2019 Winter January 17 Thursday

#Purple_Days_and_Golden_Nights
#Journey_of_19
#Winter_of_19

2019 Winter January 17 Thursday

45 degrees this morning, walk at fitness center laer, 100% humidity., rain

Foggy all day yesterday, with that touch of cold.  Supposed to get up to near 70 degrees Friday and then a wind chill of near 0 Saturday, with snow!

Hope they are wrong on this, but I have a feeling they aren’t going to be wrong.  

The good thing, is that slowly but surely, one day at a time, we are slogging through Winter!  Next month we will have completed one month of Winter and only have two months left.  

The bad thing about Winter is that the hard part is usually over by late February, early March, but than the cold just hangs on until mid May, the really excruciating period!

Walked at fitness center yesterday morning.  I did two segments, with exercises between the segments  

Walking times were:

-Stage 1:  17:45 minutes,

-Stage 1:  17:05 minutes

My pace is still lagging about a minute (per mile) from the outside walk, but I am improving.  

I am still feeling my way on this. I want to do some of the exercises at home (the ones I can do at home) and maximize my time at the gym.  Soon I want to start swimming also, so I will need to consider how to do that.  

I may have to retire to get my exercise in! 

Discussing the concept of “success” yesterday, I thought about that as I went through my work day.  I see people whose life is focused on their business, and I see ones who feel they are “successful” because they are able to exist and others who probably don’t consider themselves “successful” even though society may view them as “successful”. 

It all depends on how you define it, and if you care.  I think it is something people should consider.  

The newspapers have not been on time since January 1.  Some days they don’t come completely, I think the earliest has been 2 1/2 hours after they used to be delivered and about 1 1/2 hours after the “guaranteed delivery”.

I kind of wonder if this isn’t some weird attempt to force subscribers to cancel and take the “internet only” subscription.  You never know anymore. 

Actually I started looking at it at the perspective of not receiving the paper and I realized I would still miss it, even as poor of a paper as the metropolitan paper has become.  I’ll probably take a “vacation suspension” of several weeks and see if I miss it or not.  

The electric razor experiment has gone a little better than I expected.  It actually works fairly well.  It wan’t until last night I figured how out how to put the electric razor into the cleaning device. 

While I manually cleaned it, it came with this rather weird “cleaning device” that has some kind of oil/cleaning cartridge.  As I mentioned, it even has warnings about keeping it again from flames etc. And of course, you have to change the oil cartridge on a regular basis at what I am sure is a high profit for the company!  They have expanded on the “give away the razor, sell the blades concept!  

Actually that is ok, if they provide a good service.

That’s it for now, Thursday, January 17, 2019. 

#resist

2016 Winter January 16 Wednesday

#Purple_Days_and_Golden_Nights
#My_Journey_19
#Winter_of_19

40 degrees this morning (feels like 35), 80% humidity, will walk at fitness center

Weather is getting better, supposedly to get up to 60 degrees this weekend, but also hear tales about “winter mix’ rain/snow/whatever.  Sometimes it is is better not to know!

Now today, January 2019 really is half over.  

“Fitness session” yesterday.  Did a lot of different exercises, all of which I am sure were good.  My problem is having the time to do them!  I guess the answer is you do what you can and don’t worry about it!

Also a big problem is remembering them!  It seems so simple when I do it, but remembering exactly how is another thing!

Asked last night at Toastmasters about “my definition of success”.  While I muddled through the response, it is an excellent question.  

Perhaps my first thought is why worry about success?  Success is a a word and life it much more than about a word.  

On the other hand, “Success” is a good measurement. However, the term “Success” is very vague as noted by the fact the question was even asked.

The question did raise some questions and thoughts for me, and I will think about it some more.  

While the response can be as complex or simple at you want it, I think “success” is self-defined, or at least I hope it is.

That was actually one of my responses, that one of the measures of success is defining your own success and not using someone else’s standards.  

On the other hand, you could just say “what difference does it make”, or you could set some standards to define success.

I have to admit, I have never really thought about setting goals to be a “success”, what would happen when you reached your goals and considered yourself a “success”.  Would you quit, since you are not “successful”.

