Tag: #Health

  • The Ghosts of Computer Viruses and John von Neumann

    Not sure how or why it happened, but computer viruses, at least the subject of them, popped into my head today. It seemed like in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, computer viruses were everywhere. Plenty of news stories, and hacker stories, in the media. There was that movie “Hackers” which wasn’t any good, but hey… I remember buying virus protection for my computers, as it seemed like at any moment something was going to get on my machine and crash it. Then, computer viruses went away. I know ransomware is still out there and a big problem, but I’m talking about those news stories about how “the Melissa virus is out there, and will activate on a certain date” – you know, that kind’a stuff – no one talks about it anymore.

    So, even though I should be working on other things, I started puttering around and reading up on the history of computer viruses, and I came across this guy – John von Neumann. The reason he is here with computer viruses is because he, for lack of a better explanation, came up with the idea of machine self-replication, and then helped create a model for it. Which, in essence, and feel free to correct me, is what a computer virus basically is.

    But then I started reading more about this guy. John was an expert in mathematics, physics, economics, statics, game theory, and he worked on the Manhattan Project. Hell, there is a creator on the moon named after him. Not for nothing, but why haven’t I head of him before? He seems like he was a person of great intelligence, and did just about everything one could do with a huge analytical brain.

  • Holiday Beard

    It’s been awhile since I grew the Holiday Beard. It used to be something that I would do annually. Start growing it out during the week of Thanksgiving, shave it down to a moustache for New Year’s Eve, then get rid of all facial hair after the Super Bowl. (This way, I would look normal again for Valentine’s Day, which makes the wife happy.) There was one year for New Year’s, I shaved down to a handlebar and sideburns; don’t care what anyone said, I looked great!

    I decided that I wanted to grow the beard this year… and it’s not going well. Not sure what has changed about me, but this thing is itchy as hell. Like driving me up the wall, making me crazy. I find myself at night unable to sleep for how itchy my cheeks are. I can see how red and irritated my skin is when I look in a mirror. I mean, I know every time I grow a beard, there is a period of itchy face, but this time around, it is particularly annoying. I’ve tried lotions and conditioners, but nothing seems to help.

    Now, I won’t give up on the beard, as I am stubborn in that way. It’s only been 23 days since I stated this process, and I still have about 60 days or so to go. And I really do want the handlebar moustache and sideburns back in my life, in a very desperate way. Sure, this is a grab at holding on to my youth, as I might have more hair on my face than my head. Or, you could say, it’s fun to just do something silly.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Coffee, Tea, and Cookies

    (Oh, to feel love’s sting…)

    I have loved coffee for as long as I can remember. As a kid, coffee was the key to adulthood; it’s what all grownups did in the morning – drank coffee and ate breakfast, or complained about what their day was going to be like. I can see my parents, coffee cup in hand, watching me and my brothers opening Christmas gifts. It’s what my Uncle Ron drank all the time, especially when he would visit and smoke his pipe – the only person who was allowed to smoke in our house. I got my first coffee mug on Valentine’s Day, when I was in the 6th Grade. It was a corny mug that had a heart shaped handle and said “The Luv Mug” on it. My Ma gave it to me. I was the only twelve year old who was drinking coffee and reading the paper before school. I’m not the type of person who gets a headache if they don’t have their coffee in the morning, and I am also the type of person who can drink coffee all day, and it doesn’t affect my sleep, but I am the type of person that if I don’t drink coffee in the morning then I feel like the day isn’t right.

    Over the last two years, I have started drinking tea in the afternoon. Actually, 4pm to be precise, and only from October to March. You know, the cold months around here. I don’t know why I started doing it, and it would be easy to throw my wife under the bus on this one, as she does like a peach tea from time to time. But I got a box of Black English Tea, made a cup with a little milk and sugar, and it became rather satisfying in the afternoon. I even have a specific mug that I use for my tea. Funny how before, I only viewed tea as something that one drank when they sick, like had the flu. Tea was like coffee, but not as strong, so it was more water and less caffeine, you know, what sick people need.

