My Rite of Autumn

One of the great spiritual truths I've gleaned from my Pagan path is that the Wheel of the Year offers a good model for timing some of life's bigger tasks that are not directly tied to religious liturgy or agrarian life. One of the things I have been doing annually between the Autumn Equinox and Samhain is taking stock of my life, cataloguing the wins and losses over the course of the year, celebrating goals achieved and identifying new opportunities for spiritual growth.

OK, New Years' Resolutions are somewhat universal, and in a way, this is exactly that.

(continued)

Assorted SoTR bloggery 2009.07.23

Health: Weight, SGL and blood pressure are down, mood and exercise are up. My wounds are getting smaller every time I get the dressings changed.

Relationship: Meece continues to amaze and delight me. She has taught me some good, practical and cheap cooking tricks and tips. With her help, and that of my roomie, I now have a mini-fridge in my room in which to store food. My roomie is still adjusting to my trying to cook, but I'm actually starting to enjoy cooking.

WoW: After a lot of thought I've decided to not move my Alliance shaman over to Kilrogg (the realm where Meece's toon lives) for the time being. A couple of reasons for this -- one, I have some close friends over in Draka I'll lose contact with if I move Dak again, and two, I have another shammy (Marty, over on Kul Tiras) that I might be able to move and switch factions to Alliance because Blizzard is working on a cross faction transfer feature.

So, to play with Meece I started a Death Knight and leveled him to 80. Now I'm raiding Naxx again.

Last night was my first Naxx raid on Tyrtrinos. It was a 25 man Heroic raid, so there were some good loots. I really got lucky and got three new epics: off Grand Widow Fraelina I got Fire-Scorched Greathelm, from Anub'Rekkan Ruthlessness, and Strong-Handed Ring from the end boss in Arachnid. We're going back tonight, but the only things I'm going to be able to win is Tier 7 gear, since this raid's rules forbid me winning any more boss drops except for Tier pieces.

Coda

What is now ended has been ended amicably and well.

There is sadness. . . and hope.

I look forward to the day when I can meet her again as "just" a friend.

Today was not "goodbye forever" -- it was "see you later." Too many good memories for anything else.

Thank you one and all.

Daily Bloggery 2009-04-20: Dude! The Great American Smoke-In Starring The Doobie Brothers!

1. SotR: On my way home from a weekend of communing with Gwenny. Much was had in the way of good times. We played WoW (more anon) and took a walk to a nearby coffee shop where Gwenny got her introduction to Mac OS X. SGLs are an awesome shade of green all weekend.

2. WoW: Got into a heroic Naxx run this weekend; both guildies and a few PuGs. We cleared the Arachnid Quarter, dropping the bosses with just a few wipes. We started on the Military Quarter, dropped one boss after a couple of wipes and called it after the second wipe on Gothik the Harvester. Got two nice items:Grim Toll and Totem of Dueling. I took 25 Emblems of Heroism and bought a Pendant of the Outcast Hero. 38k honor points got me a Hateful Gladiator"s Cloak of Triumph. All of my items are at least good quest blues, Heroic dungeon drops, Badge, Honor or raid / Tier 7 gear. Reset is tomorrow, so I'll be good to run 10/25 Naxx/VoA/OS again. I'm good for most heroic raids now, heroic dungeons -- except for end boss drops -- are no help any longer.

3. Culture: The real story of "420"

4. Gwenny: This relationship gets better and better. What can I say that I have not already said?

Daily Bloggery 2009-03-16

Health: SG levels still looking very good. Dressings were changed, wounds continue to improve.
Gwenny: We're getting into disclosing deeply personal matters now. The way we both think alike is almost scary at times. The one cardinal rule we have so far: Complete bidirectional disclosure of objective truth. That means more than just "don't lie." It means telling the complete, full truth, without coloring or slanting it. Reality may be a three-edged sword, as Babylon 5 said. We are looking for the middle blade. This means getting outside yourself. Feelings *just are* and need to be discussed in full, so long as they are labeled as such and not as fact. At times, in prior relationships, I felt as though I was doing a minuet in a minefield. We'd be dancing along fine then BOOM! I'd (it was always me) step on some hidden emotional land mine. An hours-long (sometimes) lecture would ensue, just to make sure that I never stomped on that one again. And, of course, every misstep went into your Permanent Record so you never forgot about them. Then again, at times, I'd say or do things without thinking that triggered a mine. With Gwenny, I never have that feeling. Not because I am a lot better at staying away from those signs marking the minefield, but because there are no mines.

