Author Michael

No muss, no fuss, no parking

Michael 4 Comments

The last couple of years have been hard on many people. Contrary to some of the posts you may see on Facebook, everybody was affected, and some good things actually came of these years. This is one I have enjoyed a lot and I hope it doesn’t disappear as we approach the end of the pandemic*.

Curbside pick up. CSPU to afficionados. I am loving this concept. Everybody from grocery stores to garden supply sellers to liquor stores to warehouse clubs. Just as Zoom spawned a mini-trend of the meeting mullet (business on top, pajamas on the bottom), curbside shopping has turned shopping into an ultra-casual activity. To be sure, “buy online, pick up in store” has been around for years, decades, stretching back into the last century even, but the process always involved some time spent in the shop. It’s right there in the name – “pick up in store.” Let’s face it. If you’re going into a store, you’re going to have to put pants on. The signs may say “no shoes, no shirt, no service” but they’ll stop you from going in trouser-less too (or skirt-less or dress-less even though we’ve seen how close some people can get in those “People of Walmart” pics and videos). But with curbside pickup, as long as you have an internet connection, a means of electronic payment, and an inside trunk or tailgate release, you can go shopping in a bathrobe if that suits you. It’s not just comfort that has me so enamored of CSPU (and I’ve yet to participate in a pick up in just a bathrobe), but the convenience and the savings. Yes, the savings!

Convenience is obvious. You sit in your favorite chair, put up your feet, and stroll through the aisles. You see that 84 inch OLED smart TV you’ve been waiting to go on sale. It is, and it’s time to buy, and it doesn’t matter that it’s over your doctor-ordered weight limit by 50-some pounds. Someone else will wrestle it off the shelf and into your car. Need a new pair of jeans. No problem. Buy them with confidence because almost everybody has a ‘buy now, try on’ at home policy easing returns for those brands that run small when you get them home. Need to do toilet paper math? You have a calculator, all the time in the world, and nobody trying to get around you while you calculate. So convenience is a given.

How can CSPU be a money-saver? You might think being able to click you way to a full shopping cart would lead to unchecked, indiscriminate buying, but nay I say! You can always stop and check the shopping cart (or the cuter shopping bags and baskets) for your running total, and even at checkout you get the opportunity to delete something. How often have you ever done that in real life? But the true genius to CSPU (and its older cousin OOLPUIS as long as you’re careful) is NO IMPULSE BUYING! No tunnel of candy and cold drinks, magazines and lunch size bags of chips, nail clippers and rolls of mints, key chains and energy drinks to pass through on the way to the final check out. No endcaps filled with unadvertised specials (that never are that much) or overstocks and clearances (that are there for a reason). No electronics counters filled with car chargers, charging cables, and brochures for cell plans, all trying to wrestle away more of your spending dollar (and/or your favorite local currency). Oh some e-tailers have tried to emulate the impulse buy with “people who bought this, often add this” or “don’t forget the…” and “would you like to add…” throughout the shopping experience, but those intrusions are easier to ignore that the constant barrage of political ads that pop into your text messaging app nearing general election time.

Yes, of all the benefits being locked down, quarantined, socially distanced, and generally wanted to stay off the streets, I hope curbside pick up is here to stay.

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* People keep saying we’re getting close to the end of the pandemic but there is no end to the pandemic, or more accurately, the Covid virus has not waved a white flag, agreed to peace talks or will quietly leave the planet. It is like your favorite Russian autocrat.  There will be a point that we may (may with a capital M and an exclamation mark) not experience worldwide stoppages of life as we know it no even country wide interruptions. But the virus will still be out and about and we will still be susceptible to it and its periodic annoying intrusions on intelligent life on earth, much like your garden variety politician.

Once upon a time they lived happily ever after (4)

Read any good books lately?

