Category: Personal 
Answering today’s question from Quofda:
This is a good question, and one that I have a long and weird answer to. To understand the answer, you have to know that I’m an only child who grew up in an apartment in Manhattan. Because of this, I didn’t have a lot of friends that I could play with growing up. Sure there were friends at school, and I would see a few of them outside of school, but growing up in the city means that you can’t just go next door to see “Billy” whenever you want. The “pop-in” is generally discouraged, despite what you see on Seinfeld. Getting together with friends many times required multiple phone calls, consulting both parents, consulting parents date books, and sometimes consulting a shrink. Sometimes it just wasn’t worth all the hassle.
Because of the above, I spent a lot of time by myself, and I became very good at entertaining myself. I still am. I value my alone time more than just about anything. I socialize as much as I can these days, but every once in a while, I’ll tell a friend that I’m just not in the mood to go out and would rather go home and be with myself (mind out of gutter, please).
Continue reading . . .
As the year comes to a close, I like to look back and examine some of the things I did right, and wrong, this year. The most glaring wrong this year has to do with a stock and a missed opportunity.
I dabble in stocks, but tend to be very conservative because, like electricity, I don’t really understand them. I won’t go into how I try to have a balanced portfolio, but I will say that I generally stick with companies and industries I understand. One opportunity that I’ve been paying attention to is this whole “green” movement that has been kicking up dust. In particular, I can see that solar power for the average home is a growth opportunity due to falling prices of solar panels and the fact that local municipalities are giving tax breaks to homeowners who install solar power, and even the power companies are letting homeowners “sell” their unused solar power back on to the grid. I figured this would be a good time to invest in a company that made solar panels. But this is where my confidence ended.
Continue reading . . .
Since I’ve been a little sick recently and spent a lot of time around the apartment, I decided to straighten up a little bit and throw out some stuff that I didn’t need cluttering up my spacious Manhattan apartment. Several books that didn’t make the cut are going to be dropped off on the windowsill in the lobby in case someone else would enjoy reading short stories and poems that I read in high school, The Soul of a Butterfly by Muhammed Ali, or The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy.
It was during this clean-up session that I noticed something that disturbed me. Next to my nightstand, on the floor, was a pile of about eight to ten books. This pile was of books that were on the short list to read, or worse, were already started and set aside for something else. Once I saw this pile, I realized that something drastic needed to be done.
My problem when it comes to reading books is that I don’t have a lot of time to do so. Most people I know read during their commute. Since I walk to and from work, that’s not really an option for me. In general, the only time I read is after I get into bed, right before I go to sleep. Since I generally go to bed when I’m dead tired and can’t stay awake anymore, I only get about two minutes of read time before nodding off. If I get two pages read before giving up, it’s a good reading session.
Yesterday, I decided to change that. I’m going to try a new attitude as it applies to going to bed and reading. First of all, I’m going to attempt to get at least 15 minutes, but more preferably 30 minute, of reading each night that it’s possible (i.e. if the room is spinning due to alcohol, then reading is not only not possible, it could be dangerous). This also means that I will need to head in to bed before I’m dead tired and nodding off in the living room.
Secondly, I will not start a new book until I have finished the current book. There will be exceptions to this rule, such as when a book needs to be read by a certain time, for example, for work, or when a particularly tough book hits a major section break.
I started my new plan last night, and I enjoyed over 20 pages of Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut before closing my eyes and dreaming of whatever it is that I dream about.
I seem to have done a number on the middle-finger of my right hand. It’s swelled up about as much as it can, and it’s quite painful if any real pressure is applied to it. I can’t clench my fist because of it.
This happened Friday, and since then, I’ve found out how much I depend on it to do basic things in my life, and I’ve had to make adjustments…
- Let’s get the most important one out of the way first. Wiping. I’ve had to make adjustments to my normal wiping technique. This is by far the most disturbing change I’ve had to make due to this injury, especially considering that I’ve used the same wiping technique for as long as I can remember.