I think “success” has to be a fluid term that contains some basic standards and then depends on the winds of change and luck. 

Another question that was asked (not  to me) was “the best advice you ever had”.  My immediate thought was the advice the referee gives the boxers in a boxing match right before the start, ‘protect yourself at all times”.

If you think about it, “protect yourself at all times”, does not mean “don’t take any chances”, or you would never win a boxing match.  (I would never win one anyway since there is no way I would ever get in a boxing ring!)

I have actually used this phrase several times in discussing potential actions with persons.  “Protect yourself at all times” means not being stupid, not aimlessly opening yourself up to anything from an  “accidential” foul shot to a legitimate punch that hurts you.  

I have always thought the phrase was interesting and have probably used it where it really wasn’t appropriate, but then who knows when it is appropriate?

Wednesday, meaning we are nearing the start of the last half of the rest of the week towards a 3 day Holiday!

That’s it for now, Wednesday, January 16, 2019.

#resist

2018 Winter January 15 Tuesday

#Purple_Days_and_Golden_Nights
#JourneyI_of_19
#Winter_of_19

36 degrees this morning (feels like 28), 85% humidity 

Weather actually got relatively nice yesterday (for Winter) as the temperature went up some and the sun came out  

Walked at fitness center yesterday morning, first stage was 17:44 minutes, second range was 17:35 minutes.  Did exercise in-between.

Still feeling my way concerning the new exercise program.  I really want to develop it to where I swim at least several days per week, once I get over my colds etc. 

Walking on an indoor track is a lot different from walking outside. So far, I am about a minute slower per mile on the indoor track.  I’m not  sure of the reason since it should be faster.  

I think part (or all) of it is psychological, somehow it is harder to keep up my speed inside.

The new exercises are mixed, of course I really haven’t leaned them all yet.  Many of them I can do at home, which will allow me to do other things at the fitness center in my limited time there.

The first month of 2019 is now almost half over.  As normal, time flies. 

Here is another example of incompetence and  a company thinking only of profit.

 We recently purchased a piece of furniture with the understanding that it had a “rechargeable” battery pack.  We asked the salesperson, who advised it did, we even called before delivery to make sure and was advised “all of them have rechargeable battery packs”.

When it was delivered, the delivery people said they didn’t have the rechargeable battery pack with them, but they even showed us how to put the rechargeable battery packs in.

I started calling the store, and calling, and calling.  Of course, no one returned my calls, until I finally called and advised them I hadn’t had any follow-up. 

Of course, I then  was advised that there were NO rechargeable battery packs for this item,.  By then we had lost five days (due to them not returning phone calls) of the seven day return period.  

Fortunately a (different) sales person did call back and let us look at possible replacements, but we didn’t find any good alternatives.  If we had had more time, we probably could have found what we wanted.  

I think that points out the problem with the “Commission only” model in one-time purchases. The sales person is looking only at the immediate profit and could care less about follow-through.

Also a lesson for us to make sure we look at all the details, and again, don’t allow a sales person interested in an immediate commission who could care less about our long term positive image of the company and doesn’t have any follow-through at all.   We need to remember he only interest (or at least primary interest in the best of them) is the immediate commission, not the right decision for us.   

That’s it for now, Tuesday, January 15, 2019.

#resist 

2019 Fall January 14 Monday

#Purple_Days_and_Golden_Nights 

#Journey_of_19

#WinterI_of_19

33 degrees this morning 86% humidity, indoor walk

Miserable weather continues, at least it isn’t snowing or ice!  The wind and cold combine to make a truly miserable cold.

Walk indoors yesterday was for (first stage) 17:37 minutes and then (second stage) 18:40 minutes.  In-between, I do exercises.  We’ll see what develops.

In the not too distant future, I’d like to start incorporating swimming, at least several days per week,  So far, there has been room in the swimming pool, which is great.

One of the aspects of “lap swimming” I don’t care for is when it is busy and I have to share a lane.  Not that I mind sharing with someone who understands I’m not the best swimmer in the world, but I don’t like dealing with someone who thinks they are the best swimmer i the world!