Michael 3 Comments

There have been a lot of stories this year regarding book banning in America’s schools. Legislature has been presented in seven states and parents have approached dozens of school districts specifically to remove specific volumes or entire categories of books from school libraries. Legislation was introduced in Florida to not limit challenges to school library holdings to parents but allowing any individual to challenge any holding. In Texas, Llano County Commissioners Court forced the closure of the local public library (public library!) so librarians could review all reading material for their younger readers to make sure books are age appropriate. That’s just this year. And it’s only March. That’s following up on a flurry of year end interest around books and children. According to NPR, Texas State Representative Matt Krause put more than 850 books on a watch list, targeting materials he feels “might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex.” (npr.org, “A Texas lawmaker is targeting 850 books that he says could make students feel uneasy,” Oct. 28, 2021.) No word on whether he read those books.

Questioning whether the Honorable (Ha!) Krause read all 800+ books on his list isn’t me being ornery as usual. It’s a legitimate question. Not just by me but legitimized by those in the know. Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director for the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom said in a recent interview, “We’re now seeing challenges pop up based solely on social media posts. A video gets posted of a parent complaining at a school board meeting, and within days, we see challenges across the country using the same reasons. People are complaining because they saw it on social media, not because they actually engaged with the book.” (Triblive.com, “Book challenges are becoming more frequent, driven in part by social media,” March 14, 2022.)

My concern isn’t about the books being challenged. Book challenges and banning have been going on basically since there were books. It’s the way these challenges are being conducted. Small numbers of individuals uneducated in the library sciences making noisy demands of schools to conform to their (the uneducated small number of individuals’) idea of decorum based on what other uneducated small number of individuals are writing on Facebook, et.al.. In a recent CNN poll, only 12% of Americans believed parents “should have the most sway over which library books are on the shelves” and twice as many felt teachers and school personnel should have more control over library content. (cnn.com, “CNN Poll: Economy and education could shape how Americans vote in 2022,” Feb. 11, 2022.) In the past, challenges were based on the challenger’s personal experience with the book (that means he/she/it actually read the book) and may have actually been able to intelligently debate the content of the book and verbalize why he/she/it felt it (the book) was inappropriate. Now, the majority of challenges are opposing titles simply because they are on some list of ‘controversial’ books. I pointedly use “title” in that sentence because so often the title is all the “concerned” parent knows about the book.

There is no evidence that the current wave of book banning is accomplishing what I think the challengers to the titles are intending, that is a purge of all material contrary to their mores. I’m just not sure they know what their intentions are. Or possibly what mores are. And if anything, the publicity for these books, the classic titles and those barely known to anybody but the most dedicated librarians, has generated increased sales for the books.

We’ve seen when we let anybody with a computer and the ability to cut and paste how America responds to a global pandemic resulting in a death rate twice the rest of the worlds, how we’ve graciously accepted the transfer of power, and how we are politely carrying on primary election campaigns as we run up to the mid-term elections this fall. Perhaps the proposed bans shouldn’t be of books whose only intent is to encourage thought and generate intelligent discussion, we should instead be banning social media whose intent increasingly seems to be to pass off incomprehensible opinion as fact among those who never spent time in their school library back in the day when it was their school library.

Once upon a time they lived happily ever after (3)

I’ll have mine with coffee please

Michael 2 Comments

This is the day sweet toothed snackers and pastry enthusiasts wait for every year – Pi Day, or as probably a large percentage of those pie eaters would write it out, and for as much as they care of its significance – Pie Day. Now that opens a whole new line of thought. Exactly what does pi actually do in the real world? And while we’re at it, why pi?

That second question is easier to answer. Everybody, even those insisting on it being Pie Day, knows pi (without the ‘e’) has something to do with math and some of those everybodies might even know it’s most closely associated with circles. Pi is the relationship of a circle’s, any circle’s circumference to its diameter. There’s a great two-minute video here that demonstrates that with a touch of humor and extra pepperoni. Although the concept of pi (again, without the ‘e’) was first demonstrated in the third century B.C., it wasn’t until 1706 on this side of the Common Era dividing line that British mathematician William Jones decided the Greek letter and symbol would make a dandy stand in for 3.14 etc.etc.etc. in calculations. But Leonhard Euler (yes, the is THE Euler) made it popular in his textbooks and justified the Greek Pi, corresponding to P, because pi is all about the perimeter (or circumference) of a circle. (In case you’re wondering, pie (with the ‘e’) has been around since about 6,000 B.C..)

