2018 Fall December 31 Monday

#Purple_Days_and_Golden_Nights

#Jourey_of_18

#Winter_of_19

36 degrees this morning, rain, no walk, 95% humidity, feels like 29 degrees 

Rain again this morning. At least it isn’t freezing rain or snow!  Supposed to be about the same temperature all day.

Walked at a “inside” track yesterday, felt good to “exercise” walk again, although my pace was extremely slow.  I thought I was walking fast, and I was probably slower than I even have been walking outside!  Of course it could be I haven’t “exercised walked” for a while also and walking inside is just different.  

Did some of my “exercises”, need to learn how to set some of the machines etc.  It will be good to do them on a regular basis.  Hopefully I can also start swimming again also.  

Last day of 2018 today.   Looking back over the year, it is more or less a blur.  Somehow, as life proceeded, the years begin to meld together to where it is difficult to remember what happened each year, or remember the year an event happented.   (This started when I was in my late 20’s, maybe early 30’s).  

Sad in a way, that each year gradually becomes vague, with some years standing out.  The year Aliene and I got married I remember (although with the year before), the year we moved to Tennessee, then then years blur until we moved in 2014, but now even those years from 2014 to 2018 (soon 2019) are somewhat of a blur.

I remember how I used to wait for something to happen and then suddenly it had happened (graduation from high school, graduation from college, the Air Force, first job etc.).    

I can remember talking while in college about how hard it would be to work all year, no Summer’s off, long Christmas breaks etc.  Actually not hard at all, the years suddenly pass until I am considering when I will retire, although I plan on retirement activities  

As possible retirement approaches, I keep thinking I need to plan for another “encore retirement” activity, probably not a full-time job, but something I enjoy doing, but that gives me more time.  I am looking forward to time to ride my bicycle, walk etc., exercise etc, as well as a chance to read and start a new challenge.

I have been thinking of various things I can do after I retire. While I currently  see “retirement” as some vague, “future time”, I am sure it will get here before I know it, although I don’t have any specific plans or even a time frame.  

I enjoy my job and the variety of activities, and will see what unfolds.  In any event, I can’t ‘retire’ from my current job until I get a specific minimum time in.  

I will probably do some reflection today on 2018 and 2019.  As I have mentioned before, I am not all that interested in reviewing the past, except to review “what worked” and “what didn’t work”.  

Whatever, 2019 will be here tomorrow and another year begins

Wishing all a Happy and Rewarding 2019!

That’s it for now, Monday, December 31, 2018.

#resist 

2018 Fall December 30 2018

#Purple_Days_and_Golden_Nights
#Journey_of_18
#Winter_of_19

29 degrees this morning, no walk, 76% humidity 

Supposed to warm up today, after a very cold day yesterday.  Did walk and bicycle inside, starting regular program of exercise involving “all body” workout, based on training sessions.  

Another disappointment with a local furniture store.  Supposed to “call” to deliver an item, instead they e-mailed.  Since when I am “in the field” I don’t normally check my personal e-mail until after I get back, I didn’t realize that they had e-mailed a time that we couldn’t be here. 

I have a feeling that it didn’t matter, they are in this area for certain period of time, which is understandable.

However, supposed to deliver today (Sunday)  and didn’t get an e-mail or phone call on a delivery time as promised.  

I never quite trust this furniture company anyway supposed to the the best and lowest price etc, but of course they always load various fees on etc. and sometimes I think they deliver a different (inferior) product than you see in the showroom.   Probably not, but it frequently seems to be a disappointing purchase.  

They use “commission-only” sales persons which is probably part of the problem.  In theory that should work as they attempt to develop a following, but it seems to be a matter of-over-concern with the immediate sale and no concern about follow-up satisfaction.  

Just my thoughts on it, a lot of people are very satisfied with them.  

I always get a little concerned about getting “captured” by possessions.  I’m not really talking about big items, I mean the small items.  I’ve carted “free” items I’ve picked up at conferences or small purchases around on the basis “I may need them” sometime, even though it makes more sense just to buy them when I need them!  (You ought to see my “pen” collection even after I tossed all of them that the ink had stiffened etc.)

Actually, make that “if” I need them!  I have actually gotten much better, still have an emotional attachment to “stuff” I need to just toss or give away.  It is actually much easier to give it away, hoping someone can use it!  

