Out of The PIT

I finally replaced my old HTC One a couple of weeks ago. I have been meaning to replace that phone for a couple of years now, ever since the battery started to die during the day. I got by in the interim by keeping the phone plugged in during the day. Earlier this year I started to keep the phone in energy saving mode all the time as it wouldn't last more than an hour on regular battery usage. At that point I knew I needed to get a new phone. My phone was dying and I was losing calls. So I started looking at getting a replacement last month and was told I could get a Pixel 3 for a reasonable amount (on contract). To make a long story short (it was quite an arduous process), I ended up getting a Pixel 2 XL and I have been happy with my selection so far. I originally thought that the XL would have been too large, but.. you get used to it pretty quickly. Now I was going to turn the HTC One into a phone that Elsy could play with, but it is not running a late enough version of Andro

I tore part of my calf muscle last night. I was really itching to play broomball now that we have a cadre of MBA students coming out to try out the game in preparation for a tournament next year. It was fun to watch them experience running around on the ice for the first time. That may have been part of the problem. Normally I would be on the ice and running constantly. However, this time I was taking it easy. I only ran in spurts when I had the ball and tried to deke around the throngs of people we had on the ice. So that is probably why I felt a subtle pull in my calf early in the game. The next time I did it, I felt a pop in my left calf. I couldn't walk and I had to get on my knees to finish the play. I spent the rest of the time stretching my calf, but it felt like something got torn and I was having a lot of trouble walking. I had to hobble to the changing room and it took a long time to get there. My worry was driving home. I do prefer driving stick, except when I get inj

So for over a week I've been meaning to pick up a poppy. I keep remember just before I go to get one, but then something comes up and I completely forget about it until hours later. This has happened to me many, many times for more than a week. How am I so consistently forgetful about something like this?

My phone is dying. I need to get a new one soon. But I digress. I just watched an ASAP Science video talking about what would happen if the sun had disappeared. I've been trying to work on a book for the past few years detailing what is needed for humanity to survive if we started wandering the galaxy without our sun but really have not had much time to spend on it. I should probably throw out some of my ideas out to see how good they might work. I want to make the science as correct as possible but it's hard on my own. Anyhoo, I'm afraid that people who don't spend time on things they want to work on will get usurped by those who do.

Three times in the last two days I forgot my phone. The first time was on Tuesday when I left it at my parents' place in the morning. I went back to pick it up. Then I left the phone at the house after dinner. I went back to pick it up. Then yesterday I left my phone at work after I had left for the day. I went back to pick it up. Time to use a tether!

So I wanted to renew my Ontario Science Centre membership, but have been having trouble trying to log in the past couple of days. I even called in to the ticketing office to complain because the error message told me to. They told me that there were no issues, and accidentally hung up on me. Resetting the password did not seem to work, until something dawned on me: My password uses special characters. So I tried something. I removed all the special characters from the password, and guess what? It worked! I'm surprised that in this day and age that sites like these don't properly handle special characters. I'll make sure not to save any detailed information on their site. It looks like a possible back door. I tried calling again, but was left on the line so I figured that I should just write about it seeing as nobody is listening..

In case this is something valid: 1 cup of washing soda 1 cup of borax 1/2 - 1 cup of grated bar soap Mix everything together and use about 1/4 cup per load. Not sure if this is a real recipe but will need to check it out one day.

I was laughing at DeeL when I saw his mail this weekend. He got mail from the sherrif's office for jury administration. I personally had not been called up for maybe 12 years, and that was my first time ever being picked. I was able to get out of jury duty at that time as I was basically the only coder at that time and the company probably would have not done well if I disappeared for months. I kind of regretted the decision as I was curious about the whole process and was interested in taking part. Anyway, this afternoon my dad handed me a letter from the sherrif's office for jury administration. Ah crap. Time to fulfill my civic duty!