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Now the first question isn’t actually hard to answer. It is hard to pin it down to less than a few hundred dozen applications that are possible only because somebody, sometime, somewhere worked out the calculations to make whatever it is work, using pi. These include radio waves that not only make AM radio possible, but blue tooth that is powering those high priced ear buds you have sitting on your desk.  Not straying too far from there, the GPS function of your phone wouldn’t be possible today if some engineer hadn’t tossed pi into an equation or three. And just that you can talk to your phone or home assistant is possible because voice recognition schemes all use pi to calculate and translate vocal waveforms into computerese. But, you ask, what can you do with it?

If you so wanted to, you could use pi to calculate how much water it takes to fill the kid’s backyard swimming pool, how much stain you need to cover the floor of the gazebo, or how much frosting to make to adequately decorate the surprise party birthday cake. Even more practical is determining what size electrical conduit to buy for that remodel you’re DIY-ing, or how much pie filling you need for the deep dish apple pie the kids are expecting after dinner. Yes, I know, there are charts and recipes for all these things. But now you know you could calculate the answer if all the computers in the world suddenly stopped working or worse, decided to take over and not talk to us anymore. Not too far-fetched you know. Didn’t you ever see “Colossus: The Forbin Project?” (Or one not so evil, like EMARAC from “Desk Set.” If the computers are going to take over, that’s the one I want, as long as Ms. Warriner comes with it.)

So now, go off and eat your pie today, today being Pi Day, or Pie Day if you must. And remember, ask not what pi can do for you, ask if you get whipped cream with it!

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The pursuit of clean, filtered air

Michael 2 Comments

I saw an interesting Tweet yesterday. “Going to the US in just a couple days. Planning to wear a mask whenever I’m in public. Looking for fun and creative (preferably not too political) reasons to give in case anyone asks why I’m wearing one.“

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The Tweeter(?) obviouslly lives outside the United States and wants to protect herself against a virus that is still raging, even though less actively than a few weeks ago, while visiting a country with a COVID death rate twice the rest of the world’s – and 82 times higher than her country! (WorldOMeter, “COVID Live – Coronavirus Statistics,” March 9, 2022)  According to a New York Times analysis of mortality, since the first Omicron case was reported in the United States in December 2021, Americans have been killed by the coronavirus at a rate at least 63 percent higher than other large, wealthy nations and was averaging about 2,500 deaths per day. (New York Times, “U.S. Has Far Higher Covid Death Rate Than Other Wealthy Countries.” Feb 1, 2022) The report went on to state that the only European countries with higher death rates are Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Greece, and the Czech Republic.

Oddly enough, even though the CDC changed their masking recommendations this month, the federal vaccine mandate was never enforced and now seems to be headed for reversal by the courts, and most limitations on businesses have been removed, people still want to protest them.  Brian Brase, the organizer of the so-called People’s Convoy that just burned countless gallons of gasoline and diesel circling Washington, DC, has called mandates an “infringement on their freedoms” as recently as this week. (Washington Post, “‘People’s Convoy’ organizers meet with GOP lawmakers amid pandemic-related demonstrations,” Mar 8, 2022).

