Cool much?

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Ahahahhahahahaha

Cool?  12k btu's of cool, baby!  I went to put the thing in place last night but ran into a snag.  My brain simply wasn't up to the tasks my muscles otherwise would have had no problem with.  The packing the company did was beautiful!  Well, if you... luck into it.  I didn't unwrap my present until I was pretty much at the spot of installation.  Why carry the extra weight?  Perhaps to make sure all parts and pieces would be right there.  Perhaps just because so shut up.  I do things a certain way, which... may vary.  Anyway, while unpackaging, the thing nearly unfolded itself.  While I was, at first, trying to figure out how to get an 80+ pound device out of a tight and tightly packed box I just happened to lift on the edges of the box.  With the strip tape gone, the sides simply came up and off.  Beautiful.  Masterfully well done, from a shoppers perspective.

Anyway, the thing had a bunch of parts and pieces that might have made all my efforts fruitless, but I couldn't make hide nor hair of a thing written at that point in a long hot day.  So, I put it all up, goofed just a bit more perhaps, then crashed.  Waking time isn't the best time for that sort of thing, either.  So, here it is, just after noon, and in the last hour or two I figured out what of their stuff would and wouldn't work, put my stuff and their stuff together, and *bamb*!  Right in the kisser, Louisa.  The weight was never as much an issue as (if I didn't suggest it, at all) I might have feared.  I really can carry 81+ shipping with one hand.  Getting it up into the window was zilch of a problem either.  And I had to do that a half a dozen times tinkering with this and that, all while making sure the "platforms" didn't slide one way or the other.  Easy, sneezy, breezy, beautiful, pig.  :p

I had to learn how the wood slats system went into the window, but that was easy enough when I had call.  I've looked at the thing and wondered before.  Now I know.  The company provided the perfect "catch", to provide structural hold and a bit of weatherproofing.  Only my "platforms" were allowing a huge draw.  Ah!  My mother, or lady friend, had created a rag bag when they were here.  Probably mom...  A bit of (very little) searching, and there it was.  I put those rags into the holes.  Good, for what they filled.  One more hole though, a big one.  Yeah, got that filled.  Batteries in the remote, plugged in (and reset as per instructions), a click, and... Poof.  I set it to 66, just for a while.  Oh, then the shade slats had to be reinstalled, if with a minor alteration.  Then the drapes back up, plus fitted to the new device so it's still dark.

I wish I could say, "If I knew it was going to be THAT easy...", but I can't quite say that.  It was easy, enough.  But there were so many small steps, there was some thinking, tinkering, and effort.  Mild as that is to many, that was... a man's man type of job for me.  And I am proud to have stubbed my toe at the base of the great mechanical engineering handy man mountain, if all I did was get to the base and stare up at the vast expanse of possibilities otherwise.  No, never to worry.  I got the cool going, the thing arranged, and did a lot of little tasks in there.  I didn't lose a finger, break through a wall, cut the power cord, or such either.  Pleased, little things, but... that's what I have to give, and rarely.  I just need to put the tools back.  Tomorrow, maybe.

Actually, I think the girls are happy too!  While we don't think of cats getting too hot or cold, and in a way they don't they just change their behavior until things change, they really were panting a lot lately, and going through water.  They don't like the noise but... who does.  It's the price, and an easy one give or take.  A few days or a week of cool, then I go to using the thing in the evenings.  Very very nice.

Good day.

Hoping for the best, planning on the worst.

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You know what that will usually get you, right? About half the time it nets you saved time and effort, half the time you get what you were begging for. Heh! This time? *face palm* No, just no way. I was mildly expecting a somewhat finicky cut and bit of minor work. Yeah, a cut to this length to this depth. I figured it would run me, given that it is me and I am way out of practice with anything practical, about 3 to 5 runs to get a template created for the second of two platforms. So, I went rough/rough the first cut. I did an eyeball (and pen) measure, then measured depth roughly, and planned to simply chisel out the whole of it to see how all of that would work. Some days.

As it turns out, that first rough shot was good enough, so two platforms were kicked out in less than the time to get my tools plugged in, set up, and out, not including tear down or setting up my sawhorses, and that platform. The sawhorses and a bit of plywood, without anything else, worked just fine for a bench. I didn't need to attach anything. So damned easy. And here I've been sweating for weeks, out of my mind in a perfectionists nightmare over... the ease of slop. Never mind. Now, I am all done in. The ac will not go in until I have time to catch my wind, but that should be by this evening. If I am too rung out from heat by then I will simply take a long shower to get my temps in order, then hit it. It will be done, now that the "hard part" is completed. Someone just shoot me? Meh, wouldn't work. I may not be bulletproof, but... God said no. Save your bullets. Just, next time I funk on junk, kick me. Won't hurt me, though be careful with your foot. I am dense in more ways than one. Believe it.

Hey, well, just wanted to share the news. You've all been sweating for me for... a while now. I thought it fair to let you in on the fact that ac is practically in. Odd, cutting then chiseling a few pieces of wood wore me out more than dead lifting the 81+packing ac into the other room then up into the window. And getting it out of the packaging will be the most testing of the the work packets involved with that assembly. What gives with that? Never mind. I hope you are cool! Later.

Today, I do believe, is the day.

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While I didn't get the trash out... hmm, might still be time so this will be brief... I do intend to get that ac in today, and running.  I might run it for a few days, or a week, to get some semblance of function back.  I do need to chill.  I won't take a shower, but I will dress, put on a baseball cap, and get to figuring things out.  Taking the last of the trash out before digging in, which means kitty litter change time.

I'm not doing any better today, really.  It is just that... it has been on my mind a while, the heat has a direct impact on my life, the game crashed... or... a conflux of events lead to me being at the point where I am about to get to it.  That is, simply put, all I get in this life.  But I take it with relish, and a bit of mustard if I may.  Hehe  Yeah, I like it here.  I think I'll like it in heaven, or even purgatory if I... miss the queue a bit.  Yeah, I need to work on that.  Getting visiting communion would help, for a while, till I can get back on my feet.

Well, it is time to get to it.  Have a loverly day.  If that fails, plan on one tomorrow.  And don't quite planning even if you never have another loverly day.  It's... always about hope.  Later.

Awake, on a cool morning.

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I think there is something else to the heat.  When I don't sleep well, something heat interrupts, I become additionally subject to heat.  It's a cascade effect.  Everyone has it, but those of us who are turtles and slugs... simply get hit worse.  No worries, at least I am young enough to survive it and in a place where, even within the week, I will have figured out a solution.  I have it, actually, it is simply implementing it.  What bothers me are those people who are too frail and poor and alone.  It bothers me greatly.  Then again, I can barely do what I need, there is little I can do for the others.  Well, prayer.

I am going to tinker a bit this morning, then, maybe when I close up the windows, I will get out of my pajamas and put on something a bit more social, and get to working on the window treatment.  I doubt if it will take an hour.  My guess is a saw horse platform will got together in less than an half hour, which is the first thing.  Will I get it cut just right!?  Not the first time.  I will undercut and just edge out.  How long will I have to tinker with the saw horses and plywood to make a platform?  Who knows.  On the good side, once I know something... I just know it.  Next time I won't have two projects, just one.  Oh, sure, seems quite simple.  And it is.  It is just all new and I live in fog.  Distances and complexity combined with newness all make anything seem... risky, untouchable.  How did I make it through some of the courses in engineering school?  Sleeping a month then studying a few days before a midterm, or final.  Who knows.  And I never know what I know so I never quite can be sure if I can do something, if I always seem quite able when it comes down to it.  An old man?  Yes, I have become a very old man in a rather young man's body.  Plus I think I will make it to be an old man on top of it.  Spooky, but... not... too.

Well, on to waking, then that task.  Have a good morning.

Ah well.

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Zombified, for the last few... while...  I ran out of tobacco a few days ago.  So, after suffering withdrawals for a relatively long time, I finally got to town today.  Of course, while getting ready to go to town I found a can of tobacco.  I simply thought I had used it already.  At least the last few days, until today, were cool enough.  Today seemed like it was murder hot.  Just to get that ac in...  Yeah, yeah, I know.  I guess I was born to suffer.  At least I can survive it.  Amazingly well even.  I just don't like it.  I actually pray that my suffering here helps someone in purgatory.  I have heard that it can do that.  Perhaps they just say that to try to make pain and discomfort more... amenable.  Perhaps they believe it.  Perhaps it is true.  After my experience there, if that is what it was and it did happen at all... I do hope it helps some poor soul, or dozen, get through that and on to the rest of their way quicker.

I have been doing bits and pieces.  Several loads of laundry have gone forward.  A little picking up has occurred.  Little things here and there, if nowhere near where I really want and need it to be.  Yes, the ac will help.  But just getting that in seems impossible at times.  Things have to be just so and I won't rush or short the task.  It has to be right.  It has to be by my hands.  It will happen.  I honestly think I might have it in tomorrow morning.  That IS the plan.

The girls are weird.  I wasn't sure I was feeding them right, for a few days anyway, so I started using the timer.  But... that wasn't their problem.  My game is stealing too much of my time.  And, yes, there is that.  So, I am trying to cut the gaming down, include them when I can into my life, and either pester them (in the most nice of ways) or chase or let them hunt me every few hours.  Yeah, they love their ogre.  Of course, I love to pester them when THEY are napping sometimes.  Payback and all.  They certainly pester poppo when he goes to bed.  Queen of the ogre, scratch and wake, let's check poppo's breath with our whiskers... lots of fun bedtime games!  Bwats!  Tsokay, as I said, payback is a pleasure. 

Hmm, on to bed.  I am absolutely beat by this heat today.  I enjoyed three or four days of relative cool.  It helped recharge a bit.  Maybe enough to do that one simple task.  Good night.