I was riding to work this morning and had stopped at a light. A mini van passed me, in my lane, and stopped in the gap that I left between me and the car ahead. Now similar situations like this have happened to me before where cars go through my lane as if I was not even there, so my usual tactic is to get in front of the car and kind of make my presence known so that they keep an eye out for riders like me. So as we were stopped at the light, I went around the car and sat myself in front. After we started moving again, I rode normally, leaving about a car length or two between me and the car ahead while at speed. I also stayed on once side of the lane as riders normally do. Well, the mini van passed me again, this time while in motion. Now this is very dangerous and definitely got me riled up. At the next stop, I pulled up next to the vehicle on the driver's side. Inside was a early middle aged Chinese woman in the driver's seat. (Not giving that stereotype any help.) She di

So MJNL and I put in an offer for a house last night. It was accepted conditionally. So now we're going to scramble to get all of the i's dotted and t's crossed..

One of the building managers came over to my desk today and thanked me for my heads up last week when I found a leak in one of the pipes in the underground garage. The pipe belongs to the sprinkler system but during non-fire times the system is pressurized with air. There is apparently a balance that needs to be maintained for the air pressure levels so a leak is generally a bad thing. In any case, for bringing this to the attention of operations, he gave me a voucher for a free lunch at the restaurant/cafeteria on the main floor. Yay! Free lunch! I quickly pass it off to RM who had been working all weekend and he actually does eat the food downstairs on occasion.

Warning, this is a really poopy story. As I age, I get this feeling that bowel movements and bladder control gets harder to manage. Not that I have a need to hold it in, or maybe because of it, I tend not to fight nature. As I always say, "When nature calls, make sure you pick up. Otherwise, she'll leave you a very dirty message." So I have been very good at heeding the call for many, many years. When I first felt the rumble last night, I just filled up the car with gas and was heading home. I figured that I had plenty of time to find a bathroom, and I didn't want to leave EYS in the car by herself so I decided to hit the road. Things were fine until halfway home when my lower gut started to join in on the parade and I had to tell myself to keep it together. Traffic was good, we would get home in record time. As we were exiting the highway, my whole intestinal tract decided to collaborate against me. I fought off the urge, but I felt like my inner tubes were

I mentioned that I was going through the bucket with my old T-shirts today. In the bucket I found my old security blanket. I think I talked about it before on The PIT but I can't be bothered to look it up right now. Anyway, I knew that it was close to turning into a big pile of lint, which is why I didn't bother trying to wash it before putting it into the bin, but if I wanted to keep it, I needed to wash it since it.. needed washing. So I threw it into the washer, which I hoped would be gentle enough as it was a side loader. The washing cycle went.. well enough. It did not seem like it lost that much weight, but everything looks about the same when it's wet. I threw the blanket into the dryer before we went to dinner. When we got back, I checked and sure enough, a large pile of lint fell on the floor when I opened the door. The lint trap was chock full of blanket pieces and the blanket itself was so tangled with itself that there was no point trying to und

So my only wish for today was to catch up on sleep and stay home and be left alone to do the things I want to do. There were a lot of tasks on my to-do list. The more I could get done, the better but I had only one task that I wanted to do and finish today and that was to go through my old T-shirts. You see, I have been collecting T-shirts over the years. These T-shirts were free, or purchased by me for some specific event or group thing. I never really got rid of any of them over the years but it really started in high school. We participated in a lot of contests and events and our cohort always did well, which lead to awards, certificates, and T-shirts. I wanted to remember these events, but I really did not care too much about the T-shirts themselves. My idea was to go through them and document each event so that I have a record of each and then donate or trash the shirt. I have been meaning to do this for nearly a decade now, but my sister goes on a purging spree each time she co

Sight has always been a big part of my life, and most of our lives I would guess. Losing our sight is part of the aging process, but just experiencing that gradual degradation feels like jumping off a plane and watching the ground slowly approach. There really isn't much one can so but try to deal with it the best we can. Technology may be readily available in the near future to completely remove this effect, but right now it is depressing to show up at the optometrist e ach year and see fewer and fewer letters on the screen.

