GymStuff

I did thirty minutes on the elliptical, level 3, at about 4 MPH. This is pretty good, for me.

Dreamt

This dental stuff must be stressing me more than I realized -- last night, for the first time in years, I dreamt that I was back in high school and didn't have a clue about how to respond to a test. Which, granted, at the time happened fairly often!

Listening

I picked up a copy of David McCollough's biography of John Adams and listened to the first couple of chapters today while I was slogging through the elliptical. (Not one of my better days at that -- slower and less intensity. But I stuck out the thirty minutes.) It's an interesting sensation to be listening to a person describe the bombardment of Boston by the British fleet while hearing thumping rock music and seeing Faux News on the TV. Puts things in perspective, a little.

noted

"....and he doesn't complain about the hand he is dealt."

Thanks, S.

Movement

French

I wonder what words in English cause French speakers to have the same kind of what the hell is THAT reaction that the trailing kur sound in propre and quatre does to me?

It's Bigger Inside...

So how many cookies can this thing hold, anyway?

(Bonus points if you guessed what the link points to without looking!)

Dentistry

I never like going to the dentist, but if I have to go, I prefer going to the oral surgeon. He's fast and organized. He's focused on getting the job done.

Today, I got another example of that.

Last week, one of the screws holding things in for my implants fell out into my mouth. I got it, and the general dentist I see reinserted it. He also 'tightened' all of the others. Two minutes later, one of them fell out, to our mutual surprise. He put it back in. Two days later, I felt as if that spot was tender, just a bit. The next day, still a bit tender, I felt around but didn't feel anything odd. The next day, I counted the implant 'heads' -- and only felt three. Since that dentist is closed on Fridays, and when I'd called the last time said to just come in, I called today and said 'Another screw missing -- and this time, I don't have it.' He said he did not have replacements, and I should go to the oral surgeon.

In what has been a chain of whatever can go wrong, will go wrong, it turns out that the oral surgeon was fully booked for today because tomorrow he's leaving for a conference -- but they managed to slide me in anyway. I mentioned to him that I liked his speed and sense of lets just get it done, while the other dentist seems to lack a sense of urgency. Well, he's been practicing for a long time, he said. But ten minutes later, the screw reinserted, he was looking at his records, and was astounded. It's been a YEAR since I discharged you to him, and you still don't have the permanent bridge? I nodded. He looked at the xray he'd just taken. You're starting to lose bone around the implants. That temporary denture is torquing the hell out of the implants, rocking them like pulling on a fence post. If something doesn't happen soon, you're going to lose those implants. He looked at the xray again and shook his head. You want me to call him?

I would really, really appreciate it, I said.

Webcams

This is why I didn't want my daughter's laptop to have a webcam. And yeah, it's NSFW. Question is, is it real? Because that's one awfully forgiving parent....


Webcam_girl_caught_by_mom
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French

I am fascinated by the words that our former summer guest uses on Facebook. If I ever thought that I could learn some of that language by seeing what she writes, I've been disabused of that notion.

For example, here is something she wrote in response to a post on her wall by another girl who said that she wanted a muffin:

mwa ossi jve un muffins tro bonne aprem passer avc toi

Say what? I decode it as follows:

Moi aussi! Je (something, possibly 'love') un muffin trop apres-midi passer avec toi!

which becomes, I think -

Me, also! I'd love to get a muffin with you this afternoon too!

Man, my head hurts. Why doesn't Rosetta Stone teach teen French?

Gymnastic

Just got back from the gym. Did about 2/3s of the normal time on the elliptical (20 minutes instead of 30), but at a higher level (3 instead of 2) and faster (about 4.3 mph instead of 4.0). So I think I worked harder -- certainly, my heart rate was about 8% higher -- and yet, paradoxically, it felt easier to do. Strange.....

Cool Elegance

Found at Cool Hunting, a bike rack that serves as an elegantly designed shelf, too.

Take Your Child To Work

Found at Fork Party.

Conversations

Had an interesting conversation with my daughter this morning on the drive over to the school.