Recently read about how the drug companies are raising the price of insulin by a factor of hundreds and persons with Type 1 diabetes are actually dying because they can’t afford a drug that has been around for over a  hundred years and costs pennies to make.  

There is absolutely no reason except for they know they literally have a captive market and they can extort money.  They truly ought to send the drug company executives to jail.  

Also read where the lying coward lunatic’s incompetent  “Secretary of Agriculture” is rewarding his buddies, donors and lobbyists by going bad to high milk products (they are actually only offering milk, no water at lunch!), and high fat and high sodium food to school children. 

This is so he can reward the dairy industry, whom he used to work for as a lobbyist.  Doesn’t care about the children, just maximizing profit from government programs!

AllI I know is that for the lying coward lunatic and his bootlicking incompetent criminal cowards “what goes around comes around”. 

There will be a correction and payback for these greedy, evil and incompetent criminals.  

I recently read about the emergence of “self driving trucks” and how they will help alleviate the driver shortage for trucking companies and delivery services.  

Apparently the next step is to have “self driving” trucks on the long-haul portions that are on interstates etc, and then have humans take over for the actual delivery.  

While I certainly feel it is about time that self driving vehicles are being developed, I think they still have a long ways to go.  Perhaps the highway driving will be a good start for trucks.  

Looking at the larger picture, i have to wonder, what is the breaking point, when the shortage of truck drivers limits delivery of products?  

Perhaps the self-driving trucks will get here in time to prevent a sudden shortage of transpiration.  

I really don’t see how “drones” will be able to handle the “last mile”of delivery.  I read about a test of drones for delivery (I believe in Australia) and they were noisy and had accidents and missed deliveries.

The “noise’ got me.  How can anyone inflict noise on an entire area just for  the “convenience” of several minutes saved in a delivery?  

Perhaps they will finally progress to quiet electric drones and resolve the noise problem anyway.

Start of another week.  At least this weekend is a 3 day holiday again!

That’s it for now, Monday, January 14, 2019.

#resist 

2019 Wintere January 13 Sunday

#Purple_Days_and_Golden_Nights

#Journey_of_19

#Winter_of_19

30 degrees this morning (fells like 21), 84% humidity

Weather continues to be very nasty, at least no snow or ice!  

Finished the book on “private prisons”, where the author worked in a private prison for a magazine.  Private prisons are nothing more than a huge scam of tax dollars and a source of funding for politicians.  

While I realize people are usually in prison for a reason, the private prisons fail to provide even minimum medical care (since they have to pay for it) and fail to provide actual rehabilitation since it costs money.  

Lack of inspections or accountability allow them to get by with inadequate staffing etc and not even provide the minimum standards of the contract.  

Listening to the book on “biology” during my walk.  One interesting study was about some birds.   The female and male birds are identical, except that the male bird has a “mustache” marking on its face.

As an experiment, the researcher took a female bird that had already paired up with a male bird and they had even had babies etc.

The researcher painted a “mustache” on the female bird.  When she returned to the nest, the male bird chased her off like he would another male bird and didn’t recognize her.  

The researcher than took the ‘mustache” off, and the female bird returned to the nest and was accepted like nothing had happened!

I’m not sure what that means, but I assume it means all animals have certain cues etc. Even humans have a lot of cues that they use to filter their relationships etc.  

I have been having really vivid dreams lately, but haven’t remembered them long enough to write them own.  This is one I wrote down:

Dream 1-11-19

Dreamed Aliene and I were on a city bus.  The bus clipped the rear of a pickup as it turned.

The bus driver pulled over, got out and started back to the accident.

The bus started rolling forward, apparently the bus driver had forgotten to put the gear into Park.

Then it started rolling back, picking up speed, everyone screaming and I started wondering if the bus was going to tip over etc.  

Somehow I went out of that dream into a dream about a moving van.  Somehow the back part had opened and I walked around picking up stuff.  I was looking for “purple” items and was pulling up plants to see if the roots were purple (this was a dream remember).

The dream seemed very real and vivid.  I was glad to wake up and realize it was only a dream

That’s it for today Sunday, January 13, 2019.

