Category: Opinion

June 10, 2020 – 100th post and a side of pain

June 10, 2020 /

I suppose that I have been lucky in life. I haven’t had any broken bones, so far no chronic illness and never a trip to the ER. I do occasionally have some kind of issue in my wrist that is triggered by typing on my lap and some prolonged mouse usage. That stems from a time when I was a young man and holding a high pressure hose all day.

The pain goes away in a few days by modifying how I use the computer and lightening up a bit on things like typing. This last week, I have been dealing with some wrist pain. Unfortunately, it is not getting better but worse. It now feels like it is sprained and is visibly swollen.

My body is telling me that I need to stop and take a break. Unfortunately, that is about a week and a half too early. Ironically, as much as I have been fortunate, I have a lot of experience with the medical system around some of the lessor known specialties.

The science of pain management is much less developed than trauma or acute medicine. It has been a number of years now, but I believe my wife has some sort of immunodeficiency. It started with psoriasis and manifested into full body pain. That lead to incorrect diagnosis of fibromyalgia, then later lupus suspect to eventually disappearing. The complete tale is very long and not really my story to share.

What I am trying to say is that based on my experience, the medical system does not know how to treat pain. The basic approach is to keep trying pharmaceuticals until the pain goes away or you do. It seems to me that the hospital is pretty quick to offer Dilaudid of Fentanyl but root cause is lacking.

I have observed this process several times. Here is a simple workflow.

  1. Person feels pain, goes to ER
  2. ER doesn’t know what to do, sends person back home to follow up with Primary Care Physician (PCP)
  3. Person meets with PCP. PCP doesn’t know what to do and prescribes drugs and tests. Person is told ‘if this doesn’t work then follow up’
  4. Repeat steps 1-3 until PCP refers to specialist
  5. Now substitute specialist for PCP in the chain until specialist gives person back to PCP or hopefully the problem is solved.

In the end, who is managing the care? It is the patient not the doctor. If you do not advocate for yourself or you are not pushy enough then you may end up near death before the issue is addressed. You cannot abdicate your health to someone else, that is foolish.

I am not anti-doctor, nor am I claiming that this is an easy job. What I will say is that they are overburdened and dare I say a little too comfortable writing prescriptions rather than root cause analysis. What changed our lives was investigation and education into actual science. Learning about the causes of inflammation and a willingness to admit that lifestyle and not a drug deficiency was the problem. Cutting out things in our diet that were causing inflammation made those problems disappear.

This has been over ten years now. The experience has made me much more receptive to the idea that there are things broken within the medical system. Care is actually one of them. It has made me realize that there are other tools that aren’t used enough like physical therapy and nutrition. If you are over weight and eat garbage then you are suspect to these problems as well.

The experience has opened me to the idea that there are new frontiers that are not medically or politically acceptable but can be effective like the cannabinoid receptors in our body. I do believe that the legalization argument for marijuana is largely for recreation use but so what? That doesn’t mean that we should write off what is possible.

Wow… I didnt wake up seeing this go this direction this morning. I was thinking that I was going to justify waiting out the pain. I feel like I have a lot more to say but I think that would be rambling at this point.

June 2, 2020 – My mom is now a YouTuber

June 2, 2020 /

I feel like I am from a different era in life. As much as I am of Generation X, I also feel like I was watching many of the character building stereotypes through a fishbowl. I am aware of the pop culture trends of the 1970s, 80s and 90s, but didn’t completely participate.

I wasn’t a ‘latch key kid’, we didn’t get cable, we weren’t allowed to watch Saturday morning cartoons or TV whenever we wanted. We didn’t spend our weekends watching rented VHS movies one after the other. We didn’t have a mall in town until high school, but we weren’t permitted to roam just willy-nilly. I guess that is probably why I am the only one in my family who knows how to set a proper table.

I am not one that wants a high degree of formality in life, but it is nice to have the knowledge in your pocket when you want it like for Thanksgiving or Christmas. I lament to my family, probably weekly that their lack of decorum around the table is sad. Some day, my boys are going to want to appear polite for someone else instead of setting the table by throwing out napkins and forks, and forgetting half the items.