So my dad asked both of us whether we wanted to keep the old Atari 800XL that has been sitting in the basement for about three decades. Neither of us wanted it, although I kind of would have liked to tinker with it for old times' sake. Atari 800XL But I do not have the time for doing the things I really should be looking at much less playing around for hours to get a three decade old computer up and running. I did not want the computer thrown out though, and I had been recently watching videos about The Centre for Computing History on Computerphile , so I did a bit of research and found The Personal Computer Museum . Atari 1027 Atari 1050 Along with the Atari 800XL we also had a lot of game cartridges, an Atari 1050 disk drive, a whole bunch of disks, an Atari 1027 printer, and my dad threw in a Smith Corona XL 1800 typewriter. I had good memories with that system. Many games, and my first programming as well, although it was mostly reading the code from a book

Our building's chiller finally kicked in yesterday and we were able to have a nice cool evening indoors after the sweltering hot nights we have been suffering through the past few weeks. The persistent cold weather and sudden warming, in conjunction with our west facing unit, resulted in a rather hot apartment in the afternoons. Since the ventilation units in our place could only blow hot air, we could not use it to cycle the air in our apartment and needed to rely on a number of fans to keep us cool. In other news, I have been watching Rick and Morty a fair bit the past month or so, and after I watched Look Who's Purging Now I got  Feels Good by  Tony! Toni! Toné! stuck in my head for the past few days. I do enjoy the show. The start was a little wacky, but the character development and story lines are quite entertaining. There are a number of interesting guest voice actors which I did not pick up on until I looked at the credits.

I mentioned that I had a finger infection a couple of months ago. Well, fingernails grow at a snail's pace, but they still grow, and the ridge where the nail bed was engulfed by the infection is plainly visible now. There is a huge dent across the width of the nail. In front of the dent, the nail is smooth and a little glossy. Behind the dent, the nail is whitish and rough, as if the nail was frozen in place at the time of the infection and more and more skin is being peeled back from the nail bed. It is a rather jarring scene made even more odd by the fact that the nail is coming out at an angle. The nail does not look like it is growing straight, It is pointed a few degrees to the left (when looking at the back of my hand). It is probably an optical illusion, but it does look like someone attached the nail incorrectly, tried to fix it, and then gave up and left it a little crooked. My nail is growing at an angle? Maybe I should take a picture.

The rust on my car is starting to show. I'm afraid that my car's going to quickly rust out on me over the next couple of years, but I will keep driving it. I'll check with my dad to see what his thoughts are about the mini-van. It just sits in his garage, and I really should look into something a bit more practical when we start aiming for two, or three.. I'll give it one more year. I think my car's number will be up when number two pops out. Anyone want to buy a well(ish) maintained RSX?

So we went to another funeral a couple of days ago and met all of the same people at the same location. "Next time we meet should be for a happier occasion." or "Hopefully this will be the last one for a while." was a fairly common comment with the people we were talking with. To be honest, a couple of these funerals were a long time coming: Grandmothers who were more than a century old, and both having suffered sudden declining health in the past several months. Still, it is very tough on my cousins who were related to and close to all three. Having a big strong family helps share the burden, but these events still remind us of our inherent demise, our finite existence, and the need to live out life to the best that we can, and enjoy very moment of it.. ..and hopefully those you leave behind will be able to celebrate the life that you once had.

I was woken up by what I thought was a cry from my child. I rolled over to my right to see her toddling up to the bed. But upon closer inspection it was not my child at all, but a small tablet on a very small child's body. The screen was on and was facing me. The tablet was showing the face of a woman with short wavy dark hair. She looked at me with her imploring eyes before they started rolling up into her head. Her white orbs stared at me when.. MJNL nudged me awake. "EYS is calling for you," she mumbled as she fell back to sleep on her side of the bed. I quickly looked to my right over the side of the bed. The floor was empty. In the distance, I could hear the faint whimper of a toddler calling out for her daddy. I slipped out of bed, to continue my parental duty to care for my child, wondering what it was I had just witnessed.