Or they are full of confetti, not HE.

Daily Bloggery 2009-03-15: Teh Ides o' March

SotR: spent most of the day in WoW with BOYD and Gwenny. Crashed out about 5pm. Up at 11pm to get email and blog a bit. Serum Glucose levels nominal. Feeling very good.

Daily Bloggery and Linky-linky: 2009-03-11

1. SotR: I'm kind of tired due to sleep dep. Kind of like that pushcart in Monty Python and the Holy Grail with the guy yelling "Bring Out Your Dead!" However, the lack of sleep has been in a very good cause. OMG what a cause . . . I'm not going to /disclose more just yet, except for the fact that I'm in a very good place. SGLs continue to be Green. YAY ME.

2. Baycon has gone from "definite maybe" to "I'm going. Period." Yes, this is related to item 1.

3. Effective immediately: Chuck Norris is no joke. I'm gonna utterly PWN the next WoW loudmouth who starts with the CN jokes.

4. Tech Republic needs to STFU with the FUD.

5. New talking iPod. Nice.

Daily Bloggery 209-03-09

1. No meet-up with Raine tonight. Issued a Mark 1 Mod B (pun always intended) rain check. No worries.

2. SG Watch: Morning SGL was high (144mg/dl) because I slept in this morning and missed my usual dose time. Getting my dose helped drop it back to normal. This is a common weekend scenario for me.

3. Spent morning licking my brain to get the bad taste of The Watchmen (see previous post) out of my mind and playing WoW between rant-pulses.

4. New Theme for the blog: I'm still looking. I may say "fsck it" and go to a Wordpress theme.

5. Seanan's got some great new lyrics up.

6. FINALLY, O:M is two years old today. In that time the blog's focus has switched a bit from "Here's something I think is cool, and if I think it cool so will you" to "OMG! Rich is using his keyboard and the Internet for therapy." Yes, therapy. It meets my need for self-expression, can be done without a live audience, and it helps keep me functionally sane. It's also the freshest source for State of the Rich ("SotR") statements.

What, pray tell, is "functionally sane?" It's the ability to Get On With Life in spite of the endemic insanity and abject absurdity that passes for "reality" in the early 21st century. I believe that reality is fundamentally consensual, not an absolute immutable "given," the ultimate "variable function" in a mathematical sense. Since reality is different for each person (I'm definitely an Idealist), then coping mechanisms are equally idiosyncratic between individuals. This definitely constitutes a mental "file system consistency check" (fsck) that gives this blog its name.

So, thanks for putting up with my rantings reading O:M!

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Now playing: The Cars - Just What I Needed

SotR 2009-03-06: supplemental

Something neat happened at work today. The coffee service finally got rid of the swill they were serving -- have been serving -- since long before I started at Apple. They got some new coffee -- some strange outfit out of Seattle nobody's ever heard of called "Starbucks." It's pretty good coffee. The stuff actually tastes like real coffee, and not ersatz pseudo-coffee filtered through gently-used toilet paper.

Just got back from the doctor. Legs are still looking good, no odors. There is healing going on there.

On balance, it's been a damned good week. A bit of WoW tonight, Watchmen tomorrow night.
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Now playing: The Rolling Stones - One Hit (To the Body)

SotR 2009-03-06

1. Work: Shorter monthly performance review at work: "Looks good." Pizza was served to the team. I eated some. It was good. Before SG was 100. After 2 hrs later 109. Lessons: Pizza is Not a Bad Thing. Unrestricted pizza is a Bad Idea for the insulin-challenged.

