Alarms, MDs, Taxes, Cash, iPod affront, and IE

So... another one of these.  Just a post with a lot of little things to muse about, but nothing really worthy of it's own post.

Alarm Clock:  I finally ditched the alarm clock this afternoon.  Getting to this point wasn't nearly as easy as I thought it would be.  The first hurdle is battery usage.  I can use the hell out of this phone... I can deplete the full battery in less than a day.  But that's not a normal day.  On a normal working day I don't even go through 50% of the battery.  I most certainly don't want to charge the phone every day when its only down to 58% battery left.  As I understand it, lithium ion batteries can get a memory of that over an extended time and eventually I'll ONLY have that much battery available.  So on some (if not most) nights, I'll want to use the phone as a clock/radio without charging it.

The clock itself is VERY dim and shouldn't use much battery.  The audio will use much more, but that will only be going for an hour.  Hell... I can actually take that down to 30 minutes if I really wanted to (I don't).  Here's how the experimentation worked:

Night 1:  The battery was almost dead, so I plugged it in (I didn't have the wireless charger yet).  I played my "Sing me to sleep" playlist on shuffle, and set the phone to go into 'Daydream' mode where it shows the clock.  It worked just fine except the phone was lying flat on the desk... I couldn't see it without pushing myself up on an elbow or reaching out and grabbing  the phone.

Questions

You know, there are times that I just want to think but don't have a direction to go in.

At those times I often think of things.  My new phone.  Fiona's snow tires.  My upcoming trip to Chicago.  My upcoming trip to somewhere else.  My new wireless charger and the possibilities of making that into an alarm clock.

Not really deep thoughts.

I think that's a problem of being comfortable.  I can pick at a scab like nobody's business.  If there's a problem going on, I will tackle it with an intensity that I don't often utilize in my regular every day thoughts.  Sure, those thoughts don't often turn into action, but they do lead me to areas where I might help out said problem.

But I don't have a lot of problems right now.  There's the lack of romance... but when I pick at that scab I quickly come to one thought;  I'm to old for that young puppy style "I wuv u sooo much!!!".  If I'm not looking for that, then I'm looking for a relationship, and if I'm looking for a relationship then starting off with "oh, and I live with my Mom" just doesn't work.  It doesn't mater how high minded and noble it may be... living with MOM doesn't equate to romance.

Friends?  I love my friends and have good relationships with all of them.  Family?  The family is strong for the first time in years.  Mom's health?  Ain't much I can do about that.  Finances?  Please.  I just bought a phone for over $700 (when you include the accessories), and didn't blink an eye.  My health?  That's a work in progress and if I continue to work at it, not a problem.

So... what do I write about?  Well... for a quick diversion I searched online for "Questions To Ask Yourself".  I'm not exactly looking for Buddah style self examination... I knew the top results would be those list things you find on facebook all the time.  But even a silly question can make you think.  So... I glanced at the first result and even peeked at the first few questions to make sure they could spur on some conversation and decided to go ahead and answer these questions.   Here it goes:

Technology and the evolving sleep cycle

I remember when I got my first alarm clock.  No... sadly I never had one of the old fashioned ones like in the image here.  It was a purely digital number.  The alarm could either wake you to the wail of an alarm or the soothing sounds of the radio.

It made me feel like more of an adult.  I couldn't just sleep in as long as I wanted, nor could I simply rely on my parents to get me up.  No, I was now responsible for getting myself up.  Yeah... I was like in the fifth grade.

Anywho... like most technological thing the alarm clock eventually failed.  If I'm remembering correctly, that one failed because it started losing time.  Not a few mintues a week, but a several minutes a day.  It was bad enough that I would have to set it each night and it would still lose several minutes by the morning.  I was in highschool at the time and working at McDonalds, so I took the next step in responsibility and bought myself an alarm clock.  This one was special... it could wake you up to a CD!  Woo Hoo!

It also had a feature that I truly fell in love with... a sleep timer.  Not only could you wake up to a CD, you could at the press of a button have it play music (radio or CD) for an hour.  Since that time back in 1990, I have always gone to sleep listening to music.

I forgot

I forgot...

maybe that's a good sign, but I can't see it that way right now.

January 17, 2007 was the day that my father died.  In case you can't math it, that's eight years now.  Eight years without my father seeing how much I've progressed.  Eight years without my father's advice... advice that I could frankly use.  Advice that I seek.

January 17, 2015 was spent listening to music, posting about it, researching new phones, buying a new phone, and finally playing with it all night as a movie played on the TV.  At no point did dad cross my mind.   I love music, but if I could see my dad for a single hour I'd give up music for the rest of my life.  I dig my new p hone but it's a thing.  It's a toy.  It's a shiny bauble that doesn't mean a fucking thing.  And it got my attention instead of taking a moment to reflect upon my father.

Dad is often in my thoughts.  When I do well I pine to let him know about it.  When I do bad I ache for his words of encouragement or even his chastisement.  He always seemed to know which I needed and offered it without asking.

"Atta boy" or "Well, you fucked up" were both welcomed responses.

Music is Life

I just had to share a new ear worm.  Heads Will Roll by Yeah Yeah Yeahs (video/audio below the jump).

I heard this the other day at work and recall bopping my head and tapping my toes to it.  At first, that's all it was.  Just a nice distraction in an otherwise blah day.  I didn't give it to much mind as it was obviously more pop/techno than I normally go after.

The next day when it came back on, I paid a little more notice.  Not enough to even look at the artist or song title, but enough to realize that I did like it... at least in the short term.

