It's been a while

I have been watching the world go by, and deliberately holding my fingers (which seems to be a metaphor for tongue) in order not to become strident, shrill, or outright nasty.

This may turn into a rant, I'm not sure yet.  Then again I may save the rant for late at night when nobody is listening.

It is now part way into February.  February is usually a BFD month for us - Already we've lost a couple of days to snow (although that was never a part of the plan.)  In not too many days I will turn 72 (or 28 by Grandpop Rudolph's reckoning....) and I am not liking it.  I don't feel like I'm 72 (most days) and I try very hard not to behave like someone that old - but some days I just can't escape it.  On the day after my birthday I will have been married to my first wife for 46 years - something many people (including ourselves from time to time) would never have believed possible - and I find that it is all good.

And of course I still go to work every day.  Some days I'm actually worth more than I cost - other days they should make me pay to let me in.  I've been having a good deal of fun with code lately, finding new ways to do things with fewer instructions, less messy code - it keeps my head either on straight or shaking.

I discovered Google Hangouts, and resolved to set up an area for my brothers and I to get together in a video chat, since apparently that's the only was some of us will see the rest of us.  Looks like a nifty tool - be interesting to see if it works as I impute that it does, and if it doesn't it will be interesting to see how long it takes me actually to figure out precisely how it does work.  Either way, I won't get bored.

My Kindle library is growing - I may not live long enough to read everything that's in it - I get emails every day from a couple of places that keep track of what's available, and Amazon puts out a fair amount that is free, and I try to get as much of that that looks interesting as I can.

I think in a separate piece I'll talk about the new stuff I have discovered that works so well.

Google amazes me - I have switched to Chrome as the browser of choice, and have discovered various apps and extensions for it that make it more useful - nearly an entire working environment is available from the browser itself including rudimentary office applications (and, truth be told, it is all I really need - Word has over the years grown into everything for everyone, and has so many buttons, widgets, fladgets and such that I can't use it whout looking for stuff that I used to know where it was....  With Google Docs, there's a lot that I can't do - but over the last several months I have not found most of what it won't let me do to be all that useful.

There are things that work with Chrome and Android devices that work so well that I finally have a place to stick important stuff that I can reach from my office, from any PC, and from my android devices (Phone and tablets.) Now, whenever I start up Chrome, whether it be on my phone, a tablet, a laptop or a desktop, it knows who I am and presents me with whatever environment I left last.

Listening to Ray Bryant playing  Slow Freight and enjoying it.  I keep music here at work, and happily the folks around me like it (or they just don't want to tell me I have no taste....)  Music makes life better, don't you know.

Last night I met a group of German speakers that meets each week somewhere nearby, and I have been enjoying the social evenings with them, although to my chagrin I find I don't speak as well as I once did (or as I think I once did) and most of the folks there are not from the area where I lived, so my accent and dialect cause interesting misunderstandings - but it sure is fun!

Well, I just talked to a nephew I have not seen in at least 20 years - and got a video chat on my tablet by dumbing into how it works. Now I have to get a desktop working with that.  Looks like Google Hangouts is more useful than I would have imagined.

I gotta go home.  I may pick this up later, or I may decide it's rant time later.  You'll be able to figure out which has happened.

Monday Evening

The Monday I started this morning is slowly drawing to a close.

I did take those two lab slips to a lab this morning and bled profusely for the phlebotomists there.  Happily, they looked at both slips and were able to combine them - otherwise I might have had to have as many as 30 vials drawn.  Thinking about that many vials makes me a little queasy.  But we got through those we needed to do - then I could go home and get my medications and some breakfast.  It seems that some of these labs have to be done after at least an 8 hour fast.

Work was an atypical Monday - some folks who did not know I was back got surprised, and the yelling was minimal.  I started an onerous task and made good progress, and had a few thoughts of better ways to do a few things - so I should be in good shape for the next 10 days or so.

A couple of friends sent me a couple of real howlers that I had to pass along to around 40 or so other folks - good comic relief, and I got a load of spam at work in languages I could not even recognize. We have some pretty good filters, but the spammers get more clever (or lucky) each day. It becomes annoying when 25 people want to help me with a problem I do not have.

I've been looking at motorcycles lighter than Big Suzi, and am concluding that a BMW twin or a 4 might be nice at least 10 and maybe as much as 20 years old.  saw a couple of nice Moto Guzzi's, and then I found a Honda Pacific Coast.  At 800 CCs it ought to be big enough, as well as cheap to feed, and it's a classic.  For the time being, I think no sidecar - maybe in a couple of years but for now a middleweight might be a better choice.  The heavy bike is perhaps better suited to a trip to California, but somehow I think I am not going to be doing that for a while - and when it does come, a train or motorhome would be a better vehicle.

Unless you live in a cave, you know about what happened in DC today - another crazy used a gun-free zone as a way to assure a bunch of defenseless victims.  Nobody seems to have anything resembling a reason for this - but some of it lays at Bill Clinton's feet - it was he who determined that military personnel on base would be disarmed.

I think maybe this rant should be elsewhere, so I'm gonna shut up.

Tomorrow is Tuesday, and there is a meeting of the German Speaker's Association, which meets about every two weeks.  I had been to another meeting just before I broke my leg, and look forward to a second.  If I am careful, I won't hurt the dietary requirements, and it should be a pleasant evening.  I look forward to it!  I met a bunch of interesting people at the last one, and it should be a real giggle just trying to converse in a language that I used to use all the time.

I'll have more to say about that after the meeting.

This weekend has the Ramblers holding an open house, and I plan to be there at least for a time, although whether I'll compete in the scavenger hunt is questionable to the point of unlikely.

I just heard Phyllis come in, so I k I'll chat wither for a while, and let y'all rest.

Have a gold evening and a better day tomorrow.

I know someone's reading this - it would interest me to have feed back on relevance, reason, etc.  If you don't want to comment in a place others can read it, send me email rar1942@verizon.net.

Good night.

Monday Mornng

It's Monday Morning, 8:00 AM.

There are two lab slips out on the kitchen table, waiting for me.

I have to go into a lab this morning and bleed - for two doctors, not just one.  Results of each lab to two doctors, not one, and not the same pair for each lab.  I am assured that it will take between 11 and 13 vials for each slip, which means that I will be more than a little anemic when lab tech finishes.

If I am very lucky, she'll get a vein with the first stick (this almost never happens.)  If it is a typical Monday that comes on Monday, they'll have to try both arms before they get any blood, and probably will end up going into the back of my hand in order to get me to bleed enough to be useful.

I Just love lab days.

When they are finished, I can come home and get some breakfast, some meds, and maybe some coffee.

What a way to start a week!

Well, it's a new day - with some new rules.

I am allowed to go back to work.   Never thought I'd celebrate the removal of idleness, but enforced idleness isn't anything like chosen idleness.

I can also take off the hated grey boot, unless I think I need to wear it, and leave the walker in the back of the car unless something tells me I need it.

I don't know, but fatigue could trigger either one, I guess, so I'll keep both close by, along with a pair of shorts since I can't fit the damned boot under any trousers or jeans I own....

I may start the motorcycle by the weekend.

I may also replace it with something about 25% lighter in a BMW, if I can find the right one.

I'm still restricted as to diet, for at least another 4 weeks, and still supposed to take it easy.

I guess the best part is I'm still alive, not exactly kicking, but still mobile.

Getting old sucks, but not as much as being dead.  Happily I didn't get to dead on this round of adventure.

Be well.