- I normally keep my apartment keys in my right-hand pocket. I can’t get anything out of my right-hand pocket easily now, so I’ve had to shift them to my left-hand pocket.
- I can’t play with my Wii (sounds strange, don’t it?).
- It hurts to write. Not impossible, but it’s not comfortable. The interesting thing is that the only writing with a pen I do, in general, is to sign credit card receipts. Typing is fine because there is no real pressure applied to the finger.
- Operating my light switches. Most of my light switches are dimmers and are the circular type, and it hurts every time I turn on a light or turn if off. I never realized that I used my middle-finger that much when using the switches.
- Smoking a cigar. What good is having a 2005 Limited Edition Cohiba if it hurts to hold it?
- Forget about opening a bottle. Even using my left hand to open it leads to the middle-finger hurting while holding it in my right.
Perhaps I should get it checked out?
A while ago, April first to be exact, I had a very vivid dream, which by itself is quite strange because I generally don’t remember my dreams at all, and I just had to write it down, especially since I can still remember it like it happened yesterday.
In the dream, I was in Brooks Brothers shopping for a suit of armor. I had on some chain mail, and one “tailor” (I hesitate to call him that) was measuring me for a breastplate, while another person brought over a cart, not unlike the desert cart at an upscale restaurant, showing me the different styles and types of metal available for it, as well as some gauntlets and helms that might match the different styles of breastplates.
Continue reading . . .
Something is wrong in the world when your razor has the same number of blades as your entertainment system has speakers.
The worst part about having a cold and having to go to work (because you are so dedicated) is that Halls and coffee don’t mix, but you have to mix them because your throat hurts and you can’t swallow the coffee without using the Halls to soothe the sore throat.
It’s like some evil catch-22.
The morning of the 13th, I turned off all my computers, cable box, cable modem, aquarium, and subwoofer, in short, anything that would create a load on my fuses when the power came back on. I then went to work for what I figured would be an 8-9 hour day.
Got home at 6:41pm. How do I know this? Because as soon as I walked into my apartment, I went into my bedroom to look at my alarm clock. It said, “6:41”. Since it wasn’t blinking “12:00”, I knew that my power never went out at all. Darn.
I turned the aquarium power back on and made sure that the filter started properly, and then went around resetting the other things.
I hate when that happens. They tell me the power is going out, and it doesn’t, and I bothered my fish, which didn’t need to happen.
When I came home last night, there was a notice posted on the front door that there would be a planned power outage of the building on 9/13 starting at 9am until 3pm. I don’t think I’ve ever had to deal with something like this before.
I’ve had to deal with one blackout that I can remember, and I deal with planned power outages at work once in a while, but we have a procedure we follow for those. This is the first one that I can remember that is 1) planned, and 2) at my place of dwelling.
The only thing I’m really worried about is the outage’s affect on my aquarium. I will unplug the filter prior to 9am. This should be done because some of the water in the filter will fall back into the tank. The problem with this is that when the filter gets power again, and the impeller starts spinning, if there is no water in the reservoir, the motor may burn out. I will also need to take the filter’s media and put that in the tank so that the bacteria in there won’t dry out and die. I will need to do a small water change once I get home as well.
I’m sure that an eight or nine hour outage won’t harm the fish too badly, but I’m going to try to make the ordeal as comfortable for them as possible.
I’m so sick. Bad head cold. Nose is running like it’s training for a marathon. Coughing like it’s worth money. Asthma acting up worse than an ADHD kid who’s missed his Ritalin dose.
During the day, I’m taking Advil Cold & Sinus with a generous sprinkling of Halls and soup. At night, it’s NyQuil.
It started Thursday afternoon. I felt that tickle in the back of my throat that always means something nasty is coming. Friday was the worst. Today has been a bit better than Friday, but still not good. At this rate, I should be fine on Monday morning, just in time for work. Woohoo!
I guess at this point, I need to thank whoever invented Puffs Plus. Without them, my nose would have fallen off yesterday.