I have always resented the “pushy” sales people on houses, cars ad other high-priced items you may live with for years!  I really am not going to make a decision about a house or a car etc. based on a one-time visit etc.  

As they say, “mistakes” are the way you get “experience”.  There is nothing worse than buying a big purchase and then seeing a “fatal flaw” that you really can’t (or at least will be very irritating) to live with!

We have adopted the policy that we won’t “learn to live” with a design error etc., the small defects suddenly loom large when you have to live with them!   We just don’t buy (or rent or whatever) it if it has a defect we think may become hard to live with.  

A lot of it stems from “expectations”.  It is good to have high expectations, but it is also good to be realistic about your expectations.  Will go into more detail on this on another day!

That’s it for now, Sunday, December 30, 2018.  

#resist

2018 Fall Deceber 29 Saturday

25 degrees this morning, feels like 15 degrees, no walk, humidity 81%

No walk this morning, simply not used to walking in cold. Plan on walking inside later today.

Hopefully this won’t be a permanent change, unless that is the best.  

Even though it was only  a 3 day work-week, I was ready for the weekend!   I will actually have the weekend, followed by one work day, followed by another holiday (New Year Day).

Working with the Trainer has been interesting.  It has pointed out areas I need to work on as well as changes in technique I need to make.  Most of it I enjoy, a few not so much!  

Staples accidentally sent a double order to me.  As I had mentioned previously, my order took over a week and one-half to get here and than I get a double order.  What irritates me is that instead of arranging to pick it up, they expect me to take it to a Staples store or a UPS store.  

Again, wasting an hour of time due to their mistake.  

A similar situation is the medical (doctors visits, tests etc.).  They make a mistake on filing insurance and then expect us to pay for their incompetence.  Again, the problem is the time I hassle with calling the error to their attention, and then calling the insurance company to prove they made a mistake, I have wasted several hours on their errors.

What makes it even more irritating is their high-handed arrogance that they “didn’t make a mistake” until you prove they did.  

“Mistakes” like his (always in favor of the Doctor or clinic of course) have ranged from several dollars to $900!  Radiologists and  anesthesiologists seem  to be the most arrogant and make the biggest mistakes, followed by dermatologists.  Just our experience.  

The cold weather has been somewhat of a surprise, although we are very glad it wasn’t that cold when it  rained all day earlier this week!   We have been reading about the snow storms and are glad all we had to deal with is cold weather and rain!

Local elections are  coming up over the next few months.  I expect the campaigns will heat up after the first of the year.  It will be interesting since there are primaries for each seat.  There will be a 3 new (of a 5 member Council) no matter what since two Council members decided not run again and the Mayor passed away.

As I have noted before, people don’t pay a lot of attention to local elections, even though they voters have the most impact on local elections and  City Council  has the most impact on the local residents.  Also, the City Council etc. is most accessible to the voters.

By contrast, a lot of attention is paid to the presidential election, and, in this state, it doesn’t really matter how you vote (due to the Electoral College system).  Basically 5 or so states elect the President, which makes it easy for an incompetent to steal it.

I’m not making any “New Year Resolutions”.  Hopefully I will continue to improve on a daily basis (continuous improvement”.  

Nothing wrong with New Year Resolutions, they just aren’t for me.  

I will need to get used to writing “2019” or “19”!  I am thinking of just writing it down a few ties so I won’t be writing “18” any more!

That’s it for today, Saturday, December 29, 2018.

2018 Winter December 28 Friday

27 degrees this morning (feels like 19), no walk, 74% humidity 

Planning to walk this morning, didn’t  for obvious reason (27 degrees with a 12 mph wind), I decided to wait!  I can walk on an inside area now, need to get started on it.  

Read a “lesson” on “leadership” that hit home.  The “thought” (or “lesson”) was “leadership is observing peoples conditions and knowing them in both upper and lower echelons”.  

The “lesson” specific that when “inner conditions” are understood, then the inside and outside are in “harmony”.

While the language is a little different, the lesson is that “a leader cannot discern peoples psychological conditions,  then “matters are disordered” and “leadership goes to ruin”.  

It mentioned that (my summary), poor leadership results from a leader who “holds to biased news, fails to comprehend peoples feelings, rejects community counsel, gives importance to own authority and practices private favoritism”.