One of the things I did on Mother’s Day weekend was to help my mom edit a video on proper table setting. I didn’t actually watch it until last night and I learned a few things. Here it is so that you can finally learn how to make a proper table setting.

June 1, 2020 – Aghhh… to many things going on!

June 1, 2020 /

I know that it seems like I dart around from subject to subject. And to a large degree that is true. But, this is a creative outlet that will eventually pushing to something larger. This is why I make it a priority every weekday to post. As everyone is influenced, my favorite podcasts are ones that are not strictly business but intermingle personal life into the subject matter. That is why I do it.

First and foremost, this is my mom’s birthday. Happy birthday mom. It is sometimes difficult to step back and see your parents move from “senior citizens” to very near elderly. My dad is moving toward mid seventies now. I am starting to keep an eye on them more to make sure that they can continue to be healthy and active, but behaving age appropriate. As the years move on, I need to be more involved as I am definitely the closest geographic child.

Friday night, my wife and I took a class in hosting a small group in our church. The idea is that people are allowed to gather in small groups at this time and it harkens back to a format of early church where people met in their homes. Additionally, relationship is the foundation of strong spiritual connection and growth. This is supposed to start next Sunday, I am thinking of writing more about our plans on Friday.

Saturday marked the much anticipated opening of Tractor Supply. This is the biggest retail opening in nearly thirty years in this town. It was the mid-nineties when the last grocery store (one of two) was built and a complimentary establishment to other businesses in town. I do believe that it will impact other businesses in the area, but we didnt have great options to buy things like pet food in town. I am not sure about their hours, but for a town that starts to roll-up after five, I can see myself frequenting them because other hardware options are closed.

After we inventoried Tractor Supply, we headed to Costco for our major monthly, grocery shop. I picked up a new laptop, an HP Pavillion 15.6″. This is my first experience with HP as my last three home computers and six business computers have been Dell. I am not going to try a completely justify the purchase, but in these days of school and working from home, having a device that I can use to build my site will be nice. I have been wanting to start podcasting and more video editing and now I feel like I have a dedicated home to work.

After the chores have been done, back to work on my apartment. I wont talk about it too much now, but a photo grid from the weekend.

And now, back to work.

May 29, 2020 – The Vinyl Experiment

May 29, 2020 /

Fridays tend to be the days that I think about music. I think that it is because you are looking forward to the weekend and it is kind of a day to celebrate. Back when I was working, I would create a playlist that would capture my mood or summarize the week. And I would open it up for other team members to add their selections.

I mentioned it previously, but my nephew gave my wife a record player for Mother’s Day (a story for another day). I believe that I have a few records at my parents house, but they were out of town. So last weekend, we looked up a record store in a nearby town. We probably browsed for around an hour.

I have been interested in the vinyl re-revolution. I am old enough to remember and even have records. I started thinking about the format changes and theory of Occam’s razor. I will summarize in that changes tend to go to the extreme. So, vinyl begot 8-track (because it was more potable) back to vinyl to cassette to CD and then digital download. Each change vacillated between clearer audio or more control or more portable formats.

There are still a lot of records around. The problem is that like all album collections, there are two or three songs that I am interested in, the rest I can take or leave. I also dont have a lot of time to sit around and really listen to full albums. So, I think the perfect tests are new releases of ‘best of’ type collections (of old music). I also think that for records, I want music to belong to the era that they were originally produce.

We tried the new record player. It is one of those all in one, suitcase types. It was definitely an nostalgic experience. I had one as a kid that took a lot of abuse. We listened to most of all of our new purchases. We did have some difficulty with all of the used records, When I look at them by eye I dont see a problem, so I suspect that it is the quality of the player itself.

I hooked the player up to the receiver to try and get the full audio experience. Because this is one of the all in one units, the phono amplifier and the record player didn’t get along too well. I could hear the much richer undertones, but a lot of scratches and feedback and noise. I switched the input to the CD port and the sound was much clearer, but there was no low end to the music.

I did a comparison from vinyl to YouTube video and I have to say that I much preferred the sound quality to the digital version versus the record. That being said, I am going to blame all of the problems on the player and not the format or the records themselves. This has lead me into looking for a reasonably priced record player that I can hook up to the receiver for a better test.