2. Health: One goal has been blown for the month. I had a serum glucose reading over 150 mg/dl 3 hrs after a meal Wednesday night. I later discovered that I'd missed a dose of insulin. Remedy: Daily routine modification -- inject evening dose of insulin as soon as I get home from work. Weight is down about a pound this week, right on target.

3. Socio-emotional: No gaming scheduled until 3/22 (Kitsune), nor is a hangout date in the works for the weekend. Yet. Know an unattached geek grrl who'd like to see Watchmen?

4. Music Matters: I've a new Wild Hair up my musical arse. I've started collecting various bands' versions / variations of the trad Celtic classic "Star of the County Down." Between Pladdhog's very uptempo take and "The Starbucks of the County Down," Emerald Rose's version is of course quite good . . . . I wonder if any of the Celtic-punk bands like Flogging Molly or Dropkick Murphys do that one? Since I started playing Mafia Wars over on Facebook, I've had various Rolling Stones tunes running through my head as I put "Don Gorgonzola" and his mafia through their virtual adventures in crime: "Gimme Shelter," "Tumbling Dice," "Hang Fire," and "One Hit (to the body)." I added other tunes about criminality to a playlist -- more about this later.

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Now playing: The Rolling Stones - Hang Fire

End of the Weekend Stuff

1. Dressing change went well; wounds continue to heal. My doc seems happy with my progress. Also: my aplication for FMLA was accepted. This will cover my, uhm, back at work if I need to miss work for appointments.
2. iKlear -- a cleaning solution formulated for Mac computers, iPods and LCDs -- is GOOD STUFF. I got some because I took a look at my MacBook one day and decided that I could no longer stand the way my keyboard, topcase and LCD looked anymore. Now my system looks NICE. Me likes. It also does a great job on eyeglasses and cell phones.
3. Musical strangeness -- I've been craving unusual music lately -- witness the music .sig below. Today I even heard some depths-of-the-70s fscking disco -- music like that from Saturday Night Fever that I hated when it dominated AM radio 30+ years ago -- and I actually enjoyed hearing it. This is not really nostelgia, not "your 50th birthday is in sight, time to mourn the passing of your youth," nothing like that at all. I mean, OutKast was what my stepsons were litening to (and dissing) five years ago, and some of those disco and old-school R&B moldie oldies nearly drove me up the wall back then.
4. Personal goals for the month of March. I haz them:
a. Visit Sophia and Sam in Berkeley, scheduled for 3/23 Monday.
b. Write one substantiative (one paragraph) O:M entry a day.
c. No serum glucose test results outside the Green Zone
d. Lose 5 pounds (a modest and realistic goal)
e. Socialize with someone in person and in realspace at least once a week.
f. Finish the O:M overhaul (almost done with this).
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Listening to: OutKast - Hey Ya!
via FoxyTunes

SotR: 2009-02-26

1. Health: I've been feeling inexplicably fatigued all week despite getting plenty of sleep (I've skipped playing WoW all week), eating right, maintaining good (green zone) serum glucose levels, consuming somewhat less caffeine (yes, I know . . .) and much reduced leg swelling and exudate issues. I thought last weekend's frontal assault on my sleep debt would fix this; that didn't happen. The biggest change I've made this week: taking my diuretics every day. One possibility is potassium depletion from the diuretics. Time for a talk with my doc and a raid on Walgreen's.

2. Social Plans: Got my birthday scheduled off for a 3-day weekend. That weekend I'll be hanging out with various and sundry people, taking pictures, visiting my daughter and son-in-law for PRB cuisine, good coffee and baby talk. Toss in a dinner date with a WoW guildy who shares that birthday with me. Later that week and the week before are two additional birthday parties: David 3/21 and Iz 4/1. Kitsune game 3/22 too.

March is shaping up to be busy. April is too early to tell, but end of May is BayCon. I expect to day trip it.

SotR: 2009-02-22

Feeling a lot more back on balance after last week's general insanity. With DunDraCon over for another year and Awards Week done at work -- not to mention the career of one of my friends, likewise done -- I'm going to need sustained balance and focus.