I don’t know if I could have said that, but I certainly agree with it.  Having seen Leadership from both sides has certainly provided me some perspective on Leadership.

I really think the biggest problem of Leaders is simply failure to listen and consider other opinions, an arrogance in thinking only your perspective is the correct one.  

Obviously the worst problem is the “ivory tower” where a leader develops a group of people who are scared to tell the leader the truth.  That is probably the biggest step to failure.

I think that is the importance of a free press and it is a shame when a news network, newspapers,  becomes a propaganda machine for the politicians and it loses all perspective of the truth and fairness.  

I recently read some Facebook entries  that were really embarrassing and scary.  Comments on the news that Michelle Obama was the most respected woman in America.  The comments were hateful, lies and made me wonder what rock these cretins crawled from.  Obviously they are living in their own world of hate and racism.  I guess I should feel sorry for them for being so filed with such hate.

I blocked them permanently so their hate and insecurity would not infect me.  

I think that is the legacy of the lying coward incompetent lunatic.  The way he just flat lied to American troops overseas is amazing as well as turning a “troop visit” to a political campaign.  Lied that they “hadn’t had a raise in years” when they had a raise every year from 1983 and he lied they had “gotten a 10% raise” this year when it was 2.6%.  Why does anyone believe anything this lunatic says? 

That’s it for now, Friday, December 28,2018.

2018 Fall December 27 Thursday

56 degrees this morning, no walk, 91% humidity 

No walk this morning, about ready to get started again, hopefully tomorrow or Saturday.

Heavy rain all day yesterday, one of those days of continuous heavy rain.  On the way home, there was very limited visibility in addition to the rain.  One of those times when I just drive carefully and hope everyone else is also!

Still eating “Christmas leftovers”, which is always good for a change!  I think leftovers are one of the pleasures of the holidays!

I have several books of “thoughts” i glance at occasionally. Sometimes I don’t see anything that ignites thoughts, other times I do.  

I noted a short thought about how “the fire that burns the meadow starts from a small flame” and “the river that erodes the mountain starts drop by drop”.  

The thought also notes “s small flame can be extinguished by a cup of water” and “a little bit of water can be blocked by earth” etc.  

The thought ties this into the “Fires of resentment” and the “fire of malice”  and the water of affection and attachment.

The point is that it is easy to extinguish the “fires of resentment and malice” before they get out of hand and turn into huge fires we can’t control.  

One of those concepts it is easy to understand but sometimes hard to implement!  I will try to remember to suppress my “flames of resentment and malice” while they are small!

I think the problem (or perhaps opportunity) with such “book of thoughts” is that “when the student is ready the teacher appears”, but sometimes the student simply isn’t ready and I don’t know how I remain or become “ready”.  Easier said than done!

I found a good “app”, or at least  good so far.  “Auto Sleep” for the apple watch.  If you sleep with your watch on, it is amazingly effective at tracking your sleep and the times you are in “deep sleep” etc.  

The app provides a “summary” of actual sleep time, time in “deep sleep” and the time in “quality sleep”, as well as your average sleeping pulse. A

s far as I can tell, it is accurate, including being able  to differentiate between “sleep” and just lying down and not sleeping.  The app also picks up on my “naps” and assigned eh quality of sleep to each phase.

I’m not sure what  I am going to do with the information, but it is interesting to review it.  I’ll look at the app and research and see if I need to change my sleeping habits!

That’s it now, Thursday, December 27, 2018.

2018 Fall December 26 Wednesday

56 degrees this morning, no walk, 95% humidity 

No walk, light rain in any event, also not sure if it is quite time to resume walking yet, still have some effects from the heal cold etc.

Actually got up thinking about walking, but the rain would have stopped a walk in any event.  

Traditionally, we go out to eat on Christmas Day.  We continued that tradition yesterday, at a relatively new restaurant which was doing Christmas Dinner for the first time.  It was wonderful and the food was excellent.  Of course, too much to eat also!  

Another “tradition” we have is watching “A Christmas Story” every Christmas. Now, we watch it straight through.  However, when we lived in Lakeland and visited for Christmas, we frequently stayed in a hotel, we would catch parts of it all day as we went in an out.  

No matter how may times I see it, I always see something new (or maybe that I forgot).