I was saying how I wonder sometimes what sorts of things she'll see in her lifetime that I am unable to imagine, like my grandparents and the internet. I said that people talk about things, like sunglasses that spot-darken to block out a very bright light while still keeping the rest clear; we don't see them yet, but perhaps they will suggest things to others. Necessity is, I said. She looked quizzically at me. Necessity is the mother of invention, I amplified. Like cell phones. Remember satellite phones? She did, vaguely. Those big brick like things, right? Right. At the time, they were the big thing. Oh, wow, you can talk to anywhere from anywhere. Then the spread of cell phone coverage pretty much wiped them out, except for really distant locations, like the middle of Africa. And maybe not even there -- I told her about the deal where some folks figured out a way to link one phone in Australia to another, so that if you're out of range to a cell tower, you can connect to a phone that is within range. Bet that was an Australian who did that, she observed, and I agreed: probably was. Necessity is. But you'll have things that I can't even imagine. Like what? Like, someday, you won't need a PC to connect to the net; you'll just be able to do it. She looked at me. We can do that now, Dad. It's called a telephone.

Um. Yeah. Not quite my point...

Then There Were Two

I have mentioned that a neighbor was arrested and is currently in jail for having sex with an underage girl. Now I find that the guy who built our kitchen addition, who had several kids working for him (students at the local vo-tech), was arrested and is currently in jail for 'abuse' of the kids -- though whether it was sexual or something else, we don't know.

Man.

Reunions

This evening, I went to a birthday party for a woman with whom I used to work, and with whom my wife still works. I knew about a quarter of the people there. It was strange.

Part of it was simply listening to these people talk. Much of their conversation was about the working environment now, and how different it is from the halcyon days of the company, when they could with only a trace of over-reaching say that The future's so bright, we have to wear shades. That was when we built our own complex of five floors, filling and overfilling it, to the point where we had to lease space in other buildings nearby. Each of the groups had seven to ten people, and some had as many as twenty or thirty. One floor was entirely filled with technical systems people; another with applications people, and so on. Now, most of that is gone. Four of the five floors are being gutted and will be sold for use by other companies; the one remaining one will have the remaining staff crammed in like sardines in tiny cubicles that are chock-a-block, row after row. No sense of camaraderie or purpose; it's a digital sweatshop. No one would ever want to work there, or show their family where they spent their hours.

Part was listening to the way these people talk. There's an underlying current of bitterness. Nobody said it, but I sensed that they all felt left behind, abandoned, treated as completely replaceable and identical units by a company that doesn't care about them at all. The original company valued them; the new one treats them like an expense they wish could be deleted. Training? Travel? Nothing of the sort. They feel as if each week could be their last -- and frequently, they're right.

A sad function.

Losing

I've been going to the gym pretty regularly over the last month and a half. Enough so that it's beginning to become a little boring. Not that it gets easier -- some days, yes, but most days, not really. I get on the elliptical and I know that when I get to about twenty-five minutes, I'm going to be glancing at the timer every thirty seconds or so. That's actually how I can tell if it's going to be particularly grim -- if I find myself doing that peek before twenty minutes, there's some doubt about getting up to thirty. I do have a tendency, which I'm trying to fight, to say well, then, just stop at twenty. Usually, I press on. Sometimes, I don't.

I do some work with weights, too, but not a lot. Some arm work with the free weights; some with what's called the 'pec fly', and with two machines that work your legs. Not a lot -- perhaps fifteen minutes, total. I probably ought to extend that a bit.

I'm doing this because I'd like to lose weight, and this is pretty much the only way I know of to do that. Get the metabolism running faster. Its worked in the past, and I've seen results this time around, too. It's gratifying to realize that the numbers on the scale are starting with the third digit less than they were a month ago.

Neverthelesss, this morning, when I weighed myself, I was astonished to find it starting with the second digit being less. Second? It seemed hardly possible. That'd mean that between yesterday and two I lost about seven pounds. There is no way, I thought. I got off the scale, let it reset, got back on. Same thing. What? I put it back, thought about it, took it out again. And just like that, it was back to where it was, yesterday.

It was nice for a while, though.

What He Said

Humor

A joke from my daughter:


What's the last thing to go through a fly's mind when it hits a windshield?

Its butt.


I'm so proud of her!

Androids

Androids live among us.

How else to explain the woman whom I saw running for at least 50 minutes on the treadmill this morning, not even breathing hard?