You know...

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While I grumble about my incapacity, I do realize that, setting my will and want aside, I am at the apex of human existence.  No, not healthwise, if that isn't quite as bad as it sounds in that it has proven to be quite non-lethal for all the hubbub surrounding the issue.  No, I mean, I am living... completely free and clear.  I make enough money, not working, to sustain myself easily, and even entertain some of my crazy and crazy like a fox notions.  While I may not be sitting on piles of gold, not a goal ever though anyway...  While I may not be wearing designer clothes (if some serious gear), which also is not a goal...  I am quite easily sustaining a mild, easy to live, life.  Why I want to be in the grinder God only knows.  Some people were made for it, I was one of those.  I would love to trade a perfectly healthy layabout for my position, given their perfect health.  Even at my age, what I could do with health is probably... almost otherworldly.  Oh, no, I wouldn't change the world, bring about world peace, fix cancer, save the earth from "X".  No, I would merely take what was at hand and make something of it.  A few people would know and respect my work.  And, yes, I would definitely have a wife and kids.

Still, I have what I have.  But I can't stop, sometimes, and just laugh my arse off.  Talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth, but there I am. 

No, the ac is not up.  But I have gotten to a few things, hope to get to a few more things today, and we will just see. 

I have been enjoying Fallout 3.  Now, usually, I eat games.  But sometimes they are simply too big and they eat me.  This game has eaten me, so far.  I started out, as usual, not reading anything.  I just jumped in and played.  After messing up two or three major plays, after playing only, maybe, a fifteenth of the game, I decided a little research was due.  So, I started over.  And over.  Finally, on this last nearly quarter playthrough (not including side quests and tons of places to visit otherwise), I am getting better.  It's an easy rough game.  So many details, so many items to tend, so many things to do, no way to redo some things easily or naturally.  The game simply has no boundaries, and then you fail or win a situation or bonus.  It would be like one of the huge mmpg's, only for single player.  While it is laid back, the intensity comes in a few short spurts, but seriously enough to keep you (me anyway) engaged.  The one good/bad thing?  Load times are rather fast for this sort of game.  You never... rage quit from exhaustion combined with long load screens.  Yeah, I see why many makers add long load screens... as a sort of... nicety to us junkies.  :p  Still, I love the short load times as well.

Just... putting something out.  Be well.

Doesn't make sense.

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It's cold this morning.  I mean downright chilly.  But... the mechanical and electronic thermometers all say it is the same temp this morning that I was sweating at yesterday morning.  Huh?  And the swelling in my feet is gone, from water retention.  Getting out, just that short bit, might have helped?  I don't know.  All I know is that things don't really make sense because there are too many variables in play.

Like heat for example.  I have several things that affect felt temp.  Blood sugars, but that is now in check.  There is something else in my body that... I think Chinese medicine would call it chi.  Our medicine simply can't find the real problem though.  I would call it metabolic flux, due to heart issues, if I think the only cure would be a fully functioning heart.  As well, when I retain water a bit more on one day than another, that somehow either makes the heat worse OR makes me more vulnerable to any temperature extremes, while the term extreme is shrunk to just a few degrees outside of optimal.  And finally, if there might be other variables, the actual temperature.  Even that last is based on variables I do not completely understand.  Of course the water volume in the air has an affect, as done the intensity of the sun (angle of strike, hours behind clouds, who knows what else).  I simply can't keep track of all the variables at all times, so I can't know why one morning is hot and one is cold, the day after, at the same temperature.  Never mind.

Mentally I am not doing the best, regardless.  Medicine is being taken, mostly very regularly.  Food is being eaten at least daily.  But the heat is just a bit intense.  I did create the template for the base for the ac, and hope sometime today to cut and possibly chisel the pieces to fit.  It will be an easy task.  The idea of just putting in wood, without cutting it, and setting the ac on that, sounded good.  I just don't think it would be stable enough.  And I don't think the ac would handle a five foot drop well.  Still, I think this task will be done by days end.  Odd though, I think the felt chill of this morning is disabling me just as much as the felt heat of yesterday.  Ha.  What an absolute gas.  So, what may need to happen is a short nap.  Hmm, maybe some food first.

You know, the good thing about stocking up on foods, even just the shorter term stuff so far, is that if this type of thing lasts too long, I can still live fairly well for a short bit.  If I really can't get out for milk, I have several options.  I do have some food delivery as well.  A freezer would help with things as well as canning meats myself.  And, while many things seem impossible, and I don't seem always able to get to much, my guess is it is probably surprising, if you think about it, what I actually have done, given my situation.  Yeah, I pull off things by the skin of my teeth, but... in the end, does it matter?  I'll stick to it.  I have a method, just not always the means.  And yet I am moving forward. 

Good day.

Forgot the rest of the last post!

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Yes, still awake, yes about to go to town, yes I have measured out a rough template that I will attempt to cut/chisel when I return.  Milk, and whatever else I needed... oh, chew!  Was there any other reason to go to town?  I'm actually reading back in my blog, which is why I am still here, to find out what all I wanted/needed.

But I noticed I hadn't finished my first blog of the day.  Something about horror.  Right, that is regarding some of the games I play.  People are... idiots.  Not only do they play poorly, they also don't learn from it!  Oh, I make mistakes.  I even create a pattern with them.  I hate trying a "new way", if that way is significantly different from how I LIKE TO DO THINGS.  Actually, due to mechanical-intellectual interfaces, sometimes I can't do something an exact specific way.  But I can learn, adapt, change, to a degree.  And, mostly I do that without clues or hints.  Failure and success provide all I usually need.  But my goodness, there are people out there who are honestly too stupid and immature to... be morally allowed to comment.  Oh, let them play, but for heavens sake, take away access to places where they can simply create a whole area for themselves to write.  Sad?  Embarrassing (for them)?  Yeah, being a bit harsh.  You'll just have to trust me.  There are people who can and do type, can and do think, but who can't actually...  Make any sense of anything they perceive.  It's terrifying.

Later.

Amazed and horrified.

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I'll get to the title in a bit.  First though, just about how things are doing.  I woke at about 5:00 or 6:00, so I didn't get much sleep.  I set the alarms, once I woke up, to try and prod me out of the house and on to town.  I NEED a few things.  I set the alarm for 8:00, then 9:00, here I am at 11:10.  Yeah, well, I need a shower first, and then to get dressed.  I ought to at least fillet the whiskers to a degree, too.  And, I would like to get a 2x4 and simply mark out a rough 'cut here' guide.  Yeah, I think D.C. is right.  I really need to stop this hemming and hawing and just hit the fucking nail with the hammer.  Pardon, but... I've been dinking with this for too long, I am too hot, I need some real sleep and some decent cool.  I am, in short, annoyed.  Pardon the language, understand it comes from sentiment.  Oh, well, the good thing about going to town?  AC!  Plus, if when dressed and ready, I find myself in possession of a marked for cutting board, I will use the ac on the way home too, since I can almost be sure that the ac will be going in tonight.  Oh, I should stop for some sealing tape and paneling for the extra areas. 

Yeah, I best get going.  But, just a thought.  The last few days have been cooler, for as much as that is worth.  And I keep getting a vision of God, looking down, at me wasting the cool, doing a face-palm.  Yeah, I know it can't happen.  God simply doesn't do that.  A secular version of this would be a "perfect Fonz".  He is so cool, nothing flushes Him.  It's... more of a funny notion than a theological one.  Jesus though?  He walked as a human, He... might know the face-palm thing...  And you can't say He was "the perfect Fonz", He truly lost His cool with the money changers and I would guess that if some fool had picked up the rock when He suggested that the one with no sin do so... I think we would have seen a very temporarily angry Jesus and a very dead (though possibly then resurrected "client").  Never mind, mind playing...

Oh, right, on to town.  Good day.

Hmm...

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Not the best of things.  At 1:30 I am still awake.  I simply cannot cool off again.  I thought about heading into town, but after a spell of dizziness from the heat and the long hours up, I decided against that... at all.  I am completely out of tobacco and milk, so... I need to get in there.  Caught in a catch-22 though.  I need to cool down in order to gear up, yet by the time I have cooled down I need to sleep.  Now, in there somewhere, I need to figure out how to rig my ac into the window.  Yeah, and I can't see straight sometimes.

Whatever.  The house is cooling a bit, but it isn't very cool outside.  It is supposed to hit 54, and it may, but not until 5:00 or 6:00.  Still, there are things rumbling through that might keep it a bit cooler today.  Mostly it looks like mid 90's for a goodly number of days.  I'll just have to figure something out.

Good night, I hope.

Sleep!?1!

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Yeah, I could sleep.  I could go in, right now, and crash like I was... never mind.  I was thinking something rude... about you.  But I could go to bed without any problem.  The thing is, it is just... about... to.. cool.. down.  Just enough that I could open the windows.  If I go to bed now, the windows will be shut, and I will simply sweat through the sleep and wake to a stuffy hot home.  No, I will, somehow, stay up just a bit longer.  Not bad, really.  Four or five days ago I was going to bed at 6:00 and waking in the... around noon or so I think, at the latest.  Couldn't sleep through the heat.  Quite a change.  And very quickly for me.

I am cooking though.  The days are still brutally hot, for me.  I need to get that ac in.  When my body started the shift all of my plans were left on the drawing board.  I simply don't have enough energy remaining with this shift to even eat, let alone do something.  And cooking during the day is rough.  Though I would rather work through it then half sleep through it, then to wake when it begins to peek and have that as a "morning".  Still, because of that, nothing will go forward until I can get my head out of the oven.

Anyway, a few more hours, for the world to at least get even with the house, then I can open the windows so the house will be cooling as the world does, while I sleep.  That makes waking, and sleeping, a joy.  Good night... eventually.

Yeah? Well?