One of my favorite Christmas songs (among many) is “I’l be home for Christmas” and one of my favorite performances of it is is by Rascal Flatts  I hadn’t see it this year, but am watching a recording of it while I write this.  A last Christmas present for a great Christmas!  

Speaking of energy savings etc., I recently learned that an artificial Christmas tree would have to reused for 20 years for it to be “greener’ than using a living tree!  I assume because of the manufacturing process for the artificial  Christmas tree.  

However, I doubt that includes the environmental  cost of traveling to pick up the natural tree, the environmental  costs of disposing of it etc.  

i don’t have anything against a “natural” Christmas tree, I just think it is so much easier to have a artificial tree, plus you don’t have worry about bugs, tree debris etc.  And,in my case, being allergic to it!

Today is my first “field day” since last Thursday.  I am trying to plan where I can avoid (and avoid bothering) the “after Christmas” sales crowds!

Another dream.  I have been having a lot of wild dreams lately, this is one i had written my memory of it.  For some reason, I don’t remember most of them long enough to write down.

12-25-18:  Dreamed Aliene and I were  in  a hotel in attending a conference.  I was trying to find where to go for for a lunch meeting.

I couldn’t find the location  I went round the hotel looking.  I suddenly realized I was wearing only a long sleeve white shirt and undershorts.

I looked for an elevator and couldn’t find an elevator.  

Then I realized I didn’t have a key.  I was thinking about wrapping a towel around myself to get a hotel key.   

I woke up

That’s it for now, Wednesday, December 26, 2018

2018 Winter December 25 Tuesday

36 degrees this morning, no walk, 92% humidity 

No walk this morning, feeling much better.  Probably will hold off on resuming walks until at least this weekend since Wednesday and Thursday will be “field days” and Friday will include a Training day.  It will be good to get back to my routine.  

Finished watching “The Wire” yesterday.  It only lasted five seasons and was from around 2008 to 2008, but it is still listed as “the best” series ever on HBO. I agree.  It was an amazing series and while I realize is was basically 10 years old at the newest, it really didn’t seem that old.

As I mentioned before, the casual use of some the language is jarring, unrealistic and doesn’t really contribute to the story, but it is an excellent series in spite of this juvenile error on the part of the series.

Oddly enough “The Sopranos” is the second “best series ever” on HBO.  I agree for the most part although some of the later stages got overextended.  

The ending of The Wire was unfortunate, they tried to tie too many things together.  If they had wanted to do that, they should have added another year and finished it up.  By far, the first season is the best, with possibly the 4th season next, although all five seasons are excellent.  

Endings can be a problem and “The Wire” didn’t handle it well.  

By contrast, “The Sopranos” was the best ending of a series I have ever seen.  Although I don’t watch many series,  I can’t imagine a better ending.  

All, “in my opinion”, like everything else I write here!  

Sometimes, I think the supporters of the lying coward incompetent lunatic must support him like a secret part of us supports Tony Soprano or some of the criminals (on both sides) in “The Wire”.   

Tony Soprano and the criminals in “The Wire” had some redeeming human qualities (as in many movies and novels) which is why you have qualms about your feelings about their future.  

Trying to find another series to watch on my lunch breaks and “coffee shop” breaks.  Started “Orange is the New Black”, but so far I don’t think it will be worth my time.  I may watch a little more, but it really doesn’t keep my attention and doesn’t appear to be near as well acted as “The Sopranos” and “The Wire”.  I don’t want to stop it too soon, but I”m not going to invest a lot of time in it either.  

Last, and most important, day of the Christmas holidays.  Our family Christmas is basically over, although we have out own tradition we follow on Christmas Day.  

After Christmas, there seems to be a basic shift in our cultural behavior, from Christmas to the New Year.  To me, the shift is rather jarring, but, as I said, endings are difficult.

That’s it for now, Christmas 2018, Tuesday, December 25, 2018.

2018 Winter December 24 Monday

36 degrees this morning (feels like 30), no walk, 75 % humidity 

Feeling much better, but yesterday I had a little temporary setback after apparently swallowing (if that is the correct word) some dust.  Fortunately it was temporary. 

However, it did make me consider how soon I was resuming walking outside.  I wasn’t planning on it today anyway, due to some other event this morning, but I was hoping tomorrow or Wednesday.  We’ll see, probably be more like late this week.  

Read yesterday about the “zero energy use home”.  The concept is that the home uses technology (solar, LED lighting, well insulated etc.) so that the “net energy use” is either zero or actually produces power.  