    I have to go to Trader Joe’s today (Woop! Woop! On 125th!) to pick up a few things for the weekend. I know I shouldn’t do it, but I will buy a bucket of cookies. I woke up this morning knowing, to my core, that I would walk into that store, and get that plastic container of chocolate-chip cookies, and eat most of them over the next two days. For no other reason than I want to. I have been good about going to the gym, and sticking to my running two miles three days a week, and I started to notice that my shirts and pants aren’t so tight, and my energy has been up, and I do feel more focused. And I am focused on eating cookies all weekend long.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Doomscrolling is Back, My Picked Apple Goal, and Letting Go

    (I didn’t say no, but that’s not a yes…)

    I am back to my old doomscrolling ways, like it was October 2020. Oh, and this has 100% to do with the 2024 Election. The nerves have started kicking up again, and I keep scrolling on all the platforms looking for something to make me feel better, help me relax, and tell me that everything is going to be okay because the rest of America would never do what I think the polls are hinting that they might do and plunge us into another four years of orange chaos!!! If I learned anything about the internet, if you search long and hard enough, you will find what you are looking for.

    We went apple picking last weekend, and I even wrote blog about it, AND I even got a weird comment about it, which I think was snarky and sarcastic. As what happens with apple picking, you bring a shit ton of apples home. The wife does a good job of making a couple of deserts from the apples, and we put apples in the kid’s lunch, which she claims that she eats, or someone eats. Yet, year after year, we have to throw away some of our apples because they have sat on the counter too long, and are starting to rot. This year, we made a pact in our home to collect fewer apples, in the hopes that we will be less wasteful. And damn it, I’m holding to that; I will eat an apple a day, maybe two even, not just to avoid going to the doctor, but to do my part in ensuring that we eat every stinking apple that we selected from a farm in upstate New York!

    So what is the difference in giving up, and letting something go? If you give up you’re a quitter, if you let it go, then you are practicing self-care? There is a fine line there. But when this question pops into my head, this is the scene that plays out…

  • I Went to the Gym Today

    I sure did. I went to the gym. I had this thought in my head that I wanted to add a fourth day of gymming to my life. (I have decided that “gymming” is a word, and that it is spelled with two m’s.) I don’t know what came over me last night, but as I was going to bed, I said to myself, I can go to the gym on Tuesday, and now work out four days a week.

    See, at least since 2022, I have been going to the gym three days a week, Wednesday thru Friday. The thought here was that Monday and Tuesday were dedicated to doing all of the stay at home dad stuff. Not that there weren’t other stay at home dad stuff things to do during the rest of the week, but Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were my days to work on my stuff – writing, art, time with the kid, and those were my gym days, too. On the whole, it’s been working fine.

    But of late, I have started to think that I could and should be doing more. I could be writing more, working on more projects, doing more around the house, more work on our family’s finances. And that just led me to think that I could do another day at the gym. I would find an extra hour, somewhere, and wedge in some treadmill time.

    There is a very important fact here, you need to remember – I hate working out. I equate the gym to eating your vegetables as a kid – you don’t like it, but you know you need to do it. That’s the gym for me. My doctor told me that as I get older I need to do at least 30 minutes of cardio workouts, three times a week. So, I have been doing that. Eating my vegetables and staying in the good graces of the doctor and the wife. Don’t get me wrong, I want to be healthy, and have as much time with my wife, kid, friends and family as possible. If I could do that without the gym, I would, you know.

    So, for this thought of adding a gym day, to do extra gymming, seemed surprising to me. And I was surprised that I was open to this idea. That I woke up this morning thinking that it was still a good idea. That I put on the running gear and headed out to the gym, got on the treadmill, and was surprised at how fast the time flew.

    I don’t want to get ahead of myself here, but I might be making a positive change here.