You know that I recently was hospitalized with COVID pneumonia in spite of vaccines and mitigation (TRYing to stay 6 feet away from unmasked miscreants sneezing their offensive germs into public spaces like grocery stores and churches). I empathize with our aforementioned Tweeter because I will be going out in public still masked and standing a safe distance from those who aren’t. What should I say to them? Clearly somebody with more pickup truck parts than brains will come up to me and say, quite politely I’m sure, “What’s the f**k wrong with you, you retard? Act like an American and take that f**king mask off, a$$ho*e!” How do I know? Because it’s already happened, and it happened before the CDC issued new guidance. Months before the recent new guidance was released (which really requires people to have an understanding of the surge of cases in their particularly are and the relative burden placed on the local health care systems (read, too difficult for your average simian to even say, yet understand so let’s just concentrate on the no masks part)), the CDC guidelines recommended that those who were fully vaccinated, may attend small indoor gatherings with other fully vaccinated individuals without masking. This was interpreted as “you don’t need to wear no more masks any more yippee yahoo but let’s keep protesting masks anyway” by the under 65 (as in IQ score) crowd. And yes, I had been approached by inquiring sorts of that ilk, while in public with my mouth and nose stylishly clad in the latest surgical garb as to why I was wearing a mask. “Don’t you believe in science?”

Considering how adamant so many non-maskers were in demanding understanding on their positions and their rights to their freedom to breath the air as it was intended, I hope they will also understand why those of us who are medically challenged, immunocompromised, or just plain leery that a long term accord has been reached between the United States of America and SARS-COV-2, elect to exercise our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of breathing clean, filtered air.

And while we at it, it seems to me that those still calling masks, vaccines, and other life-saving measures “infringements on their freedoms,” need to spend some time in the Ukraine right now.

Things I was thinking about when I was thinking about the things I think, I think

Michael Leave a comment

It’s that time again when I have to get some things off my mind or I’ll go out of my mind, and that’s the first one. Going out of one’s mind (which admittedly falls trippingly off the tongue) is taken to mean losing it, going nuts, flipping your lip, and a half-bazillion other ways to say gone bonkers. “Don’t pay attention to him, he’s out of his mind.” “I need a day off or I’m going to go out of my mind.” But it’s actually possible to just go half out of one’s mind, “I was half out of my mind with worry” which usually conveys just a temporary inability to deal with a specific occurrence. That’s not to be confused with “having half a mind” which no less an authority than Merriam-Webster defines as “the feeling especially when angry and annoyed that one would like to do something while at the same time not really planning to do it.” It’s just all much too mindless for me.

This one gets a little politically incorrect (and if you ask me, all of politics is a little incorrect lately). Recently, I had the opportunity to read a magazine article that addressed a dispute between a person who wished to be addressed by the pronoun “they” and another person who was addressed as “she.” The columnist, clearly being a woke (and presumably politically correct) person that he/she/it is, honored the request. It was by far the most difficult piece of reporting I have ever read and I used to read military efficiency reports. I could never tell if the author was talking about one or both of the individuals at any given time. In one sentence the word “they” referred to both the individual and both individuals. Please can we stop with using “they” as a singular pronoun. As noted last week, the English language has over 600,000 words. If you don’t like the one people have been using, at least pick one of the more obscure ones. Or make up a new one. Clearly with over 600,000 words, English language users are not shy about doing that!

I don’t know if this is universal among anti-virus programs so maybe you can clear things up for me if you know. I run Norton-360 antivirus program and I swear, sometimes I wish I’d have opted for the virus. I can’t turn on any of my computers without having it pop up and remind me of some extra cost option I haven’t purchased, or pop up usually while I’m in the middle of entering a nice long string of something (data, words, pictures) to let me know it recently did its thing, all is well, and do I know there are extra cost options I haven’t purchased, or pop up while downloading a file, program, video, whatever and assure me that suchandsuch.somethingorother is safe and by the way, do I know there are still some extra cost options I haven’t yet purchased. If one of those options was a pop-up free version I’d write out the check today!

Another thing I don’t know if it is universal is that since I’ve had COVID, I cannot get warm. I can have the furnace on 68, 72, or 76 and I still want a hoodie (or two) on over my sweatshirt (or two). Oddly, or oddlier, it’s only my upper body. Throw an extra blanket on the bed and my legs get hot. I have got to get this in check before next winter because I refuse to be one of those over-testosteroned Neanderthals that walk around in blizzards with their flannel shirts, camo hats, Carhart jackets, and shorts! And I don’t even want a pick-up truck.

