melchar

Have spent more time having doctor appointments. Went in again and I still have lungs ... pneumonia still there & got a prescription for a different inhaler for the next 3 months - which is basically albuterol with added steroids. Ugh, the idea that it may take that long to recover from pneumonia. They want to image my lungs next [after the 2 batches of X-rays] for a better view in there, but yikes. Plus I'm told it'll be a while before they can get me in for that.

The most surprising thing I learned this time was that I've somehow managed to lose about 15 pounds since Xmas, despite being pretty immobile & enervated/lacking energy.

...Though I'm still forcing myself to do my daily exercises. I also got measured and am still 5'5". Since I've been doing the mostly stretching exercising that include hip curls that works my spine since I was 15, I'm guessing that is why at 68 I haven't lost any height from being a teen. So ... yay ... but I bet those pounds will return.

There and back again, 2025 edition. Sunday before Xmas = Drove the 400 miles south to visit my sister/his sister & brother. Stayed with his sister - who is the BEST hostess AND has 2 adorable black labs [Flint & Cantina] who are worth ALL the pettings. Spent pleasant times with siblings, even though it meant dealing with the daystar/being awake during the day & getting my eyes blasted by way-too-bright daylight.

Had looked at the long-range forecast which said it would be clear in SoCal during the week, with a 50/50 chance for sprinkles on Xmas day. [insert laughter] Starting Tuesday, the sprinkles began. Decent rain on both Xmas eve and day. Then, all during the drive today [Friday] it rained the entire 400 miles going north to back home: sprinkles sometimes & driving rain at other times.

On the one hand, I love the rain & people were driving carefully - so this was good. OTOH, everyone drove more slowly [GOOD!] so the drive took longer. Thankfully, there were no accidents on the way back in OUR direction. Southwards was no so lucky - and much of 152 from Gustine to Casa de Fruta was stationary due to a mudslide, so I'm glad we were headed north.

So glad to be home, safe, sound & warm.

Trey & I got our flu shots & Covid vaccinations early on Thursday morning. Trey was feverish by night, full of body aches. He felt bad yesterday - and was fully recovered by Saturday night.

Me? My arm is still sore from the jabs and it's only -now- that I'm beginning to feel a little achy. Not fevery yet. My immune system is just kind of pathetic.

Just a note about another AI crap-en-ing of original content producers can be seen summed up rather nicely here = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpVnx4_yqTo
->> by Second Wind / Yahtzee Croshaw.

I'm not having problem with alerts, since I have none set. I'm also in Second Wind's Patreon [among others subscribed to] - but I use my own list of bookmarks that I visit every day or so looking for new content. Thus this is not an issue for me, but I've heard complaints from some friends who are [*gasp*] different from me and use other methods, so I thought the topic worth commenting on.

Just paid some attention to the plot, such as it is, of 'The Last of Us' - and I'm annoyed. The game - & apparently the series adapted from it - use the 'magic science' approach to immune response. A fungus infects victims, colonizes them & is an excuse for predatory zombies. [Sure, why not.]

But the problem is that when someone 'infected' with the fungus doesn't convert to fungal predator, the kid is called 'immune' - and is sought to provide BRAIN MATTER to search for a cure.

So - science magic. Wave the words around & provide Joel [the MC] with an ethical choice of letting the kid be murdered, or kill all the ones who want to murder the kid. And it is MURDER, since evidence is there that this 'scientific' approach has been used before to unknown numbers of OTHERS exhibiting fungal resistance and failed to produce a 'vaccine' every time.

What SHOULD they have done? NOT murder another victim, that's for damn sure. So - false choice for Joel. 100% save the kid/kill the threats.

Magic science COULD have done useful things. Like - keep the kid healthy & do intensive egg harvesting / embryo implantation in hopes that the kid's offspring - along with sprogs of OTHER, NON-MURDERED resistant folk - show the same resistance to the fungus.

OR be terrible & imprison the kid - along with other resistants after the failure of prior vaccine attempts. The logical inference of why vaccines showed promise & then failed is that it takes living blood / white cells / 'X factor' or some other 'life goo' to keep the fungus at bay. So imprison the resistants - keep them very healthy - and do transfusions from them to those in power.

Heck - even try to make an actual vaccine or effective fungicide without using lethal amounts of brain matter. Use non-lethal methods to harvest blood, bone marrow, bile, tiny amounts of cerebral fluid from LIVING resistants & keep trying other methods until they find something that works.

But the cycle of capturing and killing resistant individuals eliminates the chance for humans to breed for resistance or immunity - and this annoyed the holy living heck out of me. Because you can TELL that the prepared operating theater & 'doctor'-shill was using the lure of the 'magic cure'/vaccine to gain protection - and they had done this before and failed every time. It was the 'medicine is magic' promise that motivated everyone NOT a doctor to willingly die, enabling the continued lie.