So this month hasn't been the greatest healthwise. I got sick on the 6th, basically rolling to my parents 'place to drop EYS off and then collapsing into bed. Spent the night there too. Started feeling better later the week but still had a nagging cough. Felt well enough to travel to Ottawa for the weekend only to fall sick again on the 12th with pretty much the same symptoms as the week before. Double whammy. Then it was EYS birthday and I was fortunately functional enough to participate but still coughing up a storm. I've better now, although I still have a lingering cough. We will see what tomorrow brings.

What did the Pentagon say to Trump about holding a parade? "No tanks."

Last night while we were following the directions from the GPS for our hotel, I noticed that the GPS never made any left hand turns. Each right hand turn was followed by another right. I think we had about a dozen right hand turns, and no we were not going in circles. Still, I was quite impressed with the situation where we were taking the shortest route without back tracking, or retreading and not making any left hand turns.

So soon after I posed about my finger diagnosis on Wednesday, I tried to check my abscess to see if I could get to the hang nail. It was so swollen that I couldn't budge anything, so I left it. Moments later, I was wondering why my finger was wet: I had somehow ruptured my abscess. Pus was oozing down by finger and my swollen flesh slowly deflated as the yellow milky fluid dribbled down my nail. This went on for a minute or so before the flow ebbed. There was much less white flesh left over, and the pain from the pressure had eased tremendously. I sopped up the remaining fluids (no blood) with facial tissue and went to bed. The next day, the large green blotch that was marring my finger was a fraction of the size it was the night before. I was on the track for recovery. Today, my finger is feeling much better. I can apply pressure and typing is no longer a chore. The finger is still a little swollen, but my tiny defenders have won out on the end. No need to go to a doctor I gue

Our annual tradition on Valentine's day is for me to get MJNL one rose for every year we've been together. This year would have been 11 roses. After last year's bouquet, we realized that the flowers that we got basically went into the garbage soon after acquiring so instead of getting roses, MJNL told me to get her a live flower, orchids in particular. So this year begins a new tradition of getting MJNL a new orchid for Valentine's day. Our track record with orchids have not been good either, but at least they are not guaranteed to die.. On other news, I found out the name of the condition that I have on my middle finger: Paronychia. Basically a fingertip infection. In my case, caused by a hang nail. Can be bloody painful at times. We will see how it progresses, but I may need to go to the doctor sooner rather than later for antibiotics.

I had an annoying hang nail a week ago and clipped it off. Or at least mostly clipped it off. I was unable to get a clean cut and ended up pulling at it and ripping it off (and subsequently retracted under the skin). A couple of days later, my finger felt a little sore where the portion of the ripped nail that stayed attached and tender when I pressed on the skin. The soreness got more and more pronounced until this weekend when I noticed at green tinge on the skin next to my nail. It was a small green line, but not very prominent. Things came to a head yesterday when the green line got a lot larger and my finger was noticeably swollen and very tender to the touch. I have a bad feeling that the that nail shard I left attached is somehow slowly pushing into my skin as the nail continues to grow. It looks as gross as it is painful. I was going to go to a doctor to take a look at it today if the finger was worse than yesterday, but it seems about the same as before. I'll keep

So my last living grand parent is now in palliative care. She had a stroke a couple of weeks ago and things just went downhill from there. We (including EYS) said our good byes already so it is a waiting game for us. Some of the rest of the family are having a bit harder time, but when someone is not eating, or drinking, or connected to a tube, it is only a matter of time..

So I got sick this past weekend. In fact, I am still sick. Mild flu like symptoms: hacking cough, runny nose, chills, exhaustion, and some muscle aches. It was not so bad as to force me to stay in bed except for New Year's Eve when I just wanted to sleep the whole day through, but the rest of the weekend was manageable. Now, considering that I had a reunion I organized on Friday night, a gym day I organized on Saturday, New Year's Eve celebrations on Sunday, I probably should have stayed at home for all of these instead of going out to share my cloud of germs with others. EYS is also sick, I can tell from her lack of appetite and huge gobs of snot she keeps rubbing out of her nostrils. (When I say huge, these are adult sized gobs coming out of a nose less than half the size of mine, so when she complains about her nose, she is not kidding.) I was hoping to avoid getting sick again this time of the year and thought we were doing good up to Christmas, but I guess "'t