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Life is certainly a bit strange this summer. Finally having figured out how to make life slightly cooler here in the cave I haven't quite been able to set up the ac yet. See, it's not about want. It isn't about being lazy. It just is. Concentration, I would guess, is most of it. I don't understand it anymore than you do. I should be able to simply plan something, then do it, right? I mean, it isn't that physically demanding, I have the tools, if I haven't done this exact project before I have done many quite similar. So... why can't I just do it?

On the good side, my days and nights seem to be tipping back into their correct places. It is an ongoing project, one which I simply found myself partaking in. I didn't really choose it. Whether my body chose and began implementing it, or it simply reacted to the changes in temperature, I will never really know. My body is an interesting thing. It is mostly animal, with all that goes with it. While I can maintain a sort of moral control, at least up to some sort of stress test I haven't seen tested to date, I can't actually just tell it what to do. It is quite strong when it needs something. It can endure things I thought were lethal, or at least dangerous. Sometimes it is best to just let it do it's thing.

I've been playing a new computer game. Fallout 3, while dated, is rather entertaining. It is a nice change of pace from the last nearly dozen first person shooters. While it is still a fps, it is more a rambling quest based game, without the direct intensity of some of the other games. Exploring a 1950's USA, or two hundred years later, after a nuclear war, you fight, meet folks, do them favors for favors, and such. It is, however, quite a long game. And, my guess is, there may be nearly no end to it. The fighting mechanics in it aren't very good, either. But fighting, thankfully, isn't the main of the game, just something you have to do in order to do what you have to do... if you know what I mean. At least it keeps my mind active.

The cats have been banished to the outside. Sam for vomitting again, Sassy for excessive begging. Oh, not too long, just until noon, or another hour. It saves my sanity just a bit when one or both does what they know I would rather they not. With Sassy, she becomes... pretty close to violent sometimes.

I did make the corned beef and cabbage. It was, and remains, delicious. Why I not only like, but love, cabbage now, I could never say. I can't even say it's the flavor. It certainly isn't the texture, though for a boiled vegetable it does have a more solid texture, which I do like. It's more that my body seems to like something about cabbage. Carrots are more for color. Potatoes I have always loved, so all good there. It is pleasing to finally have gotten around to a home cooked meal. I did it early morning (like, 2:00). Yeah, it seems odd that I would be up at 2:00 while my internal clock is readjusting, but like I said, my body was stretching my days to make the schedule shift. So, when you think of day stretching in a more extreme manner, it makes sense.

Just... saying I am alive. And... kicking about just a bit. I'll keep trying. Never give up, never surrender (unless they serve really good chow). :p Good day.

I really hate when that happens, mostly.

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My body, having some limited cool in the night finally, and with a bit of control of the fierce of the day heat, has decided to switch my days and nights around.  Only, it didn't tell me.  It just went ahead and... started doing it.  If you have ever switched from night work to day work on the fly, you know that is about as much fun as nailing one of your fingers to a table.  Well, not literally, of course.  Still, they are in the same area, differing only by intensity.

In any case, I am in the middle of switching days back to nights for sleeping.  It isn't going perfectly, it will get there in a week or so.  Now, everything else I had sort of planned to get done in order to facilitate what is taking place has been tossed up in the air.  Too grumpy from both lack of sleep and discombobulation due to the shift leaves me barely able to even think about what to do, let alone how to get to it.  It is quite like my body has it's own will and way.  No, I think that is exactly what it is.  Sometimes I am just a tenant.  My will is not good, always, often.  Then again, I would guess that I still live merely because my body would not let me override it's wants, or needs really.  I am ignorant.  It may be too, but it is "dumbly functional".  It does what it must for reason I cannot fathom.

I went three days without food in this twist of schedule.  Oddly, it didn't hurt.  Sometimes it doesn't.  I broke fast with a large meal, probably what a typical family of four to six puts out for a hardy dinner.  It worked.  Dishes are finally soaking again, I am hoping to hit those tonight.  I am also hoping to put the brisket on, and have a dinner of that in the cool.  The way, it seems, my body is going about trying to shift days to nights is by staying up very long hours.  Eventually something gives, sort of like when you visit a chiropractor or something.  A little stretching, stress, and pressure, perhaps pain, then... *pop*  All good, if you believe in that.  It did help me last summer, though I have some... separate thoughts on why.

I still need to get that ac in.  So, tonight, along with the other things, I am truly hoping to get the template laid out.  I will not, as I first supposed, attempt to do anything fancy, like cut the wood form fitting.  All my plans center around simply cutting out a portion of wood in a box or rectangular form so as to fit snugly to the two window tracks it will cover.  Even that won't be easy, exactly, if it will be a lot simpler than trying to custom cut two tracks snug, plus create a half dozen grooves of various heights within those.  Now, to be honest, that probably isn't that hard.  But for a first time project keeping things simple is probably best, for my mind, so that I can even begin such things.  The world simply isn't digital, and to be honest, analog is frightening in that it is completely open to interpretation (along with constant change, everything from swelling wood to changing metal).

Ah, to wake up a bit more then figure out what will get done.  I need to hit town soon, too.  Milk, tobacco, and other foods and goods are running low or simply are gone.  Yeah, I'm right on all of that.  Right on it, boss.

Yeah, well.

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It won't all get done on some arbitrary timeline I develop.  I didn't do much tonight.  All good.  I am nice and cool and about ready for bed.  This will be the third day, I suspect, where I am able to get some real sleep.  I believe getting the ac in will make it so I can sleep much earlier and better.  Even now, though I am sleeping long and well, I don't think I am sleeping as well as I could, should.  Just, with the lack of sleep of late, the need is so great that a minor improvement simply allows me to sleep through what would normally not work.

Oh, but I realized, if one 2x4 isn't enough?  Attach two of them together, well.  That will do just fine.  No need to go out and buy thicker wood.  Nothing else happening here.  Bedtime.

Very nice, all over again.

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While I am still stuck not doing much, I am at least enjoying it again.  Another long sleep session today.  When I finally do wake up, the world is already cooling again.  The curtains are a Godsend.  And, so far without research, I do believe I am going to push to create a template for the ac platform tonight.  I will simply figure out how to cut it when I get to that point.  Being that I wish to be a decent neighbor I will not be outside running my circular saw after midnight.  The thing is, if the cuts needed are too deep, I may need to go to something thicker than a 2x4.  I'll see shortly.

As for cutting, if all else fails, I may see about plating my sawhorses, somehow, with a smaller sheet of plywood, very securely, then simply clamping whatever wood I will be using to that.  The sawhorses aren't wood, so I can't simply nail the work pieces temporarily.  Or, yes, I would do that.  I will have to review my devices and see if there isn't a way to make it work.  I actually have no problem being creative in finding solutions.  I merely use the fear of such to cover my actual inability to even begin getting about something.  Misdirection.  I even use it on myself, in order that I don't have to stare at the sad fact that sometimes I can't even do more than sit.  Just so you know that I know.  And I do know you know.  Now we know we know, you know?  Heh.

I may need to make a run to town tonight.  Milk is low.  I could always make some of that powdered stuff, too.  It isn't all that bad, really.  It just... well... it simply isn't milk.  It will do in a pinch, and well.  But who wants to live in a pinch?  So, to town.  Hmm, goat cheese sounds good too.  I wish I could find some real fetta.  Oh, I know, the stuff people buy in the stores is supposed to be good enough.  Most other store bought cheeses honestly are as good as the 'better stuff'.  Not so with fetta.  Never mind, just... trust me.

Sassy is back to normal.  Though I think she has really backed off the begging/demanding.  And that is good.  I am more than fair with the girls, they eat often, well, and I throw in treats.  They have no reason to be that ornery.  Sam is usually pretty mellow.  And, usually, when she begs... it is fair.  Sassy?  She has pretty much been a pest.  She will beg within two hours of being fed, even becoming demanding.  When I put her on ignore, that usually works.  Sometimes I have to chase her off, and that is usually it.  But she has been pushing that line a bit much, until she finally crossed it.  She is a bit... more... mellow... currently. 

To tinker a bit more, then at about 2:00-2:30 I will work on creating a template, tinker some more, and finally I will try to be out by 4:00-4:30 for my run to town.  Yeah, sleep patterns won't be changing quickly.  Probably not until I install the ac.  While I am sleeping better, I am still running a little too warm most of the time to settle in any earlier for sleep.  At least I am getting some serious sleep.  That was needed, is delicious.  Later.

Very nice indeed.

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The drapes in my bedroom made even a larger differences than what I has hoping, setting aside my doubts.  After seeing what they did for the living room and computer room, I had hopes about the bedroom.  But each area is quite different, and sleep is just a strange animal for me no matter what else is factored in.  As before, the darkness they bring allows easier sleep and the cool they brought was truly significant, but what I had not factored was noise reduction, or the significance of all or even any of those regarding sleep.

Going to bed at my usual time, around 6:00, I was able to sleep until 16:00!  Oh, and I needed that sleep.  I will probably oversleep a bit until I find myself back in some kind of sleep balance.  I have been sleeping for under six, often under four hours per sleep cycle. Yeah, that didn't help any of the rest of it. Further, not waking to burnt air was quite good.  While it does get a bit warm and slightly stuffy, it really wasn't bad.  It wasn't as bad as evenings used to be, before any drapes!  I am hoping, even just with the drapes in place, to possibly begin getting to bed earlier.  With the house cooler, that may be possible.  My core temps have to hit some specific temp (but not go below another) for me to sleep.  I ought to try to figure that out but my guess is... that is variable, depending on everything from the amount of sunlight to foods I am eating to... who knows what all.  Crazy thing, this drape tech.  And way too funny.