I have been thinking about having Friday’s as my music day on this platform. So, today I am going to put together a playlist for my recent vinyl purchases.

May 22, 2020 – Heading toward a misunderstood holiday weekend

May 22, 2020 /

As an Eagle Scout, my patriotism runs deep. But as I often say, details matter and this is one of those things that is starting to annoy me more as I get older.

Memorial Day originally began as a symbol and remembrance of the horror of war. It was created as a holiday by President Ulysses Grant approximately at the end of the battle of Gettysburg. Gettysburg is considered the turning point in the US Civil War. This is a day to remember those who died in battle, in service to their country, period.

Like many people, I don’t actually know anyone that has died in battle. I know people that were wounded and I know people that later succumbed to their demons. Most of them were kids who’s lives have not yet begun. So unless you are a parent, spouse, sibling or served in combat it is not likely you will have a strong connection to this holiday either.

In this age of ‘woke’ and relative morality, culturally we have lost touch with actual right and wrong. In lieu of potentially offending someone, we just accept wrongness and actively perpetuate it. Patriotic groups are actually the worst at propagating the improper image. I will explain.

My sons’ Boy Scout Troop places flags at one of the local graveyards during the week of Memorial Day. The selection criteria for a grave getting a flag is whether there is an indicator that the person served in the military on the headstone.

That level of discrimination has nothing to do with actual Memorial Day. For the most part, I can tell that most of them did not die in the line of duty by how long they lived. I have also seen flags placed on empty graves because I know one person who’s spouse died and has the headstone mostly complete, including USMC.

At my church last year, everyone that served in the military was recognized during Memorial Sunday. I heard a local country music station say thanks to all that served, including now first responders. We have gone off of the deep end on giving recognition that is way out of context to the meaning of the event.

Service for the most part is a choice, not an enlightenment. I am thankful that people make that choice. But I also believe in supply/demand economics. The kids that I know that have enlisted are doing so for education, VA home loans, paychecks, signing bonuses and twenty years retirement. That is a great reason to do so and I support that decision methodology.

But, lets no kid ourselves here. A signing bonus is a long way from the Marine landing at Omaha Beach or the Pacific islands. Watching actual footage of kids throwing up out of fear and cut to bodies bobbing in the surf has little to do with each other. War is a business where casualties are expected, it is a matter of which ones.

I am all for expressing gratitude, its is a trait that I am not very good at. I just want us to actually take to heart this weekend that ‘Some Gave All’, almost universally not by choice. Strategic and tactical decisions were made and the consequences were death. Let us not cheapen their sacrifice because we are ignorant or are worried that someone is going to be left out of recognition.

April 27, 2020 – The legacy and disappointment of ‘techno-junk’

April 27, 2020 /

One of the side effects of this quarantine period is a constant reorganization of furniture and settings in the house. The latest rendition of our TV area no longer has a place for the surround sound receiver and DVD player. The Xbox has replaced the Blue Ray player and the receiver doesn’t seem to be working.

Back when I first ‘made it’, we made an investment in a home entertainment center. This was the late nineties so the center piece was a nice Yamaha receiver and surround sound speakers. Later, a CD carousel was added and finally a cassette deck. I even spent numerous weekends building a custom entertainment cabinet

As technology advanced, there was a change in the configuration and usage of the equipment. The first real crack at obsolescence was when we replaced the tube TV with a plasma screen. The audio output on the new TV was digital fiber optic. I had to buy a special converter to change the optical signal to analog. That worked until it had to be reset every year or so.

To be honest, the idea of an nice audio system was stronger than the usage. Music has gone digital, despite having stacks of CD’s and cassettes. If I have a hankering for a particular song, I can look it up on YouTube. And my phone is much closer than the music in the living room. About a year and a half ago, I switched the CD player for the cassette deck for fun. We listened to some old mix tapes for nostalgia. That was the last time I heard it work.

I will admit that that I would get a little frustrated getting everything setup, then to move it and reconfigure it again. In our current house, I have wired the setup in four different places in two different rooms. For that reason, the system hasn’t been fully setup in the last year. We have pulled out the receiver for karaoke purposes from time to time.

