I went to bed early last night because there was no reason to stay up. The people I'm corresponding with through e-mail have disappointed me. I know people who are excellent writers who have nothing to say. By that I mean they don't write about their own experiences, but write about other people's experiences (mostly famous dead people) as if they had lived those other people's lives instead of their own.
"Thou shalt not worship graven images." ~ Mosaic Law
I've never met anybody, including professional religionists, who has ever asked themselves what a "graven image" is. They appear to just take it for granted that they somehow understand what it means, and as if they might be a fool to question what they have been taught since childhood is holy writ.
A graven image is an image that has been deliberately engraved ON something. Papyrus. Sheepskin. Paper. Rocks. Scissors. Excalibur. Sidewalks. Homo sapiens are the only animals on Earth who create graven images.
A slate-blue bower bird popped into my mind as if to protest. After watching their architectural prowess on the nature shows on TV, how could I say no? Birds do have that outer layer of brain that humans have. Maybe dinosaurs decided to turn themselves into birds as a preferred way of being imprisoned on Earth?
That particular commandment about graven images I quoted (from memory, and subject to error) is from the old testament of the King James Version of the Bible. The Ten Commandments Moses' was imbued with after he had his peak experience during his Exodus. He started talking to bushes (obviously one of his former incarnations) as if a madman. I think Moses simply meant to preach that homo sapiens shouldn't worship their own creations, but to only worship the God of the mountain each of us climb to have that encounter. In my opinion, he was saying, "Don't be bowing down before no man-made stuff."
I don't know if Moses was right about that. Mosaic Law has been around for a long time. Truth-telling by divination is not held in as high a regard as it once may have been. On the other hand, if you've ever had any "peak experiences" of your own, for whatever reason, you gnow it's hard not to babble endlessly while attempting to speak the un-nay-me-able. His Ten Commandments must have taken a long time to resolve and bring to fruition in the sensory dimension. The Hero's Journey can be a bitch.
Only po'-its can write poems in real ti-me. The Muses only hang with po' people. That's why you gotta give away all yo' stuff to pass as one of their own with really, really poor people. Some of the people some of the time, but if you're really serious about getting the goods, than the weight of born responsibility has to be abandoned in order to convince them you need to be there among them whether you have to be or not. There's no option if you wanna be where the poetry gods go to find victims to haunt with their heavenly wares.
"Nobody loves you when you're down and out." ~ Billie Holiday
"Un-nay-me-able". I'm pretty sure I coined that phrase to fulfill a need of my own. I don't expect it to gain general use because the people I me-and-thee with don't generally understand the consciousness rap. Besides that, the expression resolves to unnamable. That which can't be named. It can't be denied because it can't be named. It is undeniably so. Humans can't deny it's being what it IS, for whatever it's worth. That's the thing about denial and consciousness. You can't have one without the other. If you stop denying the world is you, then you loses consciousness. You gotta be conscious for their to be a you. No you? No consciousness. What a drag, man.
I break common words up with hyphens as a practice, I do it while reflecting upon the abstract theory that by breaking the big rocks in my lexicon down to small stones, that I may conquer the basic me-and-thee-ing of that woe-to-the-Id (word). When homo erectus (whomever?) first learned to talk, that was when he became a nemesis, if not an equal to the gods. In the bejinning of becoming a homo sapiens, he was the adversary to the powers that be. Probably because he now possess not only the ability to utter coherently, but he had a physical body to boot. What god wouldn't be jealous of that?
What did making the gods jealous take to make that happen? Man had to learn to realize a heretofore imaginary lodging outside of the unopposed fullness of all that It IS, to BE outside of all that he was (and still is), in order to set up a polarity be-tween me-and-thee. The denial of the unopposed fullness is what creates consciousness. If that which is in denial stops denying that you, and all that you claim to be (outside of your own fullness) are not me, you can't be what I-am-is. No me-and-thee-ing. What's the point of denying the world if doing that has no meaning?
Well, maybe just no thee-ing. If I am is unconscious, then thee doesn't ex-is-t to It.
What is there to say if there is no me-and-thee-ing (meaning). Why say anything if it's not to help with the hunting? It might have been quite harmless in the bejinning (a man who can talk be-co-me-s a genie of a sort. He plays doppelganger to the stupid beast. A genius is a man with a genie (doppelganger) at his disposal. A bunch of men with genies at their disposal are called by vocation to be the Jinn. The Jinn are man-made geniuses. They are not born that way. They are impossible to appoint as if to political office, but come into being as self-discovered, and often shy about it at first. "What to do... what to do?"