At that point I figured I'd never hear it again.  I think I mentioned before that I listen to iHeartRadio at work.  Not because I like it, or because they're particularly good... because they can't seem to block that particular internet feed and it's better than the two OTA radio stations I can get.  The biggest problem of iHeartRadio is that they are primarily concerned with commercial music.  Music that they play is practically guaranteed to be playing on their various stations.  The list of songs played is tragicly small and when I come across a song that I haven't heard before, it's rarely ever heard again.  So the fact that I heard this song twice in as many days means that it's just not going to be played again.  Pity.

mi·nu·ti·ae

So I was watching the College Football Playoff Championship Game between Oregon and Ohio State the other night.   I'm still a little mixed on the playoff.  Yes, it was nice to see more of a true champion.  But I kind of missed the 'standard' bowl line up.  I have to put that in quotes since bowl lineups have been changing for year... for decades.  Maybe next year I'll like it better as the Rose Bowl should have a more standard B1G/Pac 12 matchup.

It's funny how perception can change so fast.  Before the season began, the B1G was looked at as a 'has been and never will be again' conference.  They hadn't won a national championship since 2002 and had been blown out the last two times they competed for one.  Some of their biggest 'brands' weren't living up to expectations.  Michigan was circling the drain, Penn State was still banned from post season play, Nebraska... well Nebraska just kept winning 9 or 10 games a year but never breaking through and winning a conference title, let alone competing for a national title.  The second week of the season had Ohio State losing to Virginia Tech, Michigan State losing to Oregon, and Michigan getting creamed by Notre Dame.  

Fast forward to now and people are saying that the Big Ten's East division may be the best in all of college football.  Rutgers won their bowl game, Penn State won theirs, Nebraska almost beat USC, Wisconsin beat Auburn, Michigan State beat Baylor, and Ohio State beat both Alabama AND Oregon to win the National Championship.   The Big Ten was underdogs in all of their bowl games and yet they won six of eleven.  The SEC west (the former biggest/baddest division in all of college football) lost five of their six bowls.

Picture Perfect?

You all know that I have a background in photography.  While I mainly focused on actually taking photographs, I of course had to present said photographs.  Sometimes to my teachers, sometimes to other students, sometimes to family members, and sometimes to members of the public.

Now a great photograph can become less so if it isn't presented correctly.  For example, taking a great landscape photo and printing it up as a 4x6 and slapping the raw photo down on a table will look all right.  At best.  Take that same image, print it up as a 16x20, surround it with a double matte of complimenting colors, put all of that in a classic simple frame, place that frame on a wall and put the correct light over it and it can suddenly be one of the best images you've ever seen.

Needless to say, I have an appreciation of properly presenting photographs.  I honestly can't stand to see people's family portraits hung up on a wall in a frame without a matte around it.  In my estimation, the more matte, the better.

For example:

My Health, Mom's Health, Planning Trips, Paris

Just some updates and oddball new info.

I've been on my 'meds' for about a month now.  The glucophage (Metformin) has certainly had some effects.  One of the main side effects of metformin is "gastric distress".  Stomach problems.  Oh yeah baby... I've been having those.  Initially when the doc had me on 500mg a day I had some issues.  There was one evening when out of the blue I HAD to go to the bathroom.  It was not a desire, nor a request... it was an absolute need.  When I went it was like turning on a fire hose... out of my bum.  If I had a little more pressure coming out I felt that I may well have lifted off the toilet.  40 minutes later the entire episode was repeated.

There have been various scenes similar to that, especially after he upped me to 2000mg a day (1000mg twice a day).  But if I had to characterize the experience as a whole, I'd have to say that my BMs have become both softer and more urgent.  It's not always diarrhea and it's not always an immediate need.  But it is always softer than normal and instead of my trustworthy 'once a day' rhythm it's more of a several times a day.  But that's a small price to pay if the meds work.

I cant' let metformin do all the work.  I need to seriously reign in my carb intake as well as exercise more.  I'll work on the exercise more later.  For now I'm working on taking out un-needed carbs.  Carbs (carbohydrates) are sugars but they're found in many MANY things.  My biggest intake of carbs comes from soda, but second place easily comes from bread.  My normal lunch before heading to work has been two sandwiches.  Lunch at work has been two sandwiches, two cheese sticks and a handful of baby carrots.  Drinks heading to work, at work, and at lunch while at work were all 20oz bottles of Gatorade.  A normal slice of bread has around 15 grams of carbs.  A bottle of Gatorade; 49 grams.

Before we move on to 2015...

Just as I did last year, I'm stealing this idea from Joanna.  This is a set of questions that sum up the last year.  While I've intended to make this post for several months, I have specifically not re-read the questions so that I can answer them with a fresh mind this year.

Before I get into the questions, lemme set the stage a bit.  Unlike the year before, December of 2013 was a very good time for me.   I of course was working as a nurse and had just 7 weeks before been  hired on as a state employee.  The only real 'down' thing at the time was transitioning from getting paid every week, to getting paid every other week.   I ended up going three weeks without a paycheck... three weeks just before Christmas!

While 2013 was all about that mid year change... getting a job... 2014 was all about celebrating my new financially viable life.  The difference between the years and years of financial hardship and making more than enough money to pay all of my bills was amazing.  Dare I say;  Life Changing?  The year I've traveled by plane for the first and second time.  I've made grand purchases both for myself and for others.  I've re-acquainted myself with friends from long ago, and while my closest friends have moved far away, I'd say our friendship has deepend.

Yeah... I think I can say that it was life changing.  The only real 'down' thing this year has been the complete exit of Caitlyn.  I still miss her and while it's not often, I do still pine for her return.

So with the table set, here are the questions and my quick answers: