Very long day with work interrupted by an appointment with the brain docs. Moving closer, but I think I might have to work, and forego some of the days I’d planned on taking off.

But I’m chugging through.

With the doc visit, I think we hit on some of my resigned attitude on so many things, including my family situation right now.

Though getting really bent out of shape about things has never really been my thing, the reality of my health situation really adds to it. Are you upset? No. Not really. It’s just something else I have to deal with. There’s nothing I can do about any of it, so why get angry?

Physically I’m able to persist better than I used to, so even less annoyance/anger.

Did have a podcast this afternoon that reinforced what I think about what’s going on when it comes to public affairs. This.

I’ve been calling the zOMGANTIWAR contingent the “NeoHippies” lately, and this really reinforces that. They’re stuck on latching on to any bit from the 1970s and 1980s that was viewed as being opposed to the evil US regime.

No. Go fuck yourself.

I think I mentioned that I went to high school with fellow military brats who were born in Tehran. I remember reading this about the team put together by Ross Perot who was deeply-involved in US politics at the time.

But I also remember hearing stories about things that happened at the airport/Air Force Base as things were really going nuts during the revolution.

Rumor is that you can make napalm out of foam rubber couch cushions….

But the AntiWar folks make it seem as if they’re perfectly peaceful, and we should be negotiated with. No. They’re still thugs. Just as they were in 1978.

I’m ready to be finished writing, but I’m going to get through what I’d planned. Three more days.

News.

The NeoHippies worry most about nuclear weapons. For them, nothing’s ever progressed past the LBJ Daisy ad from 1964.

Meanwhile there’s still a ton of conventional weapons that are sitting around….and they’ll still blow up. Saw this from Crimea.

I think I’ve written about this before when it comes to the Norks. Nuclear weapons are scary. But so are 170mm artillery shells.

And the latter are going to work a lot more often.

After Intertubes outage, I’ve kind of lost where I was.

So let’s call this finished.

Three more days.

I think I should have done more when it comes to prompting out this period. I didn’t, and am almost finished, so continue on with what I’ve been doing so far.

I glanced to see what I’d written in the past, and there’s something from an unidentified journaling site whe3re I was writing my thoughts about the then-new MacOS X 10.2.

I wasn’t writing about the fun with 10.1 where Finder would crash, and you could SSH in to reboot the system, but not much else.

Random aside — this predictive text stuff in the browser is annoying gas hell, and I’m too lazy to STFW and figure out how to turn it off.

I did take a company DIEEI survey. *mumbles something about HR being the root of many the problems in the western world*

My wife asked if I wanted to move to the couch. I do, but I’m kind of staying where I am to finish up the things I’m working on right now.

Oh well.

Still kind of in the relaxed mood from some recent writing.

When it comes to the news, I’m kind of sparking on my past from systems engineering.

The climate bill is totes going to work.

Establish your measures of effectiveness comprised of quantifiable measures of performance.

That sort of thing is a terrible idea for anyone up for election.

More on the writing, however, I also need to build in more time for free-writing. Yes, a lot of what I’ve done so far this summer has been that, but I wonder if it’d be better if I really had specific spaces set aside for that.

Speaking of blog organization, though, Rooskie comment spammers have been something that’s been popping up last couple of days.

For the foreign attackers, “drop” target. For the ones from domestic providers, “reject.”

I have almost nothing from when I was fifteen.

That year wasn’t great. I had what was probably my first really major MS exacerbation.

Incredibly introverted. Lots of acne.

I watched something this weekend, somewhat with my wife (she bailed towards the end). The episode of this on Y2K.

It was a lot as I was doing some IT and radio engineering in those days. There were satellites that got retired early because of the problem. Generally, however, everything worked.

Still, there was a lot of worry about what would happen.

When the year changed over, pretty much all the lights in the studio were off, generators running. I had CBS Radio on a phone coupler in case the satellite didn’t work.

VICE, however, has really gone off the deep end when it comes to tracking minor conspiracies.

Speaking of VICE, interesting live event on Substack with the The Fifth Column folks last night.

It’s refreshing to have something I consume that’s not constant doom-and-gloom.

Same could be said for Brad and Hannah over at BASED Politics.

But what I’ve really come to the conclusion on lately is that the experts don’t know.

The RONPAUL/AUSTRIAN ECON crowd can’t explain why precious metals haven’t gone through the roof price-wise when it comes to increased currency liquidity. And, no, it’s not just the Federal Reserve. If it was, USD <–> EUR wouldn’t be basically 1:1 really for the first time ever.

I don’t know what’s going on. Neither do you because you read a thirty year-old Rothbard book.

I mentioned BASED because Brad had a guest talking about some of the provisions as the horribly-rebranded Inflation Reduction Act.

While I’m still skeptical that many of the provisions in the bills will do much of anything, but it’s not the disaster that was the Build Back Better package, with the PRO Act.

Things aren’t as bleak as I worried.

Today’s fun was taking half a day of vacation to go to the dentist. Party.

But whittle down the unused time a bit.

More tomorrow.

Just a few more for this period of writing.

Had an incredibly odd dream yesterday afternoon. I think it involved one of the maintenance men where I live now who’d been living surreptitiously in our old apartment 200 miles away….with some appropriately-aged woman who I think was on staff here, too.

Probably a combination of the issues dealing with my mom’s house, and all the craziness happening with her right now.

*shrug*

Looking backwards at old entries, I guess there was a quiz I’d taken in 2006.

What kind of sex are you?

You are Foreplay

Um. Okay?

Can I miss being young, and healthy? That was taken right about when my wife and I were getting really serious. If the quiz wasn’t lost to the Intertubes history, I mihgt re-take it to see what I get today.

But I’m comfortable that there’s not been anyone else for, really now, more than two decades.

News.

My representative, following Mrs. Pelosi’s lead, went to the Republic of China. Amazingly, enough, I don’t think it was broken clock syndrome.

Several likes on a Twitter aside.

This was a bit of a left-handed compliment. The folks running the messaging are amazed by the bullshit that folks like Zinn peddled.

This is as I’m struggling through one of the Soho Forum Debates about Ukraine. Yes, it’s a violation of the restriction I set on myself of turning the fucking channel when Horton is on, but, given that it’s more than a month later, I have a sick curiosity to see how wrong the arguments are.

It’s not disappointing me in that regard.

To quote some pandemic binge-watch I didn’t consume, Winter is coming.

Might be something to revisit during NoJoMo in November.

Settling out stuff with the journal, and pulling off the last bits from the old VM.

Yay Saturday.

Also have some things to help a friend with about some old audio hardware.

The fun of trying to compile drivers for somewhat-uncommon hardware.

Been a while. At the same time, I’m looking forward to it.

Trying to put together the plans for this fall/winter.

1. Travel to Biloxi again
2. Figure out what’s going on with my job
3. Get an MRI in December
4. Go to Mexico?
5. Criticize the stupid that’s coming from the political world

With the last one, I glanced around Twitter this morning to see if the NeoHippie crowd had had anything to say about Rushdie.

Fucking silence.

BUT IT’S ALL ABOUT MESSAGING!

Last night’s Peddling Fiction happy hour reassured me some, however.

Other people are reaching the same conclusion I was really arriving at last summer. Maybe I’m too tuned-in, but my life at this point is listening and thinking.

Flashback to this date in 2015. Things were seriously bad back then. I’m happy I made it through.

Is there an aspect of your personality you wish you could chnage?

That’s a tough question. The only thing I can think of is that maybe I’m too trusting of ordinary people sometimes.

I don’t think my boss is out to get me.
I don’t think the government is out to get me.
I don’t think evil corporations are out to get me.

I’ve never attributed to malice what could more easily be explained by ignorance or stupidity.

“They’re not bad; they’re just stpid.”

Maybe that makes me a fool.

But, whatever. I could spend lots of spoons thinking about how I’ve been fucked over. But I don’t have enough to waste.

---

I really haven’t backed down from those things. But the major disruptions I’ve been through in the past almost decade have really settled me.

Off to do some chores. :-/

Well, out of necessity, I think the move is progressing. control-h.org should be up on its new platform. Hopefully I don’t fuck it up, and it’ll run for about five years. (Will I live five more years? Good question.)