Why would a graven image mean anything else than a man-made object? A tenth of Moses' vision of doing right is that mankind should not worship the artifacts of mankind. As if possessing the ability to create stuff through imitation made the objects they imitated less than they were originally worth, before man improved upon the handiwork of .... hmmm.... God?
I do not attempt to tell the God's own truth here because I don't know what the truth is or hardly ever. I try to capture the drifting thoughts that randomly appear in my imagination for reasons I may not understand. I don't know if the content I capture with these words is true or false. The Comments settings are turned off to prevent me from having to defend what amounts to little more than fanciful, sometime crude speculation. Great moments in our lives never return.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Left-handed Nut
I wasn't lost. I was looking for a hat. True, I looked for the hat in an industrial complex that had a lot of greasy machines puffing away at producing stuff. I needed the hat to keep from getting some sort of demerits for not toeing the line. What a drag, man. My dream life is truly weird and a little scary. The fact that I wasn't lost in this morning's dream seems encourage. I can't imagine why it was so important to me not to get a demerit. Just before I woke up I found myself borrowing a greasy baseball cap from a rack near these three guys who were so busy working at whatever they were doing, that they barely acknowledged my presence.
It's supposed to be fairly warm for the next week starting today. I've been waiting for this warmer weather to arrive. I went to bed early last night to hurry it up. The weather might not have been the only reason I went to bed early. Yesterday was the first complete day I have used my left hand to operate my computer mouse. It was not business as usual.
Toward the end of the day I wasn't always reaching for the mouse automatically with my right hand first, but most of the day I was. When I remembered that I had changed everything around including the mouse buttons, then I had to switch gears and reach for it with my left hand. Such made me confused for a while, and I had to get used to making the change without letting it worry me. It might take a few more days. I get a bit of a tension headache as the day wears on.
This is not the first or only time I've resorted to using my left hand. I've never had to do it because my right hand was indisposed by some accident or medical problem. I was mostly curious to find out if I had been forced to change to my right hand when I was learning to write as a kid.
To facilitate this experiment I used to copy the Wilhelm/Baynes translation of the I Ching with my left hand. I did this while I was working as a quality control engineer over at Fort Bragg. The way the deal was set up is that i took some certification tests offered by the Army Corps of Engineers and passed them pretty easy. I was supposed to have a degree in mechanical engineering, but they let me use my work experience in it's stead. Then, I got hired by the prime contractor for a building project because their contract with the Corp of Engineers required them to hire us.
It was a real sweet setup if you had the right personality. It was an in betweener job. The contractor had to pay me, but they had to sign a paper that stated they didn't have any control over my decisions about quality control. The Corp of Engineers couldn't tell me what to do because they didn't pay me, and I knew too much for them to fire me.
I sat around in my office for hours copying the I Ching with my left hand, and eventually, I copied with both hands simultaneously writing from right to left with my left hand, and as I normally would with my right hand. I really wasn't cheating anybody by doing this because the job had a lot of slack time when I didn't need to check up on what the mechanical sub-contractor was doing.
After a couple of years of this I came to allow that I never had been left-handed. I did, as you might expect, become much more facile with using my left hand to do tedious tasks, but never as easily or 'handily' as with my right hand. The practice I did in the past has helped me use the mouse probably quicker than I might have without having done it before. It only slowed my Hearts game down by about 30 seconds.
It's supposed to be fairly warm for the next week starting today. I've been waiting for this warmer weather to arrive. I went to bed early last night to hurry it up. The weather might not have been the only reason I went to bed early. Yesterday was the first complete day I have used my left hand to operate my computer mouse. It was not business as usual.
Toward the end of the day I wasn't always reaching for the mouse automatically with my right hand first, but most of the day I was. When I remembered that I had changed everything around including the mouse buttons, then I had to switch gears and reach for it with my left hand. Such made me confused for a while, and I had to get used to making the change without letting it worry me. It might take a few more days. I get a bit of a tension headache as the day wears on.
This is not the first or only time I've resorted to using my left hand. I've never had to do it because my right hand was indisposed by some accident or medical problem. I was mostly curious to find out if I had been forced to change to my right hand when I was learning to write as a kid.