#resist

2019 Winter January 12 Saturdaay

#Purple_Days_and_Golden_Nights

#Journey_of_19

#Winter_of_19

40 degrees this morning, rain and wind, 100% humidity (feels like 35)

Rain, wind, very miserable weather all day yesterday and all night.  Hopefully will end this morning (still raining nowI)  No walk.

Weather like this is actually worse than snow, but I’ll take it anyway, since the effects of snow (and certainly ice) are worse!

Overall, this started as a cold, miserable, winter and probably will continue!

Got a call yesterday morning at 7: am.  from “Microsoft”, advising me my “Microsoft” computer was sending signals of being hacked, or words to that effect and I needed to call “Microsoft” to get the matter corrected.  

Of course, the problem is I don’t have any “Microsoft” computers and I let them know in no uncertain terms, I didn’t have any such computers and I knew they were low level scum crooks.  

In fact, I even called them back and told them so.  I was surprised they answered, although they apparently thought they had a sucker.  

What really angered me was getting the call at a very busy time for me (especially on Friday), I am trying transition to work mode, get the trash carts out, including recycling yesterday, eat breakfast and generally am not in the mood for scam phone calls!

Worse yet, the call was waking up Aliene and a 7:00 am. call is normally not good news. 

I have to wonder about the scum criminals who would resort to such tactics, and I was very pleased to let them know what I thought.  Probably not a good idea to do so, but yesterday morning was an exception. 

Getting rid of boxes, as one means to getting rid of “stuff”.  As I mentioned, I enjoy cutting boxes down.  I don’t know why, but I enjoy taking cardboard  boxes and turning them into pieces small enough that I run an internal competition to see how many boxes I can get in the recycling cart!  

At least the City here takes cardboard for recycling, the “central city” doesn’t, or at least didn’t when we lived there.  

Still having problems with the delivery of the papers.   Since January 1, the paper delivery has not been on time (I mean, like  6 hours late and four hours late at best).  I am becoming a regular at the complaint “problem with delivery” websites and phones.

The Wall Street Journal has a great web based  complaint site.  For some reason the local “major city newspaper”  (which by now is not the best paper in the area,) has a phone line that, no matter what time of the day, has a message there is a “at least a 30 minute delay in getting to talk to a representative”. 

Of course, I don’t want to talk to a representative, I just want to leave a message my paper wasn’t delivered.  Seems like they would have an web based complaint system, especially when there service and newspaper has gotten so bad.  

Again, I think the company bought the newspaper planning go rip it off for maximum profits  or whatever and forget they still have a newspaper to put out.  Certainly the quality has deteriorated to the point it is becoming a joke.  

That’s it for now,  Saturday, January 12, 2019.

#resist 

2019 Winter January 11 Friday

#Purple_Days_and_Golden_Nights

#Journey_of_19

#Fall_of_19

45 degrees this morning, 56 % humidity 

Rain this morning, in spite of 10% chance of rain!  Later today the chances of rain are as high as 100% (subject to change I assume!)

Walk yesterday (indoors) was two stages, one 18.06 minutes and one 18:18 minutes.  

For some reason, my pace is about a minute slower (per mile) than walking outside.  I’ll need to research and see if there is a reason for that (other than I have gotten out of shape, but I don’t believe that is so!)

Friday is here!  As the first “full week” it went relatively fast, at least looking back from the perspective of Friday!

The Apple watch has come in handy in several ways recently.  While I won’t go into detail, the “phone” aspect of the watch and some of the other special features proved to be valuable.  

I just turned on the “defib” part of the watch.  I didn’t even realize I had it, or I would have turned it on some time ago.  Although I don’t believe I have any problems in that area, I think that is where the watch is valuable!

I really didn’t think I’d use the “phone” aspect of the Apple Watch at all, except for the “look at this” factor.  Actually I use it quite a bit and it is very handy and helpful.  

I am debating getting a new iPhone.  I originally had planned to get one in November or December, but time just kind of passed. Probably passive resistance to change and having to learn new techniques etc. 