I seldom go on Facebook anymore and maybe this is why. On a recent rare excursion to the Land of Odds (odd balls!) I found a post that had great intentions, but, well, really now. You likely saw it or one of its cousins if you still visit there. It was titled(?) “Why Ukraine matters” and then went on for 1,000 words or so listing all of Ukraine’s attributes. How about. “Ukraine matters because Ukrainians live there. Ukrainians matter because they are people.”

Thank you for sticking around to the end. I know it’s a messy process when things just fall out of my head. I should be good for another couple months now.

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Change of plans

Michael Leave a comment

Remember those best laid plans from a couple weeks ago? Earlier this week I saw a news blurb on one of the local stations about plans. It seems all the rage among the over 30 crowd is to not make plans. In fact, according a majority of 30-somethings interviewed, they are most happy when plans that have been made are cancelled. I know you may find this hard to believe, but I’m going to disagree with that. I remember life in my 30s. I was thrilled when something got cancelled because there was so much else going on, when something fell through, maybe I’d actually be able to do the things I had planned!

Perhaps we should better define “plan.” You likely “planned” to read my blog Thursday morning yet here you are, seeing it for the first time on Friday. Was that really a plan or more an anticipation or expectation (depending on how disappointed you were upon not finding it Thursday morning). I thought you would be reading this Thursday morning. Was that the plan? Or was that an intention? Likely you speak to someone early in the day and may be asked “So, do you have any plans for today?” And perhaps you do but more likely you have aspirations of doing things if other things don’t prevent that from happening. And lastly, if you have a desire to remove yourself from your day to day activities, take a break, perhaps two weeks in a tropical paradise you have never seen and may never see again and you don’t want to miss the plane or would like somewhere to stay besides in the open on the beach, you may request time off, purchase plane tickets, book a hotel room, maybe even make reservations for a local attraction or two for those weeks in the sometime future. This is a plan and one nobody will be “most happy” with if it is cancelled.

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I think when the 30-somethings say they don’t make plans, they are speaking of the first three examples noted in the above paragraph. I am sure that somewhere, there is a 35 year old sitting with a couple tickets to Barbados, maybe pre-paid afternoon at the spa and reservations at the Salt Café in his (hers?, its?) phone’s wallet. It may think it a commitment (especially after the first few payments hit the Discover billing cycles) but it started out as a plan. Those other things like anticipating a blog post to hit your email or announcing a day’s probable agenda are possibly considered commitments by that unspecified 35 year old and it might not want to commit to lunch with the brother-in-law and then wash the car this Saturday afternoon and thus would prefer to “not make plans.”

I suppose it’s all in the words you use and even though the English  language gives us a bazillion from which to chose (over 600,000 per the Oxford English Dictionary, 39 for “plan”) we opt to use those that are most familiar to us and cause us to do the least amount of thinking to choose, while saying to everyone else “I know what I mean, figure it out yourself!”

I don’t know who decided that but I plan to look into it.

Wake me in an hour please

Michael 2 Comments

You’re in for a treat this week. I am going to share the secret of happy, healthy living. And it has nothing to do with eliminating politicians but that’s always a good fall back. The secret that does not require physical violence is…are you ready…you should be laying down for … is naps!

The greatest cultures on earth embrace naps. I know, because I said so. Not the United States of America but we could hardly be called a one of the world’s greatest culture. But I digress.

This is not a new revelation for me, and likely not for you. Each time I’ve come out of the hospital I’ve succumbed to napping as part of my convalescence. Succumbed is the right word because the first few discharges had me fighting it all the way.  Americans don’t nap, we work in the afternoon – in the morning and late at night also. On rare, very rare occasions an executive may close his/her/its eyes for a short time after skipping lunch for a Power Nap. See, no great culture here. We can’t even nap restfully.