To facilitate this experiment I used to copy the Wilhelm/Baynes translation of the I Ching with my left hand. I did this while I was working as a quality control engineer over at Fort Bragg. The way the deal was set up is that i took some certification tests offered by the Army Corps of Engineers and passed them pretty easy. I was supposed to have a degree in mechanical engineering, but they let me use my work experience in it's stead. Then, I got hired by the prime contractor for a building project because their contract with the Corp of Engineers required them to hire us.
It was a real sweet setup if you had the right personality. It was an in betweener job. The contractor had to pay me, but they had to sign a paper that stated they didn't have any control over my decisions about quality control. The Corp of Engineers couldn't tell me what to do because they didn't pay me, and I knew too much for them to fire me.
I sat around in my office for hours copying the I Ching with my left hand, and eventually, I copied with both hands simultaneously writing from right to left with my left hand, and as I normally would with my right hand. I really wasn't cheating anybody by doing this because the job had a lot of slack time when I didn't need to check up on what the mechanical sub-contractor was doing.
After a couple of years of this I came to allow that I never had been left-handed. I did, as you might expect, become much more facile with using my left hand to do tedious tasks, but never as easily or 'handily' as with my right hand. The practice I did in the past has helped me use the mouse probably quicker than I might have without having done it before. It only slowed my Hearts game down by about 30 seconds.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
The Coldest Night Of The Year
It was the coldest it's been this winter last night. Down into the teens. That's very cold for the coastal plains. It's not going to get very warm today either, but at least it will be a little warmer than yesterday. It barely got above freezing. I got pen pals up in Chicago that might laugh when they read these silly remarks. They're acclimated to really cold weather, and we're not. I used to work with a group of men from Haiti when I lived in Florida. If the temperature got down to 70 degrees (21 C) they would come to work wearing sweaters. They just weren't used to it being so cold. The temperature at the Equator rarely, if ever, changes plus or minus two degrees all year long. People can die of over-exposure if it changes as much as five degree.
It's easy for me to forget my skin makes Vitamin D when it's exposed to enough sunshine. There's been a lotta information about vitamin D that's come to light in the last decade. Apparently the largest research project on vitamin D concluded recently, and the findings of that research is beginning to show up in the media. The articles I've been reading on the internet reveal lots of ideas about skin pigment and how that affects how much vitamin D a person's skin will produce. The lighter the skin color, the more sunlight it will accept and make vitamin D. As the amount of vitamin D reaches satisfactory levels the skin gets darker. Too much and the skin will burn and drive a person out of the sunlight.
I think a lot of people know an awful lot about how the sunlight affects them personally. They learn how much they can safely absorb and when to cover up. I suspect many of those same people may not realize the dynamics of the vitamin D process when they're out trying to get a tan. If they did, they would let that be their guide. Once the skin starts changing color on a particular outing that means the skin has stopped making vitamin D for a while. Each time the skin is exposed to the sunlight the color it starts at on that day is the criteria for when to cover up.
When I was a kid working all day in the sun it took weeks in the Spring to get tan enough to stay out in the sun wearing just a pair of shorts. For people who only got sun when they went to the beach on weekends it's was a different story. They tried to get a sun tan in a relatively short amount of time. They always seemed to push the envelop.
I wasn't the judge about how long to stay out in the sun in the Spring when I was a kid. It was mostly my mother and siblings who would tell me to go get a shirt on. I told them too if I noticed them getting red. It was as much compassion and empathy as much as it was a health thing. Getting sunburned hurts.
The other aspect of the new information on vitamin D is how it works to control the health of one's bones. People with vitamin D deficiencies have known problems like rickets. Soft bones. Vitamin D apparently regulates how calcium is used throughout the body. When I was diagnosed as having rheumatoid arthritis I was also diagnosed as having osteoporosis and prescribed calcium pills. Calcium that was not derived from dairy products, but coral and oyster shells. The calcium pills come with vitamin D included. That's one of the reasons I have bad teeth. If my body needs calcium and I ain't providing it from outside, then it's taken from my teeth and bones. As a person gets older they need to take calcium supplements so it won't be taken from what's already in there.
I don't know the truth. I write stuff here in my blog in some frail attempt to capture drifting thoughts with my scanty vocabulary. When I start writing stuff down to capture some odd thought that might drift through my psyche I don't have time to decide whether what I'm writing or copying is true or not. I can't afford to care if I wanna get something/anything down in writing. I trying to write some part of myself off before I get stuck with dealing with it during my death throes.