I don’t recall ever hearing about the concept except in unique cases, but California is requiring all new residential structures meet the standard by 2020 and all commercial structures by 2030.  

Apparently many new houses are currently being built to the “zero energy” standard.  

Since homes consume 40% of all energy, the potential future of this is amazing.  However, it is so expensive to retrofit an existing home, it is almost or is cheaper to build new then to retrofit and existing home to a “zero net energy” home.  

Many “net zero energy” homes incorporate electric vehicle charging into their structure to further extend energy savings.  

I expect the development of batteries that can power houses “off the grid” will further extend the conservation of energy.  It will be interesting to watch this trend develop.  

I haven’t read about any big development in battery technology lately, but expect there is a lot of work on it.

The lying coward lunatic is really losing it.  He displayed his cowardly ways again by not having even having the courage to tell the Secretary of Defense he was going to remove him two months early since he was telling the truth about him and the lunatic only accepts praise and is very thin skinned.   

He actually was so cowardly, he did it through a “tweet”, apparently after receiving his walking instructions from the fox propaganda machine, “fox and bootlickers” and the nutzo talk show hosts. 

Appears the lying coward lunatic can’t make up his own mind, he has to listen to his “handlers”, extreme nuts that are only interested in promoting themselves so they can get more advertising money, Russia, and his donors and lobbyists.  

I is really scary to think that the lying incompetent coward lunatic is running round like a spoiled kid, careening from all over in response to a bunch of extreme nuts, his donors and lobbyists,  and taking his orders from Russia to boot.  

As some reports mention there are no more “adults” in the room, just a bunch of nuts, and big donors and lobbyists who have already ripped off trillions of tax $ from the lunatic.  

Time for the congressional cowards to develop some courage and stop this lunatic before it is too late, if it already isn’t. 

I think in a lot of ways the congressional cowards who enabled this lunatic so they could rip off trillions in “tax breaks” and government contracts for their donors and lobbyists are as much a villain as the lunatic.  

That’s it for now, Monday, December 24, 2018.  Take a break and have a Merry Christmas  

2018 Winter December 23 Sunday

35 degrees this morning, no walk, 84% humidity. 

Starting to feel better, hopefully can start walking again in next several days.  Still trying to get more sleep etc. until I feel “right”.  Feeling much better, still periods of feeling like I’m “talking in a tunnel”.  

Our finding of the general level of incompetent and careless work by businesses continues.  

First, yesterday we were in a store and thought we’d found some nice gifts.  However, we get home we realized they were defective to the point that someone was very careless in putting them back for for sale.

Of course, we were also negligent in not looking more carefully, instead of assuming the store wouldn’t put out defective merchandise.  

While of course the store gave us our money back, we had to waste an hour or more taking it back and hassling with afternoon Christmas traffic. etc.  

While in the parking lot, someone backed into our car, but fortunately no damage was done, it was very low speed.  

I really don’t know why backup cameras, and the basic safety items,  alerts for moving objects while backing, lane change alerts, etc. are required on all new cars.  It appears that public safety should mandate it.

Of course, I already know one reason, the large “contributions” from car manufacturers to politicians, probably a number of other items.  

However, those basic protections are so valuable, it is a shame they are’t standard on all new cars.  

Another example of inane incompetence is work performed on our retaining wall.  This was a wider project that also involved fence repair and some other minor work.

We thought we were somewhat protected, we when through one of the private “handyman” companies that supposedly hire the best contractors etc. to protect you from the scams and incompetence prevalent in the home repair industry.  

We quickly learned they don’t have much control over their contractors.  The first one missed numerous appointments, would show up when you didn’t expect him etc. 

Overall, he did a reasonable, but overall incompetent job.  On the retaining wall, he obviously had not idea what he was doing, and he disappeared, apparently scamming the company also.  

Of course, we were somewhat protected, since the company paid him and was responsible for his work.

After several months of delay, the company finally got someone to work on the retaining wall, and we were very disappointed to see yesterday the work was throughly unacceptable.  It was obviously just thrown together hoping we wouldn’t look at it I guess.  Of course we advised them the work was unacceptable, but here we go again, having to waste hours of time due to an incompetent contractor and business.  

That’s it for now, Sunday, December 23, 2018.