My hope, after getting sleep back in order, is to begin reconfiguring my days and nights.  With medicines set back up, sleep getting tended, and cool back in play, the hope is recovery will be rather quick.  And, just maybe, during that time, I can actually get the ac in, begin work on the water heater, and start cleaning the place.  With all the givens life had become unmanageable.  Hopes mean nothing when you are in a blast furnace.  I still need to get that ac in, that will be like nitrous.  It should give me the boost to handle the day, or really the heat.

Sassy and I had a little spat tonight.  I'm not sure what was up with her.  She has been being fed plush lately, to be sure.  And she has been being fed regularly.  She was fed well nearly three hours before our spat, and I believe her problem was simply that she wanted more food NOW!  She jumped up on my tray, knocking over pills and bursting the pill container I had just painstakingly set up, knocking off a dozen other things, including my phone.  Because she was hungry?  Oh, yes, we... had it out.  She lost, if I didn't come out completely happy about it all.  Sorry, yes.  Both of us if for very different reasons.  Ah well, she will get over it or not and she will learn or not, if I hope I learned just a bit.  Brat...

Tonight I will be researching how to use what I have to take a template and score wood in such a way that I might get the program under way to build a structure to hold the ac.  It is vital.  I am a fool for not having done it before, if too I was doing much better last summer.  I still wonder if doctors, if they think you are doing too well... change your medicine.  Yeah, paranoia perhaps.  But... they say medicine won't change it's affect and yet it always does with me.  It is like they want to keep me just a bit down, or more.  They don't want me well.  Beware the fully awake dragon?  Doesn't make sense, unless there is a deep tinfoil hat thing going on though.  I only play that game, I don't... take tinfoil hattery too seriously.  Mostly.

Well, on to a few things.  Hmm, food sounds good.  My cats eat four to five times a day, and are STILL brats about it, while I eat once!  Bah!  Later or good night.

It is going forward.

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While it was my plan to get the curtains washed and dried and the rods up, I wasn't sure that was going to happen.  Let us call the notion a shot at the moon.  I'm still just not right.  And yet it is almost done.  The rods went up, the drapes were washed then put in the dryer on 'nearly dry' just in case, now finishing.  My tools have even been sorted and put up.  Now, when installing the rods, the top screw where I placed the rod holders hit nothing but air.  The bottom one hit something, but... not wood.  I have no idea what is in there, could it be cement that came with the window, from it's previous location?  I simply don't know.  With only one screw holding and with heavy drapes, I decided to use 'gorilla' screws on that bottom hole.  They are supposed to be good for 50 pounds each.  That should do.  Nothing ever quite works exactly right, but with a little thought, it can work out somehow.

I reset my medicine.  I received medicine from my doc, but it did not include my water pill or main bp medicine!  I'll... have to call... next time I'm awake enough during the daytime.  I have enough of each to get me through at least two weeks, but after that it gets questionable.  I'll... call... soon.  Again, nothing works as it is supposed to work.  Ever?

I have no idea what day of the week, or month, it is.  Something about shortly after... then.  I'll look before I go to bed.  But then again, I keep checking.  It simply doesn't stick in my mind.  I have no way of... figuring.  Like a man lost at see, trying to maintain a heading or even merely discerning directions become impossible tasks.  I am lost in the sea of the mind, perhaps even one could say the inane.  Without a need to work, without purpose, there is just... me.

I once thought I was rōnin.  I have since learned I am no such thing.  While, true, I no longer have a master such as dogs usually require, I realize I never really did have a master as I had thought.  Oh, I have always had a master.  It is just that at one time I confused my instructors, seniors, and handlers as being masters.  They are not and only a few of them could have truly filled that role.  No, my master is what it always was.  Principles, truth, things that all belong to God.  Odd how... when one is blind one sees so clearly.  But it is good to finally realize who my Master was and always will be, in the big and small terms and ways.  It is also good not to be required to do what a rōnin must... if actually I did do that thrice.

I'm going to goof a bit, while the curtains dry.  When those are done they will be hung with much fanfare.  I didn't create a template for cutting wood.  But then, as I was thinking about it, I am not exactly sure how to do that.  I do have sawhorses.  I do have clamps.  But I am not sure those will work in conjunction for this effort at all. I will contemplate this on the tree of woe (or internet) this evening.  I think I read somewhere that nothing ever works out just as one would suppose, or some such phrase.  Bah!

Good night.  Uhrm, morning, too.

Where have you been in the states?

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Anarchangel had something up about where he had been.  That was international though, and for me, none of my business, or yours.  Plus I don't actually "know".  But they had something about the States.  That I know, mostly.


visited 33 states (66%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or Free ipad travel guide

I can't say I've "visited" all those states, but then again I have lived in at least a quarter of them.  So I call it even.  Some states *cough* Ohio and Nebraska *cough* were merely transition states, though I may have stayed in Omaha overnight a few times... Can't remember for sure.  Most of the rest I have been in for some reason and time or other.  Yeah, for a dead guy I do get around.  Heh.

Some cool.

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The weather has shifted.  Thunderstorms, or at least rain storms, have been passing through, cooling the place just a bit.  And I needed that.  I haven't been doing much.  I purchased a couple of new games and I have been hitting those hard.  Other than that I have almost exactly literally been doing nothing.  Unable, truly.  Perhaps tonight that ends.

The game, one that never hit my radar before, is called Rage.  It's no where near as... difficult or harsh as it sounds.  Mostly it's a typical first person shooter, of the older vein.  There isn't that much tricky, glitzy, or such in it.  It is an older game.  But it is one of the best PS3 games I have played.  And more, it is a multiple of games.  Beside the obvious and main element of first person shooting main quests, they through in a bunch of side quests.  Some of those require sniping (and a bit of trickery).  They also added in racing.  I HATE RACING GAMES.  Or... I thought I did.  I was enjoying the game so much I decided to push on through on those.  Not bad, not bad at all.  Especially for someone who traditionally abhorred racing.  Add in some mini-games, a whole lot of shooting, a way to cheat that is easy and simple, and all is good.

I played the game, first time through, on nightmare (the hardest) mode.  A site recommended that.  While it is the opposite of my usual m.o., I actually might start doing it that way from now on.  Now, I did no previews, didn't look anything up, so I didn't find the cheat until my second run of the game.  Actually, I didn't look anything up.  I simply ran the game as it was supposed to be run.  Yeah, it... took a bit longer.  But what a kick in the pants.  After that run through, I worked up another run, to get more/most of the trophies for the game.  I have two left (actually three, but those two along with others I have, will give me a third trophy).  Mini-game trophies.  One of them I don't think I will like, the other is simply unnerving!  I personalize in this mini-game wayyyy too much.

But tonight, after a bit of goofing to wake up and a meal a bit earlier, I will be putting up the last of the drapes, meaning a bit of work.  The drapes have been in the dryer for a bit, so I am simply going to rewash them and run them through again.  Further, I am going to create a template for cutting out a window platform for the air conditioner.  If I can get that cut out on two boards I can then begin figuring out how to support the platform so as to keep the unit in the window, mostly, without ruining the window.  Yeah, well, I best get to it.

I just don't know.

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It's not like I don't know what I should, or am supposed, to do.  It's not like I don't want to do it.  It is simply that I truly can't do it.  Not right now.  I'm all tripped up.  Further, my mother is coming soon, I have a friend who wants to visit, and I still have an air conditioner to put in and drapes to put up, a home to clean at least to human standards, an hot water heater to buy and install, and a credit issue with the hospital to negotiate.  But I can't seem to... do anything.  It's not even like this all snuck up on me.  I can't even take my medicines regularly.

I actually wish this was merely because I was lazy, a drunk, or something.  Those things can be fixed.  I am not sure if what is wrong with me can be fixed.  Is it the heart?  Is it the lifestyle I have learned in order to survive?  My body does it's own thing, relegating me (my will, my intellectual self) to the proverbial children's table.  What I want comes behind... survival instinct?  Something.  So, why won't it let me put the ac in?  Hmm?  Bastage.  Heh.

What gets done is what will get done.  As I have mentioned, I have learned to relax and not push, even while I continue to try, plan, aim, and work.  It seems like an impossible mission.  I think... nuanced... would be a better term for it than impossible or even improbable.  Much like war, actually, if you get really good at it.  At times your body will be in full rage but your mind and actions within the allotted permittance, are completely yours and professional.  It is an odd thing.  Animal and... not animal... working in conjunction in a way that I am not even sure was ever intended.  It is, in a word, mastery... of self.  I had once thought this part of me had broken, but now I see it is merely a physical issue.  In one sense, it doesn't matter.  Broken is broken.  On the other hand, it allows me to... attempt to regain what aspects of that are still available.  Oh, these are both fleshly things, not of the spirit, soul.  But... there may be some connection.  A moral killer?  Something.

Well, it's bed time.  I've been up too long.  I let the cats sleep with me last night and Sam, finding herself unable to wake me (after a mere six hours of sleep, so it wasn't like she could have been starving since I fed her all day before and right before bedtime).  She retched right near me, on my bed!  If this had been an accident, or just something that happens, I wouldn't have minded (as much).  But this was purposeful.  So, she is exiled to the out of doors until I wake up later today.  Any time she does that, on purpose, to pout or wake me, or such, willfully, she will be exiled.  I bet that breaks the habit before it starts.  Angry.

Good night, and morning.

Odd.

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It is 6:00, the weather is cool outside, I have fans going... and I am cooking alive.  It isn't just the weather that has been the problem.  My body is... doing something wrong.  Now, in the winter, when it does this, life is great!  I really can survive, live, even thrive right in the coldest of climbs.  But in the summer not so good.  I seem to have several... episodes or something, each day, where I heat up.  I checked blood sugar.  While it rose to 120 after a pretty hardy meal, that is normal.  Otherwise it has been between 102 and 111.  Something is just not set right in my carburetor.  The choke might be a bit off, perhaps it's the timing, something.