I have experienced the throes of death many times, and my experience in this arena is that I gone be mighty busy trying to stay oriented to the main chance if I wanna be-co-me some sort of god rather than be-co-me some sort of frog in the next life. Sadly, as the Great Pretender, it's completely up to me.
It's easy for me to forget my skin makes Vitamin D when it's exposed to enough sunshine. There's been a lotta information about vitamin D that's come to light in the last decade. Apparently the largest research project on vitamin D concluded recently, and the findings of that research is beginning to show up in the media. The articles I've been reading on the internet reveal lots of ideas about skin pigment and how that affects how much vitamin D a person's skin will produce. The lighter the skin color, the more sunlight it will accept and make vitamin D. As the amount of vitamin D reaches satisfactory levels the skin gets darker. Too much and the skin will burn and drive a person out of the sunlight.
I think a lot of people know an awful lot about how the sunlight affects them personally. They learn how much they can safely absorb and when to cover up. I suspect many of those same people may not realize the dynamics of the vitamin D process when they're out trying to get a tan. If they did, they would let that be their guide. Once the skin starts changing color on a particular outing that means the skin has stopped making vitamin D for a while. Each time the skin is exposed to the sunlight the color it starts at on that day is the criteria for when to cover up.
When I was a kid working all day in the sun it took weeks in the Spring to get tan enough to stay out in the sun wearing just a pair of shorts. For people who only got sun when they went to the beach on weekends it's was a different story. They tried to get a sun tan in a relatively short amount of time. They always seemed to push the envelop.
I wasn't the judge about how long to stay out in the sun in the Spring when I was a kid. It was mostly my mother and siblings who would tell me to go get a shirt on. I told them too if I noticed them getting red. It was as much compassion and empathy as much as it was a health thing. Getting sunburned hurts.
The other aspect of the new information on vitamin D is how it works to control the health of one's bones. People with vitamin D deficiencies have known problems like rickets. Soft bones. Vitamin D apparently regulates how calcium is used throughout the body. When I was diagnosed as having rheumatoid arthritis I was also diagnosed as having osteoporosis and prescribed calcium pills. Calcium that was not derived from dairy products, but coral and oyster shells. The calcium pills come with vitamin D included. That's one of the reasons I have bad teeth. If my body needs calcium and I ain't providing it from outside, then it's taken from my teeth and bones. As a person gets older they need to take calcium supplements so it won't be taken from what's already in there.
I don't know the truth. I write stuff here in my blog in some frail attempt to capture drifting thoughts with my scanty vocabulary. When I start writing stuff down to capture some odd thought that might drift through my psyche I don't have time to decide whether what I'm writing or copying is true or not. I can't afford to care if I wanna get something/anything down in writing. I trying to write some part of myself off before I get stuck with dealing with it during my death throes.
I have experienced the throes of death many times, and my experience in this arena is that I gone be mighty busy trying to stay oriented to the main chance if I wanna be-co-me some sort of god rather than be-co-me some sort of frog in the next life. Sadly, as the Great Pretender, it's completely up to me.
Monday, March 2, 2009
False Spring And Expectations
I switched hands for using my mouse. It's awkward, but a big relief to the index finger on my right hand. Any repetitive movement will bring the same result. I'm pleased that I can still type at all with my right hand. Typing is not what has caused the problem, but playing the card games like Hearts and FreeCell and Solitaire is what does the trick. I guess I'm lucky there isn't a half-decent MineSweeper game for the Mac that I can replace the Windows game with. I got to where my only limitation for speed with MineSweeper was how fast I could click the squares.
My biggest game addiction now is Sudoku. I bought a Sudoku game for Macs called Latin Squares that's got a timer. That's how I challenge myself with these games. I try to beat my own best time. Latin Squares comes with three levels of difficulty: Easy; Medium; and Hard. The Easy level ain't easy for me. Any game of Sudoku I win in under four minutes is a well-played game for me. I decided that I wasn't gonna play at the Medium level until I finished a game under three minutes.
I've played thousands of games at the Easy level. Winning in less than four minutes is good. The fastest game I completed was three minutes and six seconds. One day last week when I wasn't paying much attention I finished a game in less than three minutes, but not only that, I finished the game in two minutes and forty-six seconds. I haven't finished in under three minutes but for that one time. I didn't believe that was possible. Well, for me, at nearly seventy years old. My reaction times are also affected by the arthritis.