I can trade in my existing phone and get $200 off, plus I also get a Veterans discount of 10% (I think I can get both), so it brings down the cost a lot.  

Working some more on “Siri Shortcuts”, I learned about how I can do quite a bit with it.  There are some rather puzzling limitations to it that I am learning how to get around.  I decided I was going to learn all I could before I tried anything but the simplest procedures.  

I think Apple Computer is missing a big part of the market by not having a “touch screen” on their computers.  It seems rather juvenile of them (or cheap) not to have a touch screen.  Their reasons for not doing so are absurd, especially considering the iPod, iPhone and iWatch all have successful touch screens.  

Fortunately my MacBook Air is plugging along.  It is hard to deviate from the Apple ecosystem.  It has been really valuable to be able to put something on one computer and then it shows up on all of them!  

It comes in real handy on items where it is hard to input a lot of info on the phone etc. I can use the computer and it shows up on the phone, watch and other computers etc. 

The federal government is rapidly descending into incompetence, reflecting the lying coward lunatic and his arrogant disregard of the fact that he is incompetent and really isn’t good at anything other than lying.  All of the cowardly ‘yes persons” who only bootlick him only makes it worse.  

Congress really needs to limit the presidential powers, the lying coward lunatic (or any future President)  shouldn’t be able to arbitrarily destroy the economic with tariffs due to his insecurity and emotional instability.  Obviously declaring an “Emergency” to try to fulfill some insane political promise is grounds for the 25th amendment and removing him for mental incompetence or impeaching him for criminal and illegal actions.

That’s it for now,  Friday, January 11, 2019.

#resist 

2019 Winter January 10 Thursday

#Purple_Days_and_Golden_Nights

#Journey_of_19

#Winter_of_19

35 degrees this morning, no outdoor walk, 59% humidity 

Cold morning again, may walk inside when fitness center opens, haven’t decided yet.  Still have a nagging cold and cough, considering trying to “finish it off” and skip walking to avoid the unfortunate effects of cold air on me (coughing etc.(

Also, since today is a “field day”, I hesitate to try something relatively new on a “field day”, especially when I am still recovering from a cold etc.  I”ll make the decision when the time gets closer depending on how I feel. 

The reason I am concerned about a “Field Day” is that I spend a lot of time in and out of the cold air all day, so I hesitate to start the day with exposure to cold air and exercise (both of which cause me to cough).  

Weird, I started off the day yesterday thinking it was January 10, so my comment the month was already a third over.  I didn’t realize until I looked at it that it was really January 9!  Maybe I wanted to skip the day!  

Had to switch out DVR’s (the new one already is showing signs of being faulty), which means we lost all of our programs we had recorded.  

It is impossible to watch much of the “live” tv.  The commercials are so horrible, I only feel execration for them.  Too many of them try too hard to be “cute” they end up just being stupid or crude.

Even worse are the “talking heads” at sports events.  I really think they have forgotten the purpose of sports.  

Years ago, i aw an “experimental” football game without any announcers, it was great.  Of course it was never repeated.  

I think the football game Monday night had, I believe, SIX announcers!  This is for a way is really just game between students who are basically 18-22 years of age!  Whatever.

Recently received a copy of the Newsletter I have mentioned before.  I don’t agree with a lot of it, but it is interesting to read and think about.  

One thought he mentioned was the problem with “Leaders” like the U.S. President is that they can get “captured” by their own image of the office.  His comment was they “look in the mirror” and see someone who rides everywhere in motorcades, security guards, everything is taken care of etc.

What they see instead of an ordinary person is they see (and start acting) like a “superior human being who is always right”.   Of course, if it is like the current occupant, he can’t stand criticism or any honest evaluations of his actions, so he surrounds himself with “yes persons” who will only tell him what he wants to hear and it just gets worse.

Obviously the lying coward lunatic is just getting worse and descending into being completely out of touch with reality and thinking he is some kind of superior dictator.  Scary.  Especially scary when you see the congressional bootlicking cowards and the attacks on news media that “dares to say the lunatic is incompetent and delusional’.

That’s it for now, Thursday, January 10, 2019

#resist