On the health front, things look pretty good. The best news is that the legs are not exuding as much fluid as they have been, thanks to the diuretics my doc has prescribed. Less exudate means less tissue damage around the wound sites and improved healing. It also means less odor, which is career-preserving and promotes sociability, something I need for that all-elusive balance. The serum glucose levels have been good to fantastic. Except for a 150+ spike at DunDraCon (kind of expected, actually, thanks to all the literature I've read on traveling with diabetes), I've been in the 100-140 zone the doc says I need to be in. 80-140 is my Green zone, 140-150 is Yellow, 150+ is Red. I've even lost ten pounds the last couple of months.

Less than five weeks till I turn fifty. When I was younger I did not expect to live even half as long as this. Not because I was active suicidal, far from it. Simply put: I did not expect to survive my military service three decades ago. Even in "peacetime" actual accidents happen. Given that when diplomats and heads of state make mistakes, the price is often paid by people in uniform, I honestly expected that I would be one of the unlucky ones who came back in a box, or not at all. You see, I grew up in a time when scores of American kids a week were killing and dying in a foreign land. The casualty numbers came into my living room on the nighty news back then.

Well, as things turned out, I was spared that fate. For a time, I was a bit lost as to what to do with myself. My 20s and 30s were spent in search of cluses as to why I was spared. Evn my first major clue, delivered just after my 22nd birthday, was kind of lost on me at that time. By the time I hit 40, the accumulated clues began to make sense. Four years ago, the next clue came into actual being, the cutest little red headed clue-hammer the world has ever seen™. This summer, the Mjolinir of Clue Hammers will, with the Gods' blessings, will enter my life. And this time, I'm ready.

Now I am on the threshold of elderhood. All of my explorations, all of missteps, the vector sum of my life's journey this time 'round the Wheel, have made me ready.

Not to mention blessed.

The Van-Breaking-Down-Seven-Phone-Agents-two-tow-trucks-Two-oops-THREE-Fuel-Pumps-Fail-outta-teh-box-six-hundred-bux-but-the-shop-has-free-wifi Blues

Good Points: free wifi, accessible from here. I can forgive a lot for free wifi.
Bad Points: TV in waiting room tuned to Fox News. That's what iTunes and WoW were made for.

Foxaganda Trails:
"Obama's Gonna Close Gitmo and release the terrists, we're all gonna die!!!"
Where the fsck does FNC get all those idiots?
Calling Ann Coulter a "cvnt" is an insult to vaginas.
Bill O'Reilly wears a tie to keep his foreskin from rolling up his neck. Fsck BillO and the phone sex falafel sandwich he rode in on.
Calling Sean Hannity a "retard" insults the mentally ill.
Meat Loaf on Hannity; time to delete Bat Out Of Hell from the HD

This siege of semi-forced TV reminded me of why I don't own a set. I turned up the music, risking hearing loss to keep the IQ points from leaking out my ears.

THREE fuel pumps out of the box . . . but now they know WHY: the shop's been ordering the WRONG ONES!!

During my vehicle-less stretch this week, I downloaded more ebooks for my reading pleasure. Or so I hoped. I'm a very big fan of Eric Flint's 1632 series. If you were to design in a lab a sf series to appeal strictly to me, the premise of "Have a cosmic accident drop a small West Virginia town into Thurungia at the height of the Thirty Years' War. Watch hilarity ensue." is a at the top of the list. The original 1632 is a classic on the same plane as H. Beam Piper's Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen (premise: "Pennsylvania State Trooper stumbles upon a transport device of the Time Patrol, winds up in a parallel universe where North America was originally settled by Aryan migration across the Pacific Ocean ("Aryan Transpacific"), with early 1600s tech and a church that deems gunpowder(!) a religious sacrament . . ."). Another good comparison volume of course is S.M. Stirling's Dies the Fire (Premise: "Alien Space Bats An Unknown Force shut down all electronic and high explosive / high combustion technologies, reducing the world to pre-1100 tech; SCAdians and Pagans war over the ruins . . . Oh, and Nantucket is missing."