$1000 of techno junk

There was no room for the audio system in the new TV setup. So I thought I would set it up in the basement. First I tried the tape deck – no sound. I checked the speaker wire, that seemed fine. I switched the audio cables, those seemed fine. Then I tried CD player, thinking the input might be bad and that was jammed. So I took it apart and found a CD lodged in the mechanism. But I managed to get the drawer stuck.

So, here is where I am at, I may be able to repair the CD player given enough time and effort. I am pretty sure that one of the electronic components is burned out in the receiver – but which one? The whole thing is frustrating and disappointing. Can I, will I and even if I do fix this will I even use it?

I hate to throw away something that was once so nice. I am not sure whether I will try to repair it. I am too deep in my remodeling project to spend any time on this at this time. So, for now it is going to get stacked with the other junk like college text books that haven’t been used in 25 years.

April 13, 2020 – Valuing the software to run the hardware

April 13, 2020 /

This comparison is probably a stretch, but I feel like it will work so I am going for it. I suppose that there are a couple of inputs that make this opinion come alive. In the old days, say pre-Windows XP, hardware was upgraded more often. When hardware was changed, there was a driver that also needed to be installed. That driver may or may not have actually worked. Sometimes it required re-installing service packs and rolling back to move forward. There also wasn’t a video for everything or a forum or ideas to help you get started.

Today, unless you are upgrading your video card or something for a specific reason, you don’t need to add another hard drive or faster DVD drive or more RAM. If you are one of those people, you probably know more about this than I do. However when it didn’t work, which was frequent, what would you have paid to make it work? My point being that without software to run that device, it was worthless. But it wasn’t like you had a choice for vendors, nor could you really pay to have a better or different experience.

I can remember whole Christmas presents not working; never could figure out how to make that game load or that modem work, etc. For those that cant relate to this experience, this is precisely where I am going. Our value of the software is free, because that is our perspective and experience. Yet without it, it doesn’t work at all.

Ker-chunk, Shifting gears. I recently picked up a set of Bora 1100 mobile work bases. Until my recent pantry project, some of the nicety features or accessorizing like dust collection and mobile bases were not in the plan. It was true that my machines could be moved without that mobile base. I really didn’t like to do it and hassle has been some of the issue with previous projects.

Quickly, the pluses on the product are 1) relatively inexpensive at $45 per pair 2) flexible and customizable size accommodating 400 lbs of weight. The minuses were 1) the assembly was time consuming 2) supplying your own frame.

So, unlike the driver situation my tools will work without mobile base. What I will say about it is that I am hoping that I will have much less hesitation to get started when they are easier to move. My shop is small, so having the ability to utilize the space effectively is important. Completing the task is more important than owning the hardware.

April 1, 2020 – April Fools Day or Census Day?

April 1, 2020 /

I was going to write about something completely different today. I didn’t even realize that it was going to be April Fools Day or Census Day yesterday. After my son kept me up half the night with pranks, I figure it is best to take the one day in ten years to discuss it’s significance. So today I will compare and contrast the Census vs. April Fools Day.

The Census is one of the few activities that our federal government activates that is actually prescribed in the Constitution. I am not sure what exactly the data is used for with the exception of counting for distribution of Representatives in the US House. History of the Census execution can be read from this link.

From Wikipedia: April Fools’ Day or April Fool’s Day (sometimes called All Fools’ Day) is an annual custom on April 1 consisting of practical jokes and hoaxes. Jokesters often expose their actions by shouting “April fools” at the recipient. Mass media can be involved in these pranks, which may be revealed as such the following day. The day is not a public holiday in any country except Odessa in Ukraine, where the first of April is an official city holiday.[1] The custom of setting aside a day for playing harmless pranks upon one’s neighbor has been relatively common in the world historically.[2]

And now, back to the Census. Several years ago there was some controversy. There was to be a question about whether you were a citizen or not. I just filled out the form today and I can say that particular question was not present. There were very few questions… who lived at my address, what was their names and birthdates and what was the ethnic background.