Some days I can get down to getting even chilly, cold, by this time.  Not today.  Never mind.  I'll try to sleep and see where that gets me.

I need a couple days of cool in order to get some of those things done, so that maybe I can get on to other things.  You can see where a fail cascades?  Still, I think I am on the right track.  I also wonder how much, when I am operating in furnace mode, that I heat up my little home?  My guess?  Hugely.  Almost as much as a literal furnace.  Ah well, a little sleep.  Perhaps this evening I can finish those curtain rods and perhaps create a template then saw some 2x4s for window support in order to install the ac.  That is the plan.

Still feeling pretty rough.  Medicine is difficult to remember to take currently, but I keep trying.  Headaches and nausea, from the heat and intermittent medication is my guess, plague my steps.  I've had worse, but usually it's better.  Blah.  I'm... working on things.  At least I have the items I need to begin doing what might help.  It's just a matter of getting those into play.

Good day, good night.

Diabetes gone in six months or less?

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At my last appointment my A1C was... right at 12.5.  Okay, yeah, that's not good.  I do believe the culprit was Gatorade.  I have, of course, quit that.  I just received (though it was sent weeks ago I suspect) a blood sugar tester.  I tested my blood sugar, non-fasting, last night, first thing.  It was 102.  Oh, and I do eat sugar, I have soda occasionally (or more), I even eat white bread and pasta as that is often what is delivered in my meals!  Go figure.  Then again, I am getting more vegetables, and home grown ones quite often.  While, as well, for my part, I continue to cook pure meats for myself.  Salami and cheese continue, as does milk.  Coffee and Splenda are a regular daily thing now.  I purchased both Splenda and Stevia (or Truvia), and will be trying Stevia(?) after I finish off the Splenda.  Since D.C. suggested that Splenda is as bad as sugar, for diabetics, I will be putting that to the test, personally.  Ah, but don't worry, just because something is true for many, perhaps even supposedly for all, it doesn't mean it will be true for me.  Stevia usually has a licorice aftertaste for me.  And it doesn't seem all that sweet.  Yeah, odd.  I have heard others say Stevia has a licorice flavor, but not that it doesn't seem sweet.  Then again, sugar doesn't taste all that sweet to me, either, nor Splenda.  They just add a touch.

I was supposed to go to the V.A. today.  I am going to call, shortly, and reschedule.  I simply cannot make it.  The heat has just been brutal.  On top of that, I have been missing my medicines.  Not every day, just a little too often.  I can't keep on top of things until I get some cool.  I was sick last evening, and was forced even to turn away guests.  I simply wasn't up to much of anything.  A migraine, slight nausea, the works really.  I am hoping after yesterday, then today, of staying in and cooling as much as possible, that I will be able to install the ac tomorrow, or even later this evening.  On the good side, at this time in the morning I am not just cool enough, I am actually cool.  I really needed that.  Same with yesterday.

Well, I best make a call then get to bed.  Have a good one.

Rough one.

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I wasn't able to cool down last night at all, not enough to sleep.  Here it is noon, and it is beginning to cook again!  The air conditioner showed up and is sitting in my living room... cooling off itself?... now.  Today or tomorrow it will go in that window, one way or another.  I was able to carry it with one hand, in packing, so I shouldn't have too much trouble putting it in the window.  It is supposed to weight around 81 pounds, sans packing.  Still, that just isn't too much for me to easily maneuver.  If I had to put that weight up somewhere, overhead, on my tip-toes, that would be a different story.

That ac isn't just wanted, it is needed.  I have lost my ability to tolerate dry heat!  Well, that was bound to happen.  While it is much preferred versus high humidity combined with the same heat, it just isn't possible for me to ignore at this point.  No, the heat won't kill me.  It will just slow me down.  I'm already slower than turtles, slugs, and professional procrastinators, if I am so under protest.  I didn't even finish the curtain rods or curtains.  Then again, two days in the heat in a row, a number of stops in town, plus the heat by itself, and I am simply done for a day or two.  Ah well, it was fun while it lasted.

Yeah, have a good day.  I'll try to rest and be ready to hit some of this tonight.  It might just be one rod and finishing the drying, but I will do more tonight.  The ac will go in when the drapes are up and when I feel ready and able to work again.  I suspect I will need to cut a couple of 2x4s to act as a platform in the window, then figure out how to brace those.  I WILL get it done as fast as I can though.  A night of cool sleep, or a week, or the rest of the summer, is needed.  Later.

Oh, ouch!

. . Alright, I made it to town, took my friend to the doctor's as he needed, picked up curtain rods and coffee and his sand paper, at three different places, did a final bit of grocery shopping and remembered the cabbage, etc. I use the ac when we are in the vehicle, but on my way home I turn it off so that my home will feel cooler than ambient, which it generally does. I unpacked everything, then thought about putting up the curtain rods. Since I was still cool. Between moving the bed, getting the drill and bits ready, measuring, and such I began to heat up. It became critical about a third the way through that operation. I finished installing that rod, replacing the bed and other furniture, then stopped. Stripping to nearly my skivvies, I am done until I cool down or even until tomorrow. I have serious limits. Still, not a bad pair of days. I got out twice, in spite of the heat. I am washing the new drapes. I have one new rod up and the gear in place to do the rest of it either later after I cool or tomorrow. And it is such a task that... it is neither too complicated or daunting to attend. It will be done. Further, everything should be in place to get the air conditioner installed when it arrives, or the day after. Life is going to be just a tad better. Oh but I did miss KoC tonight. Now, I have some issues that need to be discussed with leadership. I don't mind inclusion, I do frown on exclusion. That's all I'll say for now. Of course, someone tried to call me tonight about the meeting but I didn't get the call. My guess is the guy who is doing what I was going to be doing will not be able to do it so they wanted me to do it. Yes, I guess well. But I had promised to get my friend to the doc and the time just wasn't there to do both, in any case. I've been to the last three meetings, I think. So, I just... don't feel bad about scheduling something over it without thinking. And, I don't mind filling in, that is my whole goal with KoC from now on, it's just that I couldn't do it tonight. Too many funnies and ironies in there for me to go into in detail, just... Life is screwy, then you just gotta laugh... and maybe get stitches while you are laughing so hard it hurts, in more ways then one. Pardon the extrapolation. Now to try to just sit and get cool. Gaming allows me to use almost no muscle mass while still feeling like I am doing something. It isn't much, it is what I have. Hmm, for dinner tonight, homemade pizza, fresh cherries, and homemade spinach artichoke dip? Oh, fuggettaboutit! Life is good. As the Italians say (right before dinner, in English), chow. :p

Another day out.

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Oh, I did get out, yesterday, finally.  I had to get that watch and my friend wanted let out!  Yammer, hammer, spammer.  My ears were bleeding from all the need, plus I needed a few things.  I didn't do much, I didn't go far, I didn't get it all.  So, today, I am getting out again.  The problem with yesterday was that I heated up then could not cool down.  That is exactly what I thought would happen.  I didn't get to sleep until well after 6:00.  Core temps just wouldn't settle low enough quickly enough.  My guess is today will be the same.  Still, getting my outings over for the week, getting out at all actually, is a good thing.  Oh, remind me to take a couple of gas cans?

My curtains arrived.  Good thing I am going to town, I need curtain rods.  I had totally spaced that part.  While I have coverings on my bedroom windows, those coverings are different, and will be staying.  I actually like the idea of having both drapes and the wooden slat blinds in the bedroom.  It just gives me options.  These, like the others, will need to be washed first, which won't happen until I return.  A bit more shopping, too.  Cabbage, coffee, another gallon of milk, a bit more salami and cheese, little bits of this and that, and gasoline.  I need meats of course, but it would be nice to have a few good protein foods that are easily accessible.  I am reluctant to go for frozen shrimp, for example, as the taste is so subpar if you have ever cooked your own from fresh.  But the price and ease... might make it irresistible.  It is, pretty much, unprocessed, and a great protein.  Heated slightly, or even fried, with butter on the side or right in there, and... fats and proteins.  A food heaven.

Oh, about losing those extra pounds?  If you try, really really hard?  You have a two in a thousand chance to lose significant weight.  Further, even losing and keeping off 15 extra pounds will be more of an obsession than what it could possibly be worth.  Extra work out time?  It won't help.  Watching what you eat like bankers watch their money?  It simply doesn't matter.  Now, I am not suggesting people just give up, quit trying to at least maintain, I am only suggesting that people get used to the skin they are in.  The real world isn't Hollywood, the Amish sort of prove it.

Heck, did you see any heavy people in the movies Hollywood has created dealing with or even directly about the Amish?  I haven't.  But I lived near Amish communities, knew (as well as English can), some Amish and Mennonite (who happened to be former Amish too).  Yeah, not so thin.  But I... never thought about it.  And, being thin?  Is it really worth being obsessive?  Really?  REALLY?  Healthy?  Sure, but while the Amish proved not to be thin, they also suffered far fewer heart problems (mine, by the way, isn't related to poor diet, and my diabetes is just as likely related to the heart issue as not, or more) and diabetes.  But they do eat right and they do exercise.  And more, actually being thin is more unhealthy than even being obese, complicates any recovery from wound disease or surgery by itself, and puts one at constant risk in many situations.  Choose your poison carefully for you will never be what you aren't?  Something.

Okay, an hour more to... no, I don't really have the time.  I best hop into the shower, get going, and get back.  I feel like those lizards that skim the desert sands in hope that their feet not land too long on hot spots when I go out on summer days. *zip zip ZAP*  Don't stand still for too long any time at all, or 'zap'.  Perhaps, with drapes up, and the ac in when it arrives, life will be easier that way.  Just a place to literally chill when needed.  The deepfreeze for doom?  I wish.  A cool spot will have to do.