Anyway, 1632 spawned numerous sequalae: 1633 (co-written with David Weber), 1634: The Baltic War (also co-written with DW), numerous "Grantville Gazette" volumes of vignettes and short stoies, and at least three other "163x" volumes. The first two volumes in this list are both awesome. Weber and Flint collaborated earlier on an awesome book set in Weber's Honorverse, Crown of Slaves, so I knew the first two sequals would rock. They did.

This brings us to 1634: The Bravarian Crisis. The book is not exactly a contunuation of 1634:TBW, it focuses on our favorite medieval / early modern royal dynasty: those lovable Hapsburgs! The co-author knows her 17th-century Germany. I learned more about the Hapsburgs in reading this book than I ever knew before I picked it up. Yes, the plot was okay . . . but it was BORING as all hell. Okay, 1634: TBC was really about "soft power." Building things like modern schools, while avoiding enemies like the Inquisition, the Society of Jesus and the French. Not to mention what happens when the Holy Roman Emperor (talk about 'three lies for the price of one') loses the will to live. Too much touchy-feely, not enough "Let's show them the meaning of Rate of Fire!"

Perhaps that's coming in future books . . . but this one struggled to hold my interest. At least it was better than Orson Scott Card's magnum opiate, Empire. I may give 1635: The Cannon Law a chance. Or not. Two months till Storm from the Shadows . . . hopefully eight - ten till Torch of Freedom (aka Crown of Slaves II) and Mission of Honor next year.

Once I get the car back, methinks I will see Gran Torino. You simply cannot go wrong with Clint Eastwood, marauding gangbangers and a M1 Garand. Also Defiance.
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Listening to: R.E.M. - Imitation of Life (Live)
via FoxyTunes

Weekly SotR: Health

One thing I've learned from watching the stock market / DJIA / 401k values is that unless you are a professional and must understand the technicalities, it is counterproductive to follow the daily up / down of the market.

Same thing with daily blogging of serum glucose and carb intake.
My current rolling 7-day serum glucose average: 135 mg/dl (19 readings)
14-Day average: 133 mg/dl (39 readings)

I seem to be getting one or two seriously out-of-range readings per week, usually on weekends. My Isles of Langerhans are not looking forward to Thursday.

Weekend SotR: In Control

My serum glucose has remained under 150 mg/dl all weekend. Happy happy me. Peak reading was 138 Saturday night.

Snacks That Help:
(info from product labels and Calorie King website)

1. Jerky -- very easy on the carbs; typical 1/2 carb per pack
2. Popcorn (Trader Joe'swhite cheddar) -- 1 carb per 2 cups
3. Nature Valley Peanut Butter bars -- 2 per bar

Tomorrow's medi-crap most of the day. I'm also planning on some WoW as well. I leveled my new Death Knight to 59 and continued leveling the toon's professions. Normally professions grow with a character from level 1, but a DK starts at level 55 with only one skill -- First Aid -- at a level a normal toon of that level would have. This means leveling Cooking, Fishing and the two main professions from level 1. I chose Skinning and Mining for the main profs because they do not require the purchase of materials from other professions and I can sell what I gather on the ingame auction house. My Shaman has made thousands of gold in this fashion.

Skinning and Cooking level fast for the same reason: you get meat and leather from slain beasts. Fishing levels slowly; after the first 50 levels or so, it takes more than one catch to level the skill and the rate of leveling is independent of where you fish or what you catch. At level 300+ it may take ten catches to gain one level point. Mining levels slow because mineral nodes are widely scattered in a zone to begin with and are do not always offer a skill-up when they are tapped.

SotR: Interesting

Still under control. Serum glucose is on target, and I'm feeling decent. Leaving work early for a dressing change and a one-man raid on Best Buy for my copy of Wrath (not in that order...BB's on the way home) followed by that revered and ancient MMORPG expansion ritual: the install-update*n-validate-a-palooza.

Friday at work promises to be more fun than a pantload of ferrets on crank. SaTURDay worse.

