Tuesday, July 31, 2012

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.

Monday, July 30, 2012

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.

Sunday, July 29, 2012

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.

Saturday, July 28, 2012

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.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

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.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

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.

Monday, July 23, 2012

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.

Sunday, July 22, 2012

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.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

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.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

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.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

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.

Sunday, July 15, 2012

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.