Get to it!

Yes, I best get to it.

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It is hot out there.  I mean screaming hot.  My vehicle is always in the garage, so it is easier to start up the ac and then keep it cool after that.  But getting out of the vehicle means leaving the X to the mercy of the sun, entering a world of horrid heat and mean hot ugly people, and working up a sweat while I do whatever else I do.  Still, I have been betraying my friend and I didn't buy that watch.  I wanted to wait until it cools off but...  My friend called just a bit ago, but we were having trouble talking.  I will call him back shortly and see if this evening would be okay to get out.

The drapes, I think, are why I am sleeping until later.  Hmm?  Oh, well, by keeping my home cooler in the morning, I can sleep longer.  Heat, at some point, will simply toss me out of bed, ready or not.  After several weeks of not going to bed until 4:00 and then waking by 9:00 or 10:00, I need extra sleep anyway, so it is good.  Just catching up.  Hopefully though, when the other drapes and ac unit arrive, I can get to bed earlier, and wake earlier.  All I would have to do is have the ac set to stop at about 4:00, then let the heat of the day wake me.  Well, something like that.  I am formulating plans now.  The trick is efficiency.  For example, if I program the ac to turn off early, and leave the drapes open, then the morning heat would wake me.  BUT, then the house would be hot.  Hmm, I'll... work on that.  By next summer I should have an efficient system down? 

Yes, yes, a shower, grooming, and dressing.  I no longer actually shave, I merely trim my face hears with clippers down to a nub.  I suppose if I find a woman type, I will clean shave.  At least if I want more than a kiss on the forehead (and I DO!).  But for my guy friends?  Well, they don't always shave either, and it wouldn't matter anyway.  Male friends aren't about each other's looks, or at least there is a lot of give.  And, perhaps, not just a permission for a bit of grunge, but an expectation.  It's... a guy thing.  One of those guy things I like.  Oh, sure, I have had spit and polish friends.  We just tease and mock each other and get over it.  Something about goodie two shoes and ogre being passed around.  Hmm, I have gone through both phases though.  I'm in grunge currently.  Oh, don't worry, I am presentable when I go out, just not... spiffy?  Yeah, just not spiffy.  Save when I make it to Church or some such.

Later.  Stay cool if you can, cook if you can't?  Bah!  Time for me to think about flying this oven...

I had hoped...

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To have figured my way to function before this point in gaming.  Simply put I have won all the trophies for the games I wanted to win those trophies.  Still, as I have noted, heat is still an issue.  I am taking care of that, finally.  The curtains and air conditioner are on the way, and I did actually already order, receive, and return one air conditioner, so I have been working on it.  Oh, and I do have some drapes already ordered, washed, then put up.  So it's not like I am not trying to solve the problem.  I suppose if I have a problem that way it was that I was trying stubbornly to pretend heat was something I could just get through.  Foolishness.

So, what next?  I really can't read too long as is.  My day has shifted, I am getting up around noon.  It could be worse and I have done well for quite some time on my day schedule, if for no real purpose other than to maintain a normal sleep cycle and for my own edification, satisfaction.  Then again, I am getting sloppy with my medication.  Potassium is often forgotten even when the others are taken, but the others are beginning to be missed.  I just don't have a good, sure, system of getting these medicines down.  I don't know how to improve that, save to hit it when I see it being missed.  As I said, my dad had this same problem.  My mom would... "help him".  I don't think he liked the medication any more than I do.  He never said so, it just... seemed that way.  Yeah, I liked my dad for more reasons than I could say, this is just one added to all that, and coming later in life.  :)

I do have other games I haven't played, or played and didn't really care for right off the bat.  I haven't opened 007 QoSolace, though it is a short game.  I haven't delved into the trophies for Killzone 3, if I did play it to completion.  It is so short that...  And I really... don't like playing with allies, if at least for the most part I am not forced to babysit them in KZ3.  The thing I don't like about KZ3 is, often, I have no idea of where to go, where I can go, or what really to do.  It's not a bad game, it just isn't epic or well done, impo.  I also have a jedi game that I simply didn't like.  It seemed, on first playing, more like a button-mashing game.  While you are supposed to do certain things in a logic way, that would take a bit of training combined with experience and the game just didn't seem that interesting.  Why games?  Because in this melt down I seem to be experiencing, and just because I don't function well anyway, this allows me to "do something" beside sleep.  It requires almost no actual energy output which I don't have, and if I did in this heat is best not to use anyway.

Whine much?  Oh, it's all good.  I'll get to things.  Give it a week, when I have the ac installed and the shades up.  Heck, I might wash the dishes!  Bleh.  The real hope is, once I take care of the heat, I will actually get to that room, do the laundry, wash the dishes, finish that hole out back, and a bit more, maybe a lot more.  With the medicines (mostly) going, I think it is possible.  Then again, we all know that... I often put more on my plate than what I can eat.  The reality is much different than my plans, often.  But... sometimes?  Yes, sometimes I can do a ton of work.  But everything really does have to be perfect, even then it is rare.  Like a tornado on a specific spot on the earth.

Gah! The neighbor boy came by for the watch I promised! Of course, I haven't been out, so I don't have it! I hate when I do that. I HAVE to figure out how to get out. I must say, having foods at home so I don't have to get out does make getting out even more difficult. I did, finally, break down and drink some of that powdered milk-like stuff last night (not official powdered milk, mind you). It didn't taste too bad, if too it only resembles watery milk. If you drink fat free milk, you might not have known the difference, I think? It still had just a touch of that "flavor" Carnation has, but it was a fleeting note unlike the absolute, stick with you, full flavor of Carnation dry milk. And, perhaps, even skim milk has the flavor. I've... never touched skim so I wouldn't know. 'I have to get that watch', sung to the tune of "Sink the Bismarck". She already took the Hood!

Later.

Just getting by.

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Not badly, mind you.  The curtains keep the house cool until mid-afternoon.  The curtains for those windows are on the way, though I can't be certain they will do all that much.  The world itself, by that time, is hot.  Though I have to believe it will help a bit.  The big thing will be having a room that is cool, using the air conditioner to keep it that way.  And, if things work out well, I may even be able to use the ac to cool several rooms if it comes to that.  For now, the heat keeps me pretty down.

I took a shower today, hoping that when the sun goes down I can sneak into town for a bit of shopping.  A bit of cheese, three gallons of milk, maybe even good bread.  I will do most of my shopping tonight, but I need coffee.  So, tomorrow, I can go in and get that, pick up my friend if he wants to get out, and go do something.  Yes, I had hoped to already have done that but the heat really is keeping me at bay.  I am almost positive that most people, if they could, would not venture forth for almost any reason when the summer sun is blazing away.  It is... unnatural!  It really is.  Mechanization has lead men to a strange lifestyle.  Air condition, heating, motorization, mechanization, and the rest have lead men, mostly, to do what we simply weren't ever really made to do.  And, the more we do it, the more we need to do it.  There is a point to it, if it is often lost in the hubbub.  The point is to make space, a place, food, and a reasonable life for as many people as possible.  That part, I do think, is God's will.  He made us to do that very thing.  I just wonder where the line is, sometimes.

Yep, living like a hippie or scrooge, I have decided, is not my gig.  From now on if it is too hot or too cold I need to address is.  Yes, I like to be stubborn, yes I like to run cheaply, yes lots of things.  But for me to get any function, which is a pleasure, then I must handle these basic wants... needs really.  You can't work hard if you can't cool off.  And you can't cool off if, doing nothing, you are nearly at peak heat tolerance.  Same goes for the winter.  I may have to jack my furnace up to 78 in order to function, but after two winters of trying to be frugal and failing miserably in my health care, it is time to take a different path.  I am not sure how much more it will cost, but that cost is not worth dying through being unable to attend my medicines and doctor appointments.  So be it.  *sigh*  Oh, but I best be considering a new furnace, and to be honest central air would probably be cheaper in the long run.  A package with both of those, a few years ago, ran about $5k.  What it would save in costs would not make up for that but it would help defray the expense.  But comparing up front costs to over time savings is a very tricky proposition save for all but the best of personal finance control freaks.  So, I suppose, my goal is to build up the money for that upfront and simply yield the savings.  At about $209 a month, saved over two years, I would be close enough.  I'm not sure, with my other savings, and expenses, if I can pull that out and set it aside though.  I'll... begin looking over those things.

I keep reading the lessons, going forward.  I'm not learning much, just previewing the material until I can create a cool enough environment to actually think well.  Bits of the paleo diet book are being consumed, and I may investigate ways to cut some of the fats, adding more lean cuts occasionally.  I am not considering redoing my whole diet, only in tweaking it a bit, seeing if that helps.  There is the concern with expense.  Lean often seems to be rather more expensive.  I don't know.  All I am saying is that I am reviewing my diet and looking at a few alternatives.  Though, mostly I am looking at the protein versus fat versus carbs.  I can't honestly say it is a weight loss thing  I think my carb intake is reasonable, though timing is what might be improved with it, as with other foods.  A man with only one oar trying for white-waters though?  Yeah, I know.  Just... know I am... working on little bits and pieces of my broken luck.

Have a great day.

The mind can't always be tamed.

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Good morning?

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Maybe, but... what's it to you!  Hehe  Perhaps not THAT bad.  Actually that question would suggest the wrong note, timber, and meter for today.  Today, so far, is just another blah day in the hot summer cycle.  I note, lately, some of my posts haven't been edited at all.  I will get right on the buffoon who is in charge of that!  Ah well, after a long hot day, keeping it together for a post can be a stretch as bedtime approaches.