Sampling through old entries on OD with twelve in them. From Christmas Eve, 2001.

I’m twelve

Yah, so my parents bought me a bicycle for christmas. Hmm. Yet another hobby for me that involves the risk of serious bodily injury…..Let’s look at them, shall we?

– Chainsmoking

– Binge Drinking

– Skiing

– Mountain Biking

– Radio

Yep, I’m a goner. But I’ve decided I’m going to live long enough to see Halley’s Comet again.

---

I don’t know why I was so negative about this. Maybe it just seemed like there wasn’t a lot of effort put into it.

I’m guessing that was largely because of my age at the time, and the circumstances of the new post-9/11 world.

I was going into my last semester of college, and working quite a bit. My recreational time consisted of driving around aimlessly with interruptions for stops at all-night diners.

I think, by this point, I did have Saturday nights off, at least, after working the early morning shift.

Would I enjoy being able to ride that bike these days? Yes. Maybe not as much as skiing. Certainly not as much as being able to see, speak, etc..

Skiing would be nice, too.

So. News.

Anne Heche died. What a strange story. Trying to forget Phil Hendrie doing a bit on her when she decided she was tired of being with Ellen. Yes, there was an intonation about her needing baby batter.

The next was the story on Salman Rushdie’s stabbing in NYC.

The NeoHippies on Twitter seem to be pretty silent about it. Can’t say that I’m surprised. For them, the world started in 2003.

Nope. I remember.

I remember the PanAm flight over Scotland we were worried my uncle was aboard.

This stuff isn’t as new as you all are convinced it is. And you’re doing yourselves a disservice by listening to 1970s peaceniks who seemingly missed all of the 1980s; what happened to Ceausescu?

Yeah, I won’t be waiting around.

Time to go watch Beavis and Butthead, and have dinner with my wife.

Another long day. There’s not a lot of details I can give, but I’m satisfied I’m doing the right things, and am getting some credit for those things.

I did get reassurance on some of the things that I think are falling into neglect that my group is actually doing a very good job. We’ve just got so many things to stay on top of that it looks bad only if you don’t consider the total volume.

It’s more difficult to see the good things when everything’s flooding in at once.

When I was riding to my new office the other day, I was talking about some of my past fun when it comes to IT operations. Where I am has bits of it, but it’s really not the same thing. I think the move “to the cloud” is going to continue to make the esoteric tech skills less useful.

Part of my weekend plans involves trying to help a longtime friend do something esoteric with a wheezing client machine he’s working on. The hardware in question was iffy with Windows 98. With 32-bit Windows, it was dodgier, still. But it’s something I’m interested to walk through, see if I can get it working. And maybe finish up moving control-h.org to its new perch. Other stuff has moved, just need to finish up email, etc., with the main site.

So news. I did see discussion of an article on the death of social media on HN. This was just after looking through my old entries and seeing lots of discussion of Orkut. I remember running the network, and trying to figure out this newfangled thing…MySpace.

Things move along.

I have some things to do next couple of days. I should go to get to that.

I think the EAS alerts that keep going off signify that today signifies the end of summer. The lows are supposed in the 60s the next few days.

I’m okay with that.

Thankfully, it seems like, maybe, this isn’t going to go down as a horribly-hot summer.

Whar climate change? Whar?

It also plays into my tentative plans to head down to the Gulf Coast Autonomous Zone again in October. Burning PTO. I’m trying, but I still don’t think I’m going to get down to where I need to be.

Oh well.

Speaking of fall, I am lining up Fantasy Football again. We’ll see who bites. A couple of the longtime players who were unavailable last season might be this year. Not going to change things up too much.

But at least I don’t have to get an MRI until December. I was worried about that in today’s flashback from this day in 2011.

---

So, MRI today.  The techs weren’t really forthcoming with the information, and I don’t really like having to wait.  I’ve delayed my prescription refill until next week, hoping the neuro’s office will let me know before my appointment next week that everything is a-okay.