Today was ... 'special' = my keyboard cord, which was a little frayed - snapped. Digging out the replacement keyboard [ALWAYS have the next keyboard & mouse - & headphones - ready to hop in] - but it seems to be a LAW that this takes at least 30 minutes

Plus finally was able to see the animated film 'Flow': pretty animation, nice music, very satisfying & I very much enjoyed it

Being sick sucks. This is the first day - in almost 2 weeks - that I have felt somewhat marginally better than I did yesterday. GETTING sick was easy. RECOVERING from being sick just takes so freaking long. I'm lucky that this was 'just' a miserable head & chest cold - but DANG I hate being sick.

This week was a gut-punch, as a proudly uninformed public voted against sanity, safety & self-interest.

On a personal note, at today's doctor's appointment/check-up - I have been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. I suppose it was inevitable. I also suppose that - with a history of asthma in the family** - also getting diagnosed with asthma was also inescapable. So now I have metformin & an albuterol inhaler added to the allergy meds, levothyroxine & topical gel for rosacea in my daily routine.

[** my parents both being alcoholic chain smokers from before I was born until they died likely was not good for my lungs***. Oddly, neither of them died of lung cancer or liver disease, although mom died last year of emphysema at 86.]

*** cleaning their multiple ashtrays every day DID inspire me to never smoke & I'm fortunate that I hate the taste of alcohol.

I'm rating this week as '1 star, would not recommend'.

Yay - happy birthday to me. Born on a rainy Hallowe'en morning while my dad listened to baseball on radio. Until I was 5, I thought people dressed up & gave away candy because it was my birthday.

Really good birthday present was an 11th gen iPad - which is the year's culmination of presents [Xmas, Valentines, anniversary & now birthday] - and worth it. However, after the actual BUYING the 'geniuses' at the Apple store were useless at setting it up or transferring the data from my current [6 year old] iPad. Wasted 2 hours there with them unable to install the needed update to the pad, much less do the data transfer.

Back home, Trey spent an hour fixing what they messed up - essentially scrubbed it back to factory specs. Then he spent another 90 minutes doing a fresh install, then update to the current OS & then did the full data transfer. He was helped by our wifi being roughly 4x as fast as that at the Apple store. He was [& IS] awesome.

I had an interesting 'conversation' with someone passionately, violent opposed to industrialization today. They wanted humanity to 'go back to nature' and get rid of all the machines, since machines were causing global warming. They made my head hurt.

Commenting just about the climate-change part, I did agree that industry & humanity has absolutely affected the Earth's climate & help cause some of the overall warming, but not as much as vulcanism.

But ... it was hard to get across the idea that 'warming', in general, is not a completely bad thing. Back in the 1970's - when I was studying geology in college - my teacher's HUGE worry was that the earth is WAY overdue for another period of glaciation. Interstadial periods - the time spent between Ice Ages - have averaged between 10,000 and 40,000 years long. The current interstadial period that we are now in is the longest one on record.

So we are overdue for an Ice Age. Currently, estimates are that the Earth can support up to 12 billion people - as long as we can keep producing food at our current rate. BUT - if there is a glaciation, then the MAXIMUM number of human beings that can live on Earth is maybe one billion - and those only at equatorial regions.

Humanity can survive global warming, albeit with quality of life degradation for some of us. Personally, I HATE hot weather. There will be more disease. Melting glaciers will cause sea levels to rise - which will cause huge problems in low-lying coastal regions.

There is the speculation that melting glaciers will make the ocean less saline - and cause ocean currents to move & change. If the Gulf Stream shifts too far then it is likely that the British Isles will get MUCH colder: like Iceland cold. Plus more brackish water means that there is less fresh water. And I've read that the worst case scenario could be a sea level rise of more than =*100 feet*= in some areas! At THAT rate - as examples - much of Florida & Louisiana would be underwater ALL the time. The Central Valley of California floods & can't be used for agriculture. That's pretty bad for the U.S., but there are Pacific Ocean island nations that may cease to exist.

That could be bad, but if there is an Ice Age most of us will die. Since I don't live in an equatorial region - and neither did the person I pointed this out to - that would include us. They didn't want to admit this, so that led to a huge argument about people dying off from starvation & disease, if 'industry' was prevented from using machines, since those self-same machines are how food & medicine are now produced.

I don't think I really got my points across well and just feel frustrated that there are people who think 'X' can be fixed by stopping other people from 'doing a thing', without thinking about the consequences.