I skipped reading more of the book regarding the paleo diet for athletes.  While I may root around a bit more in that dirt, I fear most authors merely spell out their plan, then spend exorbitant amounts of time explaining why their diet (or other theory) works.  To be plainly honest, in 99.9999997432995% of the time, that "proof" is sheer idiocy.  While their theory might be right, or wrong, the hubris that they bring to the table in "proving it" is almost as witless as their proofs.  Look, sure, see that something works and try to explain it.  Try to show your theory is better than others, but don't... you know... actually believe that you actually know.  Even if you are 'righter' than your opponent or near-beer competitor, you honestly probably don't understand enough of the variables to have it right.  Oh, I know, some authors feel called to break out their degree, or learning, and share it.  But they should most often by now know that... academia is mostly a form of king's clothing dementia.  Such is the literary world though.

Oh, right, so I didn't read.  Yes, yes, I'll read a bit more.  I am merely trying to elicit his whole plan.  I don't care about his "why" (as... I might have mentioned).  While I don't actually think the author is an idiot (necessarily, and given the shadow of doubt of course), I just don't think he could understand.  He is merely tracking, or modeling, a phenomena that is seen in nature, much like weathermen track storms but don't really even know why or how clouds form, let alone when and where the next lightning strike, or even tornado or hurricane will happen!  Never mind.  What I did do was to begin digging into Latin.  I didn't actually do the first lesson, I merely read the first lesson.  There is a HUGE difference, mind you.  Engineering school taught me that, if nothing else.  What worked in high school doesn't, well, actually work.  Everyone in college could read and understand in high school, the competition pool just got deep.  Public schools aren't fair competition to other types, unfortunately.  But it does take more than just schools, it takes parenting, a certain type.  Though, to be honest, not all children should be raised to be academically inclined.  That would lead to the ruination of the world.  Or has, even to the level that has been done so far.  I'll... get back to you on that.  Oh, right, my first introduction into declensions.  I now know why Rome failed!  Not only did they fail, and several times, their language was discarded.  It was all because of the language!  Wowowouch.  Then again, I think German actually had more declensions (if I don't think modern languages call them that)?  It's just been a long time since language classes and practice, I suppose.  At least when "past participle" or "nominative" is suggested and slightly explained, it massages understand back very quickly.  Learning a half dozen languages actually puts English, the rules, and the terms, pretty deeply and fearfully into one's bean.

When the air conditioner gets here and I have the drapes set up I should be able to dedicate short periods of time to study.  For now I am going to be previewing the lessons, one per day.  Previewing, as in reading, not actually pulling out a pen and paper and doing them.  What I hated about college, and to some degree high school, was we would we would do three or four lessons per session and skip some of the lessons.  Further, the lessons were based on days of class as much as anything else, so it came down to what was cut from the lessons rather than if anything was cut.  I honestly hate when a book is bought and only partially used!  I figure, if I do this Latin stuff, I will do two to three lessons a day, nearly every weekday, and in a year I would be done, roughly.  Actually, while previewing, I may set a little time aside to figure out a class schedule.  That is some dedication though.  Literally, a full year, at two lessons a day, five days a week?  Study, by the way, is as unnatural as things get.  Sure, study game to realize patterns for an easier hunt, but my guess is hunters more often just stumbled upon 'stupid tricks', and then passed them on.  Actually studying is a man thing, and only for those lucky or unlucky enough to be in a position to do so.  Still, that is my intent.

I keep forgetting the neighbor boy's watch.  So he can track his time.  Now, I am not sure he will be any better about tracking his time, but it is a start.  As time goes by, if he continues with the lawn through the years, he might become quite the little clockpuncher.  Oh I might regret this!  *grins*  Still, it is part of the deal (the deal I just made up!).  And it is nearly his birthday, too.  So... it works.  He is a good kid.  It's sort of neat to watch him grow up, learn, and work.  And he is keeping up on my lawn.  It's really actually starting to look like a lawn, for the first time since I moved here.  I will plant, heavily, this fall, then probably plant again in the spring.  Hopefully, with someone keeping it watered on top of that, I should have a truly lush lawn in another year or so.  I wish I could do it myself, and maybe I will get there, but for now... and probably for at least a few years to come, I will need help.  Help?  Is someone else doing all the work really "help"?  Never mind.

Oh, on to my day.  It looks to be a brutal day again, heatwise.  I know my friend wanted to get out on the cool day but that simply wasn't going to happen.  I NEEDED a cool restful couple of days in which to do NOTHING.  No choice, in any case.  But, today or tomorrow I need to get back out there.  Tomorrow I think, actually.  Cabbage, for the corned beef pot, maybe fresh carrots and potatoes depending on how what I have looks.  Milk is needed too, as is a number of other big and small items.  Nothing major, I'm trying to go cheap, low, and slow on other spending.  Curtains are eating into my cheapskate scale, so I need to pare back elsewhere.  Oh, I ran out of milk so I decided to make some from powder.  I am not using some of that which I bought in bulk, but a 'new milk' or 'milk like' stuff, called <i>Morning Moos</i>.  I think I made it a bit weak.  It doesn't, at all, taste like the old Carnation powdered milk, and I can thicken it, of course.  I will use it up.  It was a curiosity I had.  I will be trying one can of the other milk, off and on, after I use this one up.  I'm just... figuring things out.

Yes, have a good day.

Have a good day.

Definitely more curtains.

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I was going to hold off buying extra new curtains until next month.  However, seeing how much of an impact they have and keeping my home cool during the morning, while the light is on the draped windows side of the house I may just push ahead with that.  Now, it might just be that regardless what I do the afternoons will simply be hotter.  And yet I can't help but believe there is a significant difference.  Until the sun passed it's zenith, my home was almost cool, literally.  Oh, I think I will enjoy having heave drapes for all the windows the sun hits directly, save upstairs, for now.  Those will wait until late summer or early fall, for what they will be worth at that time.

The right air conditioner is on the way.  While I got free shipping, which is nothing to sneeze at, I could not get that sent overnight.  Of course, one of the problems I cam to realize about the first casement ac I looked at was... it wouldn't even ship for a month or two!  They have to build it.  What a joke!  Why offer to sell an air conditioner in the summer that won't be ready until fall, at the earliest?  Between the drapes and the air conditioner, I should be able to have a more reasonable life.  I do love the sun, and even the heat, just not when I can never escape it.  It simply beats me into the dirt.  Which, sort of, is where I am.  Yesterdays cooling helped a great deal, but it is already hot again this evening.  I did forget to open the windows when it cooled outside, but still.

A bit more reading regarding the paleo diet and then I think I am going to peruse the first year Latin book.  Perhaps I will be able to sleep before long.  If it is simply too hot, perhaps a bit more gaming until I, and my room, cool a bit more.

As per what I suggested on another blog, I have started to thaw the corned beef I had in the freezer.  After that last round of that, I... just had to get another.  Then one of the other commenters discussed a deli, or more put up a music link about a deli in Noshville?  Or was that Nashville with a yiddish accent?   I need, and I do mean need, cabbage though.  But I also need milk.  Perhaps I can sneak out tomorrow.  My phone was dead today, so I charged it.  Having just lit it back up I see my friend tried to call me.  I might just give him a call tonight.  Yeah, tomorrow won't be as cool as today but it is what is available.  Hmm, and maybe I ought to check on that gal I've been yammering about. 

The other day I was looking at what someone said was his beautiful wife, a picture, online.  And... for the life of me I couldn't see it.  And he was dead serious.  Then it hit me.  A woman, beautiful, ugly, tall, short, thin, fat?  When you link with her, she... will become beautiful.  It is a real beauty in the eyes.  It's personal.  It's sort of spooky too, because it is a form of dementia.  *grins*

Anyway, I best... Oh, I best eat something first.  My stomach will not let me alone to read, or game if that is what is necessary, until I tend it.  Might as well feed the cats again again again again, I think.  I feed them smaller meals all day long, like how I would prefer to eat.  Good night.

The oddity of timing.

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While I could complain, I won't.  After ordering those curtains, getting them washed, dried, and hung, drooling over the notion for a while once I thought about things, and for the first time in, at least but possibly over, a month?  It rains and cools down overnight.  I will not be testing the thermal properties of my new curtains today.  Oh, but the cool is so delicious, for me to complain would be a serious breech in protocol, a faux pas of epic nature.  It would be akin to buying a parachute, for a flight, just in case, then not having to use it.  Not complaining.

The cool is delicious.  And while for that first bit, before the rain cooled things, it did become a slight swamp around here.  Still, even then, it was nowhere near as bad as Iowa is all of the time.  I am surprised I didn't get pneumonia or something living there.  More so with my heart backing up fluid like it, to some degree, had to be even back then.  Sleep!  I was able to get to sleep by 2:00, and probably could have been to sleep earlier but for the fact that I wasn't prepared.  My mind hadn't coiled around the mouse of possibilities until later, almost as habit now.  When I realized sleep could be had, and easily, and early, *bam*, I hit the sack like a 100 pounds of potatoes coming off the truck... times three.  :p  (there are worse analogies!)  Like I said, to bed by 2:00, and then up well before 9:00, maybe just after 8:00?  Something like that.  Oh, and sleep was beautiful  I even let the girls sleep with me, if the brats tried to roll me for food at 4:00 or 5:00.  Not happening.

It is still cool, and a bit overcast.  I think that will be ending soon though.  Hmm, after checking the curtains?  Yeah, they are keeping huge amounts of heat out.  Oh, these will make a world of difference, I think.  Standing near the ones facing the sun is like standing near a lit oven.  Wow.  Yep, I am ordering three more sets, for the bedrooms down here.  I am not sure about upstairs though.  While a bit pricey, at $40 a set ($20 apiece, but why not sell them as sets?  That's confusing to bachelors!), they are long lasting and will cut on the electric for ac. Well, when I say pricey, I mean according to my budget and man-brain for home things. Just... work with me. Yeah, I know, curtains can be had that cost hundreds, or even thousands. I will never be there, even if I became rich as a robber baron.

