One year ago today: April 12, 2025, no kitchen floor, dammit.
Five years ago today: April 12, 2021, Typhoon Hari-Kari.
Nine years ago today: April 12, 2017, candle sinkholes.
Random years ago today: April 12, 2019, morning at the lake.
A fine morning, for relaxing. A lost of editorial for you today, as nothing else happened. For those who think that cloud storage is anything new or special, here is a view of the first rig. This is 2007 tech, around the same time I had a similar setup at the old shop on Hollywood, with 8 drives. This one had 45, the difference being I would never have thought the public stupid enough to store data on somebody else’s hard drives. I guess at any given moment, two of these drives were about to crap out with your data.
I admit, my years of formal planning are over, I had no plans to live this long. But items like my household budget carry a certain momentum that keeps finances on an even keel. This blog is also a great way to make comparisons. Others write memoirs—but too often use that to correct mistakes and polish images. This blog does not do that, the events stand as recorded including bad decisions and instance where I’ve changed viewpoints. During 2027, this blog will pass from a hobby to an established record, viewed over one million times.
It was not a goal but a million is nothing to sneeze at. It kind of proves the old maxim that it takes twenty years to become an overnight success. September 2006 was when the daily posting began here—also coinciding with recovery from another health episode. I find some early posts erratic and contradictory. But that is an accuracy impossible to achieve when people wait for old age to jot things down. I regularly review things and people I have long forgotten.
Another divorce in the news, where the wife does not find out the husband has no assets in his own name. Proof of my assertion that the British legal system does not work so well when you have somebody you can trust. It is now 5:00PM and yes, I did sleep all day. Will I get anything accomplished in the remaining sunlight? Details are sparse, but Bezo has announced development of a reactor that can produce oxygen from lunar soil.
I read, or tried to read, an article on the use of quantum computers to crack encryption and passwords. Um, I quickly got lost. But I did spot a pattern in the descriptions. There are flaws in the approach itself that the pundits are straining to ignore or downsize. I won’t get deep into it, but this is something similar to the IBM code that MicroSoft messed up. No built-in safeguards, no anti-hacking measures, an attitude that encourages virus attacks, and vulnerabilities that require constant updates.
All the software houses are chasing the first-to-market strategy. Because they have never tried anything else. In other news, the founder of OnlyFans died last month, age 43. Something ironic about that. I just discovered a website CourtWatch that tracks Florida judges who let criminals out on a promise to appear. I hope it goes viral.
Amish used buggy lot.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
Not so fast, by 5:20PM I’m back in my easy chair. Going off the antibiotics has consequences. I re-read the literature on these drugs, which are used in combination with, in my case, two stomach prescriptions. I’m vulnerable there, it landed me an extra week in ICU. These prescriptions run a week past the end of the antibiotics and I’m suddenly queasy. I’m staying away from power tools for now. Reading is a great alternative hobby for such spells.
So let’s peek back at the Moon oxygen. There’s a lot of it in the dust, but it is tightly bonded with the rock, much of which is titanium. And just awhile back I commented on the difficulty of separating them. Now, using a nuclear powered microwave, they got a working prototype. Another headline concerns difficulty of recent computer grads, as A.I. is already doing most of the entry level jobs. Well, face it, today’s grads have not been exactly stellar. What caught my attention is a Chinese program that, I feel, is long overdue in America. Genius classes.
The Chinese model is angled toward competitive career demands instead of general research. The model is, however, correct. How I longed for such a program as early as third grade—why was I never allowed to progress faster than the slowest classmates? And tons of remedial classes and help for the slowpokes, but only one scholarship for the top students between them, two if you were lucky. The Chinese program sifts students and selects the very best.
Here is an invention potentially bad, a bicycle bell with a new feature. There has been an increase in accidents in people wearing noise-canceling headphones who annot hear the bells. I consider that entirely their own fault, serves them right. The headphones work by emitting a counter-signal of the opposite phase. The new bell sends two sounds, one that causes the “blind spot”, the other that sends the signal through the opening. This will not end well.
Later, I did not set foot outside, an entire day lost. Not ill, I spent the day inactive, not daring to stay too far away from the coffee pot, the ice water in the stove, and the bathroom. I suspect there will be more days like this. Hey, it was my decision to document my own aging process from the inside out. No calls, no texts, no e-mail, but at least if this becomes routine, I have some things to look back on. This, all told, was as nothing a day as ever around here because it was my call.
ADDENDUM
Quick health review, must keep up to date. Maybe not so quick. Best is a return of sensation to my ring and pinky fingers of both hands. My precious bass fingers. Doc says that was poor circulation, yeah, well not that my circulation has been good for 60 days, what is the holdup? I’ve taken to wearing the LifeVest but I probably don’t need it. I did not have heart pain or real shortness of breath since this time and do not have them now. Both leg wounds are still open but healing, I get slight cramps and think they had to take out more vessel thank planned.
My chest is a big wound, now bristling with bits of suture and leaving a ragged scar. My abdomen has several slow-closing puncture spots where they attached something or other. But no torso pain of any sort as would be attributable to this period, and that’s for nearly two weeks. There is a numbness across the upper chest, the pectorals and down what my diagram called gluteus medias. Only when touched, so they do not interfere with activity, but neither is getting better in any regular time scale.
Still weak as ever, the days are more even [more balanced], such as y’day when I did not have any fallout from four hours standing while in the shed. Don’t interpret this as any strength gain, I must move around quarter-speed at all times. For the longest time I found it more comfortable to shuffle along in a stooped posture. That’s going away, I’m glad, because it looked funny. I take longer to catch my balance and my poor arms are finally cleared of IV bruising.
The literature they gave me lists over thirty side effects and around the same warnings. I must wear buttoned shits instead of my favorite tees. That’s due to having to raise my arms too high and the slight pressure the material places across the chest. The sutures are clear, but manage to poke through the fabric. The incision is well enough no bandages are needed. A small cushion is required to wear a seatbelt.
Food taste is fairly normal again, just not always. It is nice to be able to toss around at night. Sadly, I’m missing the finest winter we’ve had this decade. The sunlight feels super healthy and a slight night chill is mildly refreshing. As said, longer sleep hours are returning. I calibrated my bathroom scale and I have lost 14 pounds. However, that is not from watching my diet.