The first race question was whether you identified as ‘Latino’ or not. Which I do not, but my wife and kids yes. Then the follow-up question is what particular country/tribe/etc do you identify. I chose French because that is my largest contributor. But for my wife and kids, they also needed to answer that question before I move on. I really don’t understand… the previous question identified as a Latin American Latino (Not Puerto Rican, not Spanish, not South American).

Back to April Fools day. There is a lot of pranking going on at my house. Waking up to ‘Fart Bombs’, my wife is waiting to pull a bathroom prank on the kids right now. I like a good laugh, but I really am not into pranks of this nature. I think that it is just kind of wasteful energy.

Back to the Census. Speaking of wasteful energy, how many ways do we need to count people? Isn’t everyone supposed to fill out a tax return? Names and birthdays are included. I am relatively sure that the very few people that do not fill out a return or are claimed on a return are really on the margin, are these the people that are going to fill out a census form?

Back to April Fools Day. Still waiting for the prank to happen. I have been enlisted to act surprised.

Back to the Census. The way I read the instructions, I was to claim that my exchange student lived at this house, as of April 1. He is defined as non-related resident. Why is this counted?

The Census hired a bunch of people that can no longer do what they were supposed to do, because of quarantine. What were they supposed to do anyway? The form is online. I was mailed multiple notifications that it was required that I participate. The only option I saw was to login to a website. I get that not everyone has online access. But, now what?

Happy April Fools Day or is it Census Day?

March 18, 2020 – Life under quarantine: Day 3

March 18, 2020 /

Life for the last couple of days has been different. I would say that it has been difficult, but that is not true… it is time for a new normal. We are fortunate in that preparedness is our lifestyle so our pantry is full. I love to cook so I frequently go the grocery store to pick-up items for more exotic/lavish meals. That doesn’t mean I don’t know how to use the basics or substitute or modify accordingly.

In our area, school has been closed until April 28. I am not the biggest fan of our education system, in fact I think that we can do a lot better. However, we have a big problem. We have hosted an exchange student from Spain since August. Now that the remainder of the school year is up in the air, his program has decided to end prematurely and they are recommending all students return home.

It is more like ‘Peace Out – good luck if you want to stay cause we are out of here’. There is a program release form that we must fill out today if our student is staying, otherwise he needs a flight back to Spain. Most exchange students are leaving and our coordinator is worried that re-entry may be months delayed if he doesn’t leave immediately. But the short of it is that they are dropping all liability after today.

The problem is that if this academic year is not considered complete by Spain, that he may have to re-take his Junior year. We don’t really want him to leave pre-maturely but I understand the geo-politics and if we are stuck at home for six weeks anyway it could be quite difficult. My initial reaction was wait and see but that is when school was only out until April 1.

We are fortunate again in that my wife already worked three days a week from home. Now that has shifted to full time at home until the end of April. But, with everyone at home unexpectedly it is a difficult environment to be focused, let alone productive. I have been intrigued by the concept of un-schooling, self directed learning and goal setting. I am looking at opportunities to incorporate this downtime into something positive for the kids and family as a whole.

Quarantine in our current practice means limiting non-essential interaction. So, no friends or social gatherings or extra cirricular activities like church, boy scouts or trap team. We also cannot take advantage of this time for travel or site-seeing. What we are doing is family games and movies after the work day. In our climate, spring can be pretty iffy. Right now it is beautiful and time to do garden prep and walks around town. I think that we will try to get out into local nature during the workday to give my wife some quiet time.

I will probably be putting some effort into project oriented learning for the kids, more on that in a later post. For now, remember that there will be life after this so take note on what works and what is lacking so that during the summertime you can make adjustments to prevent this from being a difficult time in the future.

March 13, 2020 – Follow up on politics

March 13, 2020 /

Remember back on February 26, I wrote about how things will happen whether we get wrapped up in them or not? Well guess what? Since the legislature was dismissed and the cap and trade bill could not be passed, the Governor has decided to accomplish it through administrative regulation.

For all those people who were worried about this bill being passed, fear not. This is the kind of state that we now live in. So, you can protest, write your representatives, post on social media and so on but you are much better off doing something better with your life than worrying about politics.