Playing these games on the computer daily remind me so much of pipe-welding for a living. I had to work at an expert level every day to pass the x-ray tests required for every weld I made, and I did. But, some days I could perform at such a level of excellence even the other welders would compliment me on the sheer beauty of certain welds. When that happens, the color of the finished weld has a tendency to turn golden, and thats how you know you've done exceptionally well. A weld can look pretty, and easily pass the x-ray test, without the weld cooling down to a golden color.
Pipe-welding was the first physically oriented skill I ever mastered. It set the standard for other modes of mastery. It was through my mastery of welding that I learned what mastery is. It's not perfection, but dictates the level of excellence that can be achieved fairly frequently at a high level of skill. It's associated with systems of expertise, and is not the sa-me thing as acting from a state of gnosis. At least, that's my opinion. YMMV.
It's March already. In three week the Spring equinox will arrive. That still doesn't mean we won't have cold snaps up until Easter in this neighborhood. Easter is the drop dead date farmers figure they can safely put their produce and tobacco plants out into the fields without losing them to a late frost. We're supposed to get cold today and it's supposed to be down to 13 degrees Fahrenheit tonight and for the next couple of nights, and then up in the seventies by the weekend. I hate having to be patient every single Spring, but I do. It seems like I'd learn to forego the expectation, but I never have. I always start yearning for the coming of the green way too early.
My biggest game addiction now is Sudoku. I bought a Sudoku game for Macs called Latin Squares that's got a timer. That's how I challenge myself with these games. I try to beat my own best time. Latin Squares comes with three levels of difficulty: Easy; Medium; and Hard. The Easy level ain't easy for me. Any game of Sudoku I win in under four minutes is a well-played game for me. I decided that I wasn't gonna play at the Medium level until I finished a game under three minutes.
I've played thousands of games at the Easy level. Winning in less than four minutes is good. The fastest game I completed was three minutes and six seconds. One day last week when I wasn't paying much attention I finished a game in less than three minutes, but not only that, I finished the game in two minutes and forty-six seconds. I haven't finished in under three minutes but for that one time. I didn't believe that was possible. Well, for me, at nearly seventy years old. My reaction times are also affected by the arthritis.
Playing these games on the computer daily remind me so much of pipe-welding for a living. I had to work at an expert level every day to pass the x-ray tests required for every weld I made, and I did. But, some days I could perform at such a level of excellence even the other welders would compliment me on the sheer beauty of certain welds. When that happens, the color of the finished weld has a tendency to turn golden, and thats how you know you've done exceptionally well. A weld can look pretty, and easily pass the x-ray test, without the weld cooling down to a golden color.
Pipe-welding was the first physically oriented skill I ever mastered. It set the standard for other modes of mastery. It was through my mastery of welding that I learned what mastery is. It's not perfection, but dictates the level of excellence that can be achieved fairly frequently at a high level of skill. It's associated with systems of expertise, and is not the sa-me thing as acting from a state of gnosis. At least, that's my opinion. YMMV.
It's March already. In three week the Spring equinox will arrive. That still doesn't mean we won't have cold snaps up until Easter in this neighborhood. Easter is the drop dead date farmers figure they can safely put their produce and tobacco plants out into the fields without losing them to a late frost. We're supposed to get cold today and it's supposed to be down to 13 degrees Fahrenheit tonight and for the next couple of nights, and then up in the seventies by the weekend. I hate having to be patient every single Spring, but I do. It seems like I'd learn to forego the expectation, but I never have. I always start yearning for the coming of the green way too early.
False Spring And Expectations
I switched hands for using my mouse. It's awkward, but a big relief to the index finger on my right hand. Any repetitive movement will bring the same result. I'm pleased that I can still type at all with my right hand. Typing is not what has caused the problem, but playing the card games like Hearts and FreeCell and Solitaire is what does the trick. I guess I'm lucky there isn't a half-decent MineSweeper game for the Mac that I can replace the Windows game with. I got to where my only limitation for speed with MineSweeper was how fast I could click the squares.