But I still can’t say I’m used to this nonsense, and the reflective dye injection still treats me badly.  I didn’t have as bad a reaction this time, but still felt like I was going to puke.  Bleh.  I’m thinking that, more than the other concerns, makes the Tysabri less of an option for me if I need to switch meds.  The results about improvements in vision, along with it being only once a month are plusses, but, still, IV.  Bleh.

---

On the Tysabri now. They’ve really cut out the contrast dye that used to bother me so much. I don’t know that I was having one of the reactions that the personal injury lawyers are all over…

I don’t think I had a reaction that was more than the psychosomatic reactions I was having to venous puncture.

Years of being on Tysabri will clear that up for you.

I will say that I gave a lab sample last time that I was at Georgetown that kind of made me feel like I was gonna boot in the cab on the way home, but…

News.

I guess the big one for me today was listening to something, and having my mind changed. Hannah Cox on BASED Politics explained some of what the DOJ did with the Breonna Taylor shooting in Louisville. I have a reflexive supicions when it comes to these sorts of things where the Federal government is trying to get a conviction of people previously-acquitted by a state jury. In this case, however, it wasn’t that. They were going after the people who put together the bogus warrants the cops were acting on.

I’m okay with this.

And I’m finished there.

More tomorrow as we bask in comfortable temperatures again.

I still have somethings when it comes to getting things accomplished. Long day is long, but I still have a couple more hours of work to do.

I’m in such a better place now than I was when I wrote this:

From 2017:

t’s been more than a week since I had my Tysabri infusion. I don’t feel as strange as I did just after. I am still a bit fatigued, but, it’s not affecting me significantly. My neck hurts, which is different. I’ve had pain in my neck, that went down from just behind my right ear all the way to my right elbow since just around the time I was diagnosed

If you’d told me back then that I’d have been on this stuff this long, I’d have told you that you were nuts.

Down to every six weeks, now. I was really kind of feeling the exhaustion last week, but I don’t think that was due to it being towards the end of my does. No, it’s probably because I wasn’t sleeping well.

I did notice something in one of my news alerts recently that a “biosimilar” version of Tysabri is on the way really soon now.

I should look back at what I wrote back when I was starting Tysabri. Though I didn’t really admit it, I was as scared as I’ve been as an adult.

I’m wondering if surviving that is part of what’s been going on where I’m lacking some of the fear I’d normally have of things. Who knows?

News. Not going to link a specific story, but the DOJ raided President Trump’s house last night. Really? I don’t like the guy, but this is banana republic stuff. I thought the Reason take on it was pretty suspect.

Ten more days. Ten more days to write.

Flashback twenty years ago this day. If memory serves, I was really trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my wife. I’d graduated college, was wondering if this radio thing would ever pan out, or if there was something else I should go do while I tried to get into law school.

What to do when you’re bored

Me? Oh, I drove six hours one-way to watch a 45 minute football practice, then drove home. 😀

Went up to Carlisle to see Redskins training camp. It was really fucking surreal to be back in Carlisle. I guess seven years is a long time, but….

It might be that already, everything from that year is sort of a blur. You go someplace for just one year, and things don’t seem to fit together after awhile.

Biggest thing I’ll remember about Carlisle is my waist size. Ain’t gettin’ into those pants anytime soon….

My hip seriously hurts after the trip.

---

The RedskinsCommanders haven’t had camp at Dickenson College probably since I wrote that..

The complex at Dickenson was a neat little place.

As for fitting into my pants from 1994, I probably could have not terribly long after I was finally diagnosed with MS. Today? Notsomuch.

I think my wife and I did come across something from a similar vintage at my mom’s house. Those did fit, but there was no way in hell that’d I’ve consider wearing them.

Yes. They were Jorts. White ones. 1994 did was a thing.

Last night was an adventure with Intertubes was frustrating. But everything is good now, I think.

Looking at the news, there’s nothing that’s really taking my interest. Olivia Newtown-John died. Something Kardashians, Pete Davidson. Yeah, I can’t bring myself to really care.

I should put together a gift list. I kind of do want one of these.

I did stumble across this tweet that sort of fascinated me:

Completely different way of thinking about things.

I should go get some food. More tomorrow.