They're celebrating the tenth anniversary of this place being open today. Thanks, assholes, for closing the cafeteria salad bar to serve us pizza.

I need those carbs like I need an auxiliary anus.

Thoughts on Living with Diabetes

Late last week I was diagnosed with Type 2 Adult onset diabetes. Given my family history and lifestyle, I was not surprised by the diagnosis.

I expected to be depressed, even morose over it. This is, according to my doc and the American Diabetes Association, a very common reaction to an initial diagnosis. With my history of depression, and the "I don't give a virgin rat's ass about anything!" apathy I usually feel when I'm depressed, two words come immediately to mind: "death spiral."

The funny thing is, I'm not depressed. I'm not sad. I'm certainly not happy about it, but I'm not going to waste energy I could be using in taking my meds and measuring my serum glucose in raging against something uselessly.

So, I learned this week to measure my blood sugar level and to inject insulin (yes, the docs have me on two kinds of insulin and oral Glucophage™ both) . . . and the long term consequences of not doing these things.

Here's my selftalk:
Watching my carb intake is inconvenient, but so is peripheral neuropathy.
Sticking myself and drawing blood is a bitch, and so are slow-healing wounds.
Needles and lancets scare me, but so does losing my vision.
Checking my sugar is not fun, but being an amputee is even less fun.
Since I cannot defeat it by confrontation, live with it by adapting intelligently.

And, so far, I'm doing pretty good. Day 1 was a bit shaky, with glucose levels over 200, but I buckled down and I'm back to the happy 100-150 range. As of this writing I have not had to inject any regular insulin today.

Thank Goddess for the salad bar at work!

Money and Music

There is lots and lots of scary financial and business news out there. I've been reading about folks who have lost a decade or more of market value gains from their 401ks, folks my age who looked upon accounts they established in their early working lives that have started to implode.

I started the race rather late, and right at the time when, to paraphrase Ambassador Kosh from Babylon 5: "The avalanche has already started; it is too late for the pebbles to vote."

I've done everything I can do to retrench; all I can hope to do is to ride out the storm.

On a related note: with all those bank failures out there, I am telling anyone that will listen that moving one's funds to a good credit union might be a good idea. The bigger banks like BofA, Welles Fargo and WaaahMooo are, IMHO, about as safe as an unshielded kilogram of Cobalt 60 in your codpiece.

On an unrelated note that has little or nothing to do with doomsday scenarios or radioisotopes in an uncomfortable proximity to your family jewels: Seanan McGuire is coming out with a new CD of filk music goodness, Red Roses and Dead Things. Seanan is an awesome songwriter, a poet, comic strip artist and author. You owe it to yourself and to future generations (those not roasted by that hot lump of Co-60 in your shorts) to hie yourself over to her website and preorder a copy.

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Now playing: Seanan McGuire - Vampire Slayer Blues
via FoxyTunes

SotR 2008-08-28 (Health)

I've reached a milestone today with respect to my far-too-long battle with stasis ulcer wounds: I'm down to once a week dressing changes at last! This makes my treatment planning a lot simpler and frees up my days off for things other than medical stuff.

The weekend past was a swamp of existential angst. I'm not sure why that was so. The rent is paid, my roomie seems happy with me -- in large part because I pay the rent before the 1st. I'm getting enough sleep, I'm elevating my right leg, and I'm eating my fruits and veggies. So why did I do exactly nuthin' -- not even playing WoW -- all weekend?

Whatever put me in that shit mood, it's gone. I got a handle on it now; I think all I needed is some good alone time.

Tuesday at work started out blah, but got better. I finished strong. Wednesday was a lot better, Thursday was a cruise. I even made my weekly team meeting and said something that made my manager say "Great Idea, Rich!"
The monthly workgroup potluck -- an event I usually avoid -- was the cherry on the sundae that was My Day @ Work®.

Then again, this may well be the calm before the storm. Busy season, aka the start of the traditional academic calendar, starts next week.

It's also Republican National Convention week in Minneapolis. No teevee for me.

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Listening to: The Elders - True Believer
via FoxyTunes