My biggest game addiction now is Sudoku. I bought a Sudoku game for Macs called Latin Squares that's got a timer. That's how I challenge myself with these games. I try to beat my own best time. Latin Squares comes with three levels of difficulty: Easy; Medium; and Hard. The Easy level ain't easy for me. Any game of Sudoku I win in under four minutes is a well-played game for me. I decided that I wasn't gonna play at the Medium level until I finished a game under three minutes.
I've played thousands of games at the Easy level. Winning in less than four minutes is good. The fastest game I completed was three minutes and six seconds. One day last week when I wasn't paying much attention I finished a game in less than three minutes, but not only that, I finished the game in two minutes and forty-six seconds. I haven't finished in under three minutes but for that one time. I didn't believe that was possible. Well, for me, at nearly seventy years old. My reaction times are also affected by the arthritis.
Playing these games on the computer daily remind me so much of pipe-welding for a living. I had to work at an expert level every day to pass the x-ray tests required for every weld I made, and I did. But, some days I could perform at such a level of excellence even the other welders would compliment me on the sheer beauty of certain welds. When that happens, the color of the finished weld has a tendency to turn golden, and thats how you know you've done exceptionally well. A weld can look pretty, and easily pass the x-ray test, without the weld cooling down to a golden color.
Pipe-welding was the first physically oriented skill I ever mastered. It set the standard for other modes of mastery. It was through my mastery of welding that I learned what mastery is. It's not perfection, but dictates the level of excellence that can be achieved fairly frequently at a high level of skill. It's associated with systems of expertise, and is not the sa-me thing as acting from a state of gnosis. At least, that's my opinion. YMMV.
It's March already. In three week the Spring equinox will arrive. That still doesn't mean we won't have cold snaps up until Easter in this neighborhood. Easter is the drop dead date farmers figure they can safely put their produce and tobacco plants out into the fields without losing them to a late frost. We're supposed to get cold today and it's supposed to be down to 13 degrees Fahrenheit tonight and for the next couple of nights, and then up in the seventies by the weekend. I hate having to be patient every single Spring, but I do. It seems like I'd learn to forego the expectation, but I never have. I always start yearning for the coming of the green way too early.
My biggest game addiction now is Sudoku. I bought a Sudoku game for Macs called Latin Squares that's got a timer. That's how I challenge myself with these games. I try to beat my own best time. Latin Squares comes with three levels of difficulty: Easy; Medium; and Hard. The Easy level ain't easy for me. Any game of Sudoku I win in under four minutes is a well-played game for me. I decided that I wasn't gonna play at the Medium level until I finished a game under three minutes.
I've played thousands of games at the Easy level. Winning in less than four minutes is good. The fastest game I completed was three minutes and six seconds. One day last week when I wasn't paying much attention I finished a game in less than three minutes, but not only that, I finished the game in two minutes and forty-six seconds. I haven't finished in under three minutes but for that one time. I didn't believe that was possible. Well, for me, at nearly seventy years old. My reaction times are also affected by the arthritis.
Playing these games on the computer daily remind me so much of pipe-welding for a living. I had to work at an expert level every day to pass the x-ray tests required for every weld I made, and I did. But, some days I could perform at such a level of excellence even the other welders would compliment me on the sheer beauty of certain welds. When that happens, the color of the finished weld has a tendency to turn golden, and thats how you know you've done exceptionally well. A weld can look pretty, and easily pass the x-ray test, without the weld cooling down to a golden color.
Pipe-welding was the first physically oriented skill I ever mastered. It set the standard for other modes of mastery. It was through my mastery of welding that I learned what mastery is. It's not perfection, but dictates the level of excellence that can be achieved fairly frequently at a high level of skill. It's associated with systems of expertise, and is not the sa-me thing as acting from a state of gnosis. At least, that's my opinion. YMMV.
It's March already. In three week the Spring equinox will arrive. That still doesn't mean we won't have cold snaps up until Easter in this neighborhood. Easter is the drop dead date farmers figure they can safely put their produce and tobacco plants out into the fields without losing them to a late frost. We're supposed to get cold today and it's supposed to be down to 13 degrees Fahrenheit tonight and for the next couple of nights, and then up in the seventies by the weekend. I hate having to be patient every single Spring, but I do. It seems like I'd learn to forego the expectation, but I never have. I always start yearning for the coming of the green way too early.