I'm not sure what is in the offing.  I am just drinking in the cool for now, waking slowly.  The cats have been fed, I may be soon or not.  The rest?  I just don't know.  If it stays cool in here but heats up out there, I'm not sure I want to venture out!  At least for today.

Wow, it's curtains for me.

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I received the "blackout curtains" today.  I thought they would be okay, but... you know how advertising often goes.  I was wrong.  These things are beautiful!  Well, they look like corduroy material, which is perfect for a bachelor, but that's not what makes them beautiful.  They do turn a day room into a nightscape.  Perfect, too, for watching television, playing games, and working on the computer, on top of keeping light and to some extent heat out.  Heat will still pass through the windows, curtains can only do just so much on that score.  I will know more as time goes by, and I test their real ability to keep the place cooler.  Because they work so well I do believe I am going to order three more sets, for my bedrooms downstairs.  Perhaps, in time, more for the upstairs windows if I think that might help.  There are a lot of windows up there, though.  Hmm, I would guess it would take six sets.  Then again, they are smaller windows, perhaps each window won't need a full set.  Or, perhaps, I could do them in small batches, a few a month, on top of my other ongoing projects.  Oh, very nice.

UPS arrived to pick up the incorrect air conditioner, so I thought he would also have the curtains.  Not so.  But later when I looked, I found them.  Two different stops?  Perhaps, or he forgot and was coming back through?  All good.  Amazon has already credited me for the return!  Very good.  But having the nest egg means I don't have to sweat an exchange like I did before.  I love that little thing.  I heard complaints, at Amazon, about the curtains smelling.  Well, they were freshly manufactured and dyed, no guff they will give off a bit of odor.  New jeans even do that!  Idiots.  Anyway, I decided to wash them before putting them up.  And I actually got that done.  I had to redry a load of pants and shirts.  Oh, and the shirts were the ones I was having difficulty with spots.  After four sessions of washing they finally came clean (and I don't mean one wash per cycle, sometimes as many as three, ugh!).  All that got folded or hung, and the curtains finished and put up.  I sure hope they help with the heat a bit.  Oh, and the other curtains were way too long.  These I measured before ordering and they don't touch the floor.  They fit the windows... just... right.

All little things, all working to figure out how to be cool enough to live and sleep, but it is going forward.  I now have partials for winter and summer drapes.  I'll need to wash and put the winter drapes up though.  In time my home will actually be ready for whatever is needed.  Over time, it all just... happens.  Nothing will ever be perfect.  But it might just be a smidgen better tomorrow, a bit better even than that the day after, and so on.  Once I make this my home, or turn this house into a home, life will improve.  It is odd, for the first time in over four decades, to finally have a home... my first home.  I don't know if I will be here until I die, but that might be the way of it, long or short.

I hope you had a good day.

The little things.

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I am not getting to bed until late, due to the heat.  So far I have been waking relatively early still, though in part due to... well... the heat!  I am working on a fix for that though.  This morning, and for the next few mornings until the incorrect ac is returned, I am endeavoring to wake early.  I was out of bed well before 9:00 this morning.  I do NOT want to miss getting the old ac back on the truck and on it's way back to Amazon.  The last time I returned a package like this, the delivery company either didn't call, called early to let me know someone would be by in a four hour window, or called right as they got here.  So, the call wasn't much of a heads up in any real way.  I will just try to stay focused. 

It is overcast, a bit, today.  Some rain, any rain, would be welcome.  It isn't really more or less brutal than any other summer, save the dry spell being a bit longer than usual.  But a dry spell in the summer can be like a extended cold snap in the winter, it just puts a kink in the hose... if you know what I mean.  I have my curtains open today.  The view is fantastic.  Unless the sun comes out I will keep the curtains open.  Some people have paid fortunes for views like these. 

I just realized, thinking about this also being a desert, of so many of the old Western movies that had a guy crossing a desert, heading into the mountains or such.  Sometimes half of the survival part was the desert itself, sometimes that was just an inconvenience or the backdrop.  Now, the "desert" I live in is more akin to a highland version of the grassland desert, so there is no real sand (save in sandboxes of course!).  But the idea remains.  It's sort of fun, or can make the heat and discomfort a little... more adventurous?  Something like that.  So long as I can focus on it. 

In my reading of the Paleo Diet for athletes,  just a bit at a time, I am getting the sense that while this diet might work, I can't see it as being all that much of an improvement.  While I agree that, should I be a competitive athlete, this diet might hold promise, I am not an athlete.  And, sure, it could marginally, by a few percentage points, improve my personal performance, with the heart being the problem, that improvement would be conditional.  Further, the loss of those things I enjoy would not be worth the high upkeep of a true paleo diet.  Fresh fruits and vegetables, which I actually like, are very high maintenance items.  They last less than a week, often only a few days.  So shopping and keeping on top of stock in the refrigerator becomes a major pain.  Did it for years, I do know.  Canned items bring sugars back into play for fruits, and drastically cut nutritional value of both.  Plus, canned vegetables introduce salts.  There simply isn't an easy way to bring fresh fruits and vegetables into a diet.  And, lean meats?  They pretty much suck.  I watch people eat them with feigned relish and laugh.  Even my last lady friend, finally, after years of being a 'food Pilgrim' (as I call it), decided to keep t-bone and ribeye on hand in her own home (if organic, last I heard, so not much of it).  Further, as I said, if those earlier paleo-eaters had had their druthers, they would east just about exactly as I do. 

Now, to be honest, I think I am much closer to a true paleo-eater, and naturally, than most people would ever dream of being.  I do think, somewhere in the Navy, that whole thing was sorted out and started.  Some of the guys I knew brought the whole thing of protein vs. carbs vs. fats to a roundtable and we worked these things out.  What we, back then, decided, was that people truly are different.  Some actually do better on slightly varying levels of proteins to carbs.  Fats, it was decided, was pretty a necessity.  Fats, on a maintenance diet, needed to be about a third of all food.  Only during periods were improvement was sought, or like with body builders where building was sought or a show was coming up would fats be cut.  Still, most of us did better on a higher protein diet.  I don't recall all of the details, only that food was of vital interest to my group back when.  Nerdy submariners?  I can't recall.  Probably, who else would discuss such things, and actually employ experimenting for results, to then further bring those results back for discussion and hammering out details?  I think my best mix was about 70ish% (of the non-fat portion of food) protein, for maintenance.  I didn't honestly do a lot of building, I preferred a maintenance workout routine.  If it was a serious routine.  As I recall, lifting to 550 pounds on the bench and swimming 3 miles a day, three days a week.  At least, when I was shore-based.  :p  No, subs don't have swimming pools (if we work really hard at it we don't, anyway).  If we wanted one, all we would need to do is install a screen door?  hehe

Blathering.  Time to get to something.  Since it is still a bit warm, I will continue gaming.  I finished a game, and it's dlc last night.  I have one more game, for sure, to finish.  Deus Ex.  I have all but pacifist (a trophy I am reluctant to obtain for several reasons but may go ahead), and I need to read all of the ebooks in the game.  To that end, I started up the game last night and started in.  It is whack, playing one game on ultra-hardcore, to then switch over to the 'easy' mode of a different game.  Both remembering the new game controls, even on easy, then getting into the new old game mindwise.  Going from wasting everything that moves in a scorched earth policy back to not killing anything, too, is weird.  Why would I be against the pacifist trophy, morally?  Because if bad people really exist, and they do, pacifism only leaves the burden of truly dealing with them to someone else.  All the while, after a pacifist has allowed the bad guys who try to kill him to live, those bad guys continue to harm other people.  Amish use the police (and military) for example, living only on the fat of peace.  Further, pacifism isn't even a Godly thing.  God, did, directly call the Israelis to exterminate peoples.  Christ indicated if this was His kingdom, His followers would be storming the place to free Him.  And Christ came to create strife, between mother and father, parents and children, et. al.  He didn't come to bring peace and the simple notions of love, or the easy life.  Even His crucifixion was a testament to His lack of pacifism.  All things start at home, and He had a choice.  He chose the way of pain.

Like I said... blathering.   Never mind.  Just... go have a good day. 

Oh, right, Happy 4th!

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Yes, these are troubled times.  Yes, America really is on the cusp of losing what makes us special.  But too, yes, many have awaken from the dreaded slumber that was leading us all to our demise.  And I do mean demise. 

Over a million American men have given their lives for 'the cause'.  And, that has kept America free and prosperous.  Not only the men who died, but the men who survived, came home to enjoy the freedoms they had fought to keep, share, even spread.  Those men learned hard lessons, learned too that war is not preferred, and came back to families and jobs.  Those on the civilian side saw the sacrifices and made some of their own, lost loved ones, and learned to make do.  We live in a wonderful experiment, the hope is that we can keep it going.  That will take some work.

Fireworks, cookouts, and whatever.  I hope people enjoy the day.  Party like it's 1776... well, maybe not quite 1776, I think they were getting busy for the real thing, partying would have to wait.  For myself, a few phone calls.  My lady friend called me and I called my mother.  I won't call my friend.  Not until I am in any shape to get out.  I am just... enjoying a pain free day, one that finds me awake and somewhat aware.  Perhaps some reading in a bit, maybe even a shot at Latin.  I am a bit leery of getting too far into Latin without an speaking package.  Yeah, I know.  We don't know how they spoke, in truth.  But there is a more common understanding and a lot of misunderstanding, as well there is the liturgical varietal, which differs from secular or common Latin.  It would be interesting to attend a proper Latin Mass though, and understand it.  Yes it would.

Oh, just have yourself a good, safe, 4th.  Good day.