After the last hospitalization I felt so much more alive and in tune with my surroundings after a decent nap and I carried them over into my post recovery self life. Sort of. It didn’t last long. After a few months I was back to cramming as much activity as I could into those waking hours, even if the activity was just walking around looking for something to do. This time I altered things a little, I feel even better, and I think I can keep this routine going and invite you to join me. See, it’s not really a nap, not like the stereotypical afternoon siesta. It’s more of an intentional downtime, a short version or a riposo.  The riposo is the Italian version of a midday break. Many countries along the Mediterranean rim enjoy a multi-hour midday break. But it’s not a 3 hour nap. It is a time that work is set aside and family, friends, and self are the focus for a while. On my mini-riposo I used the time to call friends, to luxuriate in an extra long shower, to sort through my paints and make a list of what needs replaced, to make a fresh brewed iced tea, and to stretch out in the bed and close my eyes so I could really listen to the wind outside, and maybe even nod off for a short while. I shifted my priorities from “things I need to do today” to “I’ll get to them in a little while.”

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Napping goes back to the source of just about everything, the ancient Romans. Boy those guys were busy. When they weren’t persecuting Christian’s, invading the Middle East, building aqueducts, or developing goofy numbers, they ate, and after they ate, they napped. I’ll skip the few thousand years in between them and me and note that today’s Romans don’t sleep as much during the day as the ancient counterparts and may devote only 10 or 20 minutes to actual sleep. The key to a happy afternoon is that riposo time spent not sleeping but simply resting.

There are actual studies (people will study anything if you throw enough grant money at them) that track sleep patterns and most nappers are more emotionally balanced, better learners and communicators, have better memory, and are generally more relaxed while also being more energetic. (The Sleep Foundation, January, 2023)

So I’m going to (try to) do what comes natural to about half the world, turn things down for a short while every afternoon.   Maybe I’ll fall asleep or maybe I’ll just rest and recover from the morning. Somebody check up in me in an hour so. I don’t want to get too relaxed and happy. Somebody might use me as an example of a great culture!

Best Laid Plans and All That

Michael 10 Comments

Ah, the best laid plans of men and morons. Get your vaccines, get your booster, have your supply of masks for the rare moments when you allow yourself time out of your own hovel, do NOT plan on entertaining a crowd bigger than maybe two. Still, you get covid.

Still, I got covid. And I got it bad. Yes that’s why it’s been over a month since you’ve seen a post from me, I got it bad, bad. Now before we continue, who ARE these people who get covid and are back at work in 2 days, smiling and grinning and passing ridiculous legislation like they had nothing more serious than a nose job adjustment. And just who ARE their second cousins who can’t go into the office but will work from home. I am not kidding when I tell you that I couldn’t remember how to turn on my computer one morning. Maybe it is because I have so many serious health issues to start, including being immunocompromised, that my body figured anything nonessential was really not essential!

Let me take you through what really happens when you breathe masklessly in the same space as some poor soul like me, from the first “hmm, I’m tired,” through hospitalization and a variety of transfers, to making follow-up appointments with all the medical community where more morons lurk in elevators and parking lots “defending their freedom” from the inhumanity of 40 square inches of material across their faces.

For weeks I’ve been trying to figure out how I became infected. I do as much on line, by delivery, or curbside pickup as I possible can for my shopping. Although sometimes it just isn’t possible and a quick trip into a store to the counter and back to the car is called for.  I wish I could but I can’t say I have ever, ever, ever been anywhere where masking was 100% (and/or 100% properly) executed. So since the beginning of the year there have been a place or two where I could have been exposed. I really should have known better and continued to Zoom or stream religious services but I went into the building where loving neighbors as themselves seemed to be a foreign concept and after two weeks I redirected myself to on-line religion again. That was also 1 week before the first sign of something in the body not functioning the way the anatomy books indicated.