False Spring And Expectations
I switched hands for using my mouse. It's awkward, but a big relief to the index finger on my right hand. Any repetitive movement will bring the same result. I'm pleased that I can still type at all with my right hand. Typing is not what has caused the problem, but playing the card games like Hearts and FreeCell and Solitaire is what does the trick. I guess I'm lucky there isn't a half-decent MineSweeper game for the Mac that I can replace the Windows game with. I got to where my only limitation for speed with MineSweeper was how fast I could click the squares.
My biggest game addiction now is Sudoku. I bought a Sudoku game for Macs called Latin Squares that's got a timer. That's how I challenge myself with these games. I try to beat my own best time. Latin Squares comes with three levels of difficulty: Easy; Medium; and Hard. The Easy level ain't easy for me. Any game of Sudoku I win in under four minutes is a well-played game for me. I decided that I wasn't gonna play at the Medium level until I finished a game under three minutes.
I've played thousands of games at the Easy level. Winning in less than four minutes is good. The fastest game I completed was three minutes and six seconds. One day last week when I wasn't paying much attention I finished a game in less than three minutes, but not only that, I finished the game in two minutes and forty-six seconds. I haven't finished in under three minutes but for that one time. I didn't believe that was possible. Well, for me, at nearly seventy years old. My reaction times are also affected by the arthritis.
Playing these games on the computer daily remind me so much of pipe-welding for a living. I had to work at an expert level every day to pass the x-ray tests required for every weld I made, and I did. But, some days I could perform at such a level of excellence even the other welders would compliment me on the sheer beauty of certain welds. When that happens, the color of the finished weld has a tendency to turn golden, and thats how you know you've done exceptionally well. A weld can look pretty, and easily pass the x-ray test, without the weld cooling down to a golden color.
Pipe-welding was the first physically oriented skill I ever mastered. It set the standard for other modes of mastery. It was through my mastery of welding that I learned what mastery is. It's not perfection, but dictates the level of excellence that can be achieved fairly frequently at a high level of skill. It's associated with systems of expertise, and is not the sa-me thing as acting from a state of gnosis. At least, that's my opinion. YMMV.
It's March already. In three week the Spring equinox will arrive. That still doesn't mean we won't have cold snaps up until Easter in this neighborhood. Easter is the drop dead date farmers figure they can safely put their produce and tobacco plants out into the fields without losing them to a late frost. We're supposed to get cold today and it's supposed to be down to 13 degrees Fahrenheit tonight and for the next couple of nights, and then up in the seventies by the weekend. I hate having to be patient every single Spring, but I do. It seems like I'd learn to forego the expectation, but I never have. I always start yearning for the coming of the green way too early.
My biggest game addiction now is Sudoku. I bought a Sudoku game for Macs called Latin Squares that's got a timer. That's how I challenge myself with these games. I try to beat my own best time. Latin Squares comes with three levels of difficulty: Easy; Medium; and Hard. The Easy level ain't easy for me. Any game of Sudoku I win in under four minutes is a well-played game for me. I decided that I wasn't gonna play at the Medium level until I finished a game under three minutes.
I've played thousands of games at the Easy level. Winning in less than four minutes is good. The fastest game I completed was three minutes and six seconds. One day last week when I wasn't paying much attention I finished a game in less than three minutes, but not only that, I finished the game in two minutes and forty-six seconds. I haven't finished in under three minutes but for that one time. I didn't believe that was possible. Well, for me, at nearly seventy years old. My reaction times are also affected by the arthritis.
Playing these games on the computer daily remind me so much of pipe-welding for a living. I had to work at an expert level every day to pass the x-ray tests required for every weld I made, and I did. But, some days I could perform at such a level of excellence even the other welders would compliment me on the sheer beauty of certain welds. When that happens, the color of the finished weld has a tendency to turn golden, and thats how you know you've done exceptionally well. A weld can look pretty, and easily pass the x-ray test, without the weld cooling down to a golden color.
Pipe-welding was the first physically oriented skill I ever mastered. It set the standard for other modes of mastery. It was through my mastery of welding that I learned what mastery is. It's not perfection, but dictates the level of excellence that can be achieved fairly frequently at a high level of skill. It's associated with systems of expertise, and is not the sa-me thing as acting from a state of gnosis. At least, that's my opinion. YMMV.
