like breathing.

But to possibly extend my "reach," I've been commenting on YouTube videos. It's interesting to learn what people find worthwhile to respond to. Pointing out the deportation efforts and detention center construction as preparations for mass arrests of "domestic terrorists" either before or in the wake of the mid-terms, elicits no response. Perhaps too much like the ravings of a conspiracy theorist.

But mention George W. Bush, and whoa! 291 "likes" and 18 replies.

Which, in point of fact, is an unremarkable feature of "normal life."

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe we're not sleep-walking into fascist authoritarianism. Maybe it'll all "go away" after the mid-terms.

But I think if your hair isn't on fire by now, you're just sticking your head in the sand. Embracing willful ignorance. And I kind of get it, because, well, what can you do?

Well, first, "You've got to get mad!"

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