The date was January 8, a Saturday, and a day I had spent most of it putting away Christmas decorations. I attributed the new cough to the dust and detritus generated from wrapping and packing. January 9, I woke to chills and shaking and a fever that would have made a dandy show and tell for an infectious diseases lecture.  A Sunday trip to the local urgent care center resulted in confirmation that my blood pressure and pulse were up, my coordination was down, that was a dandy looking sweater I was wearing and yes, you could fry an egg on my forehead. A swab was sent on mission up one nostril and out the other (actually it just felt that way but both nostrils were attacked from below), and I was given instructions to drink “literally gallons of water,” and check the electronic chart for results the following morning. January 10, shortly after the pair of acetaminophen tablets seemed to be kicking in, the phone beeped its “Message from My Chart” beep and I fumbled my way through the facial recognition security (apparently I looked enough like me even that early in the morning) to get to the results  – positive.  Crap. Calls to everybody in my family who may have been around me from January 1 (seemed like a good date to pick to me and all 3 other people (I told you you I don’t entertain big crowds!) agreed) and to my primary care doctor, who as fate would have, was recovering from his own battle with SARS-COV-2. Thanks to my weakened immune system, he managed to get me scheduled for a monoclonal antibody infusion, but unfortunately scheduled 3 days in the future. That’s okay, it’s the stuff politicians and former presidents got, I could wait.

Not Vaccinated SectionOn Thursday January 13, I drove myself across town to one of 3 clinics administering the more precious than gold elixir. About an hour later I actually felt better. The fever was low-grade rather than raging, the shaking and chills were reduced to a mild tremor, the squeezing headache relented, and the sore throat, eyes, sinuses, nose, in short everything north of the neck stopped hurting.  I figure in 2 days I’ll probably be breathing again. Ha!

For the next 18 days I woke each morning to take my blood pressure, pulse, temperature, and oxygen levels, always the same (good, good, low grade, good) then I pretended I was Howard Hughes, sitting alone in a darkened room watching movies, one after another. As long as I sat I was comfortable. Whenever I moved, I would become physically tired. Doing two things at once like standing and cooking, took as much out of me as a quick 5k around the neighborhood. I could do my own cooking but I often had to rest between cooking and eating, in the process, discovering that lukewarm eggs really do taste as nasty as reported even though I never had reason to question it before. I got neither better nor worse, but never “bad.”

That changed on Sunday January 30, my 3 week anniversary of the nostril invasion and subsequent positive test result. I woke up to my usual unchanging vital signs, made my breakfast, rested, ate my breakfast, rested, cleaned from breakfast, rested, then considered a nap. And for a few hours it was yet another day in the endless line of days that I was told would be always tiring and be slow to recover from. And then it hit me. Exhaustion like I’d never felt it. I could not walk across the room, the 14 foot room, without stopping partway and resting. Deep breathing was absolutely impossible, as was standing up straight. Shallow breathing was almost as impossible. In fact, breathing suddenly seemed a nee and elusive concept nit yet learned. Fortunately, my sisters had just stopped by to see how things were going and we commissioned their car as a civilian ambulance. The question was asked which hospital and answered without my input, one about 15 minutes north. No, I gasped, turn here. A mere 2 miles away was a new neighborhood hospital with full ER services.

I’ll spare you the details of the hospitalization, the tests the scans, the multiple IV attempts before hitting vein, the ultimate transfer to “the big hospital” because the current site couldn’t comfortably deal with the multiple problems I have and felt it was safer for me there. More test, more scans, more questions (yes I do know I have only one kidney, duh), more doctors!

To make a long story short (yes, yes, I know it’s much too late for that), all the days in and tests reviewed indicate my oxygen is fine and my lungs quite clear, I just cant breathe. With lots of exercise and home based therapy, I can strengthen the muscles that work the lungs which is where the virus decided to attack me and be back to my baseline by summer, maybe? (Everybody else gets pneumonia, I have to be different!)

So I leave you with this. If you’re going out, please wear your masks. Maybe you feel they infringe on your right to who knows what and who really cares, but when you don’t wear it, you are infringing on my right to live. Sorry but – I win. Wear your f-ing mask!

