Monday 18 January 2020
It has been a long time since I’ve written (since the end of August).
Writing and Personal Tools
I’ve been trying to update/re-organize my computer-based tools. One thing I did was to figure out how to make my various notes files accessible (and potentially editable) on the iPad as well as the Mac — after a bit of looking around it looks like the best thing to do is to switch to Pages (and perhaps other Apple applications) since they are cross-platform. At least I will be able to read notes downstairs on the iPad without having to disconnect my laptop and bring it down; hopefully it will be sufficiently easy to edit or at least mark them up. I’ve realized that having a body of notes that I re-work and re-organize and re-arrange is an important part of the way I learn and retain things.
After doing the above, I also updated the noteshelf application which I liked a lot when I was at IBM. Although I fear that I’ve lost my IBM design notebook, I have ambitions of using noteshelf to capture pictures of and notes about rocks and geology. We’ll see how that works out.
Finally, I came back to this blog, and found that I liked reading the diary entries. I edited them so that they all have categories, and many have tags, and also figured out how to make them appear in an order I like (they sort by ‘publication’ date even if they are private, and that date can be manually edited). So perhaps I will do a better job of keeping this up and getting a writing practice going.
Health and Fitness
I am doing pretty well at keeping my running regime going during the winter. I fell off a bit in fall when it got cold — and can see the effects in the chart of my weight — but then got back to it reasonably well, and back up to running 3 to 5 miles. I am down to ~170 pounds which is the least I’ve weighted since (briefly) 2015, and before that the lowest weight I can find in my records is 173 when I was 33 (and mostly earlier weights were in the upper 170’s to 180s). I am hoping to get down into the 160s, and see if that makes any difference in the hypertension and the high blood sugar readings I’ve been getting/
Last week I acquired nano-spikes which makes running on ice/hard-packed snow much easier, and encouraged me to return to minihaha creek, which I find I greatly prefer to the lakes.
In October I made a second trip to Yosemite (following one in June), and was pleased that I had no difficulty hiking to the base of half dome — ~4000 foot elevation gain and round trip of 17 miles.
Shortness of Breath/Anxiety. On the health front, I had some shortness of breath in …June?… leading to a cardiac workup which showed that I was in good shape, and we concluded that it was most likely anxiety (said diagnosis being aided by me having a few anxiety dreams), and by noting the correspondence with my being retired for a bit over a year, and for having the summer without any organized activities/classes.
Sun-burn-like Patches. On August 7 I noticed 3 sunburn-like-patches on my right side. I wondered if they were a mild form of shingles, but the doctor said no (but I got the new Shringix vaccine anyway, which was good). My best guess is that perhaps they were either related to my immune system being wacked out for some reason (I also had a bout of jock itch), and/or perhaps with going up into the attic and breathing mold spores (though a subsequent venture did not cause problems.
Shin rash abated. Sometime in December, the extreme itchness of the itchy patch on my right shin abated. I was having really uncomfortable itching virtually every night, and on the use of lidocaine ointment — sometimes in a couple of doses — made it bearable. The strongest correlation with its abatement was with using a new lotion that Katie uses that has hyaluronic acid in it. It could also be a longer term effect of the pycognol I’ve been taking, with it improving blood flow in my shin. In the summer I will experiment to see if I can find the cause, but for the moment I am happy that there is almost no itching and I can go a week or more without thinking about it.
Blood sugar. The other issue is that I had a high blood sugar reading of 106, which is in the pre-diabetes range (albeit at the low end), and a follow-up A1C test which was also (barely) in the pre-diabetes range. My doctor wasn’t concerned and said we’ll test again next checkup — I am a little surprised by her lack of concern. (I had switched to a new doctor — Dr. Txxxx — from JM.)
Other
Financially it’s been a good year. We are living comfortably on our income streams (i.e. Katie’s salary), and our assets grew considerably. Of course it was a good year for the market, so I don’t really have a sense of how well we would fare under more normal conditions — but anyway I feel comfortable.
Travel-wise, we did not do a huge amount of travel between Katie being on sabbatical and her PCS difficulties. The main joint trips were Hawaii, Omaha, North Shore and a visit to Lars and RDs house in Los Cabos… as well as trips to Milwaukee and Viroqua for weddings. I did two trips to Yosemite, and am now signed up for three solo trips next Year: a Volcanology field trip in Hawaii in February, a High-Sierra Camp Loop in July, and the Grand Canyon with John Archer in September.
Courses. I took two courses at the U in the fall — Forest Ecology and Meteorology — and enjoyed them both very much. I’m not sure how happy I’d be if I were not taking courses — the structure, and the learning really works for me. See my comment about the value of notes earlier in this post.
What I hope to happen in the next quarter
I hope to
- Take one or two courses at the U (currently signed up for planetary science, and will be previewing another course or two)
- Continue making progress on piano
- Continue my fitness activities
- Have a fun and productive field trip in Hawaii
- And make writing more a regular part of life.