It's March already. In three week the Spring equinox will arrive. That still doesn't mean we won't have cold snaps up until Easter in this neighborhood. Easter is the drop dead date farmers figure they can safely put their produce and tobacco plants out into the fields without losing them to a late frost. We're supposed to get cold today and it's supposed to be down to 13 degrees Fahrenheit tonight and for the next couple of nights, and then up in the seventies by the weekend. I hate having to be patient every single Spring, but I do. It seems like I'd learn to forego the expectation, but I never have. I always start yearning for the coming of the green way too early.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Switching Hands
As the weathermen promised, it continues to rain today. Not far north and west of here it's snowing. The low altitude of the coastal plains saves us from the white stuff fairly often. I like looking that what snow creates around here where it doesn't snow much, but the way it covers the roads and causes accidents makes it okay with me if it passes us by.
It's supposed to get real cold behind this front that's bringing the moisture. It's reaching all the way down into Florida so there is not much chance the conditions will change so that the cold slips away before it gets to the Mid-Atlantic area. The only thing I have to worry about are my water pipes freezing, and I've done what's necessary to prevent that as much as I can. They say the cold will only stay a couple of days, and then after that it's supposed to warm up into the 70s (21-30 C).
I have more trouble with my right hand and wrist as far as the rheumatoid arthritis goes. Since I'm basically right-handed that's inconvenient. The swelling never goes down much in my right wrist. I got something poking out against my skin behind my thumb. I push it back in occasionally, and it stays smooth for a while, but the next thing I know it's popped out again. The swelling in my wrist squeezes it out I guess. It don't bode well. If I live long enough I'll die a twisted soul. At least I was handsome and appealing for a good part of my life.
I have another appointment with the rheumatologist at the Durham VA on March 7th. He talked to me about some results he found over the telephone after my first appointment. I didn't understand what the implications are. He didn't sound as if what he found was a good thing. Something about "crystals" in my right hip and knee. Rainey said it sounded like the gout. I'm gonna ask him to clarify his findings for me, but I don't really wanna know.
My right has about died. I changed my mouse over to use it left-handed. I've practiced writing with my left hand enough to know that it'll take me a while to get used to it, but it's stupid not to try to save my right hand flexibility as long as I can.
I saw this documentary about a Japanese man who was over 100 years old. He had been a medical doctor all his adult life. He got up every morning and wiped his whole body down with a towel dipped in cold water. Then, he would go out for a jog. I was really impressed because they showed a video of him washing up and then jogging. He was obviously not an Olympic challenger, but he ran very well. I think the only chance of me doing something like that might depend on whether they can find a way of using stem cells to rebuild my bone structure. What? You think I wouldn't try to cheat death? Guess again, sucker. LOL
It's supposed to get real cold behind this front that's bringing the moisture. It's reaching all the way down into Florida so there is not much chance the conditions will change so that the cold slips away before it gets to the Mid-Atlantic area. The only thing I have to worry about are my water pipes freezing, and I've done what's necessary to prevent that as much as I can. They say the cold will only stay a couple of days, and then after that it's supposed to warm up into the 70s (21-30 C).
I have more trouble with my right hand and wrist as far as the rheumatoid arthritis goes. Since I'm basically right-handed that's inconvenient. The swelling never goes down much in my right wrist. I got something poking out against my skin behind my thumb. I push it back in occasionally, and it stays smooth for a while, but the next thing I know it's popped out again. The swelling in my wrist squeezes it out I guess. It don't bode well. If I live long enough I'll die a twisted soul. At least I was handsome and appealing for a good part of my life.
I have another appointment with the rheumatologist at the Durham VA on March 7th. He talked to me about some results he found over the telephone after my first appointment. I didn't understand what the implications are. He didn't sound as if what he found was a good thing. Something about "crystals" in my right hip and knee. Rainey said it sounded like the gout. I'm gonna ask him to clarify his findings for me, but I don't really wanna know.
My right has about died. I changed my mouse over to use it left-handed. I've practiced writing with my left hand enough to know that it'll take me a while to get used to it, but it's stupid not to try to save my right hand flexibility as long as I can.
I saw this documentary about a Japanese man who was over 100 years old. He had been a medical doctor all his adult life. He got up every morning and wiped his whole body down with a towel dipped in cold water. Then, he would go out for a jog. I was really impressed because they showed a video of him washing up and then jogging. He was obviously not an Olympic challenger, but he ran very well. I think the only chance of me doing something like that might depend on whether they can find a way of using stem cells to rebuild my bone structure. What? You think I wouldn't try to cheat death? Guess again, sucker. LOL
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