A serious send off – seriously, wear your mask, wash your hands, don’t breathe my air. If we were in the midst of some sort of global automotive crisis you know  darn well you wouldn’t take mechanical advice from (shudder) politicians, so don’t get your medical advice from your mechanic. If you’re really feeling the need to protest, don’t get vaccinated and put only yourself at risk for a cruel and unusual death. Leave the innocent bystanders standing please.

Shields up – phasers on stun

Michael 9 Comments

‘Tis the season! Time again to remind everyone the difference between vaccines and force fields.

Not Vaccinated Section (5)

Not Vaccinated Section (4)

If you don’t want to get the COVID vaccine, don’t, but please, don’t make up reasons. Just that you’re stupid, selfish, irresponsible, and probably one of those people who wears shorts in the dead of winter are plenty enough reasons. Saying you won’t because the vaccine doesn’t work or else why would we be getting all these new cases isn’t a good enough reason.

Why do the people with Twitter and Facebook accounts read the stories that COVID cases are rising and even those who are vaccinated are testing positive, but they don’t read the ones that the vaccinated people getting positive test results are typically asymptomatic or exhibit mild symptoms while the unvaccinated are the ones filling up the hospitals and funeral homes/crematoria?

As a reminder, vaccines work inside the body. They assist the immune system to defend against an intruder virus. When a virus enters the body, the immune system goes to work. It can’t do its job “out there.” It works from home you might say. I would say you can use that as interesting talk at a cocktail party, but… well…

You all know the drill. Get vaccinated and boosted, wear your masks, wash you hands, keep your distance, and eventually you will get to go back out. To those who think that’s a good idea, thank you for your help to save the human race.

Cute stories will return next week.

(PS: Now those are light sabers!)

(PPS: Yes I know I’m mixing my Trek with my Wars. Tough! 😝)

RRSB Persons of the Year

Michael 7 Comments

Nearing the end of the year most everybody will be writing about the year in review (ugh) or resolutions (still ugh but perhaps not disgustingly so). I, because I am me, will embark on my own end of year tangent and instead, celebrate the RRSB First (and Likely Only) Persons of the Year Award.  Yes, you read that correctly – plural “Persons,” singular “Award.” My choice for outstanding individual of 2021 is two individuals.

After careless considerat…  err, careful consideration, I’ve concluded there are two people worthy enough to be the Person of the Year, umm Persons of the Year and they is, I mean are: (drum roll, fanfare, etc, etc), Washington’s newest power couple, Liz Chaney and Joe Manchin.

Yes, that is a match made in Purgatory but they, and as far as I can tell, they alone are the epitome of Representative of the People. There are 535 elected voting representatives in Washington, 100 Senators, 435 members of the House of Representatives. Of those 535 people, 533 are more comfortable voting however their party tells them rather than those who hired them for the job. Only Chaney and Manchin have to the point of loss of standing and threats of censure, voted as they felt best benefited their constituents rather than their party leaders.

Seriously, as we enter 2022 maybe our Congress needs to resolve to improve themselves and the first step is for all 535 of them to write 100 times “I represent the people who voted for me” on any handy blackboard. Then they can rip out the aisles running down the middle of each chamber in that big white building on the hill and rather than assigning seats by party, get all the representatives of each state to sit together like they did when Congress was a new idea back in 1700s. Committee assignments will be made by members’ ability and background and leadership positions will limited to those identified in the Constitution. Yeah, that’s a bunch of pipedreams but they make just as realistic set of resolutions as wanting to lose weight and exercise more, but a guy can dream.

Now, getting back to Joe and Liz, my Persons of the Year. I agree it’s a sad state of affairs when politicians are singled out for bucking the system but face it, if your reps are always voting however their party leader tells them, why are they there. Let’s eliminate 531 positions and leave just one Democrat and one Republican in each house and they can vote on everything by rock, paper, scissors. Makes as much sense as what they’ve gotten done this year their way.

Manchin-Chaney